I had two goals today.
The first was to win an NBA parlay. I didn’t do that.
My second goal was to publish an article on this site for the first time in over a month.
This is the second offseason in a row that I’ve taken a break for an extended period. In each case, you could find me on social media sites. I just took a break from writing daily about the Pittsburgh Pirates and their minor league system.
Last year, my focus was on the Pittsburgh media scene.
Every single day I woke up and checked out what people were talking about on Twitter, on various sites, and in certain comment sections. The most valuable days were the ones where news would break. In the past, my reaction to news would be to rush to this site and publish an article. A single trade announcement can generate hundreds of dollars. Thus, my focus was always to quickly publish my view of the trade, then occasionally checking what other people said.
When I shifted to observing how people reacted, it allowed me to see who was trying to get attention from the masses versus who was trying to influence the masses. It’s not always who you think, in either case.
This year, my break was to evaluate why I am still here, and whether I will return for 2025.
You might recall this site went offline for a few months at the start of this year. On January 7th, I published a column titled “And We’re All Just Entertainers, Here We Are Now, Entertain Us.” Feel free to go back and read that article. I know that I will, mostly to reflect on where I was one year ago. I never know exactly what I’ve said in my articles. I won’t know exactly what I said in this article one week from today. When you speak the truth, you don’t need to remember what you’ve said.
I don’t always speak the entire truth. That is complicated.
Williams: And We’re All Just Entertainers, Here We Are Now, Entertain Us
What I knew at that time was that I was set to spend at least six months living out of my car. Part of this was financial, in order to help save and prepare for a potential significant global economic downturn in 2025. Part of it was therapy, helping me to get past burnout from several years earlier.
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I hit burnout in 2018-19, culminating in the worst migraine of my life in July 2019. After that date, I changed my life.
The change that I made was that I began putting my body first. My only focus each day was to ensure that I was healthy, and expelling my energy in a way where my body could be revived with eight hours of sleep. Up to that point, I would wake up and immediately go to work, expelling more energy than eight hours could rehabilitate, all while sleeping less than eight hours. It’s no mystery why I eventually found myself nearly dying on my shower floor.
From September 2019 to July 2020, I went from weighing over 300 pounds to a “Best Shape of My Life” 232 pounds. More importantly, I was beginning to add muscle for the first time to my tall frame, in large part because I finally was aligning my posture properly through daily yoga.
Very few people saw this transformation. I also intentionally transformed back to the person I was before that life-changing migraine. I felt it was beneficial for the world to see me as the old me for a little while longer.
In June 2020, I sat down on my own and wrote down every thing I wanted to do in my future. The three possibilities going forward:
- Write a novel. Back then, I had an idea for a story about a group of time travelers. The four characters were each partially based on a 90s grunge rocker — Chris Cornell, Layne Staley, Kurt Cobain, and Eddie Vedder. Since that point, this story has grown to at least ten novels and an entire universe. My intention in June 2020 was to plan out the universe for five years, before writing. My hope was to begin writing early, but that didn’t happen. June 2025 is my deadline to begin writing. These are horror/sci-fi novels, which is a completely different tone from writing about baseball development. This is my number one priority going forward, which means you shouldn’t think of me as a baseball writer. That’s just one area of my knowledge and interest.
- Start a record store. I considered putting all of my money into vinyl records and starting a store in a rising part of a rising area in one of the fastest growing areas of the country. I was to the point where I had a location picked out, along with an account to purchase new records directly from the source that provides 97% of new records in America. A lot of life changes led to this plan falling through. Plus, I decided that I wanted to keep vinyl record collecting as a hobby, rather than turning my love of music into an attempt to make money.
- Build the next Pirates Prospects, along with a site called Pittsburgh Baseball Network for other aspiring independent writers such as myself.
My plan in 2020 was to run Pirates Prospects as a solo site, relying on my years of knowledge on baseball development to present a scouting site. My intention was to shut down the site for one year, build up the separate network for other writers, then bring back Pirates Prospects as my own solo contribution to that network.
What I found was that such a network already exists behind the scenes. And when I brought Pirates Prospects back in 2024, I was adding my contribution to that network.
This post isn’t about the Pittsburgh media scene. It’s about my own absence. I can’t tell my story without also dipping into the story of the Pittsburgh media scene. For now, I’ll just summarize the last few years:
- I spent 2021 trying to build a site for other aspiring content creators. Essentially, my vision for Pittsburgh Baseball Now would have been a local Substack. I was also recovering from the end of a bad relationship. I spent many months living in bed rot. There was no way I was executing this plan.
- I spent 2022 attempting to build a Pirates Prospects bigger than me, while giving a chance to someone who presented themselves as a younger version of me.
