I created this thread so everybody could comment on how they built their teams.

60M - Ruth and Cy - Solo HRs.

I hated building this team.  I simply don't have a clue in building super low cap teams.  And to me, 60M is super low cap.  Round 2 is the only 60M theme I ever play in.  I briefly thought about a speed team b/c I know high % SBs represent good value in the sim (especially at low caps), but with the albatross rule, it didn't seem to make sense to draft two high-priced SB guys.

I only tried one combination.  Babe Ruth and Cy Williams.  I knew I was getting no offense from any other hitters on the team so I wanted to maximize my chances of scoring.so I grabbed two big HR hitters and I picked two who normalize well... 1928 Babe Ruth and 1923 Cy Williams.  Once I decided on those two guys, it was just a matter of trying to fit the rest of the team into the cap.

In round 1, in the 80M league, I tried something new by completely blowing off a position and going with six 200K guys at 3B.  That team won well over 100 games, so I thought I thought I'd go one step further and blow off two positions (1b and of)... By doing this, I was able to upgrade a bit at the other 4 hitting slots as well as pitching.

My four other hitters are C Jimmie Wilson (.264, .340, .351), SS Lyn Lary (.241, .346, .322), 2B Bernie Friberg (.265, 344, .360) and 3b Charlie Deal (.254, .284, .292).  As you can see, I went with a bit of OBP with three of these guys, so maybe there will occasionally guys on base when my studs hit their HRs.

My pitching is where I hope to have an edge.  I went with a pretty good three man rotation.  Dutch Leonard (314 IP, 2.17 ERA, .236 OAV, 1.12 WHIP), Brad Hogg (301 IP, .2.53 ERA, .245 OAV, 1.15 WHIP) and Erskine Mayer (295 IP, 2.65 ERA, .272 OAV, 1.24 WHIP).  The bullpen is a bit light with only two guys over 30 IP (Mordecai Brown 96 IP, 2.64 ERA, .274 OAV, 1.26 WHIP) and Tom Seaton (79 IP, 2.53 ERA, 1.12 WHIP).  I have three other decent relievers with 25-30 IPs

Overall, I have nine <300K players, and all of them will be at 50% or below by the 40 game mark, so it should be interesting to see how this strategy works out.  I think this team could win 88-90 games.

To be continued

60m Double Albatross and Teammates (Cobb Hits It Past A Diving Jeter): I think this took me less time than most. I had very specific parameters for my albatrosses that I suspect are different than most had - a deadball outfielder to get access to deadball pitching and a long-career modern shortstop with great fielding to make sure the deadballers weren't a disaster, and one of them had to have at least a slight pitchers' park. It didn't take me long to identify Ty Cobb and Derek Jeter as the top candidates, and Cobb has two pretty good matches for 99 Jeter. In the end I went with the lighter-hitting CF model Cobb since finding CF range with the trashier guys wasn't going to be pretty

It turned out that in addition to everything I wanted out of them, using these two also gave me access to two lower-cap cookie full-time players: Cobb has access to 1927 Max Bishop and Jeter has access to 1995 Wade Boggs. Both of those guys should completely wreck $25m-30m pitching and weren't more than slightly above the $/PA number I was shooting for. The Yankees also had a pretty wide array of usable hitting seasons at this cap - full-timers (04 Olerud and 01 Knoblauch should be effective here), part-timers (2010 Cervelli and 97 Jorge make a nice hitting catching tandem), and bench guys (200k Jim Leyritz and 95 Straw are the best, but there's a lot of cheapness here). I think I can manage the PAs

The pitching is entirely early-Cobb Tigers guys - I couldn't find anyone who could come close to matching the depth of cost-effective deadball pitching as Cobb. There's some usual suspects from this era like Summers, Siever, Winter, and Willett, and then some guys I'd never heard of before. It's a weirdly structured staff - while I have ~1350 good innings (good relative to the cap at least) 1300 of them are clustered in six starters. Like the PA situation, there's no reason this can't work, but it's going to require some precise management.

80m The Nineteen Tens (Two Guys, One Cub): I found this theme to be mindnumbingly bland, to be honest, and I expect a ton of similarity between teams. I focused on fielding, expecting with the all-deadball group there to be a ton of errors, and doubles to go to the Polo Grounds. But I think pretty much everyone is going to have a team that hits around the same and pitches around the same, and there just aren't a lot of strategies you can execute with how limited this theme is.

