Some news from Maximizing Playoff Odds ahead of the coming Orioles season

This newsletter has been a source of joy, a point of pride, and an outlet to tell the stories I wanted to read. Now, my work moves to the Baltimore Banner.

Here’s the scene: It’s minor league opening day, 2022, and I’m driving to Bowie with a pit in my stomach.

For four months, as I got used to having a new job and going to an office and waking up at a decent hour, I also had the occasion to concurrently gauge and grow the audience for this newsletter, which allowed me to keep writing about the Orioles on my own terms.

It was all fun and games when the newsletter was free, but that day I introduced paid subscriptions made it real. I obviously enjoyed it – it was validation for the work I was choosing to do, and every upgrade alert over the ensuing year motivated me that much more to keep going to find the stories that didn’t exist anywhere else. 

From today on, they’re going to exist elsewhere: The Baltimore Banner. They’re purchasing my newsletter and everything that goes with it–the subscribers, the email list, the archives, and even the dumb name, which may or may not go away forever and potentially can return to Mike Elias’ repertoire. 

That this grew to what it did and so many of you stuck with me over the last year helped make this happen. I did the work because I enjoyed it. I held myself accountable to do the work because dozens, and the hundreds, backed me to. I can’t thank you all enough for that.

Paid subscribers will be hearing from a Banner representative shortly to transfer over your subscription. Please follow the steps they provide to ensure a smooth transition of your subscription, and if anyone has questions or issues with the transfer, please reply to this email and I’ll handle it for you directly as best as I can. I take your support and the investment every single one of you made in my work incredibly seriously, and won’t take anything less than 100% satisfaction in this transition. 

If you’re a free subscriber, the promo rate for a Banner subscription is literally unbeatable. If you click through my intro post at their site to sign up and try it out, it will probably reflect really well on their decision to bring me in. Just saying.

No matter what your access level was here, you’ll find not a lot will change when it comes to the actual work. I’ll probably write as often, if not more, about all the same topics I did with MPO. The articles might just read a little better because there will be an editor. I’ll probably be a little more active on Twitter, but Andy Kostka has the daily coverage humming, so no lineup or roster moves coming from me.

It will also, most of the time, be delivered in the same format. The Banner’s sports newsletter, The Point, is launching today. You’re all signed up for it. I hope those of you whose subscriptions are transferring over enjoy everything the Banner has to offer enough to stay on when the time comes, and I urge anyone else to give it a try.

And I mean it: please reach out through the transition process with any questions about your subscription or issues. I’ll never be able to express the personal faith subscribers put in me, and this move won’t be a success until everyone is transferred and satisfied.