2010 WISC Team Building Process (38 owners posted) - Page 4 - WIS Championship

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$120 The "K" Corner

I decided to play in Municipal Stadium where home runs go to die. But not completely as I drafted 185 dingers to go with 336 steals. My big 5 Craig Biggio, Max Carey. Gregg Jeffries, Tim Raines and Eric Davis had 280 steals and were caught only 31 times, almost 90%. In this format they should almost never get thrown out. I am looking for 500 or more steals with only 10 or so CS. We added David Wright, Ted Simmons, Chipper Jones, old aches and pains, Luke Appling and the partial 2008 season of Manny Ramirez where he hit .396 in almost 200 ABs He will platoon with Eric Davis who had 27 HR and 80 steals in a little over 400 ABs.
My pitchers all stirke out over a man an inning.86 Scott, 64 Koufax, 00 Pedro, 04 Randy and 03 Schmidt are backed up by a bullpen of 08 Rivera, 03 Rhodes, 00 Nen and 04 Todd Williams. That gives me 1170 IP from the startert and 240 from the pen. Throw in another 100 for mop-up and we hope to have enough innings..

P.S. First game we lost 20 - 17 and the whole bullpen is in the red already, Sweaty palms seem to be here to stay

8/6/2010 10:54 AM

daronb

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Theme: 120 Power / Speed     Team name: 120 M Chicken Fried

My mindset on building this team was to select hitters that comploment each other. I wanted some speed guys and some power guys, but more importantly, I went with guys that have been pretty consistent with me in the past. Speed guys like 83 R. Henderson, 87 V. Coleman, 87 O. Smith to go along with power guys like 61 N. Cash and 96 M. Piazza. Also, I selected some guys that just can flat out hit or get on base like 88 W. Boggs, 93 T. Phillips, 85 W. McGee and 99 C. Everett. I think this lineup will be able to score enough.
As far as pitching goes, I was felt more handcuffed as the theme stated every pitcher had to have a hr/9 >= 0.50. So I went with starters that could really throw hard ... 66 J. Marichal, 86 R. Clemens, 04 R. Johnson, 00 P. Martinez. My Bullpen consists of N. Feliz, L. McDaniel, C. Sampson, R. Helling, C. Meredith, T. Percival, M. Rivera, and a mopup of Grabowski. I am not as confident with this pitching staff being successful as I am with my hitting. I think this team has a shot of doing OK because I like that my offense is not one-dimensional like many teams that have been submitted in this theme.

Theme: 140 M - Across the Decades    Team Name: A.G.E.

I usually suck at high cap leagues, but I have a good vibe about this team. When I started builing this team I wanted a very strong pitcing staff. I figured these guys are going to be going against some powerful offenses, so I went with 08 A. Joss, 10 E. Walsh and 95 G. Maddux as my starters. My bullpen is Carlos, Milacki, Rivera, Cooney, Carsey, Latman, Dean, Niggeling and McGraw.
My hitting philosophy was concentrated heavily on OBP with guys like J. McGraw, T. Williams, T. Phillips, F. Lynn, O. Smith, E. Delahanty, B. Ruth, J. Bench. I felt like these guys can get on base as well as have the ability to knock each other in. Overall, I am excited about this team and I expect to have a nice shot.

Theme 90 M GM Challenge w/blacklist     Team Name: Cleveland 95 Rocks

I will be upfront... this theme did not excite me at all so I kept it simple. I went with Cleveland 95 and added 95 G. Maddux. I figured that team had some good talent, expecially hitting, I will just add a very good and consistent starting pitcher like Maddux. Not too much else to say other that I don't feel exactle confident in being successful, but we shall see.

