Replacement Level Yankees Weblog

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The Hardball Times
by Larry Mahnken

A couple of months ago, I got an instant message from Aaron Gleeman, asking me if I was interested in joining a project with him and Matthew Namee (Bill James' research assistant), as well as a few other writers. At first I was going to think about it for a couple of days, but when Aaron started listing some of the names, I couldn't refuse.

And so, today, I'm proud to announce that I am a writer for the new website "The Hardball Times". Aaron and Matthew are the co-editors of the site (now think of the irony of Aaron Gleeman being an editor...), and the rest of the team is:

Alex Belth from Bronx Banter
Craig Burley and Robert Dudek from Batter's Box
Joe Dimino from Baseball Primer's Hall of Merit
Ben Jacobs from the Universal Baseball Blog, Inc.
Bryan Smith of Wait 'Til Next Year
"Studes" and Pete Simpson from BaseballGraphs.com
Vinay Kumar and Steve Treder, two of the best posters at Baseball Primer (and Steve's the most prolific poster ever--I'm 7th).

We'll have all sorts of fantastic stuff there, including Win Shares for all of baseball history, but that's not up yet. What is up is some fantastic baseball writing, including the first of what will be a regular column I'll be writing with Ben Jacobs, who coincidentally lives in Rochester, just like me, working for the local newspaper, and is also a huge Red Sox fan.

Rivals In Exile will be a back-and-forth column about the Yankees and Red Sox, and if it seems like I'm acting a bit of a jackass in my part, it's because I am acting like one. I think it makes for a more entertaining read.

That's not all I'll be doing, of course. I'll be contributing a weekly column, and my preview of the Yankees will be posted late this month. I'm not quitting the blog, though, but it might stay sporadic, it might be more of a quick-hit type thing--I don't know. There's certainly going to be a lot to write about that won't fit THT, and that'll go here. My writing style is more of an inspiration based thing, rather than reporting, so I tend to go in spurts.

But I digress. I want to stress that we're not trying to compete with Baseball Primer or Baseball Prospectus, both of which are great sites which I recommend you all visit regularly (and again, I say that subscribing to Baseball Prospectus is a GREAT deal). I'll still be posting at Clutch Hits, I'll still be reading the columns at Primer (I love Dan Werr's stuff). NOTHING has stopped for me, I'm just writing somewhere else, too.

I really hope you enjoy The Hardball Times, and if you have a blog or a website, we'd really appreciate a link. I'd like to thank Fabian McNally at Minor Yankee Blog for the plug this morning, and I thank you all in advance for your continuing support.

--posted at 2:12 AM by Larry Mahnken / |

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