I feel like one of those veteran free agents who waits until March to make a decision on his life for that year.
In this case, I’ve been running some variation of Pirates Prospects since 2009. I say some variation, because the site has always changed approaches, due to the constantly changing internet landscape. As you’ve probably noticed, outlets are folding left and right on the internet these days, as everything in this vast internet wasteland gets bought up by venture capitalists.
For the last two years, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out if this site would work for even one person, due to the evolving internet landscape. Starting in 2011, this became my full-time job, as it brought in enough to pay the bills in my 20s. By 2012, advertising alone was paying my bills, and I was writing a Prospect Guide to expand the site with travel and a contributor fund. By 2015, advertising was no longer paying the bills, and I switched to a subscription site.
That single decision to start a subscription site, almost nine years ago today, led to extreme highs and lows in my life. In the first year, this site gained over 6,000 subscribers. The biggest high point was allowing me to experience financial security for the first time in my life, rather than worrying if the bills would be paid at the end of the month. The lowest point was hitting burnout from the excess work, to the tune of the worst migraine of my life in July 2019. I almost went into my own version of rehab following an injury after that headache. It inspired me to change my life.
Following that decline, I started wondering about the long-term chances for this site. That’s mostly because I wanted to preserve this as a group effort, with the chance to pay other contributors to also advance their sports writing or photography dreams. In 2019, pre-burnout, I moved to North Carolina, trying to set up a centralized hub that coincided with my normal travel schedule. By mid-2020, I had a long-term plan for this site to be a solo project, with a group project called Pittsburgh Baseball Network. By early 2022, I realized that I couldn’t run two sites and still maintain the quality of this site. I also started lacking trust in most of Pittsburgh media. I tried consolidating everything again onto Pirates Prospects, and tested how this site would work if it was more than me. The answer, each time, was burnout on my end, and questions as to whether it could pay one livable salary with all of the ongoing internet changes.
Finally, last July, I decided to set up the framework for a single-writer effort, even if that writer wasn’t me. There was another scenario that only I knew, where I’d currently be homeless, trying to pick my next path in life, while someone else ran this site. The discussion surrounding the future of the site led to the former contributors of this site to band together elsewhere, in a situation they had more control over as a group. Truthfully, they were a group who I talked with independently. They’re going to work better as a unified operation, and I’m going to work better independently, without worrying about trying to make something bigger than myself for people who would just talk about me and plot behind my back in group texts.
Even with a solo operation locked in, there was no guarantee that I returned for year 16 of Pirates Prospects.
The Absence
It costs money to run this site. Between advertising and subscribers, the site should support at least one full-time employee, while paying all site fees, if it has daily content. The more tasks I offset to other companies, the more the site management costs. The site needs to make five figures before I can take a cent. For the last two years, I’ve been weighing the most cost-effective way of running this site, while maintaining a quality operation. I’ve got a venture capitalist mind, but I prioritize quality over profits. That’s why, at the end of every year, I’ve got nothing left except the chance to continue making money writing on Pirates Prospects.
Don’t get me wrong, this was a dream of mine. That dream of being a sports writer was about 20 years ago, in college, with no idea how I would become a sports writer from a small college in Virginia. I was working toward a business degree, with a heavy interest in statistics and analytics, and experience running a website from age 13. Eventually, I created this site after getting tired of the negative “Nutting Hostages” that can never allow any Pirates fan on the internet to have a normal and unique conversation about the team. This site became a place where you could get rational discussion. “Fair” was a term used to describe my coverage by those I covered, and I think that’s all you can try to be when dealing with a game that tracks every event in fair territory.
I’ve spent a lot of time since last July deciding what I want to do with this site, and with my own life, in a post-40 world.
**I spent a week in Pittsburgh, wondering if I’d want to live there.
**I spent a few days around my 40th birthday on top of a mountain in Virginia, which is probably the closest to a home area that I have.
**I spent a week in Altoona, and noted how I grew up with some bad experiences and a lack of trust in that area, only to eventually do a 180 on the entire area as a positive personal place, thanks to the reactions and interactions from readers of this site.
**I went to Greensboro and priced and paced out a scouting trip. Not just the cost of sending someone there for a week to write about the players, but the energy expectations, and how many articles can reasonably be generated from the travel expense.
