We’re looking to add one person to the MLBTR writing team, in a part-time position that pays hourly. The criteria:
- Availability to regularly work an 8am-5pm (central time) news coverage shift every Saturday is required. We’re also seeking strong availability for other weekend and weeknight hours.
- Exceptional knowledge of all 30 baseball teams, no discernible bias. Knowledge of hot stove concepts like arbitration, draft pick compensation for free agents and international/draft spending limitations.
- A high school degree is required, and further education is preferred. Please include your highest completed level of education in your application.
- Writing experience is necessary, and online writing experience is preferred.
- Attention to detail and ability to follow the MLBTR style and tone.
- Ability to analyze articles and craft intelligent, well-written posts summing up the news quickly and concisely.
- Ability to use Twitter, Tweetdeck, and WordPress.
- The job may include opportunities for supporting research and social media tasks.
- If you’re interested, email mlbtrhelp@gmail.com and explain how you stand out and qualify in a couple of short paragraphs. Please attach your resume to the email. We often receive several hundred applications, so unfortunately we will not be able to reply to each one.
In your application, please include the answer to this preliminary question: After which season is David Peralta projected to reach free agency?
I’d love to do this!
Ha ha….then your first step should be to change your name. May I suggest beardedMLBfan?
No no no, you’ve got it all wrong. OP is a fan of socks that have beards, not a bearded person that is partial to the Red or White Sox.
You cant be bias. Being a Red Sox your eliminated
Bias is a noun. The word you’re looking for is biased.
You can be Bias. As in, I want to be Len Bias. And they’ll reply, “No. You can’t be Bias.”
You can be a fan of a team but still be an unbiased writer. You just have to learn to separate the two and not publicly show that you’re a fan of that team
like Marty !
I am a junior in high school, but I have some previous experience writing sports articles for our local town newspaper. I assume I’m not eligible, but just out of curiosity, is there any role you might consider creating for younger people who want to learn on the job?
Would be nice to see the youth angle on this site…
I don’t think it would matter if it was paid or unpaid, because the experience would be valuable to the young writer(s), and there’s an outreach aspect that looks really good for you guys as well.
Yes! Let’s do it for the children! They are our future!
Disclaimer: I am not a child.
For a more specific idea, something similar to the salary cap deep dive segments on PHR would be a topic of interest I think. Examining total team salary, what bracket of the tax they are in if they’re in the tax, and looking at the best/worst values would be a place to potentially start. It’s largely research based, which is very straightforward, and then you top it off with some analysis of larger FA contracts as well as who is providing value in their pre-arb years, and you’ve got yourself a nice long-term project going on. Thoughts from fellow commenters and/or staff?
Seems pretty interesting. I would also love to write for MLBTR and am also a high school junior. Unfortunately I doubt I have the time.
I’d even do the first one as a freebie, send it in to you guys, and have you see what you think. If you like it, maybe we can work something out, and if not, no big deal. There’s no risk involved for anyone. I’m nothing if not persistent.
OK, MLBTR, I’m really rooting for Connor, here. Reading his comments, the young dude’s already writing for a local newspaper and he pitched a great idea that shows some of the important knowledge you’re looking for.
Most importantly, he loves it so much he’d be willing to do it for free. But don’t let him. Find some sort of paid chance for him. He’s going to have the stuff you can’t teach.
I’d LOVE to see Tim writing a few more articles once again like he used to. Miss his insight instead of just some of the groundbreaking stories like he does now once in awhile.
How about it Tim?
I follow baseball religiously and know all the obscure guys just as well as superstars. I have writing experience too.
You also make some wonderful shoes
LOL
Like would you able able to name every team’s 40 man roster and top 30 prospects, know their contracts, age, and talk about them? That’s the type of knowledge they need
Please add to the job description to keep out personal political views. I have abandoned the other baseball talk site because of this. I want news, not commentary. That’s exactly what I get here, and I love it.
Then there’s really no need to bring it up, is there?
Unfortunately in today’s political environment, yes it is.
It’s hard to do when politicians keep meddling in sports. I also wished both things were separate, but I accept that in today’s political climate it may not be possible anymore.
Trump isn’t meddling in sports. If he was commenting on bad routes the receivers are taking, then he’d be meddling in sports.
But kneeling during the Anthem is not a sport, it’s a political statement, and it’s his job as President to address it.
