On March 8, 2012 we published my first Bleacher Nation article. Six-plus years and about 1,250 articles later, I let Brett know that 2018 would be my final season covering the Cubs farm system here on a daily basis.
In the end, it just came down to time. It takes a lot of time to properly do all the things I expected from my minor league coverage – talking about organizational guys as well as noteworthy prospects, looking for new ways to evaluate and project prospects with stats, promoting the affordable fun that makes minor league baseball so great, breaking down the draft from the viewpoint of strategy and organizational direction as well as prospect acquisition, sifting through all the videos and data for the next highlight or breakout prospect or piece of odd trivia, etc. – and I just do not have the time to keep doing that. Not at that pace, and not to the level of quality I expected from myself.
So I am retiring from being the regular minor league guy at Bleacher Nation. That doesn’t mean you won’t hear from me at all, though. I’ll still be on Twitter doing many of the minor league things I did here (only shorter, and not on a daily cadence), and my byline will still pop up around here from time to time. But the regular minor league coverage will pass into new hands.
I am going to miss this, though. Especially you. You looked forward to the Minor League Daily every morning, and you let me know it. I was honored to be a small part of your day, and I cannot thank you enough for giving me that opportunity. Many thanks to Brett, as well, for making me his first regular writer, and for basically giving me a free hand to cover the minors as I saw fit. I had fun, and hope you all did as well. Thanks, and so long.
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From Brett:
When Luke first joined up here at BN, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I’d been doing this gig full-time for barely six months, and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to handle the minor league coverage on my own. I also knew about this Luke Blaize guy whose work I really, really liked, and whom I hoped would consider coming on board to do it more regularly here at BN. What I didn’t know was just how good Luke was going to be, how thoughtful and reliable, and how much I would learn from his work every day.
I also didn’t know how much it was going to sting when he ultimately had to move on. That’s a credit to how wonderful this time together has been, and a reminder of how lucky we’ve been to have him around for SEVEN seasons. Luke is the man, not just in his writing and thinking, but also in the kind of person he is. We’re gonna miss you, my friend, and I’m glad we’ll still see you around the Tweet machine and maybe even periodic posts here from time to time.
As for what comes next, there is no “replacing” Luke. That is not really what we’re looking to do, and I doubt we could if we tried. That said, yes, we will still have regular coverage of the Cubs’ minor league system this season, even if the form looks a little different than it has in the past. We will have something to announce on that front soon, and I’m really excited about what we’re going to be doing going forward.
Until then: thank you for everything, Luke. Much love to you and your family.