Leaving Substack

A new domain for Swings & Takes

Welcome to swingsandtakes.com.

Swings & Takes is a hobby. I enjoy writing, and so I write. That others might read what I write makes the time and effort worth it. The S&T audience quintupled in 2024, and I greatly appreciate the new and continued support.

For a few reasons, Substack doesn’t offer exactly what I’m looking for anymore, and I’ve decided to leave. I think this is a good move, and I hope you stick around.

The new website (now officially swingsandtakes.com) is hosted by Bear Blog. You can read about the premise of the host platform here. It's simple, and it's clean -- no ads, no trackers, no algorithms, no log-in required. Click and read and share, if you want.

My goal with the new site is to offer the same semi-regular feature writing but also 1) give myself a place to write more casually, 2) show off some data, and 3) have a bit more control over the space. Everything I write will be on that website.

The following is an outline of what's available.

Newsletter

Featured posts from Swings & Takes can still be read as a newsletter. These will be sent about once a month, or more or less -- whenever there's something I've spent a bit of time on and feel like promoting. You can subscribe on the home page or by visiting this link and entering your email address. (Note that I won’t automatically import subscribers from Substack, as I’m sure there’s a number of users who only wished to read via Substack, and I don’t want to force anybody onto the new service.)

The newsletter will be self-hosted through listmonk. Your email address will go to me alone, and I will add you to the list. If you were exclusively reading Swings & Takes in your inbox, you shouldn’t notice a difference once you sign up. While your email address won’t wind up on a box store email chain, there’s a chance S&T will be sent to your junk folder. Newsletters will come from newsletter@swingsandtakes.com, if you want to mark the sender in your email provider.

I have a newsletter ready to send next Monday, as a trial run.

If you prefer to read without an email, all newsletters will be posted here. Feel free to bookmark the page and check in every so often. I will continue to link to posts on BlueSky.

Blog

I often find shorter things I want to share that aren't quite long enough to turn into a formal newsletter. That's what the blog section is for. I'm imagining briefer snippets of news, quotes, commentary, game summaries, and leaderboards -- a public notebook. I won't send these via email, but I will post links to BlueSky.

Comments

I've made a comment section available through Cusdis. I'm not expecting tons of comments, but I'm happy to create a space for others to leave feedback or commentary. No account is required. Simply enter a nickname and write what you please. Comments will be routed to me first for moderation, and I'll approve them as they come. I won't allow anything completely unhinged, but I will allow you to say your peace.

Data

I have a few ideas for data tools that might be useful to the community, particularly related to T-Mobile Park. I'm hoping to display them on the "data" page. If you visit the site on March 10, there's one already up with some park factor splits. This is a trial run to confirm that it works, which I'm pleased to see that it does. The app will be down after today, and I hope to launch it more permanently soon.

Substack

The Substack site will remain available for now and likely forever. I wrote at least one thing here that's been referenced a few places, and I won't break those links. I will, however, work to move the full archive -- all my best and worst takes, over the years. This is a tedious process, and I'm not prioritizing it, but I'm committing to doing it by the end of 2025.

I will eventually delete all email addresses stored on the Substack.

Thank you

I really do appreciate the support over the last year. I’m excited for the future of Swings & Takes, and I hope others enjoy the new site as much as I do. Feel free to reach out with any questions or concerns at newsletter@swingsandtakes.com, on BlueSky, or on Substack (where I will continue to have a personal account).

Thank you for reading.

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