I'll also do an almost-the-end-of the season writeup. Mostly because if I make it to round 2 (I'm at 25th currently) and I also have the juice tourney next round about to start, I'm not going to have time to do this later.

Also, I finished 23rd in last season's tourney, so it looks like I did about the same. A little disappointing I wasn't able to improve. As of this writeup, we are currently at the 155 game mark.

So here is what i said earlier, and "how it went":

$70M - Khiller D

Wanted to go for defense where it counts. I am A+ at 2B and 3B. Also got Gene Tenace A+ arm at C in case anyone tries to run. I am D+ at SS with Yank Robinson but he’s from 1888, so I think he’ll normalize with my modern pitchers. I don’t care about 1B or OF defense as much but they’re average.

On offense I wanted OBP and power since I could utilize the 0.50 HR/9 pitcher rule. Juan Soto, Jack Clark, Jedd Gyorko, Mel Ott and Charlie Duffee should fit that bill. I wanted Yank Robinson for his leadoff skills (.400 obp). I also have some L/R platoons that should work out as well.

Pitching was going to be low strikeout (to save on $), low walk guys who will allow my defense to take care of business. Bob Tewksbury, Gary Nolan, Dick Donovan and Zane Smith fit that bill. The bullpen is more of the same.

Hitters: 5492 PA, .233/.356/.392
Pitchers: 1299 IP 1.07 Whip, 2.60 ERA, 0.614 HR/9
Jack Murphy Stadium

How it went: 1st place, .548 win %, .624 Exp %, 3rd in RS, 5th in RA.
I am mostly happy with this team. I do have fatigue issues as most of my SP have been starting at around 92% fatigue, but no death spiral. Yank Robinson was playing GG defense for a while, but is currently at 17 errors, which is still pretty good. Charlie Duffee has surprised me with 40 HR and 18+ plays in CF. He's been one of my best hitters. I don't have any real complaints about this team other than I am pretty heavily underperforming compared to my expected win %. Also, due to my pitching fatigue, I've had to manually adjust this team more than my other ones.

$80M Card #5

I used card #5. Just doing a quick glance I saw it had 2020, a year I like to use right in the middle so I knew it was a contender. Cards I also considered: 2, 13, 17, 18, 24 and 25. I had actually printed all of the bingo cards and circled ones that I liked and crossed out ones I didn’t like. So it was kinda like I really was playing bingo. But my first instinct was correct after I built multiple rosters, #5 was my card. I went with playing all 25 numbers and if I make it to round 2, I’m not sure what I’ll do, but I know 2020 is in the middle so I have 4 options that I’ll likely go with. I also like this theme because it’s hard to min/max when you are constrained to the years on the card.

I like this card because of certain “cookie” players that I like such as:

1998 Mark Loretta
1931 Earl Webb
1992 Dave Winfield
1956 Wally Moon
1971 Ed Kirkpatrick
1989 Scott Fletcher
2020 Kyle Kendricks

Hitters: 5697 PA, .289/.373/.446
Pitchers: 1385 IP 1.10 Whip, 2.74 ERA, 0.67 HR/9
Colt Stadium

How it went: 4th place, .490 win %, .498 exp win %, 18th in RS, 9th in RA
My worst team in the tourney. I tried some different pitching strategies early in the season using an "opener", but it just gave me fatigue issues and I lost a lot of games. I abandoned it about 25 games in but I've been mediocre ever since. But my offense has been the problem. Loretta was only so-so in the leadoff spot with a .313 obp. A-Rod was a dud with his $7.39M salary and his .244/.333/.433 line. Dave Winfield was super hot in the first half but ended up with a mediocre .277/.338/.432. However Earl Webb was my best hitter at .318/.363/.480 but was terrible in the field with 23 errors in LF.

$100M 2020 MLW/LAA/CHW

Another theme where my first instinct was to use 2020. But I did try out some other years like 1902 and 2008. I was searching for years where a high priced player was traded mid-season from a loser club to a contender. 1902 didn’t have any bullpen guys which made it tough. 2008 just didn’t feel right even after multiple re-works. So I went with 2020. 2020 also does not have dynamic pricing which is a plus.

