Interview with Royals Review Creator, Writer, & Manager Will McDonald

Second in the blogger-on-blogger blogging series is the definitive Will McDonald interview. Prowling as the mystical Freneau, Will McDonald is the shepherd of Royals Review. I decided to search in the deepest recesses, digging to the center of baseball's soul, to unearth what makes the Will McDonald clock tick. The following interview was conducted over a series of emails. Detailed is a menacing story, including Pop Tarts, Sabermetrics, and even... Katy Perry. Enjoy!

Will, what year was Royals Review created and what was going on in your life at the time?

The site launched in May 2005, if you can believe it. At the time, I was finishing up my first year of graduate school at Iowa, beginning what I thought would be a glorious life studying American literature.

Can you explain the steps it took, whether conceptual or concrete, to get www.royalsreview.com up and running?

Well, to be honest, most of them were not mine. In 2004 I had started a blog called Royals Nightly on blogger. SB Nation started shortly thereafter, and Tyler Blezinski, who founded Athletics Nation and the rest of the network, reached out to me. There weren't many Royals bloggers at the time, so it was just luck. The concept was based off of the political blog Daily Kos - building a community with registered users, diaries, etc. Eventually that got expanded technically and as an idea. That's why I joined SB Nation. I hoped that eventually the site would run itself because it would be a place for Royals fans: it wouldn't just be about one guy writing.

So if Royals Review doesn't run itself, what are your duties to Royals Review? Are they mandated by SB Nation, or do you contribute as you can, like a hobby?

Well, in terms of content, it does kind of run itself. I like to think that people go to Royals Review to read the comments and see what people are saying. I just try to facilitate that and at times contribute my own perspective. With regard to SB Nation and my duties therein, basically I just need to post regularly, make sure we have game threads, etc. I've never been told "write about X" or "start or stop doing Y." As a group we do talk about how to write better and how to do technical stuff and how to make the site better. As a group, even just amongst the baseball guys, we paint a variegated portrait style-wise, but it is a group I'm proud to be a part of.

Is there any money in sports blogging?

I think it is comparable to many forms of freelance writing at this point. A very small percentage of bloggers, very small, have been able to make it a full time career. Then you have another group that makes a little extra cash from it, and then another group just doing it for fun. The first, I dunno, four years I blogged, I probably made $1000 total. In recent years I've made a little bit more, which has been very fortunate, because I've certainly needed it.

If you are not living "a glorious life studying American literature," what are you doing outside of Royals Review?

I work in politics, in communications. I'm working on a congressional campaign right now.

From the cornfields to Capitol Hill, as the way it is and shall be. With Pandora's Box open, I will let the readers guess the politician. So then, outside of Royals Review, are you constantly searching for ways to extend your prowess as a writer? How about that book on the 2004 Royals (please tell me that one is still in the works)?

Yes, but the search is a little like the old quest for the Northwest Passage, mostly failure and dead ends. I don't really have much prowess. The thing I've spent the most time on, a novel, couldn't find an agent or publisher. I do try to think about ways to improve and longer-term things I'd like to do on RR to make the site better. I wish I was better and could do more. A book on the 2004 Royals, I think, would be a cool project. A way of looking at how variable and unpredictable and non-linear sports can be and how things can go wrong. Really a kind of 2003/4 book. But now, by the time it would be ready, the Royals will probably be a .500 team (or better, hopefully) that are seen as up and coming. I'm sure someone is ready to write the this-is-how-the-Royals-got-good book. I hope it's a good one. Obviously, the rise of the Royals, should it happen, will probably fit into some kind of "old-school baseball" narrative. The real interesting story would be incorporating Dayton's wilderness period and not giving the org a free pass on taking three or four years to start looking competent.

I am stunned a Will McDonald book couldn't get published. I know I could find a space somewhere between my signed Tales From the Royals Dugout book and my electronic copy of Mark LaFlamme's Box of Lies. I come to Royals Review for unadulterated baseball information and stay for the Will McDonald pieces, from Mitch at summer camp to Carl Crawford's antiquarian bookstore. What is the most and/or best exposure that Royals Review has received?

That is very kind of you to say. Probably, overall, the Carl Crawford thing was the most seen overall, though many who ended up reading it weren't really the baseball audience. Some of the really hardcore anti-Dayton Moore stuff I wrote a few years back circulated quite a bit. Honestly, many of the most popular posts haven't been written by me: Scott's study on prospect success rates, Jeff's post on baseball and Peanuts, the work that Connor and Jeff did on Eric Hosmer's positioning.

What would convince you that Dayton Moore is out of his "wilderness" period?

I think he's just about there. The moves at the Major League level have gotten much better in recent years, while generally also getting more conservative and minor. The Yuni signing was just... well... I understand the argument that it was a minor move, what I still don't understand is how you get to the point where you're thinking, "yea, let's bring Yuni back." I think a good model for Moore might be Dan O'Dowd, the Rockies GM. Devil Fingers/Matt Klassen introduced this comp I believe. The Rockies have a good foundation and they've made some savvy moves, but they're also always good for a real baffling decision every six months or so. I fully expect Moore to always be a slightly weird GM. The worry, as always, is that when the time comes to truly make that final one or two moves that the team needs to win the division, he'll botch it.

