Update for Readers of The Baseball Buffet

Issue #338

⚾ Hello! ⚾

I figured the All-Star break is a good time to send readers an update on how things are going with this daily newsletter, share some of the feedback I’ve received, and also share with you my plans for the future. So here goes!

A little bit of recent history…

As some of you know, I’ve been writing my Now Taking the Field newsletter for three years now. After my book (Now Taking the Field: Baseball’s All-Time Dream Teams for All 30 Franchises) came out in 2019, I spent time promoting it: over 100 radio/podcast interviews, an appearance on MLB Now on the MLB Network, a speech at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, and more. By July 2022, I got back to regular writing with a newsletter on Substack, and decided that “Now Taking the Field” would be the overarching “brand” name for all of my baseball work.

I wrote that newsletter for over two years, averaging 1-3 posts a week (all of which are still available online). All the while I was also planning for what I really wanted to do as soon as possible… write a daily baseball newsletter. I did a one-issue prototype for what would become The Baseball Buffet in late 2024, and then spent some time during the winter doing the following:

• Learning more about the newsletter industry, platforms available besides Substack, details of advertising and subscription models, etc.

• Taking a 5-week course on digital newsletters, including details on things I knew little about, like advertising on Facebook and other social media platforms.

• I switched the platform I use from Substack to beehiiv, as it was recommended by many in the course I took.

• I came up with the name “The Baseball Buffet” and committed to launching it on March 27, opening day of the 2025 season (aside from the early LAD/CHC series in Japan).

Fast forward 3+ months, and here we are!

I honestly didn’t think I would have made it to the All-Star break without missing a daily issue… but so far, so good! I might still miss a day or two this season… apologies in advance if that occurs.

Reader feedback so far…

I want to say a big “thank you” to every reader who has shared feedback with me since the launch of The Baseball Buffet. It has been overwhelmingly positive and encouraging, with the two most common, related sentiments being:

• Many indicating that you read The Baseball Buffet as you used to read the sports section of the daily newspaper (whether your local paper, or something like USA Today). That was precisely my intention here — I want The Baseball Buffet to be similar (with some differences) to what baseball fans used to get from their morning paper.

• Many of you have said it is the first baseball- or sports-related item you read each day, at least when I can get it to you early enough! (More on that in a minute.)

Many readers have also provided me with constructive ideas about features to add to The Baseball Buffet. For those of you that found this newsletter during June or July of 2025, you might not know that the early issues in say March and April, lacked some of the features that are now included every day: the Trivia question, the rotating League Leaders section, the MLB Debuts feature, the highlighted books (which replaced some early testing of ads), and the Good Reads section with article links at the end.

The most commonly requested feature—one that I am now, finally including going forward—has been the MLB standings. This took me a while to figure out how to do in a way that would work, as it needed to:

• Look good on both large laptop screens and small smartphone screens

• Look good when read in the email newsletter format and the web posting format

• Not add too significantly to my time to produce each issue (by far my biggest constraint, for now)

As you may have noticed with the July 14 issue, I think I have landed on a format that will work for the time being. I might change this in the future, and I am not promising (yet) to be including the full standings every day. But for now I will be including either partial standings every day, or full standings several days a week.

Some results from the formal reader survey…

In addition to feedback from readers provided either directly in emails or through the quick poll at the bottom of each issue (thank you!), earlier this year I ran a formal reader survey for several weeks. I received 65 responses, and that provided me invaluable input for the earliest days of this endeavor—so again, a big “thank you” to all who took a few minutes to participate. (Btw, I will have a new formal reader survey later this season, or by the end of the season at the latest, so watch for that!)

Here are a few highlights from that formal reader survey, for anyone who might curious:

• Just over half of readers (54%) read the newsletter very soon after receiving it (i.e., in the morning). Close to 20% read it around midday, perhaps over lunch.

• The most commonly read feature is the game recaps. This doesn’t surprise me, both by the nature of game recaps and because they are at the top of each issue.

• Many readers also love not only the present day game, but also baseball history—so the On This Day in Baseball History feature and The Birthday Boys feature are also quite popular.

• The Daily Trivia was a welcome addition to the newsletter, and I get many notes from readers who point out particular questions they really liked (keep’em coming, as that feedback is helpful!)

• While the look-ahead sections towards the end of each issue are the least often read (HR Watch, Hits Watch, Who is Streaking, Who Might Struggle Today, etc.), 75% of reader survey respondents said they either always or at least often review them.