Left bleacher report because of that. I want real sports news and this site is great
I feel ya there. That geriatric mumbling fool Peter Gammons comes to mind…
That’s Hall of Fame geriatric mumbling fool Peter Gammons to you
And? Does that make him immune from criticism? He’s tarred and feathered his hall of fame career.
MVP post of the year IMO. (IMO means in my opinion)
Thanks for clearing that up
Np. Although I sense this is sarcasm and fail to see what irritated you about my post. (1 line)
I have a question for you out of left field…….. Are you an “ESPN insider”? It’s ok
as long as Casey’s Partner doesn’t apply!
He fancies himself a baseball journalist when in fact his blog is nothing but Phillies bashing and scary. When he was banned here he posted a blog ranting about the injustice, it was shortly after the shooting at Mandalay Bay in LV. He ended the blog with a picture of the shattered hotel windows and (I am paraphrasing here) said “How much more can one man take”
What is his blog called. I’d like to see what he has to say
just Google free-aec you will find it.
Have we ever met Casey’s Partner’s partner?
First time I saw Casey’s name, I thought it was Casey Palmer
Doesn’t have one. Nobody wants to be around him
Good thing they don’t have this for NBA Trade Rumors. NBATR readers, could you imagine Dionis writing for NBATR.
*dead*
It would be nothing but articles about how the Rockets didn’t get worse this offseason even though they clearly did.
He brings up the Rockets in threads that aren’t even about the Rockets. It’s basically like reading an article about the Pirates, and he’d just blurt out about how the Yankees are way better than the Red Sox, even though the Sox just swept the Yankees
This is a good take.
Usually when the ad doesn’t mention the hourly salary, it’s not very impressive. I know we joke about the “writers” making minimum wage, so I’m curious how much above that it actually is. I just can’t fit this into my extremely schedule for such low pay even though I have been asked to help. Writing at 8AM on Saturday?!? No thank you. #SAFTB
At the very least, hopefully whoever is hired will light a fire under Jeff and Steve so they keep improving their “writing” abilities, which is what I have done with the @MLBTRerrors Twitter account. Since I’ve been actively helping them correct their mistakes, they’ve shown improvement but are still below average overall.
Wow. Stone cold. You got stones. And regardless of your disdain for a free service, I felt you deserved an upvote. Enjoy.
Extreme, not extremely.
Got em.
“I just can’t fit this into my extremely (justifiably vacant) schedule…”
Fixed.
Aren’t you the pompous popinjay.
Well, when you brag about creating a Twitter account just to call out an entire website for making errors – the least you can do is not make your own errors.
If you want to spend your time pointing out our typos, I’m glad to have the chance to correct them. And I’m glad to be held accountable.
As I have stated previously, however, I disagree that we have a poor record on this front. The nature of our writing process involves time-sensitive, real-time writing along with self-editing and self-publishing … all while monitoring news, writing original pieces, and performing other functions for the site. If typos can slip into newspapers and more thoroughly edited blogs, they’ll make their way onto MLBTR.
Trust me, though, I don’t want any such errors attached to my name and do my best to avoid it. Substantive accuracy — especially, appropriately representing any reported information — is a much greater priority, however.
I down voted because the majority of the mistakes I see are because the post was hastily posted and is obvious the writer did not read what they wrote. For instance having the same word typed two times in a in a row row(see what I did there? I see it all of the time here), or there has been times where it was clear the writer went back and deleted and rewrote a sentence or a phrase, but failed to delete all of it.
You can’t claim it’s to rush to be the first to report, because let’s face it, you’re not. You follow other reporters whom have already reported in some way. Not to be taken the wrong way, because I love the site and I like that almost ALL news and rumors can be found in one place and this is pretty much the first and only place I come for it. That being said…KEEP UP THE otherwise GREAT WORK
Jeff didn’t say he’s rushing to be the first to report. He said it’s time-sensitive, which is particularly true of breaking news. I give them a mandate to have breaking news up within 30 seconds of the original tweet. We understand we are not breaking stories, but speed is still absolutely crucial. I could change 30 seconds to three minutes, and the typos would drop, but I’ve chosen not to do that.
In related news, Manny Machado was traded to the Dodgers.
#TypoFree
Tim, I’d love to hear what you think about Kenny Lofton being in the Hall. I tend to think leadoff hitters are being undervalued. Every argument I hear against it, has to do with him not compiling enough hits, or power numbers. But he got on base, scored runs and played a great center field for 16+ years ..