90m TOC Open (Marco Polo): This is also a Polo Grounds team, but a much more extreme given the open rules one. It has pretty much the same guys you'd expect on a Polo Grounds team at this cap - Wade Boggs, John Olerud, Earl Webb, Addie Joss - and some other guys that do other things well but also hit doubles like HoJo and Gavvy. I have a feeling this league is going to have a gigantic amount of teams clustered around .500 just like the 80m, but at least they'll be different teams.

100m Modified Rule V (Brave New World): Love this team. The hitting seems pretty far above average, although I'm lacking a traditional leadoff guy. 95 Maddux/96 Smoltz/99 Millwood/97 Neagle is about as good of a rotation as possible in this theme. The bullpen core is strong. I think this is my best hope.

110m Silver Anniversary Draft (From Nixon to Clinton: 1968 to 1992): This draft just didn't go very well. I saw several potential angleshoots given the letter of the rules but passed them up to work within what appeared to be the obvious spirit of the rules, and it's clear to me based on later events that was a huge mistake. Anything resembling an elite pitcher was gone by my second pick, and while I did put together what I think will be a competitive staff and the hitting has some guys that will do very well in the Astrodome, it's just not going to be good enough for contention given what others were able to assemble through better luck or other means.

120m Top Dollar (Return of Bob): This is a more extreme version of a team-building strategy I used in the first round at 140m (which was, all-in-all, a fairly similar theme), which is going to the most extreme doubles/triples/anti-homers park in the sim, Palace of the Fans. In the first round I focused on doubles more than triples, here it's more balanced. Essentially, a number of elite doubles or triples hitters are also top dollar players, enough that it puts together quite a cohesive team, much moreso than any other strategy. By more or less complete accident, I also assembled a super-range OF. The pitching staff is a mix of deadball starters and elite relievers. Death to dingers.

As you'll notice, Ty Cobb is on every one of my teams except the Rule V draft.  I knew from before Round 1 had even ended I was using Cobb at 60m, obviously I drafted him at 110m and he was a good choice in the other eligible leagues so I figured I'd just go all-in and use him everywhere possible.  

60m - Cobb and Sheffield: Two Bad Neighbors

My top priority was to get two guys who had lots of PAs and who combined for as close to $15m exactly, so that there was no wasted money in my albatrosses.  I knew I wanted an old-timer to get access to deadball pitching and , well, Cobb is the most obvious albatross of all-time.  He has four usable years within the rule restrictions allowing flexibility for your second 'tross, he fills a pitching staff by himself and, of course, he's good.  It came down to Sheffield and Jeter for the second teammate for the same reasons jeff mentioned, to get those modern gloves.  I thought they were very equal all around, decided to go with Sheff.  Really not much to say beyond that, Sheff filled in the offense with cheap, serviceable hitters, Cobb adds Max Bishop.  I've got 1,344 innings of 3.03 ERA, 1.24 WHIP pitching, just glancing quickly around the league that's both better quality AND more innings that most people, so I think I'll be in good shape.  Team name, in an homage to the George Bush episode of the Simpsons, plays off the fact Cobb and Sheffield probably wouldn't get along if they had played together.


80m - Ty Cobb Knows His Role

This team took me the longest of every team.  The stupid 2m minimum rule threw me off because I'd build a team I loved and then find I was missing a 2m player from a year and couldn't figure out a way to fill it without big changes.  I tried a bunch of different ideas, defense, doubles, extreme pitching, steals, nothing really seemed to click.  I finally tried to go with the best ratio of $/PA vs. OPS for my offensive players and get some good value pitchers and things finally fell into place a little.  I had to use Addie, I feel like you're asking to lose if you don't use him on any team he's available.  Team name is because Cobb is only a part-time player here.


90m - Ty Cobb Cleans Up

This is a spin of an OL team I'm running right now that is in the playoff hunt and that I feel is underperforming.  I wanted to try a build based on the old thinking of "defense up the middle, bats in the corners," and it has been working pretty well.  I tried to streamline that a bit and allocate my resources a little better here.  Hornsby and The Wizard give me elite range in the MIF, Billy North does the same in CF on the cheap, Inge is my favorite cookie catcher.  Raines and Boggs are old standbys, Brouthers is an OBP machine at the top and, of course, Cobb bats clean up.  The pitching staff is pretty standard OL fare, Caldwell may be a little different as my third starter but I hate building a rotation without at least one lefty and I felt he was the best at that price point.  