Theme 80 M - Clone Me            Team Name Maddux, Raines Clones

This is a fun theme and I was happy to build this team. I went with Greg Maddux as my pitcher to clone with seasons 91, 95, 97, 02. Not worried about 95, just hoping to get some consistent innings from the other years. I do have a fairly stout bullpen with Carlos, Milacki, Percival, Cooney, McDowell, Eldred, and then some mopup guys.
Tim Raines was who I selected to be my cloned hitter. I felt like he was a guy that was good, consistent and I like speed. I went with 81, 83, 92, those are all years that I have had success with. Other players in the lineup are 95 Boggs, 87 Smith, 75 Carter, 00 Furcal and a host of fill-in scrubs.
This should be a strong team as long as my pitching stay consistent and I have enough plate appearances. It will be interesting.

Theme: 70 M Modern Day 5-Man Rotation     Team Name: Thowing Cheese

Not sure what planet I was on when I built this trainwreck. I think I was going for bargain pitching and speedy batters. My hitting lineup of Vince Coleman, Rafael Furcal, Ozzie Smith, Cal Everett, Wade Boggs, Chone Figgins, Rich Gedman and Dave Concepcion might be OK, but I am pretty confident my pitching staff is going to get hammered hard. I have 92 G. Swindell, 85, L. Hoyt, 89, J. Smiley, 84, J. Denny and 83 L. Barker as my 5 starters....eeesh. Bullpen is Percival, Rozema, Eldred, Sheets and some mopups. I expect this to be my worst team. In retrospect, I wished I would have gone for a good pitching staff with bargain hitters.

Theme: 100 M Limited Seasons Twist     Team Name: Yankees 2000

I have been on the site a long time but I have never been in a twist league so I think I may have drove Ron the Genius to the bottle. I finally settled on the Evil Empire year 2000 as my team. No reason why other than I thought it was a safe route. The team has decent hitting with guys like O'Neill, Tino Martinez, Bernie Williams, Jeter, the Knob, Posada and Justice. The Pitching a little more risky with Clemens, Neagle, Petitte, El Duque and Cone. Bullpen of Rivera, Stanton, Nelson, Gooden and Grimsley. Not too pumped on this team and I am just hoping not to get destroyed.

Overall

This is my first time in the WISC so I am having to go outside my comfort zones in many themes, but I am competitive and like to grow as a player. I am hoping to learn from the experience and have fun with it.

8/6/2010 7:22 PM (edited)

schwarze

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Thanks for contributing daronb. The last time a person with your sim league credentials (20,000 wins, .597 win%, 44 championships) entered the WIS Championship for the first time, he won it all (wildthings1).

8/6/2010 2:03 PM

acn24

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Rookie

70 Million: I ended up with an entire staff of pitchers between 2003-2009. I think the pitching will be generally fairly solid, if uninspiring. The average (including mop-up) is a .248 OAV/1.25 WHIP. There isn't a lot of differentiation between the pitchers, so if I am fortuante enough to make the playoffs it won't be a deep run. On offense I went with some cheaper players I've had decent success with at 80 million caps ('87 Coleman, '88 Winfield and '91 Mattingly). I expect that the middle of the order will be able to produce, with Winfield, '91 Chris Sabo and '82 Jim Rice. Bob Boone behind the plate will provide the only excellent defense on the team. Jerry Remy and Scott Fletcher in the middle of the infield will hopefully be acceptable.

80 Million: Like many others, I cloned Tim Raines, as he provides consistently strong performances. I have '86, '89 and '94. The rest of my offense includes consistent OL performers like '75 Carter, '68 Mike Andrews, '91 Ozzie Smith and '71 Bando. The rotation is '92, '94, '90 and '04 Clemens, and '06 Clemens is in the pen as a Long A. As with most of the other teams I put together, I'm kind of blah on them.

90 Million: The 1997 Yankees had a very solid collection of hitters, although normalization will likely take some of the sting away. They also have a very solid starter in Andy Pettitte, and a couple of decent other starters in David Cone and David Wells. I added Pedro Martinez and Roger Clemens to give me 2 impact starters at the front of the rotation. I'd like to think this team can do well.

100 Million: I twisted the 1981 Orioles, basing the offense around Eddie Murray, Ken Singleton, Cal Ripken and a very good Doug DeCinces season. Al Bumbry's big year is also represented here, and there are enough of Earl Weaver's platoon players to have a couple of dangerous pinch hitters. The starting pitching is pretty good, especially since we'll be playing in pitcher friendly Memorial Stadium, but the bullpen will have me holding my breaht more often than not.