In the formal survey I also asked what other sources of baseball information and analysis readers of The Baseball Buffet get the most value from. Here are the most common newsletters and blogs:

• The Athletic

• MLB Morning Lineup (MLB’s daily newsletter)

• Baseball America

• Baseball Prospectus

• JoeBlogs (Joe Posnanski’s excellent newsletter)

• Fangraphs’s newsletter

• SABR’s newsletter

Other commonly noted resources were more websites like baseball-reference.com, MLB.com, ESPN, CBS Sports, Yahoo! Fantasy Sports… and various specific team newsletters and sites of course.

What’s coming in the future?

As some readers know, I have a long-term plan to make baseball analysis and writing my full-time job. I am 51 years old, and currently work full-time as an analyst, writer, and speaker in the Human Resources industry. As much as I’ve enjoyed my professional career in that field, my long-term desire is to cut back on that work, and eventually focus entirely on baseball. I not only want to dedicate more time to The Baseball Buffet daily series, but I also have plans to do a second edition of my book, write several more baseball books, write a series of baseball e-Books, and more.

The Baseball Buffet has been free so far this season. While I plan to earn some revenue from affiliate links (e.g., the baseball books I highlight), sponsorships/advertising (I will try to keep that as baseball-focused as possible), and so on… the reality is that for most people to earn a living writing a digital newsletter, it needs to have a subscription rate.

This is coming very soon, and here are my intentions:

• The cost will be low, likely the industry low-end standard of $5 per month or $50 per year, and likely with a multi-year discount available.

• I plan to setup a referral program so that readers, with only modest effort, can get free subscriptions for themselves by referring others to become subscribers too.

• Free subscribers will still get some content each day (TBD), and will get the full issue once or twice a week as well.

My goal is for the paid subscription pricing to be as reasonable as possible, so that I have a very broad base of readers—while still putting myself on an trajectory to earn a living from my baseball writing. (I’ll note that books, e-books, etc., while I look forward to doing more of them, will likely not be primary income sources for me.)

I started The Baseball Buffet in late March with around 630 subscribers. That number has increased, in part due to paid Facebook advertisements I’ve been running, and is now close to 1,700.

But my goal is to have far, far more readers than that—and to have as many who are able to do so join as paid subscribers.

For that to happen, I know I need to keep providing consistent value. There is a lot of good content out there, both for sports and for your other interests. Some are free, some are not—and I realize that everyone needs to make a decision as to what they can afford and where their content priorities are. I do the same—I read many newsletters myself on a range of topics, and I can only pay for full subscriptions to a small number of them.

I think I’ve proven so far this year that I am capable of providing consistent value with The Baseball Buffet—over 100 free issues I hope demonstrates that. I want to earn the trust of my readers, and with a paid subscription model I can continue to do that (including even improving the service provided, such as a more consistent, early morning delivery time in the future.)

With revenue from paying subscribers, I will be able to pay for more ads to get more free and paying subscribers. Word of mouth is great, and as noted above I will have a referral program in place soon too. But paid advertisements on Facebook and other platforms has proven (for me, and many other newsletter creators) to be the best way to grow an audience. More paid subscribers will help fund more subscribers growth from ad spend, and soon it becomes a virtuous growth cycle.

What about more features? As noted above, I will start including standings more often, perhaps every day. Beyond that, many of you have said The Baseball Buffet is great or even perfect the way it is, and I appreciate hearing that.

But I do have ideas for potential additional features, once I’ve reached a level of income from The Baseball Buffet where I can devote even more time than I already do (which I hope can be as soon as next season). Ideas for more features — some of which came from readers like you — include the following:

• More transactions, e.g., players being sent down

• Who is slumping? (And who is hot lately, in addition to who is on a hit streak)

• Team streaks of various kinds (other than W/L streaks, which will now be part of standings)

• Upcoming milestones

• Info on players on the verge of being called up

• Full probable pitchers for each day

• Links to video clips of the best defensive plays

• Baseball Quote-a-Day

• Great baseball movie scenes

• Periodic deep dive updates on each team, or “star of the day” specials

Have more ideas? Send them my way at [email protected]. My work thrives on reader feedback, including constructive ideas for how to improve, whether in the near term or down the road.

In closing, I want to again thank all of you that have subscribed—those of you who have been with me since mid-2022, and those of you that have joined for The Baseball Buffet daily series that launched this year. I hope if you are financially able to do so that you will support my work further by becoming a paid subscriber when I soon activate that functionality for this newsletter.

There is a lot more baseball goodness to come! - Tom Stone