Posted by Quarantine on 5/29/2022 4:49:00 PM (view original):

• $70M
  • Elite to Efficiency: 100% Efficiency
  • General Strategies
    • Minimize pitchers’ HR/9 anticipating high proportion of sluggers in L5Y
    • Target Field (-4/-4 HR LF/RF) to further reduce HR against and maximize IP
    • Balanced offense with enough HR to compete on the road, but prioritize 2B for success at home
  • Pitchers

Role	Players	Salary	IP	IP/Player	ERC_Norm	HR_Norm	Runs Saved	RS/$Mil
Starter	3	$17,006,210	602	201	2.71	0.68	11	0.6
Start/Relief	2	$8,682,424	294	147	2.62	0.73	20	2.3
Relief	4	$6,126,441	224	56	2.64	0.76	4	0.8
Non-Mop	9	$31,815,075	1120	124	2.67	0.71	35	1.1
Mopup	3	$1,861,286	138	46	6.30	1.24	-29	-23.9
Total	12	$33,676,361	1258	105	3.07	0.77	6	-1.6

• Hitters

Role	Players	Salary	PA	PA/Player	Runs Created	RC/PA	RC/$Mil	HR/100PA
Starter	9	$31,409,552	5358	595	746	0.139	23.8	1.8
Rotational	4	$4,857,401	771	193	125	0.162	25.7	3.0
Total	13	$36,266,953	6129	681	871	0.142	24.0	1.9

• $80M
  • Elite to Efficiency: 80% Efficiency, 20% Elite
  • General Strategies
    • With $1M minimum salary constraint, went with a platoon offense strategy
    • Used my most consistent approach with this team, which was minimize HR/9 with pitchers, maximize HR/100PA and 2B with hitters, and choose a HR-friendly ballpark that doesn’t skew too far + for hitters (Sick’s Stadium, +2 HR LF/RF)
    • May have left some value on the table navigating the one player per franchise constraint by just starting to build my roster and excluding already used teams from future searches rather than making multiple adjustments along the way.
  • Pitchers

Role	Players	Salary	IP	IP/Player	ERC_Norm	HR_Norm	Runs Saved	RS/$Mil
Starter	4	$29,170,031	930	233	2.37	0.30	60	2.1
Relief	5	$9,641,618	345	69	2.28	0.11	27	2.9
Non-Mop	9	$38,811,649	1275	142	2.35	0.25	88	2.3
Mopup	1	$1,000,502	64	64	4.75	0.66	-26	-26.4
Total	10	$39,812,151	1339	134	2.46	0.27	61	0.9

• Hitters

Role	Players	Salary	PA	PA/Player	Runs Created	RC/PA	RC/$Mil	HR/100PA
Starter	8	$31,336,691	4265	533	713	0.167	22.8	3.5
Rotational	7	$8,818,513	1257	180	207	0.165	23.5	3.6
Total	15	$40,155,204	5522	690	920	0.167	22.9	3.5

• $100M
  • Elite to Efficiency: Hitting 90% Efficiency, Pitching 90% Elite
  • General Strategies
    • Chose to spend $60M on Pitchers, under the assumption I could skew more towards elite by reducing need for IP with elite pitching staff and reducing need for AB with a $40M lineup facing even or disadvantage on nightly basis.
    • 2 Deadball Aces (’08 Ed Walsh and ’12 Walter Johnson) make up about 2/3 of pitcher salary and 2/3 of IP. 1350 Non-Mop IP maybe too much depending on proportion of other teams polarization direction
    • Neutralish field with slight skew towards HRs & Doubles, drafted hitters anticipating heavy usage of deadball pitchers, balanced some HR power with predominantly 2B slugging.
  • Pitchers

Role	Players	Salary	IP	IP/Player	ERC_Norm	HR_Norm	Runs Saved	RS/$Mil
Starter	2	$39,056,676	889	445	1.75	0.08	138	3.5
Start/Relief	1	$9,542,392	270	270	1.84	0.24	35	3.6
Relief	5	$8,747,928	190	38	1.40	0.23	30	3.4
Non-Mop	8	$57,346,996	1349	169	1.72	0.13	202	3.5
Mopup	1	$2,701,713	90	90	2.37	0.34	1	0.5
Total	9	$60,048,709	1439	160	1.76	0.15	204	3.4

• Hitters

Role	Players	Salary	PA	PA/Player	Runs Created	RC/PA	RC/$Mil	HR/100PA
Starter	8	$31,744,121	4082	510	732	0.179	23.1	2.5
Rotational	8	$8,198,557	1210	151	209	0.173	25.5	1.8
Total	16	$39,942,678	5292	662	941	0.178	23.6	2.3

• $110M
  • Elite to Efficiency: 60% Elite, 40% Efficiency
  • General Strategies
    • Similar to the one player per franchise theme, I didn’t take too elegant of an approach to optimizing the 50 different seasons constraint here. Just simply found a player I liked and cut that year from future searches.
    • Built Round 1 and Round 2 teams simultaneously
    • Started with rotations for each roster, prioritizing using the deadball era years for pitchers.
    • With a very rigid deadball pitching staff, I complemented it with a HR-friendly ballpark (Yankee Stadium III) and plenty of power throughout my lineup
  • Pitchers

Role	Players	Salary	IP	IP/Player	ERC_Norm	HR_Norm	Runs Saved	RS/$Mil
Starter	2	$32,342,697	802	401	1.80	0.07	114	3.5
Start/Relief	1	$8,708,490	225	225	1.95	0.07	29	3.4
Relief	4	$9,026,316	312	78	2.33	0.15	28	3.1
Non-Mop	7	$50,077,503	1339	191	1.95	0.09	171	3.4
Mopup	2	$3,233,055	121	61	2.55	0.13	4	1.1
Total	9	$53,310,558	1460	162	2.00	0.09	175	3.2

• Hitters

Role	Players	Salary	PA	PA/Player	Runs Created	RC/PA	RC/$Mil	HR/100PA
Starter	8	$50,522,893	5027	628	1046	0.208	20.7	4.1
Rotational	8	$6,129,472	729	91	150	0.206	24.5	3.8
Total	16	$56,652,365	5756	720	1196	0.208	21.1	4.1

• $120M
  • General Strategies
    • With the $15M limit on deadball pitchers, my strategy was to draft hitters with lots of power and play in Yankee Stadium III. To combat a likely similar strategy from other owners, I used up my $15M on a deadball starter and reliever, then selected only pitchers under 0.2 HR/9, and predominantly under 0.1 HR/9
    • Similar to other year/team restriction themes, I didn’t really plan out how I wanted to use my decades in advance, just found guys I like and removed that decade from my search as soon as I had 2.
  • Pitchers

Role	Players	Salary	IP	IP/Player	ERC_Norm	HR_Norm	Runs Saved	RS/$Mil
Starter	3	$36,351,433	945	315	2.11	0.06	100	2.7
Relief	7	$17,791,185	425	61	1.67	0.07	51	2.9
Non-Mop	10	$54,142,618	1370	137	1.97	0.06	152	2.8
Mopup	1	$2,812,579	96	96	2.61	0.22	7	1.3
Total	11	$56,955,197	1466	133	2.01	0.07	159	2.7

• Hitters

Role	Players	Salary	PA	PA/Player	Runs Created	RC/PA	RC/$Mil	HR/100PA
Starter	8	$53,273,251	4744	593	1012	0.213	19.0	4.6
Rotational	5	$8,984,379	900	180	163	0.181	18.1	3.9
Total	13	$62,257,630	5644	706	1175	0.208	18.9	4.5

• $140M
  • General Strategies
    • Nothing too fancy, started with a few big names that I knew would have multiple good seasons to choose from (Babe Ruth, Rogers Hornsby, Cap Anson, Mordecai Brown), grabbed Ed Walsh as the big Joker, and just filled in the last few pieces from there.
    • True to form, I again went with the strategy of deadball pitchers, good power in my hitters, and HR-friendly Yankee Stadium III
  • Pitchers

Role	Players	Salary	IP	IP/Player	ERC_Norm	HR_Norm	Runs Saved	RS/$Mil
Starter	3	$37,758,419	908	303	2.00	0.18	99	2.5
Relief	7	$30,096,336	745	106	1.86	0.22	74	2.5
Total	10	$67,854,755	1653	165	1.93	0.20	173	2.5

• Hitters

Role	Players	Salary	PA	PA/Player	Runs Created	RC/PA	RC/$Mil	HR/100PA
Starter	9	$67,942,855	6001	667	1289	0.215	19.0	3.8
Rotational	6	$4,096,367	692	115	95	0.137	23.2	1.1
Total	15	$72,039,222	6693	744	1384	0.207	19.2	3.5

Love the way you broke out the stats. Made this real fun to explore.

Posted by redcped on 5/30/2022 5:49:00 PM (view original):

Posted by normy17 on 5/30/2022 5:41:00 PM (view original):
Reading other peoples' strategies is giving me imposter syndrome.

Just because I had a lot to say doesn't mean any of it will work!

