Notes from my mess - WIS Championship

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70 Million – Stars and Scrubs

Of all my teams, I like this one’s chances best. This does mean of course it is doomed to failure. I started with pitching, like I usually do, and leave what’s left for hitting. The problem was that it was hard to leave enough for hitting. I used four starting pitchers all with 6+ million salaries. My criteria was based on ERC+ and it gave me three steroid era pitches and one from 1987, another high offense season. I paid attention to IP/G so I was not stranded with a bullpen with no stamina. Like many others, I too will have Vince Coleman leading off. It’s quite possible that .240 average will turn into .185 for a lot of people, including me. We’ll see. After him I paid for three six million dollar hitters including a catcher with an A+ arm to slow Vince Coleman down. Each of those hitters has plenty of PA’s and a high ob%. They are Darrell Porter, Derek Jeter and Luis Gonzalez. Each of them has good “gap” power. I thought there would be more Dave Kingmans in the league. His 1975 has 36 homeruns to knock in those expensive teammates. Like Vince Coleman, it’s quite possible Kingman’s .231 average will become .185. I’m counting on the 70m cap pitchers to help float my offense. I will be juggling lineups as I have four hitters with less than 600pa’s

Riverfront Stadium (HR LF/RF:1/1 1B:-2 2B:2 3B:0)
Hitters .273/.347/.437 153 Homeruns
Pitchers 1303 IP, 1.15 whip, .54 Hr/9

80 Million - Clone Pitcher & Teammates

I haven’t played an open league in a long time. It is my understanding that Addie Joss has been an open league favorite for quite a while. I tried with him, but couldn’t get something I liked. Then of course I realized Joss was against the rules anyway! No bullpen and the hitting was less than desirable. I know a lot of people had problems with this theme. I didn’t spend much time on Joss before moving on to Greg Maddux. I took the path of least resistance, no originality. Of course, I could not afford the 94/95 seasons. However 92/93/96/97 seasons might work fine. The 92 Cubs season allowed me to pick up some spare parts. I thought I would use the 2006 74ip season Maddux had with the Dodgers for more roster flexibility but I didn’t like his HR/9

Turner Field (HR LF/RF:-1/-1 1B:-1 2B:-1 3B:0)
Hitters .273/.349/.438
Pitchers 1330 ip, 1.03 whip, .37 hr/9

90 Million - GM Challenge w/Twist

I spent a fair amount of time working through different teams. I really wanted to use one of the 1920’s Yankees or the 61’ Yankees but couldn’t get it to work. I also put the Big Red Machine years through the grinder but didn’t quite like it. Then I turned to my old friend Google. I searched for Best Hitting Teams of All Time. I found somebody’s list of the top 50. I then went though those and found a team with a losing record that gave me five twists. I went with the 1964 Twins and selected a started rotation of the 64’ seasons of Joe Horlen, Sandy Koufax, Dean Chance and Don Drysdale. I think they will be terrific. The problem is the bullpen will be your basic disaster. I used my 5^th twist for good defensive second baseman with just enough PA’s to bat last. I don’t think anyone will have a perfect team in this theme, it’s just not possible. I will get killed by my bullpen, not wanting to waste a twist on that. I suspect my starting pitchers will get time in relief as well.

Metropolitan Stadium (HR LF/RF:1/1 1B:2 2B:0 3B:2)
.277/.344/.467 191 homeruns (starting eight)
1340 ip, 1.01 whip, .53 hr/9

100 Million - Old & New Franchise

I went with Cleveland, so I could have Addie Joss (because I am quite unoriginal) and the Houston Astros. I am going with a three man rotation of Addie Joss, Mike Scott and Bill Bernhard. I also have the 1980 J.R. Richard and his 113ip season to spot start, long relieve. There were plenty of bullpen choices. Since I am in the Astrodome, I avoided the homerun hitters of the steroid era. I have only two hitters with 20+ homeruns, but those two do have a combined .425 OB%.

Astrodome (HR LF/RF:-4/-4 1B:-1 2B:0 3B:1)
Hitters .307/.405/.467
Pitchers 1361 ip, .89whip, .28 hr/9

110 Million - Five Consecutive Fives

I know some people had problems with this theme. I found tracking each selection with a spreadsheet made it much easier. It would have been a hassle otherwise. I started with pitching, and since I lack originality, I have Addie Joss, along with the 68’ Bob Gibson and 09’ Christy Mathewson. Having Joss & Mathewson 24.5 million between them was the only problem I had with this jigsaw puzzle. I am playing in Safeco and loaded up on High OPS hitters with moderate power, better OB%. For instance, my most expensive hitter is the 1950 Larry Doby, 25 Homeruns, .326/.442/.545. Since we have a DH in this league, I have Eddie Stanky and his high OB% hitting 9^th, to set the table for the rest.

