No use for a name
1ST Round - Well, this was an interesting draft. I started with the 5
th pick which I initially felt good about. I prioritize pitching for 1
st round picks in most cases and this draft is no exception. But when I started looking at teams I realized pitching was going to be a premium as there weren’t many teams during the years we’re drafting from that had top tier pitching. There are good pitchers but not any of the dominating pitchers who we usually see in most leagues. I had the 67 Cardinals as the top team and rightfully so, they went 1
st. I was pretty lucky that my 2
nd choice, the
1967 Chicago White Sox, slid down to me, as they had the best pitching, and enough of it that I could consider drafting only pitchers from them if need be.
The ChiSox gave me 7 possible pitching options that would be effective in this league:
SP Joe Horlen ($8.7M, 258 IP, 2.26 ERC#1.02 WHIP#),
SP Gary Peters ($8.5M, 260 IP, 2.53 ERC#, 1.14 WHIP#),
SP Tommy John (179 IP, 2.68 ERC#, 1.14 WHIP#), SP Cisco Carlos (42 IP, 1.20 ERC#, 0.83 WHIP#), RP Don McMahon (92 IP, 1.82 ERC#, 0.95 WHIP), RP Hoyt Wilhelm (89 IP, 2.07 ERC#, 1.10 WHIP#), and RP Bob Locker (125 IP, 2.46 ERC#, 1.07 WHIP#).
Offensively, they were the opposite. Their best hitter is
OF Pete Ward ($2.8M, # - .246/.347/.408/.755, 3 HR/100#). SS Ron Hansen ($3.6M, # - .246/.330/.336/.666, B-/A-) plays some defense and is a cheap option to make some cap space. OF Tommie Aggie ($3.8M, # - .247/.314/.386/.700, C-/A+) is the same. Not much here but sacrifices sometimes do need to be made. We'll see how that pans out for us.
For bench players they have a few options as well:
2B Jerry Adair ($0.4M, 106 PA), OF Rocky Colavito ($0.9M, 220 PA), 3B Ken Boyer ($0.8M, 190 PA), and strong-armed C Duane Josephson ($1.8M, 199 PA, A+ Arm). Adair and Boyer can play multiple positions which gives them additional value in this league. All in all, not the greatest start but at least I’ll have some pitching and if needed, a few cheap options to make cap space for some hitting.
2nd Round - For my 2
nd round team,
midnight gifted me the
1967 New York Mets. When I was looking at teams for kentol I considered them but decided against it due to their pitching. Lucky me? We’ll see… Of draftable options, I would consider
SP Tom Seaver ($6.0M, 251 IP, 3.34 ERC#, 1.25 WHIP#), RP Ron Taylor ($2.5M, 73 IP, 2.25 ERC#, 1.19 WHIP#), RP Jack Lamabe ($0.8M, 32 IP, 2.51 ERC#, 1.06 WHIP#), RP Don Shaw ($1.2M, 52 IP, 3.12 ERC#, 1.28 WHIP#), Jack Hamilton ($0.7M, 32 IP, 3.04 ERC#, 1.33 WHIP#), and RP Dick Selma ($1.8M, 82 IP, 3.41 ERC#, 1.37 WHIP#). Pretty decent options for a neighbor pick. Then again, that’s not a dominating Seaver and after Taylor and Lamabe, the rest are borderline. It’s really two good options and the rest I could settle for.
On offense the Mets have a few options: OF Tommy Davis ($4.1M, 621 PA, # - .309/.352/.450/.802, 5 2B/100#) is their best followed by
OF Ron Swoboda ($2.8M, 494 PA, # - .288/.350/.429/.778, 4 2B/100#). Neither play good defense but they’re cheap options who hit a little. There is also
1B Ed Kranepool ($2.6M, 516 PA, # - .276/.330/.383/.713, B-/D) who could be a serviceable option for cheap. Defensively, SS Bud Harrelson ($3.5M, 603 PA, # - .260/.327/.312/.639, C/B+), 3B Ed Charles ($1.9M, 365 PA, # - .245/.309/.328/.637, C/A) and C Jerry Grote ($2.2M, 367 PA, # - .200/.234/.261/.494, B/B/A+) are options if needed.