Ditto

Posted by just4me on 5/30/2022 5:49:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Quarantine on 5/29/2022 4:49:00 PM (view original):

• $70M
  • Elite to Efficiency: 100% Efficiency
  • General Strategies
    • Minimize pitchers’ HR/9 anticipating high proportion of sluggers in L5Y
    • Target Field (-4/-4 HR LF/RF) to further reduce HR against and maximize IP
    • Balanced offense with enough HR to compete on the road, but prioritize 2B for success at home
  • Pitchers

Role	Players	Salary	IP	IP/Player	ERC_Norm	HR_Norm	Runs Saved	RS/$Mil
Starter	3	$17,006,210	602	201	2.71	0.68	11	0.6
Start/Relief	2	$8,682,424	294	147	2.62	0.73	20	2.3
Relief	4	$6,126,441	224	56	2.64	0.76	4	0.8
Non-Mop	9	$31,815,075	1120	124	2.67	0.71	35	1.1
Mopup	3	$1,861,286	138	46	6.30	1.24	-29	-23.9
Total	12	$33,676,361	1258	105	3.07	0.77	6	-1.6

• Hitters

Role	Players	Salary	PA	PA/Player	Runs Created	RC/PA	RC/$Mil	HR/100PA
Starter	9	$31,409,552	5358	595	746	0.139	23.8	1.8
Rotational	4	$4,857,401	771	193	125	0.162	25.7	3.0
Total	13	$36,266,953	6129	681	871	0.142	24.0	1.9

• $80M
  • Elite to Efficiency: 80% Efficiency, 20% Elite
  • General Strategies
    • With $1M minimum salary constraint, went with a platoon offense strategy
    • Used my most consistent approach with this team, which was minimize HR/9 with pitchers, maximize HR/100PA and 2B with hitters, and choose a HR-friendly ballpark that doesn’t skew too far + for hitters (Sick’s Stadium, +2 HR LF/RF)
    • May have left some value on the table navigating the one player per franchise constraint by just starting to build my roster and excluding already used teams from future searches rather than making multiple adjustments along the way.
  • Pitchers

Role	Players	Salary	IP	IP/Player	ERC_Norm	HR_Norm	Runs Saved	RS/$Mil
Starter	4	$29,170,031	930	233	2.37	0.30	60	2.1
Relief	5	$9,641,618	345	69	2.28	0.11	27	2.9
Non-Mop	9	$38,811,649	1275	142	2.35	0.25	88	2.3
Mopup	1	$1,000,502	64	64	4.75	0.66	-26	-26.4
Total	10	$39,812,151	1339	134	2.46	0.27	61	0.9

• Hitters

Role	Players	Salary	PA	PA/Player	Runs Created	RC/PA	RC/$Mil	HR/100PA
Starter	8	$31,336,691	4265	533	713	0.167	22.8	3.5
Rotational	7	$8,818,513	1257	180	207	0.165	23.5	3.6
Total	15	$40,155,204	5522	690	920	0.167	22.9	3.5

• $100M
  • Elite to Efficiency: Hitting 90% Efficiency, Pitching 90% Elite
  • General Strategies
    • Chose to spend $60M on Pitchers, under the assumption I could skew more towards elite by reducing need for IP with elite pitching staff and reducing need for AB with a $40M lineup facing even or disadvantage on nightly basis.
    • 2 Deadball Aces (’08 Ed Walsh and ’12 Walter Johnson) make up about 2/3 of pitcher salary and 2/3 of IP. 1350 Non-Mop IP maybe too much depending on proportion of other teams polarization direction
    • Neutralish field with slight skew towards HRs & Doubles, drafted hitters anticipating heavy usage of deadball pitchers, balanced some HR power with predominantly 2B slugging.
  • Pitchers

Role	Players	Salary	IP	IP/Player	ERC_Norm	HR_Norm	Runs Saved	RS/$Mil
Starter	2	$39,056,676	889	445	1.75	0.08	138	3.5
Start/Relief	1	$9,542,392	270	270	1.84	0.24	35	3.6
Relief	5	$8,747,928	190	38	1.40	0.23	30	3.4
Non-Mop	8	$57,346,996	1349	169	1.72	0.13	202	3.5
Mopup	1	$2,701,713	90	90	2.37	0.34	1	0.5
Total	9	$60,048,709	1439	160	1.76	0.15	204	3.4

• Hitters

Role	Players	Salary	PA	PA/Player	Runs Created	RC/PA	RC/$Mil	HR/100PA
Starter	8	$31,744,121	4082	510	732	0.179	23.1	2.5
Rotational	8	$8,198,557	1210	151	209	0.173	25.5	1.8
Total	16	$39,942,678	5292	662	941	0.178	23.6	2.3

• $110M
  • Elite to Efficiency: 60% Elite, 40% Efficiency
  • General Strategies
    • Similar to the one player per franchise theme, I didn’t take too elegant of an approach to optimizing the 50 different seasons constraint here. Just simply found a player I liked and cut that year from future searches.
    • Built Round 1 and Round 2 teams simultaneously
    • Started with rotations for each roster, prioritizing using the deadball era years for pitchers.
    • With a very rigid deadball pitching staff, I complemented it with a HR-friendly ballpark (Yankee Stadium III) and plenty of power throughout my lineup
  • Pitchers

Role	Players	Salary	IP	IP/Player	ERC_Norm	HR_Norm	Runs Saved	RS/$Mil
Starter	2	$32,342,697	802	401	1.80	0.07	114	3.5
Start/Relief	1	$8,708,490	225	225	1.95	0.07	29	3.4
Relief	4	$9,026,316	312	78	2.33	0.15	28	3.1
Non-Mop	7	$50,077,503	1339	191	1.95	0.09	171	3.4
Mopup	2	$3,233,055	121	61	2.55	0.13	4	1.1
Total	9	$53,310,558	1460	162	2.00	0.09	175	3.2

• Hitters

Role	Players	Salary	PA	PA/Player	Runs Created	RC/PA	RC/$Mil	HR/100PA
Starter	8	$50,522,893	5027	628	1046	0.208	20.7	4.1
Rotational	8	$6,129,472	729	91	150	0.206	24.5	3.8
Total	16	$56,652,365	5756	720	1196	0.208	21.1	4.1

• $120M
  • General Strategies
    • With the $15M limit on deadball pitchers, my strategy was to draft hitters with lots of power and play in Yankee Stadium III. To combat a likely similar strategy from other owners, I used up my $15M on a deadball starter and reliever, then selected only pitchers under 0.2 HR/9, and predominantly under 0.1 HR/9
    • Similar to other year/team restriction themes, I didn’t really plan out how I wanted to use my decades in advance, just found guys I like and removed that decade from my search as soon as I had 2.
  • Pitchers

Role	Players	Salary	IP	IP/Player	ERC_Norm	HR_Norm	Runs Saved	RS/$Mil
Starter	3	$36,351,433	945	315	2.11	0.06	100	2.7
Relief	7	$17,791,185	425	61	1.67	0.07	51	2.9
Non-Mop	10	$54,142,618	1370	137	1.97	0.06	152	2.8
Mopup	1	$2,812,579	96	96	2.61	0.22	7	1.3
Total	11	$56,955,197	1466	133	2.01	0.07	159	2.7

• Hitters

Role	Players	Salary	PA	PA/Player	Runs Created	RC/PA	RC/$Mil	HR/100PA
Starter	8	$53,273,251	4744	593	1012	0.213	19.0	4.6
Rotational	5	$8,984,379	900	180	163	0.181	18.1	3.9
Total	13	$62,257,630	5644	706	1175	0.208	18.9	4.5

• $140M
  • General Strategies
    • Nothing too fancy, started with a few big names that I knew would have multiple good seasons to choose from (Babe Ruth, Rogers Hornsby, Cap Anson, Mordecai Brown), grabbed Ed Walsh as the big Joker, and just filled in the last few pieces from there.
    • True to form, I again went with the strategy of deadball pitchers, good power in my hitters, and HR-friendly Yankee Stadium III
  • Pitchers

Role	Players	Salary	IP	IP/Player	ERC_Norm	HR_Norm	Runs Saved	RS/$Mil
Starter	3	$37,758,419	908	303	2.00	0.18	99	2.5
Relief	7	$30,096,336	745	106	1.86	0.22	74	2.5
Total	10	$67,854,755	1653	165	1.93	0.20	173	2.5

• Hitters

Role	Players	Salary	PA	PA/Player	Runs Created	RC/PA	RC/$Mil	HR/100PA
Starter	9	$67,942,855	6001	667	1289	0.215	19.0	3.8
Rotational	6	$4,096,367	692	115	95	0.137	23.2	1.1
Total	15	$72,039,222	6693	744	1384	0.207	19.2	3.5

Love the way you broke out the stats. Made this real fun to explore.

I agree that this is a fascinating writeup, thank you. I always appreciate the opportunity to learn how others owners think about the game. I am curious about one thing in particular in your post which is the 'runs saved' columns for the pitchers? is that calculated against some baseline or some standardized ERC?

I really do appreciate all the time folks take do do these, it always makes me feel I know so little about this game!

Now for the moment you’ve all been waiting for, your session one superstar d_rock97’s thoughts for Round 1. All of this was after the fact so I don’t entirely remember what I was doing when I built these. Maybe when life slows down I’ll properly assess my decisions as I build my teams.


70 Mil: DR9 Modern Deadball Hitters

5533 PA, .283/.341/.403
1352 IP, .225 OAV, 1.01 WHIP, .97 HR/9

This one of the first teams I tackled, and one of the last to enter. I made a team, tried to tinker with it, would give up, start brand spankin new, and give up on that. I really wanted a HR/Walk team, but it was too expensive. I really wanted a SB team knowing every arm would be D-, but just didn’t like who was available (an outfield of Mallex Smith, Billy Hamilton, and Jarrod Dyson isn’t very enticing). So instead, I just mindlessly picked whoever had the best AVG+ at each position, or I should have. Looking back, I have no clue as to why I skipped on Nicky Lopez. I guess I really wanted range at SS? Miguel Rojas is there to compliment Whit Merrifield at 2B. Okay I got range at the middle positions, now it’s time to completely neglect it everywhere else because I dislike low caps and will just pick the best hitters left. An outfield of David Fletcher, Jon Jay, and a Harold Castro/Brock Holt tandem will give me above a .290 average with almost no power or stolen bases. I guess that was also my thought when I selected Wilson Ramos and Luis Arraez for C and 3B respectively. Then I get to the last 2 spots, 1B and DH. Should be easy right? Well it just so happens I have no power, low PA, and I’m short on cash. Why? Because I couldn’t get off my $30k/IP pitching staff. I hate building teams with bad pitchers, I have no clue who the cookies are who’ll pitch better than their price. 2020 Kyle Hendricks and Marco Gonzales made an appearance last year in the 80 Mil league, and got shelled. But here they are again for this one. 2018 Kluber is another pitcher that didn’t walk anyone but had a high-ish OAV. That was the theme behind most of my pitchers, but then there’s a random Alex Wood thrown in there. He doesn’t fit what the rest of the guys are doing, and only has 152 innings, but I think he did well for me in a roster twist league once? Clay Buchholz, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Jose Urquidy, and Richard Bleier make a majority of my bullpen innings with multiple 40 IP guys thrown in there in the end. Anyways getting back to the last two position spots, I ended up with Christian Walker and Franmil Reyes. Where there better options? Likely. But I was just focused on getting more PA at that point, and my bench reflects that too.

I have no clue what I’m doing here and only grabbed a couple cookies. This team can’t be too bad can it? 79 wins hopefully?

80 Mil: DR9 What Cantchu Do Cantu

5208 PA, .307/.369/.450
1351 IP, .222 OAV, 1.00 WHIP, .48 HR/9

I don’t play OLs anymore, so I can’t keep up with all the current cookies, but it definitely seemed like it was possible to still build a cookie-cutter OL team. I tried doing so with just a plethora of platoons at one lineup spot, and those 140 IP guys in the rotation, but I was just lost without my 1800s hitters. I tried many times with Halladay and Duscherer, and Sabathia, etc. but I just wasn’t left with enough cash to follow the theme. Instead I went with guys I personally never use, but think are OL cookies in 75 Catfish, 76 Randy Jones, and 69 Dierker. Again strapped for cash, I replaced Dierker with 1920 Babe Adams, and just went slightly heavier in bullpen innings. Many of my guys there cost less than $1.1 mil; Ray Starr, Dennis Rasmussen, Wes Littleton, Claudio Vargas, Tom Ferrick, Jay Witasick, thank goodness these modern franchises have good bullpen seasons. I would’ve been screwed without it. On offense, whereas I went rangey in the middle, and no range in the corners in the 70 mil theme, for some reason it’s the opposite for this team. Vizquel and Zobrist man the middle, whereas Wally Moon mans 1st with A+ range. I do have some OL cookies that don’t follow this rule in 2016 Jose Ramirez and 2019 Ketel Marte. Without my speedy deadballers King Kelly, John Kerins, or Buck Ewing behind the plate, I went for the fastest catcher I saw in Cookie Rojas, who has a pretty mediocre A+ arm. And lastly, Josh Harrison will take a majority of the PAs in my platoon lineup spot, followed by Jorge Cantu, Mark Carreon, and Harold Castro. Rookie Mauer takes the final spot to back up Rojas as none of my bench players make more than 1.08 mil.

This team will get crushed by more experienced low cap players, but I think it will do enough against the other less experienced players of Round 1. Let’s avoid a losing season and hope for .500 ball

100 Mil: DR9 Kershawshank Redemption

5079 PA, .309/.385/.432
1345 IP, .175 OAV, .83 WHIP, .74 HR/9

When I first saw this theme, I thought that pitching was the slam-dunk, no-doubt choice. Who would want to build a pitching staff that costs <30k/IP? And with the way new pitchers are priced after the salary explosion a couple years back, it was all the more reason to go pitching. So my rotation consists of 2020 Bieber, Bauer, Lamet, and Maeda, all costing around $45k/IP for some of the GOAT SP seasons in the SIM. 2016 Kershaw is in the super reliever role. Then this is where I got a little overboard, and might run me into some trouble. I figured, “hey, everybody’s gonna go pitching, that means all the offenses will be OL level offenses, or worse.” So I cranked the pitching up to the max, thinking that my SPs will be so effective, that they’ll go way over their rl innings, and drafted a super low amount of extremely highly effective bullpen innings. 2020 Cesar Valdez, Chris Martin, and Adam Kolarek, 2021 Casey Sadler, and 2018 Sean Doolittle join the frey, which got me to 1145 IPs of .78 WHIP baseball. Now I wanted to experiment with just how low in innings I could actually go, and if it were any other occasion than the WISC, I would have done it, but instead, I pussied out and drafted 200 innings of scrub baseball. Tommy Milone as the usual mop, Bob Harmon and his 2.83 ERC# will (hopefully) give me 3 innings in a loss, and Al Mamaux’s job is to not immediately lose the game if we go to extras, or my other arms are tired. Petco will help with that. On offense is the usual A+ range OL team, although looking back, I probably should’ve opted for the 1.000 fielding D- range team since the strikeouts the modern pitchers have will limit the minus plays. Oh well, Bill Joyce will be atrocious over at 3rd, but everybody else shouldn’t be too bad. Only way I see this losing is if we give up an unfortunate 3-run bomb.


Assuming I don’t go into a fatigue spiral, this seems like a classic brianjw team where I think “what even is that offense? Everth Cabrera??” before he shuts me out 2-0 with a super elite bullpen. Maybe the same can happen for me, and I can get 90 wins? Idk hoping for the best.

110 Mil: DR9 Second-Class Status

5378 PA, .337/.407/.494
1410 IP, .204 OAV, .92 WHIP, .22 HR/9

100-120 Mil leagues are my bread and butter, so I have higher expectations than most with this team.

I built both the Round 1 team, and Round 2 team at the same time, with most of the usual suspects coming in Round 2.

I usually play the Ed Walsh, Bill Bernhard, and random Starter 2B here, but since it was just round 1, I went with the tried and true, 3 deadball 300+ IP pitchers. Haven’t used 05 Mathewson in awhile since there’s better options around the same price, but **** it, I’ll save a few bucks there. 09 Mordecai fills the 2nd spot just because he’s a stud, and 19 Adams fills out the rotation with his smaller IP count so I can make better use of my other roster spots, and don’t end up with 6 pinch hitters.

2020 Zach Plesac usually takes the place of the 3 inning Setup A role, but because of the seasons restriction, I went with another option. Stuck between the choice of 1950 Jim Hearn and 1945 Joe Berry, I went with the former, despite the high amount of walks, because Berry has a tendency to perform better for everyone else but me.

With 1170 IPs accumulated, now it’s time to draft a bunch of low IP pitchers around 40k/IP, just so I can feel I’ve made efficient use of my roster spots, and just in case I go into extras, I have an abundance of arms ready to go. 04 Kiko is the only regular here, although I’ve had success in the past with 2013 Louis Coleman. Here’s to hoping for the best from 2021 Clay Holmes, 2014 Huston Street, 2010 Ramon Ramirez, and 2009 Rafael Betancourt, all of whom have great stats.

On offense, I went with some secondary and tertiary options so I can save my speedy rangey players with tons of XBHs for Round 2. All of these players, I’m familiar with…in roster twist leagues; not exactly the best test of strength out there.

The lineup consists of 1885 Henry Larkin, 1915 Benny Kauff, 1910 Tris Speaker, 1914 Steve Evans, any Eddie Collins will do, it doesn’t matter because they’re all good, OL star George Davis mans third, and the only SS I’ll ever draft, Honus Wagner, rounds out the lineup. I’ve made the mistake of drafting both catchers from the same season, so out of laziness, I went with the closest option in price.

90 wins seems doable in Round 1. This isn’t far off from those 100 mil TOC advantage teams that I build just for ***** and giggles that I sometimes win. Just beware for the Round 2 team


120 Mil: DR9 Six Signs you need a Tudor

5552 PA .352/.420/.529
1380 IP, .204 OAV, .92 WHIP, .41 HR/9

The first thing I did with this theme was go with cookie 1902 Bernhard and the 139 IP 0 HR Babe Adams as my super reliever, but that just made it over the $15 mil deadball maximum, so I scrubbed it and made it the last team I built because I had no idea where I was gonna go from there. Ultimately I didn’t bother with the deadball pitching. Bernhard still made the team because he’s ultra cheap, but I used the other deadball spots for my speedy rangey hitters that I always use. That includes a Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, and Tris Speaker. Usually I’d pair those with the best 1B in the SIM, Roger Connor, but because of the season restriction, and how 2020 pitchers just dominate the opposition, I couldn’t do that. Instead I moved Cobb to first so I wouldn’t have a lumbering 1B clogging the bases and hitting into 30 double plays, and Benny Kauff takes a spot in the outfield. 1920 Rogers Hornsby takes his place as my middle-of-the-order 2B that I usually draft, and I begrudgingly took George Brett at 3rd. I’ve complained about not liking any 3B in the SIM before, and I still have yet to find one I like ever since 1899 John McGraw got priced out of existence. I’ll be a little out of my comfort zone with my last outfielder, Pete Reiser. Theoretically he’d be a good player with the A+ range, 133 AVG+, decent speed, and 3 triples/100AB#, but I never have any luck with OFers from the 40s-70s, and that includes Mays, Musial, Mantle, Yaz, etc.
Lastly on offense, I ended up with 6 catchers to platoon. Is it the smartest thing to do? No, but atleast I’ll reach $1 mil in every decade doing so. They’ll bat leadoff where there strikeouts and lack of speed will affect me the least.

