Holiday weekend, and you’ve got some time on your hands, right? Good, because you’ll be here a while. Let’s start with an explainer that may or may not be familiar to some of you. What is this username of mine, redcped, all about? I’ll let
Graham Chapman explain:
https://youtu.be/GOxECFyUcLc
OK, if you couldn’t be bothered to watch two minutes of Life of Brian, I’ll fill you in. See, he’s proud to be a Red Sea Pedestrian, you know, like the Jews walking across after
Moses parted the waters. So, yeah, that’s who I am, too.
Why does this have anything to do with this tournament? I’m glad you asked. Short answer: nothing important. What happened is I built my 140M team first and noticed as I was writing up that one that I had rostered the two greatest Jewish ballplayers,
Sandy Koufax and
Hank Greenberg. It was never part of my plan, but once I realized they both worked … well, I’m just hoping to ride some of that JewJew to the Promised Land - aka Round 2.
And then, because I’m kind of silly sometimes, I made sure to roster at least one Jewish player on every other team just to make sure I spread the JewJew around (this should not be confused with
Pedro Cerrano’s Joboo, just to be clear -
https://youtu.be/vY0L-bcncXA). I used
Baseball Almanac as my arbitrator on membership in my tribe. I once fielded the Star of David squad in the Extreme Themes league, which was a lot of fun but my Judeans got routinely pummeled when Koufax didn’t pitch. I should have found a way to use
Max Fried in the 70M and
Moe Berg somewhere, I suppose, but this frivolity shouldn’t get in the way of building my best team either.
There’s a sub-theme of entertainment in here, too, with all the team names playing off TV show titles and a few musical interludes to keep you clicking and tapping your feet. Enjoy the show!
70M Pretty Little Bleiers -
for RP Richard Bleier
I feel like there’s no avoiding the worst of modern baseball in this theme at this cap, because you’re pretty limited on who you can draft that might be a useful outlier. The 5-per-year limitation was less a challenge than just finding players without huge weaknesses who are affordable. My pitchers are going to give up homers. The only hope is we hit more than we allow. My defense is mediocre, and my catchers couldn’t throw my grandma (z”l) out. But I’m counting on a low number of opponents emphasizing the running game, and also fewer balls are put in play in this era so relatively defense is a bit less valuable.
I’m sure it would have been smart to try a few different builds on this and try to optimize the team, but basically once I’d maneuvered it to fit the requirements I just went with what I have. You have to use a 5-man rotation in this era, I think, and I have guys ranging from 164 to 220 innings. Three of them are decent enough (20
Hendricks, 19
Kershaw, 20
Wainwright), and the others I’ll just hope don’t suck too much. I notice this staff strikes out 7 per 9 innings, which feels low for the era, but I was trying to limit walks too.
The DH really amped up the degree of difficulty because splitting that offense money 9 ways constrained options. I needed 12 pitchers to manage the innings well enough and could have probably gone with 13 even, but that meant very little bench to work with regardless. So I needed to find 600+ PA hitters who didn’t cost much more than $4M to make it all work. Lotta “three true outcomes” guys wound up working. I’ll put them in
Great American Ballpark (+2 HR) and just embrace the crazy.
Lineup:
2018 Andrew Benintendi RF .290/.366/.495
2017 Carlos Santana LF .278/.371/.505
2019 Max Muncy 3B .251/.374/.515
2018 Khris Davis DH .247/.326/.549
2021 Joey Gallo CF .199/.351/.508
2018 Edwin Encarnacion 1B .246/.336/.474
2021 Jake Cronenworth 2B .266/.340/.440
2017 Brian McCann C .241/.323/.436
2018 Freddy Galvis SS .248/.299/.380
Rotation:
2020 Kyle Hendricks RH 220 IP, 2.88 ERA, 1.00 WHIP
2019 Clayton Kershaw LH 178, 3.03, 1.04
2020 Adam Wainwright RH 183, 3.15, 1.05
2017 Alex Cobb RH 179, 3.66, 1.22
2019 Ty Blach LH 164, 4.78, 1.36
Raw stats:
5925 PA, .251/.340/.465, 247 2B, 25 3B, 267 HR, 63/18 SB/CS
1336 IP, 3.40 ERA, .239 OAV, 1.11 WHIP
80M Horlen’s Heroes - SP Joe Horlen
If I started this team over again and started from different positions, I’d probably end up with only a couple of the same players. Once I crossed out a franchise, I basically ignored other options from it. In retrospect, this likely means I missed a lot of opportunities to field a better team if I’d just been willing to go back and rethink a roster spot I’d settled on earlier. On the other hand, it’s done, the team is totally unloveable, and yet I really can’t find the enthusiasm to do it twice.
