Spring Training Events
I’ve been working on putting this together for a while now, and this morning, I officially announced a few events that I’m planning for my FanGraphs trip to the Cactus League in March. For all the details, you can check out the full announcement, but here are the basics.
On Friday, March 11th, we’re taking our staff to Goodyear for a match-up between the Indians and the Mariners. We’ve reserved space in the Right Field Pavillion area, which includes unlimited food and non-alcoholic beverages. We’re also hosting a pre-game Q&A with some folks from the Indians front office, so if you’re interested in hearing the perspective of another team’s front office, that’s included in the event. If you’re going to be attending that days Mariners spring training game, now you have the option of watching it with me (and most of the FanGraphs staff) if you’re so inclined.
The following evening, March 12th, we’re hosting a series of panel discussions in a conference room at our hotel. I’ve invited a few executives from different Major League organizations to come, and there may be a member of the M’s front office in that group, so this will act as something similar to prior USSM events we’ve done before, just without the specific Mariners-only focus.
Those two events are on the schedule. Beyond that, I’m likely going to be in Peoria for the M’s game against the A’s on March 12th as well, and if there’s enough interest from folks headed down, we’ll put together some kind of group ticket purchase and watch that game together as well. If you’re interested in that possibility, leave a comment below and we’ll gauge whether that’s something we want to pursue.
I am interested and would participate in a group ticket purchase. I’ve always wanted to go to the USSM events but never could because I live in Arizona.
I am definitely interested in the group ticket purchase. I just graduated from college and had planned on going to Spring Training anyway, and have always wanted to be able to go to a USSM event.
Where do you buy tickets for the USS Mariner event on the 12th?
Wish I’d known about this earlier. Going down later in the spring. Anyone have good ideas on what to do while down there… best way to get tickets, etc etc?
It depends on what you mean. If you’re asking about the evening panel discussion that might include a member of the M’s front office, then you can buy a ticket to that here. If you’re talking about attending the game in Peoria on the 12th as a part a USSM group, that’s still in the planning stages. We’d need to see how much interest there is before we proceed.
Dang I’m going to be there the weekend before. Oh well maybe another time.
dchappelle: If your looking for things to do in Phoenix other then spring training games there is quite a bit. Scottsdale has a cool “western” themed shopping district, there are some pretty cool ruins about 2 hours out of phoenix, and the grand canyon is 4 hrs away. When I go down I stick pretty much to games every day and hanging out at the pool every night.
Dang it! Already have everything booked for March 25-28th. Really wish I could make it to these events!
Hey Dave,
I will down there at the same time and I think that it would be cool to attend the two events and perhaps get a chance for a meet and greet with you and your cohorts.
I look forward to it!
Lonnie
Jealousy, jealousy, jealousy.
Already have my tickets for that game but I would love to come and mingle with you guys!
Are we pretty much shut down over here, Dave? Not a complaint, just wondering…
What’s there for Dave to write about? This is a rebuilding year, and spring training hasn’t started yet.
Dave could always think of things to write about. This site is slow because he’s slammed over at fangraphs, where he makes a paycheck.
Good for him for finding a way to make money in the blog world.
Consider trading for juan rivera or michael young. Rivera would be a great 4th outfielder and platoon/DH for Saunders.
Or how about us signing Felix’s older brother! Do I smell a CY Young Race?!?!
I wish! Haha how wild would a Hernandez brothers lineup? Is he even a starting pitcher?
I don’t know if it means anything, but he was given a Minor League contract. I don’t remember what his numbers are/were like, but I hope he can have an impressive spring. What a cool story that would be.
I’m sure Dave appreciates you referring to Fangraphs as “in the blog world”. 🙂
Moises Hernandez won’t be pitching in Seattle anytime soon.
It makes Felix happy, though. His face lit up at FanFest when talking about the signing. A happy Felix is a happy Carson.
Carson I completely agree. If Felix is happy then as a fan I’m happy. Felix was awesome at fanfest. In fact all the guys were pretty cool this year and I really enjoyed seeing the young guys there.
Lookout Landing manages to at least update us with minor signings…
I understand Dave’s priority is fangraphs as they pay better, but isn’t that why there are multiple authors over here? Just curious..
Some of you are either new to USS Mariner or have short memories. Right about this point in the year, when there’s really nothing going on worth talking about, we can have dry spells in content like this. So the Mariners have added a few more minor league contracted spring training invitees. It’s not that big a deal. Things will get back on track when there’s something worth discussing. Even though the LL crew over there is reporting all these things, they’re also just throwing stuff up for entertainment.
So, if you want to be entertained, go over there for a while. Most of us have made use of all the blogs in the sphere over the years. No reason to worry about this one during a news famine.
I guess I’m one of those short-memory people, because I’ve been here since … I forget, pre-Bavasi IIRC … and I don’t recall the droughts being this deep and long. Obviously, things are different now: no Derek, and Dave having a gig which actually pays, instead of (or in addition to) this one. If USSMariner faces a decline in content, we can only say thanks to the authors for what they’ve contributed over the years.
Which brings readers to the question: what next? I used to read Baseball Prospectus, until it went mainly pay-to-read; I used to also read Baseball Primates until it switched to Baseball Think Factory and got a web re-design which made it unreadable. FanGraphs is the obvious alternative to those sites, but although there’s plenty of good work there, it’s typically not stuff that I find nearly as interesting as USSMariner was.
LookoutLanding is the obvious alternative for Mariners-related stuff, but I found the comments to be worse-than-worthless (unlike USSMariner). I suppose I could read the articles and skip the comments (even some USSMariner readers say that this is what they do), but that takes away one of the big benefits of blogs: the chance for give-and-take, multi-way communication, and even a community of sorts.
Soo, I’m a bit adrift at this point. I actually follow basketball more than baseball: the only four blogs that I read daily are this one and three basketball blogs. Maybe I’ll cut back to three.
P.S. Along similar lines, I was thinking about going to the Fangraphs spring training event — I live in So Calif so it’s relatively close, yet I’ve never attended spring training. But then I realized that I really wasn’t interested in a baseball-related event, it’d have to be a Mariners-related event to draw me in.