Hello all. Just a brief note on the site. I’m in the process of adding a number of new features to the site, starting with player profiles for all of our key prospects, with a huge assist from Dave and Ryan. As we finish these profiles, I wanted them to be easier to access, and more user friendly in terms of making updates. If you hover your mouse over the “Profiles” tab at the top of the site, you will now see new menus for hitters and pitchers, and then the individual profiles as well. My hope is this makes it easier to quickly navigate to a profile you’re looking for. In a similar manner, I’ve updated the draft picks section, creating separate pages for the 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 draft picks. Going forward, I want to use this method for organizing new pages and content that will be continuously updated. I’m going to leave this post stuck to the top of the site for a while so everyone knows what is going on. Thanks for continuing to come back while we renovate the site!

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’m going to begin to overhaul the site, and you will notice lots of visual changes. Step 1 was changing to a different theme. I think this theme will work better because its cleaner and more sleek. Loyal reader “Rob H” was kind enough to design a custom header for the site, and I think it really is a unique and cool design. I’m going to be making lots of tweaks over the next few weeks/months, so if something seems out of place, it probably is. It may take some getting used to, but I think the cleaner look will end up making the site much more accessible and readable. So, hang with me while I make these design changes, and I hope everyone ultimately likes the finished product.

Update —>; I may as well put this here. I figured out two things tonight. I can remove the text ads that appear under posts, but its costs $30 for a year. I can also tweak the font size and some other aspects of the site, but that costs $15. I think I may hold off on one or both of these for now unless a few generous soles want to make a donation to cover the costs. Both features will eventually make their way onto the site.

Update #2 –> The ads should now be gone. If someone can confirm this, someone who noticed them before under the “possibly related posts” that would be great. Thanks.

It was brought to my attention that there are google ads being inserted into the “possibly related posts” section that shows up under the text of new entries. I don’t know when this started, but I think it is a recent phenomenon. As far as I know, there is no way for me to disable this. I didn’t notice it because I use ad-blocking extensions to block this crappy ads. I’m going to look for solutions to get rid of these ads, but because wordpress is a free hosting site, I don’t think I can get rid of them. For now, I suggest doing the following

If you use Firefox, install Ad Block or something similar

If you use Google Chrome (which is my browser of choice), also has Ad Block.
If I come up with something else, I’ll let you know.

Quick update here.

Over the next couple days/weeks, you’re going to see some changes to the site. I’ve started to grow unhappy with the way the site looks. I get lots of compliments (and I appreciate all of them) on the content of the site, but I want the site to be more visually inviting. While I’m not ready to splash out $500+ on a custom designed WordPress theme, which will involve even more than just the money, I am going to go about cleaning up the display here. That means that the layout of the site is going to change, some stuff will be moved, some stuff won’t be displayed anymore, and things might just look all out of sorts. But hang with me, it will be worth the hassle. If you are looking for anything specific and can’t find it when stuff starts to get moved around, you can always use the SEARCH box at the top right of the site, I’ll make sure to leave that there.

I’m also going to ask for help on two fronts.

1. If you’d like to help (well, you’ll have to do most of it) design the new header for the site, and you have experience with photoshop, please send me an email at phuturephillies at gmail dot com.

2. I’m also looking for someone to help me with a simpler (but more time consuming) task in terms of getting some of the content here properly organized. Again, if you’d like to help, send me an email to the same address right above.

Thanks.

As I mentioned recently, I’ve been working on tweaking the site a bit, changing the layout of some features and trying to improve the overall quality of the content here, specifically the presentation, which I’ve never been really 100% happy with. With the help of frequent commenter BC, I’ve added a new page at the top of the site called “Profiles“, which, as you can imagine, contains player profiles. Previously, I had links to these profiles on the left side of the page, but it was confusing and the layout wasn’t very good. Now, all of the profiles are in one place and they will be easier to find. The information listed in the profiles is not complete, I’m going to continue to update things. I’m also going to add stat charts under every player at the end of the season, as well as links to various articles and also scouting video when I can find it. If you come across articles on players, please post them in the comments ON THE PROFILES PAGE, don’t post them here, and I’ll then add them at the appropriate spot. By adding the profiles page at the top, I’ve removed some of the clutter from the left side of the navigation panel, which should make things cleaner.

That is all.

A number of people have mentioned it in other posts and in emails to me, so I guess it needs to be formally addressed. I’ve stated before in the site guidelines and in numerous posts, that I’d like to try and limit the discussion of the big league club here on this site. I know everyone wants to talk about Jamie Moyer, Cole Hamels, Ryan Howard and everyone else, but that’s not why this site was created. It was understandable that people were speculating on Roy Halladay, everyone in the country was, but that time has passed. There are only a few weeks left in the minor league seasons, so I’d like to focus on that. I created a message board for the purpose of giving people a place to discuss Phillies prospects every day, but it seems that it was forgotten this winter. I’d urge those of you who like to post quite frequently in the comments to discuss actively there. The people who contribute and write content for this site spend a lot of their time doing so, they’re owed respect, and that means not derailing their posts with whatever random thought pops into your head. Thanks.

I’ve finally ditched hotmail and switched the site’s email address to gmail, using just phuturephillies at gmail dotcom. I’ll continue to periodically check in on the old address in case anyone still sends emails there, but from now on, please use the gmail address. I’ve also updated the link on the top right of the site for future reference. Thanks

Just wanted to quickly say thanks for the continued support here in 2008, and thank you for continuing to come back. 2008 saw the site pick up considerable momentum, peaking right around draft time. The site basically started at the end of December, 2006, so its essentially 2 years in the books now. Some numbers for 2008

Total hits: 1,125,603 (up from 514,000 in 2007)
Busiest day: 14,098 (June 5th, draft day)
Busiest month: July; 183,767 (busiest month in 2007 was June, with 78,561 hits)
Highest average hits per day: July; 5,928 hits per day

Total blog hits since inception; 1,640,739

Thank you again for coming, thanks for spreading the word, and I look forward to an even better 2009. Happy New Year.

So, this is something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time, and I finally got around to it tonight. We now have a phuturephillies message board/discussion forum. You can find it here. Proboards seems decent enough for a free discussion forum, its going to take some time to figure everything out and add different things to it, but I think it will serve the purpose for now. As I’ve mentioned before, the purpose of this site has never been to turn it into a message board, though the discussion is great. I don’t want to extinguish all of the discussion from this site of course, but I wanted to provide another outlet for people to discuss whatever they’d like relating to Phillies prospects. Its a work in progress, but it should be fun.

I’m going to do some work on the site this weekend, including possibly changing the layout/design/color scheme and all of that stuff. It feels like its time for a face lift. So if you check back and things look out of whack, don’t sweat it, I’ll get it back in order. Thanks.

[Update 1]

So I’ve done a bunch of re-organizing. I changed the main theme of the site. It seems a bit more bright and less dark/dull, which I think makes it easier to read. I’ve changed the hierarchy on the left side, using a few more category headers and trying to better organize the categories. I also added a FAQ/Intro type statement and some site rules.

[Update 2]

Ok, I’ve scrapped the new design and brought back the old version. I changed the red color to a brighter red, and I’ll continue to work on some other things.