Safeco Field (HR LF/RF:-2/-2 1B:-2 2B:-2 3B:-1)
Hitters .306/.419/.521 226 hrs
Pitchers 1370 ip, .88 whip, .22 hr/9

120 Million - Babe Ruth in Coors

I with the 1928 Ruth .323/.461/.709/54 HR 9.34 million. This was the team I built first. I built it fairly quickly then had doubts over and over. Of course, with 120 million, hitting is easy to come by. I spent a lot of time on pitching, struggling with whether to have a rock bottom whip and allow home runs, or take the higher whip and allow less homeruns. Multiple times I started from scratch. Here is what I anguished over: Is giving up 50% more home runs really worth letting 25% more people actually reach base? You can build a staff of pitchers whose HR9 is greater than .5 and still have a fabulous HR/9+. I ended up building a team on each approach and played them against each other a couple thousand times as “Dream Teams.” Now I will be the first to tell you this is FAR from perfect and there are real limitations with Dream Team matchups. The 2000 Pedro Martinez was terrific. Mike Scott, Randy Johnson and Jason Schmidt were not so good. I cannot start Pedro 162 times so I went with the 1.10+ Whip team. It may be a colossal failure. I have 1585 innings plus mop up. Probably not enough. I’m surprised this isn’t the league with a DH. I will get a case of schadenfreude watching someone else have a death spiral. Those death spirals can be disruptive to the standings though. Maybe it will be my team that blows up. I will score runs, Coors field acting like a trampoline to my 70 million hitters. If you hit a healthy amount more home runs than you give up, you usually do well.

Coors Field (HR LF/RF:4/4 1B:3 2B:3 3B:3)
Hitters: .329/.423/.622 300+ homeruns
Pitchers: 1582 ip, 1.13 whip, .27 hr/9

Summary, I didn’t spend a lot of time in the aggregate on this (notice the cliche selections of Maddux & Joss) so will not reach the second round.

7/31/2014 7:49 PM (edited)

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mpitt76

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120M - Babe in Coorsland - Coors teams are my favorite because it plays into what I like most about baseball - Pitching and Defense. First I went with the 1919 Babe which I feel is the best value for the money - the third or fourth best Ruth in terms of normalizing HR and he’s under $10M. Rudy York, Cy Williams, Hank Greenberg, and Schmidt should each hit 60+ HR. Then defense. Ozzie Smith’s A+/B+, Tony Phillips B+/A-, and the A+++ Billy North in Center. The fewer AB you give them, the less the damage. 1687 IP should do it with current SP that normalize well in terms of HR. I did add the Dolf Luque however. 5859 PA feels light so I may bat my Pitcher first.

5859 PA .286/.386/.493
1687 IP 1.06 WHIP

110M - Fives - My favorite league because I love the puzzle aspect. Started out looking at deadball pitching. Tough to decide between the 08 Steele and the 08 Joss but I went with Steele because he’s such a $/IP bargain. Cy Morgan, Steele, Mordecai Brown, Pete Alexander, Toney and Nehf. The ’02 Lowe with Niggeling closing. Pitching Pitching Pitching. For hitters I went with lots of D range which led to the 40s players. Heath and Dixie Walker with Debs Garms. And then 2000s for good defense up the middle with Alomar and Renteria. My favorite theme to put together.

6368 PA .326/.391/.478
1578 IP .92 WHIP

100M - Franchises - This one was quick - I went right to deadball pitching (sense a theme here?) and picked the Cubs. Also picked up Steinfeldt, one of my favorite 3B bargains. Added Zimmerman from the Cubs and used as much money as I could from this half. Needed infield help so went with best infield from the current franchises. That led to the Expos with Vidro and Guzman - not great but at least switch hitters. Add a Gary Carter to cut down on SB and I was pretty happy with this team.

5593 PA .322/.377/.476
1528 IP .99 WHIP

90M - GM Challenge - My strategy here was pick an absolutely crappy team in a dead ball season that had good hitting. With the 8 FA, I was thinking get 4 pitchers with 300+ IP and then add 4 decent hitters with the 5 best hitters from that team and I’d be good. So my entire pitching staff plus 4 good hitters (ideally position players) would come from free agents and twists. Looked at that Yanks year and that A’s year but couldn’t make anything work. Went through every sub .350 team from deadball era and found the 1911 Braves. Cy Young, Ed Walsh, Babe Adams, Vean Gregg give me 1367 IP for $45M. My hitting FA are Eddie Collins, Frank Baker, Honus Wagner, and Johnny Kling at C. Round that out with 4 .300+ hitters from the actual Braves team and we’ll see...

5511 PA .317/.385/.440
1484 IP 1.08 WHIP

80M - Cloned Pitcher - Looked at Kevin Brown, Roger Clemens, Mussina - but Maddux always stood out. Needed less IP because he doesn’t walk or strike out a lot of batters. Braves teams are so so hitters but hoping the pitching makes up for it. Starters are ’93,’97,’00,’01,’02 and added ’06 and ’86. I didn’t spend too much time here, I’m sure there are better options - but if I can hit .500, I’ll hope the other teams can make up for it.

5402 PA .293/.366/.458
1411 IP 1.12 WHIP

70M - Starts and Scrubs - Went with three 6M pitchers and two 6M hitters. In terms of pitching, I just made sure I had enough IP. This cap is way out of my comfort zone. With hitters I tried to get switch hitting base stealers. 261 SB with 45 CS should hopefully generate some offense. I will be adjusting this lineup exactly 162 times during the season.

