One worry I had in leaving The Athletic was that all of the costs associated with covering the Twins would now fall entirely on me, adding to the risk. Six months later, I'm thrilled to say that your incredible support, and the growing subscriber base here, enables me to do something I've never done before.
I'm traveling to Las Vegas next week to cover the General Managers Meetings in person for the first time, as an independent writer. Many mainstream outlets cut back on travel expenses by not sending writers to the annual event, but I see it as a valuable chance to interview Twins officials for the last time before the lockout.
It's not something I imagined doing when I quit my job in May to take this leap of faith and was mostly just worried about making a livable wage, but thanks to your support — and the support of Gleeman and The Geek listeners — I'm able to start thinking about new ways to best cover the Twins even if doing so is expensive.
I'll be writing articles from the GM Meetings, exclusively for AaronGleeman.com readers. And we'll also be recording podcasts from there for Patreon subscribers. It's exciting to think about what my coverage can be now that I'm beholden to no one but my readers and listeners. Thank you for making that possible.
Qualifying offers
I'm hoping to use the GM Meetings to get a better sense of whether Ryan Jeffers will accept or decline the Twins' qualifying offer. My assumption is that he'll turn it down, for the reasons I wrote about earlier this week, but I'm curious if that's a league-wide view and how much Twins officials are willing to comment on it.