Because of the seasons restrictions, my pitching staff is pretty weird. John Tudor never fails me, but to have his 274 IP season going the same amount of games as 183 IP Roger Nelson just kinda throws me off and makes me think I could’ve been more efficient with this build. I have 3 relievers capable of going multiple innings instead of my usual 1, and multiple 30-40 inning relievers on the side. And I think I read somewhere where ozomatli said 2018 deGrom was the best value in the game? This has to be before the 2020 pitchers, but he’s on my team as well. He’s one of those guys who plays a lot better for everyone than he does for me, but he’s here regardless. Devo makes the other 2010s spot, stud Andrew Bailey makes this weird team, and Gonsolin takes the wildcard spot.

I never build a staff like this, and although I got most of my usual offense in here, I don’t expect too much from this team. Just get above 85 wins please.

140 Mil: DR9 Surround Sound Outfield

6019 PA, .352/.419/.503
1459 IP, .196 OAV, .89 WHIP, .36 HR/9

Now the choice of joker was pretty easy for me, it’s basic math. I was probably gonna spend $15mil on a good rotation piece vs the best position player would’ve been around $10mil in my lineup. So I could either go up $5 mil to grab a joker pitcher, or $10 mil to get the joker hitter. Then I just took the cheapest pitcher joker on a $/IP basis. That wound me with Ed Walsh. Now I just gotta pair him with 2 other starters so I could actually use all 392 of his innings, and then some. I looked at Three Finger Brown, but didn’t like spending a million on his scrub season, and it seemed Kershaw was the pretty obvious choice anyways. He always goes way above his rl innings, and he has the GOAT super reliever season. So 13 and 15 Kershaw will go every 3 days and pitch 80 pitches, which is just under what you get from a normal 300 IP deadballer, and 16 Kershaw is the go-to option in the pen. The hard part was finding the rest of the bullpen. I still build my higher cap teams around being the best offense in the league, so finding 3 good seasons out of one guy that aren’t all overpriced was going to be a challenge. Anybody could shell out for Kenley or Kimbrel, but I wanted my stereo system in the outfield, so I employed Don McMahon. I think while tinkering with this team, I got uncomfortable with my staff not being super elite, so I swapped out guys like Joakim Soria, and Hoyt Wilhelm for Rich Hill and Babe Adams, and that left me without the super offense I always draft, but oh well, they scored 35 runs in the opener, they’ll be fine. Honus Wagner is the best SS in the SIM, and he has multiple cheap but effective seasons at other positions too, without clogging the basepaths like Lajoie. That didn’t stop me from Lajoie either, can’t go wrong with a 150 AVG+. Now I spent the most time on the catcher spot. I even tested so many options at my sister’s high school playoff game (partly because they were blowing the other team out), and kept going over by 100k or less. First it was Kerins and two scrub seasons. Then it was a platoon of Schangs. Another 1890s catcher, Chief Zimmer I think? Settled on Smoky Burgess and going low on PA. He’ll bat 9th, and hope that we don’t run into too many Raines teams. He’ll be a bit tired by the end, but that’s the sacrifice you gotta make in order to not go crazy over finding the perfect catcher.

I really like this team, and will be seriously surprised if I win less than 90 games.

This is the least amount of time I've ever spent drafting my teams. I felt like most of the themes were more tinkering and trial and error, rather than researching specific teams, which is fine. I just had the mindset that once I found a team that worked, I wasn't going to bother going back to the drawing board.

I may do a write-up later, but I don't feel my strategies were anything exceptional this go-around.

Tangentially related, at least once the tournament starts is, where are you located?

In Pacific Time Zone where I live games come at reasonably convenient times, 10:30 AM, 3 PM, and 10:20 PM. Not bad; I can manage to that.

I, however, am usually in a wide variety of time zones during the summer and again it's coinciding with the tourney schedule. So, last year in Greece the games were played at 9:30 PM, 2 AM and 9:20 AM.

The year before that I was in Nicaragua and games were 11:30 AM, 4 PM, and 11:20 PM.

Before that Indonesia and games were played at 1:30 AM, 6 AM (this is the most-difficult alignment if you need to dial in changes between games) and 1:20 PM. I can do lineups for overnight games at dinner; that's ok.

This year Middle East which is in the same time zone at Greece. I'm most-often in Greece so very used to that.

I don't sleep through the night as well as I used to and when I'm traveling like this it sometimes twists me in knots trying to figure out where my teams are and when the games are and any fuzziness brought on by a few cold ones before bed can lead to amusing results at times. Imagine jerking upright in bed and frantically thinking you've got to get Mike Caldwell into your rotation for that favorable matchup at Tiger Stadium and not knowing what time it was or where in the world you were. My wife's over it LOL.

This is my 2nd year in the tournament. I tried a bunch of odd strategies in the first year with mixed results. I did a bunch of research post-tourney to find out what worked for the winners and took notes. So I did the exact opposite this year: I made the same team 6 times. I have Target Field for all 6 teams and the strategy was mostly the same: punt homers, look for double/triples power, extreme range in the infield. I looked for pitchers with low walk rates and minimal/no dynamic pricing. I didn’t worry too much about HR/9 rates because of Target. That mostly meant 2017-2021 pitchers. The high K of modern pitchers paired with the normalization of 19^th century fielding should be a good match. I also drafted a bit more IP than I did last year when I got caught in a death spiral.

70M No Dynamics Here
Ok, a world of no dynamic pricing. I filled out with 4 range guys in the IF and either 3B power in the OF or contact hitters. I was really intrigued by 20 Tommy LaStella and his high contact/low K rate but he's terrible in the field so he's my DH. In the 100 years apart league last year, I had a 19th century lineup that had the least amount of strikeouts and one of the higher amount of runs scored, so there's something to that. Also, because of the 5 player/year restriction, I had to be super picky about who my 2020 players were. Grabbed about 50 more innings than normal because of the DH rule.

RF 2018 Mallex Smith - 3B power
DH 2020 Tommy LaStella - low K rate
LF 2020 Kyle Tucker - 3B power
1B 2021 JT Realmuto - range
3B 2017 Chase Headley - range / switch hitter
CF 2019 David Fletcher - low K rate
C 2018 Isaiah Kiner-Falefa - C hack
2B 2019 Yolmer Sanchez - range / switch hitter
SS 2020 Javier Baez - range

P 2020 Kyle Hendricks / 2020 Antonio Senzatela / 2018 Miles Mikolas / 2017 Josh Tomlin - Low BB rates

5983 PA, .264/.331/.402
1382 IP, 1.15 Whip, 3.63 ERA

80M Socialist Baseball
Still can’t use 19^th century hitters, so my strategy was similar to the 70M league. I do have some platoons due to the theme restrictions.

LF 1946 Augie Galan – he gets on base
3B 1925 Jimmy ***** – range
1B 1938 Phil Weintraub – he gets on base
CF 1974 Hal McRae – doubles power
C 2004 Brandon Inge – C hack
CF 2020 Kyle Tucker – 3B power
2B 1976 Willie Randolph – range
SS 1982 Ozzie Smith – range

Notable platoons:
OF – 2011 Dexter Fowler – platoon and 3B power
2B/3B 1946 Billy Herman – platoon and gets on base

P 2020 Kyle Hendricks / 2020 Marco Gonzales / 2014 Phil Hughes / 1922 Babe Adams
That’s a rare early 20^th century pitcher for me in Adams, but I love his low BB & HR ratio.

5590 PA, .290/.371/.432
1341 PA, 1.09 Whip, 3.20 ERA

100M 60/40 Portfolio
My teams typically are at 55% offense so it was easier to go 5% more in that direction than 10% in the other direction. I could also use some of that extra offensive budget on defense to help the pitching. I thought most owners would go 60% offense but looking at my league it’s a 50/50 split.

SS 1901 Honus Wagner – range / obp / non HR power
LF 1925 Al Wingo – obp / non hr power
1B 1890 Roger Connor – range / obp / power
RF 1912 Joe Jackson – 2B/3B power
CF 1895 Henry Larkin – 2B/3B power
2B 1887 Sam Wise – range / hobbit power
3B 1897 Bill Joyce – range / obp / 3B power
C 1887 John Kerins – C hack

P 2020 Kyle Hendricks / 2018 Miles Mikolas / 2020 Marco Gonzales / 2020 Zack Greinke
I got a 120M offense and an 80M pitching staff. I was worried about my underpowered pitching staff so I drafted more IP than usual. I sacrificed HR/9 for IP compared to my 80M staff. I drafted too many PAs, an oversight I didn’t catch until now.

5800 PA, .334/.408/.500
1,403 IP, 1.05 whip, 3.14 ERA

110M Won’t see you next year
I made this team with only this year in mind. I didn’t even come up with a 2^nd team should I make the next round. “I’ll cross that bridge when I get there”. The only real restriction this theme gave me was the number 2020 pitchers I could use.

