The music nerd in me feels compelled to point out that "I Fought The Law" was written by Sonny Curtis and first popularized by Bobby Fuller.

I also chose the 2020 Dodgers against my better instincts...I've hated them since the Lasorda/Garvey/Hershiser eras. Is there a more annoying commentator than Orel Hershiser (other than Smoltz)?? I do give Freddie Freeman props for playing for Canada in the WBC, honouring his parents Canadian roots.

I already wrote about my $160M team in the other strategy thread, so I will exclude that from my writeup. For three of the remaining five teams, I didn't spend a lot of time on. I built a roster that I liked and stopped. The other two teams, I spent 95% of my time on, agonizing over which option to choose.

$60M - Discount Franchise Soup
We Swing Both Ways (Oakland Coliseum)
I hate low cap leagues. I rarely play in $80M leagues, so $60M is way outside my comfort zone. There is too much weight on drafting the right number of PAs and IPs. If you don't get that right, nothing else matters. I built my original $60M roster a really long time ago (before the end of round 1). I was about $500K short on salary and I got frustrated so I quit. I only came back to this roster about a week before the final deadline. I tweaked a few players and submitted a team a few days before the deadline. I felt that I was a bit light on PAs, and after consulting with a low-cap expert, I added about 150 PAs to my totals. I ended up with 5212 PAs (14 batters) and 1250 IPs (11 pitchers) with no wasted cap space. Every player will play. My worst pitcher has a $634K salary (40 IPs, 1.34 whip).

In terms of strategy, I went with the all-switch hitting lineup (including subs). This round contains the best and smartest owners, so if switch hitters gives me even a 5% platoon advantage over the course of the season, that could be the difference between 82 and 88 wins. I didn't waste salary on great defense, but I avoided rostering any awful defensive players either. My average defensive rating is C+/C+. I have no batter that costs over $4M and am using a 5-player platoon at catcher.

On the pitching side, I have four SPs with 210-222 IPs and seven RPs (many who are short-inning SPs) with between 40-80 innings. None of my RPs cost more than $2M. My SPs are a bit HR prone, but I figured (correctly) that most teams would be in pitcher's parks to keep pitch counts down.

Offense
C: '99 R.Hernandez / '73 Stinson / '83 Pocoroba / '10 Zaun / '12 Navarro
1B: '92 Eddie Murray
2B: '10 Chone Figgins
3B: '05 Bill Mueller / '98 Bobby Bonilla
SS: '82 Roy Smalley
OF: '95 Tim Raines
OF: '46 Jim Russell
OF: '97 Tony Phillips
PH: '04 David Segui

Total Hitting Stats: 5212 PA, .273 / .359 / .398 $30.354 million

Pitching
'81 Doc Medich
'06 Chien-Ming Wang
'06 Greg Maddux
'85 La Marr Hoyt

'87 Rick Reuschel
'76 Larry Gura
'86 Danny Darwin
'95 Tony Castillo
'03 Amaury Telemaco
'83 Tom Brennan
'68 Roy Face

Pitching Totals: 1250 IPs, 3.48 era, 1.18 whip, 0.67 hr/9, 1.78 bb/9 $29.564 million
(The bullpen is better so maybe we can win the close games: 389 IPs, 3.15 era, 1.13 whip, 0.62 hr/9)

The fact that you found 5 switch-hitting catchers with the right PA combination shows real commitment to the cause. I mean, with 5 guys you could have had a couple non-switch guys who would have faced the opposite hand almost all the time anyway.

$80 Million - The 80's and 90's, A Century Apart
Dead Batters, Living Pitchers (The Astrodome)
I was always going to go with the 1800's hitters and the modern pitchers. I built one roster and was done. I never even went back and looked to make any tweaks. Hopefully, that won't come back to haunt me. I've played in a few leagues with a roster full of 1800's hitters. I like loading my team up with A+++ range guys (especially in the infield) because those guys really rack up the + plays. The modern pitchers will reduce my (C- and D fielders) errors significantly. Meanwhile, my deadball hitters will reach on error more frequently when facing deadball pitchers. I'm not claiming Ozzie Smith with deadball pitchers will make more errors than Bill Dahlen with modern pitchers, but the salary for Ozzie Smith assumes he will commit very few errors while the salary for Bill Dahlen assumes he will commit a ton of errors. The differences won't be as extreme as the pricing would indicate, so it's my hope that the deadball hitting teams will perform relatively better than the deadball pitching teams.

Just like the $60M cap, I have no wasted salary (no <300K players). All my batters will play. I have a 4-player catching platoon and a couple of really good pinch hitters / backups OFs. I can start as many as four switch hitters (there just aren't many switch hitters in the 1800's). I have an A+++ range at all four infield positions (although just average range in the OF). Since I am playing my home games in the Astrodome, I didn't avoid HRs with my pitching staff. I grabbed the lowest whip guys (that also allowed less than 2 walks per nine) that I could afford and still get close to 1350 innings. I am using four SPs with 226-241 IPs each. My six RPs each have 50-99 IPs with good IP/G numbers (i.e., most are short-inning SPs). All have whips in the 0.97 to 1.09 range.

No idea how many games this team will win, but I don't think the team will stink.

Offense
C: '94 Sugden, '99 A.Smith, '97 E.McFarland, '92 J.Fields
1B: '85 Cap Anson
2B: '92 Bid McPhee
3B: '97 Bill Joyce / '92 Willie Keeler
SS: '98 Bill Dahlen
OF: '89 Walt Wilmot
OF: '98 John Anderson
OF: '99 Tom McCreery / '97 Tom Leahy
PH: '98 Sam Thompson

Total Hitting Stats: 5366 PA, .303 / .383 / .439 $41.709 million

Pitching
'92 Mike Mussina
'85 Bret Saberhagen
'92 Bob Tewksbury
'90 Dennis Martinez

'87 Rick Reuschel
'87 Pascual Perez
'86 Danny Darwin
'89 Jim Acker
'97 Mark Clark
'94 Fernando Valenzuela

Pitching Totals: 1338 IPs, 2.69 era, 1.05 whip, 0.64 hr/9, 1.55 bb/9 $38.221 million

$100 Million - All-Star Game Twist
1986 - Let Them Play! (The Astrodome)
I love this era of baseball. Boggs, Raines, Ozzie, Gwynn, Murray, etc. Lots of switch hitters. I knew I was going to find an all-star game that had a lot of these guys, plus I wanted to play in the Astrodome to neuter any All-Star teams that drafted HR hitters. I built this roster fairly quickly and was done. The only downside is that I have only 8 usable pitchers. My four SPs have over 1050 IPs, and my four RPs have 114, 111, 45, 33 innings. So it's going to take some active managing to keep players from getting overly fatigued. Obviously, I will probably have to use my two scrubs 70 combined innings to help out. I'm sure I will check the box so that my four SPs can all pitch in relief.

