--- In baseballmn@yahoogroups.com, "danrl99" <danrl99@...> wrote:
>
> Given the recent debate over Terry Ryan's legacy as GM, I put
together
> an analysis of his transactions.  I just uploaded it to the files
> section of this egroup.  I plan to publish it somewhere and would
> appreciate any comments or suggestions.
>
> --Dan Levitt
>
I don't have any suggestions other than to say I thought it was very
interesting.

Stew

Maybe I'm going a little overboard here, but I ran a table of the
players with the most Win Shares (>=100) while a Twin (through
2006).--Dan Levitt

(Win Shares is a metric created by Bill James for aggregating the
value of seasons.   Using a complex set of formulas, it allocates team
wins to individual players.  The method allocates three win shares for
each win; for example, 300 win shares will be allocated to the players
on a 100 win team.  As a benchmark, a 30 win share season is typically
MVP caliber, and 20 win shares is all-star season.)

Name          WS
H Killebrew 318
Rod Carew 283
Kirby Puckett 282
Tony Oliva 246
Kent Hrbek 231
Jim Kaat 180
Bob Allison 168
Bert Blyleven 162
Chuck Knoblauch 160
Brad Radke 160
Gary Gaetti 146
Cesar Tovar 142
Zoilo Versalles 118
Jim Perry 117
Torii Hunter 116
Roy Smalley 114
Earl Battey 114
Corey Koskie 107
Frank Viola 107
Dave Goltz 103
Johan Santana 101

As a follow up to the Bush post, I ran a list of all the players who
played at least 10 seasons with the Twins.--Dan Levitt

Name        teamID Seasons
Tony Oliva MIN 15
Kent Hrbek MIN 14
H. Killebrew MIN 14
Jim Kaat MIN 13
Randy Bush MIN 12
Rod Carew MIN 12
Kirby Puckett MIN 12
Brad Radke MIN 12
Eddie Guardado MIN 11
Bert Blyleven MIN 11
Dennis Hocking MIN 11
Rick Aguilera MIN 11
Jim Perry MIN 10
Gary Gaetti MIN 10
Torii Hunter MIN 10
Rich Reese MIN 10
Bob Allison MIN 10
Greg Gagne MIN 10
Roy Smalley MIN 10

Given the recent debate over Terry Ryan's legacy as GM, I put together
an analysis of his transactions.  I just uploaded it to the files
section of this egroup.  I plan to publish it somewhere and would
appreciate any comments or suggestions.

--Dan Levitt

While never a star or ever even a regular, Randy Bush spent 12 seasons
on the Twins, which (I haven't checked this) must rank near the top 5
in terms of service.

--Dan Levitt


      
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--- In baseballmn@yahoogroups.com, SSmith2084@... wrote:
>
> Where would I find the members of the Twins Hall of Fame.  I checked
the
> website but couldn't find it.  Maybe I am missing it.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Steve Smith
> Burnsville MN
>

Here it is:

http://minnesota.twins.mlb.com/min/history/twins_hall_of_famers.jsp

Good suggestions (Jimmie Hall).

For players, the three-year waiting period will start after the end of
their careers, not just their careers with the Twins.  But Koskie will
be a good one to add.  Unfortunately, he may not play again.

--- In baseballmn@yahoogroups.com, SSmith2084@... wrote:
>
> Where would I find the members of the Twins Hall of Fame.  I
checked  the
> website but couldn't find it.  Maybe I am missing it.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Steve Smith
> Burnsville MN
>

That's interesting.  I did a search and found some press releases
announcing that Gaetti and Rantz had been elected, but there was no
link to a Hall of Fame page.  I'll mention it to them.

And thanks, Blake (previous message), for the suggestion of Lyman
Bostock.  As I recall, his 1975 season was marred by a bad injury
after he crashed into the fence in Oakland.  But he had a couple of
big years in 1975 and 1976.  I'll mention that as one we should put on
the list for ballot consideration.

Somehow, as I think about Bostock, Dan Ford's name comes to mind.  Now
that's kinda scary.  And maybe Butch Wynegar's name should be kept in
mind, too.  (But not George Mitterwald.)

Stew

Someone mentioned a minimum 3 years playing time with the Twins. If
that is the case, how much consideration has Lyman Bostock ever had?

He put up some very impressive numbers '75-'77. OPS+ of 130 and 144 in
1976,1977. Good defense, a great bat, a little speed. Seems to fit the
bill, but did he play long enough to deserve consideration???

