(This post originally appeared on Bus Leagues Baseball.com)
Every so often, we like to talk to other writers who spend long hours chronicling the exploits of those in the Minor Leagues. Kevin Gengler of RaysProspects.com is one such writer. Kevin has been covering the Rays system for several years and has become one of the premier go-to subject matter experts on things minor league Rays-related.
Kevin has been an e-migo of the site for a while, having Mike as part of the RaysProspects 2011 Predictions and working with Scott on the RaysProspects Future Considerations podcast. So it was only natural that we have him here.
Bus Leagues Baseball: How long have you been blogging about the Rays minor league system and what got you interested in the Rays minor league teams and players?
Kevin Gengler:I had started and stopped a Rays prospect blog in 2006-2007, mainly because it wasn't just something I could commit to every day. And with the strong work being done by DRaysBay and RaysIndex even back in the losing seasons, there wasn't much of a niche to carve out.
BLB: Why blog about it? Did you feel there was a gap to be filled in the blogosphere?
KG: RaysProspects in its current form came to be in mid-2008, and I do think the team winning and the increased interest created a gap. Doug Milhoan created a blog to write about the team's pitching prospects, so I e-mailed him asking if he'd be interested in having me on and we could cover the whole system.
BLB: Were you a minor league baseball fan before you started blogging about the Rays minor league system?
KG:The minor leagues and prospects were always interesting to me, as far back as seeing Nomar Garciaparra with the Trenton Thunder as a kid. Some years down the road I stumbled on a link to a Baseball America Top 100 prospects list, and to read these scouting reports and projections was pretty fascinating.
BLB: Did you look at any other organization-based blogs before starting RaysProspects and if so, what influences did you take from them?
KG: I don't think we were influenced much early on by other sites. Over the years we've tried to adapt some things from other sites (like SoxProspects and Phuture Phillies) and tweak them, but overall there really hasn't been much that we've seen and said "we should do that here."
BLB: How do you follow each team? Do you watch all of their games, get your information from their websites, or get your news via twitter, etc?
KG: MILB.com is obviously the biggest source of information with the boxscores every night. Being on Twitter is nice too, in addition to the teams I follow three beat writers who do a great job (Adam Sobsey for Durham, Stacy Long for Montgomery, and Micheal Compton for Bowling Green). If the Rays are off or played an afternoon game, I'll listen to a radio broadcast online or check out the Bulls on MILB.tv.
BLB: In recent years, there has been a large growth of Rays blogs, both at the major and minor league level. Do you think this is a good thing, and has it affected your blogging at all? I noticed for example, you have incorporated several other writers on to your site.
KG:I think it's a good thing, and for us, bringing Jim Donten into the fold was great. He's provided pictures and info from Charlotte in addition to notes on the system as a whole as he's done a lot of the recapping work. He and Nick Hanson, who was also in Charlotte, are great to get the boots-on-the-ground perspective. BurGi, a fan from Germany, has done a terrific job on the stats side.
BLB: What Rays prospect do you think your audience follows or has followed the closest since you started?
KG: Tim Beckham, because he was the #1 overall pick, is always going to be a hot topic of conversation, especially when it gets into a pedigree vs. production debate. Henry Wrigley's just about the opposite of that, an unheralded guy who's been a run-producer, but he's a lot more popular with our audience than I would've expected.
BLB: Some of the Rays prospects through the years have been as close to “can’t miss” as you can get. But are there any “under the radar” prospects that have really piqued your interest? Did they end up making the big league club?
KG: My track record on sleeper prospects isn't terribly great (Jason McEachern and Ty Morrison were two of my favorites, but neither has made "the leap"), but Alex Cobb is a player I was higher on than most after his season at low-A in 2008. He has taken steps forward each year and it looks like he could settle in as a back-end starter. As a site, we were also "in" on Jeremy Hellickson pretty early.
BLB: Have you seen any/all of the Rays minor league teams live?
KG: Living in New Jersey makes this pretty tough, as the teams are mainly located in the south. I've been able to see the Hudson Valley Renegades, who play in NY, but the Durham Bulls are the only other team that plays in a league with teams relatively close.
BLB: You have a podcast with Scott Grauer, who also writes for us. Can you tell us a little about that, how that is going, and what has the reception been?
KG:For me, it was something that I had just wanted to try my hand at for a while, and to bring a different dimension of coverage to the site. It's been going well, I feel, and the experience really makes you appreciate the podcasts that do a really great job. It's nothing huge, but we've had Jim Callis (of BaseballAmerica) and Kevin Goldstein (of Baseball Prospectus) on for episodes and people definitely liked hearing two guys who write about prospects for a living talk about the system.
BLB: Do you feel a sense of pride when some of the prospects you have been writing about for years make it to the big league club? Do you ever feel as if you are handing over one of your own to the MLB-level bloggers?
KG: I'm not sure about pride, but I do like when a player is called up and he's not a complete mystery because I've followed him for the past few years. A nice of example of this is when some chatter was out there earlier this season that Matt Moore might have been tipping pitches. It made sense immediately to me because I had noticed that same thing watching him on MILB.tv last season, so I was able to jump into the video from his major-league start and, along with Scott, make a post on DRaysBay showing it.
I'm not necessarily handing them over, but I hope our coverage is able to give fans a better idea what to expect when a player does get the call.