I wound up with a pretty balanced offense that will use a few platoons to make the best use of the salary requirement. A few guys have good speed, we draw walks, a handful can hit homers, there’s some decent range but we’ll make too many errors, and each player fills a role or two with some versatility at my disposal. Only 3 guys have at least 600 PA, so this will require a lot of active managing game by game – but that’s something I like to do anyway.
We’ll stick this lineup in
Yankee II for a slight decrease on 2B and 3B that we don’t do particularly well and give the pitchers a little break to stretch out the innings. Maybe a more severe pitchers’ park would have been smarter, but I don’t have much of a read on this offense. I probably should have built for a specific park, but the salary and team constraints seemed hard enough to work through so I just tried to be solid instead of specialized.
Not at all intentional, but 9 of my 11 pitchers are from 1963 to 1980 and no one after 1994 wound up on there. And 10 of my 14 hitters are from 1997 to 2019. I’ll let you know in a couple months if that meant anything good. Also, if anyone can explain how I ended up with
Freddy Galvis on both the 70M and 80M teams despite never using him before, kindly call my mother. She’d love to hear from someone, I’m sure.
My rotation starts off with 1975
Randy Jones. I had the ‘76 in there originally, but at the end I got down to 5 spots left and had under $5M left. So I had to save $800K and get 31 fewer IP from him.
Joe Horlen and
Jerry Reuss, two guys I’ve had success with, and 140 IP from
Doyle Alexander complete the rotation. The pen has no one particularly good or interesting, but a few are high IP/G guys to minimize blowups due to in-game fatigue. Instead they’ll just blow up the old-fashioned way – because they suck.
Lineup:
1934 Jo-Jo White RF .313/.419/.385
1933 Bob Johnson LF .290/.387/.505
2019 Josh Bell 1B .277/.367/.569
1948 Larry Doby CF .301/.384/.490
2015 Kris Bryant 3B .275/.369/.488
2000 Mitch Meluskey C .300/.401/.487
1997 Eric Young 2B .282/.363/.408
2019 Freddy Galvis SS .267/.299/.444
Rotation:
1975 Randy Jones LH 285 IP, 2.24 ERA, 1.05 WHIP
1967 Joe Horlen RH 258, 2.06, 0.95
1980 Jerry Reuss LH 228, 2.51, 1.02
1976 Doyle Alexander RH 140, 3.29, 1.12
Raw stats:
5426 PA, .286/.370/.474, 286 2B, 35 3B, 177 HR, 110/41 SB/CS
1423 IP, 2.51 ERA, .228 OAV, 1.06 WHIP
Musical interlude (Hint: It’s about Jews and again features Monty Python, but has nothing to do with baseball)
https://youtu.be/R6VKf6bXCCo
100M Greenberg Acres - OF Hank Greenberg
The first decision is where to spend the $60M, and though I tend to be a pitching-first owner this felt like an easy call. You can build a good enough staff with $40M if you help them out with the park and defense, and the extra money for offense can assure you the gloves. I decided to build for the
Astrodome and favor pitchers who are higher on OAV but limit walks, and let the fielders and the park take care of the rest. I suspect a lot of people will go this route, because it just seems pretty intuitive. Then again, I have lousy intuition.
