I agree with RTG in the order of my favorites. Love the "baseball-reference-related" intense research themes (100M, 110M) more than the "let's see how many permutations I can build" themes (80M, 120M).

And with respect to Jtpsops's 255M comment, I agree that with every team having lots of studs, the in-season strategy component plays a bigger role, as does a lot of luck. I'm sure we'll have two (or more) people with similar teams that perform drastically different, simply due to variance.

Oh, I spent less time on the 80/255Ms than the others, largely because I just used a couple of heuristics to radically simplify, and called it a day. I think to put together a GOOD team, you would need to spend a lot of time.

The 2 teams I spent the most time on were the $110m and the $255m. RTG summed up the challenge of the $110m theme. With the $255m, I found it easy to make mistakes: getting near the bottom and realizing I'd run out of 3B options, or getting through all 26 boxes and realizing I'd picked 2 players from box 12.

Once I built a decent squad I stopped working on the $255 team. I'm not convinced reworking it would help, and agreed that this theme will probably involve more luck than the others.

Posted by contrarian23 on 5/17/2023 12:41:00 PM (view original):
Oh, I spent less time on the 80/255Ms than the others, largely because I just used a couple of heuristics to radically simplify, and called it a day. I think to put together a GOOD team, you would need to spend a lot of time.

"I think to put together a GOOD team, you would need to spend a lot of time."

I think this is true for every theme.

I've built 5 or 6 different Franchise teams. Assuming I only limited myself to the original franchises, I could have built 16, and even from that, I could vary those 16 rosters with different hitting/pitching $$ splits, so the number of permutations could have been greater than 16.

The $80M theme obviously have a lot more permutations, especially considering the Round 2 implications. I don't think it's necessary to try every one. Find a few boxes that have seasons that have players you like to use and start there. I don't expect to find the best permutation, but simply to find a roster that I like and can live with. Your knowledge of the database and which player-seasons are preferable to use (in this cap) certainly helps.

One of the reasons I stopped playing when ozomatli was running things is that he came up with some themes that were actually painful to build. I remember one theme where I spent dozens of hours just to get a legal team constructed. Then the day after the final deadline, I was informed I had misinterpreted the (complicated) rules and had submitted an illegal roster.

I like creating Round 1 themes where there won't be a lot of roster duplication and will also be fairly easy and hopefully fun to build.

Oh yeah I remember that one… some sort of convoluted twist theme… I think I took that year off too…

As a relatively new player who has only competed in Open Leagues, I really enjoyed the themes and the ability to use different caps and strategies to find new players that I haven't had a chance to use before. No guarantee I'll be competitive but I'm sure luck will throw me a playoff appearance or two. Excited to have fun playing with you guys who have been doing this probably as long as I've been alive!

rchisolm is taking the spot vacated by teamhydro with these league numbers:

70M: 1-C
80M: 2-B
100M: 3-B
110M: 4-D
120M: 5-C
255M: 6-B

Sorry for the questions -- long-time player (this is my 2nd ID); 1st time WISCer, so I don't know what I don't know and am chomping at the bit to get started and learn how all of this works.

What is the new deadline to have all teams loaded?
What other steps have to happen before game play begins?
Are those steps "automated" or manual (I know there must be time and effort either way, and thank you to those who have taken responsibility to put this together so that 96 of us can have fun doing this!)?
Considering all of the above, when do we expect the first games to be?

Posted by Qhadow123 on 5/18/2023 12:03:00 PM (view original):
Sorry for the questions -- long-time player (this is my 2nd ID); 1st time WISCer, so I don't know what I don't know and am chomping at the bit to get started and learn how all of this works.

What is the new deadline to have all teams loaded?
What other steps have to happen before game play begins?
Are those steps "automated" or manual (I know there must be time and effort either way, and thank you to those who have taken responsibility to put this together so that 96 of us can have fun doing this!)?
Considering all of the above, when do we expect the first games to be?

All good questions.

1. Monday, May 29 is the deadline to have all teams in. A few owners haven't submitted any teams yet, and I'm trying to find new owners for a couple I think might have backed out or can't do it now. I might have to open up spots in individual leagues to owners who just want to play 1 or 2 of them. It's possible that causes unexpected delays.
2. The commissioners are checking rosters as they come in, but depending on how many come in late and all our availability to check everything, it may take a couple days to finalize everything. We will also randomize the teams into divisions (except the 255M, which is ordered by salary).
3. These are all manual steps. The commissioners will coordinate so that we all "approve" our leagues for scheduling around the same time so all the leagues launch on the same day,
4. I would say probably sometime between June 2-4 maybe. A few days to lock it all down, launch in coordination, then the usual 36-48 hours WIS gives before the first games play.

Also, a site-mail will be sent out (after the rosters have been verified) to let folks know it's time to change their teams (for those that are using a generic team names now).

Thanks very much for the explanations!

Re: 80M theme (Bingo Cards)
So many options that it was really hard to settle on one card, and then adding in the different possible uses of each card did make it challenging.

I tend to emphasize good catchers, SS, and the right SP's and have played in a lot of 60-80M leagues and have lots of guys I like at that cap. Eventually, the vast number of permutations was too great so I kind of back-doored the thing. Picked the Catcher I wanted and then the best SP I wanted. There were two of the Bingo Cards that featured the two of them so I got it whittled down to just two cards. From my list of preferred SS, once I found one that matched a card then that was it; I was using that card come hell or high water.

Hate all my teams, keep withdrawing to tinker then re-enter, and despite finals, clinicals, and a full time job, still have 5 teams entered. Where the rest of y’all?

Posted by ronthegenius on 5/16/2023 3:26:00 PM (view original):
You’re doing better than me. I’ve realized I could have swapped all 25 players and would be better off…

But, seriously, I found this theme a lot more devilish than it seems at first glance.

Personally, I found the $255 one of the “easier” ones to build. Obviously that could mean my team sucks, but I built one team in group A, liked it a lot. Was about to enter it and built a quick team in 30-40 min with group B and thought, “oh I like that one better” and entered it.

I’ll either win 50 or 100

Posted by Jtpsops on 5/17/2023 9:45:00 AM (view original):
$255M caps are always a crapshoot, IMO. Strategy plays into high caps more than lower caps, since everyone will high quality players, which actually makes it ideal for this type of tournament.

I feel the opposite. High caps everyone has quality players so it’s more of a crap shoot. Which 2020 Bauer/Liment team will perform better? Low caps you have to be more strategic and figure out different ways to succeed imo