BBHQ Partnership Has Failed

[L-Mets]

As a longtime subscriber, I am deeply disappointed in Baseball HQ's decision to shop out its "Playing Time" column to a USAToday partner, KFFL. This column quickly became a must-read when it was introduced a few years ago. But now, I find it a waste of time. The information is usually a day or two stale. Here's an example -- in the past, I could have opened the story and found some analysis of the Tulo and Fowler injuries yesterday in Colorado. Today, there was some news from the Rockies-Nats series: "Ross Detwiler to be activated Thursday." No kidding -- dude, we all watched the game yesterday. It's FRIDAY already.

When I asked about this change earlier in the season, I was told that no worries, that baseball HQ staff would better put its effort in a new feature, Divisional Outlook. This, too, has marginal utility to someone who follows the game closely. The once-a-week look at the teams in any given division means the news, often, is yesterday's news.

I would urge BBHQ to re-deploy its resources into a robust DAILY playing time column and ditch the Divisional Outlook. One solid, timely column would be more useful than two stale efforts, at least in the eyes of this dues-paying reader.

[Doc]

I would also agree with most of this

[RDeschain]

wow. I thought it was only me.

I actually enjoy the Divisional Outlook series. But I barely read the PT article now where I used to really enjoy it. That's what happens when stuff not done by BHQ staffers gets posted on the site I guess (I actually had no clue that this is what was occurring).

[RAY@HQ]

Thanks for the feedback, guys. Couple of points about it:

Really, there was never a time when you would have logged in to HQ this morning and found news about the Fowler/Tulo injuries that occurred last night. That's not a reflection of the new PTToday format. We are not a real-time news gathering org, and have never been. We have submission deadlines for our content. PTToday closes at about 9pm ET the night before publishing. Deadlines for prior versions of PTToday, and even MarketWatch before that, were similar. Nothing's changed here. Without looking, I am very confident KFFL actually did post the news items last night. But we had already closed last night's column. Obviously, those injuries will be covered in tomorrow AM's edition.

Also, I don't think it's fair to say that we have "farmed out" PTToday to KFFL. The KFFL news items are intended as just a jumping-off point for our own analysis, and the addition of "showing our work" with PT change %s embedded in the column was something we have been asked to do for a long time. I thought the initial feedback on this when it launched was very positive, and until this thread I hadn't seen much if any negative feedback. Still, that's not to say it's without issues, and I think some of the stuff that worked very well in the pre-season has worked a little less well in-season. But I do want to underscore the point that I very much think of this as our own work, not KFFL's.

Same goes for the DivOutlook columns. We definitely thought coming into this new PTToday setup that the coverage would need to be supplemented, and that's what the DivOutlook was supposed to do. We've been talking this through internally, that may need some adjustments to the format. I still think the combo of a PTToday/DivOutlook can provide comprehensive coverage, but I'd also agree it's not consistently at that point yet (again, just a couple of months in.)

So, overall, this is an area we're open to re-examining, and we're actually close to the point in the calendar when we start planning our features for next year. Anyone who's been around here for a long time knows that we aren't shy about changing things up. The feedback here is very much welcomed, and for that matter suggestions for improvement are welcome too.

[MarkT]

Maybe its me but I really have been enjoying the new PTToday format.

The analysis by HQ writers are fantastic using the HQ metrics from the site instead of what you get with Roto?.com

One addition I'd love to see (have your cake and eat it too) is could key hitters (because of the match up) be identified in the Daily Match up column which is another great addition to HQ. The Thinking is beyond the usual first round guys. Example: we expect a big night from Danny Valencia..and here's why..etc

Thanks for considering...

[L-Mets]

Ray -- Thanks for keeping an open mind. I think the divisional thing made no sense from a fantasy perspective. I don't know anyone who thinks in terms of divisions. So why organize information that way? David

[RAY@HQ]

Well, if you have six columns per week, there's a certain symmetry to giving one column to each division. The disconnect, I think, is that the intent of the DivOutlook columns is not to be covering time-sensitive news items. (That's what PTT is for.)

The DivOutlook were originally intended to focus on longer-term playing time situations and trends, to be forward-looking as to what developments might be happening with each team a couple of weeks out. And if you're looking a couple of weeks out, it shouldn't matter whether we're giving you that insight for the NL Central (for instance) on Tuesday or Friday. To me, the problem isn't the organization by division, it's that we aren't 100% hitting that forward-looking/couple of weeks out scope for the column.

[L-Mets]

I suppose there is a symmetry in the number of divisions, but what I was trying to say is when I go to gather information for the annual auction, ponder roster moves or consider the state of my team, the last thing on my mind is what is happening in the NL Central or the AL West. Perhaps there are fantasy leagues that are limited to players from one division or another. But for the life of me, I don't see what divisions have to do with fantasy baseball. Why should you hold an interesting fact for five or six days, just so you can organize it by division?

[RAY@HQ]

Well, for one thing, we can provide better coverage by giving 6 writers a "beat" of one division each and assigning them to know each of those five teams inside and out and write about the group once per week, rather than just having six writers all assigned to cover all of MLB and take turns giving random observations one night a week. It's an efficient delineation of responsibilities, and also ensures that we are giving balanced coverage to all 30 team/situations.

[L-Mets]

I get how this organization might make sense for staffing reasons. But you also should consider if this makes sense from your customers' perspective. Let's say your beat reporter for the lowly Marlins comes upon some actionable news on Tuesday about how the front office is reconsidering the timetable for a prospect. Let's say the NL East just ran that morning. Your reporter must sit on this news for a full week.

[RDeschain]

I get how this organization might make sense for staffing reasons. But you also should consider if this makes sense from your customers' perspective. Let's say your beat reporter for the lowly Marlins comes upon some actionable news on Tuesday about how the front office is reconsidering the timetable for a prospect. Let's say the NL East just ran that morning. Your reporter must sit on this news for a full week.

For that kind of news I wouldnt look to BHQ at all as that's not what they are about. There are sites like rotoworld or rotowire that will give you updates of that nature.

[RAY@HQ]

I get how this organization might make sense for staffing reasons. But you also should consider if this makes sense from your customers' perspective. Let's say your beat reporter for the lowly Marlins comes upon some actionable news on Tuesday about how the front office is reconsidering the timetable for a prospect. Let's say the NL East just ran that morning. Your reporter must sit on this news for a full week.

Wait... you're saying we should think about our offerings from the perspective of our customers? Whoa, slow down... let me write that down.

Seriously, I think you've been around enough to know that we operate in exactly that way. Not to get too much into how the sausage is made, but this is how we handle PTToday: we have a set of writers with assigned beats, and they collect and analyze the KFFL news items within their beats, adjust projections, etc.... every night. That's their role, because the items they are covering are time-sensitive.

DivOutlook, as noted, isn't intended to be time sensitive. But that doesn't mean the structure we have put in place is done for the convenience of our staff. It's done because we think it allows our staff to provide you with the most comprehensive coverage. I thought that was clear from my earlier post, I don't know how you took what I wrote and interpreted to mean that we set things up this way for "staffing reasons".

I also think you've been around here long enough to know that we don't sit on items that can help our subscribers. Even if they don't have an immediate outlet to write an article, all of our writers can (and do) post here in the forums, comment on an article, contact another writer. There's no shortage of outlets that counteract your hypothetical scenario here.

[Doc Daley]

I like the DivOutlook. Maybe it's worth to one depends on the fantasy format you are playing. For my 10 team roto I think it can be helpful.