Overall Strategy
Schwarze really threw a curveball with this version of the 16x16. With only 6 pitchers nominated and all of them relievers, it was apparent that everyone would need to use at least five teammates on SP and maybe six. With only three or four hitting teammates available, this would mean needed to use four (or five) of the nominated hitters. As there was not a lot of quality among the nominated hitters (outside of Cabrera), I decided to focus on getting the best versions of the nominated hitters first. The secondary focus was to only use five pitching teammates. This meant a combination of having SP teammates with decent IPs and usable (sub 3.00 ERC#) versions of as many of the nominated RPs as possible.
Nomination: Alan Embree (1997 Braves)
After initially nominating Carlton Fisk, I actually noticed that all the nominated pitchers were RPs. I quickly started looking for alternatives. The ’97 Embree fit the usable RP criteria and brought along a good Maddux (1.87 ERC#) and three other usable SPs (Neagle 2.50, Glavine 2.60, and Smoltz (2.77). All four had 230+ IPs so along with Embree I could get 1000 IPs out of this pick if I needed. This allowed me to pursue chasing the best versions of the nominated hitters.
1st Round: Jimmy Rollins (2007 Phillies)
My strategy meant that I needed to identify four nominated hitters to target in the first four rounds. The best seasons available (based on OPS#) clearly centered around Cabrera, Murphy, and Clark. I would plan to get the best versions of these players possible and to decide which of the remaining players to choose as the fourth. Rollins clearly had the best non-Cabrera/Clark/Murphy season available so this was who I wanted from the beginning. However, the Embree nomination only got me the 9
th pick in round one so I had to anxiously wait through eight picks before I was able to select him. If he had been taken, I probably would have taken the ’13 Cabrera and tried to get a good Polanco season somewhere in rounds 2-4.
This pick got me my leadoff hitter and brought along a good Utley to hit in the two hole and complete my MI. However, it also dropped me from 9
th to 15
th in the draft order.
2nd Round: Dale Murphy (1987 Braves)
With only one Cabrera and one Clark selected so far, I still had a lot of good options available. I decided to take Murphy here as he was the only good OF option. With Cabrera and Clark primarily playing 1B and a lot of really good 1B teammate options, it wouldn’t be a surprise that I’d need to play a 1B in the OF. I therefore decided to make sure I got a good OF here. I was torn between the ’83 and the ’87 versions, ultimately deciding of the slightly better bat over the better speed/glove.
No good teammates and I’ll still pick 15
th next round.
3rd Round: Jack Clark (1987 Cardinals)
Only two Cabrera’s were selected in front of me and no Clark’s so I still had good options available. The choice was between the ‘10 Cabrera and the ’87 Clark. I chose the ’87 Clark because the difference between it and Clark’s other seasons was bigger than the difference between the ’10 Cabrera and his remaining seasons.
This pick now drops me to last in the draft order. I also can’t use the only good teammate (O Smith) since I already have Rollins.
4th Round: Miguel Cabrera (2005 Marlins)
In this round, three more good Cabrera’s come off the board with five picks remaining until my turn. There are now only three really good Cabrera seasons left and three of those five picks can select Cabrera. Of those three Cabrera seasons (’05, ’09, and ’16), the ’16 version would be a problem for me even though it’s the best OPS#. I’ll need Cabrera to play 3B and the ’16 version qualified at 3B with a
D-/D- glove. Of course the draft stops here for the night, leaving me to worry all night about which options (if any) will still be available.
At this point, I need to thank eblank, calhoop, and beall for all passing on Cabrera. This allows me to take the ’05 Cabrera who plays 3B and brings along Dontrelle Willis as my 5
th SP. I now have my infield set (although Clark is short of PAs) and am up to 1250 IP.
The plan over the next 4-5 rounds was to address the following:
1) Get enough usable IPs from the nominated RPs so I don’t need to use a sixth teammate spot on a SP
2) Find good hitting teammate options
3) Upgrade my SP. Although I have five usable SPs, other than Maddux, they’re usable – not good
5th Round: Fernando Rodney (2017 D’Backs)
At this point of the draft, I realize that although I’ve done a good job getting hitting from the nominated players, it has come at the cost of losing out on a lot good teammate options. With the fact that all the nominated hitters except Jorgensen and Rollins were RH, I wanted to get several LH hitting teammates. I needed a C and two OFs. There were three options that I really liked that came with two elite hitting teammates of which at least one was LH and could play the OF (‘94 Maldonado, ’94 Pena, ’01 Uribe). I was hoping that one of them (particularly the ’01 Uribe) would still be available. However, they all went in rounds 3 and 4. There were a couple of other options (’89 Maldonado, ’02 Uribe) that I was considering. However, the ’02 Walker was light on PAs and I already needed to find a platoon with Clark and Utley is a bit light as well so I discarded that option.