5382 PA .288/.348/.408
1362 IP 1.16 WHIP

Great leagues as always Schwarze - good luck to everyone

7/31/2014 10:16 PM (edited)

trd3

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Every year I LOVE and HATE reading this thread.

I LOVE reading other players strategies and their process for building their teams.

I then usually HATE my teams.

7/31/2014 5:56 PM

skilly006

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Feeling good.... but who the hell knows. I could hang 550 losses up there.

7/31/2014 5:59 PM

trd3

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This is my 4^th year in the WISC. Every year I build my teams and feel pretty good, until I read the team-building strategy thread. To prepare for this year, I went back read the team-building threads from the past few years, as well as some other strategy threads (hello Coors!). It’s not that I wanted to steal someone’s idea or team. But each year there are strategies, wrinkles, and different angles that I missed. These threads influenced how I build my teams this year and in some cases quite a bit.

70mil – Quickly Going Nowhere – Astrodome

I’ve played in a number of low cap leagues in the last year. Let’s just say I’ve seen more Dave Kingman than anyone other than Mrs. Kingman should. The thing I learned from these leagues is that, done correctly, any strategy can work. My first idea was to try a power team, given the lack of deadballers. However, looking at the teams that were successful in the low cap leagues in previous WISCs, I moved on to a speed team. I chose Raines and Alomar to be my $6 million men on offense. I surrounded them with other switch-hitting speedsters Collins, Tolleson, Scott, Nixon, and Whiten, who also provides a little pop. In low cap leagues there are usually a lot of platoons and/or the need to play everyone. To take advantage of weaker platoon line-ups or at least lower PA players, I decided to use 4 LH SP. Santana will be my ace (hopefully), along with Gura, Cuellar, and Buehrle. I wish my pen was a bit stronger but you have to make concessions. Wilhelm, Stoddard, and Warren set up closer Brad Penny.

80mil – Big Unit’s Unit – Astrodome

I put more time into this team than any other 3 combined. I built teams for about a dozen pitchers before settling on Randy Johnson. What I liked about RJ was that he had seasons that fit most spots on a staff: top-end starter (02, 04), back-end starter (06), long A (09), set A (98, 07), and cheap (88). At various times I had used other seasons, but these are the 7 that made the final cut.

The thing I realized building this team is how lucky we usually are when drafting for a wider pool. Most MLB teams aren’t filled with 320/440/650 hitters or sub 1 whip pitchers. Putting together the rest of this puzzle with limited pieces was tough. After much tinkering, I ended up with a team I think I like. D.Martinez rounds out the rotation while Rivera, BK Kim, and Penny hold down the back of the pen. I settled on a line-up of Sandoval, Womack, Cintron, ARod, Abreu, Alou, Ausmus, and Melky/T. Jones. I think it is a fairly well-rounded line-up, under the circumstances.

ADDED BONUS – easily one of my favorite team names ever.

90mil – 05 (Charlie) Browns: Good Grief! – Sportsman’s Park II

X+Y = 7 (twist: Cy Morgan, Fred Glade; added: Christy Mathewson, Cy Seymour, Roger Bresnaham, Honus Wagner, and John Titus)

It took a little while to get here. I tried a couple of different approaches that went nowhere before finding the 06 Cubs. The Cubs had the best pitching of any team I tried but I just didn’t love the offense.

Enter the earlier team-building threads, which got me looking for teams that under-performed their expected win %. This led me to a team I’ve rarely considered ever, the Browns. They were a good mix of usable players and add-on options. Stone, Wallace, and Frisk fill in the line-up while Howell, Powell, Buchanan, and Pelty anchor the staff. This team has no bench to speak of, as there are literally hundreds of PAs below .200. I wish I had another usable arm or 2 in the bullpen, but I should have enough innings if I can manage efficiently. I think if the pitching can keep the team in games, the line-up could score enough runs to be competitive. Or they could be like the real Browns.

100mil – Expos(ed) Yankees – Yankee Stadium II

Expos/Yanks was the first combo I tried. I built a team that was OK but I wasn’t completely satisfied with. So, I then tried to go in another direction. At that point, I had never used Addie Joss before, so on a whim I built a team with the Indians and the Mets. Besides Joss the team had Speaker, Shoeless Joe, Alomar, Tiant, Seaver, Cleon Jones, and Wright. It was better in every way to the Expos/Yanks. I just didn’t feel any connection to this team. Before I entered it, I decided to give Mon/NY one last try. I ended up with what I think might be my best team in the WISC.

Key players:

Expos – Raines, Pedro, Carter, Vlad, DMartinez, Vidro, DYoung, Murray, Reardon

NYY – Ruth, Guidry, Rivera, Chandler, Gossage, Jeetz, Boggs, McDaniel

110mil – I Can’t Drive 5x5 – Polo Grounds

This was the last team I started to build. I had a hard time finding a place to start. Eventually I made a list of players I wanted to use and started building from there. It took a little time and effort. The first team I built didn’t comply with the $20 mil per group. Thankfully I was able to fix this with a few small changes.