I see two others took 1986 also, but their rosters are a bit different. Should be interesting to see how this plays out.

Offense
C: '84 Gary Carter
1B: '84 Eddie Murray
2B: '83 Lou Whitaker
3B: '91 Wade Boggs
SS: '85 Tony Fernandez
OF: '83 Tim Raines
OF: '97 Tony Gwynn
OF: '86 Kevin Bass
PH: '80 Hubie Brooks
PH: '76 Dale Murphy
200K Scrubs: G.Davis, J.Rice, D.Winfield, H.Baines, C.Brown

Total Hitting Stats (excluding scrubs): 5534 PA, .314 / .384 / .468 $49.534 million

Pitching
'81 Fernandeo Valenzuela
'86 Mike Scott
'86 Mike Witt
'88 Teddy Higuera

'06 Roger Clemens
'81 Dave Smith
'92 John Franco
'91 Sid Fernandez

Scrubs: C.Hough, D.Gooden

Pitching Totals (excluding 70 ips of scrubs): 1360 IPs, 2.49 era, 1.02 whip, 0.58 hr/9, 2.47 bb/9 $48.825 million

Round 1 was an unexpected surprise, as I sat in first place in the standings for a good chunk of the season and wound up second by a single point. But those points are only worth a third of the total, and it’s a long way to the finish line here. I’ve never really been in the hunt to win one of these, squeaking into the top 10 a couple times at best. Adding to the pressure was having to get my teams done early enough to open the leagues up for everyone else, so I might have shortchanged myself on research in a couple leagues and settled for a team I was happy enough with. That’s likely a bad formula for this round, and I won’t be at all surprised to finish in the middle of the pack when it’s all said and done.

I got to a pair of WS in Round 1, winning one, and both those teams got to the Final 4 in the TOC, too. Trying to picture two of these teams getting that far this time feels like a stretch, but you never know. I’m happy with how my draft went, so there’s that at least. A couple other teams look good on paper, I suppose. But a couple definitely worry me, too. I don’t dare attempt win predictions, so here’s some of the thought processes anyway. Maybe some of it is even half-decent thinking.

60M: Arozarena By Any Other Name

I have played exactly one $60M theme in my time here, and it was in a franchise league where we had one decade to work with. I had the punchless 1940s White Sox. I had no idea what I was doing, finished somewhere around .500, and have generally avoided any cap that low or lower since. Simply put, I haven’t tested strategies at this cap at all. I’m hoping most of you are just as inexperienced at this level. It feels strange seeing a lineup without a single .300 AVG, .400 OBP or .500 SLG. Or a rotation with all ERAs over 3.00.

(Digression: I have also played the Cooperstown Replay league and managed quite a few rosters with payrolls in this range and flaws aplenty. At least this team looks a lot better than the 60M payroll of those 1983 Twins I managed to a worse-than-RL 99 losses. Their best SP was Ken Schrom. Nuff said, right?

PS: If you haven’t played that league, try it sometime. Right now one of our 1975 owners is managing the Braves with only two pitchers who had over 86 innings. That’s a test! My ‘75 Yankees have a shortstop platoon of guys with .533 and .438 OPS, and the bullpen has four guys who all suck! Working with whatever the team has forces you to get creative and it makes you a little more comfortable with some challenges in odd themes or progressives. It’s actually fun, I swear. Anyway, join us sometime.)

So, what I do know is that as the cap lowers, you can get away with far fewer PA and IP, especially if you play in a park that minimizes offense. I figured the less I need to buy, the incrementally better the guys I buy should be. I decided to try for a decent amount of speed, not think much about homers, aim to put the ball in play if we can, and try for a pitching staff that minimizes WHIP. Now, as it turned out, I couldn’t figure out how to get a good defense along with the other limitations here, and since my pitchers don’t strike guys out much it’s going to be a little choppy.

I built a roster that worked on the soup side and then realized I actually had taken a few more PA on my 80M team than this one. Seemed like I was doing something wrong, so I tore up my whole bench, mopup, and long man and went for a little better quality with slightly fewer PA. I shaved 123 PA down to 5,097 and 14 innings down to 1,287. Then a few days later I went back and swapped out a couple members of the starting lineup and adjusted the bench and end of the pen again, netting me a bit more speed and average and winding up at 5,126 PA. That’s about 100 fewer than the average here, so I probably had it right the first time.

I’d be lying if I said these feel like comfortable numbers, but it’s R2 and I’m in the Astrodome. And what could go wrong except crippling fatigue and a crushing finish?

I won’t spend much space on the players I used, because I don’t think you’ll find them any more interesting than I do. My rotation features 1951 Ken Raffensberger, 1963 Ralph Terry, and 1981 Rick Honeycutt. They’re all low-walk guys but slightly susceptible to homers, with all WHIPs under 1.10. For this team at least, I remembered to draft a few SP for the bullpen, so I’ve got that going for me here anyway.

On the offensive side, I’ve got good speed from 1984 Alan Wiggins, 1995 Vince Coleman, 2022 Randy Arozarena, and 1979 Bill Madlock. The remaining guys are like the first season theme song from Gilligan’s Island (“and the rest”), but none of them look like Mary Ann alas. Heck, I just hope not to get stranded anyway.

5,126 PA, .274/.335/.397, 227 2B, 43 3B, 85 HR
1,287 IP, 3.36 ERA, .250 OAV, 1.11 WHIP


80M: Phenomenal Cannonballers

The thought process here isn’t overwhelming. You build your two best rosters and compare them, right? The problem comes when you do that and like aspects of each of them better and can’t really decide which one to use. In the end I went with 19th-Century pitching and the late 20th-Century hitting, partly because the modern defense should help (whereas in the flip scenario the defense stands to look worse, or did I get that totally backwards?) and because I found the limited options on the 19thC hitters a bit too restrictive. Most of you went the other direction, so I probably overthought this somehow and blew the coin flip.

Because the SP can go deep into games, I’m less concerned about having a shallow pen in this league. I’ll be relying on 1892 Cy Young, 1888 Henry Gruber and the magically named 1888 Cannonball Titcomb to handle the major bulk of the innings. I have 4 relievers with under 40 innings, including my mopup, and I really don’t love that. But one of them is named Phenomenal, so I assume he will never let me down. I’d never heard of half these guys, and I just hope they’re half decent in their anonymity.