--- In baseballmn@yahoogroups.com, "John Bonnes" <john@...> wrote:
>
> I'm sure I'm not getting the most deserving candidate, but I'll
throw out a
> name - how about Shane Mack?  He was really only with the Twins
for five
> years, and he wasn't developed by the farm system, but those five
years were
> pretty remarkable.  He roamed the cavernous left field well, and
put up some
> crazy good numbers for the five years he was here.  His OPS+ for
those
> years?
>
> 132, 140, 138, 98, 147
>
> Just a thought...
>

Good thought.

It looks like Mack's final year with the Twins might have been his
best although it was cut short by the strike.

I'm here at Northwestern right now and just had the chance to talk
to Dave Mona.  He agrees that Mack would be a good choice to be on
the ballot.  We also thought that we should discuss whether it's
necessary to always replenish the players ballot each year.

We were thinking that it's the non-uniform ballot that still has
more worthy candidates for induction: George Brophy, Halsey Hall.
Next year Terry Ryan will probably be added.

We thought we'd suggest that we not feel the need to add to the
uniform ballot each and that we go back to inducting someone from
the non-uniform ballot each year, at least for a while.

Thanks for your input, guys.  Keep it coming.

Stew

--- In baseballmn@yahoogroups.com, "John Gregory" <ashbury@...>
wrote:
>
> > The ones we're so far considering to be added to the ballot are
> > Cordova, Molitor, Harper, and Tapani.
>
> Here's my test: suppose one is added to the ballot, and in the
fullness
> of time he is eventually elected and added to the Twins' HOF.
When
> given the glad news, which if any of these four would not
respond "the
> what? you've gotta be kidding me - why?".
>
> So I suggest none of the above.  The current ballot seems
sufficient.
>
> If there's ever a Hall Of We're Glad You Were Once A Part Of The
Team,
> add them.
>
> - John

None of the above probably is a good choice.  But the Twins want to
replenish the ballot each year.  In a way, being on the ballot is an
honor in itself; it causes fans to notice the players who may have
been forgotten.  A few years ago, I was the one who suggested Leo
Cardenas.  I don't think he got any votes and we took him off a
couple years later.  But at least he had his name on there for a
while.

Dave Mona (he and Dave St. Peter and I are sort of the executive
committee on this) thinks Molitor's name ought to be the one added,
but he said he was "reluctant" about it because Molitor, with his
status, might be picked over people like Perry and Pascual and
Knoblauch.  With the others, their names could be added to the
ballot but they'd probably never be voted in.  Molitor, on the other
hand, could make it.

I think this year and next year we will have these as our choices.
Then we get to add Brad Radke since there is a three-year waiting
period for the players.

So, if none of the above isn't available as a choice, whom would you
pick?  (I kind of like Bill Dailey, but I think there is a three-
year minimum career with the Twins).

Stew

> The ones we're so far considering to be added to the ballot are
> Cordova, Molitor, Harper, and Tapani.

Here's my test: suppose one is added to the ballot, and in the fullness
of time he is eventually elected and added to the Twins' HOF.  When
given the glad news, which if any of these four would not respond "the
what? you've gotta be kidding me - why?".

So I suggest none of the above.  The current ballot seems sufficient.

If there's ever a Hall Of We're Glad You Were Once A Part Of The Team,
add them.

- John

Time for my annual request for input regarding the Twins Hall of Fame
ballot.

The ones we're so far considering to be added to the ballot are
Cordova, Molitor, Harper, and Tapani.

Of these, I'd go with Cordova.

Are there others worthy of consideration?

Here are those already in:

Killebrew, Carew, Oliva, Hrbek, Puckett, Katt, Blyleven, Kelly,
Allison, Battey, Viola, Versalles, Gaetti (of the "uniform" category,
meaning they were in uniform).

Here are those on the uniform ballot already:

Aguilera, Boswell, Brunansky, Castino, Gagne, Gladden, Goltz, Grant,
Hisle, Knoblauch, Martin, Mauch, Mele, Pascual, Perry, Reardon,
Smalley, Worthington, Tovar.

Thanks.

Stew

Re: [baseballmn] Post Season

>Stew, for this response I tried to delete the messages prior to
Alden's most recent message, but was unable to.

Thanks for trying.  I'm not sure what's going on.  Also, for some
reason, some of your messages (including this one) don't keep your
text in them when I hit Reply.

