Presenting FanGraphs Audio
As part of this website’s ongoing attempt to provide white-hot baseballing analysis, we’re excited to announce the addition of a new horse to our figurative stable: FanGraphs Audio.
Herein, we offer our inaugural audio presentation — available for your listening pleasure after the jump. Today’s guests are Messrs Dave Cameron, Matt Klaassen, and Erik Manning. Come join us as we break a bottle of champagne over the bow of this ungainly, but good-natured, ship.
Also, as you listen, please consider a few points:
1. The radio arm of FanGraphs is still very much an experiment. In fact, to say it’s an “arm” at all is, perhaps, giving it too much credit. Perhaps it’s more like a clavicle — kinda near the arm, but not quite there.
2. Having said that, we’re very excited about the project, and eager to make it a legitimate complement to the excellent print content already available here. You, the reader (listener?), have played an invaluable role in this website’s ascent to excellence. Please do not refrain from offering two or three or five of your cents below.
3. Our recording technology isn’t exactly state of the art quite yet. For example, we recorded the following by means of a walkie-talkie set and reel-to-reel I found in my parents’ basement. In other words: we’re working on it.
4. Dave Cameron is an indestructible sabermetric cyborg. Just, be ready for that before you listen.
Without any more of this ado…
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
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Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
good god, my grades are going to plummet.
it is amazing to have voices to the names I have been reading daily for so long
Its official, my girlfriend hates you guys!
Whoa! Dave, so that is what you sound like. (Atticus from the old MMBL, by the way.)
Keep this up. Voice is an excellent supplement to the written word. But it is not a substitute, so keep up the great written content, too, of course.
*plots what to do with his lunch hour*
Ah yes, and fangraphs sends yet another, err, clavicle outwards, grasping in to the world.
Watch out, ESPN Radio. The Fangraphs radio clavicle has you in its sites! And soon within the grasp of its… manipulative digits…
Oh, Carson.
Oh wow. *sights, not sites…
Just pretend that was a not-very-clever internet pun, shall we?
I hope this doesn’t take the place of articles as its much harder to listen to audio at work than to read a website…
Still, cool feature.
I enjoyed it, but less referring to people by Mr. [Last Name], plz.
I’m guessing most of these guys have never actually met in person, so it’s not that strange when you think about it like that.
You found the recording equipment in your parents basement? As a fantasy baseball blogger you live your parents basement!
Written content isn’t going anywhere and we’re actually planning on having more of it. FanGraphs Audio will for the moment be a once a week podcast where our writers can expound on much of their written content. It’s scheduled for every Monday.
Here’s a revenue-generating opportunity for you: how about a Kindle digest of stories sent every day? You could charge 50 cents a day, or ten bucks a month for the subscription, and you’d probably get thousands of subscribers. At these prices, with one thousand subscribers, you could clear well over $100,000 a year, not including single day downloads. I would do this because I don’t always have time to read your stories online, so I would read it on the train to and from work. Plus, this would help subsidize the website and keep it free to use.
This has actually been available for about 6 months (though I never bothered to tell anyone), and it only costs 99 cents a month, because that’s what Kindle requires.
http://www.amazon.com/FanGraphs-Baseball/dp/B002CVUH3A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=digital-text&qid=1265641328&sr=8-1
And here I thought I was making a genius business suggestion. Is there no hope for the man with the 105 IQ?
Will you guys be offering this podcast via iTunes? I’d love to add it to my list.
Yes! But probably not until next week.
Which one was chopping vegetables while they were talking?
🙂
Nice chat guys.
I heard that, too. Kind of distracting, so try to hold off on that next time for the listeners’ sake.
Technical question (probably a stupid one too): What software am I missing that podcasts do not work for me?
You can download the podcast in mp3 format and listen to it in any audio player, but to stream it from the site you’ll need to have Flash installed.
That’s probably it – this computer has an old version of Flash, and I can’t upgrade it. I should have guessed.