For the bench, the Mets offer three sub-$1M options: OF Larry Stahl ($0.8M, 166 PA, C-/B+), OF Tommie Reynolds ($0.5M, 152 PA) who also plays C and 3B, and the other half of 1967 ChiSox 3B Ken Boyer ($0.8M, 194 PA, 4 2B/100#) who can also play a little at 1B. And if I have some cash to blow (which at this point, with my best offensive option at a paltry $4.0M, I should have plenty) there is 2B Bob Johnson ($2.0M, 246 PA, # - .356/.387/.484/.871, A-/D-). Although this team has no standout players, It has enough pieces to give me some flexibility if I can find some hitting in the 4
th round.
3rd Round - Jbarr8888 had the honor of selecting my 3
rd round team, the
1957 Chicago Cubs. Without looking, I knew right away they had no pitching. When I looked, that was confirmed. If I wanted to consider any of them draftable, I would need to lower my standards. That gave me a few options:
SP Moe Drabowsky ($6.1M, 253 IP, 3.54 ERC#, 1.30 WHIP#), SP Bob Rush ($4.9M, 216 IP, 3.70 ERC#, 1.36 WHIP#), RP Jim Brosnan ($2.4M, 104 IP, 3.30 ERC#, 1.28 WHIP#), and RP Turk Lown ($2.1M, 98 IP, 3.53 ERC#, 1.36 WHIP#). If I have to use one of them, I would prefer to use Brosnan. But I may need to run a 5 man rotation if Tommy John is my #4. That makes Drabowsky a possibility, too.
I initially thought the 57 Cubbies would have a decent offense but when I looked, I was pleasantly disappointed. Sure, they have SS Ernie Banks ($6.0M, 710 PA, # - .286/.364/.570/.934, 5 HR/100#) but beyond him, it’s pretty much a lot of what I already have:
OF Walt Moryn ($3.8M, 657 PA, # - .290/.352/.438/.790, 6 2B/100#), 1B Dale Long ($3.8M, 479 PA, # - .306/.387/.502/.889, 4 HR/100#), and OF Chuck Tanner ($2.3M, 369 PA’s, # - .287/.340/.406/.746, 6 2B/100#) provide some offense. Long and Tanner can also play a little defense, as can OF Bob Speake ($2.9M, 488 PA, .233/.302/.395/.697, C/A-) and
C Cal Neeman ($3.0M, 469 PA, .259/.301/.367/.668, B/A/A+).
Coming off the bench, the Cubs have some cheap options:
SS Jack Littrell ($0.5M, 173 PA),
1B Dee Fondy ($0.3M, 54 PA),
3B Bobby Adams ($0.9M, 222 PA), C Jim Fanning ($0.7M, 100 PA), and 2B Jerry Kindall ($0.5M, 202 PA). For a pricier platoon option, OF Jim Bolger ($2.0M, 307 PA, .276/.307/.343/.650, B+/B) is a decent option. I suspect I’ll need to draft a few of these guys for my bench, assuming I can find someone to supplement Ernie Banks.
4th Round - For the 4
th round I needed to find some offense. A lot of offense. I put my focus on 1927 and 1937. Both were picked pretty clean but there were a couple of options left: 1927 Cincinnati Reds and the
1927 New York Giants. I opted for the Giants for the chance to roster
2B Rogers Hornsby ($10.1M, 720 PA, # - .350/.443/.584/1.027, 5 HR/100#) as our offensive weapon to build around. It’s tough to spend 13% of your team salary on one position player but in this league, it may be my best option.
Besides Hornsby on offense, the Giants also offer 1B Bill Terry ($6.6M, 681 PA, # - .315/.372/.527/.900, B+/A+), 3B Freddy Lindstrom ($5.6M, 652 PA, # - .296/.349/.434/.783, A/B),
SS Travis Jackson ($5.0M, 544 PA, # - .307/.357/.484/.842, C+/A+), OF George Harper ($5.6M, 624 PA, # - .320/.430/.493/.923, 4 HR/100#), and OF Ed Roush ($4.4M, 646 PA, .293/.330/.400/.730, C+/B). Those are some pretty good options and I should have some flexibility to pick up Hornsby.
