NY Yankees

Roy Cullenbine

Final Totals
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Franchise	Selections	Players
Wildcard	24	73
Giants	15	42
Indians	14	39
Yankees	13	39
Pirates	14	38
Dodgers	14	37
Braves	11	36
Cards	13	36
Cubs	14	34
Red Sox	14	32
A's	12	31
White Sox	11	30
Tigers	10	29
Reds	8	27
Twins	12	27
Orioles	8	25
Phillies	9	25

Nap, Lou, and the Big Unit

Will do a briefer writeup than normal.

Pick 1.22 - Diamondbacks
SP Randy Johnson
Not knowing the best way to go, I looked for a high-volume pitcher. With the $13m individual salary limit, Randy was one of the best. I wasn't sure on the wild cards, but seemed like most didn't have the depth of the top Original 16 teams, so I went with the Big Unit.

Pick 2.3 - Indians/Guardians
2B Nap Lajoie
SS Lou Boudreau
I looked again for some pitching, but also wanted to solve the up-the-middle positions if I could. Both Lajoie and Boudreau are among the best at their positions. I also figured with Randy Johnson's HR9 numbers, I'd likely want to go into a pitchers park if I could to suppress some HRs so both of these guys fit that mold. Boudreau also has some Catcher eligibility in two of his best seasons if I need it. (NOTE: This will come into play in my later decisions!)

Pick 3.22 - Twins/Senators
SP Johan Santana
RP Joe Nathan
1B Rod Carew
Long wait between picks, which I handled by not checking my spreadsheet until it was much closer to my pick. Santana is similar to Johnson with great ERC# numbers although a bit HR prone. Nathan is one of the best relievers left. And Carew is a high-average, low-power monster at 1B. Felt good about this pick!

Pick 4.3 - Giants
SP Juan Marichal
SP Jason Schmidt
RP Robb Nen
RF/1B/DH Willie McCovey
Both Marichal and Schmidt were near the top of the starters still available to me. I also considered adding Lincecum, but with 4 big-inning starters I didn't need the innings. Nen won out over Rod Beck, Sergio Romo, and some other relievers. I wanted to add a hitter. I considered Matt Williams (great partial season at 3B), Randy Winn, among others. McCovey's 1969 season is just so good at the plate, that even though I won't play in a HR part, I felt I could add him. I already have a good-fielding 1B in Carew, but I can either play one guy at DH or slide them into RF (NOTE: McCovey will likely spend most of his time in RF.)

Pick 5.22 - Dodgers
3B/OF Pedro Guerrero
3B/OF Jimmy Sheckard
SS/DH Hanley Ramirez
RP Ryan Brasier
RP Jim Brewer
REAAAAAALLLY long wait this time. I still need catcher, 3B, and three OF/DH spots on offense. On the pitching side, I already have 1127 innings so can mostly focus on relievers. Both Guerrero and Sheckard were among the best 3B options AND the best OF options for me, picking them both gives me some optionality. Hanley Ramirez is certainly a luxury but his half-season was just too good to pass up. I can either play him at SS or his bat is good enough to DH. Brasier and Brewer were the two relievers I decided on, Brewer in particular gives me a lefty in the pen.

Pick 6.3 - Athletics
RP Andrew Bailey
RP Joey Devine
RP Ryan Madson
C Gene Tenace
I still need catching and two more OF/DH. I also need a few more relievers to fill out the staff. I was looking at Baltimore to get Hoiles at catcher and Brady Anderson + John Lowenstein in the OF, but I worried about the power-reliance of Hoiles and Anderson. I also didn't like the relief options at this point. The A's had many of my best relief options, the question was how many to go with. I chose 3 in Bailey, Devine, and Madson, leaving off Diekman among others. I looked at Reggie Jackson for one of my OF/DH spots but his power-reliance and poor defense scared me off. Tenace has a very good short PA (128) season but also a reasonable full season if I needed to go that route, so that optionality sold me.

