A write-up eh? Well this is going to be a challenge...

Blue is usable drafted player
Green is not-usable drafted player
Red is usable teammate

Nomination: The plan was nominating 1932 Ruth. All the expensive seasons and only 16 eligible ones - it felt like a natural pick. EXCEPT... I was slow on the draw. Well this works too with a similar player and after some contemplation (especially with some high priced original nominations), Hornsby made sense. I couldn't get him at 2nd but I found a cheap OF year to sneak him in and perhaps cause some positional agnst. shwarze originally ruled against the shenanigans, but then ended up swapping him to 2B. The new wrinkle is that Hornsby would mostly be a mediocre fielder for the majority of teams, especially with the pitchers nominated. Using the same strategy as Ruth, I took the cheapest useable season (now at 2B) and selected 1933 Hornsby in the 24 revision window. Only 115 PA, but great offense that would allow me to select a short PA season that shouldn't have too much inflation. In hindsight, maybe I should have followed my own blueprint closer and taken 1923 Hornsby to make my life simpler. In any case, it would give me flexibility down the road to spend on some pitching.

Round 1 - I had hoped that 1932 Ruth would fall and the early draft gave me hope when he wasn't taken. That was ripped away by BeAllEndAll and then worsened by a massive run on Ruths. Shifting gears, I then hunted for the cheapest player who could contribute so that I could grab an elite pitcher on the turn. 1963 Mantle fit the bill and came with some amazing teammates including Elston Howard, Yogi Berra, Bobby Richardson, Clete Boyer, Al Downing and Jim Bouton. Sadly the cap ended up claiming all of them except 1963 Downing.

Round 2 - The choice of Mantle was intimately tied with who I would take here. 1934 Hubbell was not only amongst the best but offer appealing options (at the time) of Bill Terry and Mel Ott and potential cheapie in Travis Jackson. To top it off, it would give me an elite lefty to face off against the likes of Ruth. ...yeah, none of those guys made it due to the cap.

Round 3 - Wow. I knew Ruths would go quickly, but I didn't imagine that I'd be left with one of the three most expensive ones this early. Painful. So yet another strategic change. Looking at the wall of ugly pitching options, I knew I needed another viable teammate on the staff. The best available came down to Mort Cooper or Harry Breechen. I do love Harry and there was the tantalizing option of squeezing 48 Musial in. ...but 1942 Cardinals offered an entire pitching staff - it would be rough if I had to resort to it, but a good safety blanket of solid arms to fall back on. So 1942 Pollet is the pick. Also came with an interesting Musial, Enos Slaughter and some potential cheapie defensive options in Jimmy Brown and Marty Marion. Musial and Clyde Shoun eventually survive the cap gymnastics to make the final team.

Round 4 - Looking at the pitchers, it felt like it could get expensive quickly if I left it too long, especially with +20M going to a Ruth. Of the starters left - Grove and Spahn could get ugly quick. Who could actually start? Both can but the value seems there with Lefty at under 6M. He also comes with a very sexy Jimmie Foxx and Ted Williams. It's unlikely I can use both but it keeps them off the board for others. 1939 Lefty Grove it is.

Round 5 - OMG. WTF happyhours? I know its a $6M savings but taking 20 Ruth here was crushing. Draft defining. Soul destroying. Maybe this actually started back after Round 2 and all the Ruths disappearing, but figured the three teams without a Ruth would take this opportunity to stock up everywhere else. Not the case. This one pick destroyed the ability to roster nearly all of the guys mentioned as teammates in the previous rounds. My fault for not planning for it, but what was a "I'm doing really well adjusting on the fly" became "How do I avoid going over the cap? Or losing a 100 games??" Getting cheap with all the expensive options became the priority and Feller was the biggest $ risk. Sure he would ride the bench, but 1936 Feller would be cheap. It was a cold comfort that Earl Averill was taken off the board, but I knew I'd never fit him with $25M+ going to Ruth. Silver lining, Billy Sullivan makes the team at catcher with the right PA and salary. A nice looking season that I've never used before. I.AM.SCREWED.