If the Royals started to contend perennially, do you think Royals Review would change drastically, losing its snarky mystique?

Probably a little. People won't believe me, but I do try to be more positive when I can and to give voice to positive people. The community mood will dictate. And even if/when we are winning, there will always be something to be snarky about. The real fun would be if we could be snarky about our hapless rivals.

There is this stereotype of baseball bloggers as Pop-Tart eating, Mountain Dew swilling, Taco Bell pounding, Momma's-basement dwelling nerds. Can you confirm or dispel this myth? I guess what I am asking is: why do you think the baseball blogging community gets a bad rap sometimes?

I guess it depends on how you angle the lens. Baseball blogging went in a particular direction towards stats and snark because that wasn't being provided by the mainstream. If the traditional baseball press had been using advanced stats and hardcore logical positivisim for the last century, then the online outlet would have moved towards people writing about sports like Emerson, in some idealistic, spiritual, way. I think that, collectively, the baseball fan public wants both. Socially, obviously, I think the stereotypes about bloggers are pretty wrong. Most I've met are very extroverted and sociable, on the spectrum from very dude-ish to very Type A business types. You do get the sense that the enterprise is very male in some way Christopher Hitchens would write about it: it's all trying to be funny or trying to establish expertise and I suppose intellectual dominance. If you wanted to be reductive. But other areas of the blogosphere have developed in different directions and I hope that RR is more well-rounded as well.
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I found Royals Review searching for more Royals coverage. Somewhere along the way I was sucked in by how much the site provided regarding statistical analysis, the predictive ability of statistics, and the meaning of advanced statistics in the modern game. The wealth of knowledge stunned me. I feel like some of the writers could literally manage professional team structure from a home computer. Is sabermetric/advanced statistics analysis something you originally strived to feature? How did the site evolve into its modern day presence regarding statistical issues?

I think it was mostly the direction that the readership pushed in. Back when I started, I wanted that perspective to be a part of the site, but for me, it's really more a frame of reference and a perspective than an active thing. I don't really have the skills or time to do saber-analysis, I just draw from it.

I have always wondered how many "lurkers" the site has based on the large responses to the surveys. Do you have any advice for first-time or casual readers of Royals Review?

Its a very large percentage. Actually, a huge percentage of people on the site at any given time are seeing the site for the first time, my goal, is, or was, to try to win them over. I can't say I have advice.

The Royals have been very gracious to the blogging community, from the Blog Your Way to the K program to allowing Royals Review staffer Jeff Zimmerman interview the front office. What do you think of this?

It's a good development. I've had my cynical moments, but overall, it is a good development. I'm not really invested in the Royals liking bloggers as a discrete issue, but as an extension of "reaching out to the fans" I think it is a good thing for them to be more receptive. The various Blog Your Way to the K days were a cool thing to do, and the way they do it includes super-fan types who aren't necessarily "bloggers". In part, since I don't live in KC unfortunately, I can't really be a part of these things one way or the other. I am glad that Jeff has gotten to do some interviews, which has been all him. I certainly haven't helped.

Do you think it would do the Royals some good to hire some more statistical analysts? If so, do you think the baseball blogging community has a plethora of prospects for these positions?

I have heard from my sources that they actually have some very good people on board. The issue, as always, is how they are used and if they are utilized.

Let's get hypothetical. The Royals hire you, Will McDonald, as an assistant to GM Dayton Moore. Can you give an example of what you could do to help the Royals succeed? (Feel free to take this in any direction you would like.)

Even thinking about the question is pretty embarrassing. I wouldn't be able to help at all. The question raises some interesting thoughts however. Such as, when we think back to the most obviously bad moves, how many people in the FO were against them? What were the internal debates? It's fun to think about. But no, I couldn't help in any way baseball-side. I have thought for many years the Royals -- well, all teams -- should hire additional writers for their team sites.

Do you think Eric Hosmer, or any other Royal, will one day replace Joe Mauer as the man that stares down Royals Review readers with his svelt advertisements?

Yes, but it may just be because web-ads will get more personalized. It's fun to think about what Hosmer might do, because we now haven't had a pure monster hitter in the lineup since Sweeney was at his peak. WAR is intellectually valuable, but as a fan I'd like to see one guy really hit too.

What is the over/under on the letters Mitch Maier will write to home this year? Do you think he is learning any grammar during the school year?

We'll have to see what direction Maier's place on the Royals goes. I'll be stunned if he's actually back on the roster as the guy who never plays again, but since it has happened once...

Will, it has been fun. Thank you for your time. One last question: Jenn Sterger or Katy Perry?

Whoa. That's old school. I am team KPerry for now.