Pick 7.22 - Pirates
OF Andrew McCutchen
OF Brian Giles
C Earl Smith
Somebody took the Hoiles/Brady Anderson combination shortly after my 6th Round pick, not that I expected them to make it back through the long wait. Luckily, the Pirates have some decent options here. McCutchen has the glove and Giles has the bat. Giles actually has a couple options and I went with the worse-fielding but great-hitting version, sticking him at DH and rolling with McCovey in the outfield. McCutchen will patrol center. For the third pick, I initially wanted Ke'Bryan Hayes but then I realized he was just mis-typed as Ke"Bryan Hayes (double quote instead of single quote!) and had already been picked.

I shifted back to catcher and here's where my painstaking catcher saga really began. I have Boudreau, who is A-/A at SS but also D/A/D- behind the plate. I could go for his better catching season but his bat is much worse. But with Hanley Ramirez in tow (336 PA) I can certainly shift some of Boudreau's PA to help behind the plate. But how many am I willing to live with? What if it goes poorly? I always have the option with Tenace to get a full-time season. With the Pirates, it came down to Earl Smith, who has a very good 136 PA season, or Russell Martin, who has a nice OBP and over 500 PA, but is a much lesser hitter overall. I decided to go with Smith. At this point I have a few options: use Boudreau as part of my catcher solution, switch to the full Tenace season, or draft yet another catcher. We'll see what happens!

Pick 8.3 - Orioles
OF John Lowenstein
RP Bob Milacki
My spreadsheet had John McGraw's 1901 season as part of the NYY franchise but I remembered they disentangled those 01-02 Orioles teams from the franchise history and schwarze confirmed that. Otherwise I was going to take McGraw as my DH vs RHP (sliding Giles to the OF) and Steve Howe as my last reliever. Without that option, I went for a similar player--John Lowenstein. I've had some success with him before, he's a lefty with a very good bat in 384 PA and his A+/D+ fielding plays fine. He'll play LF against righties. For the other player, I went with Milacki's 26 IP season. That put me at 1461 IP but I plan to play in a pitchers park so I think that should be plenty. I still need to figure out my catcher situation.

Pick 9.22 - Braves
OF/DH/PH Bob Hazle
Okay, so Lowenstein filled up my 1B/OF/DH at-bats. Guerrero only has 581 PA at 3B but Sheckard will fill in there as needed. I now just have to figure out my C/SS at-bats. Currently, I have Smith (136) and Tenace (128) at catcher, meaning I'd need about 350 PA from Boudreau at catcher. That would give him another 350 at SS with Hanley Ramirez lending his 336 PA to the cause. That's a lot of Boudreau at catcher though. I looked at the top catcher remaining, preferably lefties--Bill Delancey, Ed Bailey, and Johnny Blanchard were my top 3. None seemed good enough to supplant what I had. My other options were a top reliever (none would really improve my bullpen) or the best hitter I could get, which is Bob Hazle. His 1957 season is always a favorite with a BA# over .400 and OPS# of 1.122. I'll find a way to use his 164 PA for sure.

That leaves my final decision as to whether or not to switch to the full Tenace season. If I did that and used his PA at catcher, that would shift Boudreau to full-time SS, which would mean either fewer PA for Hanley Ramirez, or I'd shift Ramirez to DH which would take some PA away from my 1B/OF/DH crew. I could also just get the full season Tenace as a backup option, planning to still use Earl Smith and Boudreau as much as possible with Teance filling in. In that case, the 150 or so PA I'd need from him would just be worse than using his 1970 season, but at least if Boudreau couldn't handle it, I could switch. Finally, I just said screw it and kept the 70 Tenace season. Yes, we only have 264 PA from actual catchers, meaning Boudreau and his D- arm will play the majority of our catcher innings. But I get my best hitters in the lineup as much as possible and if we're fortunate enough to make the playoffs, my single-game best lineup is as good as possible. Fingers crossed.

Ballpark: League Park (II)
I was deciding between two stadiums. Pac-Bell had the -3 HR but I went with League Park (II) which still had -2 for HR but was +2 on 1B and +3 on 2B, hopefully a better balance for some of my guys like McCovey, Giles, and Guerrero that rely more on pop, while protecting some of my gopher-prone pitchers.