I knew the Brewers were going to be there since they were the sub .500 team and they had some great pitchers such as Brandon Woodruff, Corbin Burnes and Devin Williams. Unfortunately, I needed to also roster Christian Yelich and his low batting average. But he does walk and have some power (.205/.356/.430).

The White Sox were a shoo-in with Lucas Giolito, Dallas Keuchel, Tim Anderson, Yasmani Grandal, Eloy Jimenez and Jose Abreu.

The Angels fit nicely with their losing record but some really good players. Mike Trout, Dylan Bundy, Anthony Rendon, David Fletcher fit nicely where I had some of my biggest needs.

It’s not a very balanced team as my pitching is better than my offense. Again, it’s a good theme in that it is hard to min/max with the constraints of the rules of the league. The combined win total of my teams was 90-90 in real life.

Hitting: 5595 PA .275/.360/.499
Pitching: 1406 IP 1.03 Whip, 2.90 ERA, 0.73 HR/9
Miller Park

How it went: 2nd place, .555 win %, .574 exp %, 12th in RS, 5th in RA
This team is in a close race, only 3 games back. We were really hot in the first half, on pace to win over 100 games. But they fell to earth in the 2nd half but may still make the playoffs. We are 2nd in the league in HR hit. I've had zero fatigue issues all season, which could mean that I drafted too many innings for this team. Yelich was slightly better than I thought .219/.333/.374 and was relegated to hitting near the bottom of the lineup. The pitching staff was the star however: Woodruff 2.71 ERA, Keuchel 2.79 ERA, Burnes 2.89 ERA. The bullpen was surprisingly solid as well.

Part 2

$110M 4 Rickeys, 2 Smiths

This one I did last because I knew it would be a research project. For my hitter clone, I knew it was most likely that I would use an outfielder. I was really dreading looking into all of the different possibilities and over-analyzing who to use. But then for some reason I thought of Rickey Henderson and how funny it would be to have a bunch of Rickeys on a team talking about themselves in the third-person. He had a really long career and played for a lot of teams so there were a lot of possibilities. He also had a lot of good partial seasons and a $338k season so I could roster 4 of him.

1989 Rickey Henderson - Oakland Athletics

• Terry Steinbach, Dennis Eckersley

1993 Rickey Henderson - Toronto Blue Jays

• John Olerud, Paul Molitor, Roberto Alomar, Tony Fernandez

1997 Rickey Henderson - San Diego Padres

• Tony Gwynn, Ken Caminiti

2003 Rickey Henderson - Los Angeles Dodgers

• Guillermo Mota, Wilson Alvarez

For my pitcher, I used Dave Smith. I knew I wanted that 1981 Astros staff and almost as importantly, the Astrodome. Since I already had Rickey and a bunch of high average/low power hitters like Tony Gwynn and John Olerud, I wanted my park to match my team. Originally, I had Don Sutton as my clone with a 68 Dodgers team, but it was not strong enough. I needed to upgrade a pitcher and so I changed to Dave Smith so I could get Mike Scott. “I’m not superstitious, but I am a little stitious” - Michael Scott.

1981 Dave Smith

• Don Sutton, Bob Knepper, Nolan Ryan

1986 Dave Smith

• Mike Scott

I actually like this team a lot. And I’m going to imagine 4 Rickey Hendersons on the field talking about themselves in the third person all season.

Hitters: 6208 PA, .308/.397/.473
Pitchers: 1498 IP, 1.02 Whip, 2.23 ERA, 0.39 HR/9
Astrodome

How it went: 2nd place, .542 win %, .566 exp %, 15th in RS, 2nd in RA
The strategy mostly worked. Two of my Rickeys were ok, but my 97 Rickey had a slash line of .196/.341/.230. Also, Roberto Alomar, not Rickey Henderson led me team in SB with 74. I was ranked 3rd in SB with 263 with a 82% success rate. The Astrodome helped out my pitching staff which was already good at limiting HRs which was ranked 2nd in HRA. Eck was an excellent closer with a 0.59 whip and 1.32 ERA.