With most messages I reply to, I hit Reply and all the previous stuff
comes up.  I then delete what's not relevent, post my stuff, and hit
Send.  With this message, I got a blank screen when I hit Reply.
With some of your other posts (as well as those from anyone else), I
get the previous stuff.

Do you know if you're doing anything different in how you post and/or
reply?

Rod Nelson mentioned to me that there is a "Traditional" setting you
can choose.  I don't know where this is, either within this web site,
which is how I access the list, or within an e-mail, which is how you
and a lot of others post and reply to messages.  Rod, can you explain
a bit more about what the traditional setting is or any other
suggestions?  If anyone else has any insights, please pass them on.

Alan, in some of your other posts/replies, are you able to delete
previous stuff?

If nothing else, perhaps you could try this: Instead of hitting Reply
to an existing message, can you copy and paste the relevent stuff
into a new message?  (Or copy the whole thing, paste it into a new
post, and then delete the unnecessary stuff.)

At any rate, I appreciate you trying.

Stew

--- In baseballmn@yahoogroups.com, "John Bonnes" <john@...> wrote:
>
> Thanks for the reply Stew.  The Law of Large Numbers is often
raised on this
> subject.  But usually it's comparing 162 games to 7 games.  What
I'm saying
> (and I think you addressed) is that we have two leagues that play a
large
> number of games (81) and yet they don't recognize them as
particularly
> valuable.
>
> Let's unpack this a bit in a theoretical vs. empirical way.  My
supposition
> is that you don't learn significantly more about differntiating two
teams
> that play 162 games than if they play 81 games, especially when
there are
> really only two outcomes that have any meaning - a win versus a
loss.  A
> theoretical model for trying to determine which of two very good
teams is
> better would be to try and determine which of two coins
is "weighted" to win
> more.
>
> So suppose we have two identical (to sight) coins, both of which
> are weighted so they show heads (i.e. they "win") more than they
lose.  One
> coin is designed to come up heads 65% of the time and the other one
comes up
> heads 60%.  Your job is to figure out which is which.
>
> You can do this by flipping each coin 81 times.  At that point you
compare
> the results and guess which coin is which.   Then you flip them
another 81
> times (so you now have 162 results) and guess again.  The question
is how
> many times more you would get the right answer after the additional
> 81 tries.
>
> I suppose someone can do a Monte Carlo model of this and give us
the answer,
> but off the top of my head, the answer is "not much more".  After
81 tries,
> I have a pretty good guess and it's unlikely that the next 81 are
going to
> change that.  So why do baseball researchers take so much more
comfort in
> our longer season?  Again, why do we trust the regular season more
than the
> postseason, which seemingly every other sports league does?
>
> Of course, a logical counterargument is that the playoffs are like
flipping
> those coins just seven times, and you can't tell a darn thing about
them
> that way. But the other sports would reject the basic premise -
these aren't
> coins and they aren't random.  They're players who are playing a
game.  And
> you know how you determine who is the best team?  You have them
play each
> other, and whoever wins is the better team.  And that's why they
recognize
> postseason success more than the regular season records.
>

Good explanation on the 162 vs. 81 games.

As for why other sports value the outcomes of a seven-game series
more than baseball, I'll go back to some of the points I made in the
second half of my last post.  For whatever reason, I think the better
team (assuming we can always determine, or even define, that) in
hockey and basketball and certainly football has a better chance of
winning a particular game against a lesser team.  Thus, a seven-game
series in basketball or hockey is probably more telling in
determining the better team than in baseball.  Sometimes I even
wonder if the one-game formats in football are better than the seven-
game series in baseball for that.

Part of that is the factor of using different starting pitchers (five
during the regular season and four or even three in the post-season)
in baseball.  And you're right that this may be minimized by starters
these days going only about 2/3 of the game, leaving a significant
portion to a bullpen that can be the same from game to game.

For the reasons I mentioned with basketball and hockey, saving the
legs of their players for the playoffs, combined with more than 50
percent of the teams making the playoffs, this is why their regular
season may be viewed with less significance than with baseball.

And no doubt the general perception will be to place more emphasis on
the post-season in any sport, including baseball, than the regular
season.  I think I asked before how the general sporting public would
view the Twins and White Sox of the 21st century: the Sox have one
championship regular season but it extended to a world championship;
the Twins have four championships in the regular season but no World
Series appearances.  Ask a general baseball fan which he or she would
prefer, and my guess the majority would be for what the Sox got.  As
for me, I'm more impressed with what the Twins have done.  I
understand the general viewpoint, but I don't go along with it.

