I mean, he seems like a genuinely good guy and it's great that he gets to focus on Baseball (and, uh, Harry Houdini) for his professional outlet. I don't begrudge the guy; I'd be shocked if he hasn't made the calculated decision to back off on his daily writing/commitments to focus on his family and writing/podcasting for fun as opposed to for money. If he can make that work, good for him. He certainly paid his dues.
What I meant was, when I (and I think most people here) became aware of him, it coincided with a period of sports-media criticism (FJM, most notably), but before podcasts became ubiquitous and it felt like fans were captive audiences to half-assed writing (Peter King, Phil Mushnick, etc...). And then he got bogged down with the Paterno thing at the exact time it seemed like he was going to kick it into the next gear. And I wonder what that experience was like for him, and if it turned him off from becoming a more prominent national writer (or if he had a bad experience at SI that had the same effect; his stint there was pretty short).