BJ Surhoff Is Angry

[weams]

10 hours ago, 24fps said:

All open windows eventually close and that was also behind my post.  If The Athletic has a recognizable journalistic code of ethics behind it then I take my hat off to them and wish them all the best going forward.  But in an age of virtually instantaneous feedback on public approval (or lack therof) of one's work, I don't relish thinking about the consequences of deviating from the norm when I have a mortgage and a couple of kids to educate.

I hope their writers have contracts that insulate them from the next paradigm shift which could happen any minute now but God help them if their boss likes tossing the word "brand" around.

I think it is set up where they get paid on readership. And sales of memberships.  I don't think there are too many guarantees. 

[Bubble Buddy]

On 9/21/2019 at 2:39 PM, CallMeBrooksie said:

Great, great moment for me...  But you can't say it's "as good as any season of the distant past" with a straight face. You won't ever see a stadium promotion centered around that moment/season. And Delmon Young being a turd of a human being doesn't help either, as much as I love that moment still.

Maybe they were talented enough to win it all that year, but they were nearly swept in the ALCS. To me, that was a big letdown... Too big to call them "championship caliber".

So many chills when I watch that play. Probably the most memorable Oriole moment of my life time. 

The biggest bummer to me about 2012-2016.. The major moments that I remember were from random, non-core guys.

That Delmon Young hit, and then the Hyun-Soo Kim HR against the Blue Jays in the regular season that basically pushed us toward the playoffs in 2016.

Both guys were basically filler. Had their moments, Young as pinch hitter in 2014 and Kim with a hot stretch as the lead off guy. But they wouldn't be the ones I would have picked to remember about those teams. 

[wildbillhiccup]

12 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

I thought it was telling.

Not like he was too busy.

Kinda hard to book a last minute flight from Siberia to Baltimore

[wildbillhiccup]

1 hour ago, weams said:

I think it is set up where they get paid on readership. And sales of memberships.  I don't think there are too many guarantees. 

I give the Athletic a year before it folds. In the era where EVERYTHING online is free people aren't going to be willing to pay for sports-related content. They should just open up the website, make it free, and pay the writers with ad fees. 

[Moose Milligan]

9 minutes ago, wildbillhiccup said:

I give the Athletic a year before it folds. In the era where EVERYTHING online is free people aren't going to be willing to pay for sports-related content. They should just open up the website, make it free, and pay the writers with ad fees. 

I don't know, @TonySoprano is out there selling subscriptions.

Jokes aside, it's a really nice site.  Their app is nice.  For what amounts to 5 bucks a month, it's pretty good.  I haven't been absolutely blown away so far by any of the writing/insights but it's nice to visit a site that doesn't have advertising, even if you're paying for it.  Like espn.com is free but the ads are annoying at times.  

I'd rather pay for this than the WaPo, Sun, etc, that's for sure.  

[wildbillhiccup]

20 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I don't know, @TonySoprano is out there selling subscriptions.

Jokes aside, it's a really nice site.  Their app is nice.  For what amounts to 5 bucks a month, it's pretty good.  I haven't been absolutely blown away so far by any of the writing/insights but it's nice to visit a site that doesn't have advertising, even if you're paying for it.  Like espn.com is free but the ads are annoying at times.  

I'd rather pay for this than the WaPo, Sun, etc, that's for sure.  

Agree with this and I didn't mean for my comment to be a knock against Tony and OH. That approach wouldn't work for him because he'd be limited to local advertisers. I was thinking more about national platforms like Spotify, Pandora, Twitter, Facebook, etc. All, for the most part, free, but they still find a way to turn a profit. 

[Moose Milligan]

1 minute ago, wildbillhiccup said:

Agree with this and I didn't mean for my comment to be a knock against Tony and OH. That approach wouldn't work for him because he'd be limited to local advertisers. I was thinking more about national platforms like Spotify, Pandora, Twitter, Facebook, etc. All, for the most part, free, but they still find a way to turn a profit. 

I don't think Tony would take it as a knock.  Big differences as you mentioned.

 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

1 hour ago, wildbillhiccup said:

Agree with this and I didn't mean for my comment to be a knock against Tony and OH. That approach wouldn't work for him because he'd be limited to local advertisers. I was thinking more about national platforms like Spotify, Pandora, Twitter, Facebook, etc. All, for the most part, free, but they still find a way to turn a profit. 

The Athletic could also start podcasts and monetize that through ads as well. Maybe there are some good sports related podcasts out there, but I'm not aware of them. It's a market niche that The Athletic could jump in and become a dominant player.

[wildbillhiccup]

4 minutes ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

The Athletic could also start podcasts and monetize that through ads as well. Maybe there are some good sports related podcasts out there, but I'm not aware of them. It's a market niche that The Athletic could jump in and become a dominant player.

Great idea. I'm pretty sure a lot of their contributors already do podcasts too, albeit independently. Seems like it would be pretty easy to transition those to something under the company's umbrella. 