3B 1897 Bill Joyce – range/obp/non-hr power
RF 1925 Al Wingo –obp/ non-hr power
LF 1912 Joe Jackson – obp/non-hr power
1B 1921 George Sisler – avg/non-hr power
2B 1887 Sam Wise – range/ hobbit power
CF 1885 Henry Larkin – 2B/3B power
C 1889 Buck Ewing – 3B power
SS 1923 Jimmy Johnston – range

SP 2019 Justin Verlander / 2017 Corey Kluber / 2015 Jacob DeGrom / 2020 Kenta Maeda

5642 PA, .339/.406/.499
1390 IP, 0.89 Whip, 2.42 ERA

120M No bombs, just peashooters
Well yeah, I’m gonna go Target. Never even considered Yankee Stadium. I figured most would choose Target as well, so didn’t fuss too much over HR/9 for my pitchers. 2 players per decade meant I couldn’t load up on certain players, but it’s still a mostly old-time lineup and modern pitching.

SS 1901 Honus Wagner
RF 1901 Ty Cobb
LF 1912 Joe Jackson
C 1928 Jimmie Foxx
1B 1945 Phil Cavaretta
2B 1975 Rod Carew
CF 1947 Harry Walker
3B 1929 Jimmy *****

SP 1914 Ray Caldwell / 2018 Justin Verlander / 2020 Shane Bieber / 2017 Corey Kluber
Bench and bullpen are mostly mid-century guys to complete the requirements of the theme.

5696 PA, .356/.425/.511
1450 IP, 0.89 Whip, 1.99 ERA

140M Eight Men Out
First question was the joker. After researching all of them, 2004 Barry Bonds has the least amount of dynamic pricing. A couple of pitchers were close to the amount of dynamic pricing as Bonds, but then it wouldn’t fit my modern pitching model. Also, I’d have to choose between carrying 10 or 13 pitchers, and I wanted 12. So I went against the grain and chose Bonds. After that, it’s a 120M league. The other 8 guys needed to have positional variety so here is who I went with:

CF 1901 Ed Delahanty
1B/3B 1894 Ed Delahanty
DH 1946 Roy Cullenbine
LF 2004 Barry Bonds
1893 RF Buck Ewing
1B/C 1892 Buck Ewing
2B 1919 Rogers Hornsby
SS 1917 Rogers Hornsby
C 1886 Buck Ewing

Will Platoon:
3B 1942 Roy Cullenbine
OF 1903 Ed Delahanty

Gives me A+ range at 1B, 2B, 3B for at least some platoons and A range at SS. With the exception of Bonds, none are HR hitters.

Pitchers
2015/2016/2020 Clayton Kershaw
2018/2019/2021 Jacob deGrom
1958/1966/1969 Hoyt Wilhelm
2018/2019/2021 Josh Hader

Hader and Wilhelm were chosen because of their good stats, but also their IP/G. I hate guys with low IP/G as there is a difference between throwing 15 and 20 pitches in relief. I didn’t like the dynamic pricing in Kershaw but I couldn’t make Scherzer or Verlander work. I was most proud that I only left $17,092 on the table.

6000 PA, .337/.428/.508
1471 IP, 0.85 Whip, 1.98 ERA

I found these themes refreshing. I wasn’t going to play this year because I didn’t have hours and hours of painstaking research in me. These themes were complex enough to require thought, and in most cases, restrictive enough to not be an exercise in cooking cutting.

70m: TikTok Influencers
Naturally, I started off by drafting 2019 Marte and dumped him into a Utils spot because I didn’t know what position he’d ultimately take. I rarely use ultra-modern hitters so I thought this would be tough. To my surprise I easily found a bunch of players between $3 and $4 mil that fit my typical criteria, speedy, high average or OBP; or cheap HR. Looking at lineups, many of you stumbled upon the same crew: Mallex Smith, Nicky Lopez, Kevin Newman’s 1.000 at 2b, old staple Marwin Gonzalez, David Fletcher and Cody Bellinger with his cheap HRs. Pitching was harder. ’20 Hendricks screamed out, but the rest of my starters and bullpen are a hodgepodge of dudes I’ve never used or even considered (I was excited about using 2020 and other post-update pitchers, but the $70m cap threw a wet towel on that.) I was ready to go with a decent looking squad………3 days later…….I notice this theme requires a DH. I didn’t draft one. I think there’s a name for that on Contrarians list, but I’m too lazy to look it up. What to do, what to do? I tried many things but ultimately had to cut loose….guess who? Yep. Marte. Too expensive. Replaced with piece of **** Eddie Rosario at DH who at the time of this writing is batting 0.0, 0 for 18 with a walk. 1,295 non-scrub innings should be just enough at Petco and assuming most others chose minus parks.

80m: Socialists
19 Marte EASILY made this squad along with favorites Wally Moon, 95 Alomar, 77 Page and 21 Nicky Lopez makes a second appearance. After this my wheels fell off. I can’t explain to this day how I ended up with the remainder of the players including the entire pitching staff. Apparently I decided to do a 3 way outfield of $1.2 mil dudes, none of which are any good, then “wheel out” aged 82 Joe Niekro and 2002 Jamie Moyer as my aces. The rest are just a bunch of guys, none of whom I’d choose in an Open League if I ever do an open league again. This and my $120M squad will be lucky to win 70.

100m: Deadball Sluggers
I made a hitting team and a pitching team. The hitting team looked like a lot of fun, but the pitching team looked efficient, with all of the 2020 studs. Fun always beats efficient!
I drafted my pitchers first because it would be harder. I decided to try a couple of L/R tandems to help combat the high powered offenses Burns/Reulback, Sallee/Frank Smith. I ran out of cash so rostered $80m cap stud ’26 Pete Alexander. He won’t be a stud here. I get joy staring at my lineup and how they’ll do against $40m staffs. Chock full of worldbeaters like Stirnweiss, 03 Wagner, 95 G Davis, 14 Speaker, 15 Kauff…you get the picture. This team will do well as long as I stick to regular rotation maintenance.

110m: Seasons in the Abyss
I was lucky enough to see Slayer post Covid in their last appearance in Canada. They played Dead Skin Mask last. Dead Skin Mask would not have been an appropriate team name. I enjoy the Grateful Dead and Taylor Swift too so don’t typecast me ??
Not much to say here. I built both teams together then tried to even them out. My Rd1 team has better hitting and my Rd2 team better pitching. After old friend 08 Walsh, my pitching is suspect. 05 Pedro, 1905 Bob Wicker..who? why? And a bunch of relievers including Slow Joe Doyle. I love saying Slow Joe Doyle. Slow Joe Doyle is a cool name. My closer is 14 Drew Smyly. Also a cool name. Batters are the usual suspects, Speaker, Kauff, Wagner and King Kelly carry over from the 110m. I ran out of cash so went cheap at first base: 80m stud Wally Moon joins us from the Socialists. He’ll still make a bunch of + plays at 1b while batting .150 from the 8^th spot. 1895 Mike Tiernan will suck on O AND D.

120m: Bronx Bumblers
I waited until the very last minute to build this team and it shows. I should have went Target because it’s what I know, but I succumbed to the lure (aka fun) of home runs. Anyhow, I chose relatively speedy, high OBP home run hitters sprinkled in with a Tris Speaker (Tris Speaker pretty much makes any team I do above $100m). Ruth, Bonds, Alex Bregman at short, 41 Dolph Camilli A+1B, 76 Morgan at 2^nd.
Off topic: Every team I build will always end with me filling 7 fielding spots….then there’s 3^rd base. I never know who to choose and it rarely works out. This time I went with 55 Eddie Mathews. As of this writing Mathews is swatting at .091 2 for 22 with 1 BB and 0 HR or RBI. Another winner at 3B.
My pitchers are a bunch of guys who don’t give up many home runs. Bernhard, Brecheen,18 deGrom. In hindsight, this was a mistake since I’ll likely be playing many games at Target against AVG+ guys. Oh well. I predict between 17 and 71 wins here.

140m: Big Ed and his Babes
I knew I was going with Walsh without even doing a search. The search confirmed my suspicions. Walter Johnson crossed my mind for 1/100^th of a second. Tris Speaker x3 (a dream). Babe Ruth in last OF spot and DH. (I get nervous with Ruth when deadballers are in play, but I can’t help myself. Ruth is so much fun to watch.) Jack Clements was an easy choice for me a C. Now it got tough. I roladexed through dozens of infielders before settling on Jose Ramirez at 2b/3b and Alan Trammell at SS. Hopefully Ramirez won’t make too many boneheaded plays and run into a few HRs. Trammell had a great 440PA season and another decent 200PA season. I didn’t think too hard about pitching and maybe I should have. I immediately chose Babe Adams and Pete Alexander because they both have a solid short relief and long relief season to go with a starting season. Andrew Miller as the closer. I like the look of this team but most 140m teams look good.
I’ll end on a whiny note. Last year’s round 2 draft theme that put the higher ranked players at a disadvantage was upsetting and put a bad taste in my mouth. All owners should always start on an even playing field in this tournament.

Cheers.

I didn't keep notes, so I had to revisit rosters to recall why I did some of what I did...

$70M 5x5 2017-2021

I knew that by playing a bunch of OL with under $35M on pitching that I could get away with $30-32M here. I'm not sold on the 2020 HR/9 numbers, they are a real crapshoot, so I would try to pull from the other seasons. At where I was looking $/IP, a five man rotation looked appealing. There were going to be some HR hitters taken, so I would search for HR/9+ 120 or above if possible. I wanted decent K/9 and very low BB/9 if available. I will need all the pitches they can throw. All but one SP is below 2 BB/9. I wanted to have superior arms, and 1,250IP was a preliminary target. We don't have the luxury of buying what we don't need. We are on the low side, but we are gambling here. The naysayers are buzzing. We'll see. Team whip 1.11, includes 89 IP of mops, who will get abused. Ryu, Kershaw, Mikolas, Severino and Hendricks. With a bit more IP in the pen I'd use them in an OL. Offensively we are solid, which is all I could hope for. Minimize the holes. Always searching for value. I like Mallex Smith, McNeil, Frazier, Lowrie, Rojas and Reddick. Target Field seems comfy...

$80M with $1M minimum

This is really gonna play as a $70-75M league with a good bench and bullpen, no $200k fodder. I like making every penny count so I'm comfortable here. The draft center I see as a weapon, get good at squeezing out all you can...

I found some decently priced SP in Randy Jones, Higuera, Garland Braxton and Turk Farrell. Jones will get a few extra starts here. The pen is capable enough. Jim Brewer, Reggie Grabowski, and Clyde Wright for cheapo IP. Overall I think we pitch well here.

Offensively we are solid. Galan is a bargain, I like George Burns, lots of doubles, and I've got a cheap Boggs, Carey too. Marte fits well here, and needs to do what he does best. Mash. Vizquel and Alicea up the middle. Rollie Hemsley catches. We aren't overmatched here...home is Sportsman's III for the doubles effect. I think we can hit and field well enough.

$100M Polarization

I would love to go big bat here, but I need to pitch, so I went pitching heavy. I am thinking that I can draft well enough to scratch out enough offense while pitching dominantly. It might not work? I really don't know what WILL work here...'09 Mordecai Brown should be a solid ace here. '05 Denton True Young is second fiddle, Tully Sparks gets to be Third Wiper...Nehf and deGrom in my pen, add in Nick Maddox, Smyly, Rich Hill and Burch Smith too?? We should be tough with a lead.

Target Field...Galan again, Larry Walker will see some favorable pitching. Think value, Doc...Brett's '81, Dale Alexander gets to play. Lofton, Ozzie, Pierzynski and Johnny Ray. All he ever does is hit for me. Several good seasons under $5M. Last I looked the '88 was averaging 205 hits in OL play...Get what we can offensively. Pray for favorable 1 run and extra inning records...they seem streaky for a random game...

$110M number puzzle

The restrictions aren't difficult, so it feels like I'm drafting an Open League team. We will try Tropicana, drop in some triples for you to chase after. Shoeless Joe, Speaker, Sisler, Alomar, Lajoie plays LF best he can. Cochrane is solid, Billy Herman and Joe Sewell are welcome to provide a spark here and there. At least the slash lines look favorable...
Again I went Brown, Young and Sparks. Another solid pen. Seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Faceplant could come later, but I think we are at least mid pack on this one.

$120M, 2 per decade + WC

Target Field, mainly because I like it, and to control the homers. I like Russ Ford here as my sub $15M deadball guy. Who else? Dazzy Vance, and Koufax, he's due to blossom for me eventually. It could work.
I've been wanting to try Soto, and we will add Medwick to play vs LHP. Helton? I like him. Delahanty, Wagner, Gehringer, Speaker, Boggs, Dickey. Pile them on...it isn't my typical Target Team, but we will be a solid road team too.

$140M 8x3 + Joker (Gehrig)

I spent more time on this than the other 5 combined. I built dozens of teams, trying Lajoie, Cobb, Walsh. None felt like something I would be comfortable managing. I finally settled the pitching. It would be Three Finger. The rotation is solid, and cost a few million less than Walsh would have for me. Pen is Romo, Jake McGee and Huston Street.
Half a dozen slash lines were almost identical, but I went with Gehrig and the '21 Frisch at 2B, for the range. Brown will appreciate me later for it. I tried Lajoie, Hornsby until I was blue in the face. I moved the '30 Frisch to 3B, then went Wagner, Cobb and Cochrane, although Easterly was on my short list. Overall I like how it turned out.

Good luck to everyone, theres always a bunch here I root for. Who knows, sometimes i get it right...Enjoy the ride...

I only entered one team, and am happy to have been able to be an outsider entry into the tournament. How you all manage to draft 6 teams that quickly I don't know.

140 mil Jimmy Dugan is my Copilot

I went for the albatross first, and it seemed like a pitcher was the way to go. Like many I went for Ed Walsh. I then went to the hitting. It all came down to the relationship triangle. Girls like the long ball. I like girls. If I want girls to like me, go with the long ball. I went with Foxx and Ott for their versatility, and Ruth because he's Ruth. Ruth and Ott both had a cheap season, so Foxx got the DH slot. Hornsby fit the bill for the middle infield as he can play SS.

Having been away from the site for a long time, I didn't even think of the recent players (until getting shut out by Kershaw in many games this season). I went with two lesser seasons of Maddux, and 3 from Babe Adams. Way too short on innings, with mop-up scrubs pitching much more than I planned. Pitchers went down the fatigue drain early. Should have read the other forum on how to get out of it because it took me a long time.

Went too cheap on pitching. Many lessons learned.

From my 80 million description…

I figure with this strategy is in place that even if this team is bad (and this is still a distinct possibility) at least it’ll be entertaining to follow them and watch them hopefully hit the ball out of the ballpark

Kind of hit this one on the nose. After a 3-22 start (by far my worst ever), the team has been respectable since then (32-26). And they’re hitting home runs.

I know they won’t sniff the playoffs so I’ll settle for rooting for 96 Greg Vaughn to push up and over the 50 HR mark, haha

Posted by _JJP_ on 5/29/2022 7:35:00 PM (view original):

This is my first WISC, but I always liked reading these threads in the past to get a sense of what people were thinking when they built their teams. Thanks to all who take the time to contribute to this thread and to those who put in the hours to make WISC a thing. I have no idea what to expect in this tourney but I enjoyed the challenge of building these teams and that's a huge part of what makes sim fun.

Overall Theme: 'Ed's up!

Ed Delahanty (ED) has gone from a name I had maybe vaguely heard in passing before I started playing sim to one of my favourite all-time players today. I took a chance with him on a Phillies franchise team and he led them to my first TOC. Since then I've tried to include him on all my teams, where possible. I would recommend reading his tragically short SABR bio.

$70M:

2017-2021. I already hate this theme for the non-inclusive EDless restrictions, but I'll make the best of it. I find the areas people tend to skimp on at lower caps are catcher's arm and OAV, so I've loaded the top of the lineup with 2 big SB guys in Merrifield and Hamilton and the rest are the best AVG# at each position I could afford. I'm a big fan of high AVG players and you'll see this theme throughout my teams. Couldn't afford good range but tried not to skimp on fielding % too much. Tried to grab a few switch hitters and ended up with 4. For me, Donovan Solano is the perfect DH, with .336# and D/D- at every position so you're not wasting money on his defensive numbers. I've used a lot of pitchers from this era before but never at cap this low, so the pitching staff is 13 players I've never used before. Seems like 2020 Hendricks is a popular ace pick so I'm relieved with that. 5428PA, 1328 IP. Started in Kauffman but got scared and moved to Busch II.

$80M:

Post 1920. Great. Another league full of EDless horsemen. I usually play caps lower or higher than this and I've never played in an open league before, so I did some scouting and it seemed like every $80M open league team with 90+ wins, without exception, had 2019 Ketel Marte, 2016 Jose Ramirez and 2017 Marwin Gonzalez. How boring. I wouldn't normally draft those guys because of the lowish AVG and lack of range but they must be doing something right. So I figured I'd start there. Rest of the lineup is the best AVG# players I could find that looked like a good value on $/PA. Almost all my regular teams at $120M or less have 1958 Hal Smith/2001 Shawn Wooten combo at catcher, so they make an appearance here. 1981 Larry GURA (always capitalized) is a favourite #2 or #3 SP at $100M, so he's my defacto ace here. 1992 Tewksbury, 1942 Tiny Bonham and 1920 Babe Adams are the rest of the rotation. Bullpen full of low IP arms. No one over $1.76M. 5200 PA, 1,374 IP. Royals Stadium.

$100M:

All seasons available. Now we're talking! For $100M I usually go 55/45 hitting/pitching, so it's wasn't a big stretch to go 60/40, but you definitely feel the difference. At long last, we welcome 1899 ED with his .397# average, 10 2B/100#, 688PA and B/B- in CF. His $10.7M salary will be well earned. As mentioned earlier, GURA is a favourite at $100M, as are his rotation mates 1945 Roger Wolff and 1902 Bill Bernhard, so I started there for the pitching staff. Filled in 1971 Fritz Peterson as #4 SP to eat innings and have a lot of sub-$1M arms in the pen who are all on a 5 hook. Offence outside of ED is average and doubles heavy with lots of range to help out that $40M pitching staff. Big fan of range monsters 1903 Nap Lajoie and 1925 Dave Bancroft up the middle, and they both earned a spot on this squad. Smith/Wooten behind the plate again. Special appearance by my favourite mop up, 2011 Brian Matusz. You can't get 50 IP in 1 pitching slot for less than $300K anywhere else. 5433PA, 1,401 IP. Palace of the Fans, my favourite stadium.

