RAB is shutting down

jon abbey

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Jul 15, 2005
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Just announced, as of April 29. Mike killed comments last year sometime and it's been clear to careful observers that he has been on cruise control for a while, but still a real loss to the increasingly shrinking world of Yankee discussion.

http://riveraveblues.com (the specific post isn't linking correctly, titled 'The Beginning Of The End'.
 

cromulence

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Aug 25, 2009
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Wow, that really really sucks. Easily the best Yankees blog out there. Damn damn damn.
 

EvilEmpire

paying for his sins
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Sad to see that. I used to read them a lot, but sort of dropped off over time. JA does such a great job curating Yankee news from RAB and other sources that I hadn't missed it much.
 

Brand Name

make hers mark
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Very unfortunate. Never thought the comment section was anything more than a way to streamline and improve quality, which was commendable.

Such a good blog, echo crom's thought of it as the best Yankee blog. One of three key places for Bombers info: Here, Kate for stats, Mike's posts. Helped to have a mix of depth opinions to mix around with for a team that rarely gets the proper depth coverage it deserves. Axisa's one of the few people (plus some here) that made me want to get into sports from this side of the profession. Will be missed a lot here, has to be an absolute crusher for one of my friends (Adam) that guest writes historical retrospectives there.

Make that two personal favorites this season to die off. At this point it's tempting to make something of my own, blog and/or pod.
 

Murderer's Crow

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Jul 15, 2005
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I imagine it’s a lot of work without a lot of financial gain or incentive. Very sad to see it go and hope someone else picks up the baton. This reminds me of when the bleacher creatures ceased to exist because the same 6-10 people couldn’t continue to show up for 81 games every year. It’s the end of an era that hurts. However, there are still some good forums out there in addition to Yankees reddit and a few good Twitter follows.

There’s never going to be a shortage of Yankees commentary and coverage but I would very happily trade NYYF for Mike to stick around.
 

terrynever

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As Brand Name mentioned, Jon Abbey and our little group of Yankee fans on SOSH provide a nice insight into the pinstripes. The amount of work Jon puts in is substantial. He directs a lot of Yankee info our way. I was too lazy to go to RAB, perhaps knowing Jon would link what casual fans like myself needed to see. Maybe Jon killed RAB? Maybe the Internet eats its own.
 

jon abbey

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Does it make sense to invite the folks over there to join this board? I am unfamiliar with the site, but. . . .
No, it’s not a board, it’s a blog with multiple entries each day, most by Mike Axisa, who has a fulltime job at CBS in recent years and just doesn’t want to do it anymore after 12 years (understandably). it is associated with him too closely for him to feel comfortable passing it off to someone else, something else I totally understand. They closed off comments last year sometime, they had one guy named ‘Go Win’ who would be an awesome addition here but no idea how to contact him.
 

jon abbey

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At this point it's tempting to make something of my own, blog and/or pod.
One thing you could do which I don't think currently exists and would be pretty easy is what RAB does with Yankee bullpen workload, but you could do one for each team, so 30 total. I use the Yankee one all the time and it will be a real loss if it is not replaced, and it wouldn't be too hard to update each night, even if you had to do it manually (unlikely).

http://riveraveblues.com/resources/bullpen-workload/

I think the guy who runs the great 'rosterresource' site started that on his own, he also works at MLBTR. That has also become crucial pretty quickly IMO, they keep track of guys moving up and down in the minors which I don't think anyone else does, very helpful, here is the Yankee one (I am sure you know this site, Jess, but for anyone who doesn't):

https://www.rosterresource.com/mlb-new-york-yankees

Anyway, providing a resource like that couldn't hurt your ongoing job hunt...
 

Hendu for Kutch

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Apr 7, 2006
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One thing you could do which I don't think currently exists and would be pretty easy is what RAB does with Yankee bullpen workload, but you could do one for each team, so 30 total. I use the Yankee one all the time and it will be a real loss if it is not replaced, and it wouldn't be too hard to update each night, even if you had to do it manually (unlikely).

http://riveraveblues.com/resources/bullpen-workload/
FYI, this site tracks all teams' bullpen pitch counts. It doesn't have the "Warmed Up" entry, but still might be useful for you.

https://www.baseballpress.com/bullpen-usage
 

Sampo Gida

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Aug 7, 2010
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I used to comment a lot on RAB after Lohud shut down comments during the days my Red Sox loyalty was crushed over Titos firing and I became more of baseball fan untied to team loyalty and willing to weigh in on Yankees baseball during their darker days.

Closing comments in midseason seemed a bit suicidal (as was Lohuds switch to FB) . Whatever was behind it, perhaps a buyout to control the Yankees PR (commenters were critical as was Mike at times) we may never know. Maybe just fatigue.

Its too bad since there was some decent analysis there that I have not seen since SOSH was at its best (board vs blog making it hard to compare)

If it was economics wonder why they did not try a subscription model for those who wanted to comment. The fact they did not suggests economics wasnt the main issue
 

jon abbey

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Jul 15, 2005
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I used to comment a lot on RAB after Lohud shut down comments during the days my Red Sox loyalty was crushed over Titos firing and I became more of baseball fan untied to team loyalty and willing to weigh in on Yankees baseball during their darker days.

Closing comments in midseason seemed a bit suicidal (as was Lohuds switch to FB) . Whatever was behind it, perhaps a buyout to control the Yankees PR (commenters were critical as was Mike at times) we may never know. Maybe just fatigue.

Its too bad since there was some decent analysis there that I have not seen since SOSH was at its best (board vs blog making it hard to compare)

If it was economics wonder why they did not try a subscription model for those who wanted to comment. The fact they did not suggests economics wasnt the main issue
He's been pretty clear that he was just massively burnt out, he had made just short of 20,000 posts on RAB (including plenty of unnecessary ones like revisiting trade rumors from 10 years ago periodically) plus he got a job writing for CBS Sports online in the meantime. He closed the comments because people were increasingly huge assholes there, stalking and threatening others, and it was a pain in the ass to police.

Also he did just start a Patreon subscription thing if you want to read his well-written but IMO quite often wrong ramblings, he will write once a week and you pay $3 a month to subscribe. Even with how little money that is, I think I will pass.