Article: Twins Daily's Weekly Review 4/28-5/4

[John Bonnes]

This last week on Twins Daily, we had 28 new stories, a new writer of game recaps, a brand new blogger, and a comment section that made me personally very happy. Plus, growing traffic and some upcoming changes to one of the forum pages. Here is the site’s week in review…..Stories

I count 28 stories on Twins Daily last week, which is remarkable, but we’re happy to have more. Among contributing writers, Cody Christie and Ted Schwerzer led the field in views again, but Andrew Thares pushed his way into the third spot, just ahead of Steve Lein. I’m also very happy to note that Thieres Rabelo made his game recap author debut, though now I’m blaming him for Friday night’s clunker. Of course, we also got great work from Jeremy Nygaard, Matt Braun, SD Buhr and Randballstu.

 

Forums

• Registrations – 12 (we had 1 the same week in 2018)
• Topics – 82 (up from 52 the same week in 2018)
• Posts - 2414 (down from 2737 the same week in 2018)

I wanted to call out one comment that I thought exemplified why we value our comments section so much. In my story on Friday about Harmon Killebrew’s home run that ended the Yankees dynasty, Devereaux added a link to the actual radio call, and Obie gave us a first-hand account.

 

I almost hesitate to call those two comments out, because so many provide additional research, thought, contrasting viewpoints and much, much more. But as a writer, I was so grateful for those particular comments. Staying up late on Thursday to write about an event that happened 54 years ago seemed a little foolish, and it was super cool to find it really resonated with a few members. When you comment, even if you are disagreeing with the writer, you really are honoring their work.

 

So let’s honor them back. The top commenters of this last week were Don Walcott, milldaddy35, ashbury, Brock Beauchamp, Mike Sixel, Blake, PseudoSABR, h2oface, Aggies7 & diehardtwinsfan. Remember, you don’t have to wait until someone else writes a story to talk about a topic. Go to the forums, and start a topic yourself. Our top topic starters this week included stringer bell, psturnbloom, goulik, Vanimal46, denarded and milldaddy35.

 

Finally, I think we should note that game threads are back and have been thriving. If you can’t watch a game with friends, we would love to watch the game with you. Just check the forums.

 

Blogs

Besides the stories on the front page, Twins Daily has a blog section. It’s where people from the community share their stories and some get promoted to the front page. It’s kind of like the farm system for Twins Daily, except you don’t need to be invited to join. You just start your own blog and start sharing. If you’re not checking it out regularly, you might want to.

 

The number of people willing to take the personal risk of writing for the community increased this week, and we had two members who didn’t write last week but did this week. Mike8791 expressed a thought I heard several times at the ballpark this week: with the window of contention open this is a good time to bulk up the bullpen. Mike8791 has written before, and you can check out his blog here. On the other hand, Agebo wrote for the first time on his new blog, and pointed out that the bullpen is doing pretty well and got a bunch of comments. I gotta tell you, both did a really nice job.

 

Plus, some of our writers from last week kicked in:

• Ajcondon recapped the Houston series. I’m looking forward to seeing more from him.
• Brandon Warne shared an excerpt from his story over at Zone Coverage about Jake Odorizzi.
• And Ted Schwerzer reprinted a story about Adalberto Mejia from his independentblog in its entirety on his Twins Daily blog. If you have a blog and want to do that, we don’t mind at all. And if you include the full story, it qualifies as a candidate to be promoted to the front page and Twins Daily’s tens of thousands of regular readers. I think you might be seeing more from Ted on the front page soon.

Remember, when you’re ready to start your own Twins blog on Twins Daily, we have a whole bunch of people who are ready to read it.

 

News

One thing that might be changing on the site this week is the ad layout on some pages, especially in the forum sections. Ads are an important factor in how we keep the site up and compensate our writers, and we’re working hard to try and get that revenue up. If it adversely affects the site in some way it shouldn’t, we appreciate your patience. As always, we’re open to feedback.