And this goes back to how to define the "best" team, something we've
discussed on the list before.  To some, winning the championship =
best team.  If it's as simple as that, there's no argument.  By this
definition, the KC Chiefs were the best team of the 1969 NFL-AFL
season, but I'm still convinced that the Vikings were the best team.
My definition would be along the lines of something Alden brought up
before: which team would you bet on?  Even with what happened to the
Vikings in the January 1970 Super Bowl, I would still bet on them
versus the Chiefs (or any other team that year).  By the way, I was
at the 1970 season opener when the Chiefs came to Met Stadium and
were beaten 27-10 by the Vikings.  Those at the game felt a certain
satisfaction (even pointing out that the Vikings had beaten them by
17 while they had lost by "only" 16 in the Super Bowl).  But there is
really about as much satisfaction in that as there was watching the
Vikings beat the Steelers in the ABC-TV Superstar competition
following the January 1975 Super Bowl.  Of the classic tug-of-war
that the Vikings won in the Superstar competition, one of the Vikings
said something to the effect of, "People will remember this tug-of-
war long after they forget the Super Bowl."  Yeah, right, just as
people will remember the 1970 season opener long after they forget
the Super Bowl from the previous January.

Of course, neither the January or September 1970 Vikings-Chiefs game
definitively proves anything.  But the reality is that the January
game, not the September game, is the one that is and will be
remembered.

So post-season results will always be highlighted over regular-season
success.  I have no problem with the perception, but I still agree
with Billy Beane that the post-season in baseball is a crapshoot.
And, as I've said, I have the luxury over Billy Beane in that I can
say it without sounding like it's sour grapes.  (It may sound like
sour grapes for me to cite the two dominant starters Arizona had in
2001; of course, the best team that season weren't the Yankees but
the team that the Yankees beat in the league playoffs.)

Stew

--- In baseballmn@yahoogroups.com, "John Bonnes" <john@...> wrote:

> And I have trouble seeing where baseball is any different.  Is 162
> games that much more effective in leveling the field than 81?

To me, 162 is better simply because of the Law of Large Numbers - the
more trials, the more the emperical will approach the theoretical.  Of
course, in any thing that is real life, determining the theoretical is
far more nebulous than determining anything with a certain and fixed
probability, such as a spinner that has a certain chance to stop in one
area and a certain chance to stop in another.

Of course, we can't replicate real life from a spinner or dice.
However, just as we can learn about economics by applying the
completely impossible concept of "Real Competition," we can use things
with known probabilities to see the role of variance or randomness.  If
we could determine for certain that there is a 55 percent probability
for one event to occur and a 45 percent probability for the opposite
event to occur (such as a team winning or losing a baseball game
against another team), we can see that the chances of the team with the
55 percent chance of winning a particular game will more likely prevail
in a series of games as the length of the series increases.  (I believe
that the team with a 45 percent chance of winning a particular game
will still have close to a 25 percent chance of prevailing in a series
with 7 trials; as the number of trials increases, the 25 percent
probability will decrease.)

Another problem when applying this to any sporting event is that the
relative percentages can change over time (not to mention the
variations in individual trials in baseball because of different
pitchers being used or in any sport because of injuries).  Even if we
have two teams that fit the 55-45 percent model in April, those
probabilities could vastly change by September.  Slumps and hot
streaks, both among the team and individual players, should offset one
another if the number of trials is big enough, but there can still be
an overall trend of one team getting better relative to another team.

Comparing the 1987 Tigers, with 98 wins during the regular season, and
Twins, with 85 wins, is interesting.  On the one hand, it's not unheard
of for the team with 85 wins to prevail in a seven-game series.  On the
other hand, the differential between the teams may not have been as
great in October of 1987 as it was over the course of the regular
season.  In 1988, the Twins finished with a record 3 games better than
Detroit (not enough to establish dominance but one that shows that the
Twins were no longer as inferior to Detroit as they were over the
entire 1987 season).  Could it be that, if we look at the 1987 and 1988
seasons together, that the Twins were improving over that entire time
and Detroit was getting worse?  Could it be that at the mid-point of
that time frame the teams weren't that far apart in terms of relative
strength?

