Pirates Prospects is entering its 16th season covering the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Nine years ago this week, the site made the switch to a subscription site. That move led to highs and lows in my own personal life, while also turning this site into what I feel was the best outlet for Pirates content from 2015-18.
The highs in my life were that I finally had security. For the first time in my life, I was able to escape the feeling that I’d be broke at the end of every month, wondering how I’d simply afford to pay for food to survive. With the revenue generated from subscription money, I was able to survive, experience the world, address my mental and physical health with medical care, and ultimately get to the “best shape of my life”, both mentally and physically.
The lows were that this site has been a rollercoaster to maintain. I hit burnout in 2018, after spending 80+ hours a week trying to maintain the site that led to my security. Not having personal confidence, I was always paying contributors more money than their articles generated, with the thought that people didn’t really want my writing. I listened to my haters too much, to be honest, rather than my supporters. And yet, my writing was consistently what generated the bulk of the money and page views on this site.
After the 2019 season, I sat down with a goal of creating the next version of Pirates Prospects. I scaled back my writing and reporting in 2019, and the site suffered. My plan going forward was to run a solo version of Pirates Prospects, while creating a new site for the contributors who wanted to be sports writers for one reason or another. The pandemic hit in 2020, and minor league baseball went away. I also went through a divorce, and didn’t return to regular writing until 2022. By that point, I decided to try once again to make Pirates Prospects a group effort, rather than starting another site for other people. My plan failed, as it always did.
Last year, this site had several periods where it stopped publishing. Behind the scenes, I was burning out each time. I was spending at least 20 hours a week maintaining the site, another 20 hours editing contributor articles, and only after that first 40 hours did I have a chance to focus on my own writing and reporting. Every time I stopped publishing was a time when I realized this site wouldn’t work as more than a solo project.
The 2023 draft was an interesting time. This site had many hacking and DDoS attempts in the week leading up to the draft, which is the busiest week of the year on a site called Pirates Prospects. One of the former contributors was contacting me personally as the voice of the contributor group, trying to gauge my plans for coverage and the future of this site. Every time I gave him a non-answer, the site would get attacked within 12 hours. It wasn’t until I moved forward with the solo draft coverage that the attacks stopped. At that point, all of the contributors on this site, and a lot of commenters who they know from real-life events, decided to start their new site. It was enough to lead me to believe there might be an organization working against me.
The contributors on this site weren’t my people. They had their own group chat, and their own plans. Several times, I was told they would start their own site if I didn’t give them more control of this site, or allow them to create content they wanted to create — opposite of my own plans. I was told that I needed them more than they needed me. I knew that wasn’t the case. They ended up going to write for another platform that was managed for them, while spamming my site and the internet to say that Pirates Prospects was dead, and was now their new operation. These same people emailed the Pirates media people, claiming that they were tasked with continuing the Prospect Guide which had been published on Pirates Prospects ten times. They used my name and my site’s name to try and gain credentials and readers, both on the internet and behind the scenes.
I wish them well, because the reality is that I was trying to make a site for those people for several years. It seems foolish now to try and create a site for a group that never invited you into their group chat, and who tried to harm you when you didn’t do things their way. It’s now no longer my responsibility to try and provide sports writing opportunities for lesser known people, or to provide an outlet and an audience for other people who want their voice heard. For years, this site struggled in large part because I was paying too much money to contributors, and receiving added content which didn’t add revenue. It was the same mistake in 2023.
I took a break for a long time, and this site actually went offline for over a month this year as I switched to a new server and contemplated my future. Last week, a bit ahead of schedule, Pirates Prospects returned. Without having to worry about contributors, I could finally create the solo-version of Pirates Prospects.
Pirates Prospects (Tim’s Version)
The heart of this site has always been the prospect reports, and the success of this site has been driven by my own reporting and writing on the subject of player development. That will be the priority for the solo-site.
The site will make money from a subscription product and advertising.
Each week, I’ll be releasing six articles in a premium article drop. These stories will mostly be player features, aimed at giving you more understanding of the players who might eventually be in Pittsburgh. To access these articles, you need to be a Patreon subscriber, paying at least $5 per month.
Pirates Prospects will also have free content, and will be ad supported. Next Sunday, this First Pitch feature turns into a long-form weekly feature on the Pirates’ organization. I’ll also have a weekly column. These two articles will be the extent of the opinion scope on the site. Here is the weekly free schedule:
- [Sunday] First Pitch
- [Monday] Pirates Prospect Watch – A weekly recap of the minor league performers.
- [Tuesday] Premium Article Drop – There are no free articles on this day, as I want the focus on the articles which pay.
- [Wednesday] Statcast Heroes – From what I’ve heard, Statcast data will be in all four full-season affiliates this year. Every week, I’ll highlight some of the best Statcast performances around the system.
- [Thursday] Prospect Roundtable – Anyone who joins the discussion tier of subscribers gets a chance to participate in the weekly Roundtable, along with future live chats. The goal here is to provide an article with the fan voice.
- [Friday] Column – Nothing like a crafted opinion heading into the weekend.
- [Saturday] Saturday Sleepers – Each week, I’ll pick one prospect who falls outside of the top 30, and what makes them an interesting follow.
From there, I’ll also have another free daily article, which will double as the Pirates Prospects Daily newsletter. This article will have a brief look at the previous day’s results, any daily news which takes place, plus other Pirates and site updates. You can subscribe below to get this article emailed to you each day, for free.
If you’re counting at home, that’s 19 articles per week, which is 76 articles per four week stretch. There was a time when this site would average that many articles in a single week. Under this new approach, you’re getting the highest quality articles from the older versions of the site, while I see how well this site works as a solo project.