Round 6 - The 25M+ of the two Ruths looms over the rest of the draft. Each pick is really a defensive move to not blow through the 120M cap and get banned for the next season. Desperation is the general feeling. Back to the expensive pitching endgame, I just need to massively avoid it. 1965 Spahn is wholly unuseable but cheap, but other potential options are similar but dramatically more expensive. I blow it and take the more expensive season instead of naming the cheaper partial season, but just another one of the many mistakes of this draft.

Round 7 - No breaks at all. eblankenstei ruins all hope of having an elite teammate by grabbing 31 Lyons, who would save me a pile of cash. What cheap player could actually start? 1924 Cuyler fits well with some of those Mantle PA's and is cheap. There are also some good pitching options in Emil Yde and Babe Adams who would eventually make the final team. Could I make a very cheap high end defensive team? Strategy #5 (or six or seven?) starts here.

Round 8 - Survival. I still have a fantasy of some decent 1B starting for me with all my options, so 1937 Jim Bottomley makes sense as the cheapest option and biggest potential $ savings.

Round 9 - Still searching for hope. I need cheap starters and my teammates at SS look terrible. 1957 Dark can start, isn't terrible and saves some cash. Done.

Round 10 - Risk analysis says get your starters in now, there are too many expensive options. 1934 Lyons fits the bill and even offers some teammate hope if I can grab a cheap Mathews and add an interesting Luke Appling season as a teammate.

Round 11 - BeAllEndAll ruins another plan to save some $$ by taking the last cheap Whitehill (1928) right after my Round 10 pick. So much for that money saving option. It's only about a million bucks, but every penny hurts right now. It's late to be considering so many different options, but the digging finally pays dividends as I uncover a very interesting Red Schoendiens partial season attached to 1957 Eddie Mathews. It's a solid enough season but Red upgrades my sad 2B situation significantly both offensively and defensively so out the window goes the cheap Mathews plan. I've lost count of the plans I've scrapped.

Round 12 - the threat of a useless and expensive Whitehill looms. As a result, I take 1924 Whitehill to limit the losses here. Somewhere between painful and embarrassing, Lu Blue plays a role in this pick as he's a viable (at least on my team) to start at 1B for less than $4M. He ends up making the team. Guess Jim Bottomley wasn't that bad...

Round 13 - Now it's all about the Ruth endgame. I need to take 23 Ruth to save a million bucks. I figure with the lower salary, I need to take him in Round 14 at the latest. So keep the salary low to maximize teammate flexibility. That said, no one wanted to cooperate. Every cheap Abernathy disappears and there remains less that 200K between the remaining options. So Davis it is. I have so many C options so taking a cheap one that matches with one of my existing teammate options make sense. I pass on a perfectly good platoon with Davis on the 1937 Cincinnati Reds with Ernie Lombardi. Total cost is roughly $5M between the two of them. Instead I choose a slightly better Davis for 200K more thinking "that's not a lot of money." Famous last words. More on that later, but I take 1939 Spud Davis.

Round 14 and 15 - 1923 Ruth to save a million bucks. The rest of my team doesn't hit a ton of homers anyways, so the fielding and a few extra PA is better despite the lesser HR. The pain on missing 1920 Ruth is apparent - the million bucks helps, but six million? It would be a different team. #sadness

1970 Abernathy is slightly more expensive. But he has elite teammates galore especially with Ferguson Jenkins, Billy Williams and Jim Hickman. So why not block? Ummm, this is why. I end up a few thousand bucks short of being able to upgrade to Jim Hickman which would significantly improve my offense and defense. Sixteen thousand iterations later of trying to fit him out by changing everyone else on my team, I realize it isn't important. A few thousand bucks here and there comes back to really, really burn me.

Park - well I'm wildly short on PA and quality IP. 5302 PA seems very light. 1130 quality IP is also pretty light. That said, when you strip out the filler, the offensive slash line (unadjusted) is 324/406/509 - and there are really only 134 wasted PA in my 5302 PA. The pitching also looks great at the core (unadjusted) - 2.20 ERA, .220 OAV, 1.07 WHIP, 0.37 HR9.