120 Million: On offense I got to the 500 number with more speed than power, although I should have some decent power. I focused on guys who should normalize pretty well, offensive anchors are '15 Cobb, '16 Collins, '86 Raines and '92 Bonds. My pitching should be OK, although I could find myself in early season fatigue trouble if I run into an extra inning game or two. Overall, probably my favorite team of all I put together.

140 million: I went with a big 1880s starter (Tim Keefe), with '95 Maddux and '00 Pedro in a 1/2a/2b rotation. We have a deep bullpen and a formidable top of the order - Lajoie, Boggs, Ruth, Foxx, Mantle. I can't quite understand how I managed to get Toby Harrah, Pete Reiser and Elston Howard as my 6-8 hitters in a $140 million league. This team might do well - I find that Keefe can be very hit or miss - if he is a hit this could be a really good team, if he's a miss it will be a long season.

In total, I feel pretty lackluster about this set of teams. I don't think any will be serious bombs, but I'm not sure I see any making a deep run in the playoffs either. I may find making it to the 2nd round for a 2nd consecutive year very difficult.

8/6/2010 3:01 PM

mpitt76

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My overall attitude towards this year's tournament was to build teams that I liked, rather than necessarily those that I knew would win. I certainly won't make the top 10, but I'm hoping for the top 24. The key to this tournament is no disastrous teams, having lived through a year when I had 5 teams over .500 but didn't make the 2nd round. 70MM I went with my usual strategy of low HR pitchers and putting them in a pitchers park (Petco). Batters should earn their runs. For hitting, I went with the Molina to cut down on the running game, and Puckett for defense. After that it was as many cookies as I could squeeze in, keeping in mind good defense and a high average strategy. This isn't my best cap, but I'm hoping for .500 80MM I didn't really consider anyone other than Willie Wilson. He always performs in 80M leagues and he has several seasons to choose from. I guess Raines or Henderson are good choices, but Wilson always performs. For pitching I had a harder time. I looked at Maddux, and a few others, but Carl Hubbell is one of my favorite sim players and frankly I just wanted to use him. That fit under the have fun this year strategy. I'm worried about the 3 man rotation, as I don't do that often. 100MM Another have fun this year choice. Every 1997 Braves team will make the playoffs. It's just such the obvious choice with plenty of players to choose from. I love the old A's teams and I am always using Bender and Krause in other leagues I am in. I hope the hitting holds because this team should allow very few runs. 90MM Two parts to success in this league. Pick a team with a good pythagorean difference and pick a year with good free agent pitching. I looked at a Tigers team and a 1920s team (I can't remember them more specifically) and settled on the '24 Cards. Vance and Johnson, Rixey and a good year from Johnny Morrisson. Add Zack Wheat to a team that has Hornsby and three other decent hitters and there it is. 120MM Man I struggled with this decision. To go all speed or all power or a combination of both. I really wanted to go all speed, but I couldn't find high salaried players that had good SB%. So I went with a combination. Mize, Williams, and Buck Freeman were immediately placed on the team, and then I found the SB leaders. I threw the '87 Boggs in there batting third so he could knock in the speedsters. The power will bat later in the lineup. As for the pitching, it's all about HR/9+ while keeping with the .5 requirement. Randy Johnson, Pedro, and some other 2000s stud pitchers. And definitely add a pitchers park to keep the innings down. 140MM Start with the best pitching staff you could possibly find, add Billy North to keep the ERA down, then make the hitters fit. High Average hitters in Petco. Done. Took 10 minutes.

8/6/2010 3:13 PM

schwarze

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I will be watching your 24 Cardinals team closely, mpitt76. I really wanted to make that team fit with Dazzy, Walter and Babe. I see taht you didn't take Babe - probably smart. Zack Wheat is no slouch.