The Math of an Independent Site
If you’re paying for a subscription, you are only really paying for 24 of those 76 monthly articles, although you are making it possible for the remaining 52 articles to be written each month.
Your $5 subscription either pays $0.065 per article on the site, or $0.21 per premium article, depending on how you want to count it. Either way, I’m writing all of those articles, and your individual subscription barely covers one meal per month for me to survive as a person. The trade is heavily in your favor.
On Friday, I was at Pirate City conducting interviews. Today and tomorrow, I’ll be writing this week’s premium article drop. My total workload for this single week’s drop will be in the 12-15 hour range of work. That’s 48-60 hours per month spent just on the premium articles. If you’re paying me for my time, your subscription pays me $0.08-0.10 per hour of work, just to generate the premium article drops.
That doesn’t count all of the free articles you support. If you visit the site three times a day for a year, you individually might generate me about $40-50 in annual ad revenue. If you subscribe at $5 per month, and visit the site three times a day for a year, you are paying me $0.05 per hour for a 40-hour work week. The reality is that I’m likely going to be spending more than 40 hours each week creating content for this site and keeping you informed on the system. Your $5 monthly subscription and constant reading of the site likely pays me $0.02 per working hour throughout the year.
You can start to see how difficult it is to run a site like this, even if just for one person. I need 1,000 subscribers, plus the equivalent of 3,000 daily readers, just to break even with my self-sustaining salary, while also paying for the site to exist. From there, it would take probably another 1,000 subscribers and another 3,000 daily readers to safely start to think about expanding this site beyond me. Right now, I’m only focused on getting the site back to a stable point to support one writer.
Homeless
I’ve been living out of my car for 77 days.
When you stop working for nearly half a year, you eventually run out of money. I made the conscious decision to stop working, knowing it would likely result in this homeless stretch. I’ve been going through a lot in my personal life, mostly trying to remove a trend of catering to people who don’t care about me. This stems from my family.
My family has never been supportive. In fact, they’ve been the opposite, many times. Without going into details, any achievement I had was downplayed. Any personal decision was default questioned, under the fear that it wasn’t what other people were doing. Growing up, I was constantly projected for future failure, poverty, and homelessness. My family doesn’t even really know about this site, or really, what I do for a living. It’s hard to accept anyone’s validation when you don’t even get validation from the people who are supposed to be your support system.
I’m attacking those fears, head-on. This homeless stretch has been a personal rehab. In a way, it’s been a personal “build”.
For most of this homeless stretch, my only focus has been on establishing healthy living trends for the first time in my life. I grew up in a house of constant sensory overload, and zero personal schedules. My goal now is to wake up every morning around the same time with a good amount of sleep, eat three meals a day around the same times, exercise at least three times a week, and work a job that provides for my survival. Plus, I’ve been attempting this without relying on drugs of any kind — legal or illegal, prescribed or over the counter.
The site content schedule above is designed to provide for a healthy workload, while I prioritize the personal schedules. I’ve also been focusing on changing my interactions with people. When you grow up with an unsupportive family, you go into every personal interaction thinking the other person doesn’t value you as a person. That can change how you interact with everyone in the world. I’ve been trying to break this habit by talking with people daily as my confident self, and not worrying who gets offended at the fact that I’m acting with confidence when they lack their own confidence.
On January 7th, I wrote what I thought might have been my final column on this site, knowing I was silently about to embark on this homeless stretch. I didn’t know what I would be doing by this point, or if I’d even return with this site. My goal is to make it to day 120 of living out of my car. Even if I get a massive amount of subscriptions today, that won’t change my plans.
In the next two weeks, I hope to master this weekly publishing schedule, while maintaining my own personal schedule. In the final month, I hope to maintain my personal schedule while being on the road for coverage. I might stay in hotels during this stretch, but I honestly sleep better in my car than in a hotel room. Eventually, I’ll factor in the operation of taking care of a house.
Part of my reason for being homeless is that I don’t know where I want to live. My hope is that I figure that out by the end of this experiment. It might be Pittsburgh. And if it is Pittsburgh, I can promise you that I’ll be using this experience, and any contacts I have through this site, to positively help the homeless situation in the city of Pittsburgh.
Maybe that will be the way I try to help other people with this site. It hasn’t worked to provide writing opportunities for other people. Perhaps my writing will ultimately allow for assistance to people who truly need it. Right now, I am one of those people in need, even if I put myself in this situation. And I’ve got a plan to work my way from this point to the future I envision with this site’s success, with your help required.
The Trade
This site is ultimately a trade.
You get daily content to fill your time, allowing you to dive into an interest which allows you to escape the struggles of the real world.
I get money to allow me to survive in the real world, while giving me a job to do with the bulk of my time — a job I’m very good at doing.
The trade requires you to pay a few dollars per month for my work, and to read that work. The trade only makes sense if you want to read the work, and that is best accomplished if I aim to produce the best quality work that I can.
That has always been the goal here: To create a site that Pirates fans want to read. Following sports is an addiction, though it’s a healthy addiction. If you’re a fan of Pirates Prospects, you’re addicted to the game of baseball in a hardcore way. Just like a school teacher who craves caffeine from coffee to function, or a stoner who needs marijuana to socialize, the goal here is to give you the fix that gets you through life.
If I can provide you with a 15-30 minute reading escape every day, I’ve done my job.
If you subscribe to this site, and/or read the free daily articles, you allow me to do this job.
And don’t forget to subscribe to P2Daily.