The smart play is the Astrodome - lean into that pitching and hope to score enough runs. But after considering many, many compromise options - I ended up choosing something that might kill me from a fatigue perspective. Municipal Stadium offers massive alleys that not only leans into my 2B and 3B abilities, but hopefully taxes defenses to no end to extend rallies. I suspect that everyone is power heavy, so I've leaned into average and hopefully I can win with pitching well enough and death by a thousand cuts. It's a big swing to go for it (rather than the safe play to finish in the middle of the pack in the Astrodome with a struggling offense) and given that schwarze has chosen the EXACT SAME PARK, it will be even more interesting how this team stacks up. I also chose the Athletics version as it felt appropriate that my unintended team deserves a park that had Charlie Finley as the owner and fences that changed (seemingly) by the inning.

So what park should I have chosen? Let me know what and why you think I should have gone elsewhere below.

Painful but fun... thanks for all those who helped with sitemails and everyone being ready to pick to keep the pace lively. Can't wait to see the results.

As the (other) Hornsby would say... It's Just the Way It Is.

Blue is usable drafted player
Green is not-usable drafted player
Red is usable teammate

Nomination – 1939 Ted Lyons. Believe it or not, I looked at and was deciding between Camilio Pascual, Howie Pollet, Babe Ruth, Warren Spahn, Eddie Mathews, Ted Abernathy, Rogers Hornsby, Earl Whitehill, Red Ruffing, Robin Roberts, Jimmy Foxx, Carl Hubbell, and Bob Feller (so I guess I was on the right track). I decided the best play was to grab Feller or Hubbell and ensure a great start to the rotation and a high pick in the first round to grab another starter. But…..I was seconds too slow to Pedro and eblankenstei. The more I deliberated, the more I lost my picks to the flurry of initial nominating. So, finally I panicked and went with Ted Lyons. I’ve successfully used his 1939 season before and it didn’t seem like he had a ton of useful teammates. It was an OK choice but I deliberated heavily to switching to Hornsby, Foxx, or Ruth to try and grab the first pick. Of course, the more I vacillated about that it became moot as those players went as well. I also started to get comfortable with my division and decided not to upset the apple cart with any changes. I still think the Feller/Hubbell idea was the right play as either one sets you up to grab 2/3s of a great rotation off the hop (but, on the other hand, you’re in the same division as the others with a similar idea so it might cancel it out)

1.9 1972 Ted Abernathy – I was a little surprised at the Ruths going so fast, including Pedro’s first overall pick, as pitching is always such a premium in these drafts (yes, I know some of them come with a decent Gomez). My clear hope was for 36 Hubbell or 30 Grove but they both went (to schwarze and eblankenstei who was successfully proceeding with the solid-rotation-start that I outlined above.) I thought about 42 or 48 Pollet to grab Mort Cooper or Harry Brecheen but was hoping to use my early picks on players that were both effective on their own and had great teammates so I decided to wait on Pollet. Last 16x16 I somewhat successfully bucked the trend (I had a great team – just an unlucky random assignment to the division with schwarze’s elite rotation juggernaut) by going with only 4 pitching teammates in a league where every other owner used 5-7. I did that by taking the few nominated players that had marginal pitching seasons of their own. So, in that vein, I saw that 72 Abernathy was the only semi-usable Abernathy available. He also came with Steve Busby and Roger Nelson as pitching teammates and was cheap enough to move me up in the draft order for round 2. Nelson isn’t my usual pitching choice as I generally focus on home run prevention but I was starting to envision using a bunch of lower ip starters in tandems as part of my rotation with Lyons.

2.3 1927 Babe Ruth – Only the second round but I was already panicking and changing course. I was thinking all along I would concentrate on pitching here (maybe one of those Pollets with the good teammates or 46 Feller or maybe 65 Spahn and Juan Marichal). But I was also always planning on using a premium Ruth and those had disappeared unnervingly quickly. Already, the choice was down to punting on Ruth and taking a cheaper season or being stuck with an ultra-expensive one. It's not often that you take a 15M+ player to save money….but that’s what this was. 27 Ruth is still elite but 4-11m cheaper than the alternatives. As well, the 27 Yanks are loaded with teammates. I still had some crazy notion I could somehow sneak Lou Gehrig or Earl Combs onto the roster. Of course, it quickly became clear I couldn’t, but I did use Wilcy Moore as part of my franken-tandem rotation. And, to my surprise, at the end of the day, Ben Paschal made the final squad as a cheap but effective pinch hitter.