There are still the other issues that will always be relevant in the
post-season, especially the more frequent days off that occur, allowing
a team to get by with fewer starting pitchers.  This can mitigate a
team's lack of depth in starting pitching or it can accentuate the
advantage a team with a couple of dominant starters has (such as
Arizona in 2001).

I'll stick with the Law of Large Numbers.  Teams play 162 games to
separate who is good and who is not as good, then bring the
championship down to a couple of short series.  Real-life factors will
always play a role in what happens in October, but so will random
chance.

> Is baseball's grind different than the NHL's or NBA's?

I'm not sure if the grind is different or not.  For whatever reason,
I've observed that the chances of an underdog is better in a single
game or a short series in baseball than in other sports.  Maybe this is
because of the day-to-day variability in a team's chances depending on
who is on the mound.  The Twins' chances will always be better in a
game in which Santana starts than in one in which Bonser starts.

The same may be true in hockey depending on the goaltender, although a
hockey team can keep using the same goalie game after game as opposed
to baseball, where a starter can be used, at most, every fourth day.

As for the grind, I see this more in basketball and hockey than in
baseball.  A good basketball coach will make sure his players don't
lose their legs before the playoffs.  Since it's only the more marginal
teams that are fighting to make the playoffs, the top teams have the
luxury of not having to get every ounce out of their top players in
every game.  They might win more games by leaving their stars in for 45
minutes night after night (see Bill Musselman), thus winning a few more
battles but sacrificing their chances in the overall war.  The same may
be the case with hockey.

And this could be true with pitchers in baseball.  Maybe Dice-K is an
example of that.  Catchers, too, for sure.  But I don't see where a guy
like Grady Sizemore will lose that much effectiveness in October
because of how much he played from April through September.

These aren't rigid opinions that I have regarding this.  I'm trying to
ask more questions than provide definitive answers.  But I do see
baseball as different than other sports in terms of variability.  Maybe
this is manifested by regular-season winning percentages.  In baseball,
even the most dominant teams rarely win more than 67 percent of their
games (a 108-54 record), but the winning percentages of dominant teams
in other sports are typically higher.

Whatever the sport or real-life issue, however, random chance is going
to play a role.  It may be hard to see and may be impossible to ever
exactly pinpoint it (such as how a butterfly flapping its wings in
Beijing can cause rain in New York, or if it even does), but it's still
a part of it.

Stew

Yesterday at BaseballProspecus.com, Joe Sheehan talked about the
Indians-Yankees series.  I'll give the link below, but unless you
have a subscription, I don't think you can access it:

http://baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=6811

What struck me about it was a thought early on in the story, and it
is a common gospel among the baseball scholarly.  Joe suggests that
the postseason is a crapshoot and carries that thought to it's
logical conclusion:

"Perhaps I'm excessively dogmatic on this matter, but to me, the
relative emphases placed on the postseason and the regular season
are completely out of whack. The latter is a much stiffer test, and
a much better gauge, of a baseball team than the former is. Use
whatever term you like—"small sample
size," "luck," "randomness," "variance," — but the statheads have
this one right. Best-of-fives and best-of-sevens don't do enough to
separate comparable baseball teams, and while the winner of one is
more often than not the one that played better during the series,
playing better over four games is a vanishingly small test."

I myself have spit out similar thoughts often, especially give the
Twins postseason futility.  But this time I was suddenly struck by
something.  Namely, that nobody other than baseball fans ever say
this.

For instance, the Spurs record last year was much worse than the
Mavericks, but the Spurs won the NBA championship, the Mavs went
home early, and nobody doubts who was the better team.  (Though,
I'll admit, Phoenix was a different story.)  In the NFL, if a 12-4
team beats a 14-2 team in the Super Bowl – a single game - nobody
tries to claim the 12-4 team was better.  And when Anaheim marched
through the Stanley Cup playoffs last year, they were acclaimed by
all sides as a clearly superior team to emulate, despite having the
third most points in the regular season.

In other sports, it's assumed that during the grind of a regular
season, guys take nights off and injuries skew records.  Or that
special players wait until the playoffs to turn their game up a
notch.  Or that some players save themselves for the playoffs, or
even play a slightly different game during the regular season so as
not to tip their hands to some of the better teams.

And I have trouble seeing where baseball is any different.  Is 162
games that much more effective in leveling the field than 81?  Is
baseball's grind different than the NHL's or NBA's?   Is the goal of
being one of the top eight teams so much different than being one of
the top sixteen?  Or twelve?  MLB, NHL and NBA playoffs are similar
in that they have best of five or seven games series.  And the NFL,
which has just a single games, still never talks about sample size.
So why are we so anxious to write off the playoffs?  Why are we
tempted to ignore the results when the best play against the best?