Key players:

Ruth, Vance

Tiant, Wilhelm, Clemente, Brewer

McGee, Raines, Madlock

Maddux, Roberts, Weiss

Johnson, Rivera, Meredith, Manny

120mil – Way Off Coors – Coors Field

I have never had any success at Coors. I made it a point to read several Coors strategy threads in preparation. I’d like to think it helped.

Pitching – I decided to go with all pitchers > .5 hr/9. My goal was to keep oav low. I think we focus too much on HRs at Coors. We need to be concerned with all offense. With low oav pitchers, the idea is that hitters can’t homer if they don’t get a hit at all. Even with the hr/9 limits, I made sure my pitchers had strong hr/9+ numbers, hopefully limiting the HR opportunities that are available. I also made sure to draft plenty of innings – almost 1700. – Blue, Pedro, Big Unit, Brown, King Felix, Oswalt, Bailey, Adams Duchscherer, Ladd, Garcia, and Maddux.

On offense I just tried to find good hitters and was able to include a number of old favorites – Ruth(24), Raines, Berkman, Chipper, Alomar, DYoung, Fernandez, and Doumit are the starters.

8/3/2014 12:43 AM (edited)

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mllama54

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70 Mil This team is the one I am most unsure about. The best bang for the under 3 mil amount is pitching. So I only took one 6 mil pitcher. Tewksbury. I have 1480 quality innings but i have 7 starters, I absolutely need to stay on top of this league for any chance. I have 3 6 mil+ hitters. Raines, Gwynn, and Garciapara. I went for salaries closer to 6 mil than 6mil+. I wanted scrubs close to 3 mil with higher ab totals. Every year I have had one or two teams play so bad I miss the second round. Usually the 70 mil cap nails me because I end up platooning too many positions. My lineup this year is Raines, Gwynn, Garciapara, Kingman, Aspromonte, Deshields, Rose and Sunberg with an A+ arm. I tried to fit in another 6 mil hitter but didnt want to skimp on pitching. This could be a huge mistake.

80 mil I realized at 80 mil I wasnt going to be able to afford the bigtime years of most starters. Then it became finding the best good years of the remaining starters.Quickly realized D. Martinez's 1995 Indians and 1997 Marniers were well stocked with hitters. My biggest decision was to take Arod over Belanger at short. My lineup is Lofton, Franco, Thome, Ramierez, Arod, Singleton, Cora, and S. Alomar. I also have a quality closer with Mesa.

90 mil I wanted a team with a bad season with good players.Basically it was between the 64 Twins and 92 Dodgers. I used the 64 Twins in a similiar theme in this tournament a few years ago with mixed success. My adds on this Dodger team were pretty good even though I left two very mediocre positions. I was able to add Pedro and Orel's good pitching years. Piazza's good hitting year, and Bonds, Sheffield, Eck's, and Listach's year of 1992.

100 mil I took the Met's starting rotation of Seaver, Gooden, Pedro, and Harvey. I put it in the A's ballpark with a lineup of Ricky, Collins, Simmons, Giambi, Cochrane, Holiday, Chavez, and Campeneris. My infield has A+ range at second third, and SS. Power, Speed, Pitching, and defense in the A's park.

110 mil I spent some time on this but not as much as other people. I wanted Joss, Newhauser, and Hubbell as my rotation. I wanted an A+ infield range at all four positions. I wanted an A arm at catcher. I wanted speed and higher average in the outfield. and a modern day closer. What I was missing was some power so I ended up taking two players I have never used before. Tilly Walker and Sid Gordon. My lineup is Raines, Gwynn,Bill Terry, Cochrane, Walker, Gordon, Traynor, Frisch, and Rizzuto. I am also playing in Dodger stadium. Eck is my closer.

120 mil I decided I would take the cheapest Ruth available for more cap room. I also loaded up on pitchers with low OAV and moderate HR allowed within the rules. I also decided to play it as normal as possible with A+ defense up the middle. I wanted both Mantle and Chipper in my lineup. I also went with Big Frank Howard and Harmon Killebrew. Good power buys for the money. I also spent more on pitching than hitting but only for about 1500 innings. All of my starting hitters have around 700 AB. The other thing I did was go for high K guys. Only one pitcher has below 8K per 9 IP. My starting rotation is Blue, Martinez, R.Johnson and J Schmidt. My bullpen is highlighted by Nen, Wagner, and Rivera. My lineup is Willie Wilson, Frisch, Mantle, Jones, Killebrew, Cochrane, Howard, and Ron Hanson at short. Heavy on the BBs and HRs but still speed at the top of the lineup.

Overall I did not spend as much time as I have previously because of moving from Florida to Texas. I feel good about all of my teams except the 70 mil. But then again I have never made the second round. Maybe the lack of time I have had for tinkering with clubs will be a good thing.

7/31/2014 7:13 PM

rbow923

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$70M. For my two albatross hitters I looked for people just barely over $6M with high PA at positions that were hard to fill. enter Robbie Alomar at 2B and Chipper Jones in his SS year. There are a lot of speed teams at lowcaps so I needed a high CS% catcher, Brandon Inge was the choice. He's one of 7 hitters between $2.88 and $3M, all with 450-550 PA. No I didn't plan it that way it's just where I found players I could use. lots of platooning and pinch hitting. I have some big names (Stan Musial, Tony Gwynn, Greg Maddux) but not in their best years, wonder if I was influenced by the names.