3.10 1928 Hubbell My clear choice for this round was 64 Mantle. He’s pretty good on his own and fairly affordable but, most importantly, comes with 64 Whitey Ford who is cheap and has always done very well for me. Plan B was 42 Pollet who comes with Mort Coooper, Johnny Beazley and a Marty Marion that has always overperformed for me. Plan C was going to be the effective, lower ip 1945 Feller option. All of those hopes were crushed just before my pick by fatguyrd, PrimetimeTW, and schwarze (the consequences of the expensive Ruth pick moving me down the draft order). Damn. I typed in 48 Pollet to secure what I considered the best pitcher available – 48 Brecheen but didn’t press submit. 48 Pollet himself sucks and so I hesitated and pivoted to a middle ip, somewhat-usable-if-you-squint-hard Carl Hubbell to fit in with my tandem rotation idea. This wasn’t a great pick. At the time I thought I might end up using one his teammates like Freddy Lindstrom, Mel Ott, or Bill Terry but that never worked out. I should have taken a good Hornsby here.

4.9 1950 Al Dark – Like Ruth, I had always planned on using a good-to-great Hornsby season but the not the super expensive one. I should have taken one of them last round but I didn’t and was really hoping 1929 Hornsby would slide to me. Nocomm ended that hope. At the time of this pick I was busy at work and didn’t have any time for research (and it should always be noted – I’m not one of you that’s skilled in spreadsheets and the like). Without much thought I went with Dark. He was cheap, had enough plate appearances to play the whole season, and came with 1950 Hearn who, like Roger Nelson, has great whip and suspect Hr/9 for this league. George Spencer fits this description as well but he was cut at the end for Hal Haid. Finally, I also ended up using Eddie Stanky and his high OBP at the top of my lineup.

5.6 1928 Jim Bottomley- This was another mistake that nearly derailed my entire draft. I was extremely busy with work crises all day and had not followed the draft at all or done any research. I didn’t really appreciate the pending Hornsby dilemma or I would have taken one here. This was simply a quick pick on my phone during a meeting. I like 28 Bottomley and have seen him do very well. I also like Hal Haid as a teammate. And by this time, I had given up the naïve notion of using 27 Gehrig at 1B so I thought securing a great nominated player for the middle of my lineup would get me through this round where I could then do more research when I got home. Of course, said research that evening showed I was in Hornsby Hell. There was one cheap season and the super expensive 1922 and 1924 seasons left. I did some tinkering and could maybe survive with 1922 which is obviously a great power bat but I just couldn’t see how the roster would work with the almost 20m 1924 version. And both eblankenstei and happyhours picked before me so I was sure I was screwed. Sure enough, eblankestei went with a Hornsby – the 1922 one which meant I was destined for 1924 and salary cap oblivion. As it happened, we got to happyhours’ pick that night and he proxied someone else. I wonder if he was still online and saw the remaining choice if he would have still went with the same pick or would he have secured the remaining cheap Hornsby? Maybe he planned for 1924 all along? Anyways, one final note from this round is that I ended up using 28 George Harper as a high slugging platoon mate for Mantle in the outfield.

6.9 1937 Feller – Somehow, I escaped backing myself in to the 20M Hornsby corner. I was set to take the cheap one but realized that as long as I spent less than 5m here that I would move ahead of happyhours next round and could take Hornsby then. Therefore, I grabbed Feller who was cheaper and had less wasted innings than the other Feller options out there.

7.8 38 Hornsby – I have been looking at 59 and 61 Mantle for awhile. Without spending 20M on Hornsby I can afford either one and they are both solid hitters. 59 Mantle comes with Art Ditmar and Bobby Shantz and 61 comes with Luis Arroyo and great catchers. But I had no choice here. I had to secure the cheap Hornsby and get out of Dodge. As it happens, 38 Hornsby will be a decent pinch hitter and back-up.

8.7 56 Pollet – Both Mantles I was considering went. 56 Pollet is possibly useable in the bullpen and is cheap so I went with him. Unlike the last version of 16x16, the salary cap is a major consideration in this one and it’s important to save money whenever possible.

