Overall Thought Process:

1. I have never sniffed round two so ignore any requirements for building a round two team.
2. Take players I like. Root for them. Be disappointed when the fail.
3. Go for it. Why play conservative if I’m going to lose anyways.

I am glad that I am doing this write up after game one. Started off with a thought confirming 0-6. I think an oval .500 record would be an improvement over last year so I can still shoot for that. At least I know I’ll be helping out some other player rack up wins. Just consider me the generic red shirt or un-named orc.

WISC $70M: Not So Average
I don’t appreciate Kris Davis. Hitters should use all fields and hit for average. Power will still be there if you hit well. Since I am stuck with low average I decide to roster players who underperformed, have good contact rates and speed. My slowest regular starter has an 80 speed. We will run, run and run. We will also try to hit and run as much as Sparky will do it. Hopefully everyone I am playing against took power first catchers with D- arms… We will play at AT&T to cut down on HR’s and add to triples.
Line-up:

1. SS Ozzie Smith (85 speed, about .5 K every 10 PA’s)
2. RF Rick Manning (87 speed, about 1 K every 10 PA’s)
3. LF Lenny Dykstra (93 speed, about 1 K every 10 PA’s)
4. 2B Rodney Scott (86 speed, about 1.3 K every 10 PA’s)
5. C Daulton Varsho (80 speed, way too many K’s… but catcher)
6. 3B Terry Pendleton (85 speed, less than 1 K every 10 PA’s)
7. 1B Ian Desmond (90 speed, way too many K’s… but 1B lacks speed)
8. CF Brian McCray (88 speed, about 1.5 K’s every 10 PA’s)

Hopefully they will move well around the bases if they get on and at least get runners in on fielders choices and sacrifice bunts.
Prediction: I kind of feel that this team will either be great or miserable. I will predict 90. That’s either wins or losses. Nothing middle ground.
Game One: 5-4 loss. One triple, 4 stollen bases, one caught stealing. Bullpen lost game.

WISC $80M: Yo Dog
I was going to change the name but didn’t come up with anything better. Looking at the team they don’t deserve a good name anyways. It’s especially disappointing that this is what I came up with NOT worrying about next round. How bad would it have been if I had? I chose card 13. I did manage to roster an entire line up of switch hitters, so there’s that.
Players Chosen: (bench/scrubs in black)
1925: Frankie Frisch, Freddie Fitzsimmons, Doc Ferrell, Henie Groh, John Kane, Evert Scott
1953: Dave Philley, Clem Labine, Bob Keegan, Phillipe Montemayor, Carl Sawataski, Tom Hamilton
1993: Bernie Williams, Mark McLemore, Tommy Greene, Bill Swift, Denis Boucher, Joe Hudson
2009: Brian Roberts, Pablo Sandoval, Victor Martinez, Erick Aybar, King Felix, Javier Vazquez
1996: Joe Hudson
Prediction:
Solid .500 team. I actually will predict 83 wins. I will lose 25 of my last 30 games just so I feel good about this team for a while and have my hopes crushed when reality sets in.
Game One: 3-7 loss. We give up two home runs to Grandal, the second one an in-the-park. If that keeps up my final losing streak will bring me way below the .500 mark. Seriously. In-the-park?

WISC $100M: Sick of Building This Team
I actually loved building these rosters. I had so many teams I liked. I built most of the teams consistent winners did but discarded them so I can lose with this one. I did well in the Juice’s tournament starting with a base of the 1992 Pirates so I am hopeful that they will perform again. I also like rooting against Bonds so that helps too. Most of the time I found a team that had at least 8 guys I wanted to roster, the worst team with at least 3 guys worthy of key roles and the best fit left that met the winning percentage standards.
Roster: 1992 Pirates, Mariners and Cubs (238-248)
Pirates (96-66): Andy Van Slyke, Barry Bonds, Jay Bell, Mike Lavalliere, Don Slaught, Doug Drabek, Tim Wakefield, Zane Smith, Stan Belinda
Center field, left field, defensive short stop (who won’t hurt me hitting), a very good L/R catcher platoon, a starter and depth in the bullpen that can spot start if needed)
Mariners (64-98): Ken Griffey, Jr., Edgar Martinez, Dave Fleming, Gene Harris, Mike Blowers, Dave Cochrane, Dan Howitt, Jeff Schaffer
An outfield of Van Slyke, Bonds and Junior should both hit and field. Edgar can play first or third so I have options for the last team. Fleming is beginning the season as the 4^th starter but I may go to one of the Pirates if he isn’t doing well enough. Harris doesn’t have enough IP to be really useful, but they are decent innings…
Cubs (78-84): Mark Grace, Ryne Sandberg, Gregg Maddux, Mike Morgan, Bob Scanlan, Dennis Rasmussen, Sammy Sosa, Chico Walker
This team was one of a few options that filled in the holes. Second base, corner infield (first base), two starters and a reliever. Sosa and Walker will actually play some from the bench.
Prediction: 90-78
This team will have my best record in the tournament. The pitching will struggle at points but the defense (except at third) and the bats (everywhere but short) will dominate.
Game One: 4-5 loss. Gave up two in the 9^th and only got one of them back in the bottom. I’ll take that against one of the 85 Cardinals based teams.
WISC $120M: The Hussle Express
I built this team as a joke. I don’t use either of these players often (or ever). I thought it might be fun to roster a hitter who could play almost every position well, hit and run. Once I did that with a player I don’t like I added a pitcher who I don’t use here. I looked at the team when it was finished and decided that I actually liked it. Speedy switch hitting and strikeout pitching. 11 of roster spots are occupied by clones, only two arms aren’t Nolan Ryan.
Clones and Teammates:
69 Rose: Johnny Bench, Fred Whitfield
72 Rose: Nada
73 Rose: Ed Crosby
76 Rose: Ken Griffey Sr., Dave Conception, Joel Youngblood
79 Rose: Bud Harrelson
72 Ryan: Nada
79 Ryan: Nada
81 Ryan: Nada
86 Ryan: Matt Keough
89 Ryan: Julio Franco, Buddy Bell, Juan Gonzalez, Jeff Stone,
90 Ryan: Nada
91 Ryan: Jim Poole
Prediction: I will perform as well as Ryan pitches… so likely .500 ish with some games of dominance. I’ll go with 79-83.
Game 1: 2-6 loss. Nolan Ryans give up 4 hits and 11 walks to 10 K’s. So it begins.
WISC $120m: A Babe and a Foxx
I know I should go elsewhere but I love the Red Sox hitting. They can’t run much, have glaring deficiencies in places and I am a Yankee fan, but I always gravitate towards Red Sox players here for some reason. I think it stems from my fantasy days were I wouldn’t ever pick a Yankee because I didn’t want them playing like crap to be a double negative. I did manage to roster some good speed for a sox team, so hopefully they can outperform some of the issues most of their teams exhibited in the huge World Series gap.
Starting Line-up:

1. SS, 46 Pesky
2. RF, 10 Speaker
3. CF, 18 Betts
4. LF, 19 Ruth
5. 1B, 06 Ortiz
6. C, 40 Foxx
7. 2B, 44 Doerr
8. 3B, 81 Lansford

Bench: 22 McGuire, 13 Iglesias, 05 Graffanino, 45 McBride
Rotation:

1. 02 Lowe
2. 02 Martinez
3. 44 Houghson
4. 17 Sale

Bullpen: 14 Miller, 19 Workman, 11 O’Brien, 13 Buchholz, 91 Gray, 12 Albers, 15 Hill, 12 Atchison, 98 Gordon
Prediction: Foxx and Ruth play poorly. Speaker can’t get on base. Lowe gets groundballs that go through the infield. We win 89 anyways. We miss the playoffs by a game.
Game 1: 2-4 loss. Lowe gives up runs on hits that are on the ground on the infield. Tris Speaker leads my hitters with our first home run. Just like I planed.
WISC Whatever Million Dollar You Want: Heart Shaped Box
Looking through the boxes I saw a couple of low inning dominant starters I love to have in my bullpen. Lets take them. Then I see more ½ starters available. Great. Lets have them tandem with each other. Dominant 300+ IP guy. Sure. $7M closer? Why not. Plan? None. Just grab guys I like and hope it all works out. Once the pitchers are rostered I go back and find hitters I can take. We’re all about the love with this box thing so only field players I have had success with or like for some other reason.
Line-up:

1. 2B, Frisch
2. 1B, Utley
3. DH, Harper
4. CF, Snider
5. LF, Hamilton
6. RF, Betts
7. 3B, Nomar (out of position)
8. SS, Johnson (at secondary position)
9. C, Posey

Bench: Beltran, Hanley, Red and Soto
Rotation:

1. 13 Johnson
2. 13 Fernandez/16 Kershaw
3. 86 Scott/21 deGrom

Bullpen: Hill, Milacki, Eckersley,K-Rod, Eichhorn, Dotel, Britton
Prediction: Zero Idea. None. Not a clue. There isn’t a number of wins that would surprise me here.
Game 1: 3-4 loss. Silver King out pitched Johnson… and we made 3 errors. Don’t feel so bad about this one. The interesting one’s are going to be the tandem pitchers.