- I spent 2023 preparing for my return to writing. This happened when I wrote that the Pirates shouldn’t pass on the chance to draft Paul Skenes.
A lot has happened since I wrote that column.
When I announced to this site’s contributors after the draft that I would be returning full-time to be the voice that can provide accountability to the Pirates, they immediately started a competing newsletter called Bucs on Deck.
A site called Draft Nation started out of Pittsburgh. In February, they teamed up with the Bucs on Deck writers to create a Temu version of my long running Prospect Guide. This site even emailed the Pirates, attempting to gain credentials by presenting the Pirates with the idea that they were authorized to use my site’s name and book title in their project.
Today, that site has Rob King doing weekly podcasts, along with other members of the traditional Pittsburgh media pitching in. They even had Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com in podcasts surrounding the draft.
I used my power to give the Pirates no excuse if they passed on a generational talent with the first overall pick.
Bucs on Deck formed as immediate competition, and there’s nothing that could convince me Draft Nation wasn’t a direct competition to a key area of coverage for this site.
If you’ve seen me ranting about industry plants in the past, this is the tip of the iceberg. Draft Nation was a response. In that response, the industry was loosely defined.
There have been many responses to my site over the years.
What you might not understand is that I own this site fully. There are no silent investors, or millionaires covering my losses like Dejan Kovacevic has with his version of an “independent” site.
There are no obvious industry connections like Draft Nation has with the media, or like Bucs on Deck has with the Pirates development and scouting group.
This is just me and anyone I’ve invited to publish on this site.
For the last year, it has just been me.
That’s because there are zero people in this industry who I trust.
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I woke up every day in my car this year, establishing new routines.
One of those routines was to have all of my writing published by noon each day. This included a recap of the Pirates minor league system, and a daily column or feature.
Early in the process, I remember waking up early parked outside of an empty medical plaza. It was around six AM, and people would walk past my car every 10-15 minutes doing morning workout routines. I eventually realized that I was parked not far from an apartment complex, and took in how I didn’t have this type of routine in my life. Months later, I was walking over a mile a day in that area during the evenings, setting a new routine to wind down my writing process each day.
By July, I was off the streets, living with family as I adjusted to my next life move and prepared for the end of the season.
My next life move is difficult, as I don’t really have a home on this planet. That sentence makes me sound like an alien, but my family moved a few times while I was growing up, which prevented me from ever establishing a consistent home. At this point, I view my life not much different than an alien who is touring this planet. And if I can be honest, I’m getting bored here.
By August, I was ready to write an opinion that had been bouncing around in my mind all year. I wanted to give the Pirates until after the trade deadline, to see what they would do. That deadline didn’t change my opinion that they were failing, which I detailed from the owner to the Dominican Academy.
That article was genuine. It wasn’t written for page views or attention. I sat with that article for a few days before publishing, knowing that it might lead to real people losing their jobs. Which it did. I do not take the power that I possess lightly, nor the outcomes.
Within a few hours of that column, there were similar articles at Bucs Dugout and Rumbunter. Dejan Kovacevic had a column on his site the next day. All of these columns put the focus on General Manager Ben Cherington, while mine was more focused on the owner of the team, Bob Nutting, along with Cherington. Kovacevic eventually cited too many analysts in the clubhouse as the real reason the Pirates were losing.
I have yet to really decide whether I want to return in 2025.
Nothing the Pirates have done has made me think things will be different than 2024. Nothing I’ve seen from the Pittsburgh media has suggested anyone can provide the level of accountability that I can provide.
Truthfully, it doesn’t benefit me to return.
I can’t grow in this job any further. I haven’t cared for years about baseball as a fan, or the outcome for the Pittsburgh Pirates. I’m literally just a servant to angry Pirates fans who want a voice who can hold their team accountable. I am that voice.
Here’s where it does benefit me to return: Using my voice.
My return in 2025 would be with the intention of using my voice in a regular video and podcast.
What I’ve known for years is that this is my secret weapon. When I briefly changed into that athletic, 232 pound frame, I noticed how people started treating me differently. They were no longer trying to walk all over me and use me, instead attempting to gain my favor for a reason they didn’t understand. What they didn’t understand was that I clearly possessed secrets to survival that they didn’t know, and we all inherently know those secrets are the only truly valuable knowledge in this world. It also helped that I wasn’t afraid to scare people with direct speech from a deep voice.
As I said, I felt that it benefitted me to remain the person who people felt they could walk all over, merely to see who stepped up to the plate over the last few years.
There was always a time limit to how long I would wear this mask.
The purpose of this post is ultimately to say time is up.
Tomorrow’s article will be about baseball, rather than behind the scenes media discussions.
I might have more on the media subject in the next week.
SONG OF THE DAY