Heading the rotation are 1916
Dick Rudolph and 1920
Babe Adams, followed by 1992
Bob Tewksbury and 1909
Rube Kroh. Most of those guys don’t give up many homers in case we play a lot of road games in HR-friendly parks or face power teams. The bullpen features 1915
Hooks Wiltse, 1910
Deacon Philippe, 1969
Hoyt Wilhelm, and 2017
Pat Neshek. Going low-ish on innings at 1,368 and counting on the park and defense to make that work.
I wanted a lineup with speed and good averages that can benefit from the +1 in triples and didn’t rely on homers. I’ve got 6 guys with at least 80 speed, and all but one hit at least .327. There’s plus range at several spots, too.
Lineup:
1916 Ty Cobb RF .371/.452/.493
1910 Sherry Magee LF .331/.445/.507
1922 Ray Grimes 1B .354/.442/.572
1979 George Brett 3B .329/.376/.563
1910 Tris Speaker CF .340/.404/.468
1927 Frankie Frisch 2B .337/.387/.472
1889 Buck Ewing C .327/.383/.477
2005 Rafael Furcal SS .284/.348/.429
Rotation:
1916 Dick Rudolph RH 333 IP, 2.16 ERA, 0.97 WHIP
1920 Babe Adams RH 277, 2.16, 0.98
1992 Bob Tewksbury RH 233, 2.16, 1.02
1909 Rube Kroh LH 128, 1.65, 1.06
Raw stats:
5730 PA, .328/.400/.492, 295 2B, 119 3B, 96 HR, 327/186 SB/CS
1368 IP, 2.13 ERA, .234 OAV, 0.99 WHIP
110M Better Call Saul Rogovin - RP Saul Rogovin
I built this team last … like way last. Like a few weeks after the others were done. I figured I’d have plenty of time for it and then got busy with many other things, including some drafts, and then as the deadline neared I was building my draft lists for schwarze’s Redistribution league. All this to say that I got it to work and left it alone, and as a result I know it lacks the sort of thought that could really pay off in an essentially open league like this. And no, I didn’t even think to build a R2 team now and then choose which one to enter, because every time I’ve done that I didn’t make it to R2 so forget that cursed behavior.
I have been using a 1-2A-2B setup in the Big Dick Identical Roster league and quite like the neatness of it. The tricky part is nailing the innings, but I gave myself plenty of leeway by drafting basically all SP in the bullpen so anyone can spot start. I think I’d been reading one of schwarze’s bullpen diatribes and decided to see how it might work using all starters there to take in-game fatigue out of the equation. Might be fun. Could be pointless. Like most of the things my brain agonizes over.
The principal SP are 1918
Walter Johnson, 1904
Mordecai Brown, and 2013
Clayton Kershaw, with 874 total IP. The bullpen includes the seasons you’re well familiar with:
Red Ruffing, Dizzy Dean, Carl Weilman, Joel Pineiro, Tyler Glasnow, Saul Rogovin. A bit over half the innings are deadballers, so I’ve left myself plenty of good seasons for a R2 team.
I aimed on offense for some speed, good averages, and minimal reliance on homers. I didn’t have the park firmly in mind until I set the starting 8 and
Royals Stadium offered the best fit to push the 2B and 3B. The defense is solid, and the bench will barely be needed.
Lineup:
1919 Ty Cobb RF .384/.429/.515
1936 Ben Chapman CF .315/.408/.472
1925 Jim Bottomley 1B .367/.413/.578
1944 Bob. Johnson LF .324/.431/.528
1977 George Brett 3B .312/.373/.532
1931 Mickey Cochrane C .349/.423/.533
1996 Eric Young 2B .324/.393/.421
2005 Rafael Furcal SS .284/.348/.429
Rotation:
1918 Walter Johnson RH 413 IP, 1.27 ERA, 0.95 WHIP
1904 Mordecai Brown RH 225, 1.87, 0.97
2013 Clayton Kershaw LH 236, 1.83, 0.92
Raw stats:
5557 PA, .328/.397/.499, 327 2B, 84 3B, 114 HR, 173/87 SB/CS
1408 IP, 1.89 ERA, .206 OAV, 0.96 WHIP
Musical interlude II (Hint: Contains dancing and Jews, but again no baseball)
https://youtu.be/ZhdlKgAakHw
120M Latman Standing - RP Barry Latman
The first decision certainly has to be the ballpark here. I thought about it more in terms of the negatives. Will a team designed for Yankee III fare poorly on the road at Target, and will teams largely be set up to prevent homers anyway? Or is a team designed for Target more likely to struggle playing at Yankee III?