I would be awesome if you guys could update the FanGraphs iPhone app before the season starts and add:
a new section for this audio because it would be awesome to listen to on my phone.
And a section to read the blog posts through the app and not just the stats.
Small point – If I select play above, I don’t know the total length of the cast. Is there a way to put the total time of the cast?
Excellent idea.
Three or two cents of advice.
The Mr. As a previous commenter said is kind of annoying… unless it’s sarcasm, if that is the case… well played sir.
4 people is too much… maybe a “one on one” is a better format… or 3 people, tops.
And to Mr. Cistulli… i kind of got the feeling that you “held back” a little bit… We read your columns… you can be goofy or funny and easily get away with it.
The sound quality was actually pretty good. Or the ones at LookoutLanding are just really bad :C (sorry LL).
Nice job. I like this addition to the site. Sometimes I have work that can been done listening to this kind of material. And ever since Alan Schawrz left ESPN for NYTimes, the baseball today podcast has sucked.
My only suggestion: email the panel the questions before hand so they know what’s coming and assign questions in advance.
You might also consider a break for the longer podcasts, like they do on radio.
prep time is a good idea but this is a great part of the site
Also, you might consider staying away from the hard stats. Regression, deviation, things like that. Concise explanations of statistics are a real strong point of the site and are a reason I would listen to a FanGraphs podcast but not a Hardball Times podcast.
Love it! Keep it coming! Would love to hear a fantasy preview or roundtable(s).
You guys need some cool jazz lightly playing in the background.
This was one of the better podcast hosting jobs I’ve heard of late, Carson. Very very nice job, and I was surprised by how well you flowed with your train of thought as well as your banter back and forth with the others.
I look forward to more!
Not bad for a first try and I’m glad you guys are doing a show. If I can make some suggestions I would say, a little less fawning over Dave by Carson, and you might want to invite someone that will change the mix a little — otherwise you’re going to have a lot of shows where everyone is agreeing how great Jack Z is, how Kenny Williams doesn’t know what he’s doing, how smart the Red Sox were for signing good defenders etc.
The best baseball podcast going right now is The Fantasy Roundtable on BlogTalk radio. The host is solid, some of the guests are constant but others interchange, they’re very opinionated, and they employ a number of clever features on the show that gets them communicating in different ways.
I totally missed this when it was first posted. Great addition to the site – thanks guys.
I’d find it helpful (assuming there will be a similar weekly post on the site linking to each podcast) if there was some kind of Table of Contents to help guide you through each episode. That way, I could skip to the pieces I’m really interested in if I can’t commit to the whole thing. Something like the following:
0:00-3:00 Introductions
3:00-10:00 Discussion of Topic X
10:00-20:00 Discussion of Topic Y
20:00-30:00 Discussion of Topic Z
30:00 Wrap-Up and Final Division Predictions
…or whatever.
Is there a separate RSS feed for the podcast? I’d like to subscribe to it, especially via iTunes.
Thanks,
Justin
I love the content, but you guys need someone to do the podcast side of it. Get the iTunes going, feeds available, and most of all mix the audio. Even the slightest background sounds and the ability to recall thematic sounds would enhance so much. (“Put it on the board”, previously stated sound bites, opening and closing music, etc)
Very cool idea, I look forward to hearing my favorite writers talk baseball intelligently. I think it would be cool to have quests come on the show as well, maybe the people from hardball or someone like Tom Tango. Also, If something like this can be added to the IPhone App.
I think the best idea for the reasoning behind the Kevin Gregg signing floated out there was that the 2.5m isn’t going to really hurt the Jays in a rebuilding year and if he performs halfway decent they might be able to flip him for something. It doesn’t really kill them to give him a chance to pitch and it also gives them some more bullpen depth to deal from to continue to restock the farm system if people have interest in Downs or Frasor. To be honest, as a Jays fan, I don’t completely hate the move. It seems to have neutral EV in a down year and it could turn into a piece that could contribute in the future. The only downside is it could potentially take money away from the draft. If that is a possibility then I hate the signing.