Most of you know that  Andrew had been the main writer and site manager until this fall. He was a great blogger who made True Blue a daily click for many of you, while teaching many of us the merits of linear weights.  He gave me a chance to write and I'm  thankful for that though I wasn't keen on how he left me hanging this fall.  I learned early on that communication was not a strength of his so when he stopped blogging I figured eventually he'd show up. By December it was evident something needed to be done because he continued to be a no show, so by default I became the manager of the site.  If you have any questions about Andrew I can only tell you "I have no idea what happened to him but he is alive". My first order of business was to lure Eric Stephen into our web as our lead blogger.  As I learn to manage the blog I've made a few changes as we head into the 2009 season.

Per Eric's payroll information, the 2009 season payroll is updated on the right sidebar. Most of the SBNation blogs I visit have links for baseball sites and other links related to the team they represent. True Blue has not had these links so I snagged the baseball blogs that DRaysBay uses and added them to the left sidebar since they represented an excellent cross section of baseball sites.  I've also added the Dodger Blogs I either read or am aware of.  I'm sure there are Dodger blogs that get updated regularly that I'm not aware of.  Let me know so I can check them out and add them.

Give those blogs a click, you may be surprised at the different perspectives each blogger brings to the world of Dodger baseball.

Also I'd like to thank all the new viewers we have had over the last few days. For the first time since I've been watching the site we hit over 1,000 views. In the SBNation world of baseball blogs we are probably considered a slacker so while 1,000 views is commonplace for most of them,  it is big news for us.

Most of the credit for the increase in views belongs to Eric Stephen who has been doing yeoman work in keeping this site fresh, combining excellent  analysis with excellent writing. We are lucky he was a free agent and snagged him with deferred offers of wealth. We will keep an eye on a Russel Martin burnout but until then we will ride him into the ground and hope some of our prospects will be able to step up when his typing hands turn into molasses.

The increase in participation by our readers is making a real difference in our own interest.  For those who just lurk, sign in and add your voice to our stories.

For those of you who are not content to only comment but yearn to write, might I suggest using the FanShot and FanPost sidebars. You can write to your hearts content and particulary noteworthy posts will get promoted to the main page. Our sister site ClipNation uses this to great effect as do most of the other SBNation blog sites. I'll have more on that later.