The Winter Meetings are one of my favorite times of the year. I love baseball transactions, so that's a bonus, but around the Winter Meetings, we often tend to lose a few writers here at the site. When I was the Managing Editor here, 10% of me hated that. The writers that left were often some of our best and brightest. But the other 90% of me couldn't be happier ... because writers tended to leave because they'd been hired by a major league franchise.

Over the last couple of days, two former Beyond the Box Score writers were hired by two MLB teams. Best of all, these brilliant minds were hired to fill really cool positions. Dan Turkenkopf was hired as the Director of Research and Development by the Milwaukee Brewers, and Jon Luman was hired as Director of Analytics for the Los Angeles Angels.

Of course, I'm biased -- I think that each of these two gentlemen will do an incredible job with their new positions -- but I'm consistently amazed that BtBS can be a jumping off point to work in baseball. A number of our writers and analysts have taken internships with franchises, and some have moved into full-time front office roles like Dan and Jon.

As of today, I can identify several big league franchises that have employed or currently employee Beyond the Box Score writers. For the sake of so many people who operate quietly, or on NDAs, I'm not going to list the names of those writers or which team they match up to, unless they are long-term, publicly-known individuals.

(Teams in bold/italics are teams where a BtBS writer / analyst has worked)

That's pretty cool.

It's a broad range of teams, too! We've hit the "every division" checkbox, and hit the oldest franchise (the Reds, right?) and both of the youngest (the Rays and Diamondbacks, right?). Some teams have even brought on multiple BTBSers -- the Rays have pulled in contributors from multiple points in the site's history (the recently promoted Peter Bendix, Dan Turkenkopf, and Andrew Ball). They hold or have held multiple positions, from ops interns to director-level positions.

We're also dangerously close to completing the NL Central bingo card, as I feel like it is almost a sure thing that this is what is holding the Cubs back from winning a World Series.

In addition, I have it on good authority that at least one or two other teams not indicated here have also worked with a BtBS employee in some capacity at some point in the past or present. I feel comfortable saying that half the major league baseball franchises have employed one of our writers at some point.

(Plus one NBA franchise!)

When you're reading the articles here at BtBS, feel free to make a small mental note that the writer you see here today may be the front office cog a team leans on tomorrow. That's not to say that we're kingmakers here at the site -- this is a group that runs on the tireless contributions of incredibly self-motivated individuals, who would probably have remarkable success whether or not they ever join our masthead.

But, at the same time, we here at the site are also extremely proud that the name Beyond the Box Score may sit adjacent to theirs at some point in the story of their careers. Every single one of the people with whom I've had the pleasure of working here has been capable, dedicated, and brilliant. It's no surprise that they've risen to the tops of their chosen field. I look forward to more of our writers enjoying the same kind of success that Dan, Jon, and the dozens of others who've moved on to MLB teams -- perhaps very shortly.

Congratulations Dan and Jon, and thanks for being part of our team.

Dan Turkenkopf's articles at Beyond the Box Score can be found here.

Jon Luman's articles at Beyond the Box Score can be found here.

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Bryan Grosnick is the Lead Writer for Beyond the Box Score, and a contributor to Baseball Prospectus and Baseball Prospectus - Boston.