100m - Cobb Minus Cobb: The San Francisco Treat

I had the Giants as one of my top four teams and did a fist pump when they fell to me.  Bonds, Mitchell, Schmidt and Timmy were all obvious protects.  SS was definitely SF's weakest position and I would have drafted HoJo in the first round if I had realized he was unprotected.  Did another fistpump when he fell back to me in the 2nd round.  I didn't mind losing Kent and Will the Thrill since I preferred to use Joe Morgan and JT Snow for their price, honestly the team would have been harder to piece together if the latter two were drafted instead.  I think I screwed the pooch taking Sutton since I overlooked a couple of pitchers I really liked and I could have waited on but he should be good.  Carlton was taken for some innings depth, to get a lefty and as a pseudo-swingman.  Pretty happy all around.


110m - Ty Cobb in: Brown's Redemption

I REALLY wanted Addie, alas I just missed him.  I liked Three Finger next best but he has a storied history of burning me, hence the team name.  Hopefully we can coexist here.

That said I really think I hit a home run here. I went into the draft with a very specific plan.  Assuming I drafted one of my top three pitchers (Addie, Brown or Pete Alexander) I had a handful of guys I was specifically targeting and knew generally what round I was going to try and snag them.  I actually put together an entire 25-man roster in a draft center after I took Brown and then added and subtracted from it as the draft progressed.  I actually nailed almost all of my main targets (Cobb, Delahanty, Brouthers, Tinker, Bender, Pfiester, Krause and Shore).  The big one I missed, as mentioned in the draft thread, was Kenworthy, but that could be a blessing in disguise since I may like Cupid better and hadn't considered him.  The way the draft played out surprised me a lot and I adjusted my tendencies accordingly.  I was actually targeting Delahanty as my 2nd rounder until Cobb fell and fell and then Big Ed came back to me at 3.  Brouthers I almost took about 6 or 7 rounds earlier but, again, the draft dictated that I could wait for him.  Lyons was a nice little surprise I didn't even expect.  I really love this team and of all my teams this is the one I'll be most disappointed in if they stumble.


120m - Ty Cobb is On Target

Pitching is pretty by-the-numbers: Addie was the very first guy I drafted, Leonard is fantastic and gives me my lefty.  Could have gone with a few guys for my third pitcher, settled on Hendrix.  Bullpen is standard fare, McCabe, Northrop, Spooneybarger, Andy Rincon, nothing to see here, move on people.  Offense is a mix of high OBP guys with the best $/PA value I could decide on (Boggs, Edgar, Olerud, Caruthers) and standard speed cookies (Dilone, Vizquel, Castillo) so that I don't hit into a billion double plays.  Tenace brings 45% CS at a solid price, Cobb is Cobb.  Tenace is the only sub-.330 hitter so Target Field gives me a slight boost to my XBHs while getting me that tasty -4/-4 to HRs since I won't be hitting many anyway. 

All in all I'm very happy with how things shook out.  I'm much more confident in my teams this round than I was in round one and since I'm self-deprecating like nearly every other WIS'er I'm fully expecting every team to blow now.  Hopefully the Georgia Peach won't let me down.

60m - Prince Albert goes to Mannywood

When I build a 60m team, the first 2 players I add are Vince Coleman (great SB% for cheap) and Bob Boone (great CS%). I looked at Boone's teammates in 1982 and there weren't that many exciting guys to use as albatrosses, so I had to think of someone else. I looked at Yadier Molina almost immediately, with Pujols as my albatross. I just needed someone to give me a speedster or a speedster to use as my albatross. I tried using Lofton94 as my albatross but I just couldn't make it work - I wanted both of my albatrosses to be sluggers so they could drive in runs. I tried Terry Pendleton (Coleman's teammate) and George Brett (Willie Wilson) as well as just using Brett Butler, but none of them worked. Finally I realized that I should just use Manny and have a cheaper Lofton hit leadoff. Manny and Albert are just a hair over 15mil and hit 2 and 3 with Lofton #1. Mike Matheny actually had a cheaper arm than Yadi so he's behind the plate. On the pitching side, I wanted guys >200ip with HR/9 over 100 and RRF over 3.00 to get some help on the defensive side. It just so happened that the Indians and Cards had 3 of them plus Jake Westbrook who was also similar. Having all of the elements I wanted come together was a nice surprise. As usual, at low caps don't really have a bench so there are no wasted spots - everyone is in a platoon or an everyday player. I don't have enough PAs so I'll be playing guys in the 90s, but playing in Busch with around 1250 IP should be more than enough.

