By now you’ve probably heard. The Diamondbacks were swept by the Dodgers on Monday night, ending their bid for the NLCS and beyond. The bats were quiet, the Dodgers didn’t chase pitches out of the zone — again — and while Zack Greinke wasn’t necessarily awful, he wasn’t exactly good either in a time when he, frankly, needed to be great. That’s how these things work. The margins for error become razor thin and timing is everything. It’s playoff baseball and we’d want it no other way.
So there are a million places to go from here. There’s a budget that’s still highly stressed by the presence of Greinke and Yasmany Tomas. There’s a competitive core in place. Arbitration projections are out. The bullpen will need remaking, but the closer should wear a familiar beard. Paul Goldschmidt might be the NL MVP. There are prospects to rank and guys still slugging it out in instructs and the AFL. The season’s over, but it’s not really over. Because when Goldy chased that Kenley Jansen cutter low and away, something happened. You could say the season ended, but I choose to look at it another way: a new season begun.
Unfortunately, I’m not sure how I fit into that new season.
I’ve been adulting pretty hard these days, flying for work three or four times a month, working long hours, building a life with someone special and even buying a house. You might have noticed the posts getting further and further apart. That’s just because the time has become harder and harder to come by. Responsibility calls, I guess, and sometimes the hourglass just runs out of sand. Been a lot of that lately.
It’s just not feasible to expect my writing frequency to return to normal, but it’s almost harder to imagine not doing it at all. Honestly, every post just feels like delaying the inevitable, which hurts more and more every time. Coming to grips with the reality that I can’t sustain something that’s been an integral part of my life for the last five years hasn’t been easy. I’ve started and stopped writing this post a few times now and put it off. Today it finally feels like that last strike is going by and I’m not going to hit it.
New adventures and opportunities await. I’m not killing the website, and if I can and feel like it, I might even post once in a while. Hard to say. I’ll stay on Twitter and routinely make typos in my tweets. The jokes will be bad. If you ever need to reach me directly, I’d recommend doing it there or through the Inside the ‘Zona Facebook page. It would be nice to hear from you.
When I joined on here back in 2013, I never thought I’d get to interview baseball players, become a credentialed media member, produce 65 (!!!) podcast episodes, be published at ESPN and Baseball Prospectus, and make friends with some extremely talented analysts and media folks. The Diamondbacks have always been very kind to me, specifically people in the media and publications departments. “Generous” doesn’t begin to describe their support. I’ve developed mentors, sources and developed some life changing relationships with some truly great people. You know who you are.
Ryan started this thing and he’s been gone a while now. From the website, I mean. He’s alive and well. I even talk to him sometimes. Without the friendship and camaraderie we developed, so many opportunities would have never materialized. I could never put into words what it’s all meant to me.
If this is the first Inside the ‘Zona post you’ve ever clicked on, sorry. For the rest of you, I say thank you for the support from the bottom of my heart. You kept me going longer than I could have ever hoped. But the time has come for me to take some undetermined absence. That absence already started, really, but you deserve to know. So there’s that. My flight’s about to board and I should probably give this thing a once-over before hitting “publish.” Thanks again, and let’s make sure our paths cross sooner than later. Go D-backs.
P.S. They really gotta find a way to trade Yasmany Tomas.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
37 Responses to It Was a Hell Of a Run
Leave a Reply
@ryanpmorrison
Congrats to @OutfieldGrass24 on a beautiful life, wedding and wife. He deserves all of it (they both do). And I cou… https://t.co/JzJtQ7TgdJ, - Best part of Peralta’s 108 mph fliner over the fence, IMHO: that he got that much leverage despite scooping it out… https://t.co/ivBrl76adF,
RT @OutfieldGrass24: If you're bored of watching Patrick Corbin get dudes out, you can check out my latest for @TheAthleticAZ. https://t.co/k1DymgY7zO, - Of course, they may have overtaken the league lead for outs on the bases just now, also...
But in 2017, Arizona ha… https://t.co/38MBrr2D4b,
- Prior to the games today, there had only been 5 steals of 3rd this season (and no CS) in the National League. The… https://t.co/gVVL84vPQ5,
Powered by: Web Designers@outfieldgrass24
RT @VisaliaRawhide: Your Visalia Rawhide are the 2019 California League Champions! #webroughtthering https://t.co/Gk8jQ6nmb4, - Play hard, sleep harder https://t.co/xQuv30MA4d,
RT @TheCaseyMcLain: Last night I did a joke about my wife delivering our daughter and I said “doctor” and a woman in the crowd yelled “… https://t.co/28Hkuzsu49, - Reporter: what prompted you to elevate there?