8/6/2010 3:28 PM

mpitt76

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Posted by schwarze on 8/6/2010 3:28:00 PM (view original):
I will be watching your 24 Cardinals team closely, mpitt76. I really wanted to make that team fit with Dazzy, Walter and Babe. I see taht you didn't take Babe - probably smart. Zack Wheat is no slouch.

I had him in there at one point, believe me....

8/6/2010 8:01 PM

dippedncrack

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Ok...a rookie's perspective...
It seems as if the HR scares people away, and they build teams to guard against it. With the discovery of the 2009 Yankee stadium, I've taken a different approach.

70M: This is the first of 3 teams I put in the new yankee stadium. Bullpen first, moderate starters second, low HR's given the modern day. Sacrifice OAV given the ballpark. Put together 3 sub-4mil HR hitters (Buhner, Canseco, Sosa) to hopefully hit a few against the modern pitcher at home.

80M: Maddux/Bernie Williams...Again, I wanted bullpen first, moderate starters second. Chose Maddux not for his top years, but for his 5-8mil seasons. For offense, I originally considered Raines, but then thought I didn't need my clone to be my best hitter - knowing that the cap would keep me from fielding any high-tag players, I wen t for breadth of talent - choosing a Bernie that could hit 2nd, 5th, and 8th, which allowed a solid hitting bench for the 7-9 inning pitcher slots.
0/;p
90M: I spent too many hours searching baseball reference given that this was the first team I built. I couldn't get off the 1910 White Sox despite the **** poor hitting and defense. Added Big Train and a slew of >.400 OBP guys with nearly 200 SB's. Pitching is deep. Never liked this team, we'll see...

100M: 1997 Braves - ran into deadline issues here and put together this team from search to completion in under 2 hours. Bullpen is weaker than I like, offense/defense seems balanced. Three walk-off wins in the first 6 games has this team at 4-2. Not a good sign...

120M: Having very limited experience, i have no idea how SB's are used in this game, so I shied away from them and put in massive HR numbers (428), 60M pitching staff with low HR, solid bullpen with low HR over OAV - again a concession to the ballpark. Thought highly of this team until the 1-5 start. HR's have yet to manifest.

140M: Again in Yankee III, put together 60M staff and 80M offense - 7 players with >1.000 OPS and B+ better fielding and range. Pitchers with low HR of course. Not a ton of innings, I'm hoping that although there will be HR's allowed, overall hits should be down.

8/6/2010 8:08 PM

calhoop

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The two most anticipated sporting events for me every year are the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament and schwarze's WISC tournament. Nothing else comes close.

It never fails to amaze me how the difference between advancing to Round 2 and just missing is usually less than 3 points and sometimes only 1 point. This is after 972 regular season games and 6 complete sets of playoffs. One lucky win or one brutal single-game collapse will make the difference. Just like the ESPN College hoop slogan from a few years age "Every Game Counts!" This 23-25 area of the standings is always my focus, just hoping to advance. Very much a bubble owner, if I am lucky I will be sweating out another World Series somewhere in this tournament and probably not in a league I am in.

My strategies, such as they are:

70mm - **Low Cap Garbage

Team name is direct and to the point. 70mm is a low-cap league for me (even with the cheaper pitching prices from the last system update). I usually follow a general formula and slap a team together using the following guidelines:

1) First I try to balance pitching and hitter salaries fairly equally

2) Select pitchers that give up very few walks and manageable HRs. Since this league only uses 1980-2009 pitchers I lose several automatic choices, like Babe Adams. My 5-man rotation is 2006 Halladay, 1981 Reuss, 1992 Tewksbury, 2009 Pineiro and cheapo 1988 Allan Anderson. I filled in the bullpen with long-innings 1984 Quis and three 40-inning types to rotate in to close.

3) Play in a suffocating pitchers park, first choice being Petco if allowable

4) Figure out the average position player cost and look for players in the resulting $/PA range. Try to find hitters that have good speed, high walks and have reasonable BB/K ratios. I want hitters that walk or make contact and hope to benefit from advance-on-groundout type events in low-scoring games. If I am able to use Petco, I load up with triples hitters as well. Good fielding up the middle is always a plus. Steals also a plus since I hope some owner don't pay for A or better catcher arms. Also I usually consider punting 3b or one OF position and rotate 6-7 200k players. I did not do that this time, however.