80m - Platoon: Deadball

I couldn't really find a strong strategy for this league. At first I just built a team but I found I was missing a lot of years. So I had to plan something out, which basically ended up being a bunch of platoons on offense. I don't have Gavvy which I'm sure makes me a minority. For my pitching I decided that guys who prevent HRs would be expensive and unnecesary, so I actually have a rotation of all guys who are 100 or worse in HR/9. But I'm in a -2 park, Ruth is banned and there's only one Gavvy so I hope this works out. I had to have Honus since he was the only shortstop who could field but otherwise I just tried to keep the gloves above atrocious.

90m - Jossless Frictionless Masses

My 100, 110 and 120mil teams are all basically the same - they use my favorite strategy of deadball pitchers and sluggers in a +HR park. I didn't want to make this team look like that and overcommit to a bad strategy. Especially in this league which might be half full of Target Field. So I wanted something different. I've been toying for a while now with a way to beat Joss and wanted to try it here. I have a whole lineup from the 1880s and a modern pitching staff. I'm hoping that we'll reach on a lot of errors if we face Joss and other deadballers. And my modern arms will make my fielders look much better (Stieb, Magrane, Dempster, Carpenter, Messersmith in a 5-man rotation). My hitters are cheaper because of their bad gloves. And my pitchers' HRs will hopefully be supressed by Comerica. I like this concept but it could easily blow up in my face.

100m - Seattle's Best

I got really lucky in this theme. I drew the first pick to select my draft spot, so I selected the first spot in the 100mil draft, giving me the chance to pick the Ms and draft early in the Rule V part. And I mis-read the part of the rules where you could lose multiple players per round so I assumed I would have A-Rod, Griffey, Boone, Unit and 1 of Felix or Lee. Luckily Freddy Garcia is an OK #4 starter so I just spent a bit more on offense. The M's were an easy #1 choice for me, being strong up the middle with a ridiculously deep bullpen. I built a basic Kingdome team with the additions of Buhner and Branyan giving me almost 300 HR. Against modern pitching they should be plenty strong. Only problem is that my division features 3 -HR parks. The M's really didn't have a leadoff hitter other than Ichiro, and putting him in the Kingdome is a great way to waste 8mil. I almost used the 750pa/.349 OBP A-Rod but decided to go with Phil Bradley instead. Surprised nobody took Ichiro during the Rule 5 draft though.

110mil - Collins some Luque Babes

2 guys named Collins (Ripper and Eddie) and 2 Babes (Herman and Adams) make up my team name. Picking late, I almost took Hughie Jennings and owned the 1800s but I decided I'd rather share the 20s with 6 other teams. This is my classic team, deadball pitchers and sluggers. Being in a division with 3 modern teams should give me some power though I think one of them is in the Astrodome. I knew this was the era I wanted, deadball pitchers from the late teens and sluggers from the 20s and 30s. I built for the cap and didn't splurge, though I did change the Averill season I was going to use about 5 times. Finding relievers in a crowded era where there aren't that many of them was a challenge. I almost shifted Babe Adams to '24 and made him a closer a few times, I could have swapped in Wilbur Cooper or Dave Davenport or someone, but decided against it and still came out with an OK staff. I thought about making this a Robison team, as originally planned with a bunch of early lefty sluggers and the only switch hitter I could find (Ripper) but my HR/9 was so low that I didn't want to penalize my righties unfairly.

120mil - One Expensive Panda

Like the others, I found the pitching easy to do. But I couldn't find any platoon hitters so I had to run a really deep pitching staff and 9 regular hitters. The basic framework is the same - Joss, 3-Finger and Maddux in my rotation keeping the ball in the park, playing in Bennett Park. I only have 593 PA for my #8 hitter and 551 from my #9, so they might get a bit tired. Ripper Collins also appears here, as does Beals Becker from my 1910s team. Who would have imagined using Beals Becker twice in 6 leagues? I have a classic iron-glove old-timer DH (in this case, Bill Joyce) and a good mix of lefties and righties plus 2 switch hitters. Almost 1500 innings should keep my guys from getting too tired. I didn't draft any real base-stealers since catcher arms are expensive and I figured most people would have one. I don't - just Bill Dickey.