My conclusion is that a
Target team has fewer disadvantages and can be built to perform well enough at Yankee III, too. Yankee is a +1 for 1B and -1 for 2B, so a team designed around those as opposed to 3B and HR should be fine. Target is 0/+1 in those, so overall I can expect a boost in hits generally and at worst a small boost to doubles. The 3B and HR will have more dramatic impacts.
As I usually prefer, I built a pitching staff I liked first and then tweaked it around the edges at the finish as the decade holes needed filling. Going with 1905
Mathewson for the deadball money despite his strongly not-at-all-Jewish vibe, followed in the rotation by 1997
Pedro, 1964
Koufax and 2018
Sale. In case I need a spot starter, I’ve got 4 guys in the pen who can fill in (58
Latman, 43
Niggeling, 55
Rogovin, 16
Hill). The other key arms are 81
Gossage, 20
Kolarek and 09
Bailey. Gets me to 1,430 IP including a mopup so I think I should avoid fatigue woes. I actually swapped out 64
Bill Henry for Rogovin at the end to get another ~20 innings, one more Jew, and also someone to be more of a long man.
The lineup features four guys at the top (
Speaker, Delahanty, Williams, Grimes) who are high-average and hit doubles and a few triples when the park favors it, but not depending on HR for their SLG. I slotted doubles machine
Billy Herman in at 2B, alongside more A+ range at 3B with
Baker and SS with
Ozzie. The defense might be a bit error-prone in spots, which I don’t love, but you can’t have everything.
Lineup:
1913 Tris Speaker CF .363/.441/.533
1902 Ed Delahanty RF .376/.453/.590
1940 Ted Williams LF .340/.442/.594
1922 Ray Grimes 1B .354/.442/.572
1913 Frank Baker 3B .337/.413/.493
1936 Billy Herman 2B .334/.392/.470
1937 Babe Phelps C .317/.357/.469
1985 Ozzie Smith SS .276/.355/.361
Rotation:
1905 Christy Mathewson RH 359 IP, 1.28 ERA, 0.93 WHIP
1997 Pedro Martinez RH 242, 1.90, 0.93
1964 Sandy Koufax LH 223, 1.74, 0.93
2018 Chris Sale LH 158, 2.11, 0.86
Raw stats:
5586 PA, .333/.406/.502, 364 2B, 97 3B, 92 HR, 159/124 SB/CS
1430 IP, 1.72 ERA, .191 OAV, 0.93 WHIP
140M Strangers with Sandy - SP Sandy Koufax
I started out thinking I’d use
Lajoie at 2B and build around him, but I found it pretty difficult to create a 9-man pitching staff I liked and didn’t think 12 pitchers would leave me enough options to fill my lineup. Using modern relievers to fill 5-6 spots leaves you needing about 1000 more innings, and not many pitchers have 3 seasons that add up well and don’t go way over budget. After trying a few possibilities, I pivoted and dropped 1910
Ed Walsh onto the staff and worked from there. I never tried any other Joker options.
My first version had a bullpen of
Mariano Rivera and
Arthur Rhodes, and the money/innings worked pretty well with
Mordecai Brown. But once I built my hitting and decided to play at
Palace of the Fans, I felt Brown’s OAV wasn’t ideal and I was overpaying for his reduced HR rate that the park would help take care of. So I tinkered with everyone from
Kershaw to
Pedro to
Johnson to
Clemens, trying to find the right combination of 3 seasons that hit the inning and cost targets. Eventually I decided to spend a tad more on pitching and go with two of the strong
Sandy Koufax seasons (1963 and 1966) to lock down a 3-man rotation of 300-inning plus guys who can handle giving up extra hits in Palace. Also, my youngest son’s middle name is Koufax, so yeah, maybe I need help managing expectations.