I don't think any of my strategies are overly compelling.

For the 70 million I went with pitchers with low HR and low BB. I also didn't emphasize range on defense as much as I usually do. Just tried to get a lot of OPS for the money and constraint.

For the 80 million, I wanted a card with Whit, Realmuto (I use him at 1b in open leagues to good effect), and Babe Adams. 1920 NL was still basically a deadball league. Lame strategy for sure. Named the team Pandemic Survivrors as it features years after the Spanish Influenza and Covid.

I enjoyed the 100 million a lot. Team is 1-2 so far though. I looked for fire-sales. Turns out 2008 was a banner year for them with the Dodgers, Braves, & Indians all swapping major talent at the deadline.

For the 110 million I went with Soto and Kershaw. I think there are a lot of good deals from the last 5 years and that let me tap into two really good teams.

For 120 I went with the A's. I wanted a good selection of deadball pitchers. A's seemed to be among the best. Also there are Foxx, Bernhard, and Lajoie cookies.

For 255 I used the Aladdin Friend like Me song to pick my column. Then I actually drafted two different teams. One of the teams was a deadball SP team. The other used the modern low WHIP guys. I scrimmaged them about 100 times in the simulator and the deadball team won 2/3 of them.

WISC $70M: Khris Davis Appreciation League
Team: $70M WISC: Khrushed
Homefield: Safeco Field

So, this was our “low cap” representation… $70M. I beg to differ. This really isn’t a low cap league, just on the low end of a mid-cap league. Low caps, IMO, start at $60M and there are regular leagues that play as low as $30M. But the rules do make it play more like a $60M league. At least on the offensive side.

I only put together 5 teams before picking this one. Just a few variations on pitching staff and platoons. I tried to find hitters who had higher OBP and normalized their AVG better than real life. I knew I would play in Safeco to help with fatigue, allowing me to draft less innings and PA’s as most teams. At this cap, I would have preferred to draft ~1200 innings so I drafted exactly the league minimum, 1250 IP/162. I picked up starters 2022 Zac Gallen (0.95 WHIP#, 195 ERC+), 2016 Marco Estrada (1.14 WHIP#, 144 ERC+), 2022 Julio Urias (1.00 WHIP#, 164 ERC+), 1988 Jeff M. Robinson (1.13 WHIP#, 145 ERC+), and 2017 Robbie Ray (1.16 WHIP#, 138 ERC+). All but Robinson are strikeout pitchers which should give me a few extra innings. In the bullpen I picked up 2001 Trevor Hoffman (1.14 WHIP#, 133 ERC+) to close out games. 2015 Carlos Villanueva (1.20 WHIP#, 128 ERC+), 1994 Bob Patterson (1.14 WHIP#, 135 ERC+), and 1989 Steve Bedrosian (1.16 WHIP#, 138 ERC+) will handle setup A duties while 1998 Jeff Tabaka (1.16 WHIP#, 133 ERC+) and 1941 Ira Hutchinson (1.09 WHIP#, 148 ERC+) will handle the long A role. 2002 Dan Smith (1.19 WHIP#, 128 ERC+) was added to get us to the 1250 inning mark. Combined they give me a .201/1.08/2.97 pitching slash and average 8.3 SO/9. They do allow homeruns, 1.06 HR/9 in real life, but in a league where the maximum BA is .247 on offense, how much contact can someone really make off of a pitching staff that allows only a .201 OAV?

Offensively we decided against platooning, which is not how I normally approach low cap leagues. I wasn’t too worried about defense since my pitching staff shouldn’t put too many balls in play but I wanted to be as well rounded as possible. I picked up 1978 Gary Alexander (# - .226/.306/.443, A arm) at C who comes with an above average arm and hits homeruns from the right side. At 1B we selected 1962 Norm Cash (# - .246/.383/.507, 6 HR/100). His LH bat should hit some HR’s and he’ll get walked some, too. 1943 Eddie Stanky (# - .247/.365/.294, C/A) man’s 2B and brings solid range along with getting on base for the middle of the line-up. Power hitting 2018 Travis Shaw (# - .249/.350/.469, 5 HR/100) covers 3B and 1963 Dick Schofield (# - .254/.345/.312, B/A) rounds out the infield at SS and provides a solid double play partner for Stanky. In the OF we drafted 2007 Mike Cameron (# - .240/.326/.410, B/A-) in CF, 1996 Rickey Henderson (# - .241/.410/.332, 37 SB) in LF, and power hitting right-hander 1999 Greg Vaughn (# - .243/.340/.510, 6 HR/100) patrolling RF. Cameron brings power and speed while Vaughn brings 45 real-life HR’s and 15 SB’s to boot. Rickey will bat lead-off and hopefully should score some runs for us. Our bench is full of warm bodies to help with fatigue, but not much else. They’re not intended to play much, if at all.

Given the rules, I like this team. It falls right into the style of pitching staffs I like to build. I think this one will be in the top 6 pitching staffs. And Safeco will help with that. The question is, will we be able to score runs? I think we will be in the middle of the pack on offense, or maybe a little lower. But it should be enough to outscore our opponents more often than not. We’re shooting for a division win and play-off birth, quickly followed by a 1^st round exit.

Hitting: 5309 PA, .239 AVG, .348 OBP, .410 SLG, 183 HR, 98 SB, C+/C+
Pitching: 1250 IP/162, 2.96 ERA, .201 OAV, 1.08 WHIP, 8.29 K/9, 1.06 HR/9

WISC $80M: BINGO!
Team: $80M WISC: Bingo Card #4 – Diagonal Line 1940, 2007, 2019, 1996, 2018
Homefield: Citi Field -2 / -1 / 1 / -2 / -1 / 0.92

This was one of the more challenging drafts for me, for several reasons: 1) It requires A LOT of research to analyze the 350 possible team pools and the 1000’s of teams that could be built, 2) Then double those teams for a possible 2^nd round team at the higher salary cap, and 3) I play mostly low cap leagues between $60M and $30M or I play some theme leagues that are mostly between $100M and $120M. I do not play leagues between $60M and $100M very often and am not that familiar with some of the better valued cookies at the $80M cap. The lack of familiarity made it challenging trying to narrow down my potential options. That being said, I’m sure I missed some good teams.

I decided to narrow down my options by 1^st, a high level reduction by choosing cards I knew had years I could build a good 2^nd round pitching staff. I then proceeded to analyze those cards for seasons I could use to build a 1^st round pitching staff. That narrowed me down to Cards 4, 7, 13, and 14 as my top choices with a few other options to try if time allowed (which it did not, lol). Cards 13 and 14 gave me more potent offenses but I liked the pitching in card 4. After making a few teams we settled on the line: 1940-1996-2007-2018-2019 (not in that order). If we make the 2^nd round we’ll be playing all 25 years from the same card and can build around players such as: 97 Pedro, 72 Sutton, 64 Koufax, 27 Gehrig, etc.

On the pitching side we ended up with SP’s 2018 Justin Verlander (0.92 WHIP#, 189 ERC+), 2019 Jacob DeGrom (0.99 WHIP#, 190 ERC+), 2018 Blake Snell (1.00 WHIP#, 208 ERC+), 2007 Chris Young (1.08 WHIP#, 185 ERC+), and 2007 Orlando Hernandez (1.15 WHIP#, 133 ERC+). In the bullpen we drafted 2018 Diego Castillo (0.98 WHIP#, 195 ERC+) to close games, 2018 Vidal Nuno (1.05 WHIP#, 153 ERC+) as our LHLR-A, 2019 Tyler Webb (1.04 WHIP#, 183 ERC+) as a LHSU-A, 2019 Alex Colome (1.07 WHIP#, 182 ERC+) as a RHSU-A, 2007 Joel Zumaya (1.16 WHIP#, 165 ERC+) fills the RHSU-B, 1996 Jesse Orosco (1.19 WHIP#, 163 ERC+) fills the LHSU-B, and 1940 Syl Johnson (1.03 WHIP#, 136 ERC+) takes the RHLR-A role. This gave us a total of 1255 IP/162 with a pitching slash of 2.85/.196/1.03 and 9.7 K/9. Not as impressive as I was trying for but should still be a top 10 pitching staff.