For bench options, the Giants had a few of those, too. They had three sub-$1M options:
C Al Devormer ($0.8M, 167 PA), OF Ty Tyson ($0.8M, 184 PA) and OF Mel Ott ($0.9M, 190 PA). For a more expensive bench, SS Doc Farrell ($2.0M, 168 PA, # - .376/.437/.533/.970), C Jack Cummings ($1.0M, 94 PA, # - .351/.402/.536/.937), OF Heinie Mueller ($1.3M, 235 PA, # - .279/.378/.377/.755) and C Zack Taylor ($1.8M, 298 PA, C/C/A-) as a platoon option. I’m pretty happy with the options I have available after this pick.
As for pitching, well, like the Cubs, I would need to adjust my standards to come up with anyone draftable. That resulted in a few options that I would really need to be in a twist to use: SP Dutch Henry ($4.1M, 173 IP, 3.39 ERC#, 1.30 WHIP), SP Freddie Fitzsimmons ($5.4M, 258 IP, 3.72 ERC#, 1.32 WHIP), SP Virgil Barnes ($4.7M, 241 IP, 3.76 ERC#, 1.31 WHIP#), SP Larry Benton ($3.6M, 182 IP, 3.80 ERC#, 1.35 WHIP#), and SP Burleigh Grimes ($5.7M, 274 IP, 3.87 ERC#, 1.38 WHIP#). They are all pretty much the same pitcher at various salaries and innings. Hopefully I can avoid drafting any of them.
Pre-Dagger Build – I was having a tough time fitting the pitching I wanted with Hornsby and a decent supporting cast. I was trying to keep a rotation of Horlen, Peters, Seaver, and Drabowsky but combined with the bullpen I wanted, my salary was at $43M. I would need to switch out either Peters or Horlen with Tommy John or possibly one of the Giants pitchers. And for Hornsby to fit, I needed to get my pitching staff below $41M. It’s possible one of them gets daggered and although on the surface it would appear to hurt, in truth, I may not be able to draft them both and draft Hornsby. A 1
st dagger here may do me a favor by making the choice for me.
The other possibility is, I have a problem at 1B. I have only 5 options and 4 of them are starters: Long, Kranepool, Terry, and McCraw. I have one cheap back-up and he’s my cheapest one available: Dee Fondy. Hitting Dee Fondy would cost me at least $2.3M in wasted salary. I’m already $2M too high to get Hornsby. This hit could make it impossible to get him. Hopefully Horlen or Peters are a more tempting option.
1st Dagger – Ow, that one hurt. Taking out
Dee Fondy is going to cost me Hornsby and I still won’t be able to draft both Horlen and Peters. The Wrigley Field hit was a gift. This is the 1
st time I recall being in a league with
mavioric12 and he probably doesn’t know that I prefer pitchers parks. He does now, for next time.
2nd Dagger – After giving it some thought, I decided the best thing to do was, put the bait in the water and hope it gets taken. If either Peters or Horlen gets taken, and I can replace them with Tommy John, I could still pick up Hornsby and still have a somewhat competitive team. However, If John gets hit then I would have to choose between Hornsby and one of those two pitchers. I couldn’t do both and Virgil Barnes would not be an adequate replacement.
So I gave
kentol his choice of
67 ChiSox and luckily for me, he made my choice for me. He did take the lesser expensive
Gary Peters and being that I was counting pennies, I’m sure that will cost me in my final build. But I think I can make the sacrifice pay off. On to the final build!
Final Build – After looking over my final player pool, I decided to build two teams: one with Hornsby and one without. This seemed to be the logical thing to do considering the amount of options I had from the Giants. They weren’t necessarily a one man offensive show. Both builds were tough and required sacrifices. If I drafted Hornsby I would leave out RP Bob Locker, 1B Bill Terry, 3B Freddy Lindstrom, SS Ernie Banks, and OF’s Tommy Davis, Edd Roush and George Harper. Hornsby would be accompanied by
3B Randy Reese ($1.7M, 401 PA, # - .255/.294/.347/.641, D/C-) from the New York Giants, who wasn’t even considered before the dagger round, and OF’s Ron Swoboda, Walt Moryn, and Pete Ward. If I didn’t draft Hornsby, I could get the other Giants players but I would still need to carry 2B Bobby Morgan ($2.1M, 511 PA, # - .208/.297/.291/.588) if I wasn’t carrying Reese at 3B. I was going to have to carry one really crappy player regardless (thanks a lot mavioric12!).