Contined from above...

80M - Mashed Potatoes and Gavvy

I know that this theme seems pretty lame.  But consider this a testing ground to unequivocally prove that triples don't work correctly for deadball hitters.  It is my theory that deadball triples hitters badly underperform (for triples) because in order to hit the appropriate amount of triples, deadball pitchers should give up a higher number of triples. 

Given that as some background, I made an effort to not pay for triples... which isn't easy in this era.  So all but one (E.Collins) of my hitters have fewer than ten triples.   The second requirement I had was to get good infield defensive as far as fielding percentage goes.  Pick the wrong infielders and you could end up with 150 errors.  So I grabbed 2b Eddie Collins (B/A+), 3B Larry Gardner (B+/A-) and SS Terry Turner (A/D+).  I don't worry too much about outfield defense and 1B don't make many errors anyway.  My big hitters are George Sisler (.353, .390, .453), Ross Youngs (.311, .384, .415) and of course Gavvy Cravath (.285, .393, .510).  It will be interesting to see how many HRs Gavvy can hit against deadball pitchers.

For pitching, I went with a 3-man roation with two studs ('14 Hendrix, '13 Mathewson) and one average guy ('11 Ford).  I'm really short on innings in the bullpen with one real reliever (120 IP Joe Wood) and two short-inning relievers.  I will use my six 200K mopup guys to offset fatigue when necessary.

I'm not real sure if my strategy will work and I'm a little worried with potential fatigue issues in the bullpen.  I feel like I should be among the leaders in defense and that can only help my pitchers.  Projection 85-88 wins.

90M - Babe... Who Else?

I don't particularly like themes without restrictions, which is why I never play open leagues.  But we needed an easy theme.  I decided to play for the playoffs by drafting two stud SPs and one weak SP, in a 3-man rotation.  So I have Joss and Reulbach, and also '25 Rixey (1.22 whip).  The bullpen is headed by Latman, Ontiveros and Dean.

I never draft HR hitters in leagues without restrictions, with the exception of Babe.  So, I have essentially a bunch of on-base guys (some speed) in front of Ruth.  R.Henderson, O.Smith, T.Raines, W.Boggs, L.Castillo and T.Simmons.  My second best power hitter... Don Clendenon (14 HRs). 

All in all, I like my team's mix of on base perentage and speed with '28 Ruth knocking in about 145 runs.  Prediction 88 wins.

100M - Dodger Defense A+

When my selection came up, I was wavering between StL and LA.  I thought somebody would take NYY and figured LA would stay out of the AL West, so I went with LA.  Ooops... I should've taken StL.  Then I compounded my mistake by protecting Nomo, which screwed up my rotation, because his innings didn't fit right with the rest of my staff.  I ended up using a draft pick on Joe Niekro and his 270 innings.  My starting pitching (Brown, Hershiser, Nomo, Niekro) is just so-so and in this tough division, probably below average.  The bullpen is tough though (Kuo, Gagne, Quantrill and the Astros' split-season of Randy Johnson).

Offensively, we're not that good either, as we sacrificed offense to get an all A+ range infield (W.Clark, O.Hudson, R.Furcal, Caminiti).  The OF of Ramirez, Guerrero, Gibson looks good on paper, but when compared to other teams, not so much.  I'm pretty sure we'll finish behind ballantine's Cardinal team.  Prediction 80 wins.

$60 Double Albatross – This was a brutal theme to draft and judging by the rosters just in my division I am in deep trouble. When you compare my roster to tjefferson's it seriously looks like he had at least an extra $10 million to play with!!!!  I wanted to stay away from the modern era as I generally don’t like using pitchers with less than 2.0 IP/G and the modern era is loaded with those guys. I also knew I wanted the ’35 Jimmie Foxx to be my catcher. Not sure why really…..but I wanted him. So at $8.6 million I knew I couldn't get a full season Babe Ruth (who it seems is wisely on a good number of teams) I had to take the best available player priced in the mid to low $6 million range. My first thought was to take Hughie Jennings. So I drafted a team using Foxx and Jennings and simply didn’t like it. Plus, the Jennings I chose didn’t have a park in the database so I would have been forced to use Foxx’s Shibe Park. I did some more research and came across Honus Wagner. At almost $7.0 million I ate up $15.6 million on just two players. That’s more money than I wanted to spend. So pulled a team together with Foxx and Wagner and it wasn’t much better than the Foxx and Jennings team. But at least I had two parks to chose from, Shibe and Forbes. So after not liking Shibe with my first team, which one did I select……Shibe (0.99 factor), of course. I am short on IP’s (1,210 quality plus one mop-up) and PA’s and will be running several platoons including a 5-man platoon in centerfield of sub-$300K outfielders. My lack of experience at this cap should be shining through when this league is over.