The task in forming the lineup comes in preparing to face a lot of deadballers and playing in pitcher parks, so HR will be in short supply. But I had to expect at least a handful of modern pitching staffs in there, so initially I didn’t want to ignore homers completely. I built a team with 3 guys with some pop in the lineup, but then I started writing this up and thinking about it some more and decided there was no point in watching Carlos Delgado struggle to put up 15 homers. I kept ‘88 Kirk Gibson, though, because he’s ‘88 Kirk Gibson and he’s on the team, dammit. He hit third on my R1 team, too, and we got to the WS and to the TOC Final Four, so I’m not messing with that mojo. (I did fail to keep first-round namesake Torey Lovullo on the roster, though, and I hope that isn’t bad for chemistry. Torey, please don’t let your D’backs take it out on my Dodgers.)

I made a few other changes besides Delgado, went for a speed team in the Astrodome with a bunch of switch hitters, and I can only hope the changes turn out for the better. It’s hardly an original idea, but both of these hitting eras are good for speed and sometimes there’s no fighting City Hall. Just hope you build a better version of the thing everyone’s doing. (Pity the outfielders in this league, though, because it turns out half of us are playing in the Astrodome and it’s going to be murder on their knees.)

I suspected more than a few teams would load up on base stealers here and we’d play a lot of road games in pitchers’ parks, too. I originally had a decent arm Brian Harper behind the plate, but I changed my mind and went for a lesser hitter but close to 50% in CS in Benito Santiago. I went for more speed at 1B and brought in Darin Erstad (82) over stiff-legged Delgado. I also decided for more speed and range at 2B at the expense of some offense with Harold Reynolds over Bret Barberie. I also swapped out Rickey for Tim Raines to get another switch-hitter in there, too (joining Willie McGee and Tony Fernandez).


5,213 PA, .294/.364/.428, 258 2B, 41 3B, 87 HR, 208 SB
1,332 IP, 2.38 ERA, .214 OAV, 1.05 WHIP


100M: South Side Party Circa 2003

I built a handful of rosters here, sometimes stopping after 16-17 players if it just didn’t look like the combinations would work. I couldn’t really build a complete pitching staff I liked on any older teams, with the exception of one of the 1961 games. The problem there turned out to be the park, Fenway, because I just couldn’t match the offense to the park well and handle the extra innings I’d need. I had a solid 1977 roster, but it didn’t have quite as much punch as some of the others.

So I wound up with mostly a bunch of modern rosters. Both 2016 and 2018 were pretty promising among recent seasons, but ultimately I found that there wasn’t a ton of difference between a lot of these and I ought to just go with one that I could live with and not overthink it. I’m sure if I had dozens of hours and tried many combinations on different seasons I could have found a better one, but 2003 works out well enough.

There were several SP who fit well into the target salary range from this game, though unfortunately they’re all righties. So I have a rotation of 2004 Jason Schmidt, 2000 Kevin Brown, 2011 Roy Halladay and 1996 John Smoltz. It’s the best or second-best season for each of them, and aside from Schmidt they are stingy with walks. A lefty would have been nice in there, but I can live with it.

In the bullpen, you can still get guys with 80+ innings and a bit over 1 IP/G in this era and save a roster spot compared with the more recent teams. I’ve got a solid late-innings corps with 2003 Billy Wagner, 2001 Keith Foulke, and 2004 Eric Gagne, with 1998 Mike Williams tagging along. 2001 Woody Williams will be a spot starter, with a 52-inning 2006 Jamie Moyer on hand for some long relief. I had a walk-prone Everyday Eddie Guardado in there as a second setup lefty originally, but I had a bad feeling he’d get roughed up and dumped him. I wound up with a K/BB ratio of 1413-329 in 1,396 innings, which looks pretty good at this point.

1,396 IP, 2.68 ERA, .214 OAV, 1.02 WHIP

Since this was actually one of the first rosters I built, I can barely remember what my lineup decisions were. I just know that I wound up with six guys who slug, three switch-hitters, a couple good base stealers, and even a useful bench. The lineup features 1996 Barry Bonds (40-40, 1.062 OPS#), 2008 Manny Ramirez (1.008), 1998 Carlos Delgado (.947), and 2000 Carl Everett (.918) as the biggest thumpers. There’s also good power from 2006 Scott Rolen (.861) and 2003 Jason Varitek (.837). Up the middle I have leadoff man 2000 Luis Castillo (.334 AVG, .418 OBP) and a platoon of 1996 Edgar Renteria and 2011 Rafael Furcal.

It’s not my best defense, lacking any A+ range guys, but I’m hoping all the strikeout pitchers make that less relevant. Varitek won’t be great catching base-stealers, so that’s a potential hazard. Everett (B+ range) is manning CF with a little less range than I’d prefer, too. So it's sounding less impressive with every sentence I add now, and I should probably stop. I’m sure I could have managed to find a slightly better squad with more time and effort, but I think it’s a solid balanced team that works with the park (US Cellular, +1 for HR) pretty well. It won’t be my best team of the round, but I hope it’s not my worst either.

5,559 PA, .300/.385/.514, 296 2B, 18 3B, 231 HR


110M: A Matter of 2017 National Pride

Like most of you, I presume, I tried a lot of possible teams here. Almost all the ones I liked reasonably well came from the most recent few seasons, though that inevitably comes with the challenges of modern pitcher usage that I’ll just have to live with. I toyed with the 2020 and 2022 Dodgers and do rather like aspects of both rosters, and the 2020 White Sox also were pretty promising. The farthest back I got a full roster out of was the 1969 Orioles, who probably found at least one taker in this league. I’d be surprised if they didn’t. I’m also guessing we’ll see at least a handful of 2020 rosters, as there really are a few options that work. (Editor’s note: Yes, we do have one ‘69 O’s and eight 2020 teams as it turned out.)

It’s always difficult picking a favorite at this stage, but I ultimately went with the 2017 Nationals. At first glance, they didn’t blow me away. But as I built it out, I saw that they had the depth to offer the necessary 17 players and that the FA options fit pretty well with their needs.

It helps tremendously that the Nats only really needed to fill spots at C and two in the OF/DH realm. They have three reserves with over 300 PA who are all good, so that allowed a shorter bench and gave me the ability to go with 13 hitters and add an extra pitcher.

The incumbent Nats in the lineup are 1B Ryan Zimmerman (.911 OPS#), 2B Daniel Murphy (.908), 3B Anthony Rendon (.918), SS Trea Turner (.770, with 95 speed), OF Bryce Harper (.989), and OF Michael Taylor (.787, with 93 speed). Aside from 1B the defense is pretty solid, and 6 of the hitters I’m using hit at least .300.

