Posted by rbow923 on 6/13/2021 12:39:00 AM (view original):
Variable Cap Addendum
Several teams in my league didn't draft enough innings for high cap. They'll give up more hits, and Voila! I don't have enough hitter stamina.

What's your threshold for "enough innings"?

I’ll start off by saying how much I dislike how WIS added the 2020 players. They’re a blemish on a rose. I haven’t used one since they were added, but felt compelled to use them (sometimes heavily) for WISC to remain competitive.

70m – The Pen is Mightier for 250, Alex
I was surprised how quickly I was able build a decent team with matching OAV and AVG using pitchers I’d normally use in a 70m league, focused on limiting walks. I only needed to do some minor tweaking to finish off. I was originally at .244, but some minor changes, especially adding the laughable .045 Billy Hamilton and .458 Jordan Yamamoto from silly 2020 allowed me to upgrade my bullpen and catcher and got me to the nice and round .250.
Biggest concerns: Chose slugging over OBP across the board, because I’m guessing most will try to reduce walks like I did. That might be a mistake that dooms me. Five righty hitters.
Other thoughts:

• Boom or bust player: ’91 Cal Ripken. 700 plate appearances with 20+HR and .99+ fielding could be a bargain at $4.6. 700 plate appearances under the Mendoza line with under 10HR and dozens of -range plays could be a disaster.
• I enjoy any theme that forces you to choose non-cookies. This theme certainly did so with hitters.
• Lou Merloni from the now defunct Providence College Friars baseball program on the pine and sporting a team leading .281 avg.
• I had major pitcher fatigue with my last 2 or 3 WISC low salary teams. I made sure to draft plenty of innings (1350 usable) because I no longer have the patience to tinker with lineups throughout each day.

The name is a tribute to Alex Trebek (RIP) and one of my favorite SNL skits “I’ll take the ***** mightier for 250 Alex!”

90m- Little T’s Centennials (18/18)
I’m always intrigued by how old and new players interact in sim. This theme forces the issue.
My first inclination was 85 – 91. I had a fantastic 91 top to bottom 1 – 8, but I couldn’t get to a place where I was comfortable with the pitching. I then turned to 16 – 19. I built decent looking teams for each year, ultimately going with 2018 because it was the most balanced team. 18 also allowed me to roster several familiar friends, 1918 Ruth, Hippo Vaughn, Roy Mitchell and Tuero. 2018 Jose Ramirez, Ryan Brasier also made my $120 squad which makes me question that squad.
Biggest concerns: Multiple players in my 1-8 that I normally wouldn’t consider rostering at any cap.
Other thoughts:

• It’ll be fun seeing box scores with some current players I’ve never used before (Lorenzo Cain, Benintendi, Whit Merrified, Andrelton Simmons), who could all be boom or bust.
• My Ace is a murderer…the infamous Carl Mays.
• I never considered 2020…maybe I should have.
• I hope a few owners chose 85 – 99. I couldn’t make the pitching work but wanted to badly. I wonder how others figured it out.
• I had a harder time getting comfortable with my team in this theme than any other.

110m – See Ya Never, Covid
What I did here was build the best $120m starting 8 and pitching staff I could, then flip half of them to the second team and crossed my fingers there would be good enough teammates to fill in the gaps. It actually worked…mostly. My first round team is full of mostly hitting cookies and my second round team pitching cookies. My first round pitching staff makes me really nervous sans ’05 Mathewson and my second round hitters are sort of weak for $120. My biggest update was changing three bullpen slots to 2020 mates.
Biggest concerns: Round 1: Pitching, Round 2: Hitting
Other thoughts:

• I don’t remember how I settled on a 19 Alex Bregman SS / Joe Smith RP combo. Bregman may come back to haunt me.
• My last chosen combo was 15 Marcus Stroman/David Price. I don’t recall why as they both may be overmatched at this cap.
• 1902 Bill Bernhard is too good a value, so I forced him onto my team 2. That led me to vastly overpay for teammate Charlie Hickman (1B R). I won’t be able to live with myself if I don’t make the cage and never get to use my 2^nd team.
• 1908 Billy Purtell ($200k) from the Whitesox looked too good to pass up. I may go with teammate Edward Augustine Walsh in round 2?
• I hope there aren’t too many participants that punt round 2 to build the perfect round 1 team. I’ll be happy to win 85 games in round 1 with the hope of over 90 in round 2.

120m: Little T’s Taters
Going into this I assumed I’d end with double or triples. I started by creating my pitching staff because I decided I’d use the same staff regardless of what hit type I chose. I then created the best 1b, 2b and 3b teams I could come up with. I didn’t bother with HR because they are too expensive. I liked the 1b and 2b teams and actually didn’t like the 3b team.
I then decided to do something I normally don’t because it isn’t very reliable. I sim’d them against each other several times. Surprisingly, the 1B team was significantly better so I went with that.
A week or so later I decided to build an HR team for shitzs and giggles…and I do love home runs, expensive as they may be. As expected, they WERE expensive so I needed to lessen my pitching quality (enter ’05 Roger Clemens, ’16 Kyle Hendricks and gulp ’63 Hal Woodeshick) The eye test wasn’t pretty…guys like Dolph Camilli, Bobby Grich, Carlos Correa and the aforementioned Jose Ramirez facing off against sim stars like Cobb, Wagner, Sisler and Collins. No chance.
A week or so later, for shitz and giggles, I sim’d them against each other. Lo and behold they were pretty even…with the HRs winning more in the HR ballpark and the 1B winning more in the 1B ballpark.
What to do? What to do? Be a man! Home runs it is!
Concerns: Getting demolished by the WISC Gods in this theme. This was the team I voted “most worried about”.

Other thoughts:

• This team could go 100 – 62 or 62 – 100. I really haven’t a clue what will happen.
• Of course, it’s the non-deadball pitching requirement that makes this even remotely doable. I figure this team will hit 1 – 2 HRs every game so we’ll always have a chance.
• My fielding is very good for a bunch of free-swinging big men. This should assist against those dainty singles teams??
• Maybe I’ll do very well at home if most of the other teams go single, double, triple.
• I may have outsmarted myself here and will regret it…but I’ll go down swinging for the fences!

140m: The 1885s, 1910s, 1930s Kings
I struggled mightily with this one until I had an epiphany and did something I’ve only done once or twice before………SILVER KING! Add sim superstar ’85 Roger Connor and the 1885s and half my staff are DONE!
What’s next…pitching. There’s a lot of recent love for the ultra-modern pitchers but 394 IP 1912 Walter Johnson will allow me to set it and forget it. The rest of the bullpen are also 1910s favorites like Art Nehf, Roy Mitchell, etc. and still money left over for ’13 Tris Speaker and ’15 Benny Kauff.
Now what? I need to choose a crappy decade to fill 6 other positions. The 1930s ended up being an easy choice. Ruth, Gehringer, Appling, Billy Werber and Gabby Hartnett were much better than any other combo from the other remaining decades. Naturally I forgot DH so ended up with 1887 Bob Caruthers platooning with a bunch of 200-300k scrubs from the 30’s
Biggest Concerns:

• Getting close to full value from Silver King.
• Not enough slugging to counter the ultra-modern pitchers.