$80 Nineteen Tens – Not sure what to make of this team. I took the ’15 Cravath to pair with all sorts of platoon hitters and stuck them in Griffith Stadium (0.94 factor). I’m hoping the pitching will be my strength because it certainly won’t be my hitting. 1,293 quality innings plus one mop-up led by ’17 Coveleski and ’19 Alexander at the top of the rotation. The bullpen should hold its own with guys like ’19 Nehf, ’15 Falkenberg, ’18 Mitchell and ’18 Northrup to close things out. All 15 of my hitters should reach their real life PA/162 totals.

$90 TOC – A quick (or maybe not so quick) story before I get back to droning on about my teams. Several years ago owner clk0619 ran a contest whereby you could submit an open league team to him via sitemail and Area51Man would review each submission and pick the two teams that he felt had the best chance of winning an open league TOC. Clk would enter both teams into one of his private leagues where he runs all 24 teams and automatically advance the two teams A51M selected to a TOC. Clk offered up two tiers of prizes. The first tier included a free team to both of the owners that had their team selected by A51M to participate. The second tier included a free six-pack if your selected team actually went on to win the TOC. Since I had some time on my hands I pulled together a team and sent it off. I was lucky enough to have my team selected by A51M to participate in the contest. Not only did my team advance to the TOC, but clk was able to manage them to a TOC championship. So at the end of the contest I had seven free teams sent to me for pulling together a competitive TOC team. Now, if only this league was that easy......or if only I could track down clk to manage my team!!!! Anyway, my overall strategy with this theme was to take players who hit the longball and pitchers who don’t give up the longball and stick them in Great American Ballpark (1.00 factor but +2 HR’s to left and right). The boppers include ’33 Ruth, ’23 C. Williams, ’89 HoJo and ’15 Cravath (can't really include ’75 Carter here). The guys I need to get on base ahead of the boppers include ’41 Cullenbine, ’92 B. Roberts and ’95 Boggs. The rotation includes ’95 Maddux, ’08 Joss and ’17 Cicotte with seven 30-70 IP/162 bullpen pitchers and Highball Wilson to eat up some innings. The entire staff comes with only 14 homeruns surrendered. Looking forward to seeing how this one plays out..

$100 Modified Rule V Draft – I was happy the New York Mets were still available at #9. I hope I will still feel that way at the end of the season. At that point in the draft the only other team in the running was San Francisco which stayed on the board until #15. I had a hard time deciding on the keepers but opted to keep the following:

Doc K (no-brainer)
Pedro (second no-brainer)
Edgardo Alfonso
John Olerud.

The hitters were a much tougher choice as I also considered keeping David Wright, Gary Carter and HoJo.

So with those four already locked and loaded I took Jimmy Key with my first round pick as I wanted another starter and I felt he was the best of the bunch with over 250 IP/162. With Doc K, Pedro and Key as 3 of my 4 starters I knew I wouldn’t need another one as the Mets had a few guys that would be serviceable and if I made the playoffs I would just drop to a 3-man rotation anyway.

In the first round draft I had both Mike Piazza (who I never even considered keeping due to his terrible arm) and Bobby Ojeda (which was a revenge pick for drafting Key from Toronto) plucked from me.

That meant I still had Wright, Carter and HoJo to protect. In hindsight, I should have protected HoJo (to use at SS) because I had both Wright and Ventura at 3B, but I chose to protect Wright. I'm still trying to figure out why.

So of course in the second round HoJo gets taken from me. So when it comes time for my sixth protection and I decide I am going to use a platoon system in the outfield and I have 5 part-time guys to chose from…..and I need 4 of them…..Beltran, Dysksta, Strawberry, Henderson and Butler. With Beltran being the best plus having an above average full season I opted to protect him over Carter. Again….wtf was I thinking?