To that mix I’ve added a leadoff man in batting champ Charlie Blackmon (.981), the best C that season in Buster Posey (.842), and an A++ CF in Lorenzo Cain (.782). I’ll have to rotate a lot of guys into the lineup, but this group has 9 .300 hitters in it and at least 5 guys who are power threats (10 players slug at least .450). I like the balance and depth of the lineup, with guys like Cain, Taylor and Turner at the bottom with speed who are also not easy outs. The only really weak spot is awful backup C Jose Lobaton, but I couldn’t figure out a way to keep a different 17th guy just to upgrade him. I have to take 5 FA pitchers to make that staff work, so something had to give.

As for that pitching staff, we start with two Nats in the rotation, Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg (farewell, ye tragic character), and add Corey Kluber, Chris Sale and Clayton Kershaw. This gives us a balanced 5-man rotation with about 970 innings, which had better work because I have no spot starters at all. Here are the K-BB totals of these guys (it is a pretty impressive collection): 265-36, 268-55, 308-43, 204-47, 202-30. When we face modern teams, we’re gonna see a mess of Ks. As a team, I have 1,700 Ks in 1,406 IP.

My Nats bullpen holdovers include a very solid Ryan Madson, Sean Doolittle, and Matt Albers, plus a guy to eat some innings in Brandon Kintzler, and a mopup. This group allows me to get by with just the final 2 FA: Chad Green and Felipe (“I was Wander Franco before Wander Franco”) Rivero. That’s basically 5 solid back-end arms with ERC# under 1.75, but the weakness is all of them are 1-inning guys. This is the penance for using such a recent season.

All in all, I think it’s a team without a big weakness, balanced hitting and pitching, speed and power and average, and above-average defense. I’m going to assume a few other owners found them, too. But since no one else used them, doubts are creeping in now in a big way.

Footnote: It hadn’t occurred to me when putting this team together that we’d wind up with quite that many deadball teams and potentially even enough to pull a 2017 team into the league with them. As rosters came in, I was keeping track of the league balance and got pretty nervous I’d be stuck in the deadball league. My chances here would look a lot worse if I’m not playing mostly modern teams. Turns out I got the very last spot in the modern league, and I’m really grateful that when magicdreamer had to revise his roster he stayed pre-2017 and didn’t bump me.

Footnote 2: Big shoutout to the three owners who used the 1914 Red Sox. As it happens, my girlfriend’s great-grandfather Ray Collins was the ace of that team. Any time I get to mention his use in one of my leagues scores me a couple points at home. Heck, she gets a ton of points for even wanting to hear anything about WIS. Plus, she will stick with me even if I bomb this whole round.

1,406 IP, 2.46 ERA, .198 OAV, 0.94 WHIP, 0.84 HR/9
6,241 PA, .302/.370/.504, 330 2B, 40 3B, 239 HR


120M: They’ve Got Me Cornered

I actually built this roster before Round 1 to make sure I liked it enough to use Card 8. Turns out the 80M team I got out of it won 100 games and made it to the WS. Let’s hope I come anywhere near that with this squad.

I went with the corners: 1931, 1951, 1972, and 1985. These years drew me to the card to begin with, because I knew I could form a great starting rotation from the latter two years and the bulk of a lineup from the first two. I was sure I’d use 72 Don Sutton to anchor the rotation, then pick from among the likes of Steve Carlton, Tom Seaver and Catfish Hunter from 72 and Doc Gooden and John Tudor from 85. Ultimately, I went with Hunter and Tudor, then added 72 Jim Kaat’s 120 IP to cover the rest of the rotation needs.

(We aren’t going to talk about my team in thejuice6’s tournament right now that has Sutton and Hunter in rotation with Vida Blue and underperforming horribly. Well shoot, I guess I just talked about it. Catfish is doing fine, but Sutton is 11-20, 4.13, and I hope he’s gotten that out of his system. That team really disappointed me, but I blame it all on Reggie Jackson and Rollie Fingers, who are nowhere to be found in this league.)

My bullpen is hurt by not having any season from the past two decades, but I used my wild card pick to help out there. Jim Brewer and Doug Rau, Sutton’s Dodger teammates, were solid additions, and from ‘85 I took Steve Ontiveros and short-inning guy Bob Woodward (who once saved 35 of 36 with an ERA of 0.55 for me before one bad inning late in the season pushed his ERA over 1.). I also have 33 innings from ‘31 Bill Harris, which does mean 3 of my relievers have 35 IP or fewer, so that’s not fantastic. But I added 2017 Chad Green to provide some much-needed depth, and 72 Doyle Alexander will be a long man, along with Kaat when he’s not in the rotation. So that’s 6 pitchers from 1972, which works out just fine. Hitters were pretty blah that year.

1,448 IP, 2.04 ERA, .194 OAV, 0.93 WHIP

I have 3 starters from 1931 (Mickey Cochrane, Bill Terry, Earl Averill), 3 from 1951 (Jackie Robinson, Minnie Minoso, Eddie Joost) and 2 from 1985 (George Brett, Rickey Henderson). That gives me a few guys with a lot of speed and strong defense everywhere except Minoso in LF. I’ve got 4 lefties and 4 righties, so that’s a good balance. I probably could have found a way to afford Willie McGee and in retrospect maybe wish I had. There are cheaper 3B than Brett who are still quite good, but I always love having Brett in my lineup and this was a great season of his. And I’ll happily take 20-80 Rickey atop the order.

(Footnote: I feel like if someone had told Rickey back then that we’d be going nuts over a 40-70 season, Rickey would have made sure he did it first. Willie Mays used to say he would have gone 30-30 every season if he’d known it would become a big deal later. Pretty sure he could have done a 50-50 if he’d tried, but hardly anyone stole bases in the 1950s.)

5,739 PA, .325/.411/.523, 291 2B, 80 3B, 178 HR

No need to repeat my 160M writeup, so I guess that’s all he wrote. Good luck, everyone. It’s been fun organizing this thing, and being in competition to win it has been the cherry on top. It’s always an honor to face the challenge of some of the best owners on this site.