$110M:

Didn't think too much about round 2. I just tried to make the best squad possible and worry about round 2 if I make it there. Mandatory ED is 1902 who joins 4 other players who hit .360-380# to round out the top of the order. Bottom of the order features 1903 Lajoie who gets a promotion from the $100M squad and he's joined up the middle with 1980 Gary Templeton. Reliable Smith/Wooten make a third, and final, appearance behind the plate. Went with one deadballer (1914 Russ Ford) and 3 modern guys (2019 Verlander, 2017 Kluber and 2020 Maeda) in the rotation. Hoping the HR don't hurt too bad and will be offset by the lower OAV. 5363 PA, 1371 IP. Municipal Stadium.

$120M:

I started with a Target team I was quite happy with it only to find out I completely screwed up with the rules so I blew up that squad for a Yankee Stadium team. I've been successful with some high OBP/HR teams in Kingdome and Sick's but Yankee lends itself more to high AVG than high OBP and of course Target really limits HR hitters. So I decided to go with a home/road platoon in the OF and 3B with high AVG/HR guys at home and just high AVG guys at Target road games. 1955 Ted Williams, 1973 Hank Aaron and 1926 Cy Williams will patrol the OF with 1995 Matt Williams at 3B for home games at Yankee. On the road at Target, 1996 Jim Eisenreich, 1955 Elmer Valo and 1919 Possum Whitted will play OF with 1982 Wade Boggs taking over at 3B. 1903 Nap Lajoie and 1925 Bancroft are reunited from their appearance in the $100M squad for solid range up the middle. Obligatory ED is 1894, playing 1B and leading off. Behind the plate Smith/Wooten is a bit of a stretch for this cap, so I went 1902 Peitz to deal with SB heavy teams and paired him with 1934 Danning. Took as much deadball pitching as I could in one shot with 1910 Russ Ford. Him, 1964 Sandy Koufax and 1964 Joe Horlen will pitch at home with 1977 Tom Seaver and 2018 Chris Sale doing most of the Target games. Bullpen was basically just getting the best RP from the remaining decades to fulfill the rules. 5460 PA, 1398 IP.

$140M:

All seasons available and high cap, with clones. Want to guess who my first choice clone was? If you've been scoring at home, you won't be surprised that 1901, 1894 and 1898 ED will be hitting 1-2-3 with Joker 1911 Cobb behind them in the cleanup spot. Looks like a lot of people took a deadball pitcher for their Joker, so I may have gone against the grain here. Dave Bancroft has great 2B range in addition to SS range and has a decent enough 3B season to fill out the IF with ED at 1B. Various Sy Sutcliffe and Babe Phelps seasons will cover C and DH and Sutcliffe can cover a few games at SS and 2B if needed. Pedro and Kershaw at SP with Doolittle and Jansen in the pen. 6151 PA, 1423 IP. Municipal Stadium.

Results:

$70M:

2017-2021. I already hate this theme for the non-inclusive EDless restrictions, but I'll make the best of it. I find the areas people tend to skimp on at lower caps are catcher's arm and OAV, so I've loaded the top of the lineup with 2 big SB guys in Merrifield and Hamilton and the rest are the best AVG# at each position I could afford. I'm a big fan of high AVG players and you'll see this theme throughout my teams. Couldn't afford good range but tried not to skimp on fielding % too much. Tried to grab a few switch hitters and ended up with 4. For me, Donovan Solano is the perfect DH, with .336# and D/D- at every position so you're not wasting money on his defensive numbers. I've used a lot of pitchers from this era before but never at cap this low, so the pitching staff is 13 players I've never used before. Seems like 2020 Hendricks is a popular ace pick so I'm relieved with that. 5428PA, 1328 IP. Started in Kauffman but got scared and moved to Busch II.

Result: 83 wins, 1st place, lost in the LDS 3-1. Between them, Merrifield, Hamilton and Taipa stole 210 bases and scored 284 runs on the strength of the high average hitters behind them. Overall team average was 8th in the league and OPS was 3rd worst. Busch II was a mistake, I could have been more daring with a + hitters park. 2020 Hendricks was disappointing with a 1.22 WHIP. 2018 Kluber ended up being the staff ace with 0.96 WHIP. Offence was shut down in the playoffs, with a combined 4 runs in 3 losses vs BeAllEndAll's staff.

$80M:

Post 1920. Great. Another league full of EDless horsemen. I usually play caps lower or higher than this and I've never played in an open league before, so I did some scouting and it seemed like every $80M open league team with 90+ wins, without exception, had 2019 Ketel Marte, 2016 Jose Ramirez and 2017 Marwin Gonzalez. How boring. I wouldn't normally draft those guys because of the lowish AVG and lack of range but they must be doing something right. So I figured I'd start there. Rest of the lineup is the best AVG# players I could find that looked like a good value on $/PA. Almost all my regular teams at $120M or less have 1958 Hal Smith/2001 Shawn Wooten combo at catcher, so they make an appearance here. 1981 Larry GURA (always capitalized) is a favourite #2 or #3 SP at $100M, so he's my defacto ace here. 1992 Tewksbury, 1942 Tiny Bonham and 1920 Babe Adams are the rest of the rotation. Bullpen full of low IP arms. No one over $1.76M. 5200 PA, 1,374 IP. Royals Stadium.

Result: 93 wins, 1st place, lost 4-0 in the World Series. Offensively, the team did not disappoint. 1st in the league in hits, average and RBIs. Pitching gave up the fewest walks but the 4th most hits. ERA was league average. Fielding, the team made 158 minus plays, worst in the league, led by Marte with 43. Marwin Gonzalez was disappointing, going .256/.318/.375 but Marte was great, going .331/.374/.560 with 28 HR and 145 RBIs. 1954 Don Mueller was also great, hit leadoff every game, going .367/.387/.467 and was my only hitter to finish with 100%. 5200 PA was a little short. GURA was an ace, going 27-9 despite a .294 OAV, which I mostly place on the fielders behind him who's max range was an outstretched glove in either direction from firmly planted cleats. Completely overpowered by Bill_James47's Runnin' Rebels in the World Series, who's dominating pitching and switch hitting speedsters made quick work of my team.

$100M:

All seasons available. Now we're talking! For $100M I usually go 55/45 hitting/pitching, so it's wasn't a big stretch to go 60/40, but you definitely feel the difference. At long last, we welcome 1899 ED with his .397# average, 10 2B/100#, 688PA and B/B- in CF. His $10.7M salary will be well earned. As mentioned earlier, GURA is a favourite at $100M, as are his rotation mates 1945 Roger Wolff and 1902 Bill Bernhard, so I started there for the pitching staff. Filled in 1971 Fritz Peterson as #4 SP to eat innings and have a lot of sub-$1M arms in the pen who are all on a 5 hook. Offence outside of ED is average and doubles heavy with lots of range to help out that $40M pitching staff. Big fan of range monsters 1903 Nap Lajoie and 1925 Dave Bancroft up the middle, and they both earned a spot on this squad. Smith/Wooten behind the plate again. Special appearance by my favourite mop up, 2011 Brian Matusz. You can't get 50 IP in 1 pitching slot for less than $300K anywhere else. 5433PA, 1,401 IP. Palace of the Fans, my favourite stadium.

Result: 90 wins, 1st place, lost 3-1 in the LDS. I expected a bit more from ED, but it's hard to be disappointed with .358/.405/.520. Shoeless Joe was great, going an incredible .416/.481/.575. Don't think I've ever had a full time player hit that high average before. Fielders made 143 plus plays, which definitely helped that poor $40M pitching staff. Low cost bullpen was surprisingly good, with only 10 losses contributed to them. I was expecting 20+. Lost in the playoffs to 06gsp, the only team that had a better offence than mine and was the eventual World Series winner.

$110M:

Didn't think too much about round 2. I just tried to make the best squad possible and worry about round 2 if I make it there. Mandatory ED is 1902 who joins 4 other players who hit .360-380# to round out the top of the order. Bottom of the order features 1903 Lajoie who gets a promotion from the $100M squad and he's joined up the middle with 1980 Gary Templeton. Reliable Smith/Wooten make a third, and final, appearance behind the plate. Went with one deadballer (1914 Russ Ford) and 3 modern guys (2019 Verlander, 2017 Kluber and 2020 Maeda) in the rotation. Hoping the HR don't hurt too bad and will be offset by the lower OAV. 5363 PA, 1371 IP. Municipal Stadium.

Result: 97 wins, 1st place, lost 4-0 in the LCS. This was the most wins for any of my teams in Round 1. Speaker with 28 + plays in CF was nice, as was Lajoie and Templeton with a combined 56 + plays up the middle. Offence was top 5 in hits and average and Verlander was the only standout SP, going 22-7 and a 1.13 WHIP. 02 ED was disappointing, going .314/.380/.465 vs .369/.452/.597# numbers. A common theme, offence failed to show up in the LCS and was dominated by teamhydro's superior pitching.

$120M:

I started with a Target team I was quite happy with it only to find out I completely screwed up with the rules so I blew up that squad for a Yankee Stadium team. I've been successful with some high OBP/HR teams in Kingdome and Sick's but Yankee lends itself more to high AVG than high OBP and of course Target really limits HR hitters. So I decided to go with a home/road platoon in the OF and 3B with high AVG/HR guys at home and just high AVG guys at Target road games. 1955 Ted Williams, 1973 Hank Aaron and 1926 Cy Williams will patrol the OF with 1995 Matt Williams at 3B for home games at Yankee. On the road at Target, 1996 Jim Eisenreich, 1955 Elmer Valo and 1919 Possum Whitted will play OF with 1982 Wade Boggs taking over at 3B. 1903 Nap Lajoie and 1925 Bancroft are reunited from their appearance in the $100M squad for solid range up the middle. Obligatory ED is 1894, playing 1B and leading off. Behind the plate Smith/Wooten is a bit of a stretch for this cap, so I went 1902 Peitz to deal with SB heavy teams and paired him with 1934 Danning. Took as much deadball pitching as I could in one shot with 1910 Russ Ford. Him, 1964 Sandy Koufax and 1964 Joe Horlen will pitch at home with 1977 Tom Seaver and 2018 Chris Sale doing most of the Target games. Bullpen was basically just getting the best RP from the remaining decades to fulfill the rules. 5460 PA, 1398 IP.