So in round 3 both Carter and Bret Saberhagan get taken from me. I wasn’t worried about Saberhagan as I wanted nothing to do with that .250+ OAV even though his WHIP is real solid. I know that for my next 3 draft picks I’m filling my bullpen as I have enough hitters to fill my lineup. So I take the short season '10 Roy Oswalt, '10 Daniel Hudson and '92 Dennis Rasmussen along with my final protection of Billy Wagner and Mike Birkbeck to form a solid bullpen.

My offense ended up with a .300+ AVE, .400+ OBP, .500+ SLG and .900+ OPS which I can live with. Playing in Shea (0.93 factor) should help my pitching which comes in with a .210 OAV and 1.00 WHIP but a whopping 103 HR's surrendered. Oh, and Butler ended up being odd man out in the outfield. The real issue is I have to use Robin Ventura (A/A- rated 3B) to play SS where he is not rated defensively. I just wasn't comfortable with Jose Reyes. I do have a backup SS rated B/B but the damage might be done by the time he enters the game.

$110 Silver Anniversary Draft – What made this draft fun was that the positions, salary and years all came together nicely. After four rounds I had my bookends of ’72 Don Sutton and ’96 John Smoltz. Sprinkle ’78 Guidry and ’81 Schmidt in between and I was off and running through four rounds with three of my starting pitchers already in place. I took '94 Cone as my fourth starter and then filled my bullpen with short-season starters such as '80 Richard, '90 Smith, '87 Perez, '92 Rasmussen and '83 Heathcock for a total of 1,379 quality innings plus 1 mop up. With Schmidt already on my roster I focused much more on power than I usual do. Seven of my eight starters have at least 20 HR's (the only one that doesn't is on-base specialist '92 Phillips) and my starting eight have a HR/AB ratio of 1/18.6 (1/16.5 if you exclude Phillips) led my '81 Schmidt, '79 Lynn, '91 Big Hurt and '73 Aaron who was a steal in round 16. '75 Harrah, '77 Simmons and '89 Lonnie Smith round out the starters. While I wanted to use Great American Ballpark, I couldn't due to the years requirement so I cranked it up a notch and went with Atlanta Fulton County Stadium (1.12 park factor and +3 for HRL and HRR). I'm hoping I can put my 234 team homeruns to good use in this park.

$120 Top Dollar – Pitching, pitching, pitching. Start with ’12 Big Train, ’08 Joss and ’94 Maddux. In the middle is ’02 Lowe, ’81 Rincon and three low WHIP, low IP guys and close it out with ’18 Northrup. 1,445 quality IP/162 plus 2 mop ups is too much, especially for Exposition Park III (0.98 factor), and with no offensive HR power I needed to take a negative HR park. The offense sort of resembles a slap hitting team without the speed. Guys like Roy Thomas, TP, Olerud, Boggs, Stanky, and Bresnahan. If I do have a power guy it would have to be Gavvy Cravath but it’s not his best season….at least not stats wise. Hopefully rolling out a top tier pitcher every game will keep the runs down and my offense can find a way to put a few on the board.

Working backwards:

120 mil: Chicks Dig The Longball.  My 120-mil team in Round 1 was power-heavy and pretty good so I went for the high HR hitters and deadball pitchers in an HR-plus park.  My 9 hitters have 366 HRs combined and included some guys I almost never use like Maris, Hickman and Zernial.  Addie Joss, Russ Ford and the 2000 Pedro pace my rotation with Jenks, Mike Adams, Joey Devine in the 'pen.  Kinda optimistic for this group.

110 mil: 1986-2010.  Had the 5th pick here and decided on Maddux since he plays well at this cap and I wanted a modern era team because there are far more bullpen and defense options than the old timers.  Took Piazza in Round 2 since he's by far the best catcher in the era and then added Saberhagen and Schilling to my rotation.  Eck, Eichhorn and Trevor Hoffman pace the 'pen and the lineup on paper seems solid even though I had some cap problems and had to downgrade the Beltre and Bagwell that I ended up using.  Still totaled 317/404/562 for my hitters with a team WHIP of 1.00.

100 mil: Arizona D'Backs.  Had a late pick in this draft so the pickings were kinda slim.  I liked Arizona for the good front-line pitching options with Unit, Schilling and Haren, figuring it would be easier to fill in the bats.  Kept Gonzo's big season and then was able to add A-Rod, Josh Hamilton and Victor Martinez to a decent core of D'backs keepers.  My tactical error was not protecting Daniel Hudson but kinda made up for that by snagging Trevor Hoffman.  Webb is only so-so as a #4 starter and the lineup strikes out a ton.  Probably a .500 squad.

