Site-by-category
I noted today that the index-by-category functionality doesn’t always work when you want to view-only-Mariners-stuff, bypassing posts like site information and off-topic ranting (this in replying to the first jerk of the comments — I’m relieved we got that over with). I’m looking into it, but it appears that for the exceptionally large “Mariners” category it’s timing out. I’m investigating. Being able to let users view baseball-only content if they didn’t want to hear us rant about 0ff-topic stuff was an important reason we made the switch.
In the meantime, the money-back guarantee for all site-related problems applies: if you’re unsatisfied with the performance of USSM, we’re happy to refund your money back to you.
Comments
18 Responses to “Site-by-category”
I for one demand a full refund. This website should have been winning more games by now.
DMZ,
I’m not finding the “Dugout Dollars” link on the nav bar… Is that a conscious choice, or was it never there in the first place? I’m forgetting. Anyway, I always think that’s somewhat helpful…but maybe it’s not particularly reliable, so it’s not linked? ? …
Thanks.
Don’t rework this. even Bill Jim, or whatever his name is, rambles on a regular basis.
No… like the BP link, I haven’t figured out what I’m going to do for additional link categories (misc? M’s payroll info?) and behind the scenes I’m tinkering with that… so you may see (say) a category pop up on one visit and then go away by the time you’ve reloaded.
To me, one of the charms of this site IS the off-topic rants. It’s like sitting around the living room talking baseball with your buddies… the topic isn’t always strictly baseball. Well, unless it’s MY buddies, who think that Hole-bert Cabrera was the best off-season aquisition the M’s made. You just can’t argue with that kind of nonesense.
“Hole-bert Cabrera was the best off-season acquisition the M’s made” your buddies might have a point. Every other off-season acquisition has turned out to be crap using benefit cost ratio.
Derek, you are going to continue to run into problems trying to return all of the M’s entries on one page. That’s a LOT of info.
You’ll want to either page the results (see first ten, then next ten, then next ten, etc.) or create a bunch of M’s subcategories (game talk, free agents, self-promotion, minor leagues, etc.).
Honest question to USS Mariner staff
Given that most Mariner blogosphere criticized every acquisition and most Melvin’s personnel decisions in 2004, how much does the management really care about blogosphere’s opinion, fan’s opinion versus financial benefit?
Example, Sonics and Mariners (except this year) were competing but just missed the playoffs in the last few years. Ms pocketed large sums of money. Now, 2004 Mariners face the side effects of their managerial success formula of the last few years.
Realistically, in every company, dollar is king. With large spending power due to retirement of Edgar, end of Olerud’s contract, Moyer (next year) and some lower contracts, what category of players are they going to pursuit? Will they continually overpay for over the hill veterans (Raul, Eddie, Scott), will they rebuild from within (Seattle Rainiers), or will they finally make a splash (Beltran, Beltre, Kendry Morales)? Please provide answers in percentages on the likelihood of these options.
Mike — that’s what I thought would happen, that the categorized front page would obey the same display rules as the uncategorized front page: last x posts or last x days, depending on what I had it set at. That doesn’t appear to be the case orrrrr.. the database call to determine which 10 posts is taking so long it’s timing out.
Sergey — they care about fan opinion only so much as they believe it might impact the financial side. If fans are angry enough that they’re not turning up to games, they’d care a lot more.
They’re marketing an entertainment product for families, in their mind, and that involves being competitive within the division and keeping those families happy. If that means overpaying for Dan Wilson, they’re happy to do it.
They’re a profit-making enterprise above other considerations, and choose profit certainty over perhaps larger potential returns that involve some risk.
You have that wrong: your money back guarantee SHOULD read: “We will gladly take your money back.”
And on the profit side- my guess is if the ratings tank for broadcasts they start having to pay advertisers- plus next year’s season ticket sales are likely to take a hit, based on the attendance I’m seeing show up at games.
