D-backs Under Review is Headed to the Arizona Fall League

With the Diamondbacks' 2025 season over, it's time to share some key offseason plans here at D-backs Under Review. While the postseason is going on, I'll be hustling to try to get this publication more visible to the fan base.

The next step will be the Arizona Fall League, the next professional baseball event to hit the Phoenix area. It's a six-week continuation league where teams send minor league players to get more reps. Salt River, the club where the D-backs players will play, start their season on Tuesday, October 7th.

Arizona Fall League Plans

I've gotten my credential approved to cover the D-backs' prospects at the Arizona Fall League for D-backs Under Review. It will be my fourth straight year covering the fall league, doing it for Arizona Diamondbacks On SI (2022-23) and AZ Snake Pit (2024). It will serve as the first opportunity to cover a beat in the way I envisioned since I left On SI the first time in 2024.

Since I started writing about the Diamondbacks in 2015, prospect content has been my primary niche. In the previous three years, I've had the chance to talk to Jordan Lawlar, Austin Pope, Philip Abner, and Christian Montes De Oca. All four players are on the current 40-man roster.

I plan to cover mostly East Valley games (Salt River, Mesa, Scottsdale), as I live in the southeast part of the valley (Queen Creek). I currently have no plans to cover the tripleheaders in Tucson or Goodyear, given the rising gas prices.

I'll be hustling to produce as much content as I can for social media (X, YouTube, LinkedIn). I've started a D-backs Under Review YouTube channel, to upload video content. This should give me more reps in the video creation and editing department, a skill I'll likely need to develop to keep this publication running.

In addition, I've brought on James Attwood as Managing Editor. Since I'll be on the beat for the Fall League, there will be plenty of content to post between the two of us. I've known James from my early days on AZ Snake Pit (crazy I've been on that blog for 12 straight seasons).

I plan to do a daily beat segment where I share my insights from a game, with the D-backs the primary but not sole focus. Features will be free to the public, but the daily reports will be behind the $3/month paywall (see below).

Video content will be posted on both my personal X account and the publication's. Hopefully it gets amplified in X's discovery algorithm, which tends to favor content that keeps its users on the platform compared to outgoing links.

D-backs Under Review Status: October 2025

Since leaving On SI at the end of June, I decided to start my independent blog. Originally, the plan was Substack. It was something I thought of when Lindsay Crosby, my colleague at Braves Today, did last season.

I had started a publication on Substack at the end of 2024 as a fallback plan in case things didn't work out in my sports writing job search. A season later, we can already assume things did not work out, and I'll have to build my own coverage from the ground up.

In August, I switched over to Ghost thanks to the superior CMS (content management system) compared to Substack. I've also been focusing in on trying to further monetize my efforts. I started adding ads to my content through Google's AdSense.

I've also revamped my membership tiers, hoping to attract people willing to support the platform. Here's how they break down.

• Prospect (Free): Comments
• Rookie ($1/mo or $12/yr): Comments, Ad-Free Viewing Experience
• Starter ($3/mo or $35/yr): Comments, Ad-Free Viewing Experience, Weekly Newsletters, D-backs Deep Dive Analysis
• All-Star ($9/mo or $99/yr): Comments, Ad-Free Viewing Experience, Series and Weekly Newsletters, D-backs Deep Dive Analysis, Top Prospect Reports, Player/Coach Transcripts
• MVP ($18/mo or $180/yr): Comments, Ad-Free Viewing Experience, Weekly Newsletters, D-backs Deep Dive Analysis, Top Prospect Reports, Player/Coach Transcripts, D-backs Under Review Monthly Reports (like this piece).

Breaking news, news reactions, opinion pieces, and game day coverage will stay on the free side of the paywall. I don't plan to publish inside the paywall until I start my coverage of the Fall League on Friday.

If you want to support this publication financially, consider signing up to become a member of D-backs Under Review. I've posted the membership tiers and their specific perks, so you can't feign ignorance if you read this.

I might add more perks if I decide to start another podcast. Most likely an "extra innings segment" that I'll name "Under Further Review". I'll see how video content performs on YouTube and decide what to do next.

What It Will Take to Grow Into a Publication That Can Compete in this Market

I'll be closely tracking the growth rate response for October and November. I'll likely need an increase in traffic and memberships to keep it going. I've researched some overhead costs, and they're quite astronomical.

Imagn, the primary database most publications use for article images, costs $500/mo. for unlimited downloads. I don't expect that number to be made up fully in subscriptions and increased traffic, but at a certain threshold, I'll figure out a way to cover those costs.

It will take some time before traffic increases. As a new publication, it will take time before content shows up on search results. So I'll have to rely a lot on word of mouth, social media, and AZ Snake Pit for views at the moment.

I'd recommend bookmarking the page. I typically publish free content at 8:00 AM MST. Producing daily content will definitely be mentally challenging, but that's the physical cost I'll have to endure to ensure the cleanest possible distribution network.

Ideally, this publication still gets enough of a boost in traffic that I can continue to post in the 2026 season. I've already posted a lot of content in anticipation of what next season could look like.