60M: Good Moon Rising
Stadium: Astrodome

Had a lot of fun with this build; it probably helps that I enjoy 60-70M more than any other caps. At this level finding cookies is even more important because it can be such a significant percentage of your salary cap. The differential of having a 60M team play more like a 65M roster should be huge. So I wanted to find a combination of underpriced players with a secondary position and/or 2017-2022 players without the salary adjustment. Focused on the hitters to start, as I wasn’t going to be rostering any superstar pitchers at this cap…

The anchor of my team was a bit of a splurge but I wanted to make sure that I could make 1956 Wally Moon (Cards) and his 4.7M salary work. He will be one of the MVP candidates with his .302#/.394#/.459# slash line and A+ range at 1B hopefully good for 25 or so positive plays. 2021 Whit Merrifield (Royals) and his 720 PA at 2B will be a net positive in the field (A-/A), hit a bunch of doubles, and steal a ton of bases from the leadoff spot, all for under 4M. And I plan on shutting down opposing base stealers with the two headed catcher of 2014 Brayan Pena (Reds, switch hitter with an A+ arm) and 1983 John Wockenfuss (1983 Tigers, B+ arm, sneaky power). With the rest of my hitters, I just tried to fill in what I could for limited salary; there is some speed, some power, some decent fielding. Feels like a pretty decent lineup for just over 30M:

Lineup:
C: Brayan Pena (2014 Reds) & John Wockenfuss (1983 Tigers)
1B: Wally Moon (1956 Cards)
2B: Whit Merrifield (2021 Royals): also with 86 speed
SS: Wander Franco (2022 Rays) & Johan Camargo (2017 Braves): both are A fielders (not so much their range)
3B: Don Money (1973 Brewers): .286#/.348#/.402#, A/D, 77 speed, 22/27 SB
OF: David Fletcher (2019 Angels): .295#/.353#/.357#, A+/C+, will play CF by default
OF: Cody Bellinger (2018 Dodgers): .268#/.349#/.459#, 76 speed, 14/15 SB
OF: Andrew Benintendi (2019 Red Sox): .271#/.346#/.402#, 75 speed, 7 2B/100#

Went low with 1,236 IP, but that has been fine for me at this cap before (plus it is spread out over 13 arms). Going with a three and a half man rotation of Gaylord Perry (1976 Rangers), Preacher Roe (1945 Pirates), Mike Moore (1985 Mariners), and Thornton Lee (1944 White Sox, pitching every other turn in the rotation). Filled in the bullpen with some underpriced arms, several of which were low inning starters to boot. This includes Pat Combs (1989 Phillies, 39 IP, 895K), Gil Heredia (1998 A’s, 50 IP, 1.02M), Bill Short (1966 Orioles, 39 IP, 843K), and Paul Toth (1962 Cubs, 34 IP, 738K).

Hitting: 5,299 PA, .276 / .340 / .415, $30.8M
Pitching: 1,236 IP, 0.254 OAV, 1.19 WHIP, 0.55 HR/9, $29.2M


80M: Old Arms & Young(er) Legs
Stadium: Riverfront Stadium

Went back and forth on which pairing to use before settling on the old time pitchers and (relatively) recent hitters. Admittedly, I was leaning the opposite way when I first started looking at the choice, but in the end I wasn’t crazy about my potential 1985-1999 starting pitchers. So here we go…

For the 1885-1899 pitchers, I found there was just enough “relief” pitching to make three starters work. 1888 Charlie Buffinton and his 499 IP will be my workhorse (.225 OAV#/1.05 WHIP#). He will be supported by nearly 300 IP each from 1885 Ed Cushman (.225 OAV# / 1.08 WHIP#) and 1888 Henry Gruber (.225 OAV# / 1.09 WHIP#) respectively. Combined the three starters account for close to 1,100 IP and both Buffinton and Cushman strike out batters more like modern pitchers (Gruber not so much). Throw in 1898 Jack Taylor, 1886 Phenomenal Smith, 1898 Sam Leever, 1899 Kid Carsey, 1899 Patsy Flaherty, and 1899 Tom Thomas, and we have ~1,300 non mop-up IPs.

As for the hitters, I realized that my successful open league teams when I first started playing WIS tended to have a lot of speed and numerous players from the 1985-1999 era. Couldn’t use all of my faves (sorry Tim Raines), but I tried for a nice combination of speed, high OBP and power figuring I’d be going up against a good number of modern staffs. Lineup and highlights are below:

Lineup:
C: Four headed 1992 Jim Leyritz (A arm) / 1992 Dave Cochrane / 1987 Ted Simmons (B+ arm) / 1994 BJ Surhoff (all for a cool 3.7M)
1B: 1998 Dmitri Young (S): .310#/.363#/.467#, 8 2B/100#
2B: 1990 Bill Doran (S): .304#/.415#/.434#, 7 2B/100#, 78 speed, 23/32 SB + 1990 Ron Oester (S) as backup
SS: 1998 Barry Larkin: .309#/.396#/.489#, 78 speed, 26/29 SB, A/D
3B: 1997 Ken Caminiti (S): .290#/.386#/.494#, 4 HR/100#, C/A-, 11/13 SB
OF: 1985 Willie McGee (S): .328#/.377#/.418#, D/A+, 90 speed, 31/40 SB
OF: 1988 Kirk Gibson: .297#/.387#/.494#, 4 HR/100#, 84 speed, 31/35 SB
OF: 1985 Mike Marshall: .299#/.347#/.520#, 5 HR/100#

Went with Riverfront, as it should amplify the doubles and homers I should hit and also suppress singles which I am less reliant on. Fingers crossed…

Hitting: 5,247 PA, .293 / .368 / .458, $37.4M
Pitching: 1,363 IP, 0.222 OAV, 1.02 WHIP, 0.17 HR/9, $42.6M


100M: 2019 Jacobs Field
Stadium: Jacobs Field (of course)

My goal for this cap was to maximize the modern starting pitchers (preferably those with a bit lower HR/9# rate) in a relatively homer friendly park and go from there. With no 2020 All-Star game and the 2021 game at Coors Field, I found that 2019 had the best combination of ballpark and great usable starting seasons.

Starting rotation: Kershaw (2015), deGrom (2018), Bieber (2020), Verlander (2022)
Key relivers: Liam Hendriks (2019), Scherzer (2021), Brad Hand (2020), Kirby Yates (2019), Felipe Vazquez (2019), Ryan Pressly (2021), Marcus Stroman (2015)

Note that the hardest thing regarding the pitching was finding a back of the bullpen guy (thank you 2018 Brandon Woodruff) and a mop-up guy (thank you 2010 Mike Minor).