The only sports-related podcasts I listed to are the Mina Kimes show and fantasy-related shows (i.e., baseball and football) on CBS Sports. Kimes in particular is a cut above most analysts / journalists, especially when it comes to football. Everyone else comes across as hot take/angry talk radio to me. 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

1 minute ago, wildbillhiccup said:

Great idea. I'm pretty sure a lot of their contributors already do podcasts too, albeit independently. Seems like it would be pretty easy to transition those to something under the company's umbrella. 

The only sports-related podcasts I listed to are the Mina Kimes show and fantasy-related shows (i.e., baseball and football) on CBS Sports. Kimes in particular is a cut above most analysts / journalists, especially when it comes to football. Everyone else comes across as hot take/angry talk radio to me. 

I was thinking along similar lines. An informed and in depth discussion of sports that avoids the hot take genre that dominates ESPN/sports talk radio/FS1 is a market that is underserved. Plus, I don't have time to tune into the radio each day at a specific time for a specific sports talk show. 

[atomic]

2 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

I don't know, @TonySoprano is out there selling subscriptions.

Jokes aside, it's a really nice site.  Their app is nice.  For what amounts to 5 bucks a month, it's pretty good.  I haven't been absolutely blown away so far by any of the writing/insights but it's nice to visit a site that doesn't have advertising, even if you're paying for it.  Like espn.com is free but the ads are annoying at times.  

I'd rather pay for this than the WaPo, Sun, etc, that's for sure.  

I pay for the Baltimore Sun as it provides useful information.  Like I can read about what the governor is doing to try and decrease crime in the city or a new restaurant that opened.I don't see the need to pay for opinion pieces on sports.   I wasn't reading Connolly when his opinions were free on his blog, so I can't see a reason to pay for it now. 

I would probably pay for Washington Post if you couldn't read for free  in incognito mode.   

[atomic]

19 minutes ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

I was thinking along similar lines. An informed and in depth discussion of sports that avoids the hot take genre that dominates ESPN/sports talk radio/FS1 is a market that is underserved. Plus, I don't have time to tune into the radio each day at a specific time for a specific sports talk show. 

I used to listen to Scott Garceau radio show.  Him and his sidekick were pretty good. But as the Orioles have been awful the last 2 years I have stopped. 

 

 

[Going Underground]

The Orioles hired Matt Blood away from the Texas Rangers last week, then paraded around their minor league award winners over the weekend, the latest emphasis on what’s happening below the big league level in Baltimore. On Sunday, executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias tried to spend most of his season-end media session talking about the minors.

All of this comes after a month of drastic change in the baseball operations department, where dozens of scouts, front office staff, and player development personnel were told they wouldn’t be back for the 2020 season, sparking understandable angst about the futures of staff who have decades upon decades of experience with the game and with the Orioles and what will happen without them.

 

No one who lost or kept his job over the past year — all the way back to the dismissals of executive vice president Dan Duquette and manager Buck Showalter and the concurrent staff adjustments — is solely responsible for the past two 100-loss seasons, or the ones that are likely to follow.

But consider this: removing first-round draft picks, who are often the most talented players in the country and not often requiring much development, the Orioles have signed and developed two amateur players selected after the first two rounds this decade who have, according to FanGraphs WAR (wins above replacement), produced a two-win season in an Orioles uniform. Those are John Means and Trey Mancini this year. (Wei-Yin Chen was signed out of Japan ahead of his age-26 season).

 

Year One was a lot of inventory-taking, and building on what was already here in the most direct ways possible. Year Two and beyond can’t just be about continuing to try and be the Astros; everyone in the league has been doing that for far longer, and are far closer to replicating it than the Orioles will ever get before the league moves onto the next best thing.

Elias has touted the ahead-of-schedule successes of the pitching program they imported from Houston, with Holt educating coaches new and old on what was expected. After two years of injuries and a philosophical chasm left former first-round pick Cody Sedlock, in Elias’ words, “dead in the water,” Elias pointed to their new program as having helped him get back on track.

 

https://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/orioles/bs-sp-orioles-reset-farm-changes-20190923-5ickh2j6vjdezg5kbm6eodx4cm-story.html

[weams]

29 minutes ago, wildbillhiccup said:

Everyone else comes across as hot take/angry talk radio to me. 

People should never pay a dime for that. 

[Ohfan67]

"But consider this: removing first-round draft picks, who are often the most talented players in the country and not often requiring much development, the Orioles have signed and developed two amateur players selected after the first two rounds this decade who have, according to FanGraphs WAR (wins above replacement), produced a two-win season in an Orioles uniform. Those are John Means and Trey Mancini this year. (Wei-Yin Chen was signed out of Japan ahead of his age-26 season)."

 

I mean the Orioles drafting and especially player development have pretty much sucked forever, but this paragraph does several backflips of logic to cast aspersions. First, "removing first-round draft picks" and then "selected after the first two rounds" sounds like the author had to make a last minute edit because there was more WAR in the second round than he thought and removed the second round picks as an afterthought. Second, how can you blame the Orioles drafting and player development because DD traded away Zach Davies, Josh Hader, etc.? The Orioles organization of course deserves a lot of grief and most of have given them grief for years and years, but this is a pretty lazy article IMO.