Lineup
C Smith / Tenace / Boudreau
1B Carew
2B Lajoie
3B Guerrero / Sheckard
SS Boudreau / Ramirez
LF Lowenstein / Sheckard
CF Sheckard / McCutchen
RF McCovey / Giles
DH Hazle / Giles

Batting Order
1 Lajoie
2 Carew
3 Guerrero
4 McCovey
5 Giles / Hazle
6 Lowenstein (vs RHP) / HanRam (vs LHP)
7 Boudreau (SS vs RHP / C vs LHP)
8 Smith/Tenace (vs RHP) / McCutchen (vs LHP)
9 Sheckard

Pitching Staff
Starting Rotation
Randy Johnson
Juan Marichal
Johan Santana
Jason Schmidt

Bullpen
Bob Milacki
Ryan Brasier
Joey Devine
Joe Nathan
Robb Nen
Andrew Bailey
Ryan Madson
Jim Brewer

Walking the Plank
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I did not have a specific strategy coming other than try to save the "better" franchises for the middle round picks. Franchises like the Yankees, Dodgers, Cardinals, Giants would probably have more depth than franchises like Twins, Orioles, Braves. So I probably wasn't going to use the Yankees or Dodgers in round 1.
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Pick 1.16 - Wildcard (Terriers)
SP Eddie Plank
I almost always tend to go starting pitcher in round 1 in these types of drafts. The $13 million cap meant that I certainly wasn't going to get a 400+ inning guy. I was hoping Babe Adams or Mordecai Brown might make it to me but that was a pipe dream (they went at 1.04 and 1.08, respectively). With only two picks to go before my turn, Babe Ruth was still on the board and I started to reconsider my initial thought process and probably would have taken him. ybjsports wisely grabbed him at 1.14. Then Hornsby went next, who I strongly considered since there just wasn't an obvious SP to take here. So when it was my turn, I really had no idea who to take. Zack Greinke was a solid choice, but I wasn't using my Dodgers this early. I thought about Boudreau here but thought there was a chance I could get both Boudreau and Lajoie next round (spoiler alert: nope). I finally settled on a guy I don't ever remember using. Plank's got a decent performance history, has low HRs and low walks. Not sure how I feel about him being a lefty. Like footballmm11, I also didn't put that much value in the Wildcard franchise, so that was my choice (in retrospect, I believe the wildcard was more valuable than I initially thought).
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Pick 2.09 - Athletics
3B Frank Baker
OF Al Simmons
footballmm11 takes Boudreau and Lajoie at 2.03 and has locked up a playoff spot with that selection. Great pick. I also like njbgiwig's Ed Walsh, Doc White combo. Anyway, right up until I typed in these two names, I was planning on taking Ed Reulbach and either Jack Pfiester (or Orval Overall) here. Cubs don't have a lot of great players, so why not grab 600+ innings of deadball pitching. Then I started doing the math and realized that I was going to have a pretty bad offense if I didn't take my first batters until round 3. I know I wasn't going to grab an underperforming HR hitter, so I wanted two guys that could hit deadball pitching as well as do ok against the Maddux, Pedro type pitchers. I considered Joe Morgan and Cy Seymour, but Morgan always disappoints me. He's probably going to end up around a .237 average and .384 on base%. I love Frank Baker in all theme league formats. Even if he doesn't hit, his A+++ range will certainly help the pitching staff. And Simmons has a great slugging% that isn't solely based on hitting HRs.
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Pick 3.16 - Dodgers
RP Tony Gonsolin
RP Eric Gagne
RP Hong-Chih Kuo
I was taking the Dodgers here all along. I wanted Gonsolin and Gagne for sure. My third Dodger was going to be Mike Piazza but brm_fan also took the Dodgers one pick in front of me (Piazza, Beltre, Wyatt). I decided to add a great LH RP. This is a weird roster build. Through 3 rounds (6 players), I have only 1 SP and 2 batters. I think the lack of success I typically have with my bullpens is impacting my decision making. A couple of great wildcard selections were made this round which made me realize that maybe I shouldn't have used up my wildcard spot so early (Helton, Walker, LeMahieu / deGrom, Gooden, Olerud / Gwynn, Caminiti, Lamet).
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Pick 4.09 - Cardinals
1B Mark McGwire
SS Ozzie Smith
2B Red Schoendienst
DH Ripper Collins
This may have been a panic pick as I still only have one SP. But I wanted to lock up a couple of tough-to-fill positions (2B/SS). I was going to add SP Harry Brecheen on this selection, and was trying to decide if I wanted McGwire or Collins to play 1B. Then I re-read the rules and learned that the DH was in use, so I took both first basemen. Getting three switch-hitters here makes me happy. But what will my starting pitching look like? I am eyeing the Pirates or White Sox next round to add some more SPs.
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Pick 5.16 - Pirates
SP Cy Blanton
SP Deacon Phillippe
RP Nick Maddox
OF Ralph Kiner
OF Kiki Cuyler
There were still 8-9 picks before my turn and I had just boarded a plane for a 4-5 hour flight to California. I was typing up a text to njbigwig with my proxy in case it got to me while in the air (I didn't want to hold things up). I had Ed Cicotte, Frank Smith, Hoyt Wilhelm, Barry Latman listed. I couldn't figure out who the fifth player would be when we took off, so I never sent the text. During the flight, I reconsidered and instead decided on the Pirates. I found out that grayfoxx took most of the White Sox I wanted before me anyway, The fifth round pick is so important because it represents 20% of your roster. I got 2 SPs, a solid RP and 2 starting OFs. I'm not sure how Kiner will do in this league, but I rostered his '51 season to get the .452 OBP, so even is his 42 HRs are muted, he should still get on base. I chose Cuyler over Clemente due to his high doubles and triples. He's another .600+ slugging guy that doesn't depend on HRs. When I found out that njbigwig wanted to take the Pirates here, it made me smile.
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Pick 6.09 - Yankees
C Jorge Posada
C Gary Sanchez
OF Bobby Murcer
RP Grant Jackson
I still needed catching and getting another switch hitter plus a very nice platoon partner was a no-brainer. I had my eye on Murcer for a while now, since I knew I needed another OF ('31 Simmons has only 601 PA), plus I can bench Kiner against deadball and/or right-handed pitchers. I strongly considered taking my 4th SP here, with Fritz Peterson, but with Plank being lefty, I wanted three RH SPs, so I went with a lefty RP. Went with Grant Jackson over Steve Howe due to better IP/G. At this point, I don't need much more... one SP and some more arms in the bullpen, preferably short-inning SPs. I have my eye on the Red Sox.