Wilbur Wood and his 400ip anchor my staff. I've used him in a couple low cap themes with good results. He's a good inning eater allowing me to select a lot of lower IP pitchers and still get enough innings. Steve Kline is my only other full time starter, then a bunch of guys in the 50-100 ip range. I'll be using one or two tandems and shuffling my roatation all year.

$80M. Catfish Hunter 72-74-75-78

This was a tough draft at $80M. I could've drafted a lot of good teams at $90M, or even $85M. Maybe because I insisted on good pitching and wouldn't compromise. So I settled for mediocre hitting. First I looked at Smoltz and a few other pitchers with a lot of usable seasons. This didn't prove to be much of an advantage for the strategy I was playing, all it did was eat up roster spots I needed to get enough PA. Next I looked at pitchers with a few good high-inning seasons. Jim Palmer and Carl Hubbell teams were considered but none were as cost efficient as the Catfish Hunter team. I have his 3 best seasons all at 300+ innings. that's just over the required 950 though I did add 1978 because I still needed middle infielders and that's where I found them. only 3 other bullpen pitchers so Catfish had better go deep into the games. only $37M left for hitting so I had to be frugal. other than a .211 hitting catcher it doesn't look bad. I needed seven $300k exemptions to fill my roster and they all will play.

$90M. 1919 Cardinals + 7 FA.

This theme kept me busy. I looked at a lot of teams and drafted a number of mock rosters. couldn't decide between them they all looked about equal. Early on I figured deadball pitching was the way to go, they're priced better and the high IPs make better use of each FA. that made filling the rosters more of an exercise since the choices were limited particularly at the low end. I wanted a team with a really bad record so I could grab 3 or 4 high inning free agents and half of my starting lineup. Looking for a bad team with a handful of useful hitters and just a little credible pitching.

I agonized overe the final 3 forever. 1919 Cardinals are a bad team with a few decent hitters in a good sim year with nice FA pitching. 1908 is a pitchers dream and the Highlanders 8 Free Agents meant half my hitting and almost all of my pitching would be non-Highlanders. also looked at '08 Red Sox but could do more with NY's additional FAs. 1902 Orioles looked interesting and while assembling that team I stumbled upon the 1902 Cleveland Blues, a surprisingly good squad despite only 3 FA. after much number crunching and hand wringing I settled on the 19 Cardinals. They were the most normal looking team while the others had strange looking rosters and several holes.

3 FA pitchers Adams Cicotte and Alexander get me two-thirds of my innings. Cardinals have a few mediocre pitchers, enough to get me through the season. That leaves 4 FA hitters. Babe Ruth and Joe Jackson top the list. Cards are strong at 2B with Hornsby but nothing at SS so I used a FA on Peckinpaugh. They have a decent 3b Milt Stock, an ok 1B and the mediocre McHenry Heathcote and Shotton sharing 2 OF spots. Final FA was a tough choice between Sisler and Schang. Sisler is a bigger hitter but C was such a problem I had to go for Schang.

$100M. White Sox and ExpoNats.

Again I started by looking for deadball pitching. Several good franchises to choose from. I selected the White Sox because they looked just a little more cost efficient. Ed Walsh, Eddie Cicotte and Doc White along with several good low IP pitchers to choose from. I felt like any modern franchise would be ok there just wasn't enough money to go looking for the best. I looked first at the Expos because of value-priced cookies Gary Carter and Tim Raines. The rest of the team was nothing special but probably about as good as any other choice. Tried the Rockies, didn't spend much time looking at other modern franchises.

1b was a tough choice, I went with Galarraga for the defense. Ryan Zimmerman won the 3b job also for his glove. There's a trend forming and I tried to get Andre Dawson too but just couldn't make it work, partly because I insisted on having pinch-hitters, an underrated part of the game. Rusty Staub hits just as well for $1.5m less. Vidro was the obvious 2b, nice to have one easy choice. rounding out the lineup with Sox Joe Jackson and Luke Appling. Solid bullpen led by Reardon Latman Roark Quinn and Jack McDowell.

$110M. 1905-09 115-19 71-75 85-89 2007-11

A schwarze vintage puzzle league. Either you like this kind of tinkering or you hate this theme. You've probably guessed I started with deadball pitching. Rotation led by Joss '08 Mathewson '09 and Cicotte '17. I tried several other interesting combinations. Greg Maddux appeared on a few initial attempts. the Walsh/Joss combo was tempting but would've cost $29M for one bracket making it too irritating to fill out the other 4 brackets for bare minimum. Pete Alexander salary also caused problems, Cicotte is not as good but he's cheaper so I could add Nehf Toney McCabe and still have enough money left.