Scott Burgos….Unless you have someway of influencing whoever will be on the next “Today’s Game” committee you are just barking at the moon.
It’s fair to critique, for sure. We should always strive to do better. There are definitely times where we’re putting things together quickly and make a mistake. I mean, someone put “Francisco Rodriguez” instead of “Francisco Liriano” in a headline today … won’t say who … oh, yeah, me.
Honestly, much of the time it happens when you get on auto-pilot and type something quickly. It’s probably less frequent in the initial posting of a breaking news story than it is when we’re trying to add info and update quickly. I will knock out 2 paras and want to get the post updated before I write the next couple paras, and perhaps republish it without looking closely.
These discussions do remind me to try harder. I will keep doing so.
As a television news producer, I see errors go on air all the time. Not factual, but typos. No matter what market. There are always mistakes, and breaking news adds to that. Get the news out, and if there happens to be something off it should be fixed, but hopefully it doesn’t happen. I’d love for some people to summarize a five paragraph press release in two sentences in only 30 seconds knowing it’s going out to a large highly critical audience with the understanding errors do hurt credibility on a certain level.
It’s not as easy as it sounds.
Also, I watch games every day where the baseball broadcasters say wrong names, stats, or historical facts. They usually don’t ever correct themselves… it’s maybe 50/50.
On my local college FM station they butcher a lot of MLB player names. With today’s technology, a quick text message with the correct pronunciation is always welcomed by the stations staff.
MLBTR is #1 on baseball talk so words spelled wrong don’t mean a damn thing.
Everyone is on this site for news. Period.
Couldn’t agree more regarding this particular field of writing. Typos are forgivable, easy fixes. Reporting late, and/or inaccurate information? Not quite as easy.
Bingo. If you can still tell what the writer was trying to say, what does it matter? All the typos I’ve seen are pretty understandable.
Some people would rather be the last one to publish correct, well-formatted information, while others would rather be the first one to publish a sloppy rush of an article.
While some of the things are done in jest, it seriously takes less than 45 seconds to read through the article one single time, and I’m not that fast of a reader. Nothing is that urgent where one minute will matter; the majority of readers stick to their preferred source(s) of information anyway.
Why not take just a little bit more time to produce quality work and show that you care about your work with your name attached to it? When I see repetitive, constant errors, that tells me they don’t care enough.
It may seem like a small thing to some, but there’s competition in every field. I can tell what a person is trying to say in their resume or cover letter, but if they don’t take the time to correct the (small) errors in the letter, will they take the time to make sure “more important” things are done correctly? I don’t know.
JJB……Judging by the responses and down votes you seem to be one of the few with a stick held securely by your sphincter ani externus. You might want to consider that.
My happiness isn’t determined by up or down votes at all. I don’t even look at that, so there’s nothing for me to “consider” judging by the audience. Ever since I was 13 and stood my ground as the only one of my friends who wouldn’t try smoking, I’m fine being the only one to do or say something. It’s all good!
We just have different standards for quality when something is published on this website, and I accept that. I just think they can do even better, and the fact that they decide against it is what’s unfortunate. Hitters and pitchers work on their weaknesses to get better, and I think they should too.
There are “writers” who are just as knowledgeable (if not more) that can combine speed AND accuracy, so using the importance of “breaking news” as an excuse just doesn’t fly. Maybe we will see them on this website someday!
Back to our regularly scheduled programming! I’ll step out of here. Thank you all for the discussion!
You had friends?
None currently is a given…but even in the past I find it shocking
I bet you’re a Jackie Bradley Jr fan and your screen name is a typo
^^^^ thinks using fancy terms like “sphincter ani externus” makes him sound smart.
The content of what I read is so much more important than the occasional typo. It’s one thing to notice them, but posting about it is nothing but nitpicking. Ridiculous. It makes everyone picture their old maid sixth grade English teacher.
@Jeff, don’t feel the need to defend yourself against this clown who apparently tries to correct you but can’t even put a paragraph together without his own errors. SMH. You and the rest of the writers are appreciated by the far majority here.
I don’t want to be one of “those” people, but you’re my favorite writer on here Jeff and your live chats are my favorite to join. 2 gold stars to you sir
I do not care about occasional typo’s.
I gave up my job with the “grammar police” long ago. The folks at MLBTR’s do a great job, getting info out quickly and accurately.
Keep up the great work!!
