Brock Beauchamp

They're populating really aggressively right now and I don't like it either. Once I can get access to the dashboard - which I think will be any time between tomorrow and Monday - I'm going to start working on refining how and where they populate a bit.

We just released this on Twins Daily but only after we established enough extra content to warrant a subscription (without implementing any kind of dreaded paywall). Give me a little time to talk this over with the other owners and see if we can't reach some kind of resolution to do this earlier (and cheaper) without the extra content we provide at Twins Daily.

And sorry, I may come across as a bit of a jerk about this but it's mostly exasperation. Small sites like this one where we work really hard to compensate people are hurt by ad blockers but monolithic sites like Facebook, Reddit, et al shrug it off because they have the money to do so, they don't compensate people for content, and they spend a ton of effort driving people to an app that doesn't allow ad blockers. And the entire idea behind ad blockers is just kind of gross. If you enjoy something enough to use it, why not support it through such a passive revenue stream as ads? Now, be sure that I also dislike ads. If there was a better way to do this, I'd jump at it.

The ads are going to be a bit messy for a little while as the provider figures stuff out. I don’t even have access to the dashboard yet to change some settings I don’t like. Over the next few weeks, we’ll continue to make adjustments.

A bunch of the moderators are now contributing to the front page and being paid. Many other moderators will receive gifts regularly, some already have. This endeavor is more than creating a front page; it’s an attempt to give a little back to all the people who have supported this site for the past 20 years. Then there are hosting fees, various expenses, and the literal 150 hours I’ve personally put into improving the code base and adding feature sets. I’m not going to tell anyone what to do; some of you are going to run ad blockers either way. But flaunting it publicly is a jerk move.

Interesting. Unless I missed something, the article didn’t list which teams are employing this to start the season.

We will implement video at some point over the summer but there won’t be sound and there won’t be videos in the forum.

Cool. I love it when people boast that they’re removing any ability to operate this site or pay any of our creators for content. Super cool.

If you’re a T-Mo customer, download the Tuesdays app and you can get a free year of MLB.tv.

I'm actually in San Diego right now, just went to Disneyland yesterday... but I'm here because I lived here for 17 years, I'm not even sure I'd recommend it for a vacation. Lots of people do but to me it's more of a place I lived than a vacation spot. But @homer if you speak Spanish (or can fumble through it a bit), we went to Punta Caracol this winter and it was pretty amazing. Traveling in Panama is like traveling in most other Central American places - it's not really dangerous but certainly feels a bit dodgy at times - but relatively inexpensive and there are some truly amazing places to be found.

I'll give them a C+. They held steady on a 95-win team but did very little to push the team forward when it needed just another bat or two to be pretty elite.

I put down Hyperion because I found it really slow and not engaging. Does it improve later? I think I only read about 50 pages, maybe.

I just don’t get Yelich. I mean, I get the technicalities of why he’s not hitting for power - he’s not elevating the ball - but I don’t get why that problem has persisted for this long.

I just don’t get Yelich. I mean, I get the technicalities of why he’s not hitting for power - he’s not elevating the ball - but I don’t get why that problem has persisted for this long.

I want to remain as transparent as possible so in the coming days - I don’t know exactly when - ads will begin populating the site. I know ads suck but I hope you’ll all be patient with us as we implement them, as the majority of revenue goes right back into the content creators, moderators, and site infrastructure. It’s an unfortunate reality but all the labor that goes into this site requires compensation and ads are how we do it. With that said, I hope you’re all enjoying the new site and I assure you we’re only getting started! Over the summer we’re going to keep adding loads of cool new features and we’re in this for the long haul. If you ever have suggestions or input, please feel free to contact me either publicly or privately. Thanks!

Yep, Iowa is a baseball dead zone.

I just found a new reason to be irritated by MLB blackout rules. My cabin blacks out both Twins and Brewers games. Baseball continues to make it as difficult as possible to actually watch their product, whether you give them money or not. It’s absurd. On top of the asinine blackout policies with streaming, under no circumstances should a person ever be blacked out of multiple teams unless both teams play in the same city.

Ah, because they didn’t burn an option in 2020, I bet.

Obviously, the real wild card here is Hiura because if he doesn’t hit, the question answers itself. Tellez will get nearly daily playing time but he’ll absorb quite a bit of DH time, I suspect. But if Hiura is decent - say league average - how do you balance his playing time and where do you try to fit him? In this scenario, I think it’s pretty easy to bench McCutchen against righties but we could easily see a situation where Hiura and Cutch are equally bad against RHP. And if that’s the case, what to do with Hiura? He’s out of options, right?

Welcome to the inaugural edition of Brewer Fanatic’s Forum Friday! Every week, we’ll take a look at some of the popular topics generated by our community and give a quick rundown of the week’s action. Image courtesy of Brewer Fanatic Welcome to the inaugural edition of Brewer Fanatic’s Forum Friday! Every week, we’ll take a look at some of the popular topics generated by our community and give a quick rundown of the week’s action. While a lot has changed about Brewer Fanatic in the past few weeks, we want to stress that what makes this site tick is its user-generated content, which we want to promote to those of you who may be new to the site or visit us through the front page news section. With that said, let’s dive into the topics and what we’re talking about in the lead-up to Opening Day… What to do with Keston Hiura? The Brewers could certainly use a return to 2019 for Hiura… or maybe just better than 2021 would suffice. We don’t need perfection, only increased performance. After the ups and downs, how much of a chance should Hiura get in the 2022 lineup? We’re approaching Opening Day and Bally Sports still doesn’t have their standalone app ready for prime time, as it was recently delayed to the nebulous date of “summer”. So where can you watch the Brewers and what do these recent exclusivity deals mean for watching the Crew in 2022? User @KeithStone53151, like most of us, is frustrated by MLB continuing down the path of fragmentation and blackouts. Brewer Fanatic contributor @Tim Muma dreams over a trade for Bryan Reynolds, which could have propelled the Crew to elite status in the eyes of analysts and projection systems. Was this a reasonable goal? What would the Pirates want in return? We all know Bob Nutting loves to save a dollar whenever possible so maybe this scenario isn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility… On the flip side of that coin, user @turborickey laments the fact that Milwaukee is rarely in play for elite free agents. It’s a common refrain from fans of small- and mid-market teams and always a looming issue over baseball itself, as the playing field between teams is wildly disparate. Will baseball owners ever take action to move toward financial parity in the sport? That’s all for today, thanks for reading and if you have something to say about the Brewers or baseball in general, pop on over to our forums and start a conversation today! View full article

Yeah, I had to do that in preparation if our advertisers were going to take issue with the off-topic forum. It turns out they didn't so I can flip it back to normal now.

I’ve read the first… three? Dune books. The first is stellar, for sure. Shepard’s world building in Spiral Wars is Sanderson-esque in its depth and volume. Huge recommend to the series for those who like pretty hard sci-fi.

We’ll be posting at least one a week for the foreseeable future!

We’ll be posting at least one a week for the foreseeable future!