I wanted to take a few moments to talk about the website here, kind of recap what’s been going on, what I expect to happen going forward, and a bunch of other stuff. The minor league season is almost here, and with that will come an increase in traffic. With that comes more comments, more discussion, and mostly good times had by all. I wanted to briefly discuss some of the nuts and bolts here, as well as put in a request for help, and a bunch of other things. I tend to write best when I’m using bulleted points, and to keep this short and readable, I’ll do just that, so check below for more…

* First and foremost, I want to again thank everyone who regularly visits this site, those who visit occasionally, and those visiting for the first time. Started as a pet project way back in December 2006, I couldn’t imagine that it would become what it has today. In 2007, the site got almost 515,000 hits, which I thought was pretty impressive. But readership more than doubled in 2008, and then increased by like 35% again in 2009. For comparison’s sake, in March 2007, the site had a total of 21,200 views. In March 2010, the site had 130,000 views. When I first started, I decided that I’d write a bunch of stuff right away, hoping to get people to keep coming back. And apparently it worked. With that comes responsibility.

* I want to also thank everyone who has contributed here in terms of writing content. gregg has been a huge help to me, going to great lengths to report on the happenings of the Lehigh Valley team, as well as providing updates on roster movements and anything else that may have slipped under my nose. Todd (who uses the display name phillyjamaal) has been instrumental in keeping the rosters, depth charts and other housekeeping items up to date behind the scenes. Michael Schwimer, of course, who has given us the inside scoop on the life of a minor leaguer, and has greatly enhanced the content of this site. Cody (codyrhoads) who provided the weekly updates on the Williamsport and GCL teams, Jeff who provided tons of info from Clearwater, andyb who covers the Latin American developments, and everyone else who has written articles, helped with some part of the site, or provided me with assistance via email. While I’d love to be able to dedicate 8 hours a day to just churning out new content here and keeping everything up to date, its not feasible, and the help everyone has provided has been instrumental.

* Over the last 2 years as the site has grown, I’ve attempted to work on new projects and features to make the site better, including tracking down interviews with the likes of Kevin Goldstein, who has graciously provided us with tons of tidbits and insight. I’ve also tried to make the site flow better by organizing things into easily clickable categories to help you find what you are looking for. I’ve included a glossary for some of the more advanced stats and tricky topics like options, and I recently added player profiles with links to information on our prospects. Some of these features are fully functional, some are a work in progress, and I have even more that I want to do, its just a matter of time. Then of course we have the much debated/criticized SONAR system, which was 2 years in the making, and has undergone a number of changes already. Its something that I am quite proud of, and something I hope to continue to develop and improve upon. I put a massive amount of work into it, on getting it ready, and with all the 2009 data processed, we can see how things play out in 2010.

* So that brings me to here and now. As the season starts, there are a number of things I’d like to work on this season. I’m going to break them down one by one

A. Updated affiliate reports. People come and go, life throws things at you, and some times you realize you just don’t have time to devote to certain projects. gregg has graciously agreed to continue his weekly report from Lehigh Valley, but he is the only affiliate guy committed for the full season teams. I am looking for someone who is willing to write a once a week report for the other three affiliates. Ideally I’d find 3 different people (1 for each team), because its too much for one person, and I’d like to find people who will have the time and energy to churn out a once a week piece. If you’re interested, you’ve probably seen what some of the affiliate reports have looked like before. Send me an email expressing your interest to phuturephillies at gmail dot com. Until I find people to handle these duties, I am going to try and write the recaps on weekends.

B. Updating of the player profiles. Reader “BC” was kind enough to help me lay out the player profiles and input all of the links to the various sites. My original plan was to go through all of these profiles and add in more detailed info, including old news links, scouting information, a small headshot picture, links to video, etc etc. I still want to do this, but with all of the other things on my plate, its one of those tasks that always seems to fall down the list. I’m looking for someone who is willing to help here. You’d basically just be editing that one topic, adding in relevant information, and I can walk you through the specifics. This task isn’t time sensitive, but I’d like to get it up to date in the next few months, and then hopefully the person who signs on to help would be able to keep it updated as time progresses, maybe by adding in new articles that pop up and things like that. Again, I can go over the details on this via email if you are interested.

C. A once a week notes column. My goal for this is to write a once a week general notes column, probably on Sunday night (and it will run Monday) that kind of allows me to basically write out some thoughts on various guys. I hope to use this as a spring board for coming up with new ideas, new areas to study, and things like that. I’m thinking of a witty title for it.

D. Draft coverage. This year’s draft class is really underwhelming, but I’m going to do my best to try and devote some time to draft coverage, and with this, I want to also look back at prior drafts. I’d started doing some draft review stuff a long time ago, and I want to re-visit that in the future.

E. Starting pitcher logs. I also did some work on estimated pitch counts and why I think its important, but I want to create a tracking log to compile all of the starts this year by Phillies prospects. I’m thinking of a good way to integrate it into the site, and when I come up with it, I’ll post more information.

F. Reader submissions. This one is HUGE. While I have done the best job I can tracking down information and collecting it, I can only read and do so much, and living in Boston, my opportunities to see games is greatly reduced from those of you who live in Reading, Allentown, Clearwater, Williamsport, Lakewood and other areas close to these affiliates. I’ve created an information outpost again, and I want to use this page as a place for YOU to submit information for use on this site, including links to articles, pictures you may have taken, and information you can find online. The details for what I’m looking for are covered on the page, so check it out.

* I wanted to take a minute again and just briefly touch on the site layout. I’ve tinkered around with things, moved things around, and I think I’ve done a decent job considering the site is WordPress hosted, and I’ve made an effort to make it feel like a website, not a blog, while retaining the ease of use of the wordpress format. I will continue to tinker with things as we move forward, and as new features are added to wordpress, I’ll try and use the ones that seem useful to make the site better. If you’re a regular reader, you know how to find your way around. On the left side of the page to the left of the main text, all of the links are clickable, and its basically how all the articles on the site are categorized. If you click “interviews”, you will find an archive of all the interviews I’ve conducted with various prospect evaluators and things like that. If you click one of the affiliates, you’ll find all the weekly affiliate reports for that team, etc etc. You can also click a player’s name to find all articles written about him here, things like that. Its not a perfect system, but its a pretty decent setup. Of course you can also use the search box at the top right to find info on a player. Some other features I wanted to bring attention to. I’ve added in a link to VodPod on the right side of the site, and this is a place that aggregates online streaming video, so you should check that frequently for updated prospect videos. You can also follow me on Twitter, make a donation, and jump to various other locations by using the links on both sides of the page. At the top of the site, you’ll find the newly created Reader Submissions page, as well as links to player profiles, a thorough transaction log, the SONAR scores archive, and the draft archive. When I roll out new projects or make major updates to existing features, I’ll try and put up a quick post to outline the details.

* Its been a very successful 3+ years here, and I want to continue to do my best to make this place the go to site for all info on Phillies prospects. If you have any ideas or suggestions on things to improve on here, please send them to me via email. I try my best to respond to every email sent, but sometimes things slip past me due to time constraints, so if I didn’t reply, I’m sorry, I’ll try and do better next time. I’m excited for the season to start, and this should be a really interesting crop of prospects to follow this year. Thanks again for continuing to check in here, and if you feel like you really want to help with any of the things I mentioned above, please drop me an email and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks!