I'll get this started while it's fesh on my mind.

$60M Unbalanced -- I chose a pitching team because a hitting team would require a lot more stamina. couldnt afford much power so I'm in the Astrodome. couldnt afford much of anything for $24M, I have a bunch of bland .260 hitters. I sacrificed some range to get hitting. I did splurge on an A+ arm because I was expecting a lot of low scores. full time hitters weren't the best bargains here so I have a motley collection of part-timers, not-quite-fulltimers and utility players. pitchers are also a mixed bag with each SP having a different number of innings. This tream will require some day-to-day managing and that's a good thing. my biggest complaint about this tournament is that it's all about the draft and there's nothing to do after Opening Day. Now I have something to do.

$80M -- I scanned all seasons and drafted 4 for comparison. 1919AL, 1946AL, 1952AL, 1908NL. 46AL had the best players but way over budget. At first I selected 19AL with strong hitting and adequate pitching. then comes the update with rumors that pitching is more prominent. next the cap is reduced to $80M and I take a hatchet to my offense. so I switched to 1908NL. strong pitching anchored by Mordecai Brown and Christy Mathewson with .84 whip and good for 800 innings. hitting is good enough considering the cap, the normalization, and the strong pitching. biggest weakness is errors.

$90M Boss -- I only looked at a few skippers with the most tenure. My 2 finalists were Connie Mack and Bobby Cox. I drafted both teams and couldnt decide which was better. Mack team had better OBP, Cox team had Greg Maddux, everything else was nearly even. I chose Mack because I'm getting tired of Maddux. I platooned 3 positions with no-names who had a good half season. Most of my pitchers are from hitting years and only one hitter is from a hitting year. Let's hope normalization works!

$100M draft --- my strategy involved not depending on popular teams and years to remain available. I started with 2004 Cardinals for several reasons. They had some good players. Cards had some good teams in the 40s and those would be unpopular years. Twins had some pitching in 2004, they would be unpopular, and I could grab a big Walter Johnson year. I abruptly changed plans when 1968 was still available in round 3. Bob Gibson is the Ace and I switched to El Tiante and the Indians for my 2nd team. added 1911 to fill remaining needs. ran out of money before finishing, now my team has a strong nucleus and too many weaknesses.

$120M draft --- There was an early run on SP while plenty of good RP remained available late in the draft. I should've played a big bullpen strategy. Instead I got caught up in the frenzy and drafted some 2nd tier SP too early. and some early picks were wasted because I couldnt afford their best years. After this awful start I recovered in the second half of the draft. staying in modern times helped as there were more available players.

$140M -- Is there much to this league? I searched for ways to find an advantage. most people like HR so I chose an anti-HR park. most pitchers are RHP so I leaned toward y hitters. For these reasons I talked myself into Boggs Cobb Dickey and Ortiz. other tossups wre decided in favor of best glove, and that's how I got stuck with classic underperformers Mays Morgan and Boudreau. Maduux over PJ because of HR, but then I chose Schmidt despite HR thinking I'll start him at home. Milacki ok I dont need IP. Johnson Guidry Dazzy stood out.

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60 Million (I Give Up)
Before the update, I built a team I really liked. I spent 36M on pitching and had a staff including Mike Hampton, Bob Forsch, Orel Hershier, Walter Johnson and Schoolboye Rowe (long relief)... all great hitting pitchers. I had some relatively cheap high OB hitters including '83 Hargrove, '72 Hunt, '90 Weiss, '94 Nixon. When the salary change hit, my team salary jumped to $69 million. Back to the drawing board.

At first, I thought I'd draft modern pitchers ($24M) and the best deadball fielding hitters with A+ range (guys like McPhee). I wanted to take advantage of the new fielding rules (penalize my opponents defense). I built a decent-looking team but the offense was pretty weak for $36 million. A+ range really is expensive now.

So I then changed to a speed team. High% SBs are still relatively cheap and I'm thinking that alot of teams will not spend the money for an A+ catcher arm. I still tried to get a few A+ hitters while at the same time grabbing as many high% big-SB guys. We ended up with M.Wills (102/13), W.Wilson (83/12), R.Scott (63/13), J.Mumphrey (52/5), and M.Carey (55/11). Thurman Munson's A+ arm will cancel out other team's SBs. No power to speak of. We do have six switch-hitters, for whatever that's worth.

For pitchers, I grabbed four starters (960 IP), all with whips in the 1.30 to 1.39 range. I added three RPs (230 IP) in the same category. I hope 1190 IPs is enough in Petco Park. I added five 200K mopup pitchers to rest my regular pitchers.


80 Million (Dizzy for Dazzy)
What can I say? I love Dazzy Vance. I've also had success with Dolf Luque and Eppa Rixey. 1924 NL was really the only season I seriously tried. I would have loved to get Hornsby in the mix too but not a chance at this cap level. I briefly thought about some of the early 190x AL in order to get some of those stud deadball pitchers like Joss but it just wouldn't work at 80M.

It looks like 1924 NL was the most popular choice (with 3 entries) although I am dumbfounded how PennQuaker can take them and NOT take Dazzy Vance.


90 Million (Dorrel Norman Elvert Herzog)
Before I switched the caps of the 80/90 themes, I had tried a Connie Mack team at 80 million and just didn't like how it fit. I really like those mid 80's Cardinals teams, so I immediately went to Whitey Herzog. There's some useful KC Royals players to choose from also. I built a Herzog team at 80M that I liked.

Eventually, I determined that the 80/90 themes needed to switch caps.

When it came time to re-do my Herzog team, I really liked the pitching as it was (even without 85 Tudor). So I upgraded my offense (better G.Brett, better W.McGee, etc). It fit nicely and I was done. After seeing so many Mack and Cox teams, I now regret that I didn't at least investigate those two options at 90M.


100 Million (Brooklyn W.Sox 24.41.64)
Since I picked fairly early in the 120M cap, I got stuck with sort of a bad draft pick in this theme... 9th overall. I really had no strategy coming in, since I really wasn't sure who'd be for me at #9. Both the Yankees and A's were off the board, so I decided on the Dodgers since that gave me plenty of pitching options. I also knew that 1941 was a great year to pull from with (4-5 solid batters and Whitt Wyatt). By the time my second round pick came around, I had given alot of though to what direction I wanted to go in. Nobody had grabbed the White Sox yet, so I decided I'd go with 1964 and 1924 White Sox and Dodgers. The '24 White Sox have really good hitters. 1964 was great for pitching for both of those teams (Koufax, Drysdale, Horlen, Wilhelm, etc.). Plus, I could get Dazzy Vance again! Everything fell into place perfectly. I had actually built my entire team using just those 4 combinations. When I finally grabbed 1941 in the 5th round, I was able to tweak the lineup here and there and had enough salary to upgrade at a couple of positions. I really like this team alot. (And I didn't even use '41 Wyatt).

120 Million (The Big Three)
I really didn't have a long-range plan because I knew any kind of strategy would get messed up way too often. Picking near the beginning (#5) allowed me to use an intermediate player (on the way in) to get a key player (on the way back). For example, after taking Walter Johnson in the first, I used Cy Falkenberg to connect to Addie Joss. In the next round, I used Charlie Smith to connect to Mordecai Brown. It was pretty much like that the entire draft. After taking Cy Williams and Chuck Klein as my next two picks, I made a key revelation. I'm not going to have enough salary to fill out my team.

So I changed my thought process and started taking better valued players.... That's when I added Johnny Pesky, Luke Appling (not his expensive year), Nellie Fox, Ferris Fain, etc. I needed some $5 million hitters. Note that I typically used a reliever to connect to the key hitters I wanted (guys like Bobby Shantz, Earl Caldwell, Bobby Tiefenauer, Phil Regan).

All in all, not a terrible team... My bullpen isn't going to measure up to those teams who loaded up on guys with sub 0.90 whips. But with W.Johnson, A.Joss and M.Brown, hopefully, I won't need the bullpen as much. My offense is probably middle of the pack with good OBP but not a lot of power or speed.


200 Million (High Cap Cookies)
I've been wanting to do a theme like this in the Championsip for years. About 5 years ago, I ran a "Same Roster Challenge" theme league. All 24 owners had the same 25-man roster that was determined ahead of time (each owner could pick his own ballpark). The variance in wins was 60 wins to 100 wins. This theme was similar although I allowed some flexibility in the roster creation.

In building my offense, I typically went for the highest avg/obp combination with an eye on defense (i.e., Boggs over McGraw). I pretty much stayed away from power when given the choice (i.e., Speaker over Mays/Mantle, Cochrane over Dickey). I took the 21 Ruth over the 23 Ruth b/c I've had more success with the 21 version than the 23 version. As for the bench, I went with the Joyce and Ramirez, thinking I could platoon them at DH.

At starting pitcher, I had 4 of the 5 chalk... Maddux, W.Johnson, Guidry and K.Brown . I decided on Braxton over Hubbell and Vance... and to be honest, I can't remember why. In the bullpen, I like Gagne over Eck as my setup A. I plan on using Carlos as my closer. I was one the only team to take Willie Hernandez. I took him mainly because he was the only y in that group and felt having another LHP would be useful.

Based on the stats I posted, it looks like I am in the lower half in terms on player commonality. My non-common choices include Boggs (4), H.Wagner (4) , Speaker (3), Braxton (5), W.Hernandez (1).

Quote: Originally Posted By bigmc on 11/26/2009
$100 mil – Let me start by saying sgsmith used the exact strategy I would have used and is my pick to win this league.The starting pitchers in 1985 and 2005 from the Cardinals and Mets is going to be very tough to top.Not to mention the defense is excellent, at least in the ’85 year.

Hey, thanks for the vote of confidence, bigmc. Maybe it will inspire the guys. That team stands at 0-5 as I write this.

Quote: Originally posted by schwarze on 11/27/200960 Million (I Give Up)

80 Million (Dizzy for Dazzy)
What can I say?  I love Dazzy Vance.  I've also had success with Dolf Luque and Eppa Rixey.  1924 NL was really the only season I seriously tried.  I would have loved to get Hornsby in the mix too but not a chance at this cap level.  I briefly thought about some of the early 190x AL in order to get some of those stud deadball pitchers like Joss but it just wouldn't work at 80M. 

It looks like 1924 NL was the most popular choice (with 3 entries) although I am dumbfounded how PennQuaker can take them and NOT take Dazzy Vance...

I don't usually have the ability to access WifS during the work day. This means I can't build teams that need micromanaging to succeed. This is what I was with when I had Dazzy. I didn't like the lineups of the teams I made when I had Dazzy. The '24 NL also has other strong and relatively cheap pitchers which made for a hopefully good staff at $37 million. Basically, I didn't like the offense that I would have had if I spent $40M on pitching.

Great reading. Nobody else want to comment on their teams?

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Good report! Looks like you're off to a great start, especially at 90M and 120M.

In the first round, I did the worst with the teams on which I spent the most time selecting. This time around, I went more with my gut and minimized analysis paralysis.

$60M Unbalanced
It wasn't a tough decision to spend the $36 million on offense. I just didn't like a $24 million offense with the new salaries. I took as many IP/162 as I could while having some minimal level of quality. To stretch out the IP, I tried for strong defense at almost every position and used the original Yankee Stadium. I also tried to get as many BB in the batting order as possible as most of the pitchers at this cap level are likely to have less than stellar control.

$80M One league, one season
After a few brief attempts elsewhere, I settled on the 1924 NL. I fully intended to use Dazzy. But, I didn't like the team with him on it. I wanted to use more salary on offense rather than pitching and Dazzy made that almost impossible. This season has some good A+ defenders (Pinelli, Statz, T. Jackson) and some strong cheap pitching including Adams and Dibut. With the 1901-60 time restriction, catcher throwing arm wasn't a factor which made the team somewhat easier to make.

$90M Manager Theme
I looked at Mack and some of the other longer term choices and didn't like one thing or another about the teams. I have noticed that the early to mid 70s Oriole teams have some great defensive players (B. Robinson, Grich, Blair, Belanger) and decided to leverage that with deep pitching in a low batting average park into a team that would hopefully scrape out wins. While a .427 winning percentage to date (38-51) would indicate that this hasn't worked, the expected winning percentage is .512 which means that this team has underperformed by about 7.5 wins so far.

$100M 3x2 Theme
I didn't have much of a plan initially as a draft tends to throw a monkey wrench into any strategy. I wanted to focus on original 16 franchises, pick at least one deadball era season for pitching and have a selection of moderate parks from which to choose. The A's are a strong pick as they have talent at various points throughout the century. Once I took 1910 to get access to E. Collins, Coombs and Bender, I grabbed the White Sox immediately thereafter so I could lock up Ed Walsh. Again, with a focus on defense and having regular players, I added '48 (Joost, Potter and a few other good bats) and '92 (A's bullpen with Raines, Ventura and F. Thomas).

$120M Chain
Since I wasn't picking high enough to get Ruth or a comparable bat, I focused on modern players with long careers to provide maximum flexibility during the draft. Once I got Carlton in the 1st round, I went after pitchers to round out a rotation (G. Perry and Blue) and grabbed a bullpen stud (Eck) in the first 4 rounds. Tony Perez was the mistake pick as I was trying to get into the Big Red Machine offense but wasn't able to do it. In this theme, I wanted consistent offense and defense rather than just a few superstars. While I have more HR power than I might have wanted, the nature of this league makes it more likely that there will be at least some HRs hit. For pitching, I wanted to have enough IP to survive the DH and focused on WHIP and Hit Rate. I wonder if Dodger Stadium was the best choice of park for this team.

No limit restricted choice
I agree with schwarze that the most expensive choices weren't necessarily the best choices. In building the offense, I wanted the best contact hitters who normalized the best and at least reasonable defense. Since it's more of a numbers game at higher caps, I worried less about range and not at all about catcher's arm as there aren't people here who can hurt you with a high SB%.
Dickey was the easy choice at Catcher. I've had good luck with '34 Gehrig at 1B in the past but he's been horrible here. Gehringer was another easy choice at 2B due to solid defense and the best overall normalized numbers. Boudreau was another easy pick at SS because of defense and a real-life 98/9 BB/K ratio. I believe that not striking out against high caliber pitchers is a big advantage in a high cap league. I chose Brett over Boggs at 3B because of the importance of defense there and the desire to have a little more power. The outfield of Hamilton, '04 Bonds and Musial came together for me quickly. Hamilton was the best D among the dead ball group with lots of BBs and few Ks. I didn't draft Bonds for HRs but for a ridiculous number of BBs. Musial is a great all around player who can hurt you offensively in any park and makes contact well. Hargrave makes a good platoon with Dickey, Stengel and Maddox are primarily defensive replacements. Teixiera has been surprisingly good vs. LHP and a defensive replacement for Gehrig. Shumpert is the IF backup. I wasn't a fan of any of the DH choices but Martinez has been particularly poor.

As with the $120M theme, I focused on WHIP, HR/9 and Hit Rate in selecting the pitchers. Alexander and Maddux have always been strong at this cap. Pedro's .71 HR/9 usually doesn't work well for me. Guidry was an easy choice among the LHPs. in picking Schmidt and Braxton, the strategy was more about doing as little harm as possible rather than picking studs at this cap level. I've always had better luck with Eckersley instead of Gagne. For Papelbon, Charlton, Carlos and Meredith, it was Hit Rate and lower HR/9 in almost every case. Not surprisingly, Wilhelm has given up lots of HR as I viewed him the least of the evils among those choices.

I picked PNC Park as I wanted to maximize hits for the offense (with pitchers with low OAVG and Hit Rates) while keeping down the long ball for some of my pitchers who are likely to give them up in this theme.