Why do you guys even bother responding to this garbage?
I’m sorry, but do you really run a Twitter account dedicated to pointing out writing errors for a website about sports trades? I really don’t even know what to say.
Haha, I know, right? Who has that kind of time? I’ll admit sometimes I don’t even notice the few typos these guys make until someone points it out in the comments.
While it was created in jest and isn’t used that often (as you can see), I set it up because I was previously banned on here for pointing out similar errors in a post. I won’t mention who banned me, but my post wasn’t rude or offensive in anyway. Maybe they didn’t find it as funny as I did, but I didn’t feel the banning was justified at all.
Unless somebody is threatening others, using vulgar language, or something else serious, I don’t like censorship. My post contained none of those things. However, being that this is Tim’s website, he has that right to ban anybody for any reason. I support THAT.
As a result, I’ll happily point out “silly errors” on the Twitter page free of being censored or banned by somebody who can’t handle criticism.
That’s why I joke about a real “writing” job, because editors and publishers have much higher standards, and real writers have to be able to handle much more focused criticism on their work.
I’ve had “real” writing jobs. Whether or not I suck at this particular job, I don’t think you have any idea what you are talking about. But I appreciate that you have a high standard for the site, truly.
To be clear, we do not ban people for criticizing the site. I don’t even know what handle you had that was banned, but I’m certain there was good reason unrelated to our supposedly thin skin.
Speaking of criticism, I want to applaud the fact that you didn’t get involved in the ‘Newcomb tweets’ story. Thank you
“I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.” Bingo.
look on the bright side….it’s not even close to being a tenth as bad as a other certain other trade rumor site
Oh. My. God.
Your “extremely schedule”… you’re welcome!
I’m going to start a Twitter page @JJBerrors, follow me!
Hero. You, sir, are an amazing human being. Thank you for this selfless act. Perhaps someday you will be honored with the accolades you clearly deserve.
I am definitely applying and lucky for me I have no discernible bias whatsoever!
LOL
Okay this is pretty funny
Oh boy….here goes, hope I’m picked. Words?…good. Articles constructed using several words?…better. Anything and everything to do with baseball?…bestest ever! Jokes aside, great site, good writers, lots of up to the minute news. Best of luck in the search
forgot to mention that writers must use the words “of course” and “that said” as often as possible
Ha, that’s only me. You can have whatever writing crutches you like.
How many people have the time to acquire exceptional knowledge of all 30 teams?
Definitely a younger person’s pastime. I devoured everything baseball pre-Internet, pre-strike: broadcast games, newspapers and periodicals, memorabilia, fantasy baseball, Strat-o-Matic, history, Bill James, etc. The strike and basically life stopped all that for me. But I gradually got back into it where it’s just the Cubs and MLBTR for me now.
I didn’t understand the original comment at first, but your reply makes a lot of sense. To me it seems simple enough to have at least a general knowledge of all 30 teams, but then again I’m still just 20 and without a full time job at this point since I’m still a college student, so I have more time to devour all that info. So you bring up a good point.
Well they are only looking to add one person, so only one person in the world needs to possess those traits.
That being said I’ll give some general life advice to you and all the other commenters here who have expressed interest; I see a lot of people making this mistake time and time again: Don’t intepret a list of job qualifications as a fixed obligation set in stone. Regardless of whether zero or 100 applicants meet all the qualifications, they still need to fill the position, and they will fill it with the best available person.
Depending on the talent of the other applicants, that may or may not be you. You should not abstain from applying for a job you really want, simply because you are unable to check just one of the boxes. The true perfect candidate almost never exists, Don’t let yourself lose to hypothetical people.
I do not want the job. I was just making a comment. But thanks for the general life advice.
I see people comment on every mlbtr post. So…probably those people
Lol. That’s all I did through high school. I was a savant. Literally all I did was follow
I’d be interested, have 30 years of experience as an English and Journalism teacher and was in the media before education
But well, I’m too tired
I think that last sentence applies to many of us.
Few hundred applications for a couple positions? That’s like Harvard acceptance rates
I hve exexive nowlige of all 30 teams. I’ll take the jbo for s bah of balls anf a change of senery. Oh, and I need you topay for me to lurn how to rite.
I’d like to write a piece about Kenny Lofton’s Hall of Fame Case
Yet, your avatar is Lyman Bostock.
Oh so I can’t be a fan of, and respect Lyman Bostock while simultaneously advocate Kenny Lofton for the Hall?