$120M We’ve Got Busch

My first instinct was to use the Cardinals. I liked the idea that they had a lot of really good 19th century and deadball hitters that I could use in this theme. I actually never built any other franchise so I finished this team pretty quickly. That might have been a mistake but I was mostly happy with this team. With the $1M minimum, I was also able to make the most of platoons.

Lineup:

1900 John McGraw / 2002 Scott Rolen
1899 Jesse Burkett
2001 JD Drew / 1931 Taylor Douthit
1890 Chief Roseman / 1997 Mark McGwire
1889 Jocko Miligan / 1934 Bill Delancey
1887 Bob Caruthers / 1930 Ray Blades
1920 Rogers Hornsby
2001 Placido Polanco

WhatI failed to see however, was that the Cardinals pitching is actually pretty mediocre. I had built a pitching staff using their best guys and I was not happy with it. I was trying to avoid using Elton Chamberlain because of the dynamic pricing, but I had to put him in there, or I wouldn’t have been able to hit the cap. After doing this writeup, I feel like I may not have drafted enough innings.

SP 1942 Mort Cooper
SP 1948 Harry Brecheen
SP 2009 Chris Carpenter
SP 1888 Elton Chamberlain
SP 1943 Howie Pollet
Bullpen: 1963 Bobby Shantz, 1964 Barney Schultz, 1960 Lindy McDaniel, 2022 Ryan Helsey, 2004 Kiko Calero, 2002 Jason Isringhausen

Hitters: 5487 PA, .345/.429/.520
Pitchers: 1422 IP, 0.95 Whip, 2.00 ERA
Busch Stadium II

How it went: 3rd place, .542 win %, .535 exp %, 15th RS, 6th RA
I was in a tough division. I was worried about contrarian23's team, but he's in 4th place. It's adsmith182 and billyb1173 who are in first and second place. John McGraw was a disappointment with a .218/.353/.278 line. My 1st base platoon stunk with Mark McGwire/Chief Roseman and their .257/.329/.329 and .187/.310/.389 lines respectively. Jocko Milligan came out of nowhere to lead my team in HRs with 21. I thought my pitching would be worse but I think I got exactly the right amount of innings as everyone is at 100%, but only recover to that level on the day they pitch. My bullpen was surprisingly good as my worst reliever had a 4.32 ERA.

$255M “A” Lot of Money

I first started with Group B. I had put a lot of time into it, trying to make the most out of every dollar and being as efficient as possible. I think I got to about $140M. It had 6300 PA and 1500 IP. It was a solid roster.

But wait….what the heck am I doing trying to be efficient?? I should be doing the exact opposite! This is WISC, I am trying to win 1st place in the league, not 1st place in my division. My $140M roster might win……. if everything goes right. But as we all know, that does not happen. I need backups in case a player underperforms. Dynamic pricing….pfft. Doesn’t matter. But I still needed to make tough choices as each box had tough choices to make. So I figured I should be going with Group A and grabbing Silver King and Ed Seward to drop me from the traditional 4 starting pitchers to 2. This would allow me to get better hitters in the slots where I would normally be drafting a starting pitcher. Sure, Ed Walsh and Addie Joss are better pound-for-pound over King. But then that means instead of having to grab Claude Hendrix or Eddie Cicotte in box 2, I could grab Lou Boudreau - the best SS possible. I took Ed Seward in box 3 to complete my pitching staff. No he’s not as good as Babe Adams, but again, I only need 2 SPs and there really weren’t any great SPs in the lower boxes for this cap level. In my opinion, getting modern pitchers like Pedro, Bieber, Kershaw, and Maeda is folly since you’ll have to draft 4 or 5 of them and miss out on better hitters.