90 mil: I never play open leagues so I was at a disadvantage from the start.  I checked out some 90 mil TOC teams to get some cookie ideas and probably ended up with some usual suspects.  Phillips and Boggs to get on base at the top of the order, Cy, Gavvy, Joost and 87 Jack Clark to drive them in.  Joss to key the rotation (shocker, i realize) and then Bill Bernhard, Tiny Bonham and Rankin Johnson.  Nehf, Northrop and Carlos in the 'pen.  I hope I have enough innings.

80 mil: This was kind of blah theme to me as well.  Figured there were two ways to do it....grab some studs and fill in or go for balance across the board.  I took the latter approach--no hitters above 6 mil.  Evers and Speaker are the closest I have to big bats.  Nehf and Northrop in my 'pen again and what I think is a solid rotation of Benz, Collins, Caldwell and Perritt.  We'll see.

60 mil: Oy.  This took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do and I finally settled on shooting for speed in a pitchers park.  I took Ichiro so I could get Safeco and then I took Raines because he fit my model and also because he gave me access to cheap speed guys like LeFlore and Rodney Scott.  The rest of my lineup is pretty gross but I do have 330 SB and a solid % so I hope to manufacture some runs that way.  Went for mid IP pitchers with WHIPs in the 1.25 to 1.3 range.  Don't have enough innings but I hope playing at Safeco will help.  Cautiously optimistic here but strong chance that I totally mismanage this team.

continued from above...

110M - Dead Guys '85-09

This is the controversial team... where I traded Pedro for the right to draft Silver King in round 2.   Based on the comments afterwards, I wish I hadn't made the deal.  Although I thought the deal was fair and within the rules, clearly enough people thought otherwise and now if I have any success with this team and in round 2 overall, the success will be tainted in many people's minds. 

As far as the roster goes, with the drafting of Silver King, I could wait a bit on pitching so I tried to grab some infielders who will commit fewer than 50 errors, so my next four picks included Lajoie (2b), Steinfeldt (3b) and G.Davis (ss).   Continuing with the high on-base guys, I added Billy Hamilton and catcher Jocko Milligan.  Oddly enough, my 3-4-5 hitters were drafted after my other five hitters (Seymour .377, Donlin .,334, Connor .349).  My 2A and 2B pitchers are just ok (Waddell 1.11 whip, Maul 1.07 whip) and I have Toad Ramsey (0.91 whip) coming in out of the pen to clean things up.  Since I only have six pitchers over $1 million in salary, my last 11 picks were essentially 200K guys.

I probably should have stuck with Pedro.  I wouldv'e added Jason Schmidt and Wade Boggs in the second and 3rd rounds and who knows after that.  Karma says that this team will underachieve.  And in fact, I've only used Silver King one other time ever in the sim and he underachieved finishing around .500.  Projection: 78-84.

120M - Higher Tax Bracket

Like most, I started with the pitching and ended up with the same three starters as jfranco77 (Joss, M.Brown, Maddux).  Great minds think alike (not to imply the rest of you aren't great).  I added other popular low-whip guys such as Gagne, Burke, Saucier, Northrop, Adams.  I have a little over 1400 of good innings, plus 3 mopups.  

Some of the players I'm using on offense I've never used before, but the theme is the same... high-average, low HR guys.  I didn't want to spend salary on HRs, but I did end up with '22 Ken Williams (.332, .413, .627, 39 HRs).  Virtually every offensive player is a .330 + hitter (Vizquel .333, Gwynn .394, Schoendienst .342, C.Hickman .361, Cravath .341, Sandoval .330 and S.Evans .348).  And of course, I'm playing in Target field, so if you drafted HRs, don't expect alot of success in my home games.

Sounds like a lot of people have the same strategy so it will come down to the little things.  I'm hoping Hickman's A+ range at 1B will turn a lot of hits into outs.  Projection: 89 wins.

It's already out there but I just want to reiterate, re: the silver king trade.  I think it was fair and within the rules, as you said schwarze, I just don't think the rule was clearly and properly delineated ahead of time.  The way it was written in the sitemail was vague enough that many people didn't think it could be done the way you did.  I think it would just be wise to make sure all rules are out there from the very get-go in every league's description.