Well, of course, you can but since your bit is all Kenny, all the time….
I’d love if you guys could get a player’s wife or partner to write the occasional piece from their perspective. Could be a great insight
Yeah, let’s start with Chipper’s wives.
That would be great. My first choice would be Reid Brignac’s wife for sure. I’ve always wanted to know how her husband put up with her posing for Playboy magazine.
They should add that if you are a regular in the TR comment section you are automatically disqualified.
Lmao
How would you like to hire a grade school educated crystal meth enthusiast? I work full time straight ️oolin on thots on Fortnite but I can write in between rounds. I have prior writing experience, having been a prominent contributor on a recently defunct Phineas and Ferb fanfiction site. I also have no discernible bias or connection to any MLB team. Ok goodbye
The emoji B in Boolin didn’t load. The emoji policy around here will change immediately if I am hired
Vince Skully would be the only one to qualify for this. He probably knows more about baseball than anyone in the business. Even though he was a Dodger broad caster he never showed bias against any team. He was the best.
Hi my name is Dave and I would like to be the writer. I like to fancy myself as a bit of an Anthony Bourdain because I frequently travel to Thailand and spend a lot of money there. I’ve spent the last 10 years working for a bank (Jos. A. Bank) and in my free time I enjoy rocks. I believe this is a very politically charged climate in which to be writing anything; whether its news, fiction, or sports pieces. And while I agree with the above commenter who said that people come to sports to escape the stress of contentious issues, I think its inevitable that our perfectly secluded stories that play out for nine innings between those two foul lines will occasionally run up against the reality of our slavery to the lizardjews running the new world order. Does your insurance plan cover dental?
Traveling to Thailand frequently, seems kinda creepy. Especially, the whole “I spend a lot of money” bit. So does liking rocks. Come to think of it, the whole post seems rather creepy. While they certainly won’t consider my opinion during the hiring process, you sir would not be a welcome member of the team, in my opinion. Enjoy, I don’t know, being weird I guess.
“Traveling to Thailand frequently, seems kinda creepy.” Especially, the whole “I spend a lot of money” bit.
Really?
I’d say your comment is extremely ill considered, and actually you’re talking about someone “being weird”?
sarcasm ftw
No bias unless you’re a padres fan.
Honestly though, congrats to whoever gets this job.
My name is Reginald Charming. Many of you have undoubtedly read my work, as I am the author of the groundbreaking op-ed piece “Tinder and the Injustice of Age Restrictions” that was run by Reno Home and Garden last September. While the vast majority of my time since then has been consumed by representing myself in the court case that inspired this article, I’ve nonetheless found time to work on my legal blog, which poses challenging questions, such as why the government is legally allowed to seize a hard drive filled with 120GB of art. Through the time and energy I’ve poured into my blog and the 12 hours I invested in downloading my law degree from BitTorrent (Chrome incognito-can’t prosecute), I’ve learned how to ask difficult questions, which I think would apply well to this wonderful sport. When will the fly ball revolution reach its apex? At what point will the insufficient compensation of minor leaguers reach its breaking point? And how can an Instagram DM sent from the State of Nevada be admissible as evidence in a court of the State of Idaho? I look forward to hearing back.
I can’t figure out if this is satire or not.
Oh wait. I figured it out.
I don’t work weekends, so I’m out.
This sounds like the second half of my dream job, and I’m already doing the first half.
Unfortunately I don’t feel as though I have the kind of knowledge required. I know I could leave my bias out of my writing.
I wonder how many MLB players have accounts on MLBTR and actually post here??
Three.
I wizhes to writ for MLB Trayed Rumples, pleeze.
Exceptional knowledge of all 30 baseball teams, no discernible bias.
———————–
Oh yeah, that’s easy, no problem. I know everything worth knowing about the majors: I’m well versed in both the present and the history of the NY Yankees, and, because I’m 100% objective and unbiased, I also recognize the obvious, undeniable fact that the other 29 teams are worthless, and there’s no reason whatsoever to cover them.
I can start Monday. So see you guys then.
Go Cubs.
Awesome. Love it.
This has been the most bizarre (and the most entertaining) commentary section of any website I’ve ever seen. Ever.
What is interesting here is Mattingly has a consecutive home run game stress. He wouldn’t call for it in fear of Acuna passing his record. Would he? That would be sooo Puuzzzzz