On offense we drafted 1940 Ernie Lombardi (# - .319/.383/.493, C+ arm) at C. 2007 Dmitri Young (# - .318/.375/.470, 7 2B/100) and 1940 Debs Garms (# - .354/.397/.503, 6 2B/100) man the corners and 2018 Jose Altuve (# - .324/.392/.434, 5 2b/100) and 2019 Tim Anderson (# - .341/.360/ .479, C-/A+) will team together to turn double plays up the middle. 1996 Tony Gwynn (# - .353/.400/.428, 5 2B/100), 1940 Taffy Wright (# - .332/.378/.435, 4 2B/100), and 2007 Carl Crawford (# - .311/.350/.445, 50/60 SB/A) will patrol the outfield. The entire starting line-up averages well over .300. We don’t hit a lot of HR’s but we should be able to move baserunners.

Our bench is a major weakness, especially since we’ll need to use them often to spell Lombardi, Young, Garms, Anderson, and Gwynn. We picked up 1940 Joe Grace to back-up Lombardi. Grace can barely catch or throw the ball and barely hits and we’ll need 160-175 PA’s from him. To back-up Young we picked up 1996 John Vander Wal who can also play a little LF. This isn’t one of his good hitting seasons and he moves like a brick but he at least won’t commit many errors at either position. We were able to cover 2B, 3B and SS with 1996 Mark Loretta who also fields all three positions well, as long as you hit the ball right at him. 2019 Erik Gonzalez will back-up Garms at 3B. He neither hits nor fields well. Our final roster spot went to 1B/OF 1996 Ruben Amaro who, like Vander Wal, suffers from an inability to move laterally but at least he can hit some.

I don’t feel that strongly about this team. The pitching staff is barely better than my $70M team and will be facing much better offenses. We’re also on the low end of innings although I believe the 22000+ pitches we have are going to be enough. Offensively, we’ll hit the ball when our starters are playing but it’s hard to say if we’ll be able to score runs since we really don’t have a solid extra base hitter to drive them in. Probably a 3^rd place finish.

Hitting: 5157 PA, .320 AVG, .371 OBP, .457 SLG, 96 HR, 112 SB, B/D+
Pitching: 1255 IP/162, 2.85 ERA, .196 OAV, 1.03 WHIP, 9.68 K/9, 0.97 HR/9

WISC $100 Million - Build a team .500 or worse
Team: $100M WISC: 2020 CLE - MIL - NYM
Homefield: Miller Park -2 / 0 / 0 / 1 / 1

This was one of the builds I really enjoyed. I built 22 teams (not including the 14 I built incorrectly), mostly around pitching and opted to go with a 2020 team due to the very cheap but solid pitching and positive normalization hitting. I opted to go with the Indians, Brewers, and Mets over several other 2020 iterations, a 2014 team, a 1919 team, and a 1910 team.

On paper, the pitching staff looks great. Shane Bieber (0.88 WHIP#, 259 ERC+), Brandon Woodruff (1.01 WHIP#, 168 ERC+), Jacob DeGrom (0.97 WHIP#, 212 ERC+), Corbin Burnes (1.04 WHIP#, 222 ERC+), and Zach Plesac (0.81 WHIP#, 235 ERC+) make up the rotation and 902 of our IP/162. We added Triston McKenzie (0.92 WHIP#, 180 ERC+), James Karinchak (1.13 WHIP#, 224 ERC+), Devin Williams (0.72 WHIP#, 553 ERC+), Brad Hand (0.79 WHIP#, 345 ERC+), Josh Hader (0.96 WHIP#, 173 ERC+), Oliver Perez (1.08 WHIP#, 193 ERC+), Erasmo Ramirez (0.85 WHIP#, 291 ERC+), and David Phelps (0.70 WHIP#, 272 ERC+) to the bullpen. This resulted in a 2.29/.175/0.91 pitching slash and a 12.64 K/9. Pretty happy with the potential of this pitching staff. Hopefully they live up to it.

Interestingly enough, of all the teams I built, none of them had a batting average above .294. I assume this was due to my focus on pitching. But did find it a little strange. The stars of the offense include 3B Jose Ramirez (# - .303/.391/.591, 7 2B/100), CF Michael Conforto (# - .331/.414/.495, 6 2B/100), 1B Dominic Smith (# - .326/.379/.596, 11 2B/100), 2B Robinson Cano (# - .325/.354/.524, 4 HR/100) and LF Jeff McNeil (# - .321/.385/.434, 7 2B/100). Francisco Lindor (# - .268/.340/.399, A+/C) covers SS, Wilson Ramos (.247/.299/.368, 4 2B/100) and Omar Narvaez (# - .182/.295/.253, 4 2B/100) platoon at C, and Brandon Nimmo (# - .288/.406/.464, 2 3B/100) will roam the middle of the outfield. This offense has some power but our OBP will probably be in the bottom third of the league. This could lead to challenges scoring runs.

This teams pitching staff looks unhittable on paper and that is encouraging. I’m not sure how many runs we will drum up. If we can hit more than 150 HR’s and keep our opponents batting below .240, we might have a shot at a wild card. Our pitching will need to carry us most of the way but it should be good enough to get to the playoffs.

Hitting: 5700 PA/162, .281 AVG, .361 OBP, .491 SLG, 88 HR, 21 SB, B/D+
Pitching: 1371 IP/162, 2.29 ERA, .175 OAV, 0.91 WHIP, 12.64 K/9, 0.83 HR/9

WISC $110 Million – Two Clones and Teammates
Team: $110M WISC: Verlander - Pujols
Homefield: Dodger Stadium (HR LF/RF:-1/-1 1B:2 2B:-4 3B:-3)

Another theme I really enjoyed the builds on. I would have built hundreds of teams if I had the time. So many variations! So the first thing I did was to identify all of the pitcher seasons I would use at this cap. Then I sorted by which pitchers had 3 or more seasons and then prioritized them by top 3 best seasons. I initially included relief pitchers and that gave me a large list to choose from however, after looking at a few I decided to focus on starting pitchers. From the prioritized list I started building player pools of all potential clones and their teammates. The pitchers I built pools for were: Kershaw, Verlander, Clemens, Scherzer, Pedro, Maddux, Randy Johnson, and Koufax. There were others but not enough time to go through them all.

For the hitters I was not as data driven. I wrote a list of players whom I would consider cloning and from those players I used all of their seasons to build my hitters draft pool. This was different than my pitchers as I had narrowed down the quality requirements, so I didn’t pool all of their teammates. I was hoping that would help me get more teams made. I built pools for Raines, Rickey, Pujols, Larry Walker, Berkman, Gwynn, Bonds, Mattingly, Chipper, Lofton, Boggs, and Sheffield. And there were more behind them, too.

All of these players had more than 3 good seasons and for the hitters, I was looking at potential bench players, too. Raines had a lot of cheap seasons and had so many variations. The same with Rickey. I paired up quite a few players with Kershaw, Raines and Rickey included. I really thought that was where I was going to go. But then I started on power hitters and found that Pujols could put together some great offenses. I tried a few more hitters with Kershaw and then switched to Verlander and tried the same hitters. Almost every Verlander team had a better pitching staff than Kershaw! Nooooo! How can that be??? Well, the truth is, Kershaw is more expensive. My Verlander combination, which was the same for every team I tried, had a $40.3K $/IP and my Kershaw variations were between $43.9K and $45.2K. $/IP. And I couldn’t get more than 3 Kershaw’s on a team (due to my reluctance to not draft 2015) vs 5 Verlanders (11, 17, 18, 19, 22) and a much larger pool to build from. I tried some quick Clemens, Scherzer, Koufax, and Big Unit teams but I ended up going back to Justin Verlander for my pitcher clone, dropping 2018 and only using years 2011, 2017, 2019, and 2022.