9.6 30 Cuyler – As soon as I selected Pollet above, I knew I should have jumped on Cuyler instead. It was apparent I wasn’t going to get a great Mantle at this point so it was important in my mind to get a great Cuyler for the outfield. I realized that I would be using 5 teammates in the pitching staff leaving only four for the offense. I would need a 2B, a catcher of some sort, one outfielder, and a cheap scrub to help fit under the cap. 30 Cuyler is a good hitter, fast, and has plenty of plate appearances to hit atop of the lineup without fatigue. He also comes with my favourite of the catching options available. Like I said, I immediately regretted the Pollet pick and was sure Cuyler would be sniped like every other hope I have ever had in these drafts. But no, Cuyler made it back to me and I jumped on it. No way to consider 1930 Hack Wilson but 1930 Gabby Hartnett will be a key teammate.

10.8 65 Mantle – I really, really wanted to go with 1955 Mathews here. I considered him the best overall combination of slugging, OBP, defense, and price of the remaining Mathews and I wanted to use his teammate 55 Aaron at second base. I have used him there before and he has good slugging for the position and great range. But, the salary cap is looming and there was no way I could risk getting stuck with a 7M+ Mantle. I also didn’t like the 1B only 67 season and the really poor defense of the 51 version. Therefore, I was happy enough to secure 65 Mantle for under 3m.


11.8 – 41 Grove footballmm11 took 55 Mathews on me. I thought about still getting 55 Aaron through 55 Spahn, taking the cheapest Spud Davis available, or securing a Mathews to fill out 3b. But 41 Grove offered the largest available price savings (cost vs cost of remaining versions) and I had the feeling he wouldn’t make it past schwarze a few picks later who also needs a Grove

12.7 60 Mathews – The Mathews are starting to go and I need one that can play the entire season without back-up. 1960 was my target after 1955 as he still has great homers and good OBP and was cheaper than a few of the others so I’m happy to get him here. I should comment that his defence isn’t great and that, in general, the defense on my entire roster is suspect. That’s not ideal but was a necessary sacrifice as you can’t get everything in these drafts.

13.7 37 Davis – Now that my roster is fairly set, I was going through all my available teammates again looking for someone to platoon with 400 pa of Mantle and someone to play 2B. I was still thinking of 55 Aaron through Spahn or I figured I could get a good Gehringer with one of the remaining Whitehill options. But, in going back over the teams I realized I had access to 1950 Eddie Stanky and his .460 obp. Of course, I’ve used him before but when I originally took 1950 Dark and the Giants I was still assuming I would be using Hornsby at 2B so I ignored Stanky at the time. His defense is good and he’ll do well at the top of the line-up but was a bit more than I was planning on spending at 2B. I also came across 27 Paschal as a cheap pinch hitter and 28 Harper with 350 high-slugging plate appearances. Now the roster is taking its final shapes but I still have to get everything under budget. I need a cheap Davis and most of them have gone. 37 and 39 were the only ones left and PrimetimeTW and footballmm11 also need a Davis and pick before me. Not good. Sure enough, primetime takes the 39 version and I was sweating but football went with 1940 so I was able to grab the 1.6m 1937 version. Funny enough, I was disappointed at the time I didn’t get the slightly more expensive, but much better hitting 39 Davis (1.8M). But, in the end, it turned out I didn’t have the extra 150k to spare and, according to his writeup, neither did primetime.

14.6 27 Whitehill – Still need to save money. I considered 55 Spahn here as the cheapest Spahn left and using Aaron at 2B over Stanky saves a bit more. But, instead, I went with the cheapest Whitehill remaining. Like every other Whitehill, he gives up a ton of hits and walks, but this version is pretty good at keeping the ball in the yard.

15..6 55 Spahn I end up with 55 Spahn after all, after considering him numerous times the past number of rounds. He was the cheapest one left and is OK other than elevated homers. I put Spahn, Whitehill, and Grove in green, but the reality is they will, unfortunately, need to be used during the year much too much.. I went with Stanky over Aaron which necessitated downgrading 50 Hearn from the 132 ip version to the less effective 141 ip version.