There are three obvious answers.  Either:
1) There is something inherently different about baseball OR
2) Baseball is right and all the other sports are wrong OR
3) The other sports are right and baseball is wrong.

And for the first time tonight, I started to wonder if the answer
is "C".  Maybe studying the stats has warped our view a bit.  We
look at the records and run differentials and regular season awards
and feel like we know which team is best.  Those facts mean
something to us – we discovered them, we study them, we prove them
and we take comfort in them.  And from those stats, we crown a best
team using 162 games of data.  That is something that no other sport
can really do with stats, or at least not the way baseball can.

But then that team doesn't win.  And so we have a choice:  we can
claim small sample size, or we can go back to the drawing board and
try again to measure that which seems increasingly immeasurable.

It's not difficult to see why we choose what we do.  But tonight,
it's equally not clear that it's the right choice.

Dear Everyone,

This is partly in response to Kyle's suggestion, partly just my own
thoughts.

I agree with Kyle (& I think I've expressed something like it before)
that interleague play can have the effect of deciding before the
postseason which team(s) is (are) most deserving.  The same, of
course, for interdivisional play.

No absolutely and consistent purist could approve of the triumphs of
the 1987 Twins, or of the 2006 Cardinals.  I get the impression that
some HH members are in a state of denial about the obvious similarity
(not total identity) of these two cases.  But in truth, they are
similar consequences of the division system (NOT the wild card).
Both teams won their divisions despite being little better than .500
teams.  Because of lots of interdivisional play, it was clear that
neither was the best in their league over the season, nor the second,
nor the third,...  Both teams got their acts together & played
superbly in the postseason, going all the way.

As purists, I guess we don't want that sort of thing, but WHAT FUN IT
CAN BE!!  I still remember that 1987 year, all the excitement in the
Twin Cities, the sale of Homer Hankies, and the whole love affair
with the Twins.  Even though my beloved Cardinals were their victims
in the WS, I still remember the whole thing as wonderful, EVEN THE
MORE SO because their victory over the Tigers in the ALCS was an upset.

By the same token, as a Cardinal fan, 2006 was a nail-biting
experience as the Birds barely backed into the playoffs.  Then,
though, they got their act together, revamped their rotation &
bullpen, & played great in the postseason:  Molina's HR, Wainright's
K of Beltran in 9'th inning, then the rout of the Tigers.  It was
GREAT FUN!!

I think most of us would agree that things like this, when they
happen with our teams, are fun.  But as purists, we are supposed to
deplore them.  So WHAT DO WE REALLY WANT TO DO???

Personally, I would like to keep some kind of compromise between
purity and fun: Keep something like the present format, but with
reduced interleague/interdivisional play, so that few teams enter the
postseason as provenly undeserving.  I realize that others may have
different views, & I certainly don't regard mine as infallible.  In
fact, I myself am torn between purity and fun.  Of course, the 1987
Twins & 2006 Cards shouldn't have been there, BUT WHAT FUN IT WAS IN
BOTH CASES!!

Regards to All,
Alden

Howdy.

It looks like a good number of folks have moved over to this list
from the previous list, which is being restricted to Halsey Hall SABR
members.  This list will work pretty much the way the other one did.
I don't access this list via e-mail, just by the web site, so I may
not be in tune with what the issues are for those of you who access
it by e-mail, but the address to send a message to is:

baseballmn@yahoogroups.com

If you reply to a message via e-mail, I take it there is a way to go
through the existing message and delete parts of it, keeping only
what is needed for the reply, right?  This is how it's done when
dealing with this list straight off the web site.  In either case,
you have to take a few seconds to delete the earlier stuff that's not
necessary.  Otherwise, it makes for a long message.

Some people get this in digest form, which means that they get a list
of the posts e-mailed to them once a day.  A string of long
individual posts containing a bunch of extraneous stuff makes for a
messy digest.

Please pay attention to this issue.  Otherwise, I will have to start
moderators individual contributors (instead of allowing their
messages straight onto the list) and will reject the ones that have
not been properly culled.

If you do get your posts via e-mail, please keep in mind the web
address of this list:

http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/baseballmn

You may want to bookmark this page, which will allow you to look at
past messages and do other things.

Thanks.

Stew