I looked at many combinations for hitters. the Raines Boggs duo was on most of them. the 70s kept showing up because of Gary Carter at a position that is normally overpriced, I'll take one weak hitter in exchange for great arm and more dollars. Carew at 2b and Murcer in the OF. At first I had Pujols and Tulowitz but after entering and trying to set my roster I realized it was a DH league. Back to the drawing board. I switched to the 90s with the more affordable Barry Larkin '98 and Frank Thomas '96, dropped my pinch hitters and with just a little more maneuvering I had Edgar Martinez in his monster year at DH. I'm going broke so my 3rd OF is a part time Mike Greenwell platooning with a couple 500k guys. I'm left with limited options to fill the bullpen and take a few players I've never used, Solano Best Busby and Tom L Hughes.

$120M. This theme posed some questions. How much stamina do we need? HR pitchers or whip pitchers? which Babe Ruth? power team or balanced attack? I've played in some HR in Coors leagues and the fatigue was brutal. I used that as a guide, reducing the cap from $160m to $120m I adjusted the numbers and drafted 6100 pa and 1650 ip plus scrubs. still a bit of a guess not sure exactly what we'll need. My pitching consists entirely of low HR 1.10+ whip pitchers, I suspect HR pitchers will get lit up though I did consider a couple HR arms but didn't like their higher salaries. I thought others would lean this way too so I didn't go for an extreme power team. I delayed the choice of which Ruth until I saw how much money I could reasonably spend, then took the $9.8m 1931 Babe. My hitting is disappointingly average, when you need 10% more stamina your cap doesn't go as far as you might expect. I was tempted to play a fatigue strategy but rejected that idea.

Very low HR/9 looks critical so naturally I have a slew of deadball pitchers again. 1902 Joss 1912 Tesreau 1913 Cicotte and Willie Mitchell. non-DBer Nolan Ryan is the guest Ace. after Ruth my best hitter is Cap Anson, catchers are pricey so I like to use a fake catcher in high cap leagues that won't have a lot of steals. I rarely use SS cookie HoJo but this seemed like the ideal theme for him. Caminiti at 3rd and Billy Herman at 2b will get lots of + plays.. Shumpert backs everybody up. an odd choice at 1b, Heinie Zimmerman hitting a solid .370 with defense. The remaining OFers are a motley collection of good part timers including Cravath Wakefield Caruthers Giles. the last couple bench spots were downgraded to get more PA, if I overrated stamina this team won't do so well.

7/31/2014 8:24 PM

brianjw

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70 Million - Born Sandy Devotional

Somehow I misremembered the theme rules, and started building a team where the stars were over $7 million. That was a tough theme! When I reread the rules, and saw that I could use $6 million players, it was much easier.

Anyway, the pitching on these stars & scrubs themes is usually easy - stars for starters, scrubs for relievers. I wonder if it would be useful to make the rules be about $/IP - say all players over $32K/IP or under $16K/IP?

The position players are more interesting. Usually I would just platoon in a stars and scrubs league, and then have all lefty pitchers to combat the platoons. But I couldn’t make either side of that work. Instead I went with a team full of switch hitters who can play lots of positions. My fielding stats at the end of the year should look completely crazy; I might end up with 4 or 5 people having spent some time at every position on the diamond. Except of course for C and 1B, where I have the stars.

The team name is from one of my favourite great songs and odd songs LPs, the Triffids’ second album, featuring ‘Wide Open Road’ and a lot of very strange album tracks. It seemed to fit a stars and scrubs theme nicely.

Batting: 5499 PA, .287/.384/.399
Pitching: 1357 IP, 101 HR, Whip 1.10

80 Million - Rhys ap Tewdwr

At first I tried to make work with pitchers who had both starter and reliever years. But I couldn’t get the pieces to fall in place for Eck, and I don’t like Smoltz, and none of the others looked attractive. So I started trying to build around my favourite single season teams at this cap, the 80s Cards teams. For some reason the first John Tudor team I tried was a mess. So I spend ages looking at others, basically working through everyone who started for the Cards any time in the late–80s. Finally I had another go at Tudor, and this time the pieces fell into place. I can’t believe I spent so long on the various options when my second (serious) attempt should have worked. The name is of the 11th Century Welsh king that the English House of Tudor was descended from.

Hitters: 5589 PA, .290/.376/.415
Pitchers: 1402 IP, 88 HR, Whip 1.13

90 Million - Seattle All-Stars of 2010

My usual starting point in these win-loss based themes is to look for teams that way under-performed their Pythagorean record. But none of them worked. The second idea was to try and find teams that were just over one or other of the thresholds. That didn’t work that well either, though it was a useful constraint in later searches. The third idea was to find an early C20 team with good hitters where each of the twists/free agents could be used for a mega-IP star pitcher. This did work - there were plenty of options. The 1914 Whales would be great if you like playing in Wrigley. (I don’t.) The 1902 Orphans would win a lot of games. I almost chose a 1903 team, but there aren’t enough $300K players that year. I would definitely have used a 19th Century team if there were enough $300K players, but I couldn’t even make a legal roster.

Finally I decided to look for modern teams with good enough pitching, and a poor enough record to fill in the gaps with hitters. Modern years mean that there is always a good player at each position to fill in. And the 2010 Mariners were just about perfect. 7 twists, plus a good Ichiro, mean that I could have gone with All-Stars at every spot on the diamond. But I got a bit nervous about the pitching, and decided I needed one reinforcement. That meant sticking with the great fielding, but woeful hitting, of Franklin Guttierez in CF.