The choice at this point then was between the ’89 Maldonado and getting usable RP IPs. The ’89 Maldonado was really intriguing because in addition to Will Clark and Mitchell, he also came with Scott Garrelts who was definitely an upgrade to my SPs. However, I decided that I couldn’t afford the IP hit that Garrelts would entail – a 194 IP pitcher replacing a 240 IP pitcher. I’m also realizing that my C options are getting very limited and I wanted to keep the ’93 Maldonado (w Rick Wilkins) available. So I decided to get the usable relief IPs and took the ’17 Rodney (now at 1300 IP).
6th Round: Darren Oliver (2009 Angels)
My catching options are now down to Wilkins (w Maldonado) and Piazza (w the ’98 Guthrie). I still don’t have any OF teammates and the usable RP options are dwindling fast. I decide to roll the dice that one of the catchers will still be available in round 7 – hoping that perhaps Wilkins flies under the radar a bit. I take the ’09 Oliver was the best RP w decent IP still left.
Note: it sucks picking last every round at this point
7th Round: Candy Maldonado (1993 Cubs)
I now have 1380 IP and feel that I can finally address the hitting teammates. Both the catching options are still available but the OF options are also dwindling, particularly LH options. I decide to take Wilkins here for several reasons: he’s LH and Guthrie has the best LH OF options remaining (Giambi and Delgado).
The choice does have two downsides. First, Wilkins only has 500 PAs, so I now have to worry about getting a somewhat usable Pena and there aren’t many of those left. Secondly, that left Piazza on the board and Schwarze seemed way to happy about getting him in round 9.
This pick actually allowed me to jump two people and pick 14
th in round 8.
8th Round: Mark Guthrie (2001 A’s)
I finally address the need to get an OF teammate, taking the ’01 Guthrie and getting Giambi who is now my starting RF.
9th Round: Tony Pena (1989 Cardinals)
I still need an OF teammate, some usable IPs and to deal with Pena. There are only two usable (and I use that term loosely) Pena’s left. Although the ’88 Pena is better, the ’89 comes with Jose DeLeon and allows to me upgrade my SP bit (he’ll replace Glavine).
10th Round: Jason Isringhausen (1995 Mets)
Although I still don’t know who my eighth hitter will be, I know my hitting will be good and I’d like to play in a hitter’s park. That means I’ll need to get closer to 1500 IP and I’m currently at 1380 IP. “Usable” IP are now represented by any ERC# under 4.00. Isringhausen’s 105 IP (w a 3.29 ERC#) in ’95 are starting to look real good. I decided that this was the pick I wanted before going to bed but still had to wait for most of round 10 to unfold and there were 5 people who could take him. I actually had a dream/nightmare in which football took him a few picks before mine (obviously there is something seriously wrong with me). Thankfully, that didn’t happen, and I now have 1484 IPs.
11th Round: Howie Kendrick (2012 Angels)
At this point, teammate options for that last OF spot are very slim: the ’02 Walker is still available and two Mike Trout’s (’12 w Kendrick and ’15 w Smith). I still don’t want to have to worry about the platoon scenario with Walker so I focus on running the numbers with the two Trout’s. My conclusion is that I can’t fit the ’15 Trout ($9.7M) under the cap, but the ’12 Trout ($8.4M) will fit as long as I don’t get stuck with a $3M Uribe. There were two cheap Uribe’s left: ’15 (Braves $1.0M) and ’16 ($1.2). The ’15 has a nice .816 OPS while the ’16 probably can’t PH for a pitcher. I was tempted to take the ’15 as that would pretty much guarantee that I’d have no cap issues the rest of the way. However, if I didn’t get the Trout, it wouldn’t matter anyway, so I took the ’12 Kendrick here.
Note: after experiencing the joy of picking 13
th this round, Kendrick’s $4.2 salary sent to the back of the pack for the rest of the draft
12th Round: Juan Uribe (2016 Indians):
The ’15 Uribe, of course, went a couple of picks after I took Kendrick. I now had to decide whether to take the worthless ’16 Uribe and guarantee that I could fit Trout or roll the dice to get a usable option out of the other nominated players I still had to draft (Jorgensen, Polanco, and Smith). Happyhours and I were the only two that still needed Polanco; joerat and I were the only two that needed Smith. There were versions of each of those players that I preferred; the Jorgensen didn’t really matter. I was tempted to take either the ’02 Polanco or the ’10 Smith (the last usable version), but decided I couldn’t risk losing Trout.