This is why Blowers and Glasgow are pimping Delgado on the postgame show, IMO. If I had to bet on the postseason moves, I suspect they’ll sign him, a FA starting pitcher of some talent, and someone at 3B or SS like Orlando Cabrera, trade someone for the 793 underpowered corner OF’ers not named Ichiro for bullpen help, and try to pass it off as the newly competitive Mariners- ignoring the fact that the Angels started off the 2003-2004 offseason with a BETTER record than the M’s will have going into the 2004-2005 offseason, added Vlad, Colon and Guillen (as good a haul as the M’s could likely get in the offseason, and the M’s are likely to do MUCH worse), and are not a lock to make the playoffs. The package I described above maybe gets you to .500 IF a lot of things go right, 85-90 wins if EVERYTHING goes right (Boone, Jamie, Eddie and Joel all return to their best form, Olivo takes a step forward, etc.)…but if things go wrong (Delgado turns into another post-30 on the decline bust like Rickey/Martin/Sierra/Cirillo/Ibanez/Spiezio, Franklin’s still garbage, the rotation still is fluid), the M’s will be lucky to win 70-75.
I mean, come on:
– Billy Beane will be sitting on his butt
– Showalter may be a control freak but he DOES build good teams
– Moreno will be shoveling out cash
So we’re in a division where likely EVERY other team is a good shot to finish above .500, and has management that ranges from above-average to really astute. A strategy where the M’s try to win in 2005 and invest heavily in over-30 veterans is fraught with disaster, and what the M’s SHOULD do is take a hit in 2005, plan on drawing 20-25K to a team that loses 90 games and continue to evaluate their minor league talent, and after purging the veteran contracts (Boone, Winn, Moyer, Franklin, Shiggy etc.), make a run in 2006.
But that would be a HUGE breach of faith with the fans. Thus the dilemma facing Lincoln, Armstrong and Bavasi for the 2005 offseason- teams RARELY go from 95 losses to 95 wins in a year, and when they do (see the 1961 Reds and 1967 Red Sox for examples) it’s largely because they replace the schlepps with good young players- yet the M’s are going to be stuck with a ton of marginal, barely above replacement level talent on contract for 2005 that it’s nearly inevitable they will play regularly (and lose with regularly): Franklin, Shiggy, Ibanez, Spiezio, Bloomquist, Boone and Moyer (if they don’t rebound). I just don’t see how they pull it off yet. Maybe if they signed Beltran and Beltre in the offseason and managed to move some talent to bring guys like Reed into the lineup I’d feel better…but right now, I don’t see a lot of hope for 2005 aside from the “everything breaks perfectly” scenario that teams like the Brewers and Royals depend on in spring training.
That should read:
“Billy Beane will NOT be sitting on his butt”
Yeah, you will want to sub-categorize the baseball posts. Though I’d be surprised to find that this issue hasn’t already been dealt with — anything about it on the WordPress forums?
Attendance as in “seats occupied” is already down significantly, and advertising revenue will drop, but I don’t know when ad contracts can or will be negotiated. I expect that the huge broadcasting contracts signed in 2003 are written in stone for a while and that the broadcasters will take the brunt of the storm, but I don’t expect that they will forget this year’s revenue fall-off in future rate negotiations either.
If this blog had a better research function, I think I could find a projection of the probable loss in revenue (thanks to PECOTA for the performance stats and mostly DMZ for the financials) somewhere prior to Spring training this year. And it was damn good.
Wendi!
Yes, sub-cats would be cool. Not to get too meta-USSM, but there’s a point at which category and the other options become too much of a pain per-post. Sooo… I’m working on possible compromises.
Regarding Lopez, I need some help. I have been in this multiple day long arguement with some idiot who thinks that Lopez is a bust just because he isn’t hitting .300 right now.
I have given him every stat I can think of, proving him otherwise, compared him to other shortstops in their debut year (Jeter, A-Rod, Garciaparra, Tejada, Crosby, etc), but he won’t budge. By the way, the only stat he has given me is his CURRENT major league average. Does anybody have any ideas, or should Ijust let this guy go and have bad ideas in his head?
Also, I just asked him if he would rather have a player hitting .350 with 20 RBIs or .200 with 120 RBIs and he chose option A. Never mind, I give up.
He also said that Bloomers is way better than Lopez.
He’s not worth my time or yours. Sorry to use your bandwidth on something so dumb, USSM.