Verlander brought us: 2B 2017 Jose Altuve (# - .350/.413/.523, 6 2B/100), LF 2022 Yordan Alvarez (# - .318/.417/.608, 6 HR/100), C 2011 Victor Martinez (# - .332/.383/.457, 6 2B/100), and SP 2019 Gerrit Cole (0.90 WHIP#, 218 ERC+). That’s 4/5 of my rotation, 1 relievers, and 3 offensive starters. Pretty happy with what Verlander brings to the team. But I’ll need to pull 11 players from my hitter to make this work.

I paired him up with Raines, Rickey, Pujols, Walker, and Berkman. Berkman put up a nice team as did Rickey. I didn’t like any of the Walker teams I put together. Couldn’t get the salary cap to work. Raines was a very nice pick giving me a .311/.387/.597, 161 HR, 246 SB to go with 2.20/.188/0.87 in 1400 innings. But then I noticed something. Other than the 3 Raines starters (85, 86, 87) and one bench player (98), only 3 players from those teams are impact players. And they’re all named Tim Raines! None of those teams were giving me anything (except the Kershaw teams used Bryn Smith) of value passed Raines.

That left Albert Pujols and his 2001, 2003, 2007, 2021, and 2022 seasons. He’ll man 1B, 3B, LF, and he’ll platoon at DH. All but his 2021 season are with the Cards. His 2021 season is as a Dodger. But no Kershaw, though. Instead, Pujols brings us: SP 2021 Max Scherzer (0.89 WHIP#, 196 ERC+), RP 2022 Ryan Helsley (0.78 WHIP#, 322 ERC+), RP 2022 Zack Thompson (1.02 WHIP#, 204 ERC+), RP 2007 Russ Springer (0.89 WHIP#, 268 ERC+), RP 2001 Steve Kline (1.09 WHIP#, 194 ERC+), RP 2021 Alex Vesia (1.01 WHIP#, 193 ERC+), SS 2021 Corey Seager (# - .317/.399/.508, 6 2B/100), and CF 2001 Jim Edmonds (# - .305/.409/.542, 6 2B/100). I was elated with all of the relief pitchers I pulled from the Pujols teams. And 4 Pujols in the starting line-up should scare any pitching staff. There will not be an inning where Pujols doesn’t get an at-bat.

This team can hit and our pitching staff, like many of mine, doesn’t allow many hits. But the hits they do allow will hurt as we have a team 0.99 HR/9. In a $110M league, we will give some up. But if we can keep them as solo shots and Pujols can hit himself home, we might have a good shot at the playoffs.

Hitting: 5895 PA/162, .311 AVG, .391 OBP, .549 SLG, 281 HR, 53 SB, B/C-
Pitching: 1355 IP/162, 2.23 ERA, .180 OAV, 0.87 WHIP, 10.86 K/9, 0.99 HR/9

WISC $120 Million – One Franchise, Spread the Wealth
Team: $120M WISC: Los Angeles Dodgers
Homefield: Dodger Stadium (HR LF/RF:-1/-1 1B:2 2B:-4 3B:-3)

This was the easiest draft of the tournament. I rarely draft scrubs or mop ups. Every inning and plate appearance is geared towards winning. Building a spread the wealth roster falls right into a typical draft for me. But does that equate to an easy march to the playoffs? I think not! Pretty sure it’s the same for everyone else and we’ll have some monster teams. But we’ll give it our best shot.

So the Dodgers were a no brainer. It was just a question of who at this cap. All of the pitchers are available at #120M and the Dodgers don’t have any high priced hitters. We should be able to field a pretty decent team. For the pitching staff, 2000 Kevin Brown (0.95 WHIP#, 201 ERC+) takes the ace spot and is followed by 1964 Sandy Koufax (0.97#, 206 ERC+), 2014 Clayton Kershaw (0.90 WHIP#, 232 ERC+), 2021 Max Scherzer (0.89 WHIP#, 196 ERC+), and 2020 Tony Gonsolin (0.85 WHIP#, 285 ERC+) completes the 5 man rotation. 1972 Jim Brewer (0.87 WHIP#, 256 ERC+), 2020 Victor Gonzalez (0.75 WHIP#, 327 ERC+), 2020 Adam Kolarek (0.80 WHIP#, 337 ERC+), 2022 Evan Phillips (0.80 WHIP#, 318 ERC+), 2020 Jake McGee (0.85 WHIP#, 266 ERC+), 2007 Takashi Saito (0.70 WHIP#, 342 ERC+), and closer 2016 Kenley Jansen (0.68 WHIP#, 389 ERC+).

The Dodgers aren’t known for their offense but we should be able to build one with a balance of OBP, power, and speed and a little defense. At C we went with a platoon of rifle armed 1964 Johnny Roseboro (# - .292/.366/.376, A+ arm) and dead arm C 2020 Will Smith (# - .298/.404/.559, 8 2B/100). Roseboro won’t hit much but he’ll keep everyone from running the bases. Smith can hit but he’ll be lucky to get the ball to 2^nd base. We’ll be dependent on our pitchers keeping people off base when he’s behind the plate.

The infield consists of a 1B platoon of 1961 Ron Fairly (# - .323/.435/.510) and 2014 Justin Turner (# - .348/.413/.493, 6 2B/100), 2B 2021 Trea Turner (# - .340/.380/.523, 5 2B/100), 3B 1985 Pedro Guerrero (# - .326/.427/.581, 6 HR/100), and a SS platoon of 2011 Dee Gordon (# - .309/.330/.357, 24 SB) and 2013 Hanley Ramirez (# - .352/.409/.635, 5 HR/100). 2008 Rafael Furcal (# - .358/.438/.558, 7 2B/100) and 2015 Corey Seager (# - .342/.432/.554, 7 2B/100) will also provide back-up infield support. In the outfield, 2008 Manny Ramirez (# - .333/.429/.586, 5 HR/100) and 2019 Cody Bellinger (# - .311/.409/.605, 6 HR/100) man the corners while 1941 Pete Reiser (# - .345/.408/.569, 3 3B/100) will patrol center.

This team pitches well and is pretty balanced. Not sure how they’ll fair against the deadball pitchers but our pitching should keep games close. I like this team but I always like my Dodger teams so that’s nothing new. But it seems like the hitting is a little stronger than I anticipated before I started the build. In contrast, my pitching staff is nearly equivalent to my $110M team. Maybe I should have grabbed 2015 Greinke and 2016 Kershaw instead of 2021 Scherzer and 2014 Kershaw? Or Piazza instead of Roseboro? Or even LoDuca? Now I’m starting to not like this team as much…

Hitting: 5505 PA/162, .322 AVG, .401 OBP, .547 SLG, 232 HR#, 119 SB#
Pitching: 1395 IP/162, 1.94 ERA, .186 OAV, 0.86 WHIP, 10.03 K/9, 0.62 HR/9

WISC $255 Million – Draft 'em All - Dual Boxes Edition
Team: $255M WISC: Group A Boxes
Homefield: South Side Park (III) -3 / -1 / 1 / 0 / 0 / 0.90

This is another team that I didn’t spend a lot of time on. I built two teams, one box A and one box B. I used the same process for both. I built the pitching staff I wanted first, then filled in the offense. I built the A team first and then built the B team and made my comparison. My A team was significantly better than my B team (I lost my $255M spreadsheets somehow and unfortunately don’t have the actual data I compared. I hate auto updates sometimes!) so that was the team I entered. I didn’t worry about salary cap. I assumed I would be in the AL since my salary was only $166.8M. I am drafting just a little more than I will use in both innings and plate appearances but trying to stay low enough to get in the AL West. I suspect I won’t be the only one.

Like I said, I started with pitching first. I knew I wouldn’t draft any deadball SP’s. That helped with the elimination process. Starting at box 1, only Maddux and Johnson were considered but neither were going to sway me from the Sultan of Swat. Going down the boxes I pulled 2016 Clayton Kershaw (0.74 WHIP#, 326 ERC+) from box 2 over Jake Arrieta. Box 3 left me a tough decisionL Zack Greinke, Dinelson Lamet, or 2021 Jacob DeGrom (0.58 WHIP#, 506 ERC+) for our 2^nd pitcher. I opted for DeGrom but any of these 3 would have been great. On box 4 I was considering Gagne and Eckersley but then I got to 2020 Trevor Bauer (0.81 WHIP#, 266 ERC+) and it was a done deal. Gonsolin was in box 5 but I decided to hold off for more innings since I already had Kershaw (149 IP) and DeGrom (92 IP). SP 4 came from box 6 once I got to 2017 Corey Kluber (0.88 WHIP#, 231 ERC+), whom I selected over Vida Blue.

