Baseball Is Back - New Lineup Coming This Week
The 2024 MLB season is in full swing, and we have a slew of fresh content coming your way...
Hey all!
Just wanted to check in and drop you a quick note on this Sunday night before we all burn our eyes out by watching the solar eclipse on Monday.
Okay, is it just me or is this whole solar eclipse event being overhyped? I just don’t get the big deal and I’d rather not go blind by staring up at something that doesn’t interest me in the slightest.
Anyway, I digress.
I don’t know about you but I have been watching copious amounts of baseball ever since Opening Day last week.
And it has been truly euphoric.
The first week or so of the baseball season has been so much fun to watch. I mean, we’ve had a no-hitter already. The Yankees look like they have their swagger back. The Pirates and Tigers might actually be good! Mookie Betts is playing at an MVP level already for the Dodgers. And the amount of young and elite talent in the game is just insane.
Of course, it wouldn’t be baseball without the league suffering a few black eyes. We’re still dealing with the whole Shohei Ohtani saga. Those uniforms look disgustingly awful. And high-profile pitcher after high-profile pitcher are blowing out their elbows, and we’re still in April.
Yeah, not great.
However, I think there is so much to celebrate about this baseball season already and hopefully the games themselves will soon take center stage.
Speaking of which, this coming week will mark the official launch of all the brand new content I have planned for the 2024 season.
Now, I wanted to get a lot of this launched last week but things got away from me a little bit between some freelance gigs I have and, oh, watching endless amounts of baseball every single day.
But, to be honest, it has been good to take stock over the last week or so and really fine-tune a few things. I’d rather take my time than rush and deliver crap content.
Nobody wants that.
So, without further ado, here’s a taster of what you can expect from me throughout the 2024 MLB season, starting this week:
In-Depth Weekly Column - This is by far the most ambitious idea I’ve thought up for the new season. My plan is to produce a massive and wide-ranging column every single week, covering a plethora of baseball topics from that week. Plus, I want to lead off with one main topic and take you into the heart of that subject matter as far as I can, be it a certain trade or a hot-button talking point in a game. Furthermore, it is my intention to take this column on the road and incorporate as much live reporting in it from different ballparks as possible. Ideally, I want to travel from Citi Field to Dodger Stadium to Camden Yards to PNC Park to Great American Ball Park to Rogers Centre, and to all the other ballparks in-between. It is my wish to take you into the heart of the clubhouse, and bring you nuggets of info you won’t get anywhere else. We’ll have some fun, too. I’ll take you with me as I travel across the country, and I’ll share every single aspect of the experience with you, from food, drink, the stupid amount of coffee I consume on the daily, and all the other weird stuff I may encounter on my travels. I’ve put a lot of thought into this, and I want to make this weekly column the destination for all baseball fans.
Players I Love To Watch: This was a feature I planned to launch in 2023, but it never happened for whatever reason. Instead, I'll be bringing you a current player I love to watch in MLB throughout the 2024 season. I’ll look to do one a week as I’ll be doing a deep dive into each player. And don’t worry, they won’t all be obvious selections, either. My baseball tastes can be very obscure and strange, and I have an affinity for the grizzled old veteran as much as I do for the superstars of the game like Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge. Although they will feature too.
Prospects I’m Excited For In 2024 (and beyond): I’m going to make it my mission to watch as much Minor League Baseball as possible in order to make you smarter about the hot prospects you need to be aware of. Be it the young studs on the cusp of earning a call up to the big leagues this year, or the future stars of tomorrow that are a bit further away in their development, I’m going to check in weekly with a prospect that I’m really excited to see strut their stuff in the major leagues. I’m really pumped about this feature, especially considering that there are a slew of elite prospects on the way to the bigs in the very near future. I’m looking at you, Jackson Holliday and Paul Skenes.
Fire up the Time Machine: I’m constantly looking at the excellent BaseballReference.com, and I’m going to use that endless resource of baseball greatness to pick out an iconic baseball player from yesteryear I’d love to go back in time to watch. This will run throughout the course of the 2024 season, and I already have a stupidly long list of players spanning all eras I want to cover. I think this will be a fun one for every hardcore baseball fan out there.
Team of the Week: Every week, I’ll simply pick out a red hot team that’s impressive me that given week, and I’l really drill down into what made them successful. I’ll also look to get some inside info too. I’m looking to do a AL / NL Player of the Week, also.
Boxscore Watch: Part of the beauty and romance of baseball is the boxscore. We have all, at some point or another, wasted hours going through boxscores and marveling over the sheer breathtaking beauty of it. I still get misty eyed over a baseball boxscore, and I can’t even begin to tell you the simple joy I get from filling one out. So, I thought it would be a lot of fun to pick a random boxscore every single week and pick it apart on the site, breaking down all the wonderful weirdness and seeing if we can spot any intriguing trends.
The Andrew Steele Pod: The podcast is back and better than ever, and we’ll have a slew of baseball guests on throughout the year. Listen back to my most recent episode with the excellent Pat Ragazzo, who covers the Mets and Yankees for Sports Illustrated. You can listen to that HERE.
Interviews: I really want to bring you more long-form content this year, and that will start with a series of in-depth interviews with a variety of baseball personalties from all areas of the game. I’m currently lining up interviews with a number of people throughout the game to shed some light on the slew of pitching injuries that are currently ravaging the game.
Who I’m buying / Selling Stock In - Every single week I’ll reveal the teams and players I’m buying all the stock in, and the players and teams I’m refusing to touch. I have a good one lined up for this week. Spoiler alert; sorry, Marlins fans.
There will be plenty of other fun stuff as we go along too, so make sure you follow The Steele Sports Bar for all your baseball needs!
I’ll see you on Monday…
Dude even the Angels announcer on Bally Sports called all the drama out mid game ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ðŸ˜