Box 1 - Silver King - He’s not the best SP here, but his innings are invaluable.
Box 2 - Lou Boudreau - A-/A defense, batting 2nd. A key player.
Box 3 - Ed Seward - needed my #2 starter and he has the innings to make it a 2 man rotation.
Box 4 - Eddie Collins - top 2B, good defender
Box 5 - Jose Bautista - superb D at 3B. Good hitter, but his HR won’t translate in this league.
Box 6 - Tony Gwynn - best pure hitter here, .394 average.
Box 7 - Craig Kimbrel - top tier closer, don’t need the other SP options here
Box 8 - Sammy Sosa - his HR won’t translate, but still a top hitter
Box 9 - Jake Northrop - because I don’t need these hitters or SP.
Box 10 - Derrek Lee - Probably should have got Giambi or Olerud in box 7 instead.
Box 11 - Bryce Harper - liked him more than Miguel Cabrera
Box 12 - Mike Napoli - ridiculous stats for half a C. I’m going to need 2 of then anyway
Box 13 - Cisco Carlos - the famous WIS cookie. Don’t need the hitters or SP.
Box 14 - Andrew Bailey - Didn’t need anyone else here.
Box 15 - Ralph Kiner - Thought he was misplaced being down here so low, great hitter.
Box 16 - Jeff Kent - backup at 2B and 1B
Box 17 - Lenny Dykstra - backup in the OF, will also pinch run
Box 18 - Willie Hernandez - my setup B. Has higher IP/G than the closer types.
Box 19 - Reb Rusell - Long relief/swing starter. Had to go down this far to find a SP I liked.
Box 20 - Dave Righetti - another long reliever/starter. Backup in case I need it. Great HR/9.
Box 21 - Javy Lopez - best hitting C. Not too worried about opponents stealing bases.
Box 22 - Memorial Colisuem - wanted a hitters park because I have the IP and the HR guys.
Box 23 - Cecil Travis - backup at 3b/SS
Box 24 - Terry Shumpert - Can backup anywhere except 1B
Box 25 - Francisco Rodiguez - solid reliever, don’t need the other options
Box 26 - Andrew Chafin - solid reliever, don’t need the other options, don’t like those parks

I don’t like pitchers < 1 IP/G because i feel they tire too quickly. So I avoided them. For backups like Kent and Travis, positional versatility was important. SP will have a high pull setting since I have 9 RPs. And since I have deadball SP, getting good defenders, especially in the IF was important. Group B has more of the deadball hitters that I like as group A was more HR modern hitters. I feel that is by design. Wil be interesting to see how many took group A vs group B. And also which player from each box was selected the most.

I ended up with about $212M in salary. I know I will be placed in the most expensive division. But that’s ok. I’m here to win it all.

Hitters: 8791 PA, .337/.427/.589
Pitchers: 2308 IP, 0.93 Whip, 1.86 ERA
Memorial Coliseum

How it ended up: 1st place (tied), .535 win %, .558 exp %, 10th in RS, 5th in RA.
I'd say my strategy worked. I was not so happy in the first half however as my team underperformed and was ranked high on the "unlucky" list. Silver King pitched as expected - 4.85 ERA. But I got lucky in that I got the best Ed Seward in the league - 4.55 ERA. I had 6 setup men and 3 were good and 3 were bad. But because of the way I built my team, I could marginalize the bad ones. So my good ones had ERAs of 2.95, 1.80 and 2.65. The bad ones had ERAs of 6.21, 10.13 and 6.66. Kimbrel was great as the closer with his 1.86 ERA and closing 24 of 25 save ops. All of my RP were set to 99% rest so I was able to get them at their best. On the hitting side, I never really needed the backups. I was disappointed with Lou Boudreau - 734 OPS, but then I realized that all the Boudreaus in the league were like that. Bryce Harper was my best hitter at .290/.412/.473 and Sosa also did well with his .297/.392/..498 slash line. Even Derek Lee surprised we with a .295/.353/.440 line. Catcher platoon was also solid. Javy Lopez has a .986 OPS vs LHP.