4) Ignore Rule 4 and find a cheap Babe Ruth to squeeze into the lineup. (Not eligible for this league however)

*******More later************

8/7/2010 1:45 PM (edited)

wetwillytwo

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$70 Million: Handpack in Anubis
This one was difficult for me because I always prefer a 4-man rotation when drafting a team. At first I thought about drafting 4 starters to actually start and then another starter to be used as Long A, but I just could not find a cost effective way to swing it. I ultimately just settled on the best 5-man rotation I could find within my budget. As for the offense, in every open league I’ve played lately it seems that stolen bases and high average guys have been doing well. So I tried to incorporate an open league offense for my team as the caps are very similar. I threw them in the Astrodome because I figure if my team ain’t hitting any home runs then my opposition shouldn’t either.

$80 Million: Tim & Greg Awesome Show Great Job!
This team was very easy for me as the rules fit the basic conditions of an open league. I basically used my open league strategy referenced above and then just made sure to find players with multiple seasons that fit. Greg Maddux of course is a sim legend, and deservedly so, with his slew of fantastic and usable seasons. He made an easy choice for a 1 player, 4-man rotation. As for my hitter, I wanted to use a few Tim Raines seasons in my last open league but ultimately chose just one. This was the perfect excuse to just try them all at the same time.

$90 Million: 1998 Marlins
One rule single handedly swung which team I was going to pick. That rule was in regards to the use of partial and combined season players. In the rules it was perfectly legal to use a full season version of a player that had only spent part of the season on my selected team. I also knew that the goal of the league was to find a team that performed far worse in real life than they would in the sim in order to get those valuable free agent spots. When racking my brain on a place to start for such a team (and not duplicate a pick from last year) I remembered that in 1998 Mike Piazza had spent all of 1 game with the Florida Marlins in-between stops in Los Angeles and New York. The fact that he did isn’t of much consequence in the history of baseball, but it did allow me to use his entire 1998 All Star season. After scanning the roster I realized that I would also have a full season Gary Sheffield even though he too got traded midseason. Combine that with 6 free agent selections and you have a pretty decent team on your hands.

$100 Million: 2005 Yankees
My favorite league of all is the twist league. I’m not the best at them, but I absolutely find them to be the best mix of gratifying and challenging of any league I’ve played. My favorite league is the Wannabe Twist that Emperorp runs. Right now we’re in our 39^th season and every single team that’s been used in the past is blacklisted. So when I heard the rules for this league I immediately started scanning that blacklist for teams that had long stretches of seasons taken. One of the longest is the 90’s and 00’s Yankees which runs somewhere around 20 years. After looking at the 2005 roster I felt they had the most complete team in terms of both offense and defense and just stuck with them.

$120 Million: Track Meet Hero ‘98
This league intrigued me right off the bat. I felt that teams that tried to do both base stealing and power hitting were doomed to fail because it’s too hard to do both effectively. This meant that I had to choose one or the other. I also figured most of the other owners in the league would do the same, which meant that half the teams would be in +HR parks and the other half in -HR parks. Power hitters thrive in +HR parks and fail miserably in –HR parks. Base stealers on the other hand couldn’t care less, they’re just going to steal bases wherever they are. I drafted the most cost effective base stealing offense I could, loaded up on pitching and called it a day.

$140 Million: I Suck at High Caps
The name says it all, once I pass that $120M mark my teams always seem to turn to crap. This league my goal is to just tread water. I adapted the strategy that I had been using in other leagues (high avg base stealers in Astrodome) as best I could to a $140M cap. I just searched for players in different decades that fit my offense. As for the pitching, I figured everyone is going to have a killer offense so I literally just drafted the best pitchers that the rules would allow.