13th Round: Mike Jorgensen (1983 Braves)
14th Round: Placido Polanco (2002 Phillies)
15th Round: Joe Smith (2021 Mariners)
These last picks just fell to me as joerat took the ’10 Smith earlier in round 13 and happyhours jumped ahead to take a different version of Polanco in round 14. The ’83 Jorgensen is somewhat usable as a PH. The ’02 Polanco was definitely a pleasant surprise for this late in the draft; his .764 OPS is his fourth highest with an A/B+ glove at 3B. Despite there being twelve Joe Smith’s with an ERC# of 3.45 or less, I somehow didn’t get one of them.
Conclusion:
Overall, I’m happy with the way the draft worked out. I decided to play in Yankee III, so I feel I should lead the league in runs but will also probably be in the bottom four in runs allowed. Hopefully, it will work out. In retrospect, I probably should have upgraded my starting pitching once in the earlier rounds and cobbled together one of the hitting spots of the nominated players.
Field |
Player |
Year |
Salary |
PA |
AVG |
OBP |
SLG |
HR |
A/A/A+ |
Rick Wilkins |
1993 |
$5,886,243 |
500 |
.302 |
.377 |
.552 |
30 |
A/B/B+ |
Tony Pena |
1989 |
$3,134,913 |
200 |
.268 |
.326 |
.346 |
4 |
C/B+ |
Jack Clark |
1987 |
$5,867,107 |
558 |
.287 |
.459 |
.586 |
35 |
B/B+ |
Chase Utley |
2007 |
$7,772,207 |
613 |
.330 |
.407 |
.545 |
22 |
A/C+ |
Jimmy Rollins |
2007 |
$7,835,024 |
778 |
.294 |
.342 |
.510 |
30 |
A/D- |
Miguel Cabrera |
2005 |
$5,809,593 |
685 |
.323 |
.385 |
.545 |
33 |
C+/A- |
Howie Kendrick |
2012 |
$4,204,625 |
594 |
.291 |
.329 |
.386 |
8 |
A/B+ |
Placido Polanco |
2002 |
$1,994,461 |
230 |
.298 |
.351 |
.413 |
4 |
B+/A+ |
Mike Trout |
2012 |
$8,418,471 |
639 |
.330 |
.404 |
.549 |
30 |
C/C+ |
Dale Murphy |
1987 |
$6,735,267 |
698 |
.296 |
.417 |
.569 |
44 |
C+/A |
Jason Giambi |
2001 |
$9,400,773 |
671 |
.340 |
.474 |
.638 |
38 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
A+/D- |
Mike Jorgensen |
1983 |
$321,947 |
84 |
.253 |
.349 |
.392 |
2 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
6250 |
.308 |
.394 |
.530 |
280 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
D/D- |
Candy Maldonado |
1993 |
$452,751 |
154 |
.185 |
.260 |
.279 |
3 |
B/B |
Juan Uribe |
2016 |
$1,234,172 |
259 |
.208 |
.262 |
.313 |
7 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
IP |
WHIP |
ERA |
OAV |
HR/9 |
A/C |
Denny Neagle |
1997 |
$7,241,933 |
234 |
1.08 |
2.50 |
.234 |
.56 |
D-/D |
Jose DeLeon |
1989 |
$7,881,026 |
245 |
1.07 |
2.34 |
.205 |
.57 |
A-/B+ |
John Smoltz |
1997 |
$7,701,729 |
256 |
1.15 |
2.77 |
.243 |
.60 |
C/B- |
Dontrelle Willis |
2005 |
$7,955,088 |
237 |
1.13 |
2.58 |
.243 |
.32 |
B/A+ |
Greg Maddux |
1997 |
$9,282,997 |
233 |
0.94 |
1.87 |
.236 |
.27 |
B/B |
Jason Isringhausen |
1995 |
$2,407,661 |
105 |
1.27 |
3.29 |
.254 |
.47 |
A+/D- |
Fernando Rodney |
2017 |
$1,744,816 |
55 |
1.20 |
2.47 |
.204 |
.32 |
A+/C+ |
Alan Embree |
1997 |
$1,493,457 |
46 |
1.21 |
2.55 |
.221 |
.15 |
A+/D- |
Darren Oliver |
2009 |
$2,059,704 |
73 |
1.12 |
2.60 |
.235 |
.45 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1484 |
1.10 |
2.50 |
.232 |
.45 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
A+/D- |
Mark Guthrie |
2001 |
$1,005,251 |
53 |
1.31 |
3.90 |
.246 |
.92 |
A+/D- |
Joe Smith |
2021 |
$570,228 |
40 |
1.42 |
4.65 |
.305 |
.78 |