I like my lineup (but I imagine most of us will):

1. 50 Stanky 2B
2. 30 Cuyler CF
3. 27 Ruth LF
4. 28 Bottomley 1B
5. 60 Mathews 3B
6. 30 Hartnett C
7. 28 Harper/65 Mantle RF
8. 50 Dark SS

I don’t like my pitching (but I imagine most of us won’t):

Tandem rotations include a mix of 39 Lyons, 72 Nelson, 50 Hearn, 28 Hubbell, 27 Moore, 37 Feller, 41 Grove, 27 Whitehill, and 55 Spahn.
Bullpen – 56 Pollet, 72 Abernathy, 72 Busby, 28 Haid

I had no idea what park suits them, so I put them in Candlestick for no discernible reason.
Teamname comes from Lyin’ Ted Cruz, his flight to Cancun to escape the harsh Texas winter (a little Canadian sarcasm there…), and the crazy notion his dad helped assassinate JFK. I understand we should not discuss politics or religion here and I also understand our leader, Trudeau, is a vacuous, ineffectual embarrassment but, wow, you Americans have some interesting things going on down there. I’ll leave it at that and I hope I don't offend anyone.

Great writeups! Thanks for sharing. (And yes RTG, I would've taken the cheaper Grove there)

Shirley you're Hazen me Kiki

Nomination:

Go big or go home. Foxx, Hornsby, Ruth… I’ll go Williams.

And then I wussed out and switched to Hazen Shirley Cuyler. Took the 1925 version who should keep up with the nominated players and play every game. So it goes.

Draft Plan:

None. Last season I had a plan and got absolutely embarrassed. Not going to worry about teammates till later. Not going to map out a direction. Take the best value every round… that might mean grabbing a guy to play, grabbing a scrub to avoid something or making sure I don’t get stuck with insanely priced players. So it goes.

Round 1: Pick 6, 1928 Babe Ruth

I want a Ruth that can hit. I don’t want to spend more than 20M on one. $10M sounds about right. He probably has teammates but I didn’t look… so my no plan plan is in effect. It might work. So it goes.

Round 2: Pick 11, 1948 Alvin Dark

I also don’t want to worry about finding a teammate SS. Just seems like a lot of work. Outfielders and first baseman are easy. There will be good teammates there without looking. Who knows. Is B-/B- defense good enough? So it goes. I’m sure I can find some poor shlubs to cover the handful of games he’ll have to sit.

Round 3: Pick 9, 1928 Rogers Hornsby

I look at the pitchers. I should probably draft some. I also don’t want a huge cap hit at second base with an uber Hornsby. By taking him I am safe from the possible cap kills from both him and Ruth. They should provide a great 2/3 combo in the lineup. Then again, most everyone will have them to anchor their lineups so… So it goes.

Round 4: Pick 13, 1955 Bob Feller

Damn. I am picking late. I don’t like being this late. I can’t really draft 250-320 IP from 6 guys so I need some lesser seasons from someone. Didn’t someone say it’s not wasted salary if you are going to use it? So it goes.

Round 5: Pick Pick 10, 1946 Howie Pollet

Didn’t move that far down. Oh well. I need pitchers. There either isn’t a significant difference between the position players available or I am fine with their bad or short seasons. Pollet shouldn’t be anyone's best starter. He probably will be. So it goes.

Round 6: Pick 12, 1941 Ted Lyons

Back down the board. So it goes. Soooo many IP from these pitchers. Will likely get high 200’s or more from at least 4 if not more so I need at least a couple under 200. Here’s one. He’s not that good but his expected numbers are better than his real life ones. So it goes.

Round 7: Pick Pick 11, 1966 Ted Abernathy

I do not want 2000 IP. This pick helps me avoid that. He’s super cheap. That’s the best thing about him. So it goes.

Round 8: Pick 10, 1932 Jim Botomoly

I took a sub $300K player and moved down one slot? So it goes. Thinking about a platoon with Mantle. There are two possibilities for Mantle that would work. I am also sure I will have a teammate who can do the job. He can hit 8th when he plays.

Round 9: Pick 9, 1967 Mathews

We have a lot of nominated left handed pitchers. I should have a right handed 3b teammate even if I don’t look, right? This one has more AB’s than I want but doesn’t cost a ton. He could be a painful platoon with Botomoly if I need it. He will more likely be wasted salary. So it goes.

Round 10: Pick 6, 1940 Lefty Grove

This isn’t even nearly the best Gove option. I cheated and looked at teammates. So it goes. I knew there were a ton of hitting options on his Red Sox teams. Originally I was looking for Williams, because who wouldn’t. Then I saw a catching option that has worked well for me in the past. Foxx can catch, provide some power in the second half of the order, and with all the LH pitchers being right handed might be valuable here.