Other thoughts:

• I keep looking at this team and thinking “damn, this team is gonna be good”, then I realize, I spent $140 million, of course it’s good, but everyone’s team will be good!

Variable: Little T’s .62s (2020 or Bust)
This was the first team I built and it took about 10 minutes, using mostly 2020 pitchers giving me .9 HR/9 if I recall, it’s been awhile. But I kept tinkering, trying different combos, including heavy HR vs. low HR hitting lineups. I even tried an all deadball staff.
I finally settled on .62 because at a glance my $172m lineup looked just as good as what I could come up with at $180. The difference, replacing multiple 2018 – 2020 dudes with 1910 Ed Walsh. I also went semi-heavy HR, (27 Ruth, 51 Musial) guessing that most owners wouldn’t be able to resist the added salary. I believe the success of this team will hinge on whether Walsh can out-duel the modern pitchers.

Biggest Concerns:

• Besides Walsh, the remainder of my starters are 2020 (Bieber, Maeda, Bauer, Lamet). I’ve never used any of them so have no idea how they’ll perform.

Other thoughts:

• I rarely have a chance to use Stan Musial, but think he was the best as a player and person. I hope he does well here.
• I’m normally not a fan of super high salary leagues, but this one is just low enough and has enough twists in the theme where there should be lots of variation in players.
• The difference between my $160m vs $170m teams seemed vast, but there was very little difference between my $172 and $180 teams. I very much look forward to seeing what others have done.

Final thoughts:

• I built these teams over two months ago and looking back can’t think of why I chose any of my ballparks over others. This is why I don’t reference them at all in my write-ups.
• My overall biggest concern is that with such great competition, one terrible team could knock me out of the cage. As usual, I don’t suspect I’ll have any World Series winning teams, but hope they are all competitive enough to squeeze into the top 25.

70M - .2^8

At 70M I really like using all the roster spots I can, and all the salary I can, so I didn't go for having dud pitchers or hitters to make the numbers work. But looking back at what I selected, I'm not sure I got it right. Given that AVG and OAV are going to be blah at best, there are 6 things to play with.

1. HR hit
2. HR/9 conceded
3. BB drawn
4. BB/9 conceded
5. Fielding
6. Speed

And my team leans way too hard into 3 and 4. They are really good on those metrics. In real life the team drew 898 walks and gave up 145. But without pop or speed, I'm not sure how we'll do up against other pitching staffs that only give up 1 walk/game. In retrospect, I wish I'd spread it round more, had one bopper, one base stealer etc. The fielding is OK, but not great. This team could really struggle to score runs, and might give up just a few too many, especialy HR, to win 90.

Hitting: 5644 PA, .256/.381/.361
Pitching: 1328 IP, 1.09 WHIP, 97 HR

90M - 20/20

I barely even looked at the other years. The 2020 players have video game numbers, quite literally in this case, and 1920 Babe Adams is my favorite deadball pitcher to use, so that made the choice easy. With this bullpen, at this cap, I might win 90% of games I'm leading after 6. And while I don't have any HR on the team, I have enough OBP plus doubles to score enough for this pitching staff.

The one big gamble I took was Cody Bellinger at 1B. His listed range is quite literally off the charts. I don't know how WIS is going to do + plays for someone whose range is so extreme; if they just do a linear extrapolation from players with normal numbers, he could make 40 + plays. I don't think he'll do that, but I'm interested in what he does do. There was a nice FanGraphs piece recently about how 1B range might be more important than range at any other infield spot in modern baseball. (With a low-range 1B you can't set up a proper shift against right-handed hitters, because from the spot you'd like the 1B to stand, he would lose too many races to the bag. But every other infielder you can cover poor range with good positioning.) So sacrificing some OBP for extra fielding at 1B might be a suitable move for a very modern team.

Apart from the weird Bellinger experiment, I feel pretty good about this team. The pitching is a little homer prone, but they will mostly be solo shots, and I'll score runs in bunches.

Hitting: 5620 PA, .294/.377/.420
Pitching: 1349 IP, 0.98 WHIP, 128 HR

110M - Al Albert & Friends

I started by scanning for teams that had two usable players at this cap, and then tried the jigsaw puzzle of putting teams together from what was on the table. The problem I had was that, at least by my lights, it was way more common to have two good pitchers than either two good hitters, or especially one good pitcher and one good hitter. (I suspect this is because what we see as good pitching is often good fielding, and the pitchers were in front of the same defence.) So it could be a stretch finding hitters, and this sometimes involved compromising on the pitchers. But I never had to resort to a 200K scrub and waste a roster spot, and even got something like platoons working at some spots.

The big decision was which team to put where. When I was building them, I was sort of thinking of this team as the one to save for R2 - 2000s Albert Pujols was after all rather good. But the pitching on this one didn't quite fall into place as nicely. Next round has an 0.88 WHIP, which felt like it could be worthwhile. So this round is the relatively high scoring team, next round is the pitching team.

Hitting: 5582 PA, .326/.411/.496
Pitching: 1391 IP, 0.92 WHIP, 88 HR

120M - Double Cross

This also felt like a fairly easy decision. There aren't enough triples hitters to really build a team around, singles hitters won't win you anything, and home runs cost a fortune. So I just went for doubles, and I was able to get close to what I'd simply build as an open theme team. I think every hitter would have been one of my top 10 choices at the position.

I guessed I would have a few HR teams in the league, or at least I wanted to ensure against it, so I leaned a little bit towards lower HR pitchers than I normally would at this cap. As you can see from the stats, I still allow more HR than most, but I turned it down just a bit for this league. There are fewer IP than look normal, but I think modern pitchers should carry it through. In real life I have 1471 K; as long as I don't K that many in the sim I should be fine. But if I run into fatigue, this could be the one.

Hitting: 5556 PA, .336/.430/.532
Pitching: 1368 IP, 0.88 WHIP, 110 HR

140M - From 1990 to 2018

Yet another one where I only really had one idea from the time I saw the choices. I've been leaning on modern players for years, and since just having the three most recent decades was an option, I took it. The weird thing was how much trouble I had finding 2000s players to get to $40M in spending. I remember having lots of success with teams based around 2001 Mariners or 2006/7 Mets, plus one of the Cardinals years Pujols is my default 1B, so thought I'd find it easy to grab enough players to make the team work. But I realised after a bit that while I had loved using 2000s relievers when they were the latest model, the 2010s relievers are even better. (And mostly haven't been variable priced out of range.)

