[nfleqbc]

I personally tend to throw out individual pitching stats, especially for starters. I like to use overall team performance for the team when a given pitcher starts (measured a few ways, including run differentials and a power rating system I've borrowed from other sports), along with overall team performance when different other conditions are factored in.

Then again, thus far I'm down (but not that much) in my capping this season (about a month's sample)... the approach did very well (minus the pitcher factors... I sort of added the starting pitcher factors for this season on the theory that they had to be factored in) in 2004 (took last season off). So take this for whatever you think it's worth.

I think that successful handicapping ultimately boils down to making a better line than the bookmaker's/market's, whatever perspective you approach it from. That perspective does not have to be one of setting out to figure out the mythical true line. You write "it's a matter of understanding the percentage likelihoods that something's going to happen when "cocktails" of influences come together." Is it not the case that the understanding that a given cocktail of influences comes together to produce a win for Team A 55-60% percent of the time indicates that the true line should be something along the lines of -120 to -155 (thus making a breakdown along the lines of strong play at better than -115, no play at worse than -155, check for other factors in between, for instance)?