**I went to Bradenton on a personal trip, thinking back to the years where I lived there and went hungry some nights, just to get operations to the next month.
**Decision time came and went. It costs money to run this site, even to maintain an archive. If I was going to return, it would be on a new server. I had discussions with my new host in December, but I gave myself a few months to really think about my options, while taking the site offline.
**My last column on this site was on January 7th.
**I’ve been living homeless life in my car ever since that date, and the site has been offline, sitting on my laptop, for nearly two months.
As I sit here today, on day 68 of homeless life in a Honda Insight, I can tell you the exact monetary figure I need to survive inside a house, with the financial security that I’ll live another year under the rapid levels of food inflation. I know that if I get 1,000 subscribers this year, I’ll not only be able to survive with housing, food, water, and medicine for the year, but I won’t have to sweat any possible emergencies. To myself or my cats.
The goal this year for survival is 1,000 subscribers, with advertising supporting operations. If the financial goal is reached, it means I get to survive a basic life, providing daily Pirates updates for you all for the remainder of the year. If the goal is exceeded, it means I get to keep my record collection, rather than selling them for the next-level upgrades to Pirates Prospects. And if the site does well, it will make me consider growing this for the next long-term haul.
The Mission
I don’t want to run a site just for myself, but I also realize that running a site isn’t just for myself. There are people who have relied upon this site for daily updates. I understand that on a human level.
Everything in this world is a social group of some sort. You are here because throughout your life, you made baseball part of your social avatar. We have that in common. When you see a stranger on the street wearing baseball apparel, you know that there is one common subject you two share which won’t result in a bad altercation — and that is rare these days. Sports talk brings us together, but not everyone has time to follow things on a daily/weekly/monthly basis all year.
Pirates Prospects has long been a place where you know that you’re getting not only the updates on the team, but deeper-level updates that you can’t get anywhere else. This isn’t a site that makes up rumors for attention. This site deals in the future, but tries to remain grounded in the factual present. In a sports world being slowly consumed by online gambling, it’s obvious that everyone has a deep drive to be able to accurately predict what happens next. Finding the balance between future possibilities and present realities is a tricky wire to walk.
I don’t want a site that leans too heavy into predicting the future. That’s a young man’s game, so that he can say “I saw this guy first” as all of the mainstream reporters write their “You’ve never heard of this next prospect” article from the pre-Pirates Prospects ways of working. Instead, I’d like to spend time tracking the possibilities of the Pirates’ future, along with stories on the people who could be part of those future Pirates teams.
Pirates Prospects is going to have a simple approach going forward. It won’t be about having the daily news, or every single update that happens throughout the system.
Instead, it will have daily articles and updates with the important topics. There are a lot of young writers looking to make their name with constant updates. I’m going to use my time to tell you what I think is most important among the vast amount of news that hits the internet.
The Plan
If you know anything about how I work, you know that I plan for many possibilities, and then I just wing-it and adjust as time passes in live mode.
My plan today might not be my plan in the future. It might not be the plan that works. It’s just my Opening Day plan.
“My plan today” is a weekly premium article drop, featuring 5-7 articles each week that justify the eventual subscription cost. These articles will be player features, with a deeper look into the top prospects in the system, and what makes them top prospects. I might also end up releasing one premium article per day, and skipping the drop schedule.
“My plan today” is a weekly schedule of free articles, giving you something to return to each day. Today’s “article drop” features some of those weekly features.
**First Pitch and one column from me are the limits of the site’s weekly system opinion pieces.
**A weekly Prospect Watch will highlight the players who stood out to me each week, along with the weekly top performers.
**Roundtable will return with a twist, where each week a group of subscribers gets a chance to discuss the latest in the organization.
**I also plan on implementing more looks into Statcast figures that stand out between Indianapolis and Bradenton, with a new StatCast Heroes column.
**I don’t have seven features locked in, but I expect to adjust as the season gets closer.
“My plan today” is to send out a daily newsletter with a quick update on the team, and a reminder of what you may have missed on the site. Between a weekly free article, and a weekly premium article, there will be plenty to read, with a goal of 20-30 minutes of daily reading provided. That doesn’t count the newsletter.