Player: gotta justify my Psych 202 enrollment https://t.co/KCqqm4MNKj,
- Is the "the ball sounds different off player x's bat" verbiage just a way of saying "player x has tremendous bat sp… https://t.co/7aKg909n3P,
Powered by: Web Designers
I may not comment very often, but your writing and analysis will be missed
I wish you all the best in your future endeavors.
p.s. See on the Twitter machine.
See you there, Bob!
You’ll be missed. I learned a lot on here.
Thank you! That means a lot. That was always the mission: push the conversation forward and root it in something real.
Thanks for everything brother. Duty calls.
Thanks! Miss you big guy!
Best analysis! I really counted on this site to give me the inside scoop. Would be awesome if their was a successor. I wish you well in your newest endeavors. I hope that you get to use some of your skill and creativity in your new work, you very talented!
I appreciate it! Thank you!
I never really commented much on this site but did read it time to time. I have no idea who you are and I don’t do Twitter. I will say Thank You for the reading material over the years. I also wish you nothing but the best in the future. Go Dbacks!
Thanks so much, and thanks for making us part of your reading!
I guess that nothing lasts forever. Inside the Zona was often the first thing I looked at each morning and I found your articles both interesting and statistically validating in order to buttress your opinions. I will miss reading your posts but wish you the very best in future endeavors. Thank you so much for making the D’Backs a little more informative!
Thanks Bill! Glad we could become part of your routine!
Sorry to see you go but glad to hear everything in life is swimming along nicely for you! Please let us know on twitter if you post anything here or guest-write an article on another site! Once you really see baseball from the perspective you and Ryan brought, it is hard to see it any other way.
I think my work here is done 🙂
Our loss is your significant others and your career gain hopefully. All the best if luck with everything. See you in the twitterverae !
She doesn’t like baseball that much! I appreciate your comments over the years. You’ve also pushed me to think differently, and that’s a wonderful thing!
I enjoy your writing a lot, thank you so much and wish you all the best!
Thanks so much! It was my pleasure.
You did a great job with this site. I’ll miss your analysis terribly. Thanks for doing this for as long as you did. God bless.
Hey Lamar, no problem as all! It was great reading your comments all these years. The feeling is mutual!
The pest wishes to comment. Your passion screams through your words. You imparted a new level of baseball knowledge to me. Allow me to continue to pray for you, in your success.
Humbly,
No pests here! Thanks for reading and emailing, Terry!
This is such a bummer. This site really fuled the baseball nerd in me. I guess ill just have to read random post from fangraphs that have nothing to do with the dbacks…
You could do worse than FanGraphs! Thanks for visiting this site, means a lot.
I’m going to miss reading your analysis of the DBacks. I don’t think I missed a single post. I loved all of the analytics used and I don’t know where I’m going to get analytically informed writing about the DBacks now. Sad to see you go, but excited for you to go forth onto great new experiences.
Thank you so much for your continual support and readership! Keep the D-backs alive and well in the NW with me!
Really bummed. The thought and care you put into your work here did not go unnoticed. You will be missed.
Jeff, Thank you! Think it was here that either you or Ryan that said (paraphrasing), “Any team will win 60 games. It is figuring out how to get the next 30 that matters.” Your analysis helped me understand how complex that really is if you don’t have unlimited $ to spend. Fair winds and following seas. Semper Fi, Don
Thanks Don! You’re totally right about that comment, and that was a guiding idea that led to continuous ideas. Glad it stuck with you! Take care, Jeff
This really is a bummer, but I totally understand. I’ll miss this place, it was one of the very few non Snake Pit places I could go to read about my Diamondbacks.
Good luck in the future.
Thanks, James! I’ve appreciated your thoughtful comments over the years. You were always right on the money!
It was indeed a hell of a run, both for the 2017 Diamondbacks and for this blog. I really appreciated your analytical take on the team, and was generally sad that you weren’t both around to celebrate as many of the little successes of the new regime this year. Through the good times and the bad, I definitely looked forward to every post of yours over the years, even if I wasn’t as fascinated by the low minors prospects as you seemed to be. I’m sad it’s possibly over, but you deserve a hearty congratulations on a job well done!
Thanks, Sam! It’s been a challenging year, but love for low minors guys will never die! I appreciate the kind words and your continuous readership. Be well!
I can’t thank you enough for your fabulous contributions which so many of us have enjoyed over the years. Your insights and analysis were always top notch and well written. Reading your posts was truly the highlight of my day and you will be missed more than you know. Take care and thanks again for sharing with all of us for so long!
Thanks, Zonie! That means a ton. Glad we could brighten your days!
Ditto on what everyone else said. Thanks for everything. Pretty sure I’ve read every post the last couple years and listened to most of the podcasts. Good luck with your future endeavours!
[…] website is very important to me. I wrote a whole semi-going-away thing this fall and took myself a much needed break. I’ve published 447 posts here. We recorded […]