Comparatively, both teams were very close: w/Hornsby team at # - .281/.346/.425/.771 hitting & 2.69/1.15 pitching vs wo/Hornsby team at # - .282/.341/.408/.750 hitting & 2.71/1.16 pitching. The no Hornsby team was actually $10K more, $79,915,676 vs $79,925,327. This was going to be a tough decision.
In the end I decided, why not, let’s have some fun. It’s not very often I get to play a $10M+ position player and having the opportunity in an $80M cap will be a lot of fun. So, add Hornsby to the MVP races for this season!
As for stadiums, I was strongly considering The Polo Grounds V to take advantage of it being a doubles park but our OF defense leaves much to be desired so put us in
Shea Stadium!
Good luck everyone!
ROSTER
| POS |
Player |
Team |
| SS |
Jackson, Travis |
1927 New York Giants |
| 2B |
Hornsby, Rogers |
1927 New York Giants |
| 3B |
Reese, Randy |
1927 New York Giants |
| OF |
Ott, Mel |
1927 New York Giants |
| OF |
Tyson, Ty |
1927 New York Giants |
| C |
Devormer, Al |
1927 New York Giants |
| 1B |
Long, Dale |
1957 Chicago Cubs |
| RF |
Moryn, Walt |
1957 Chicago Cubs |
| C |
Neeman, Cal |
1957 Chicago Cubs |
| 3B |
Adams, Bobby |
1957 Chicago Cubs |
| SS |
Littrell, Jack |
1957 Chicago Cubs |
| SP |
Drabowsky, Moe |
1957 Chicago Cubs |
| LF |
Ward, Pete |
1967 Chicago White Sox |
| 2B |
Adair, Jerry |
1967 Chicago White Sox |
| SP |
Horlen, Joe |
1967 Chicago White Sox |
| SP |
John, Tommy |
1967 Chicago White Sox |
| SP |
Carlos, Cisco |
1967 Chicago White Sox |
| RP |
McMahon, Don |
1967 Chicago White Sox |
| CL |
Wilhelm, Hoyt |
1967 Chicago White Sox |
| CF |
Swoboda, Ron |
1967 New York Mets |
| 1B |
Kranepool, Ed |
1967 New York Mets |
| SP |
Seaver, Tom |
1967 New York Mets |
| RP |
Shaw, Don |
1967 New York Mets |
| RP |
Taylor, Ron |
1967 New York Mets |
| RP |
Lamabe, Jack |
1967 New York Mets |
OFFENSIVE STATISTICS
| PA/162 |
HR |
AVG# |
OBP# |
SLG# |
OPS# |
2B/100# |
3B/100# |
HR/100# |
Salary |
| 5864 |
141 |
0.281 |
0.346 |
0.425 |
0.771 |
4.21 |
0.25 |
2.24 |
$40,004,807 |
PITCHING STATISTICS
| IP/162 |
W |
L |
SV |
ERA# |
ERC# |
OAV# |
WHIP# |
BB/9# |
K/9# |
HR/9# |
$/IP |
Salary |
| 1321 |
81 |
65 |
27 |
2.66 |
2.69 |
0.226 |
1.15 |
2.87 |
5.14 |
0.53 |
$30,213 |
$39,910,869 |
BATTING LINEUP
| BO |
POS |
Player |
| 1 |
SS |
Jackson, Travis |
| 2 |
1B |
Long, Dale |
| 3 |
2B |
Hornsby, Rogers |
| 4 |
RF |
Moryn, Walt |
| 5 |
LF |
Ward, Pete |
| 6 |
CF |
Swoboda, Ron |
| 7 |
C |
Neeman, Cal |
| 8 |
3B |
Reese, Randy |