The Media Prepares

Here's how my favorite hometown blogger Roch Kutbatko is preparing for the Winter Meetings. I've put Roch on my list of top five photos to take with.

For those of you too lazy to click on the link here's a quick blurb to whet your appetite

Each day begins with reporters rushing into the media room by 8 a.m. to set up their laptops and claim their territory like a dog peeing in circles. Then you stake out the lobby. Scott Boras always draws a crowd, and since he represents Mark Teixeira and Manny Ramirez, Vegas won't be any different. The gamble is ducking back into the workroom and missing him, so you need to be in two places at once - sometimes three, if you're also waiting on a general manager or another agent.

See you in Vegas! ... or Chicago during the layover.

Suiting Up

Gear up, it's to time take care of business.

9:50 AM EST takeoff time Sunday morning from Reagan National and everything is good to go. (that's right, I linked the airport) Two suits and threads for 5 days, including swim trunks for the sweetest pools in the world. Temperature says 65 and sunny so that's not so great for swimming, but nevertheless, I'm prepared for everything.

I'd like to share a couple email exchanges I had with a Rays employee the last couple of days. His latest reply back to me tonight had some sage advice:

"Try not to look like a job seeker if you do visit the Bellagio – i.e., don’t run around in a suit with your PBEO badge hanging out! Don’t accost GM’s; it’s not worth your time."

Don't accost GM's? I'm glad I'm not an agent.

He was quite candid in an earlier note during the week: (I was trying to understand how I could flag him down, having never seen him before)

"As for what I look like…well, as someone who has been in your shoes, I think I can say this without being too callous: that’s part of the challenge!"

As if I needed an additional challenge.

"Rays"ing Prospects In Brazil

I enjoy reading articles like this. Teams are always looking to expand their reach around the globe and it sounds like Tampa has made some inroads in Brazil. They are basically using the same formula most teams have used in other countries like the Dominican Republic and Venezuela: Build a beautiful state of the art facility, attract the best coaches around the game to the area, reach out to the community to build up interest in youth organizations, and then highly publicize the first official signing to the parent club.

Here's some more commentary about the deal from the East Windup Chronicle.

One of the key players in the deal is Gerry Hunsicker, who is Senior Vice President of Baseball Operations for the Rays. I've had a few encounters with Mr. Hunsicker. First of all, like me, he's a Saint Joseph's grad, which makes him a super beast. But more importantly, in 2004 he came and spoke to one of my classes in school. Why, might you ask, would the (at the time) General Manager of the Houston Astros be speaking in an academic environment? Well, obviously the class was called the Business and Tradition of Baseball and Hunsicker was one of the many speakers my professor had arranged to visit us that semester.

My second encounter with Gerry came in March of 2006 down in Florida at Spring Training with my brother, AI. The photo above is AI pictured with Rays GM Andrew Friedman. You'll notice that Mr. Friedman has some bunny ears attached to his noggin. Who's fingers could those be? That would be a Mr. Gerry Hunsicker's.

At least someone is continuing this age old tradition.

Winter Meetings Preview

For those of you that are interested in a general overview of this event go here.

MLB.com has a preview article worth a looksie.

Most of the action will be going on at the Bellagio, which is where all of the MLB General Managers and their staffs are staying. I'm assuming many of the agents, media, and upper echelon execs are holing up there as well. It turns out that XM/Sirius Radio's MLB Home Plate will do a live broadcast inside the lobby of the Bellagio. I called them yesterday and found out they will be reporting from 10 AM EST to 6 PM EST. So too will ESPN's Baseball Tonight which will be airing a Hot Stove Special from the Bellagio Monday thru Thursday for one hour starting at 5 PM EST.

That's not all though.

The under-the-radar Winter Meetings will be taking place at the Las Vegas Convention Center and Las Vegas Hilton. This stuff will get less attention in the media since it's mostly trade shows, work shops, and job fairs. Clearly not as sexy as the wheeling and dealing going on over at the Bellagio. A lot of the minor league people are over there.

As advertised on milb.com:

This is the 107th annual gathering of the baseball convention, a place where club owners, front office personnel, league officials, just about everyone from the business side of the game whether from the Major Leagues, the Minor Leagues or internationally, will gather in one spot.

Maddux Retirement Press Conference Scheduled For Monday At the Bellagio

This will certainly add to the buzz out in Vegas next week. Hopefully I'll get some on-the-scene pictures.

I took this photo overtop the visitor's bullpen at Nationals' Park before he started the August 27th game in Washington.

A New Team In Philly

So I worked as an intern for the Philadelphia Phillies from January, 2004 thru September of 2005. This was part of a great program that exposed me and 25 or so other college students to the business of baseball... and the fascinating stories of Philly's phinest phans.

Essentially, our main job was to sell tickets and answer customer service questions in the Phillies phone center, but occasionally we dabbled in other departments too. My personal highlight came each year at amateur draft time when I participated in some of the pre-draft prep work and tryouts. I also got to call off a player's name into the league-wide conference call during the '05 draft. My selection came in the 48th round and he went by the name of Ben C. Hornbeck out of Sunnyslope HS in Phoenix, Arizona. I was a bit nervous, but when the 1437th overall pick finally came, here's how it all went down.