Round 11: Pick 6, 1957 Mickey Mantle

Since I already looked at teammates I looked some more. My top two hitting teammates available at this point are Iron Horse and Stan the Man. They would both be good options. I needed a Mantle and the one I was going to platoon at was taken. How much cap space do I have? Enough for $14M Mantle? Looking at some of the teams and thinking they have space for him I pull the trigger. So it goes.

Round 12: Pick 11, 1928 Spud Davis

Since I am planning on Foxx to catch, I really don’t need much from Spud. This version should be good at not giving me much. So it goes.

Round 13: Pick 9: 1933 Earl Whitehill

I still need a third baseman and pitchers. The pitchers will all start. I am fine cobbling together third base if I have to. At this point I have 286 “usable” IP that I hope my bats can outhit. So it goes. Enter 1933 Earl Whitehill and his 96 K’s to 100 BB’s. What could go wrong with him starting every 4th day?

Round 14: Pick 11: 1929 Carl Hubbell

Continuing to pick players based on the worst possible player if I don’t take this guy. If everyone else picks Hubbell before it gets back to me it’s worse than the other guys. So 1929 Carl it is. At least his ERC outperforms his ERA… So it goes.

Round 15: Pick 13: 1952 Warren Spahn

Day one starter with the last pick? Best available Spahn. So it goes. Actually, I'm kind of excited to get this one. How sad is that?

Teammates (that I am using):

I had 1940 Foxx set as catcher. Looking at Gehrig or Musial for first I chose Musial because he has great defense in the outfield so he can be my only sub there with Botomoly taking time at first if he or any of Ruth/Mantle/Cuyler need time off. That left only third. Pulling up my list of players I was happy to see 1966 Ron Santo. That super cheap Abernathy I picked just to make sure I didn’t end up with 2000 IP pays off even more in the end! So it goes.

Projected Line-up
				Average	SLG	OPS
1	Cuyler	R	CF	0.34	0.582	0.995
2	Musial	L	1B	0.369	0.6	1.035
3	Hornsby	R	2B	0.376	0.635	1.114
4	Ruth	L	LF	0.318	0.703	1.156
5	Mantle	S	RF	0.369	0.664	1.178
6	Foxx	R	C	0.292	0.568	0.973
7	Santo	R	3B	0.315	0.537	0.958
8	Dark	R	SS	0.323	0.433	0.784
	Average			0.338	0.590	1.024
Projected Pitching
				IP	ERC	WHIP
1 (and relief)	Spahn	L		308	2.92	1.17
2 (and relief)	Pollet	L		277	2.89	1.18
3 (and relief)	Hubbell	L		288	3.07	1.19
4 (and relief)	Whitehill	L		288	3.47	1.32
RP	Lyons	R		199	3.18	1.21
RP	Feller	R		88	3.41	1.2
	total			1448

Pollet Ticks

Background: I played several 16x16 seasons for a stretch, then at some point a couple years ago had a conflict and had to skip one and then kind of lost track of this league. I kind of forgot how I’d prepared in the past but found an old Sheet I’d used before and could work off again. My approach is to research all the teammates in advance, making special note of elite SP and RP seasons as well as potentially useful ones, then noting good teammate positions for potential starters. I like to try to gauge the overall SP quality of the league early and target the choicest teammates who also come with a useful season, whenever possible. My theory in a league like this is you always have plenty of teammate hitters you can plug in somewhere. That’s the idea anyway. The rest of this is just my braindroppings written as we went along, so there’s proof that even if it was a terrible pick it was a terrible pick with some twisted logic behind it.

Initial pick: I got the heads-up from schwarze a few hours before the league posted and started researching some possible players. I got it down to a list of 4 or 5 pitchers I thought might be good picks based on these limitations. I got into the thread pretty quickly and was able to get the guy I’d settled on, Camilo Pascual. He had one strong season (2.46 ERC#) and a whole lot of ones you probably wouldn’t want to roster in a $120M league. Or even an $80M league really.

Then the rest of the picks came in, and well let’s just say it was a barrage of heavy hitters. Lots of lefty power in the mix, and suddenly a less-than-stellar righty SP seemed like a bad way to start my pitching staff. Especially when a bunch of big-inning pitchers were on the board, too. So I looked for the best outlier single season from a pitcher (ideally a lefty) to roster, with a high-inning reliever being the sort of rarity I thought would be especially helpful considering the paucity of relievers to go around in this era.