Spent 55M+ on the pitching staff, so I was a bit more economical with the lineup. Hopefully they will hit just enough:

Lineup:
C: 2022 JT Realmuto: .286#/.349#/.470# (A+ arm), 69 speed for a catcher!, 21/22 SB
1B: 2013 Freddy Freeman: .326#/.403#/.498#, B-/A-
2B: 2019 DJ LeMahieu: .333#/.378#/.489#
SS: 2021 Xander Bogaerts: .304#/.377#/.476#, A/D
3B: 2017 Anthony Rendon: .306#/.405#/.512#, 7 2B/100#, A/C-
OF: 2019 Ketel Marte (S): .335#/.392#/.568#, 75 speed, 10/12 SB
OF: 2018 Whit Merrifield: .311#/.373#/.421#, B+/A-, 86 speed, 45/55 SB
OF: 2019 David Dahl: .308#/.356#/.499#, 77 speed + 2011 Hunter Pence: .329#/.399#/.556#


Hitting: 5,301 PA, .306 / .374 / .505, $45.1M
Pitching: 1,340 IP, 0.194 OAV, 0.91 WHIP, 0.60 HR/9 (much lower normalized), $55.9M


110M: 1914 Red Sox and Friends
Stadium: Fenway Park

Given that few actual teams have a full roster beyond 80M and that you have to use at least 17 players, my goal for this theme were to:

1. Get as close to 55M with the selected team
2. Maximize the value of such players (while there will be some scrubs)
3. Find a season that has excellent free agents for 110M but not too expensive

In thinking about this, I gravitated immediately to the deadball era. Figured it would be easier to find a team with a couple of good position players and starting pitching and then build around this. Also, you can find free agent pitchers that potentially get you 300+ IPs (can’t do with the modern teams). Yet, finding the right balance of strong pitching seasons versus strong hitting years is a challenge. First thought about 1909, and built teams around the A’s, Cubs, and Pirates. They were ok, but I felt there was quite a bit of inefficiency.

Then I looked at the 1914 season, and it had exactly what I was looking for – several strong starting pitchers and lots of great bats. This of course was amplified by the Federal League teams, which also provided a larger pot of potential free agent teams. And then I looked at the Red Sox roster, and I had my team. 17 players for just a hair under 59M, including the following:

Tris Speaker OF: 708 PA, .347#/.428#/535# (8/2/1), C+/A+ (really A+++, as his range factor is an off the charts 3.37)
Duffy Lewis OF: 632 PA, .286#/.362#/.429# (8/1/0), C-/B-
Larry Gardner 3B: 635 PA, .266#/.308#/.416# (4/2/0), C+/A
Steve Yerkes SS: 508 PA, .265#/.306#/.393# (6/1/0), A/B+
Dick Hoblitzel 1B: 277 PA, .327# /.391#/.419# (4/1/0), C-/A-
Three headed catcher, who for the most part hit and throw well

Dutch Leonard: 238 IP, .188 OAV# / 0.94 WHIP#
Rube Foster: 225 IP, .226 OAV# / 1.08 WHIP#
Ernie Shore: 148 IP, .212 OAV# / 1.04 WHIP#
Fritz Coumbe: 66 IP, .230 OAV# / 1.10 WHIP#

So from the Red Sox, I was able to get fantastic fielding at SS/3B/CF/C and close to 700 good to great IP. What this did was allowed me to tailor the free agents to meet the remaining needs:
Steve Evans 1B [Brooklyn Feds]: 611 PA, .348#/.417#/.571# (8/2/3), D-/A (amazing that a D- fielder can be a net positive in the field!)
Bill Kenworthy 2B [Kansas City Packers]: 656 PA, .317#/.372#/.539# (7/2/3), C-/B+
Benny Kauff OF [Indianapolis Hoosier-Feds]: 707 PA, .369#/.448#/.549# (7/1/2), C-/B+
Sherry Magee DH/SS/OF [Phillies]: 648 PA, .321#/.386#/.535# (7/1/4)
Claude Hendrix [Chicago Whales]: 381 IP, .196 OAV# / 0.96 WHIP#
Ray Caldwell [Yankees]: 225 IP, .214 OAV# / 1.01 WHIP#
Red Oldham [Tigers]: 48 IP, .251 OAV# / 1.16 WHIP# (pretty decent for under 1M)
Harry Hoch [Browns]: 58 IP, .291 OAV# / 1.58 WHIP# (mop up extraordinaire)

All in all, 6661 PA and 1416 PA with <5K left over. Feel really good about the efficiency and quality of this team, particularly playing in Fenway. They will hit a ton of doubles (for which the park is +4) and make a lot of + plays.

Hitting (w/DH): 6,661 PA, .297 / .369 / .438, $58.3M
Pitching: 1,416 IP, 0.209 OAV, 0.99 WHIP, 0.13 HR/9, $51.7M

120M: Hey (Card) Nineteen
Stadium: Target Field

Since this was a round 1 & 2 combo theme, I knew from the start that I wanted 2020 right away in round 2 (assuming I made the cage). Well here we are, and I have my roster that I came up with months ago and sat on. Went with the diagonal of 1930, 1939, 1962, 2002, and 2020 which allowed for a mainly modern pitching staff with extremely low OAVs and WHIPs. Mitigated against the home run by playing in Target Field. Went with a couple of platoons and found just enough bench guys to fill in the remaining PAs:

Lineup:
C: Smokey Burgess (1962) & Don Padgett (1939) – susceptible to the stolen base, but man will they hit
1B: Johnny Mize (1939)
2B: Frankie Frisch (1930)
SS: Joe Cronin (1930)
3B: DJ LeMahieu (2020)
OF: Frank Robinson (1962)
OF: Larry Walker (2002)
OF: Heinie Manush (1930) & Showboat Fisher (1930)

Starting rotation: Bieber, Lamet, Bauer, Maeda (all 2020), Pedro (2002)
Relievers: Arthur Rhodes, Buddy Groom, Octavio Dotel (all 2002), Jim Umbricht (1962), Max Lanier (1939)

Hitting: 5,575 PA, .348 / .415 / .561, $61.7M
Pitching: 1,371 IP, 0.186 OAV, 0.91 WHIP, 0.79 HR/9 (much lower normalized), $58.3M


160M: The Babe in Coors Field!
Stadium: Coors Field (of course)

Just hoping that Babe Ruth hits about 100 home runs, Tris Speaker (CF), Hughie Jennings (SS), and Nap Lajoie (2B) make a bunch of great plays, and the pitching staff led by Ed Walsh, Mordecai Brown, Pedro, and a bunch of stud relievers does just enough to compete for a playoff spot.

Hitting (w/DH): 6,395 PA, .356 / .442 / .579, $84.1M
Pitching: 1,644 IP, 0.193 OAV, 0.89 WHIP, 0.16 HR/9, $75.9M

Good luck to everyone - should be a really fun Round 2!

For my last two teams (110M and 120M), I built a bunch of rosters and had a really tough time deciding which roster to use. I did something that I've never done before. When I heard we weren't going to start until early October, I created a personal 12-team league and put six of my $110M rosters into the NL and six of my $120M rosters into the AL. I set it up so there was no inter-divisional play. I got to the 120-game mark before rosters were due.

For the BINGO league, I knew that the "optimal" method of building a roster was to use all 25 squares. This was proven to be true in a similar BINGO league I ran a few years ago. Had I thought I would make it to round 2, I would have saved that method for round 2, but I didn't - I used that method in round 1. I never even tried to build a round 2 roster ahead of time. That being said, I chose Card 19 specifically because I know I would use at least five players from the 2020 season (which was also on a corner, which would maximize my options).