But the rest of the lineup - what fun! Speed at top and bottom, power in the middle, unbelievable gloves everywhere. I ended up spending over $56M on hitting, which is more than I spent in the $120M league. Indeed, I only spent $2M more than that the $110M league, or this could have been my most expensive lineup in all 6 leagues. I thought about changing my $110M team so that it was, then decided that would be dumb. Still, I wonder how many owners don’t have any lineups as expensive as this team, despite the low cap.

The worry is that I’ll leak runs of course. But the pitchers are pretty good, for their price, the park will help some, and the defence will help a lot. And we should score a lot. I don’t know if this team will win the most games, but it is my favourite. (And what great puzzles the last two themes were!)

Hitting: 5843 PA, .299/.370/.468
Pitching: 1368 IP, 139 HR, 1.20 whip

100 Million - Seattle Giants

After the fun of that team, this is the most boring selection I could have made. I always use Giants for franchises if given a choice. I like using Seattle bullpens, and Safeco, and so that was a natural complement. The only thing that’s unusual about this team is how much I’m spending on pitching - over $55M. I usually spend more on position players, so this was odd. But otherwise this is just about a cookie team. I felt a little bad when schwarze said there were interesting choices in this theme; I felt like I was being boring.

Hitters: 5536 PA, .299/.391/.401
Pitchers: 1425 IP, 43 HR, Whip 0.85

110 Million - Tallulah

There were lots of reports of this being a tough theme, but it all came together fairly easily for me. I was able to use most of the kinds of players I always use: 19th century hitters at positions where D isn’t so important, early 20th century pitchers (plus Ty Cobb!), middle infield from the 80s, some sluggers and low-ish IP starters from the 21st century. When I was building the team I tried to get every era as close to $20 million as possible, and actually got it so tight I needed to go back and add dollars at the end. The DH situation I’ve got is a little weird, and I only have one real SP, but I can live with both of those things, especially when the 1 SP is 1908 Joss. I’ll have lots of nice lefty/righty tandems to run out there, but since I don’t expect there will be many platoons in this league they won’t be as effective as normal.

The title is the Go-Betweens fifth record, keeping with both the 5s theme of the league, and the 80s feel to my team.

Hitters: 6258 PA, .319/.422/.461
Pitchers: 1450 IP, 44 HR, Whip 0.89

120 Million - The Black Diamond Express

I didn’t like this theme as much as I normally like WISC themes. (And I should say that I thought overall this year’s were great - especially the 80M and 90M themes.) I thought the HR/9 rate allowed was much too low, and didn’t force us to make difficult choices. I tried to make a list of the starting pitchers I most wanted to fit in given the theme rules, and I think the first 100 were all ones that qualified under the HR/9 > 0.5 rather than WHIP > 1.1. I would have preferred having HR/9 > 1 as the requirement, to make us more nervous about conceding HRs, and given us more reason to think about the high WHIP pitchers.

I actually don’t think Coors is such a great park for HR hitters. It’s true it has +4 for both LF and RF, but it has +2 or +3 for everything, and HR are so expensive to pay for in hitters that I’m still not sure it is worth it. So I actually don’t have much power in my team. My aim is to win games by getting on base, staying out of GIDPs (real killers in Coors, and a reason to avoid having a team of sluggers), forcing opponents to offer up Long A and Long B pitchers, and then hopefully batting around a few times in the late innings of games. (I have speedy hitters to stay out of GIDPs, so I could in principle get SBs, but I think I’ll mostly avoid that.) So I don’t need too many HR, even if there will some pitchers around who give up some. Conversely, I’m much more scared of fatigue hell death spiral than of giving up a bomb or two. So all my pitchers, and most of my fielders, are chosen to get outs and get them quickly, even if there is a HR or two given up along the way. Even with all my pitchers qualifying under the HR rule, I only have 107 real life HRs. Maybe I’ll give up 200 in the sim, but I think I can live with that.

The big question is how many IP you need. I ran a lot of games through Sim Matchup using my own hitters. Since I normally lead my leagues in pitches faced, I figured this would be a reasonable guide to what I needed in a staff. And it suggested I needed about 150 pitches/game. So I have that, but only just. A few extra inning games early in the year and I could be in trouble. Hopefully with all the HRs around, there won’t be many zeroes being put up in late innings, so games shouldn’t go too long. Otherwise it will be time to start managing fatigue rather actively, and that’s not so much fun.

Hitters: 5758 PA (too few?), .324/.424/.500
Pitchers: 1580 IP, 106 HR, Whip 0.86

7/31/2014 8:40 PM

trd3

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In the 120mil league I would be curious to know how many people went higher HR/low whip, low HR/higher whip, or a combination of both. If I had to guess I would say that most teams chose either option and didn't mix and match.

7/31/2014 9:02 PM

bighooze

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Posted by trd3 on 7/31/2014 9:02:00 PM (view original):
In the 120mil league I would be curious to know how many people went higher HR/low whip, low HR/higher whip, or a combination of both. If I had to guess I would say that most teams chose either option and didn't mix and match.