Ultimately I had to settle for four different relievers, all from 2007, to make it work. They aren't bad, they all have WHIP under 0.8, but they are just a bit pricier than 2010s pitchers with equivalent stats. And I have 2007 Chipper Jones as DH; he's fine, and I don't have a very good feel for DH anyway. But that really surprised me - I hadn't realised how much my style of play had changed over the years to move away from 2000s players.

I'm a touch low on IP again, especially for a DH league, so I put them in Petco even though it's not really a triples team. The pitch count suppression was worth the weird 2B/3B numbers.

Hitting: 6311 PA, .313/.425/.540
Pitching: 1418 IP, 0.83 WHIP, 96 HR

Variable - I hope I don't lose 0.8 of my games

So how much is a roster spot worth? I looked into this years ago, and decided it was about 0.5 of a win. At this cap, a win costs about $2 million (plus or minus a lot), so if a player gets you more than a million dollars in extra salary, they are worth it. The margins of error on those calculations are huge. But it was an easy decision to add Lima, who cost $3 million, but adds about $6 million to the salary cap. Then the question is how many friends to bring in with him. I'd initially worked with 4 high HR pitchers, but couldn't quite get the pitching to work.

So then it was a matter of getting high HR hitters, and low HR pitchers. But also some big IP pitchers, because with some missing roster spots, you've gotta get those IP in somehow. So I went with one big deadball pitcher - in this case Walter Johnson. And then 6 of my 8 starting hitters having lots of HR as well.

The other big question was how much to reduce the IP among 'real' pitchers because of the mopups were there for dollar generating reasons. And the end I thought I'd probably get 50 IP out of the mopups. Obviously I won't have much chance of winning games when the mopups come in, but there should be some blowouts in this theme.

Hitting: 5588 PA, .342/.456/.619
Pitching (including mops): 1777 IP, 0.99 WHIP, 161 HR

brianjw, I once drafted 2004 David Segui as a backup 1B because of his absurd 38.23 RF (nearly triple anyone else in the sim and almost certainly a mistake). He only had 65 PA that season, so it's impossible to guess what his plus plays might have looked like over a full season. The 2002 Darin Erstad has the best RF (15.04) of anyone who can play a full season at 1B, but I suspect most people have used him in CF (3.67 RF) when they've taken him.

Keep us updated on how Belli does.

I've used Erstad at 1B a couple times on super range teams, the one I can find a record of he had 40 + plays and no errors playing every inning of every game. I think there's a penalty for guys who played fewer than 20 games at a position but even with that he's still an elite fielder.

I'd expect Bellinger to do quite well, even though he's below the 20 game threshold (barely).

I built these teams relatively quickly, which can be good or bad. For this year's WISC, I used these guiding principles across all of the rosters:

1) Modern pitchers. I like how they help A+++ range hitters from the past. And, I've come to believe that K/9 is more important in the sim.
2) Focus more on preventing hits and less on low HR/9. This is a corollary of point 1 since I didn't draft '94/'95 Maddux on any of my teams. And, I've had too many dead ballers like '12 Walter Johnson get absolutely shelled.
3) Dead ball fielders with range whenever possible.
4) Look at the interplay between K/9 and allowing hits. This was a driver for me in how I built the $70M pitching staff.

$70M - Playing 251
I agree with those who say that you have to give on something when building a team at this cap level. Unlike others, it was a slightly higher BB/9 for me. Intuitively, I knew I wanted to be around a .250 OAVG for this team. It's hard to afford the pitching for substantially lower than that and the offensive options don't work well in the sim IMHO. I shied away from the .260 - .280 OAVG because I didn't want to draft pitchers from the 1890s, 1920s, and 1930s. While many of those pitchers have very good control and give up relatively few HR by modern standards, my experience tells me that they can get shelled because of the higher nominal OAVG, even if OAVG+ is > 100.

Consequently, I built this team with mostly post-1970 pitchers who have solid K/9 totals and keep BB/9 at under 3. We'll see how this works against some high BB teams. I'm hoping that the relatively lower 1B/100# at this cap will yield fewer hits allowed and that giving up BB won't kill me.

The offense has A+ range at every position except one OF spot with Moon (1b), Pfeffer, Maranville, Da. Evans, Wheat, Hines, and Graney. Hopefully, '92 Tettleton's A- arm can reasonably control stolen bases while providing BB and a few HR. Originally, I wanted to use a more aggressive offensive park but dialed it back because of the higher level of competition here and wanting to avoid the pitching death spiral.

Hitters (incl. bench in all write ups): 5,730 PA .251/.346/.374 with strong normalization.
Pitchers: 1381.7 IP, 1.21 WHIP, .251 OAVG, 0.84 HR/9, 5.20 K/9, 2.33 B/9
Truist Park

$90M - 1918 to 2018
This is the team that worries me most. I wanted to used one of the last five seasons to exploit the lack of dynamic salary changes. I like 2018 because of Aaron Nola, who is the modern version of 1902 Bill Bernhard on a value per IP basis.

One issue with most dead ball seasons at this cap level is that there always seems to be one position at which you have to play someone with a far lower OPS than you'd like. The OF with Speaker, Carey, and Roush is the strength of this team with reasonable offense and A+ range. Wingo and Severeid represented the best of what I could fit at this cap. Magee is the relatively weak link defensively at 2B but Merkle, Fletcher, and Baker put up solid numbers in a weak offensive season.

The pitchers have higher K/9 and low OAVG because I think there will be more dead ball hitters in this league. The higher HR/9 won't help against modern hitters but Target Field will help and it shouldn't be an issue against dead ball hitters.

Overall, if this team can score a reasonable number of runs, it should be OK but I'm worried. I put this team in Target Field because this offense only hit 30 HR total and it can only help the 2018 pitchers.

Hitters: 5,784 PA .288/.348/.381 with strong normalization
Pitchers: 1,344.7 IP, 1.00 WHIP, .195 OAVG, 0.87 HR/9, 9.97 K/9, 2.64 BB/9
Target Field

$110M - This is What Friends are For?
Broadly speaking, I'm not a fan of themes in this tournament that cover both rounds. If someone makes the second round, being partially hamstrung due to having to live with a roster made months earlier lessens the fun and the ability to leverage learnings from round 1.

I built three complete sets of rosters for this theme. It was definitely helpful to keep lists of players on each team as I built each set of two rosters. In general, I found that I needed 12-13 pairs of players/pitchers who were both useable and could match a useable player with a scrub for the rest of the roster.