8/6/2010 10:18 PM

PennQuaker

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$70M - Modern 5-Man Rotation
I don't generally play low caps anymore so these leagues are always a challenge. I wanted to have 2 higher IP SPs to protect the bullpen. '80 Blue and '91 Bosio fit the bill. I also drafted '82 McWilliams and Dravecky with 100+ IP each to protect the bullpen because I knew the lower IP SPs would be out of the game sooner even with a 5-man rotation. I sacrificed somewhat on HR/9 in order to get better OAVG+ and Hit Rate. Overall, the staff had 1,316 quality IP with a WHIP of 1.15. On offense, I focused more on singles hitters and strong defense. The infield (Hatteburg, Reynolds, Furcal and Da. Evans) all have strong range and Pettis should help in CF. Since I value lineup balance, I chose '06 Kendall instead of a catcher with an A+ arm. I also put this team in PNC Park in order to reduce HRs and help the offense with a +1 park factor.

$80M - Two Clones (Rixey/Dw. Murphy)
I really liked this team when I built it but an 0-7 start is making me wonder. For the pitcher, I focused on the period between WW1 and WW2 because of generally strong normalization and lower salary/IP. While Wes Ferrell's bat could have been appealing, I didn't think that he would be sufficiently effective with relatively poor control. And, I couldn't make Lefty Grove work in a way in which I was comfortable. So, I settled on Eppa Rixey with the '22, '24, '25 and '32 seasons. He normalizes well and has low HR/9. The staff has 1,351 quality IP, .254 OAVG and a 1.14 WHIP.
For the offense, I wanted to have strong fielding grades because I didn't draft strikeout pitchers and the ball would be in play quite a bit (although I thought that my fielders would actually get to a few of them). Dwayne Murphy ('80, '81 and '84) provides strong OF defense, some HR power and walks. The team should be strong defensively with '68 Hundley, '03 Hatteberg, '65 Lefebvre, '29 Ford and '75 Da. Evans manning the other five offensive positions.Given the park options that were available, I chose Redland Field to emphasize HR (+1 to both fields) but reduce hits (-1 for 1B). I would have thought that this park would set up well for Rixey. We'll see if things get better.

8/7/2010 7:48 PM (edited)

PennQuaker

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$90M - Single Season Team ('30 Senators)
I was one of the people who used the '75 Dodgers last year. I wanted to find another team with solid pitching in a reasonable park. I've always been a fan of the '30 Senators because the pitching is relatively inexpensive and normalizes very well. Given a .600+ winning percentage, I would have only one free agent but the Senators have a solid lineup with no gaping holes. I added '30 Grove to the pitching staff to have a stud SP at the top of the rotation. The team has a .257 OAVG and 1.31 WHIP, both of which will hopefully normalize nicely.
The offense fits well at Griffith Stadium. With the midseason trade involving Goslin and Manush, I had the flexibility to add Goslin's power to the lineup in order to help on the road. While the '30 AL is obviously a strong offensive season and will be hurt somewhat by normalization, HR hitters from that year generally see strong power performance at the expense of AVG. My concerns are C (Tate and Spencer are adequate at best) and OF defense (no regular better than C+ range). Griffith Stadium is -2 for HR and 0 for 1B which should further help the pitchers and +1 for triples which will give certain hitters a boost.

$100M - Limited Twist ('71 Orioles)
In the league I am running (4-A), I was surprised at the clustering of team selections. Three of us chose early '70s Orioles teams. I've always liked these teams because of strong pitching, strong defense, good OBP and a pitcher friendly park. Basically, typical Earl Weaver baseball. Cuellar ('69), Palmer ('72), McNally ('68) and Dobson ('72) are a solid starting rotation with a deep bullpen ('69 Hall, '69 Watt, '73 Pena, '72 Richert, '73 G. Jackson) behind them. Overall, the staff is a little heavy with 1,471 IP with a .213 OAVG and 1.03 WHIP. But, I didn't miss out on any offense by having this staff.
As Weaver did during this time, I platooned at C with '69 Hendricks and '71 Etchebarren. The IF has '70 Powell, '73 Grich, '71 Belanger and '74 B. Robinson. Brooks has gotten off to a poor defensive start with 3 errors in his first 7 games despite his A-/A+ ratings. The only tough choice was Grich over Davey Johnson. I love Grich's defense and didn't think that I would see a benefit from Johnson's HRs with a $100M cap. The OF has '71 Buford, '71 Rettenmund and '69 F. Robinson with a combined .417 OBP that will hopefully normalize well. '71 Blair is on the bench for defensive purposes and to fill in.

