Thank you from Mastersball

We recently sent this note out to our registrants:

On behalf of Gary Jennison, JP Kastner, Lawr Michaels and me, Todd Zola, we would like to thank you for making us part of your fantasy baseball experience for the 2009 season. Special thanks go out to those of you that have become regular forum readers and contributors. And our warmest heartfelt appreciation goes to those who trusted us with their hard-earned income in these rough economic times, becoming a Platinum subscription member.

Some of you may be wondering what our plans are short and long term. To be honest, our long term plans are still a work in progress as we continue to establish our identity on the fantasy landscape. For 2009, our goal is somewhat modest, focusing on getting as much analytical and strategic content out to our readers as possible, including weekly in-season updated projections, at a price point we felt was unmatched in the industry. In the future we look forward to expanding to continue to meet customer needs, but maintaining our core missions - providing top analytical and strategic content while being the best fantasy baseball value on the market. As the spring turns into summer and we get a better handle on our capabilities and hone in on the specific type of content we wish to provide going forward, we will look to first recruit from our loyal legion of registrants so stay tuned for details if have an interest in joining the Mastersball staff.

In the short term, we have three primary objectives. The first is reorganization of the public message forum, in an effort to stimulate discussion of some of the current events aspects of our hobby, such as player performance, injuries, revolving closer situations and minor league call-ups. To that end, we will rename the General Fantasy Baseball Topics Forum and call it Player News and Analysis. The intent is for the discussion to focus on players in a general sense, without specific reference to one’s own team. We will then have a separate forum for specific team advice. The Trade and Potential Trade, Keeper List Feedback and Rate my Team forums will thus be consolidated into an all-encompassing Team Management Advice forum. Initially, we will go forth with these two forums but if the need ensues, we will adjust as necessary, for example breaking the Player News and Analysis forum into separate AL and NL section. A new set of forums will be created, dedicated to
questions, comments and discussions pertaining to site content, for both Platinum and publicly available material. An off-topic forum will also be available, called The Water Cooler, in which our community can talk about anything they want, so long as it is not fantasy baseball related. All of the present discussions will be directed to the appropriate forum. Once this reorganization is finished, I will get the ball rolling and make an effort to start the newsy type threads, hoping those wanting to contribute their two cents will feel comfortable in doing so. You know, sort of like putting the feeder five into my tip jar. Before long, others will hopefully follow suit and post news items as they hear them. Something to keep in mind that if you are in fact interested in joining the Mastersball team, the best way to ‘audition’ is via message board participation. Long time Mastersball followers can confirm this, as this was my initial introduction to Gary and more recently
Shawn Carey, our Minor League consultant.

The second focus will be the blog. We are efforting expanding the cast of contributors. We hope to have an announcement soon.

The other concentration will be making the front page of the site a portal of sort, a place where we can announce the posting of Platinum content as well as link the free content we produce that can be found on such sites as mlb.com, SI.com and CREATiVESPORTS.com. We will also announce radio and podcast appearances. The present plans include producing three publicly available pieces of content each week. The first will be the 2-start pitching rundown I do for mlb.com, posted sometime each weekend. The second will be a weekly strategy column, possibly to be part of the fantasy content at SI.com, but even if not, it will definitely be posted at www.CREATiVESPORTS.com. The final offering is back via popular request and will be free this season, as we will be preparing a review of the likely available free agents in common leagues, which will definitely be posted each weekend at www.CREATiVESPORTS.com. Beginning this week, links to the above as well as other site announcements and
news will be available from our home page, as well as the aforementioned message forum for comments, questions and discussion regarding this specific material.

For our Platinum subscribers, again, I simply cannot thank you enough, not just for your patronage and trust, but also for your patience and understanding as we literally put this together on the fly. I completely realize that as hard as I long for the good old days where all I had to do was write a couple of pieces a week and have some fun on the message board, as soon as we accepted one penny from one subscriber, we made the leap into a business and thus we need to respect that and treat it accordingly. Starting next weekend, we will unveil our advertised in-season content, which includes weekly updated rest-of-year projections for everyone appearing in the Majors as well as year-to-date values for common leagues. This week we will also start the daily posting of our Player and Team Tracker, which some of you may know as ZIDDY. And even though we feel this content was a great value for the price point, Gary and I have decided that we each should produce some additional
subscriber content on a consistent basis. To that end we will post an article three times a week, accessible only to our Platinum subscribers. It will be somewhat free-form, commenting on whatever moves us that particular day. The bulk will be fantasy baseball oriented, but I have been known to get tangential at times and Gary has never been shy to float an opinion on whatever touches a nerve. We will provide the exact details early in the week on the site’s home page.

Once again, please accept our sincere gratitude for helping to make the resurrection of Mastersball a success. With your continued support and guidance, we strive to carve out a special niche in this wonderful industry. Thanks for hopping along for the ride.

Todd Zola, aka the Forum Funklord