I think I left the better team in round 2, gambling that I'll make it there. For offense, other than '85 Ozzie (in for his glove), I wanted to build a balanced offense with the ability to take advantage of any park. That means some 2B, 3B, and HR but not excessively tilted in any direction. The lineup is Bottomley, Frisch, Ozzie, and Brett in the IF with Gore, Mantle, and Blair in the OF. Pudge Rodriguez shuts down the opponent's running game. There is B+ or better range at every position except one OF spot.

For pitching, there are a few pre-2000 arms in Blue, '64 Horlen, Pollet, and Latman combining with Scherzer, Bieber, Fultz, Albers, Strahm, and Armstrong.

Originally, I had a more aggressive offensive park but dialed that back due to some recent observations in leagues.

Hitters: 5,940 PA .301/.376/.435
Pitchers: 1361.7 IP, 0.92 WHIP, 0.65 HR/9, .184 OAVG, 8.98 K/9, 2.40 BB/9
Busch Stadium (1985 Version)

$120M - Doubling Up
I made versions of this team for singles, doubles, and homers. I really wanted to use a HR team to take advantage of the post 1930 pitchers and to reflect better how good offenses score runs. Unfortunately, the pitching and defense that went along with the HR hitters weren't good enough.

It actually was then an easy call to pick doubles over singles. It had better offense as the doubles hitters have a bit of power and the pitching was basically the same with a few more IP. The lineup is Musial, Lajoie, Wagner, and Kell in the infield with Carey, Holmes, and Galan in the outfield. Pudge Rodriguez is again the catcher. Each hitter was between 40-50 doubles with five having 9+ triples and four having double figures in HR led by Musial and Holmes. While not a weak defensive team in the big picture, this is weaker than what I usually put on the field. Lajoie and Carey are the only A+ range players with the other IFers coming in at B, B+, and A. Galan at C- and Holmes at C aren't great in the OF. But, since I felt that the Polo Grounds was the obvious choice for a doubles team, the -1 singles factor should help. This is also a team that will put a lot of balls in play which should help against lower K pitchers.

For pitching, it's basically a 4-man rotation with 5 pitchers who will make starts in Clemens, Verlander, Horlen, Bauer, and Maeda. I used the '64 Horlen because he's worth the extra $ compared to the '67 version IMHO. And, it fits with the overall strategy of higher K/9 and lower OAVG. The bullpen is diverse with Duffey, B. Henry, Smyly, M. Adams, Doolittle, and Poole. Polo Grounds is also -1 for HR and since I expected that there wouldn't be many HR teams in the league, I felt comfortable going with this staff in this theme.

Hitters: 5,778 PA, .328/.402/.503
Pitchers: 1,360.7 IP, 0.83 WHIP, 0.89 HR/9, 9.67 K/9, 1.98 BB/9
Polo Grounds (V)

$140M - 1980s & 2000s w/ Some 1890s Bats
For this theme, I actually made six different lineups. The runner-up was a 2020/1940s/1960s combo. The 2020 pitchers were wonderful as was an OF of DiMaggio, T. Williams, and Musial. But, there were a couple of weaker bats in the lineup and there wasn't a 3B option with which I felt comfortable because of some bad experiences with the better Ron Santo seasons. Using the 1980s and the 2000s also allowed me to build a strong power pitching staff with a solid bullpen.

The team I picked actually had the best AVG# and OBP# of any of the rosters and had the most balanced lineup in terms of the difference between best and worst OPS#. I am a huge fan of 1890 Roger Connor because of strong A+ range and terrific normalized offensive numbers as a switch hitter. Childs and Jennings gave me A++ range at second and short. 1891 Duke Farrell is a switch hitter with an A arm at catcher at about $5.6M with .858 OPS#. 1896 Bill Joyce is a great DH with 742 PA, power, and walks and normalized numbers of .317/.456/.515 for under $6.8M. The rest of the lineup is '83 Boggs (A- range and normalized .359/.445/.477), '81 Dawson (A++ range, normalized .306/.370/.563 with 26SB and only 4 CS), 2000 Brian Giles (normalized .311/.425/.569), and 2003 Sheffield (normalized .330/.417/.587). Giles and Sheffield don't have great range but there are 4 A++, 1 A, and 1 A- at the other positions.

All of the pitchers are from the 1980s and 2000s. I believe that this team had the highest normalized K/9 of any team I built in the whole tournament. The rotation has two of the best RH starter seasons from the 80s in '86 Scott and '86 Clemens and two of the best LH starter seasons from the 2000s in '04 Santana and '04 Big Unit. Oddly for me, I don't have any 100-159 IP pitchers as long men. However, four SP combine for 1,006 IP and the bullpen is a good mix of 1-2 IP/G horses with a couple of lower IP/G studs. '85 Ontiveros and '81 Gossage join '09 Bailey, '06 Ryan, '07 Saito, '09 Adams, and '09 Feliz in the pen. While I think I drafted enough IP for a DH league at this cap, I wanted a pitchers park to keep down the power and hits so I went with Olympic Stadium which also has a +2 doubles factor.

Hitting: 6,708 PA .333/.429/.510
Pitching: 1,440 IP 0.88 WHIP, 0.64 HR/9, .181 OAVG, 9.68 K/9, 2.19 BB/9
Olympic Stadium

Variable - Going for 97 ($178M cap)
So, I joined others who have posted in debating the value of lower HR/9 vs. a higher cap. Generally, I don't like to have dead weight on my roster so I didn't try to draft scrubs to drive up HR/9. While I've noticed that the 2020 studs don't do well in caps of $200+ million because the offenses are too good, I think that they'll be OK at this cap level. And, I've had some success recently in trading some extra HR allowed for fewer hits and baserunners allowed. And, the pitching staff for this team could be built very cheaply for this cap level.

I spent only $65.7M on pitching and built a staff composed of '04 Santana, '19 Verlander, '20 Bauer, '20 Maeda, 'and 20 Plesac who have the higher HR/9 totals. However, they also don't give up many hits. The rest of the staff is '16 Kershaw, '44 Berry (great normalized numbers especially on a cost per IP basis), '14 Smyly, '72 Brewer, '11 Adams, and '18 Doolittle.

For the offense, I spent slightly under $112.3M. For a cap at this level, that is a very strong offense and includes about $8.1M on the bench for some studs and a needed OF defensive replacement. I've found that in building teams, there are breaks in salaries at each position that force real tradeoffs in terms of ability. For this team, I used '79 Porter as the A+ arm at catcher with walks but realize he will likely not put up terrific offensive numbers. The infield is 1890 Connor, 1906 Lajoie, 1908 Wagner, and 1912 Baker. Three of the four have A++ range and Wagner is a solid A and a terrific bat at SS. Also, these players have doubles and triples power with Connor, Baker, and Wagner having some HR power. This left me easily enough salary to put '23 Ruth, '57 Mantle, and '41 Williams in the OF. Ruth and Mantle have above average range while TW will need a defensive replacement. However, I'm hoping that the normalized OPS totals of 1.294 (Ruth), 1.178 (Mantle), and 1.276 (TW) translate into strong performances here. The bench has 1919 Whitted, '42 Cullenbine, 2015 Seager, 1995 Haney, 2003 Vitiello, with '67 Oliver bringing up the rear.