The details of the publishing plan might adjust as the season goes on, but the goal as a writer is to provide you with content to read daily. That 20-30 minute figure is the equivalent of a half-hour show. Instead, you can spend that time reading and learning about the future of the Pittsburgh Pirates, giving you something to say when you see a fellow Pirates fan in public.
Regardless of my plan today or tomorrow, the goal is always to provide you with entertainment to get you through the day.
The Patreons
This site has been made possible for years by readers and subscribers and contributors of all kinds. My goal with the new site approach is ultimately to allow all of my work to be focused on the writing aspect of this site. One of the things which nearly ruined my life was the extra time spent on managing subscriptions.
In a normal year, the site saw an average of 3500 subscribers. If about 10% of those subscribers had an issue with their subscriptions, that is one customer per day to deal with. If that issue took an average of ten minutes, that amounted to an hour per week. The reality is much higher, with customer service taking 10+ hours per week. In some weeks, it would be 20+ hours.
I was spending another 10 hours a week on maintaining the site. I was spending 20 hours per week editing the articles by the contributors. If you’re counting at home, that’s a full 40-hours before I even wrote a thing.
I hit burnout starting in 2018 due to my 80-hour work schedule. My goal this year is to cut out those 40 non-writing hours with the current site setup, and spend all of my primary energy and focus on writing and producing content. As a result, I’ll be offloading the subscriptions to Patreon.
There will be three levels of subscription, and all of them will be monthly plans, with no long-term commitments. The base level will get you access to the premium content on this site. The next level will allow you to participate in the Roundtable discussions and future weekly chats. The third level shows the most support toward the site’s operations, with special recognition as a Top Prospect contributor.
If the site gets 1,000 subscribers at the base level, plus the advertising boost, it will be sustainable for one full-time job. I’ll have stability for a year, which will give me time to grow the site again.
**If you would like to subscribe early, you can do so at patreon.com/piratesprospects. Your support is greatly appreciated!
If P2 reaches 1,500 subscribers, I get to expand the site while keeping my record collection. If the site reaches the 2000-3000 range, there would be enough revenue generated for a second full-time employee.
That’s the exponential way this site will be built going forward. The initial focus will be on securing a single job, and that will be my job at first, since I’m the one who will be homeless if this doesn’t work out. I’ve been homeless for 68 days, waiting to decide if I even want to do this site anymore.
The reality is that I won’t be homeless for good. Either this site will work, or I’ll be selling that record collection for a place to live while I figure out my post-P2 life. This time period has allowed me to get my life in perspective, while studying my own isolated energy flow in order to come up with the best work schedule possible. It also has given me understanding and knowledge of how to best help the homeless community in whatever city I eventually live in. That was a huge factor for me when visiting Pittsburgh last summer. I realized that I’d give away $5-10 per day to homeless people if I lived in downtown Pittsburgh. I’ll let you do the math on how many subscribers I would need to support that level of donations for the year, on top of the subscribers I need to personally survive.
Even after 17 years of sports writing, and 15 seasons of running this site, I’d rather put my energy toward this venture than any other job out there. My hope is there are enough people who have enjoyed this site over the years to give it one more time around.
THIS WEEKEND ON PIRATES PROSPECTS
The first mini-article drop has hit the site. Don’t expect anything else to be posted until Monday, at which point I’ll be aiming for a daily article schedule. Until then, here’s a look at where the Pirates stand in the middle of Spring Training:
**Williams: Has The Future Finally Arrived?
The most popular articles on this site have always been my columns. I could write one every day to maximize page views, but I feel that limiting my opinion pieces will only improve their effectiveness over the long-run. In this column, I look at two things I like and one that still causes concern regarding the Pirates’ “build”.
**Prospect Watch: Pirates Prospects For The Spring Breakout Win
The Pirates prospects played the Orioles prospects on Thursday, and I broke down which players stood out to me the most from the Pirates’ side.
**Statcast Heroes: Oneil Cruz, Martin Perez, Marco Gonzales
One of the new weekly feature ideas, aimed at highlighting players who are standing out with the advanced Statcast metrics.
**Check back next week for the weekly schedule, and the first article drop.
**If you would like to subscribe early, you can do so at patreon.com/piratesprospects. Your support is greatly appreciated!