That made 4 SP’s but we only have 642 innings. We needed a high inning pitcher. I hope I don’t have to get a deadball pitcher. Maybe I can find a Dazzy Vancesque type pitcher? Box 7 had lot’s of good pitchers. Clemens, Gooden, Sutter, Wagner, Kimbrel, and…1986 Mike Scott (0.94 WHIP#, 219 ERC+) will do nicely as our ace. That gets us to 918. Normally I would be good with that however, this is a $255M league. I had better draft a…dare I say it… a sixth starter! That sounds like sacrilege here but hey, I need more starting innings.

Box 8 had Horlen and some relief pitchers. And Tim Raines. I decided to move on. Box 9 had Scherzer but he doesn’t usually play well for me and I am already using him in the $110M and $120M leagues. There were also a few RP’s I was considering. Box 10 had Gallen and a bunch of relief pitchers. I passed. Box 11 had Darvish and a few RP’s. I kept looking. Box 12 had Jim Hearn, Robb Nen, and Casey Sadler. We kept looking. All the way down to box 20 when we selected our 6^th and final SP, 2016 Rich Hill (1.02 WHIP#, 202 ERC+). That got us to 1028 quality innings, plenty of innings to average 7 per game.

I decided to work the bullpen and starting lineup simultaneously. Since we already had 6 SP’s I decided to only draft 6 RP’s instead of 7. We grabbed 1986 Mark Eichhorn (0.95 WHIP#, 237 ERC+) from box 21, 1999 Jeff Zimmerman (0.78 WHIP#, 314 ERC+) from box 16, 1987 Pascual Perez (0.96 WHIP#, 200 ERC+) from box 25, 2014 Sean Doolittle (0.77 WHIP#, 299 ERC+) from box 11, 1988 Bob Milacki (0.73 WHIP#, 414 ERC+) out of box 19 and finally 2016 Zach Britton (0.85 WHIP#, 349 ERC+) from box 9 will close out games. Milacki is a bit of a stretch for this league as he’ll pitch in only a handful of games. But I have 1499 total innings. The rest of the bullpen is solid but not great. Especially at this cap. Maybe I could have done better had I spent more time on this theme…

Offensively I knew I wanted to build around 1923 Babe Ruth (# - .381/.532/.762, 9 HR/100) out of box 1. Then I needed a leadoff hitter. I already used boxes 2, 3, 4, 6, and 7 for 5 SP’s. Box 5 had Willie McGee and Wade Boggs. Neither is my ideal lead-off hitter. Box 8 had 1986 Tim Raines (# - .340/.417/.477, 70 SB) and I felt he was the best I had available. That’s my LF and CF. Going back to box 5, I still needed a 3B and Boggs would make a great number 2 hitter. But there was also a very nice 1912 Frank Baker (# - .345/.402/.559, 7 2B/100). He could bat 2^, 3, 4, or 5. I like this pick. My next available box would round out by first 4 batters, box 10. This box had 1959 Hank Aaron (# - .356/.403/.627, 5 HR/100) and Rich Gossage. I was tempted to get Gossage but couldn’t resist having Hammerin’ Hank on the same team as the Babe. Our outfield is complete.

When drafting teams, I typically draft my entire pitching staff first, then I draft a C, SS, 2B, and CF, usually in that order. My intent is to build a good defense up the middle and my offensive pieces come from the corners. To this point, I have only drafted my CF and that was an offensive pick, too. Box 12 has Jose Altuve and Salvador Perez but I like 2011 Mike Napoli (# - .322/.418/.619, 6 HR/100). Good offensive numbers and a decent arm. His downside is I’ll need to find a platoon with at least 200 PA’s. Normally that would be a job for Johnny Roseboro but he’s not available in this league. Scrolling down I was looking for a switch-hitter or left-hander. I didn’t have many choices. I finally get to box 26 and found 300 switch hitting PA’s from 1926 Wally Schang (# - .319/.393/.511, 6 2B/100). Perfect! Now I needed a SS. I like 2013 Hanley Ramirez (# - .352/.409/.635, 7 5 HR/100) in box 17 but he would also be a platoon and I would need to find another 300 PA’s. And in box 13 there was a near perfect match, 1989 Barry Larkin (# - .351/.383/.455, A-/A) and his 357 PA’s. I say near perfect because he’s a RH, same as Ramirez. But I can live with that.

Now I need a 2B. I decided to start from the bottom boxes and the lowest box available was box 24. There I found 2015 Dee Gordon (# - .339/.365/.410, 58 SB) and his prowess on the basepaths. No need for a back-up or platoon. Now we just need to round out the offense on the remaining corner and a DH. In box 14 I found 1939 Johnny Mize (# - .344/.440/.624, 5 HR/100) who adds more power to the middle of my line-up and will play 1B. Box 15 had 1928 Goose Goslin (# - .368/.435/.607, 7 2B/100) who will bump Aaron to DH as he takes over RF. That completes my starting line-up and platoons. I have 3 boxes left to choose from: 18, 22, and 23. I need a home park and South Side Park (III) is on my short list. It is also in box 18. Lucky me.

Last two picks and I figured I would spend it on the best hitters available, regardless of PA’s. Box 22 had a few potentials but PH extraordinaire 1998 Shane Spencer (# - .368/.405/.902, 11 HR/100) was perfect. Our last box, box 23, didn’t have as many choices. 2022 Livan Soto (# - .413/.425/.577, 3 3B/100) was an easy LH choice. Neither will play much so hopefully, Sparky only uses them when they can make a game winning impact.

This team hits for average and power. They have some speed. We don’t walk much. Defense is on the better side of average for this cap. I’m having a tough time evaluating my pitching. There is very little difference between my $110M, $120M, and $255M teams. I don’t know what to think about that, but it does have me worried that the latter two won’t be good enough. I suspect there will be a lot of deadball pitching staffs and some mixed staffs. It’ll be interesting to see this play out. I’m shooting to be on the better side of .500. Probably need more than that to advance. Not sure this team has what it takes.

Hitting: 6347 PA/162, .350 AVG, .423 OBP, .579 SLG, 229 HR#, 244 SB#
Pitching: 1499 IP/162, 1.90 ERA, .178 OAV, 0.85 WHIP, 10.57 K/9, 0.65 HR/9

Tournament outlook: I am feeling mixed about this year. I think I have 3 teams that will make the playoffs, two that will be on the cusp of the playoffs, and one that will struggle to get to .500. That means I’ll need a good showing in the playoffs if I have a chance to advance. What a tough deal! My playoff record is abysmal so I’ll need my cusp teams to overperform. We’ll give it our best shot but I’m thinking a top 32 finish is where I’ll end up. Good luck everyone!

We're at the exactly halfway point, so I figured I would look back at my thought process on the roster building and see if I learned anything...

Original Writeup
70M - Natural Born Killers
Bennett Park
I didn't really have a specific strategy when I started building this roster. In fact, once I had a complete roster, I pretty much didn't tinker and stuck with it. I dislike low cap leagues and rarely play in them To me, success in low cap leagues is highly dependent on drafting the correct number of innings. Too many, and your talent isn't good enough. Too few and fall go into fatigue hell. I wish WIS would change their sim engine so that 1450 innings is required for every cap level, regardless of ballpark, DH, etc. This shouldn't be an unknown variable.

Anyway, I ended up rostering a ton of HRs and a ton of walks. In fact, my team has 243 HRs and 837 walks. I tried to stay as close to .247 as possible, so my team batting average is actually .244 and none of my regulars have a batting average below .241. My roster includes '19 Grandal, '62 Cash, '01 B.Lowe, '59 Killebrew, '52 Joost, '16 B.Harper, '88 J.Clark and a three-man platoon of '71 Singleton/'08 Dunn/'69 B.Brooks. The defense is terrible of course, b/c I'm not spending extra $$$ on A fielders.
Batting Totals: 5166 PA, .244 / .374 / .466 ($34.5 million)

For my pitching, I went with 1308 innings, consisting of a 3-man rotation with a shared 4th SP ('84 Blyleven, '92 Mussina, '92 Tewksbury plus '88 T.Burns/'05 Wang). That's 938 innings for the five SPs. The bullpen consists of 6 pitchers totaling (non-scrub) 369 innings with five of the six pitchers having whips in the 1.03 to 1.10 range.
Pitching Totals: 1308 IP, 2.75 ERA, .238 OAV, 1.10 WHIP, 1.98 BB/9, 0.62 HR/9 ($34.4 million)

Halfway Point Results
Record: 53-28 .654
Exp Win%: .636
Playoff: 1st in AL West (+11 games), #2 seed in A.L
Hitting Rank: 2nd
Pitching Rank: 4th
Fielding%: 12th
Range: 5+, 28- (poor)

Comments: I drafted lots of HRs and walks. So it's not surprising that my team is ranked 3rd in HRs (2 out of first) and 4th in walks, which equates to 1st in OPS and 2nd in runs scored, so that has worked out as well as I could hope. rchisolm's team has 57 wins (ranked #1 in entire tournament) is playing in the Astrodome and leads the league in scoring.

The 1308 innings I drafted turned out to be a good number. I've not had any fatigue issues and typically have 3-4 RPs at 100% to start every game. I've not really had starting pitchers needing to start a game below 100%, but they are always slightly below 100% right before their next start. The staff is ranked 4th in ERA, but that seems a bit lucky since my pitchers are ranked 14th in fewest HRs allowed, 12th on OAV, 9th in OBP and 11th in SLG. We're 10-8 in 1-run games and my ActWin% is a bit higher than my ExpWin%. I expect my pitching to regress a bit in the second half.

Grade: A+
I can't complain, since I don't like low cap leagues and really had no idea how this team would perform.

Original Writeup
80M - BINGO - Card 19
AT&T Park
I built this roster very early and then forgot about it. I used card 22 because I wanted 2019 Ketel Marte on the team. I even built a round 2 team. Weeks later, I went back and looked at the team and I didn't like it. I spent too much for hitting and the pitching was terrible. The defense was terrible. I started over, and chose a different Bingo Card, without Marte. I only built a partial round 2 team with this new card... I will figure it out if I advance.

There was no way I had the time or desire to try a bunch of different cards. So I basically thought about a player or two I wanted to roster (at an 80M cap) and found a card that worked. I started with '56 Wally Moon. His A+++ range at 1B and .390 obp is a steal for $4.7 million. Using card 19, I found a bunch of switch hitters I could use, including '91 Bobby Bonilla, '99 Jose Offerman, '06 Carlos Gullen and '02 Jorge Posada. Everybody knows I love switch-hitters. (If you hadn't figured out yet, I am using all 25 squares). The rest of the lineup includes '30 Harry Heilmann, '62 George Altman and a platoon of '94 Rusty Greer and '17 Daniel Nava, with '29 Ken Williams also filling in.
Batting Totals: 5277 PA, .306 / .394 / .492 ($40.9 million)

For my pitching, I have a four-man rotation of '72 Kline, '87 Reuschel, '11 Halladay and '81 K.Forsch. That's 935 innings. The bullpen consists of 8 pitchers totaling 403 (non-scrub) innings with five of the six pitchers having whips in the 1.04 to 1.12 range. I'm playing in AT&T to help extend my innings.
Pitching Totals: 1348 IP, 2.56 ERA, .236 OAV, 1.07 WHIP, 1.76 BB/9, 0.41 HR/9 ($38.4 million)

Halfway Point Results
Record: 45-36 .556
Exp Win%: .637
Playoff: 1st in NL West (+8 games), #3 seed in N.L
Hitting Rank: 1st
Pitching Rank: 10th
Fielding%: 24th
Range: 36+, 12- (top 5 in league)

Comments: My offense is ranked #1, by a pretty decent margin (440 runs vs 412 runs for 2nd best). This despite playing my home games in AT&T. I did spend the 6th most salary on offense, but that still doesn't explain why I am scoring so many runs. We're ranked 3rd in BB, 2nd in AVG, 1st in OPS, 1st in SLG. I am starting 4.5 switch hitters, 2.5 lefties and only 1 right-handed batter. Not surprisingly, my RH batter (Heilmann) has the highest real life OPS (.993) and is the biggest underachieving offense player (.767). Wally Moon has 17+ plays already at 1B. Bobby Bonilla is ranked 1st in MVP (.377/.444/.608, 70 RBIs). George Altman is ranked 3rd (.342/.398/.560).

The 4-man starting pitching has been solid, with my 4 SPs having records of 11-5, 10-6, 9-6, 8-6. Rick Reuschel has been the best (11-5, 2.55) but isn't among the top five CY Young candidates. The bullpen is this team's Achilles heal. The 9 RPs have a combined record of 7-13.

Grade: B
Just based on runs scored and run allowed, this team should have a much better record (7-11 in 1-run games). The bullpen has blown a number of leads. They're just 4-3 vs the worst team in the league... ChitownBluz (23-58). It's hard to complain too much about a team on a pace to win 90 games, but I fear that my ridiculously overachieving offense may regress and all those close losses will come back to bite me. Luckily, the rest of my division isn't very strong, so it may not matter.

Original Comments
100M - Naps, Browns & Cardinals of 1906
Sportsman Park II

I built about 5-6 different rosters, but as one would expect, every roster had flaws. My second favorite was a team with the 1964 White Sox as the main cog. I really wanted to build a team using the 1981 Astros, but I could not get the pieces to fit right. Despite having too many extra ABs, I went back to my 1906 team mainly because of the low HR/9 allowed by the pitchers. I expect most folks will use more modern day teams with HRs, so I might as well suppress their advantage as best I can. The offense of this team is pretty punchless. Nap Lajoie and George Stone are great and Elmer Flick is decent, but after that, it drops off quickly. This offense is worse than my $80M team.
Batting Totals: 6155 PA, .305 / .359 / .405 ($55.9 million)

I learned that ronthegenius selected the exact same team, but of course, he did a better job of building the roster. He's got much better pitching and I have a slightly better offense. We're in the same league, but in a different division (thank God). As is the case with most deadball teams, my pitching is almost all starting pitchers (my four best pitchers are starters totaling 1140 innings) with a handful of weaker guys filling out the rotation. Will need to manage this closely.
Pitching Totals: 1434 IP, 2.02 ERA, .218 OAV, 1.02 WHIP, 2.16 BB/9, 0.08 HR/9 ($42.3 million)

Halfway Point Results
Record: 50-31 .617
Exp Win%: .600
Playoff: 1st in AL East (+2 games), #1 seed in A.L
Hitting Rank: 11th
Pitching Rank: 2nd
Fielding%: 15th
Range: 69+, 6- (best in league)

Comments: The hitting is about league average, which is better than my pre-season expectations. Nap Lajoie (.339/.362/427) and George Stone (.335/.386/.440) are my top two hitters. The rest are mostly mediocre (which is better than poor).

The pitching has been great, which I did expect. Addie Joss (14-6, 2.31) and Barney Pelty (11-6, 2.81) are ranked 4th & 5th in Cy Young rankings. Fred Glade (10-7, 3.12) is a strong SP3. Chappie McFarland (17/19 in saves, 2.14) has been good as my closer. The other pitchers are just ok. Fred Beebe has 48 games in relief already. I may need to rest him a bit in the second half so he doesn't hit that games fatigue later in the season.

Grade: A
I wish I could explain it, but somehow my team is hitting better and pitching better than ronthegenius' nearly identical team. My team is also fielding better. Of course, RTG swept me recently and his team is coming on strong (now 38-43), so it wouldn't surprise me if we end up with a similar record. My 13-8 record in 1-run games will get worse.

Original Comments
110M - Maddux & Raines
Olympic Stadium

This was the first team I built, but I tried a number of different combinations. I really wanted to enter a Pete Rose team, but I needed anout $10M more in cap room to make a team I liked. I tried Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson, Clayton Kershaw, Kevin Brown and Bret Saberhagen. I was very close to finializing a Pete Rose / Bret Saberhagen team, in order to play in Kaufman Stadium. But I wanted 1999 Pedro and Nomar and just couldn't fit under the cap. So I went back to this team. The nice thing about Raines is that he has so many usable seasons that I was able to fill in the missing parts fairly easily. I ended up using '82 Raines starting at 2B and '85, '87 and '92 Raines starting in the OF with '97 and '98 Raines platooning at DH. That opens up six teams to use. From just my Tim Raines seasons, I was able to add '98 Jorge Posada (C platoon), '92 Frank Thomas (1B), '98 Homer Bush (PH) plus starting pitcher '85 Bryn Smith and relievers '98 Mariano Rivera, '87 Tim Burke, '92 Roberto Hernandez, '92 Terry Leach and '87 Pascual Perez. That's most of my team.
Batting Totals: 6197 PA, .307 / .396 / .466 ($57.7 million)

I only used four Greg Maddux seasons (three SPs), including 96, '97 and '98, plus the short-inning '06 as a reliever. Bryn Smith is my fourth SP and is much cheaper than '96 Smoltz (I never have any luck with Smoltz anyway). Maddux teammates that are rostered include '96 Chipper Jones (3B), '96 Tyler Houston (C platoon), '06 Toby Hall (C platoon), '06 Dioner Navarro (C platoon), '97 Jeff Blauser (SS) and '96 Pedro Borbon (RP).
Pitching Totals: 1432 IP, 2.36 ERA, .224 OAV, 1.00 WHIP, 1.54 BB/9, 0.43 HR/9 ($52.2 million)

Halfway Point Results
Record: 48-34 .585
Exp Win%: .585
Playoff: 1st in AL East (+3 games), #2 seed in A.L
Hitting Rank: 11th
Pitching Rank: 6th
Fielding%: 8th
Range: 28+, 17- (slightly above league average)

Comments: This team is ranked 1st in walks (49 walks more than 2nd place), 1st in OBP and 3rd in SBs (147 at 85% success rate). My .300+ hitters really aren't hitting for average though as I have zero players hitting .300+. '97 Blauser (.308/.405/.482) has been terrible (.243/.319/.343 with 7 - plays and 13 errors). If I wanted a crappy hitting shortstop, I would have drafted one who could at least field a little. At least '82 Raines is doing ok defensively at 2B (C-/C). He has only 1 minus play and only 8 errors.

One could argue that the pitching has carried this team. Although we're ranked 10th in OBP allowed, we're 2nd in fewest HRs allowed, which puts us as the 6th best pitching staff in the league. But it's mostly just Greg Maddux. His 1996-1997-1998 seasons are a combined 34-16 with a cumulative ERA of 3.73 ERA, which would rank 2nd in the league if that was my team's ERA. Other than my best RP, Tim Burke (1.69 ERA), the rest of the pitchers have not been good. SP4 Bryn Smith has a 5.06 ERA and the six other RPs have combined for 203 appearances, thrown 180.2 innings and allowed 118 runs for a 5.88 ERA and have a 2-9 record. Pascual Perez (0.97 whip in real life) has a 7.92 ERA in 31 games. Mariano Rivera is at 6.58.

Grade: B
Despite the mediocre batting average and lack of power, the offense is league average (thanks to the walks and steals). The overall pitching is better than league average, despite only 4 of my 11 pitchers performing well. The team is on a pace for 95 wins, so I really can't complain too much. It would be nice if '92 R.Hernandez (0.92 whip), '87 P.Perez (0.97), '98 M.Rivera (1.07), '96 P.Borbon Jr (0.92) and '92 T.Leach (1.05) could occasionally get somebody out.

Original Comment
120M - A Giant Pile of Crap
AT&T Park

I built 4-5 teams, including Cardinals, White Sox, Red Sox, Phillies, Dodgers and Giants. I guess I made a mistake not trying the popular Indians. I was going to go with the White Sox but decided at the last minute to switch to my Giants team. The main reason is because this Giants offense isn't HR-dependent (the Sox was) and I have a feeling there will be a lot of dead-ball pitchers to face. The eight main position players include 1B '85 Roger Conner, 2B '24 Frankie Frisch, 3B '97 Bill Joyce, SS '97 George Davis, OFs '03 Roger Bresnahan, '11 Carlos Beltran and '12 Melky Cabrera. I also have a 4-man catching platoon of '24 Hank Gowdy, '41 Gabby Hartnett, '11 Art Wilson and '27 Jack Cummings. '22 Casey Stengel, '85 Ron Roenicke and '93 Willie Keeler supplement the missing PAs in the OF as my three starters are in the 500-600 PA range.
Batting Totals: 5680 PA, .333 / .409 / .488 ($57.6 million)

On the pitching side, one of the keys in this theme is to find guys in the $1.0 to $1.5 million salary cap range that can pitch at the $120 million cap level. This team has three of those guys that I rostered, including '10 Ramon Ramirez, '73 Don McMahon and '13 Red Ames. I also have a $2.1M guy with '88 Bill George. My three main SPs are '36 Carl Hubbell, '69 Juan Marichal and '03 Jason Schmidt. But the main strength of this team is the great shorter-inning SPs from the 1910's, including '18 Fred Toney, '16 Ferdie Schupp and '19 Art Nehf. In addition, no Giants team would be complete without '50 Jim Hearn. (I can hear the snickering already). This team should be among the leaders in pitching.
Pitching Totals: 1495 IP, 1.96 ERA, .205 OAV, 0.94 WHIP, 1.91 BB/9, 0.31 HR/9 ($62.4 million)

Halfway Point Results
Record: 54-28 .659
Exp Win%: .661
Playoff: 1st in NL East (+11 games), #1 seed in N.L
Hitting Rank: 10th
Pitching Rank: 1st
Fielding%: 14th
Range: 68+, 12- (best in the league)

Comments: This has been my favorite team this round. Although the team is "only" 10-9 in 1-run games and my actual and expected winning% is nearly the same, I feel like I am blowing fewer games in the late innings. I spent the 2nd lowest salary on offense ($57.6M) and I'm playing home games in AT&T park, so the fact that my offense is as high as 10th overall, is very acceptable. Roger Connor (.352/.421/.452, 19+ plays at 1B) is 1st in MVP ranking. George Davis (.310/.357/.437) is ranked 6th in the league with 72 RBIs. Not bad for a non-power-hitting shortstop. Frankie Frisch (.335/.374/.444, 13+ plays) has also been very good. There's a reason I love switch hitters.

The pitching is the key. A staff of Hubbell, Marichal and J.Schmidt at the $120M cap level seems like it may be a bit weak, but the home park and fantastic range has helped these three combine to go 29-21, with ERAs of 3.55, 3.05 and 4.67, respectively. Marichal and Hubbell are 2nd and 4th in Cy Young ranking. But the real strength is the bullpen. (When have you ever heard me say that?). I splurged on overpriced studs, such as '19 Art Nehf (1.56 ERA in sim), '16 Ferdie Schupp (3.14) and '18 Fred Toney (1.41). '50 Jim Hearn (3.25), '88 Bill George (2.08), '10 Ramon Ramirez (0.57) and '73 Don McMahon (1.64) are also performing way better than I could ever hope for. Overall, the bullpen is 25-7, which probably means we are winning games in the 6th-9th innings.

Grade: A+
This team was battling for the best overall $120M team for a while, until cubbies84's Indians team really took off (59-23). The fact that this team has such a gaudy record without getting overly lucky in close (1-run) games is a good sign that maybe this success is sustainable for the second half of the season.

Original Comments
255M - Babe Ruth, Team Captain
Sportsman Park II

I changed my mind so many times with this team, I can't even remember what my initial roster looked like. I can tell you that I only built a Group A roster. I just thought that "A" had better players. Ruth is a better hitter than anybody in Group B. Silver King, Greg Maddux better than any pitchers in B. Rogers, Hornsby, Nap Lajoie... better than any infielders in Group B. Anyway, I actually started building my roster from the bottom up. My thought process was that if I can find some usable starting batters at the bottom, I could upgrade pitching as I got near the top. One of the key decision points was to use Tony Phillips (Box 25) as my starting 2B. His .443 OBP should translate fine and his defense is good. I really liked Joey Votto (Box 22) and his partial '12 season (.474 obp) is sharing the DH spot with Roy Cullenbine (Box 15, .477 obp). Can you tell I love OBP? My starting catcher is Fred Carroll (Box 16, .486 obp). Bobby Murcer (.427) seems like a really good bargain at Box 23. My SS Joe Cronin comes from box 12 while Ken Caminiti comes from Box 11. Note that I have my C, 2B, 3B, SS, OF, DH and haven't touched the top 10 boxes yet. For the rest of my starting lineup, I thought Ruth was the most impactful player (Box 1), and I also added Roger Connor (Box 2) and Benny Kauff (Box 6). Although I wasn't trying to have a high salary, i did spend to add some depth, so adding '72 Johnny Bench (Box 9) and '08 Chipper Jones (Box 5) put my team into the NL East.
Batting Totals: 7680 PA, .341 / .446 / .559 ($116.9 million)