For the park, Riverfront Stadium with a -2 singles factor was an easy choice. I know that this team will likely give up some HR. But, six of the eight regular hitters have at least 20 1B/100# and the other two (Ruth and Porter) have 19 each so I avoided having lower 1B/100# sluggers who can be challenged getting hits even in higher cap leagues with parks that have positive singles factors and open pitching. This theme doesn't have that. And, I'm hoping that the dead ball infielders can take advantage of lower HR/9 dead ball pitchers if the OF has a bad day at the plate.

Hitting: 6,099 PA .356/.457/.582
Pitching: 1,466.7 IP, 0.81 WHIP, 0.97 HR/9, .175 OAVG, 10.11 K/9, 1.67 BB/9
Riverfront Stadium

$70M .250 + Tenacious D - Memorial Stadium
I recently won a $40m TOC using a similar strategy, but $40m may not translate to $70M, so we'll see. I chose extremely high fielding players (with exception of 1B and C which I chose Tenace like a lot of people likely) which you can get for cheap if you know where to look. My pitchers are all low K guys like 1918 Slim Sallee so the strategy is to put the ball in play and have the fielders take care of business. I didn't want to "pay" for strikeout pitchers. My offense is cap appropriate with a mix of speed, power and walks. I also have a deep bench with some platoon situations. 1318 innings, so should be fine.

$90 M Yank 'n Glasscock - Jack Murphy Stadium
I remember reading about a league/thread about using very old school hitters with modern pitchers and how the number of errors created were vastly improved. So I knew exactly what I wanted to do in this league. I wanted to use a pre-1890 league when fielding numbers were much lower and pair them with modern pitchers. I settled on 1887 mostly because of John Kerins. But I also liked guys like Yank Robinson and Bob Carruthers. The lineup is actually pretty interesting in that I got homer potential from guys like Billy O'Brien, Fred Pfeffer and John Denny. 1987 pitching was not particularly interesting so it could be my weakness, but with a $90M cap it seems ok. I'm sure Jack Glasscock will still commit 30 or so errors, but he'll also have 30 + plays as well.

$110M Hasta Luego, Amigo! - Oakland Coliseum
This is my most "normal" looking team. Nothing special here, just trying to find value wherever it could be found. However, it did take me a long time to put this together because guys that I like had to have a corresponding good player on team #2, which didn't always happen. So it was a never-ending puzzle piece. I probably could have made a better team if I put more time into but, after spending so much time on this just to make two teams fit, I felt it was "good enough".

$120M Click here for singles in your area! - Pacific Bell Park
I knew that I didn't want to do HRs since that would be the easiest thing to counter with low HR/9 pitchers and ballparks. I thought about a triples team at Petco but you also need high walk hitters to succeed there and most triple eligible hitters are old school players who didn't walk much so I passed. A doubles team was not a bad choice but I landed on a singles team because I could choose Pac Bell Park and get a modern staff that had a high HR/9. So my team is the usual suspects like John McGraw, Billy Hamilton, and Tony Gwynn. I also have a lot of speed so I set my hit and run and base running aggressiveness to 5. Pitchers are modern high HR/9 guys like Verlander, Cole, Kershaw and Scherzer. I'm not seeing many HR teams in my league so I guess that's a good thing.

$140M Do it for the 90-19's Kids - Oakland Coliseum
I generally prefer modern hitters and I feel like I can get the most value out of them. I'm not scared of using modern pitchers over deadball guys. I got a bunch of switch hitters like Alomar, Bernie Williams, and Berkman. Also, cookie catcher Evan Gattis is my #9 hitter who will suck at this cap but I only need his arm. I got a couple of platoon situations for my non-switch hitters. Pitchers are Verlander (again), Greinke, Carpenter, Nolan Ryan and Liriano. I did think about grabbing 2020 for their pitching but I felt that I was too limited by having only one year to choose from.

Variable Cap 1.02 Bieber's got that Yummy Yummy - Riverfront Stadium
Ok, so I am influenced by schwarze thread/league about comparing deadball pitchers to modern pitchers and found that there was essentially no difference when you take into account the actual RA/9 since deadball pitchers tend to allow the ball into play more often which allow more errors. (I think I got that right). Also the HR/9 allowance was not a normalized number. So the first team that I created had a $60M pitching staff/$128M hitting with an HR/9 of 1.41! I was also selecting the most expensive player at each position. It felt so gaudy to be rostering such a ridiculous lineup. But I'm not accustomed to such high cap leagues as i rarely play in them. So when I checked out the dynamic pricing that I was paying on guys like 11 Cobb & 80 Brett, I felt it was actually a waste of money. So I moderated my position and threw out a few of those highly dynamic appreciated guys and chose the 2nd or 3rd best players at each position while improving my pitching staff. Dynamic pricing was still inevitable, but at least it wasn't so extreme. All of my pitchers are from 2017-2020 with little to no dynamic pricing (Verlander for the 3rd time, Bieber, Bauer, Lamet and Maeda). My HR/9 is now 1.02 which is still high, but considered "average" if you were to look at the HR/9+. I got a $71M pitching staff and $109M offense. Looks like my HR/9 is on the high side of my league so we'll see how it goes.

I'm not making any predictions for my team as I am a bit experimental with some of my teams and this is my first time in the WISC. So that means I'll probably get killed.

Ok, so I am influenced by schwarze thread/league about comparing deadball pitchers to modern pitchers and found that there was essentially no difference when you take into account the actual RA/9 since deadball pitchers tend to allow the ball into play more often which allow more errors. (I think I got that right).

Not to take anything away from the great things Schwarze has added to this site, but I believe the thread/league youre referring to was created by just4me, Schwarze just did really well in it!

brianjw, interesting comment about the value of roster spots. I prefer to put a $ amount on them to reflect that they are more valuable the lower the cap. I came up with about $250k to start with, then geometrically increasing as you give up more spots.
I gave up 5 spots at variable cap and one at $70m.

In variable cap leagues it was demonstrated that 1 Win was worth approximately $1 Million in salary at $100-110m and this number went up or down with the cap. $2M per W sounds high though it wasn't tested that far.

These write ups have me looking forward to trying some different strategies in the Next 24 that runs afterwards...
I always see ideas here that I simply didn't consider...I may not play all six, but I will surely try my hand at a few...