Eventually I had to shave a little cash and swapped around relievers before settling on two other guys who don’t allow many hits:
Joe Nathan (2004, 2006, 2013) and
Billy Wagner (2005, 2010, mop). This set me up with 1,452 IP and a team OAV of .189. I’m not sure why I wasn’t comfortable with those innings, but I had a feeling playing in Palace at this cap would tax my pitching more than I might be expecting. So at the last minute I swapped Wagner for
Jim Brewer (1971, 1972, 1975 mop) to add another 25 innings to the pen at what should hopefully be similar results.
I started building my lineup around
Tris Speaker, knowing I could use him in CF and had an option for a 1B season if it were necessary. I considered
Cobb briefly instead, but I’m usually really happy with Speaker. I grabbed
Frankie Frisch to cover 2B and 3B, as I’m fond of his great range 1927 season at 2B and his 1924 is good enough at 3B (C/A). He gives me a couple speedy switch-hitters who hit plenty of singles and triples. The downside was having to use a $1.5M scrub season, which I kept thinking would force me to go with another plan but I made it work.
I went through several candidates to fill two of the 1B/DH/3rd OF spots:
Pete Browning, Joe Medwick, Lance Berkman, Roger Connor, and
Honus Wagner. I wanted a RH or SH to balance with Speaker, plus a lot of XBH. I probably could have been happy with any of them and had a version done with Medwick, but for some reason I started tinkering with
Hank Greenberg. I had at first dismissed him because I thought he’d be too HR-dependent. But Hank was a well-rounded hitter, and his 1934 and 1940 seasons feature 63 and 50 doubles, respectively, and fit nicely at 1B and DH. That meant I could go with Speaker across the OF for strong range, with 1914, 1921 and 1923 giving me A+, A, B+ out there. Plus, he’s the original Hebrew Hammer!
Squeezing in a catcher and SS who had cheap seasons available took some digging. I started out trying to platoon a couple
Wally Schangs, but I couldn’t make him work. I settled on
Walker Cooper, with 442 and 191 PA seasons plus a 325K scrub, but then when I went to enter the team I was double checking everything … and d’oh! I’d taken one of the wrong Nathan seasons! That forced a couple shifts of Speaker seasons but also allowed one of the catchers I’d targeted off the bat:
Ted Simmons. I’ll have the 562 PA season from 1980 for most of the time, with a couple scrub seasons to back up and PH.
I wanted a great defensive shortstop regardless of offensive ability, and with about $6M to spend on three versions I wound up with 1960
Ron Hansen (B/A+) along with two sub-500K scrub seasons. All told I’m wasting about $3M on the bench, which isn’t ideal but I can’t really figure out how to avoid a certain amount of it whoever you choose. Unless you only use 12-13 hitters, I suppose, but I wasn’t going to redo everything to try it.
Lineup:
1914 Tris Speaker CF .338/.423/.503
1923 Tris Speaker LF .380/.469/.610
1940 Hank Greenberg DH .340/.433/.670
1934 Hank Greenberg 1B .330/.404/.600
1921 Tris Speaker RF .362/.439/.538
1927 Frankie Frisch 2B .337/.387/.472
1924 Frankie Frisch 3B .328/.387/.468
1980 Ted Simmons C .303/.375/.505
1960 Ron Hansen SS .255/.342/.440
Rotation:
1910 Ed Walsh RH 392 IP, 1.27 ERA, 0.82 WHIP
1963 Sandy Koufax LH 311, 1.88, 0.87
1966 Sandy Koufax LH 323, 1.73, 0.98
Raw stats:
6895 PA, .320/.396/.510, 432 2B, 99 3B, 168 HR, 166/110 SB/CS
1476 IP, 1.64 ERA, .191 OAV, 0.92 WHIP
Closing video (featuring neither Jews nor dancing, sorry to say):
https://youtu.be/QRJ38y4Jn6k