So when it came time to build these rosters, I built six different rosters, including
Team 1- Column O (2020, 1991, 1949, 1929, 1923))
Team 2 - Row 1 (2006, 1999, 1972, 1956, 2020)
Team 3 - Row 5 (1939, 2017, 1981, 1966, 1923 )
Team 4 - Column I (1999, 2011, 1941, 2002, 2017)
Team 5 - Corners (2006, 2020, 1939, 1923)
Team 6 - Column G (1956, 1962, 2018, 2014, 1966)

My hope was that one of these teams would stand out after playing roughly 120 games. Well, four of the teams were hovering around.500. One of the teams was 9-10 games below .500 and one of the teams was 9-10 games above .500. Of course, the above .500 team was a roster that did not have the 2020 season represented. To make things more complicated, their expected winning% was barely over .500 due to good 1-run game luck. The team with the best exp winning% also had the biggest luck in 1-run games, being roughly 10 games over .500 - so what the heck am I supposed to do? Was this all a waste of time?

$120 Million - BINGO
Trail and Error (Card 19) (Ebbets Field)
I went with the team that was 9-10 games over .500. I went with Team 6, Column G (using the years 1956, 1962, 1966, 2014, 2018). I didn't like the fatigue issues I was having with the the other team (which was Team 2). I had '72 Gaylord Perry on that roster, and it was a hassle to keep the starting rotation flowing, with my SPs having between 150-350 innings. I'm sure I am making the wrong choice. Everybody knows that the 2020 pitchers are the dead nuts in this game. I picked Card 19 to use 2020, then decided not to use 2020. Brilliant.

One thing I did do was make a couple of changes mid-season. I had '18 Mookie Betts playing CF (he was my best range OF). He was awful. He was my team's worst hitter and was not good defensively. So I swapped in '62 Hank Aaron for him. I also removed '18 Aaron Nola (who was also terrible) and replaced him with '14 Adam Wainwright. I made a couple of other tweaks to get the years balanced, but in the games since the change both replacement players are doing better than the players they replaced. One thing I like about this team is that I have seven pitchers with at least 157 innings (including 3 lefties), so I can mix/match based on opponent. Also, no RPs with low IP/G numbers.

Anyway, here is my roster...

Offense
C: 1966 Joe Torre
1B: 1956 Wally Moon
2B: 1956 Jim Gilliam
3B: 1966 Ron Santo
SS: 1962 Tom Tresh
OF: 1962 Hank Aaron
OF: 1956 Ted Williams / 1956 Bob Cerv
OF: 1962 Mickey Mantle / 2018 Tommy Pham
PH: 1962 Walt Bond / 2014 Jake Smolinski

Batting totals (excluding scrubs): 5553 PA, .313 / .408 / .527 $59.506 million

Pitching
2014 Adam Wainwright
2018 Jacob deGrom
1966 Gary Peters
2014 Clayton Kershaw
2014 Garrett Richards
2018 Chris Sale
2014 Jake Arrieta
1966 Bob Locker
1966 Pat Jarvis

Pitching Totals (excluding scrubs): 1489 ips, 2.16 era, .203 oav, 0.96 whip, 2.0 bb/9, 0.39 hr/9 $59.533 million

Well, I'll acknowledge that's an effective way to use up a lot of site credit, if nothing else. I suspect you'll have laments if that team doesn't get off to a strong start.

Interesting. I built many, many teams for the 110M as well. I didn't enter them into their own league but I did try making them dream teams and playing them off against each other with sim matchup. I found that extremely frustrating as you can't use a DH, can't set pitching rotations, and have to manually set the starter and ballpark every time. I gave up before it told me anything useful.

I'll add more complete details later on why I went with the 1924 Reds. However, I can tell that my favourite of the teams was the 1985 Cardinals. I see you created one of those for your mini-league as well and that it's not doing well. Maybe I dodged a bullet there. The 1920 Indians was another of my strong considerations - that offence with Ruth and Hornsby added was incredible.

1888 Giants, 1895 Phillies (talk about great offences), 1899 Phillies, 1902 Blues, 1902 Pirates (Another of your choices, I see), 1914 Red Sox, 1937 Yankees, 1996 Mariners, 1997 Yankees, 2015 Jays, 2020 Padres were other ones that lived in my draft center for awhile.

I purposely stayed away from the 2019 Astros and 2020 Dodgers as I figured they would be popular and I like to be that way sometimes.

I also tried setting up my 110M teams in the sim matchup, but once I realized I couldn't use the DH, I scrapped it pretty quickly.

The $110 million theme was by far my favorite theme. I just kept building teams. A total of 14 rosters... I had to narrow it down to 6 rosters for my live testing. Here are the eight teams that didn't make it into my private league.

1906 Cubs
1921 Giants
1924 Giants
1941 Dodgers
1942 Yankees
1944 Cardinals
1954 Indians
2004 Cardinals

The teams that did make it include...
1902 Pirates
1914 Red Sox
1969 Orioles
1985 Cardinals
2019 Astros
2020 Dodgers

$110 Million - Elite Eight
1914 Boston Red Sox (Fenway Park)

Two of the six teams were playing above .500 at the 120-game mark of my test season... the '69 Orioles and the '14 Red Sox. The Orioles actually had a better record than the Red Sox, but their record was mainly due to a 17-6 record vs the '19 Astros. Although I like the pitching and defense of the '69 Orioles, they are a bit right-handed heavy (even with free agents Rose & R.Smith). I figured a bunch of folks would take the 2019 Astros or 2020 Dodgers and I wanted to mute the HRs of those teams. (I had forgotten about the alignment by season, but it probably didn't matter in my decision). If I could have worked out the fact that the '69 Orioles teams would've been stuck in the "deadball" division, I would have taken the 1914 Red Sox anyway.

Here is my roster...

Offense (Free agents highlighted)
C: Les Nunamker, Bill Carrigan, Hick Cady
1B: Dick Hobitzel / Fred Kommers (of) / Olaf Hendrickson (of)
2B: Bill Kenworthy
3B: Larry Gardner
SS: Donnie Bush
OF: Tris Speaker (will also play 1B)
OF: Benny Kauff
OF: Duffy Lewis / Elmer Smith
DH: Gavvy Cravath

Hitting totals (excluding scrubs): 6236 pa, .297 / .379 / .427 $54.305 million

Pitching
Claude Hendrix
Ray Collins
Dutch Leonard
Rube Foster
Ernie Shore
Joe Wood
Al Mamaux
Fritz Coumbe

Pitching Totals (excluding scrubs): 1534 ips, 1.83 era, .214 oav, 1.01 whip, 2.2 bb/9, 0.11 hr/9 $54.274 million

I'll apologize in advance for my slight delay in getting my final team in. It was quite a saga. I was worried about playing in round 2 since I knew I wouldn't have a lot of time to build these teams. And some of these themes were a) awesome and b) ones that benefit from building a bunch of teams to see which one you like best. At least I got them all in eventually, even though some of them will probably taste a little raw in the middle since they didn't really have enough time in the oven.