My strategy was to pick some guys and roll with it. If I make it to round 2, just know that it was luck and not any kind of skill. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Posted by chargingryno on 6/13/2021 8:25:00 PM (view original):

Ok, so I am influenced by schwarze thread/league about comparing deadball pitchers to modern pitchers and found that there was essentially no difference when you take into account the actual RA/9 since deadball pitchers tend to allow the ball into play more often which allow more errors. (I think I got that right).

Not to take anything away from the great things Schwarze has added to this site, but I believe the thread/league youre referring to was created by just4me, Schwarze just did really well in it!

That's not the only reason deadballers have more errors behind them. It's in the code. Years ago a change to the salary formula left deadballers underpriced. Rather than make another salary change they just gave deadballers a handicap, one that somewhat matched historical realism.
I still use a lot of deadballers for the lower price. I think the panic about their Errors is overdone. We had a running debate last year in a theme where some used Silver King and some were Silverphobics. the Silver Kingers didn't have many more errors.

Posted by chargingryno on 6/14/2021 1:25:00 AM (view original):

A couple things about me before I move onto the mindset of each team (as much as I can remember at least as all 6 teams were finished within 2 weeks of them being posted). I hate using deadballers. I don’t enjoy them, I feel they never perform as I hope (see last year's tourney where my Joss/W.Johnson/Cicotti team lost 95 games). So I tend to stay with modern pitchers, with a few deadballers perhaps thrown in. I don’t use spreadsheets when creating my teams like some do, and try not to think too much about it, but rather just pick the players I like and then make small adjustments as I go. I also try to be unique. Also, I’m horrible with predictions so I don’t even try, but I have high expectations for all my teams, and while I’ll see small tweaks I wish I could make, I still love the overall makeup of all my teams.

$70m: The Two Eight One Club:

Stadium: Petco Park

I built two teams for this theme. My initial strategy involved drafting guys like Eddie Stanky, Max Bishop, and Yank Robinson and other very low AVG/HIGH OBP hitters. My team avg was .240, and I was able to build a solid pitching staff that focused on preventing walks (2020 Hendricks, 1992 Tewksbury, and 2010 Lee led my Rotation). I assumed most teams would build similar style offenses that focuses on high BB and good defense so I decided that because most teams will likely go that route, I didn’t want to do it. So I started playing with ways to get the best hitters possible. Stanky was the only low avg/high OBP player I kept at 3B, and then a pretty crappy SS in Rodney Scott and Walt Wilmot in CF (at least I’ll get 30-60 plus plays from Wilmot and hoping for 60-80 SB from Scott). However, I upgraded many other positions and got 31 Goslin, 1913 Cravath, 2006 Victor Martinez, 1971 Reggie Smith, and 1887 King Kelly for a team AVG of .281 once adding my backup scrubs. I doubt anyone will have as strong a core of hitters as me, and I’m hoping that they’ll still perform even in Petco, while Petco will prevent some hits from my high OAV pitchers (as well as my defense of Wilmot, Smith and Kelly). I expect this team to do well. Goose and Gavvy willl both battle for MVP of the league, and Wilmot, Kelly and Smith to win gold gloves.

Hitting:

PA/162 AVG OBP SLG Salary

5,480.00 0.281 0.357 0.549 $37,960,70

Pitching:

IP/162 OAV WHIP BB/9 HR/9 Salary

1,302 0.281 1.26 1.3 0.77 $32,035,773

——————————————————————

$90m: The Bug Holliday of 1894-1994:

Stadium: Veterans Stadium

In the $90m I went with 94 which I’m sure will be a unique year, with maybe 1-2 other owners picking it at most, but I knew 20 was gonna be really popular, and I try to be unique in my team building. Of all the themes in this year's WISC, this is the one that took the longest, simply because I felt it had a lot of great options. Others here will say there was only one true option with 20, and maybe they’ll be right in the end, but I disagree. I played around with 11, 13, 15, 19, 20, 85, 86, 93, 95, 96, 98, all having really strong hitting and pitching rosters, before really falling in love with my 94 team. My goal in creating this was to have deadball hitters/fielders (remember my dislike for deadball pitchers) with modern pitchers. My team is pretty much an even split between 1894 hitters and 1994 pitchers, with a couple backups of each era mixed in. My raw stats don’t look too intimidating for my pitching, but they normalize really well and the offense absolutely rakes. Tuck Turner (.416/.456/.540) hits 9th. Wanted to play in Baker Bowl, but missed it by 1 year (95) and so I settled with Veterans. I expect this team to do well. There’s only one player on this team that I’ve used previously is 1894 Roger Connor, who bats 5th and should drive in 120+.

Batting Totals:	PA/162	AVG	OBP	SLG	Salary
	5752	0.347	0.411	0.493	$44,040,619

Pitching Totals:	IP/162	ERA	OAV	WHIP	BB/9	HR/9	Salary
	1,453	3.19	0.223	1.16	3.07	0.72	$45,876,988

——————————————————————

$110m: Sandy King of the Hill:

Stadium: Baker Bowl

For this theme, there’s a bit of a backstory, and an interesting twist at the end.

There was a similar theme last year, where you drafted a team and then had to twist players a specific number of years forward or backwards and all players had to follow the same number. So it could be 1,2,3, etc years forward or back. I spent more time on that team than any other last year and finally put in a team I thought was going to dominate, with Cicotte, Joss, and Walter Johnson anchoring both teams. I think I won (maybe) 60-70 games. And never got to use my 2nd team.

So this year, I took a much more simplistic route of team building and built the absolute best round 1 team I could build, with no thoughts on even building a round 2 team unless I needed to build one down the road. Picked up my favorite player in the sim, 1919 Gavvy Cravath, and will have him platooning with 73 Reggie Smith and 1894 Roger Connor (partial 537 PA version). Heilman (.394), Burkett (.396), and 1887 King Kelly (another sim favorite) anchor my offense. Picked up the best 4 man rotation I felt I could in the cap, (Verlander, Kershaw, Santana, Koufax) and drafted what looks on paper to be a dominant bullpen.

So I sent my team in to Ozo for verification, Sending him just my round 1 team and hadn’t even considered who anyone on my round 2 roster would be except for Sam Wise, as I knew he’d be a perfect companion for my 1887 King Kelly. So when ozo replied and said “go ahead and send me your round 2 team”, I slightly panicked. But did some quick looks (pulled up team from player links and then just picked the players that best filled out my team. In all, it took me about 1-2 hours and I put together a roster that rivaled my initial team, but is still a drop in overall talent, and I didn’t need to make any roster changes to my original team. Both teams had less than $50k cash leftover. I had to be a little more creative when building the 2nd roster, but still got some solid players with 26 Babe Ruth, 16 Trout, 89 Henderson, 88 Cap Anson, 87 Sam Wise, 2015 Grienke, and 2020 Degrom and Maeda thanks to some scrubs from team 1. Did most owners spend more time on these teams than me? 100%. Will their extra time and work pay off? Most likely, but I think my teams are pretty solid nonetheless!