With the exception of my $80M team, my teams are pretty consistent. There is only a 3 win difference between them. If I had not tried an untested strategy on my $80M team, they might be there too. I don't know if I'll make round 2, so if I don't it's been fun. If I do, I look forward to being destroyed by everyone else.

I don't see a 70mil analysis thread, so I'll just post this here.

Correlation between wins and BB/9 by pitching staff in my league = -.59

Team	G	W	L	BB	ERA	CORR - BB/9	GIDP	PH
** Ghorman and Jhoe	159	62	97	595	4.05	-0.59	90	64
~ Three River Swimmers - WISC $70M	159	80	79	915	4.49	CORR - GIDP	100	40
$70M WISC: Khrushed	159	69	90	928	4.22	-0.26	103	31
1 Khris Missed	159	73	86	490	3.59	CORR - PH	91	39
1A: WISC $70M: Do They Dig It?	159	79	80	447	4.38	-0.23	83	43
A Shibe Park Full of Banjos	159	82	77	500	3.49		58	51
All - Cant Hit, Cant Pitch Team (70M)	159	88	71	611	3.9		47	33
BBs & HRs	159	92	67	410	3.48		127	5
Cheapskate Session IPA	159	73	86	445	4.49		80	47
Galveston Grubbs	159	50	109	867	5.48		92	31
HARMON AND THE SCHRMPF SHACK BLASTERS	159	65	94	617	5.53		102	32
KBB Values	159	96	63	350	3.02		84	22
KD K’s DFA’d	159	81	78	322	3.05		38	42
Khris Davis Would Be So Proud	159	75	84	682	4.18		80	49
LEAGUE AVERAGE	159	80	80	546	3.89		83	38
Mini Money $70	159	87	72	583	3.47		118	35
Primetime WIS 70	159	74	85	321	3.64		41	30
Run Swiftly And Carry A Lite Stick	159	96	63	493	2.97		45	41
Tenacity Bush’s Deer	159	83	76	527	3.62		99	17
The Baseball Furies	159	89	70	431	4.15		102	44
The Orange Khrush Kids ($70M)	159	67	92	724	4.62		132	48
These Boots Are Made For Walkin’	159	82	77	581	4.17		124	34
W70: Vince Seems Dunn	159	92	67	411	3.18		74	39
Wilbur & Mr. Ed	159	73	86	570	3.59		51	51
WISC 70MIL Radio Broadcast	159	100	59	287	2.77		28	49

Of course, this is just an indirect brag on how awesome my team is...

I made a comprehensive correlation for GIDP, PH, and BBs. It involved using standard deviation and making scores for each category and some other boring stuff...

Correlation: .62

So, slightly better than just the BBs alone.

Posted by schwarze on 7/11/2023 1:32:00 PM (view original):
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.

Very poor second half for this team, 37-43... including 6-11 in the final 17 games. Missed the playoffs by 1 game.

There were 3 Ed Sewards in the league. Their ERAs were 4.57, 5.02 and 5.73. Mine was the worst.

My Seward posted a 6.76 ERA... 5.73 would have been a gift....

Not saying it was the entire difference, your home park was Municipal Stadium (1.06). Mine was Sportsman II (0.93). Also, my defense had 120+ plays vs only 9- plays while yours defense was 59+ plays vs 39 - plays.

The team with the 4.57 ERA Seward beat me out by 1 game (his park was more of a hitters park and his defense/range was worse).

In 20 years of playing this game, I've never used Ed Seward before, so I was a little annoyed by his performance for my team.

I had some crazy real life stuff going on shortly after the WISC started. To be honest, I don't even remember if I set my lineups or anything, and actually thought I may have even abandoned earlier and had to be replaced before it kicked off. I'm happy to see I did actually get my teams in, but feel my $255m team probably didn't do well without active management (and maybe some of the others), so I'm sorry for likely having skewed some win totals.

For what it's worth, real life is getting back on track and I should be able to start easing my way back into WIS here over the next couple of weeks after essentially 5-6 months of almost total WIS-abandonment.