60m - All We Can Afford Is Soup

Well, I totally misread this theme. I thought we had to pick ONE franchise and make a season soup. Boy was that a challenge. But the Mariners team I built was fun, in the end. After I re-read the theme instructions, I realized this one was much easier - relatively speaking, at least. I figured I'd end up with a bunch of 2017-22 guys whose prices hadn't been adjusted, but at this cap, I guess no one has gone up that much. At least I did make a list of a few interesting players at each position before picking the Mariners as the franchise I wanted to use, so I could lean on that research.

So in the end this is a mostly typical 60m team. Using every possible roster spot. Lots of speed and efficient base stealing. Platoons and switch hitters. It all starts with the catcher, so Evan Gattis was the first guy I drafted (the Astros version, with an A+ arm and a DH salary). After that I added the infielders (Jose Ramirez, Bobby Witt, Joe Morgan - what a trio) and then went on to the rotation, then the OF/1B guys, then the bullpen, and then the bench. I didn't really have to work around the soup requirements too often, except for the Royals. My goodness there are a lot of Royals who I wanted to use. I've got Jon Berti as a rover who will get ABs at 5 positions, 2 other cheap uber-noodle-armed catchers (Tres Barrera and Wilson Ramos) and ... naturally, Gary Sheffield. Wait, what? Yeah, this team does have a bit more power than a typical 60m team, so I put them in Rogers Centre and tried to draft pitchers who keep the ball in the park. Will the other owners ignore their pitchers' HR/9s? Probably? Will they put their teams in Busch Stadium so it doesn't matter? Also probably.

80m - Stronger than a 90s Trend

I have a feeling that the 1800s hitters will make for a better team. But I didn't want to limit my options, so I built the modern hitters team first. And then ran out of time, so that's the team entered. It's a very typical 80m team - no power, Busch Stadium, platoons, switch hitters, and lots of speed (and very efficient base stealing). Most of the old hitting teams will probably have John Kerins catching, though. I was able to find a reasonable pitching staff of old pitchers - the bullpen is the biggest concern, since the options are limited, but I managed to find enough guys to make a normal-looking bullpen (Bill George 42ip, Frank Dwyer 51ip, John Weyhing 80ip, the amazingly named Doc Amole 88ip, Bill Blair 38ip, and Hank O'Day 67ip).

100m - Hey Now, You're a 2018 All Star

This is another one where I wish I had more time. I was town between 2011 - which is the all-star game that featured the most players ever - 2018, and 2019. The 2018 team has an entire rotation of post-2017 pitchers who should be a little cheaper (Verlander, deGrom, Sale, Snell, Nola - I couldn't fit Kluber under the cap, and I've still probably still spent too much on the rotation), and not surprisingly a good bullpen. I looked up some guys ahead of time who would be good bench players and ended up using a couple of them (Javy Baez and Wilson Ramos) but also managed to fill the 25 spots by running 3 platoons in LF and at 2B/SS. The other team I really considered was 2011, which was a really fun team of some of my favorite players, but didn't feel quite as strong. (Sorry Cutch, Grandy, Panda, Russell Martin, CC, Doc and Felix!) I'm sure that some of the older teams from the 30s could be really interesting but I just couldn't get around to looking at them.

110m - Being Brave in 2020

I built the popular team - the 2020 Dodgers. But I wanted to look at other options. I tried the 1906 Cubs. I tried the 2019 Astros, who should have worked, but came up about 6mil short. If I had more time I'd try to figure out why they didn't work. Then I tried the 2020 Braves and they ended up looking better than the Dodgers. I don't know exactly why I liked them more - more OBP, but less pitching, so I guess I liked the balance? I would have happily built dozens of these teams if I had the time. It was a really good theme.

V1 - 2020 Dodgers - 6194pa 273/363/523, B-/B-, 341 HR, 47sb/13cs, 50.76m; 1438ip, 0.88whip, 0.84hr9, 1.92bb9, .186oav, 9.5k9, 59.19m
v3 - 2020 Braves - 6510pa, 283/373/529, B-/C+ 336hr, 27sb/5cs, 54.11m; 1411ip, 0.95whip 0.76hr9, 2.39bb9, .191oav, 10.5k9, 55.65m

The Braves have Freeman with his amazing OBP (he probably makes up that whole 10 point difference, so he'd better perform) plus Ozuna, Acuna, Swanson, Riley, D'Arnaud, Max Fried and a pretty good bullpen (though not as good as the Dodgers). I added 4 starters - Maeda, Lamet, Bieber, and Kyle Hendricks - plus Bryce Harper to DH, Anthony Santander as a 4th OF, and Tommy La Stella to platoon with Albies. I messed this team up a bit since I had to take the cheaper A's version of La Stella so I could use Max Stassi from the Angels, but then I upgraded Stassi to Austin Nola, and never revisited La Stella. So I've got a little hole at 2B and Austin Riley isn't much of a hitter at 3B, and this team is pretty power dependent, and have their catchers batting 5th, but they've got a really strong rotation!

120m - B-I-N-G-O Round Two

I didn't spend much time planning this team when I picked this bingo card in round 1 - I figured that I could make a reasonable team out of whatever ingredients I left for myself. I just took all the seasons I had and wrote down the useful players from each. The 4 corners didn't look great so I worked on the soup version, and it came together well enough. I've got deGrom 2018, Verlander 2022, Maddux 97 and Tudor 85,and A++ range for all 4 infielders (Pendleton, Bancroft, Stirnweiss and Pujols). This is kind of a lite version of my 160m team, so if that one crashes and burns, this one probably will too. They're playing in Busch even though we have some power and keep the ball in the park relatively well - can't remember why that is.

160m - Mile High Glove Men

Well, I already wrote this one up. I have the worst offense of any team in the league, but incredible range on defense and I'm hoping that's enough to keep games close and steal a few.

I won 120 games with the Braves 2020 + 7 team earlier in the summer. Best team I ever had. But the salary cap was 120 instead of 110. I'm pulling for you over the hated Dodgers.

My 1903 Naps team was beating the daylights out of my live ball teams in the Sim. Unfortunately I do not think that will hold up against other deadball teams. I did try the 1908 and 1909 Pirates as well as the 1910 Cubs. The Naps were better.