Former MLB infielder Christian Colón joined MLBTR readers in a live chat today. Click here to read the transcript.
Christian is a big fan of this website and he had a good time chatting! MLBTR congratulates him on his retirement. If you’re a current or former MLB player and you’d be interested in holding a one-hour live chat with our readers, please send us a message through our contact form.
Was that really Nick Senzel?
i think so, that’s pretty cool
I’ve always thought there were current minor league or MLB players visiting the site and anonymously commenting. This chat confirmed it.
For instance, should-be Hall of Famer Fred McGriff 🙂
@cey. Nope. Just a big fan and appreciate the World Series win in 1995 thanks to his help. I think if the strike in 1994 never happened he would have the 500 homers and be in already.
@FredMcGriff for the HOF, I think you know I was kidding. I’ve said the same thing here regarding him having his best season sabotaged by the 1994 strike. He would easily have 500 HR if not for that. Not that being seven HR shy of that total should matter. McGriff belongs in Cooperstown.
Cey Hey, next you’re going to tell us you’re not really Ron Cey…
@gbs42, Take a close look at my picture. Do I look like Ron Cey to you?
Ron Cey?! With a name like “Say Hey” I always thought you were Willie Mays, Lol, that’s why I never smarted off to you, Appreciate your take & insight pal. Ahahaha!
Cey Hey – Penguins all look pretty similar, so you could be him. 😉
Burgess Meredith reincarnate? Better than Don Meredith any day
I’m not the only one that believes Stroman is one of them.
@fever. I remember there was a new commenter (aldocious) in a Stroman post that either had to be his mother or Stroman himself. You would have thought the guy expelled gold after reading his comments. Haven’t seen him comment since.
Wasn’t it Mad Max or Kershaw that said they actually check the site daily and some players have admitted they learned of the trade here first?
That shouldn’t be surprising, the guys here do an awesome job of accumulating and sharing information. I can’t think of any better place.
There’s been former scouts and front office staff in here for a decade. But who’s talking? Not me.
man, the mention of Yordano Ventura’s got me a little emotional.
agreed
RIP Yordano, gone too soon
Why can “Christian, I farted” get through but my baseball questions can’t 🙁
Lol, it be like that sometimes.
I got 2 questions answered. What made Kluber so tough and how is he helping players reach their goals.
He drives them to the bank.
Were you going to ask “how did it feel to win the World Series” after 2 other people asked the same thing? Most questions were a word or two for answers anyway. “FELT GREAT”! “I WAS NERVOUS”.
Do you have to be a paid subscriber for this to work? It didn’t seem to be working for me.
No. It’s just really hard to get a question through. Literally thousands of questions being asked. Been on this site for something like three years and I have had one question answered. Their will be posters that will come along that will say they’ve had several questions answered and all I can say is I haven’t.
I see now, thanks. I actually got one through (the Boras question), it just took awhile.
@cal. Don’t feel bad I’ve got one question answered in years of asking in chats. I cannot even remember the question anymore. Lol
@cacetines… That was a good one. I was surprised how frank his answer was – kind of bitter toward his most recent agent, whoever it was.
dkhits20-
Thanks. I’m always intrigued by how the people who aren’t superstars but are represented by Boras view him.
Christian was able to answer about 12% of the questions asked, to give you an idea.
That’s actually a larger percentage than I expected.
It’s probably a mixture of luck, the type of questions the host wants to answer and the method in which the questions are asked. I got 2 answered today. I thought of every question I could possibly want answered and typed all of them in a row right when it started. 2 questions answered but I had about 6 unanswered. If people are only asking one or two questions the chances any get answered are very slim. One of the keys is making sure you have read all the questions already answered. If you ask a question that has already been answered they will just ignore you. Persistence pays off though so the more you ask the more you will have answered.
Not true Hammer, in this chat alone there were duplicate questions answered. Twice he was asked who was the toughest pitcher he faced, and also twice he was asked which road stadium was his favorite.
The guys here do a fantastic job writing, but there’s definitely room for improvement on the chats. Fewer repetitive questions being answered would help, as well as a one-question-per-person-per-chat limit.
Thousands of questions being asked, yet somehow Samuel was able to get three of his answered in this chat. Nothing against him, I just think there should be a one-answer-per-person-per-chat limit.
Enforce it by not allowing people to use a name different than their user name.
I’m not trying to be mean but things like this should be for subscribers only.
Why? Shouldn’t it be up to Christian? He’s the one who agreed to do it. I don’t think he’s getting a cut of the $2.99 a month you pay.
That’s a fair point. Maybe Colon said he wanted it to be open to everyone. However if you paid for the site you might see why I am saying this.
Not disagreeing with you, but it’s closer to $2.67/month if you pay for a year at a time.
I’d hope both can be options down the line, though I think it’s possible the player would prefer the larger audience.
Mr. Tim that would be fair to have some of these player chats open to everyone and some only to subscribers.
