[blogguy]

I've been able to come up for air for a few days here in this month off. The half dozen people who were visiting the house for the past week have now gone off on a trip...taking with them everyone in the house but me and the pet bird.

The month spent preparing was worth it...amazing how much junk you accumulate over the years...then you have no place to put when six people ages 9 to 70 are sleeping over. Nothing more to throw out...nothing more to clean...no blogs to write since I took the month off...let's see if we can make a baseball think tank work.

We laid the groundwork at the beginning of the season...and many of you made some great contributions. I'm hoping to hear from more of you in the coming week as we hopefully put our heads together to find something we can create for all of our own benefits on these pages.

Personally, I've got to decide what my role is going to be in the world of forums down the road. Being part of a group of handicappers/fans/thinkers that's trying to learn and discover new possibilities has always been a dream. Arguing with people about whether or not soccer players are the best athletes in the world, whether or not basketball players who play great defense are worthless, whether or not guys who assault their wives in public should be suspended immediately or allowed to pitch in their next start...has not been. I need to spend ZERO percent of my time with stuff like that...and I'm not sure why I kept jumping into non-debates where it was clear that one side just wasn't even trying to deal with reality. Debates can be fun, especially when everyone studies the issue and tries to reach a consensus about what's really going on. I guess I was thinking those kinds of Mess Hall debates would head in that direction...but I've learned they usually don't.

Spending a week with people aged 9-70 helps you see that kind of stuff, and the futility of devoting any time or energy to the nonsense.

So...down the road...I might be just a writer who helps provide content to the site...I might be a volunteer who helps coordinate an effort to have a year round think tank...I might be a lurker...but I'm not going to get into any more of those dumb Mess Hall debates.

To get the first week after the ASB started, I was thinking it might be good if we can put our heads together to come up with a list of key pitching stats that we might be able to compile every day in a kind of matchup format. I made up a list of my own...but I wanted to wait a few hours to see what everyone else thought should be on this kind of list. As a handicapper, what are the key things you look at with a pitcher. I don't care how obvious, or how obscure they might be. If you think they'll help handicappers, let's hear about them.

My list has a few obvious things...and a few obsure but relatively easy to find things. Let's see if we can put something together that paints a picture of each starting pitcher in a way that will help us visualize what's most likely to happen on the field on any given night. Since we'll hopefully be compiling a list of things we can use to create our own matchup previews (I'll ask for volunteers later...maybe 3-4 of us can dig up the numbers for the card each night...I'll take the first 4 games on the schedule, another guy takes the next four, etc...), see if you can make it something that's available at a common stat site. I went through Don Best, Covers, and Jim Feist this morning to look for ideas. Hopefully we get some things that aren't in your morning newspaper, and are important to having a detailed understanding of each pitcher.

Share your thoughts!