From time to time I like to monitor the moves going on in their organization and I still keep in touch with a few friends and former interns. During the time I was there the team was led by Ed Wade, now the General Manager of the Houston Astros. After I left, Pat Gillick previously of the Seattle Mariners, was hired to run the show. He kept most of Wade's staff and then proceeded to advance the team to two playoff appearances and one phulfilling championship. Since the end of October the Phils have made a few moves:

Ruben Amaro, Jr. was selected to supplant Gillick as GM and Assistant GM Mike Arbuckle decided to move out to Kansas City to be the Special Advisor to GM Dayton Moore. That created an opening for Orioles' Director of Baseball Administration Scott Proefrock, who was subsequently hired to replace Arbuckle. Now the braintrust is pretty much complete for 2009. Or is it?

Kasten's Nats

Just a quick note about something I read this morning about the Nationals on ESPN.com. I'm not surprised to see an article written like this about Washington. The team has been close to terrible since it's come to the Nation's Capital and they are still years away from developing a farm system that will produce annually. Also, everything I've heard from folks around the game and from my brief experiences working with them and attending games at Nationals' Park has alluded to this sentiment: The organization is in disarray.

But one section of the article took me by surprise from the above reading and it makes me sad:

It's no secret in baseball circles that club president Stan Kasten has chafed over his role in the hierarchy. In late September, both Washington newspapers, the Post and the Times, described Kasten as frustrated with his lack of organizational clout. According to the Post, Kasten has had difficulty coping with the Lerner family's "hands-on, tight-fisted management style."

One baseball executive who's friendly with Kasten told ESPN.com that the Nationals' president was "miserable" in his current role. Kasten declined an e-mail request for an interview but recently insisted that he'll be back with the organization in 2009. Nevertheless, his name has been bandied around in Toronto in conjunction with the Blue Jays' vacant CEO position -- in part because of his friendship with interim CEO Paul Beeston.

If this has any merit the organization is doomed.

Here's an update on what I have planned for the Winter Meetings next week:

Like I said in an earlier post, I've been trying to schedule meetings with different teams in an effort to get them to hire me. Yesterday I had two promising leads come through. One with the Cardinals and one with the Diamondbacks. Lead is a relatively loose term though, so in other words I'll get a chance to hobnob with some of the lower rung officials, shake some hands, and pass out some resumes. Nevertheless, it's positive. The others I plan on meeting with are the Brewers, Reds, and the O's.

I'll be sure to keep you abreast if Theo rings the celly.

Taxpayer Field

Here's a sneak peak of the Mets new stadium. Sounds like a hitters ballpark with an interesting out of town scoreboard.

Hopefully you'll get a sense that the content I'll be focusing on here are the new innovations and other interesting ideas around the game. So you'll be disappointed if you're looking for commentary on trades and free agent acquisitions. There won't be a whole lot of sabermetrics, analysis or anything of the like. I figure there's a million other blogs doing that.

Recent Reads

So in an effort to schedule some meetings next week with some baseball guys I emailed this article from bizofbaseball.com to a few of my contacts. Basically I try to give these guys a reason to open my emails so I always provide some other type of content, but I don't do this often. It's got to be cutting edge and pertinent to what they do. This particular article is an interview with Rick Peterson, the former Mets and A's pitching coach, and I think it was well received with all three of them replying back to me. It's quite long, but well worth it. He gets into some interesting ideas about diagnosing poor pitching deliveries and methods to repair them. He also has a cool story about an experience with Jason Isringhausen towards the end.

In my emails I also wanted to know if their specific team employed this method of "prehab". Unfortunately I didn't get any concrete answers, but I'll be sure to take it up with them next week.

Where To Begin? Again.

So I decided to bring the blog back. That's right...I've had a lot of things to say recently and it's about time you started listening!

Since I've been home for a little more than a month I've been on the job hunt for work. Specifically in baseball, more specifically in player development with a Major League ball club. So far, that process has been largely unsuccessful, but I hope that's mostly a reflection of the timing of the industry. Most organizations do their hiring over the winter around the Winter Meetings.

Recently, I've spent a lot of my time trying to keep up with what's been happening within the sport. I've been doing that by reading articles in the press, websites, watching video, some interesting blogs, primary documents, a few books, and one message board. I'm sure we'll get to some specifics later. I also get a kick out of bouncing ideas off my friends, family, and roommates who humor me by listening to my rants every once in a while. Thanks to all.

In addition to all that nonsense I'm trying to build up the few relationships I've made over the years so that I will get an opportunity to interview along with hundreds of other applicants for a few internship opportunities in the coveted Baseball Operations Departments within the game. No one said this is easy.

Over the next week I'll bring you into my world. This is mostly a baseball related world, but this will tend to get a bit personal as I'll try to describe the trials and tribulations associated with a career in the field. I realize not everyone who reads this will be interested in the baseball stuff or even my own personal thoughts, but it could be interesting to those who think it's fun to chase after something just a little bit out of reach. And I think everyone can relate to that.

We'll kick the renewal of the blog off with some particularly uplifting news regarding the odds that face me as I head out to Las Vegas with hundreds of other folks begging for work in the National Pastime: Jays Cut 24 Front Office Jobs