I went with 974 IPs with whip less than 1.10 & HR/9 > .50 (60.5% of total innings)

634 IPs with whip greater than 1.10 & HR/9 <.50 (39.5% of total innings)

7/31/2014 9:25 PM

odalisgagne

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70 mil--Speedy Scrubs

Speed teams are the only ones that have worked for me at low caps in WISC before so that's where I set my sights. Looked for two speed guys barely over 6 mil and got Raines and Rickey. Then I found a great 2.9 mil Rickey with a .400 OBP and subbed in a 6 mil Robbie Alomar. Threw in the good arm of Wally Schang behind the plate and was feeling good...until I re-read the rules and realized it had to be 1961 or later. Whoops. Filled in my lineup at the last minute with guys like Everth Cabrera and Willy Taveras.

Knew I wanted 4 6 mil starters--although I had to adjust them again to account for the actual rules--ended up with Cliff Lee, Bosman, Pascual Perez and Sutton. Bullpen is meh but hopefully good enough at this payroll. Playing at Petco should help.

Hitters--278/371/399, 322 SBs; Pitching--1285 IP, 1.05, .228

80 Mil -- Viva El Presidente

I was psyched to see that schwarze (and 3 other owners) also ended up here, although it took me a while. This was the toughest one to build without question. I tried Eck, Pedro and even put together a good Tiny Bonham team but I was happier with this one. Getting the 95 Tribe and 97 M's were huge--I have Dan Wilson, Edgar, A-Rod, Thome, Man-Ram and Buhner. Plus a DeShields and Reggie from the 76 O's. I also added 97 Unit to go with 4 starting El Presidentes which gives me five 200 IP guys but I can easily move one Martinez to the pen. Rojas and Nabholz in the pen as well.

Hitters--288/380/486, 209 HRs, 124 SBs (Kingdome); Pitchers--1399 IP, 1.13 WHIP, .228

90 Mil--Replacing My Heinie (1908 BoSox)

Also a popular choice. I found this one pretty quickly--after trying the 91 Astros, 25 Yankees, 92 Dodgers, 93 Mets, 10 Naps (yes, I was looking for high twist teams). The Sox have Cy and Steele in tow plus great twist options with Cravath, Deacon McGuire and Speaker and I added Joss and Honus Wagner (to replace the aforementioned Heinie). I like this team.

Hitters - 297/366/426, Pitchers--1400 IP, 1.01 WHIP, .221

100 Mil--Tribal Mariners

Played around with a Cubs/Rockies team and the Giants too--but had a hard time getting to 40 mil with Colorado since they have ZERO useful pitchers at this cap. The Mariners seemed like the next best choice for an expansion team so I paired them up with Joss and Bernhard's Indians. Felix and Unit round out the rotation with Charlton and Soriano anchoring the pen. A solid lineup of V-Mart, E-Mart, Miguel Dilone, Nap, Sewell, Thome, Ichiro and Jay Buhner (again). Looks good on paper but not sure it's good enough to win.

Hitting--324/402/494, 148 HR, 145 SB; Pitching--1401 IP, 0.99, .209

110 Mil--5 x 5 = 75 (Wins)

This was the most fun to put together and it took me three tries to get a legal roster (stupid 20 mil rule). Started with starters--adding Joss and 06 Doc White. Knew I wanted Toney and Nehf for the pen--and that era got me Tilly Walker (underappreciated in WifS) and Ken Williams. Wanted Tiny Bonham and he got me Niggeling, Greenberg and Ted Williams. Got some modern bats to go with them in Miggy, Mauer and Pedroia. Wanted Kershaw as my 4th starter but ended up taking 85 Tudor, who brought along Raines, Milacki and my all-time favorite 89 HoJo. Not sure they are any good--but fun to build. Playing in Yankees III since I have tons of HRs (and there are at least some limitations on deadball arms).

Hitters--318/405/549, 274 HR, 162 SB; Pitchers--1497 IP, 0.90 WHIP, .208 OAV

120 Mil--Pitchers Duel

No idea what to do with this one so I wung it (winged it?) Chose the HR/9 over WHIP route b/c felt like there were some good options with HR/9 between 0.5 and 0.6. So I have five starters (Scherzer, Cliff Lee, Jose Fernandez, Nolan Ryan and Pedro) with Hearn and Reardon as my long men (100 IP+) and solid closer types like Mo, Bailey and Uehara. 1570 IP total--almost all non-scrub. Went for high K guys to limit the park effect (and my crappy defense).

Focused on high slug hitters with HR pop....including the '32 Ruth. Also have Campy, Miggy, Banks, Ryno, Kiner, Greenberg and Larry Walker. A little short on PAs (5774) but all the hitters have over 600 so hopefully that won't kill me. Hopefully.

Hitters--316/411/618, 385 HR, 66 SB; Pitchers--1570 IP, 0.96, .191 OAV, 102 HRs allowed.

7/31/2014 9:49 PM

trd3

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"110 Mil--5 x 5 = 75 (Wins)"

OG - I almost named my team the exact same thing. I only changed it last week.

7/31/2014 10:06 PM

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