Pick 7.16 - Red Sox
RP Ernie Shore
RP Elmer Steele
2B Bobby Doerr
I can't believe this group made it back to me. Shore and Steele were no brainers. I thought about adding another low-inning SP (Clay Buchholz) but since I knew I was still adding another SP anyway, I didn't need Clay. I added Doerr since Schoendienst could use a rest now and then and Doerr is just as good.
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Pick 8.09 - Senators/Twins
SP Roger Wolff
OF Michael Ryan
I missed that pedrocerrano had taken Cecil Travis in round 8. I didn't really need Cecil, but would have given me some additional plate appearances at 3B and SS. As it stands now, I am not adding a backup at those two positions. Anyway, I decided on Wolff (over Gary Peters) due to being a righty. The Michael Ryan pick was simply a pinch-hitter and defensive replacement for Kiner or Cuyler. Can't go wrong with having a guy with a .393/.441/.754 on your roster.
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Pick 9.16 - White Sox
RP Jack McDowell
I really didn't need anything here. It came down to do I want extra PAs at 3B and/or SS or more innings? I think McDowell will have more impact than any additional batter that I can add. I have Gagne as my CloserA, but McDowell will be my CloserB, only to be used if Gagne is unavailable or maybe used in extra innings.

Ballpark: Forbes Field
Didn't put too much thought into my ballpark. I have some homerun hitters (McGwire, Kiner), but other teams have more, so I don't want to go with a + for HRs. Forbes is pretty neutral.

Lineup
C Posada (S) / Sanchez (R)
1B McGwire(R)
2B Schoendienst (S) / Doerr (R)
3B F.Baker (L)
SS O.Smith (S)
LF Kiner (R) / Cuyler (R)
CF Murcer (L)
RF A.Simmons (R)
DH R.Collins (S)

Starting Rotation
Deacon Phillippe
Eddie Plank (L)
Roger Wolff
Cy Blanton

Bullpen
Tony Gonsolin
Ernie Shore
Elmer Steele
Nick Maddox
Grant Jackson (L)
Hong-Chih Kuo (L)
Jack McDowel
Eric Gagne