Result: 79 wins, somehow managed 1st place, somehow pushed the LDS to 5 games but stopped there. As 06gsp mentioned in a post, the absolute worst team in Round 1 to make the playoffs. My home/road platoon was somewhat successful, but I ended up with more Yankee opponents than I bargained for. Cy Williams was disappointing with a .259/.325/.482 line, although he did have 27 HR and 74 RBI. 55 Elmer Valo, my road RF was the biggest surprise, going

.361/.417/.433, very close to actuals. 96 Jim Eisenreich, who has been very reliable in the past, was a huge bust at .277/.307/.332. 1910 Russ Ford was great, pitching mostly at home, with 22 wins and a 1.23 WHIP. 2018 Chris Sale, reserved most for Target Field games, was 14-6 with a 1.11 WHIP. 1964 Koufax was likely a victim of poor run support but was disappointing with a 1.29 WHIP and a 7-19 record. 54 + plays from Lajoie and Bancroft up the middle was nice.

$140M:

All seasons available and high cap, with clones. Want to guess who my first choice clone was? If you've been scoring at home, you won't be surprised that 1901, 1894 and 1898 ED will be hitting 1-2-3 with Joker 1911 Cobb behind them in the cleanup spot. Looks like a lot of people took a deadball pitcher for their Joker, so I may have gone against the grain here. Dave Bancroft has great 2B range in addition to SS range and has a decent enough 3B season to fill out the IF with ED at 1B. Various Sy Sutcliffe and Babe Phelps seasons will cover C and DH and Sutcliffe can cover a few games at SS and 2B if needed. Pedro and Kershaw at SP with Doolittle and Jansen in the pen. 6151 PA, 1423 IP. Municipal Stadium.

Result: 92 wins, 2nd place, only team to miss the post season. Going with 11 Ty Cobb was a mistake. He hit .381/.440/.542 with 162 RBIs, which is good, but I could've got very similar stats for about half the price, like 94 ED, who hit in front of him all season, with .370/.435/.487and 111 RBIs. Cobb did have 26 + plays in CF, but 98 ED beside him had 16 and 01 ED had 13 on the other side. Should have gone for 08 Walsh like most of the other teams. Bancroft and Bancroft up the middle had 49 + plays. 97 Pedro was surprisingly good for this cap, going 22-7 with a 1.30 WHIP. 13 Kershaw managed 19 wins despite a 1.58 WHIP. 18 Doolittle was untouchable in the pen with a 0.82 WHIP.

Overall Theme: 'Ed's up!

Ed Delahanty (ED) has gone from a name I had maybe vaguely heard in passing before I started playing sim to one of my favourite all-time players today. I took a chance with him on a Phillies franchise team and he led them to my first TOC. Since then I've tried to include him on all my teams, where possible. I would recommend reading his tragically short SABR bio.

Overall, 540 regular season wins, 14 playoff wins, for a 554 win total and good enough to just sneak into the second round in 22nd place. Hopefully I can sneak a few EDs into Round 2.

Posted by 06gsp on 5/29/2022 10:19:00 AM (view original):

$70m: Rollin’ Down Mateo With A Shotgun

I started with the pitching and settled on a collection of low K low BB pitchers, led by noted cookie 2020 Kyle Hendricks who I imagine will be on a lot of rosters. And since we won’t be getting too many strikeouts we went with a very strong fielding infield using the out of position 1.000 fielding percentage hack with Kevin Newman at 2B, Jonathan Villar at SS and Brandon Phillips at 3B. Then we have three true outcomes stud Yasmani Grandal and his unearned A+ range rating at 1B, noodle arm Omar Narvaez at C, and a bunch of speedsters in the outfield and DH. This will require heavy active managing as we are light on PA and will be managing a bunch of tandems on the mound but hopefully we will be pretty good.

Theme Self-Evaluation: My hope here was to allow people to pick their favorite current players while also taking many experienced owners out of their comfort zone by combining a low cap and a DH, in past years people have talked about copying a roster from another league and that definitely won’t be happening here. There was some complaining along these lines in the themes thread so I seem to have accomplished that.

$80m: Kosco $1.50 Hot Dog and Soda Combo

The big question here is how do you account for the need to draft 25 players who will all make significant contributions. I decided to go with a whole bunch of outfielders and first basemen worth just over $1 million, most of them home run and doubles specialists to take advantage of Riverfront and the lack of deadball pitchers. We are a bit light on innings and on bodies on the mound (eight total pitchers), which in hindsight looks like an unnecessary risk, but those eight pitchers are pretty good and most of the league is in pitcher’s parks which will help.

Theme Self-Evaluation: I think the general idea of a high minimum salary is good as it requires a non-cookie cutter strategy, but it would have been better without the franchise soup requirement as that mostly just made busy-work keeping everything straight.

$100m: MH Chaos

I generally think if your roster has to be unbalanced between pitching and hitting, you’re much better off spending on the hitting because when spending heavy on hitting you can also pay for fielding that helps make up for your cheap pitching. So I went with many of the usual suspect A+ range guys, as well as going heavy on triples, as I figure I’m going to see a lot of Petco for the pitching teams (and as it turns out, several hitting teams which I guess makes sense but I didn’t expect. Something like Municipal or Hilltop would have been the obvious choice for stadium to let the A+ range guys do their work, but this team looked great on paper so I decided to follow the sage advice of noted philosopher emeritus Redman: if you gotta be a monkey, be a gorilla. So we’re going to Mile High and trying to push whatever edge we might have to the max.

Theme Self-Evaluation:

Very simple binary choices make for interesting strategic decisions, and I think I did that here especially given the variety of strategies I saw checking rosters. Only issue is many lineups will be very cookie heavy.

$110m: Year of the Smile :)

I thought many of the top owners would save the modern stud pitchers for Round 2, so I decided to use them in Round 1 and go with a typical speedy doubles and triples style to beat deadball pitchers, while saving the deadball cookie pitchers for Round 2 and putting that team in Riverfront in hopes of beating the modern pitchers with some home runs. Nothing too out of the ordinary on the roster.

Theme Self-Evaluation: It’s traditional to have a Round 1 theme that connects to a Round 2 theme, but I couldn’t think of much that didn’t require a ton of homework, so this was all I came up with and in hindsight it’s not very interesting, it’s not far off a no restrictions and those encourage the worst kind of cookie strategies and should not be what the WISC is about. Hopefully many at least thought about how to balance Round 1 and Round 2 like I did.

$120m: Dual Power

I really wanted to draft a home run team, and in fact designed this theme with a home run team in mind, but I drafted a Target Field team and a Yankee III team and much preferred the Target Field team. It appears I wasn’t alone in that as a significant majority of the teams chose Target as well, which is a bit of a tough break for me as I spent more on low HR/9 than I usually would, figuring I’d be playing at least 40-50 games in Yankee III and I didn’t want to get slaughtered there. My lineup isn’t too far off the $100M and $110M, which isn’t encouraging. I think this will be my worst team.

Theme Self-Evaluation: The two per decade rule was designed to prevent total cookie-cutting, but I think I should have made the minimum a bit higher so you actually had to draft useful players from each decade. There were also a bit too many rules which led to the most roster errors of any cap by far. The binary choice on ballparks though I like, simple rule but complex strategically as you need to accurately predict what your opponents will do.

$140m: The Triple Alliance Rides Again

Designed this theme with the plan of running a Ruth clone outfield, but then stupidly didn’t ban all pitchers from being the Joker, so almost everyone went with Walsh, Johnson or Alexander, making a home run strategy much less appealing. So I went with a doubles-heavy strategy with eight of the nine spots in the lineup taken up by Speaker, Wagner and Lajoie, with Earl Smith catching and Bob Aspromonte taking up space. Pitching staff is 1910 Walsh, then 3 Kershaws, 3 Hoyt Wilhelms, and 3 Babe Adams (two useful). I fear I have too many right handed hitters and not enough speed.

Theme Self-Evaluation: Like I said above, I should have just required the Joker be a hitter. I figured if I didn’t ban 19th century pitchers everyone would take Silver King, but I should have gone further. Besides that error, I think it’s a good theme that forces you to put puzzle pieces together. I loved the clones theme in Round 2 last year and NebHusker’s Eight is Enough league so built on those at a higher cap.

Hope everyone has fun, putting this together was a massive process but the hard work is basically done for now so I can enjoy the sim ride. Good luck everyone.

Was just looking back at these old build strategies and I was wondering how did you know who others used as "Joker" before finalizing your team?

I didn't, I verified my rosters with the other commissioners and didnt touch them after that. it was obvious to me that's who people would choose when I was building my team

heres the google doc where I put my rosters that hasnt been edited since April 12th to share with the other commissioners, you will see my 140M roster is the same one I used and certainly doesnt have any Ruths on it:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kbhyKpr5NcdmYTAAK_azGU_8v7a2ZJOb4wRqDY3ThyA/edit#gid=1786957014