On the pitching side, I decided that Ed Seward (Box 3) was of great value since he can pitch every other game and isn't that much worse than Silver King. I went deadball with my other two SPs as well, Orval Overall (Box 7) and Howie Camnitz (Box 17). That's 1200 innings of low-HR starting pitching. The bullpen is anchored by '03 Eric Gagne (Box 4) plus the usual cast of RP cookies including Cisco Carlos, Rollie Fingers, Wade Davis, Andrew Bailey, Joakim Soria and Cy Morgan.
Pitching Totals: 1862 IP, 1.65 ERA, .191 OAV, 0.94 WHIP, 2.29 BB/9, 0.10 HR/9 ($82.7 million)

Halfway Point Results
Record: 48-34 .585
Exp Win%: .588
Playoff: 1st in NL East (+2 games), #1 seed in N.L
Hitting Rank: 5th
Pitching Rank: 8th
Fielding%: 24th
Range: 64+, 3- (top 5 in the league)

Comments: Any time your team can be ranked in the top 8 in hitting and pitching usually means the team is going to have a pretty good W-L record. My strategy of working from the bottom up seems to be working out ok. Tony Phillips has a .364 OBP and is on a pace to score 130 runs from the leadoff spot. Bobby Murcer (.286/.365/.415) has been solid. Ken Caminiti (.314/.372/..500 wiht 9+ plays) has basically pushed Chipper Jones to a pinch hitting role. My three worst hitters are my only 3 right-handed bats (Bench, Carroll, Cronin). My Box 1 pick of Babe Ruth (.271/.389/.561, 73 RBIs) has been fine I knew his HRs would be suppressed, although I thought a .378 real life batting average would translate better than .271. He is 4th in the MVP ranking.

I didn't roster what would be considered stud SPs. No Walsh, no Alexander, no Maddux, no Pedro. My SP1 is Ed Seward (14-8, 5.43) and he started every other game for the first 60 or so games, then I went to a strict 3-man staff with Seward, Orval Overall (10-7, 3.26) and Howie Camnitz (9-7, 4.87). The bullpen has been spotty. I am using eight sub-0.90 whip pitchers in relief and have a quick hook on pitch-count and as a result, these pitchers are averaging less than 1 inning per game, in aggregate. The team is leading the league with only 25 HRs allowed and that has certainly helped overcome a 9th worse WHIP.

Grade: B
Frankly, this team is performing about what I expected. They are a good team, but not a great team. I would certainly take 92-94 wins from them.

I never really expected to do well in my first go round in this championship but that being said, I am pretty disappointed with the performance of my teams considering some of the rosters that I put together for this. I’ve always found this league to be about maximizing ops and era and whip numbers by drafting the fewest innings and lowest at bats needed to avoid fatigue issues and in doing so keeping those stats high. I had one kind of gimmick all hitting team but other than that, my regular season whip and era and ops ranked either number 1 or top 3 in every league I am in other than that 1894 hitting team. Not sure if fielding and plus range is more valued than when I used to play regularly 7-10 years ago but I can’t believe that somee of my teams are 15-20 games under .500 when you look at this raw overall team numbers from the regular season compared to the other rosters in my leagues and I am not suffering fatigue anywhere and minimized the innings and at bats as I always did. Anyone with some insight on this or if the sim engine has changed drastically from back then? The defensive side is the only thing I can think of.

I quickly looked at your 70M team. Your defensive was nearly the league worst, both fielding% and range. That's a brutal combination. Bad defense makes good pitching mediocre. Great defense makes mediocre pitching good.

What a disappointingly mediocre second half of the season. Here is the first half vs second half comparison. Only two of my six teams performed close to the same level as in the first half. The other four played essentially .500 ball, and two of those four will probably miss the playoffs, unless they get hot over the last eight games.

70M: 53-28 (1st half) vs 36-37 (2nd half)
80M: 45-36 vs 38-35
100M: 50-31 vs 39-34
110M: 48-34 vs 42-30
120M: 54-28 vs 47-25
255M: 48-34 vs 34-38

Don't let jtpsops see that...

This was the last comment in my mid-season writeup on my $100M team...

"My 13-8 record in 1-run games will get worse."

My 1-run record in the second half: 10-18.

Let's revisit just for a good laugh:

$70M – Doc is the Key: South Side Park (III)

"No clue what to expect from this team, but at very least, they should be able to hold their own."

UPDATE: 73-82
This team was very good for the first half, leading the division for the first 100 games or so. Then tanked. Climbed back within two of a playoff spot twice in the second half, but those were followed by 1-14 and 0-7 stretches respectively. Pitching has been strong, but offense has zero consistency.

Hitting: 5,392 PA, .238/.352/.442, 228 HR, 779 BB
Pitching: 1,309 IP, 1.12 WHIP, 212 BB, 965 Ks, 110 HR


$80M – Card 20: THAT’S A BINGO!: Astrodome
Years: 1927-1970-1995-1998-2015

"I feel cautiously optimistic about this team. I think it should at very least contend for a WC spot."

UPDATE: 87-68, currently leading division by 10 games.
Surprisingly my 2nd best team. A little better than what I expected, but close to my estimates.

Hitting: 5,189 PA, .308/.383/.442, 533 BB, 273 2B, 110 SB
Pitching: 1,308.2 IP, 1.05 WHIP, 1143 K, 225 BB, 136 HR


$100M – 2015 Reasons to Weep: Dodger Stadium

"I feel good about this team. Probably could’ve distributed my dollars a bit better, but we’ll compete."

UPDATE: 68-87
Grossly overestimated this squad. I knew I gambled by overspending on pitching (which has been strong), but the offense hasn't be able to do anything. Clearly did not select my hitters well enough.

Hitting: 6,146 PA, .286/.347/.473, 298 2B, 229 HR, 494 BB
Pitching: 1,426.1 IP, 1.00 WHIP, 1468 Ks, 302 BB, 122 HR


$110M – Heiseys on the Big Rivera: Dodger Stadium

"At the risk of jinxing myself, I feel VERY good about this team and expect it will be my best one.'

UPDATE: 70-85
My most baffling team. Very good pitching staff, seemingly balanced lineup (BA, power, walks and defense). I have no clue why the offense has been such a letdown, especially facing modern pitching. Did not help that my 2015 Kershaw has an ERA of 5 and a WHIP of 1.40.

Hitting: 6,415 PA, .310/.393/.509, 352 2B, 239 HR, 717 BB, 107 SB
Pitching: 1,385 IP, 0.95 WHIP, 1381 K, 262 BB, 121 HR


$120M – Indians Love Naps: League Park (II)

"I feel comfortable with Indians teams in franchise leagues and they’re usually my go-to. Not sure how confident to be in this theme, but I think my team should have no problem being competitive."

UPDATE: 92-63, leading division by 4 games
By far my best team, which isn't shocking. Better than I expected, but the Indians usually do well for me in franchise themes. My sweet spot.

Hitting: 5,609 PA, .338/.414/.524, 367 2B, 124 HR, 529 BB, 367 K
Pitching: 1,453.1 IP, 0.91 WHIP, 1340 Ks, 255 BB, 119 HR


$255M – The B Sharps: Kauffman Stadium

"These leagues are usually a crapshoot anyway, so I came up with the best plan I could: Grab as many elite OAV pitchers as possible, stick them in a hitters park, and then round up as many solid, low-K hitters as possible, with good defense. I’m not sure how the strategy will work, but I definitely executed it well in drafting. This will take a lot of regular managing, but I like the roster I’ve constructed."

UPDATE: 77-78
Disappointed this team hasn't performed better. I think it all comes down to the fact I drastically underestimated the impact of homeruns in this league. I figured I could at least dominate at home (Kauffman). I'm 3rd in BA, 4th in doubles, 2nd in triples, but only middle of the pack in runs. And my staff has given up the 2nd most homers. The ballpark did not help me as much as I thought it would, but I expected my pitching staff to limit the damage more. I invested heavily in low OAV pitchers, so I figured with the ballpark and limited baserunners, homers wouldn't be impactful. Clearly I should've invested in more deadballers and HR hitters in my lineup.

Hitting: 6,875 PA, .360/.421/.528, 410 2B, 147 3B, 606 BB, 425 K, 297 SB
Pitching: 1,634 IP, 0.83 WHIP, .179 OAV, 1687 K, 310 BB, 143 HR