8/7/2010 7:50 PM (edited)

PennQuaker

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$120M Power Speed
Normally, I like power. But, I felt that I could get more bang for my buck by going with high SB% players in a negative HR park. The focus of the pitching staff was low OAVG and Hit Rate while having as low a HR/9 as I could. The rotation was '63 Koufax, '72 Hunter, '68 McNally and '68 Tiant with a bullpen of '90 McDonald (long man), '05, B. Wagner '06 Meredith, '08 Rivera, '89 Eckersley and '09 Feliz. I know that there will be certain parks on the road in which I will give up HRs. But, I'm hoping that there will be as few men on base as possible The overall staff was 1,564 quality IP (more because there will be runs scored in this league), .182 OAVG and 0.87 WHIP.
I fcoused the offense on contact, OBP and strong SB%. I chose '75 Simmons as my C because of his solid offense and relatively strong CS% for this theme. I'm also hoping that having two LH SPs will help this. I chose '80 Schmidt, '84 Murray and '72 Morgan as the other primary power hitters. Each of them has strong OBP and can steal a base as well. In order to solidify the IF defense further, I went with '80 O. Smith at SS. He had SB/CS of 57/15 and very strong defense but a weak bat. The OF has '93 Lofton (70/14), '85 R. Henderson (80/10) and '25 Carey (49/12), all of whom have solid to strong range. I chose '83 Raines (90/14) as the DH. With 430 SB, 167 HR and 828 BB, I'm hopeful that this team will be able to score runs anywhere. I chose League Park (II) which is -2 for HR but +2 for 1B and +3 for 2B.

$140M - Decade Duos
The first decision I made with this team was that the 1880s player would be a hitter rather than a pitcher because I didn't want to carry 13 pitchers. I like to have more PAs and IP at higher caps because there is usually more offense. I started with the pitching staff and the starting rotation. For me, '15 Alexander and '08 Joss were easy choices. Joss seems to have been performing better since the last update and Alexander is usually very steady and provides 400+ IP/162. With a 12-man staff, I knew that I would have bullpen depth and could sacrifice some IP behind Alexander. I chose '68 Gibson as the #3 SP in part because I knew that I wasn't likely to pick a 60s hitter who would start for me. I was able to fit both '03 Gagne and '90 Eck. I chose '43 Pollet as the long man. The pitching staff had 1,626 IP, .188 OAVG, 0.84 WHIP, and 0.18 HR/9.
For the offense, I wanted high average/OBP contact hitters who played reasonable defense. I don't worry about SB much in higher caps, so I chose '32 Cochrane at C. The IF was '77 Carew, '20 Hornsby, '48 Boudreau and '83 Boggs. The OF was '94 Duffy, '58 Ashburn and '07 Ordonez. The hitters combined for 702 BB with only 377 K and BA/OBP/SA of .358/.435/.533. I put this team in League Park II to emphasize its offensive strengths (hopefully) and reduce the longball that others may draft.

8/7/2010 8:15 AM (edited)

Jdh34

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$70M - 5 Man Rotation   (Pitch Intense 7-1)

     My strategy for this team was to build an offense around guys who hit for a high average and had a relatively high OBP to give the offense more opportunities to knock in runs. I'm using many players I have never used before so I'm not really sure what to expect with this squad. I also chose to use a few guys I have seen others use in 80M leagues with a lot of success such as 80 Dilone and 95 Boggs. 98 Dmitri Young is a bit of a sleeper on this team. His power numbers are fantastic and for only 3.5M, if he can closely match his real life numbers our offense will be in good shape. Early returns indicate he just might (3 2b, 3 HR and 14 RBI in 8 games).
     Pitching wise I was trying to draft high inning guys who didn't walk many either. I've had good success with 06 Carpenter and he is fairly cheap. Saberhagen and Halladay are usually solid. Honeycutt and Jimmy Key are unknowns to me, but fit my strategy so I'm hoping they can hang around .500 in their starts with Carpenter-Saberhagen-Halladay ideally winning the majority of their starts. The bullpen I chose a low-inning closer who will hopefully only appear to close in Romo. Then I just took to getting guys with around 70 innings and a solid whip. Innings wise, the pen may run into issues later in the season if my top 3 starters don't go long into games.