ROUND 1:

	PA/162	AVG	OBP	SLG	Salary
Batting Totals	5729	0.334	0.411	0.508	$56,650,177

	IP/162	ERA	OAV	WHIP	BB/9	HR/9	Salary
Pitching Totals	1,408	2.43	0.201	0.96	2.09	0.77	$53,333,520

ROUND 2:

Batting Totals	PA/162	AVG	OBP	SLG	Salary
	5863	0.308	0.402	0.477	$57,506,110

Pitching Totals	IP/162	ERA	OAV	WHIP	BB/9	HR/9	Salary
	1,415	2.46	0.212	1.01	2.09	0.56	$52,443,948

——————————————————————

$120m: Babe’s on 2B, Goose on First?:
Stadium: Baker Bowl


This was my favorite theme to build, as I loved finding guys who I may not normally use, and also guys who’re some of my favorites (with the group I selected (doubles) I grabbed some of my sim favorites 19 Cravath, 87 Kelly, 31 Goose). My strategy for this theme, as I am sure it was for many owners, was to grab guys who fit as closely to the other hit types without going over. I have a few guys with 3B’s in the 2.0’s, a few HR’s in the 5.0’s, and 1B’s in the 20’s, hoping to optimize my offense with a little bit of everything.

My first order of business however was my pitching. The restriction of 1930-2020 didn’t change my team building whatsoever as, you may recall, I hate deadballers. I split my salary in two and made the best rotation I could with $60m. It’s very similar to my $110m rotation with 15 Kershaw, 11 Verlander, 04 Santana returning, but with 97 Pedro taking over for Koufax with the extra salary. Also created a lights out bullpen with Sherriff, Manaea, Smyly, Bailey, Tiefenauer, Erasmo, Romo, Rivera and Gagne in the pen. Rivera’s .209oav is the highest in the bullpen, as is Bailey’s 0.96 whip. With my pitching completed, I then set to making different teams with each hit type to see what I liked best.

I made a singles team, and hated it because of the lack of power. Created a triples team, and hated it because it just didn’t look as competitive as the other teams I built. Created a doubles and a home run team, and I loved them both. While this was my favorite theme to build, it’s the only one I have regrets with as I wish I’d have gone with my HR team over my doubles team. Not because I feel it’d necessarily win more games, but it would have stayed true to my unique team entries, and I think it just would have been a lot of fun. Alas, I decided that while the doubles team didn’t hit as many bombs as the HR team, they can still mash, and put up a team total of 174HR. One of the reasons I put this team in the Baker Bowl was to absolutely capitalize on my doubles, but also to see increases in 3B and HR.

	PA/162	AVG	OBP	SLG	Salary
Batting Totals	5894	0.346	0.431	0.558	$61,667,137
	IP/162	ERA	OAV	WHIP	BB/9	HR/9	Salary
Pitching Totals	1,370	2.11	0.189	0.9	2.05	0.7	$58,316,766

——————————————————————

$140m: Why afraid?? Cause 70 Eight(y) 90
Stadium: Baker Bowl

Like with most of the teams I created, I didn’t think too hard about overall composition or make spreadsheets on the different options I had, I looked at group 1, and liked the idea of 1890 hitters/defense, looked at group 2, and I liked the 1880’s hitters/defense/pitching, and then in box 3, it was really just between 1970 and 2000 for pitching/bullpen, and since I’d pretty much exclusively made my teams at this point with pitching >2000, I decided to have a little fun and took 1970. For reasons I don’t remember now, I knew I wanted 1888 Tim Keefe (a rare deadballer on my team) to anchor my staff, and then went with 1971 Vida Blue, 1885 Toad Ramsey, and 1886 Jim Handiboe who will all alternate days with Keefe in a unique 2A/2B/2B/2B rotation. With 1970 I knew I had a lot of great RP’s, and while their numbers aren’t as gaudy as the 2000/2010/2020 numbers, this staff is built to win.

Offensively, I had a ton of options, but knowing I had Keefe, Handiboe, Ramsey for the 1880’s, Blue and the bullpen from the 70’s -plus 1973 Reggie Smith and some key bench players in Gates Brown, George Thomas, and Oscar Gamble, I knew the bulk of my offense needed to come from 1890. Insert Ed Delahanty (.410), Sam Thompson (.392/.654slg), George Davis (.353), John McGraw (.391/.547obp), and Billy Hamilton (.330) anchor my offense, with 1880’s Roger Connor (.355), King Kelly (.322) and Cap Anson (.371) filling the holes. This team, like my $90m theme, absolutely rakes.

Box 1: 1890: $45,884,965		Box 2: 1880: $52,141,091		Box 3: 1970: $41,917,672
3B	1899 John McGraw	C	1886 Cap Anson	OF 1973 Reggie Smith
SS	1897 George Davis	1B	1886 Roger Connor	OF	1979 Oscar Gamble
OF	1899 Ed Delahanty	2B	1887 King Kelly	2B	1972 Larvell Blanks
OF	1895 Sam Thompson	SP	1888 Tim Keefe	SS	1974 Rick Auerbach
OF	1892 Billy Hamilton	SP/RP	1886 Jim Handiboe	OF	1971 Gates Brown
		SP/RP	1885 Toad Ramsey	OF	1970 George Thomas
				SP/RP	1971 Vida Blue
				SP/RP	1974 Dale Murray
				SP/RP	1973 Don McMahon
				SP/RP	1976 Grant Jackson
				SP/RP	1979 Bruce Sutter
				SP/RP	1972 Doug Rau
				SP/RP	1972 Steve Busby
				SP/RP	1972 Ramon Hernandez

	PA/162	AVG	OBP	SLG	Salary
Batting Totals	6684	0.358	0.432	0.525	$79,731,683
	IP/162	ERA	OAV	WHIP	BB/9	HR/9	Salary
Pitching Totals	1,518	1.9	0.189	0.95	2.4	0.25	$60,212,045

——————————————————————

$178m(var): .70 Reasons Coors Was a Mistake
Stadium: Coors Field


I am not a high cap player. I do really well in 60-80m, do alright in 90-120, but anything over that and I really start to struggle. So when I got to this team, I didn’t think too much on the value of each player, or think of ways to increase my HR/9. My thought process was to just grab the best of the best, and then see where I am at from there. Built my pitching staff first so that I would know what I had to work with and started with 13 Walter Johnson, then 2000 Pedro, and rounded out my rotation with 2020 Lamet, Bauer and Maeda. My bullpen is nothing but power studs, Andrew Miller, Smyly, Kimbrel, Verlander, Feliz, Anderson, and 16 Kershaw to anchor my bullpen. Kershaw’s .184oav is the worst in the pen this time, with Johnson’s .187oav the highest on the team. We give up some HR, but not much else. I spent almost $92m on my pitching and with my .70hr9, my offense had about $82m to play with, and play with it we did. 1920 Hornsby and Ruth, 1912 Baker, 1886 Anson and Connor, 1895 Thompson, 1960 Ted Williams and 2020 Trea Turner round out the starting team, with 1919 Cravath (told you he’s a favorite), 79 Gamble, and 41 Valo’s .420avg coming off the bench. We hit for avg, we hit for power, and with everyone in a hitters park this team should do well, and I figured “what the hell” and decided to put these guys in Coors just to see what happens and maybe **** off some opposing owners.

