31 October 2018

Scattered to the Winds...

As of November 1st, you may find our past writers...

Jon Shepherd - Taking a long walk.
Matt Kremnitzer - Matt left the Depot this past year to join the Athletic - Baltimore.  His writing at his personal site impressed me and I got him to agree to come on about five or six years ago.  He was a great addition and was the leader of the site for a year as a took a break and joined Baseball Prospectus for a failed attempt at creating a data based model for prospects that merged qualitative and quantitative metrics.  Matt can write about anything and make it interesting, which is probably why you should subscribe to the Athletic.
Nate Delong - I found Nate over at Orioles Proving Ground.  He became quite important in carrying on the torch of our podcast, the Camden Highball (which was a drink we created that mixes Orange Crush with what wound up to be your choice of whiskey (the Buck), vodka (the Pearce), or gin (the Jones)).  I believe he left the game.
Patrick Holden - Patrick was more or less the brother at arms with Nate. They both onboarded at the same time and I somehow lodged into my brain they were the same people.  Patrick moved on to a hockey focus and for a few years I kept sending him updates because I could not get my brain to work.
Nick Faleris - I met Nick over at the old Baltimore Sun message board.  I grew tired with the transient nature of comments on a message board, so I created the Depot.  Nick's scouting perspective was a solid addition to the site and he became an equal for several years.  Moving on from the Depot, he has had many hats.  He did some associate scout work for a MLB team, created his own scouting consultation group, led Baseball Prospectus' scouting department for a bit after current Diamondbacks Assistant GM Jason Parks left, and then helped create the new venture 2080 Baseball.
Stuart Wallace - Stuart was brought on from his personal site to the Depot.  He had a great eye for detail and communicated it well for our baseball science push.  We had him for a year or two before he graduated to the Pirates and then promoted as he transitioned to the Reds.
Matt Perez - Matt was a writer's writer.  His posts were heavy and some patience was needed, but he churned out solid work.  He addressed the overwrought concept of There Is No Such Thing As A Pitching Prospect, identifying how scouting and development improvements have progressively made it easier to project pitchers in comparison to projecting hitters.  He also broke up the 40-60-80 arbitration idea.  He was also the best source of MASN dispute news on the internets.
Patrick Doughterty - Patrick is a great data visualist.  His main claim to fame here was helping me implement out batting order optimization program that took a look at sequencing. Existing optimizers merely looked at each player in the lineup in a vacuum while we decided to see how the players in front of each batter impacted their own ability to drive in runs.  It was one of the last articles that spawned conversations with front office executives.  That used to be a common thing when we started, but the talent in the field has grown astronomically.  It really has been an amazing twelve years of baseball.
Joe Reisel - Joe was our Norfolk connection for many years.  He worked for John Dewan's BIS, logging games with data that helped determine fielding ability and other descriptors of play.
Avi Miller - Avi is a veteran of the golden age of Baltimore baseball blogging and pulled in a short tenure with us before departing for good.  We will always remember him for accidentally purchasing an entire section of tickets off of StubHub.
Elie Waitzer - Waitzer was a solid writer with a good eye for visuals.  He wrote for us for a short bit before dedicating himself back to school and working on a law degree.  Glad my recommendation helped or maybe glad it didn't hurt too much.  His twitter is now defunct.
Jeff Long - Jeff consults for a professional team now.  After he did some platform broadening with us, he went on to Baseball Prospectus where he made quite an impact.  If you do not know his name, then you have not been paying attention.  Funny, his capstone work on tunneling actually echoes something I wrote about years ago that he never read.  His work came in at a different angle and never exactly reflected my abstract hypotheses, but seeing it come to fruition through another path was truly a joy to see.  What he and his co-authors did was well beyond what I imagined.  Now, get on those visual aspects!
Chris Lindsay - Lindsay loved peppering his conversations with obscure European conflicts, which was something only I enjoyed.  He wrote several things for us about the World Baseball Classic.  Last I heard, he was out scouting in the hinterlands.
Daniel Moroz - Moroz read our site, got inspired and delivered Frost King Baseball and then Camden Crazies, which rode the baseball blog boom to stardom.  Moroz was behind the first wave of smart and witty t-shirts, which was overwhelmed by far less witty and more easily accessible t-shirts.  Before he burned out in the 2012 craziness, he wrote for us for a bit.  Every year or two, I asked if he was going to get back into the game.  Always hoping.
Ryan Romano - Ryan popped up on our radar as an incredibly frustrating and overly confidant teenager that peppered our site with criticisms, many valid but all fairly obnoxious.  He grew up and is moving into actual journalism.  He is finishing up at UMD as the editor of their paper, but has done rotations for the Roanoke Times and the Tampa Bay Times (which is where for Sun writer Eddie Encina is now covering the Bucs, I am sure Ryan put a good word in).
Ryan Pollack - The second Ryan came to us from Camden Chat to write in a different format with a different tone as he was crossing platforms.  He has been an active member in the central Texas SABR chapter.  He currently applies his wares at The Hardball Times and Beyond the Box Score.  I think he has a podcast, too.  Or he did.
Andrew Gibson - He never wrote for us, but he contributed on our original podcast format.  After a few years at BIS, he was snapped up from the Pirates and progressed through their system.
Steph Diorio - Steph was our resident cartoonist for a few years.  She is still creating.
Jonathan Bernhardt - Jonathan wrote for us for a very short bit before editors at large realized too his talent.  He moved on to many entities during the sports media online boom and now writes for the Athletic Baltimore site as well as a couple other locales.
Zach Mariner - While in college Zach wrote a few items for us and then graduated on to ESPN where he is now a senior researcher.
Joe Wantz - A solid contributor over the past year.

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