I feel you but this feature has been for everybody since its inception. It would be really tough to change it to paid subscribers only.
Also, I think MLBTR has to be careful about just how many differences there are between paid subscriptions and those who haven’t. We don’t want to create an us vs them kind of culture here because the free users are still important to the integrity of the body of users.
Anything that benefits the paid subscription crowd certainly have to be ad-on’s and not things that are taken from the free users.
I’m not a fan of taking longstanding things we’ve had for free on MLBTR and putting them behind a paywall, and we haven’t done that. I have no plans to put the arb projections behind a paywall, for example.
We’ve actually never had a live chat with a former or current MLB player before, so this is a new thing. I hope to continue it. I think it’s better suited for the free site and is more fun for the player that way. If we develop a relationship with a player we may be able to do both free and subscriber chats with him.
The free users are the vast majority of MLBTR readers and are crucial to the site. So I will always keep finding ways to improve the free site.
I will also continue taking putting subscriber revenue back into that service so that it keeps getting better, adding things that MLBTR never had or tried and didn’t get the traffic to justify the cost.
I thank you from a long time MLBTR reader. One of the very few sites that don’t hide behind a paywall. I truly appreciate that MLBTR, (tries) to use the merit it’s built on and continues to exist today. Truly grateful
One thing that has to be considered is the number of people who showed up to the chat that Christian actually knew personally. I counted 3. One of them was Nick Senzel. I think Christian really appreciated them wishing him well on his retirement. The chances are if this was behind a paywall those people wouldn’t have been able to show up to support Christian. Who knows if Senzel or anyone else is a paid subscriber? I think the players themselves appreciate it being open to everyone so people they know can show up to support them without having to pay. That was a great chat.
It’s all good Tim. Thx for all the great content. Keep it up. Cheers!
they must be greedy as hell, if they can’t afford 3 bucks a month to join these chats (talking about the players)
@Steve Nebraska What happened to deleting your account?
Wow very charitable of you, your highness.
This is what I mean right here. Creating conflict between paid subscriptions and free users is something we really don’t want and it doesn’t have to be.
Also, I think Nebraska made a really good point about the players. This could actually even draw more players and thus more web traffic. Keeping these available for free users is good for MLBTR’s health.
I couldn’t agree more SalaryCapMyth, but apparently the Bearded one expects, just as with Ralphie and his Little Orphan Annie decoder ring, to be granted copious VIP-level rights and benefits of his $3.00 monthly subscription.
He really likes Trevor Story, Bo Bichette and Nolan Arenado… Interesting choices.
Great idea, though you might want to consider what The Guardian does in their reader interviews with musicians. Readers are given advance notice with a deadline to submit questions. The Guardian writer then chooses the best/most creative questions for the actual interview. Questions chosen are accompanied by the reader’s screen name. Asking questions, I believe, is limited to subscribers.
By the way, advance notice for questions would enable MLB Trade Rumors to better promote the forthcoming story.
Here’s The Guardians’ most recent reader interview with Big Boi (formerly of hip-hop duo Outkast). Nicely done, in my opinion. Fans/readers can ask some darned good questions.
theguardian.com/music/2021/dec/02/big-boi-hip-hop-…
Christian, congrats on your career. I too went to Canyon, years before you, and worked with your buddy and teammate Brandon P. He always laughed when talking about having to dig out your throws to 1B! With apologies to Eric Valent, you and Rob Deer are the best players to come from Canyon. Again, congrats on your career.
Wow an Eric Valent reference……? We had hopes for him in Philly….
Haha you got it! Yeah, he was trending up, seemed to stall, then that was it. To his credit he seemed to know when it was time to quit.
So Colon had 1 career HR….? And a WS ring….? I have similar (@bbref.com) build…..
………..I wonder if a genie came to me and asked what would I sacrifice to have 1 career MLB HR….AND a ring……..?
Good luck in retirement sir!
– signed, in sincerity, a jealous man
That was an awesome chat. Stuff like this is what makes MLBTR cool. Wish they did more of this.
Thanks this was nice
Now we know what’s holding up the MLBPA/Owners settling their differences. Owners won’t give the players a free subscription to MLBTR.
C’mon, Tim, give ’em a break. Buy one, get one free maybe.
I am sorry I missed the live chat but this is very cool. I have been a reader of MLBTR for years and just when I think nothing else new can be done, the do this. I have learned so much. Thanks Tim Dierkes for the content of this site, and for me, the app.
I noticed nobody asked him if he ever reads the comments of any of the articles.. or if they did he didn’t notice the question..
Awesome!
Missed the chat, but read the transcript. That was awesome; what a treat. I hope more people, whether they’re current or former players, coaches, FO people etc. also agree to do some chats.
that was tremendous! I hope you guys can do that again soon and hopefully with other players as well too.
That was an awesome chat. Thanks Christian.
What A funny world , doing a colonoscopy prep tonight , and reading material is Christian Colon’s chat. Let it flow
That was great, thank you CC and MLBTR