$80M - Clone Me   (Ducky and Frank 5-3)

     I spent a good amount of time on this team trying to find both an offensive clone and pitching clone that had 3 similarly effective years around the same price. I landed with Medwick pretty early in the process. I traditionally like guys with high 2Bs because it seems to be the stat that the sim will match the closest if not go over. Medwick was a doubles hitting machine, high avg guy but also very affordable in an 80M setting. I surrounded Medwick with guys I have had success with in open leagues in Pablo Sandoval and David Ortiz. Offensively I liked this team the best out of the 6 because top to bottom, they are solid. In early returns the team batting average is .335
     For the pitching clone I just couldn't stick with 1 guy. I had Saberhagen, Gooden, Sid Fernandez, Pedro, Maddux, Reulbach and ultimately Tanana. I took a bit of a gamble here going witih Tanana whom I've never used in any league so I really have no idea what to expect from him. It's not a sound strategy in any way, but the time crunch forced me to make a decision. Because of my worries about Tanana, I wanted a strong bullpen and I went with guys I use frequently in open leagues in Eck, Meredith, Jackson, and Penny so I'm hoping if Tanana falters these guys will pull me through some of them. So far my worries about Tanana were warranted as combined he's 3-3, 44IP, 5.52 ERA and 1.55 WHIP.

8/7/2010 6:20 PM

Jdh34

Posts: 738 (3)

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$90M - GM Challenge (99 KC Royals 6-2)

     I spent about two weeks on this team scanning Baseball Reference for teams to use. I settled on two teams really early only to find out they were on the Blacklist in the 77 Reds and 94 Padres. During the weeks I was searching what I was looking for kept changing which compounded the problem. I originally was looking for a team with stud pitching but discovered those teams typically won which meant if the offense wasn't equally spectacular there wouldn't be a way to fix it with a limited number of Free Agents. So I started looking for teams that scored a lot of runs with a Win% under .500 and I came to the Royals who offensively really had no holes other than 2b.
     As Schwarze pointed out I took a large gamble in using 2 of my 6 FA on hitters instead of bolstering their terrible pitching staff and I've seen Bagwell struggle in a lot of leagues so the decision to use him may bite me but I couldn't resist. Moving Sweeney to catcher to create the opening at 1B seemed like a no brainer to me but it meant I had to use a 2nd FA on offense. The 99 Royals pitching was absolutely dreadful but they did have 2 starters in Rosado and Suppan who had serviceable numbers so I banked on their innings and only added 2 stud starters in 99 Pedro and 99 RJ. The bullpen was in even worse shape so I went with high innings guys with great numbers in Foulke and Rivera because they are going to be overworked. I'm worried the bullpen will fall apart toward the end of the season.

$100M - Limited Twist Season (2005 Yanks 8-0)

     I was pressed for time when I ultimately settled on this team, but basically I was looking at teams with a lot of recognizable players and when you do that you usually settle on the yankees. I really wanted to make a Giants team as they are my team, but they just historically are strong in only 1 area. For the sake of taking this tournament seriously and wanting to advance I looked elsewhere. I tried the 75-77 Reds, 30-33 A's, but to no avail. I was watching a Giants vs Rockies game and Giambi came up and peaked my interest in looking up his stats and a hop skip and jump later I landed on the 05 Yanks page. Top to bottom they were solid at every position, most of their players had a career type year relatively recently and their pitching staff had 4 quality arms as did their bullpen.

8/7/2010 6:40 PM

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