Almost two and a half years ago to this day I first found FanGraphs. At the time, to me, the numbers were new, the methods were confusing, but in some way it all made sense. It intrigued me. I had little to no idea what wOBA was or why anyone would want to know about FIP, but I liked the idea of thinking about old methodologies in a new light. And so I read and read and read and in turn filled my head with a new perspective on baseball.
At that point in time I had just dipped my foot into the ocean of the online blogosphere. I’d found Tao of Stieb, DJF, and Bluebird Banter among many other baseball blogs. After reading posts in those places I was always left thinking, thinking that I could have something to add to the conversation. That impulse is initially what pushed me to write a blog of my own, House of the Bluebird. For two years now I’ve written on the pages of this website, posting everything from transaction analyses to GIFs of Jose Reyes smiling, giggling, and dancing.
However, as you may have already seen on the Blue Jays Plus announcement post…I’m moving on. Not out of the Blue Jays blogosphere but to a new and improved Blue Jays Plus that I will co-manage and contribute to with the likes of Gideon Turk, Ewan Ross, Chris Sherwin, and Steve McEwen.
You may have already seen the works of Gideon Turk, Ewan Ross, and Chris Sherwin on the previous rendition of Blue Jays Plus. Gideon was the initial founder of Blue Jays Plus and has been writing there since 2010. He’s kept Blue Jays Plus active with great content over the years and has consistently kept his readers up to date on all things Jays and Jays prospects.
Ewan and Chris are both newer additions to Blue Jays Plus. Most recently they have both created and continued to produce the wonderfully done Blue Jays Plus Podcast with talk about a variety of Blue Jays topics as well as segments with such guests as Dirk Hayhurst, Ben Lindbergh, and Zach Mortimer.
Last, but not least is Steve McEwen, who’s work you may have seen on Runs Batted Out or Halo Hangout. Steve has become one of my better friends in the online Jays world over the past year. He’s heavily into numbers and has both tracked bbFIP and even created his own rendition of pitcher WAR with bbWAR, which is a batted-ball profile based Wins Above Replacement number.
On September 1st we will be releasing the new and improved Blue Jays Plus at BlueJaysPlus.com. On there you’ll be able to see analysis based articles similar to what you’ve previously seen on HBB as well as added and diverse content from other contributors to the new site.
As for House of the Bluebird, the site will stay up, but will remain inactive for the most part. However for the time being you’ll still be able to see all of my GIFs on gifs.houseofthebluebird.com.
I’m really looking forward to this new venture and I hope to see many of the same readers I’ve seen here over on our new site!
