Sunday Discussion Question

Around 2003, an independent baseball team set up shop near where we were living at the time. I began to learn all I could about that flavor of baseball and loved it. Three years later, I moved to Northern Virginia and became a season ticket holder to the Potomac Nationals, who had signed away one of my “old” team’s star pitchers.

After my old team folded in 2007, I began to follow a site called the Nationals Farm Authority and bought your book and began following prospects much more closely. By 2010, I took up an offer to write for a site called nationalsprospects.com, which was a sister site to what is now Orioles Nation, and put my formal training as a sportswriter to work. It was also a great chance to demonstrate my amateur scouting skills.

I still love Indy ball but have come to appreciate how the two work together and will often campaign for folks to go see those former prospects — especially the veterans that have no illusions of making it back; they just want to play until they can’t anymore.

When attended for first Spring Training I was so excited for baseball season to begin. However, after the first few innings of the game I had no idea who anyone was, and had no idea who was suppose to be good. After that I decided to start paying closer attention to MiLB baseball.

With Bowman baseball cards. It was a series dedicated to minor league players and the rookie cards for the top prospects were more valuable so they interested me. Over time playing APBA and having interest in young players when they first came up, following newspaper box scores as well, interested me even more with prospects.

I did not get fully interested in minor league players until 2004 when I started playing Scoresheet baseball. I joined minor league ball in 2008.

when the Thunder moved to Trenton, when I was in middle school. Got to enjoy the Tigers AA team for a year, then the Red Sox and Nomar, Lou Merloni, Clyde “Pork Chop” Pugh (local favorite) et al came to town. After that, I was hooked on the cost-effective fun of minor league ball.

Been a big baseball fan all of my life. Just never knew anything about the minor leagues except what was in the local paper. I am pretty new to it now. Starting taking my kids to Akron Aeros games and now it has become a big part of our summer. The kids always want to know when we are going to another Aeros game. I am probally a bigger MiLB fan now than MLB. Just love following the stories of kids and watching them mature and develop.

I got a USA today and saw some guy named Canseco was on pace to hit 50+ HR in AA. The seeds were planted with the old Phoenix GIants. Chile, Chile, Chile.

I followed baseball for a good while before that and so always had some degree of interest in minor leaguers as they showed up in the majors. But, it went to a different level in ‘82-’83 as the Mets were going through a particularly futile period and I came to the realization that the minor league Mets might actually be a lot better than the major league Mets. Of course, Strawberry and Gooden showed up in quick succession, things took off like a rocket for the fortunes of that franchise, and I was hooked.

I became a Braves’ fan thanks to Turner and TBS back in 1989 (I was 7 at the time) but it took a long while before I got into prospects. Like someone else said, I collected baseball cards and occasionally got cards of prospects. I can remember getting cards like Trevor Hoffman, Todd Van Poppel, Cliff Floyd, etc but it took years before I really cared much about what was happening outside of MLB.

I had been playing fantasy baseball for several years before a friend told me about DMB sim leagues around 2004 (I believe). I spent a few months helping him as an assistant manager before being given the task of rebuild the Nationals for the 2006 season without Soriano (hadn’t been acquired yet). I made a couple of deals but quickly figured out I had a lot of learning to do if I was going to be successful.

Fast forward 6 years and while I still have a lot of learning to do, I feel I’m very familiar with the top 20-30+ prospects in each system and am constantly expanding my knowledge of the minor leagues and amateur ranks. I can’t say I enjoy it more than MLB but it is close. I certainly wish I had been turned on to baseball in that kind of in-depth way at a younger age and would have LOVED being close to a minor league ballpark when I was a kid.

When I was a kid I’d always get the Street and Smiths and The Sporting New preview magazines. I’d enjoy reading the prospects section the most. But I never really lived near a minor league team. I’d watch the very few spring training games the Braves would show to see who were the next players. But it wasn’t until I was an adult living in Memphis in 2000 that I really got into the minor leagues. I’d follow the Redbirds and the Arkansas Travs (the AA team for the Cards) as well as the PCL and Texas League. Then I started following the Cards and other organizations I saw at all levels.

Now I live in NC and actually see all levels of baseball. I certainly have a greater appreciation for the lower leagues than I did. But I still miss my more western slanted teams like the Cardinals, Rockies and Angels. The sports media and fans around here don’t even realize they play baseball west of the Mississippi.

Growing up near NYC you’d hear very little about prospects because the big-town media paid almost no attention to sports that weren’t connected to a major television contract, meaning that just by osmosis you’d know more about some far-away college hoops team than you would about even the Tidewater Mets or Columbus Yankees. That also led to the situation where the little info you did get would often be hype coming directly from or planted in the press by the team.

So as the internet age started to bypass the major media avenues and give more access and info about minor league baseball I began to latch on so as a way to get a more unfiltered and broader view and, even though the growth of a lot of this stuff is fantasy-driven (which I don’t play at all), I just use the info as a way to learn about those who are going to be baseball’s next generation of stars.

I particularly enjoyed Topps’ feature of “Future Stars”.