 

Also, my original plan was to publish this “Twins Daily Week in Review” on Tuesdays, and that is probably still the plan, but this week I’m going to do so on Sunday, in case that gives you some downtime to explore the site a little more. I’m sorry I can’t commit to being more consistent to the release date, but it’s an experiment and experiments can be a little messy.

 

Finally, I would like to thank Andrew Thares, who did a study of Twins Daily's traffic over the last five years behind the scenes. It gave us a lot to think about.

 

Overall Traffic Last Week

• Users – 27,382 (up 52% from 2018)
• Sessions - 68,948 (up 37% from 2018)
• Page Views – 206,665 (up 19% from 2018)

Like last week, traffic is way up over 2018, but it also increased from the week before. That’s pretty encouraging. I looked at the same two weeks last year, and it had basically stayed steady. And since the users and sessions increased more than the page views, I think it shows growing interest in the team to new fans.

 

(Welcome new fans. Introduce yourself and register. We love having new Twins fans join Twins Daily and its great community!)

 

It’s interesting that traffic increase happened during one of the toughest weeks on the team’s schedule. In losing seasons, I expect the opposite was true.

 

Let’s end with a challenge to anyone who is reading this – if you found something you really liked on the site in the last week – whether it’s a story, a blog , a topic of a comment, please put it in the comments below. It’s a big site, and maybe we can curate as a community some stuff that I missed in this week’s report. And of course, questions, feedback and thoughts about the site are always welcome.

 

Thanks and Win Twins,

John

• Last week's review

 

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[Mill1634]

How does one become a game recap author? I am interested in doing this it help is needed.

[USAFChief]

I'd like to thank all contributors, but I want to give a special shout out to Randball's Stu. I absolutely love his contributions to this site.

[mikelink45]

 

I'd like to thank all contributors, but I want to give a special shout out to Randball's Stu. I absolutely love his contributions to this site.

I am the opposite - the regulars provide me with much more enjoyment.

[John Bonnes]

 

How does one become a game recap author? I am interested in doing this it help is needed.

 

Reach out to Tom Froemming. You can do so with a private message in the site. But I know for a face Tom has already seen this one.  :-)

[John Bonnes]

Hopefully we have something for everyone. The goal isn't for everyone to love every story. The goal is to provide a buffet of different options, so everyone can find something they like. Prospect stories, game recaps, sabrmetric analysis, satire, roster minutia - load up your plate with what you want and leave the rest for the next person. 

 

I just love seeing what new hotdishes appear every week. If someone isn't writing about something, and you wish they were, maybe you're the one who should be starting a new type of story. Maybe start in the forums, maybe try your hand at blogging.

 

That's how the different types of stories in this site started. Seth wanted someone to write about prospects, so he did. John wanted someone to talk about sabrmetrics, so he did. Parker wanted someone to break down swing mechanics, so he did. It goes on and on. Tom Froemming wanted game recaps that talked about the mechanics of the game, so he did. 

 

There's a lot of creativity in the people who come to this site. Each one sharing something leads to more sharing. That's very cool. 

[Platoon]

The most impactful story I saw here this week was the one Chief passed along about pitcher Rich Hill and his family. It's a stark reminder that players are people, not just a bunch of statistics in a uniform. That's not always easy to remember. As for "baseball" itself, I like Toms game write ups and Ted's posts on team topics. One other thought. GT are back, and the numbers seem decent. But I miss the old GT's. The ones where if you commented on the game, or used math, you were soundly castigated! For those who didn't attend in that long bygone era, there were some extremely intelligent and very humorous comments made pertaining to almost anything. Except baseball.

[USAFChief]

For those who didn't attend in that long bygone era, there were some extremely intelligent and very humorous comments made pertaining to almost anything. Except baseball.

Hey!

[Devereaux]

Thanks for the shout out, John. Didn't see that coming. Have enjoyed your work from waaay back. Win Twins!