	PA/162	AVG	OBP	SLG	Salary
Batting Totals	5982	0.360	0.436	0.611	$82,317,995
	IP/162	ERA	OAV	WHIP	BB/9	HR/9	Salary
Pitching Totals	1,593	1.67	0.167	0.75	1.5	0.7	$91,678,350

——————————————————————

Finally finished write up on first page.

$70m Rollin’ In My Six Four
Robison Field

.264 BA, .360 OBP, .429 SLG, 157 HR
1434 IP, .264 OAV, 1.11 WHIP

This isn’t terribly different from how I would normally approach a low cap league, except for drafting Adam Dunn (.236 AVG, 122 walks, 40 HR) and pitchers like Marv Gudat (.282 OAV, a not-so-shabby-considering ERC# of 2.60). I wanted a pitcher’s park but not an extreme one, so I took Robison Field in the hopes Dunn can homer to right.

The cap was too low to waste bench or bullpen slots on bad players, though I did take 1908 Sammy Strang (.094 AVG, .385 OBP).

$90m Paul Hardcastle
Cinergy Field

.299 AVG, .365 OBP, .515 SLG, 240 HR
1410 IP, .225 OAV, 1.01 WHIP

I tried drafting four squads–1915, 1918, 1919, and 1920, matched with their 21st-century counterparts–and the 1919/2019 combo blew the other three away. I have an odd pitching rotation, with Eddie Cicotte (355 IP) and Jesse Barnes (343 IP) as SP1 and SP2, followed by Ray Fisher (202 IP) and Phil Douglas (188 IP) as super relievers with occasional spot starts.

7 of my 8 starters hit 25 or more HR, excepting Art Fletcher and his A++ shortstop glove. So this team could potentially feast on 2020 pitching, though I’m not seeing much of that in my league.

$110m And The Card Attached Would Say…
Royals Stadium

.317 AVG, .380 OBP, .476 SLG, 99 HR
1425 IP, .207 OAV, .94 WHIP

This is probably the most clichéd of my six squads: good speed, good range, few homers. Frankie Frisch, Frank Baker, Cap Anson, Pete Browning, Tris Speaker? Check.

I spent close to the maximum on both teams, and my lone useless R1 player is 1887 Tom O’Rourke and his mighty .425 OPS, chosen so I could take King Kelly in R2.

During last year’s equally fiendish $110m draft I created two perfectly balanced teams, but I then narrowly missed the round two playoffs against tougher competition. This time my pitching is similarly balanced, but my hitters are definitely superior in round two, which should help if I make it that far.

$120m Singles Going Steady
Target Field

.359 AVG, .439 OBP, .493 SLG, 69 HR
1404 IP, .189 OAV, .90 WHIP

I know, I know, doubles were logical. I’ve nodded my head when reading other owners rationalize their doubles teams. And yes, I drafted a doubles team first.

But I then built a singles team for comparison, and was surprised how much better the latter looked on paper: superior AVG, OBP, and fielding, and not terribly far behind at slugging. My hitters combine for 276 doubles, so I'm not expecting singles only, and I’m in Target Field so just homers are suppressed.

Is it weird that I kind of think this is my best team? Do I have any idea what I’m doing? Stay tuned.

$140m It’s 1969, Okay?
Sick’s Stadium

.338 AVG, .424 OBP, .569 SLG, 241 HR
1410 IP, .182 OAV, .87 WHIP

I started with a 1960s/1990s/2010s team, a ton of innings, and ace fielders with power in Coors Field, then chickened out.

Instead I switched to the 1910s so I could start Ed Walsh every other game, with Tiant at 2A and Pedro at 2B. Minus Kershaw my long relief is weaker but Robin Roberts and Pat Jarvis were a good use of sixties dollars.

My fielding, while no longer pristine, is still solid, and my hitting is far superior to my original Coors team: Torre, Steve Evans, Collins, Santo, Nomar, Belle, Speaker, and Yaz, with Edgar Martinez where he belongs at DH.

$172m The Number Of The Beast
Yankee III

.348 AVG, .450 OBP, .654 SLG, 353 HR
1586 IP, .199 OAV, .92 WHIP, 0.6 HR/9

The hitters were the easy part: homers galore from Foxx, Gehrig, Hornsby, Schmidt, Ted Williams, Dimaggio, Ruth, and (cough) Troy Tulowitzki. I think I was compensating for the weak gloves on the right side of my infield with that pick.

As for my pitchers, subtract the dead weight and their stats look a whole lot gaudier: 1503 IP, .185 OAV, .85 WHIP, 0.26 HR/9. My starters look like my $140m team but with Arrieta in the 2A slot, and my relievers are Schupp, Kershaw, Gonsolin, Richard, Piniero, and Niggeling.

Finally, I took advantage of 2020’s SIM weirdness by selecting Jordan Yamamoto, Heath Hembree, and Robert ‘not the author of Treasure Island, but the guy who surrendered 8 HR in 10 IP’ Stephenson, which bumped me all the way up to 0.6. You'll see these three only in case of fatigue spiral.

Posted by rbow923 on 6/14/2021 12:36:00 AM (view original):

Posted by chargingryno on 6/13/2021 8:25:00 PM (view original):

Ok, so I am influenced by schwarze thread/league about comparing deadball pitchers to modern pitchers and found that there was essentially no difference when you take into account the actual RA/9 since deadball pitchers tend to allow the ball into play more often which allow more errors. (I think I got that right).

Not to take anything away from the great things Schwarze has added to this site, but I believe the thread/league youre referring to was created by just4me, Schwarze just did really well in it!

That's not the only reason deadballers have more errors behind them. It's in the code. Years ago a change to the salary formula left deadballers underpriced. Rather than make another salary change they just gave deadballers a handicap, one that somewhat matched historical realism.
I still use a lot of deadballers for the lower price. I think the panic about their Errors is overdone. We had a running debate last year in a theme where some used Silver King and some were Silverphobics. the Silver Kingers didn't have many more errors.

Many of the King teams did, some didn’t - it can be negated if you know what you’re doing, but the TWISL league referenced above showed that there’s virtually zero difference in RA/9 between modern and deadballers.