Welcome Message from Todd Zola

On behalf of my partner Gary Jennison, we would like to welcome you to the re-launch of Mastersball. For our friends returning from the original site, it is great to see you again. To those not familiar with the initial incarnation of the site, welcome and we will give you a little history in a minute.

But first, I must thank a few people. Not only were Jason Grey and Rob Leibowitz two of the greatest business partners a guy can have, they are even better friends and graciously support my bringing back the Mastersball brand name – thanks guys, you are the best. Next, I would like to thank CREATiVE SPORTS, led by my good buddy, Lawr Michaels and his great crew, JP Kastner, Brian Walton and Marc Meltzer. Mastersball and CREATiVE SPORTS are going to have a very symbiotic association where we share some resources and push each other to great heights in an effort to better serve you, the fantasy consumer. I would also like to thank Gary Jennison for trusting me and agreeing to be my partner in this next phase of my fantasy journey. In addition, I owe a debt of gratitude to the Fantasy Planet management team of Craig Davis and Ryan Brooks, a couple of stand-up professionals who made my time working with them quite enjoyable, and to my good friend Perry Van Hook who remains with Fantasy Planet. Good luck Captain, except for when we square off in the Las Vegas NFBC AL Auction. And finally, I would like to thank you for either coming back or stopping by to see what the fuss is all about. Gary and I promise to do our best to keep you coming back again and again. This feels a little like Paul McCartney calling his new band the Beatles and not the Wings, especially since Paul McCartney and Wings were my first favorite band as a pre-teenager.

Now I will share some background. In 1996, I joined a private AL-only auction keeper league called the El Torito League, composed mostly of college pals from Northeastern University and their friends. I was an outsider, finding the league from an Internet advertisement. After a prolonged trade discussion ended with my not succumbing to the whims of long-time league member Jason Grey, he called and asked if I would be interested in contributing to a Fantasy Baseball web site he was putting together called Mastersball. I accepted and adopted the moniker of “The Professor”, writing a weekly strategy column entitled “Lessons from the Professor.” The site quickly began earning notoriety in the fantasy baseball community. A couple of years later, we brought on our pal Rob Leibowitz, who was the founder and operator of Rotoheaven.com. The three of us grew Mastersball into a highly respected web site. Along the way, we recruited Perry Van Hook and Gary Jennison to be on our staff. As a quintet we developed an avid and loyal following, punctuated by a forum community that may not have been the biggest, but we certainly considered them to be the best.

After the 2005 season, Mastersball LLC was approached by Fantasy Planet and we agreed to become the information provider for their baseball operation. Along the way, Jason and Rob both left the LLC to pursue other opportunities, leaving me to be the sole survivor of the Mastersball troika. At the conclusion of the 2008 season, Craig Davis, Ryan Brooks and I had an honest and open talk and we mutually and quite amicably agreed that ending our 3-year business relationship was best for both parties, leaving me free to pursue my own interests.

At this point, I harkened back to another of my favorite bands, Rush, and recalled their lyric I used as my High School yearbook quote, “You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill, I will choose a path that’s clear, I will choose free will.” So free will it is, thus Mastersball is back.

I talked with Gary, and we agreed to partner on this venture. Gary is on the verge of carving out a special niche in projection theory, much as I have done and will strive to continue to do in the realm of valuation and game theory. Together, we make a strong team, and even though we share many of the same philosophies, there is definitely a certain level of Yin and Yang present to keep things fresh and interesting as we grow as a unit and a site.

Okay, enough of the history, if you are still reading, you are likely wondering a few things – what is the new site going to be like and when is it going to happen? And who is your favorite band now?

The new Mastersball is going to be a little different than the original. We surveyed the current fantasy landscape and found a plethora of places to obtain “current-event” information like news, injury updates, depth charts, etc. While this information is obviously integral to running a successful fantasy team, I recalled something Jason once said to me while we were enjoying a delectable sandwich between Arizona Fall League games. When I asked him what he wanted me to work on over the winter, his reply was succinct yet powerful as he simply said to think of what I would want from a site if I was a paying customer, and do that. When I shared this story with Gary, it soon became clear what we needed to do. And thus, for our paying subscribers, we are going to supply a bevy of unique tools that will have you as prepared as anyone in your league for your auction or draft. We will have accompanying essays that will explain our methodologies, both in terms of projection and valuation theory. You will also get strategic essays tying everything together. And in season, you will get rest-of-year performance projections and year-to-date values and rankings updated at least once a week. Oh yeah, I failed to mention that we will project over 2000 players, all the way from 46-year old Jamie Moyer to those toiling in Double-A. I told you Gary was on the verge of something special.

We will also have a plethora of information available for free. Along with this interactive blog, which Gary and I will update frequently, with your help, we are going to do all we can to build a message forum community like we had with the original site. I cannot tell you how many ideas have been born out of message board discussions. Actually, that is how I got to respect and become a fan of my partner, then known as longduckdong. Additionally, we will offer a free nightly newsletter, highlighted by a quantitative ranking of the next day’s probable starting pitchers, perfect for those playing in the ever-growing daily transaction sector of the hobby.

We are still working on a firm date when we will fully launch with sign-up capabilities and the message forum. The loose target is sometime between January 15 and when pitchers and catchers report. Going forward we will be amongst the first sites to provide you with the best fantasy tools available on the Internet, but we are not only preparing the tools and accompanying information, we are also putting in place the infrastructure to support such an endeavor. And as I am sure you are aware, this does take time so we are presently being a bit conservative with our official full-launch date.

But in the meantime, Gary and I will do what we can to update this blog. We encourage your comments as the intent is for this to be interactive. And if you want to contact me, feel free to e-mail me at todd@mastersball.com.

Damn, I cannot express how great it feels to have that address back!!! Hop on board, it is going to be one heck of a ride.