I landed on 1943 Howie Pollet, with his 125 innings of 1.84 ERC# and not more than a couple other seasons worth rostering. He’s not the sort of player who will start a panic in this draft trying to avoid his worst seasons, not with a Whitehill in the mix, but he’s going to saddle many people with a pretty weak $2-4M season nonetheless. With a salary of $4.7M, Pollet landed me the 14th pick in R1, which I figured would allow me a strong shot at one of the first picks in R2 as well and a chance to nab two seasons I really want close to back to back. The downside is waiting through 13 picks until you get to start …

Round 1, Pick 14: 1934 Babe Ruth
Well, y’all were there, so you know that 6 of the first 10 picks were Ruth. Basically all of his reasonable salary seasons went right away. But I was actually eyeing this $4M season all along because it came with 297 IP from Lefty Gomez at 2.20 ERC#, which I ranked as about as good as any SP season I could still get in this draft. The only similar teammate SP options included high-HR rate guys like Denny McLain and Juan Marichal. I was nervous as the picks came in leading up to my slot and almost at one point posted that I was certain footballmm11 would make this pick just before me. And no one was making any bad picks, either. Every single one forced me to cross someone off my short list for picks in the first two rounds.

Now, there is definitely an argument to be made that there are much worse things than being stuck with an expensive Ruth season. Fair enough, but $25M on one guy was likely to make things complicated, at the very least. This version is actually a pretty fine hitter (.963 OPS# in 495 PA) and makes a good LH half of a platoon. Of course there will be a lot of LH starters in this league, so he’ll face a lot of them too, I’m sure. And .963 OPS is weak by Ruth standards but no slouch in most any lineup while not breaking the bank here. There’s even a really strong Gehrig season available if I wind up able to roster an $11M 1B teammate.

Looking back: I never really thought about Gehrig again.

Round 2, Pick 4: 1931 Carl Hubbell
I would certainly have wanted the 1934 Hubbell if he would have lasted, but Primetime took him with the back-to-back. I was settled on taking one of the big SP here, with seasons I considered from Spahn, Grove, and Lyons. The final tough call was this pick or ‘27 Lyons, who went 4 picks later. Both came with a good SP teammate, in my case Bill Walker. My team just has to be named Friends of Bill W now, of course. IYKYK.

Adding Walker and Hubbell puts me at 943 IP from 4 lefties at a .221 OAV and 1.11 WHIP with 0.34 HR/9. I think that’s a fine start at containing the likes of Ruth, Mathews and Mantle. I know I’ll wind up with tons of extra IP with all these workhorse guys in the draft, but at least I’ve got about 2/3 of what I’ll really need taken care of with as good a quality as you can expect in a draft like this. These Giants also have several other teammate possibilities if I need them in 1B Bill Terry, CF Mel Ott, and SS Travis Jackson. Now another long wait until it gets back to me, though I’m only dropping one spot next round …

Looking back: I wound up cutting Walker at the end, and the naming rules would have prevented that name anyway. Didn’t use any Hubbell teammates ultimately.

Round 3, Pick 5: 1936 Lefty Grove
I was sorely tempted to grab a choice Mantle or Hornsby season here before runs started on them, and I had a couple cheap seasons on my radar to save some money for later. But with the prospect of having several more big-inning SP to draft and their utility dwindling, I felt like the best use of the pick now was getting an actual useful season from another of them. I might end up with wasted seasons from all of Feller, Spahn, Lyons and (obviously) Whitehill, but racking up good innings feels wise to me at this stage.

This now gives me 1210 quality IP and the flexibility not to roster Walker as a teammate later if I don’t necessarily need him. For the moment, though, I have 5 lefties with a 2.43 ERA, 1.13 WHIP and 0.38 HR/9. Also, there’s a fine $7.5M Jimmie Foxx (.338/.440/.631) teammate option if I can use him.

Looking back: I was determined to use Foxx’s bat since I managed to **** away getting an elite Ruth or Hornsby, so at least that worked out.

Round 4, Pick 7: 1955 Mickey Mantle

My one fear at this stage was a run on Hornsby seasons that weren’t cheap or expensive, and I flagged 4 I’d be happy with. Within 6 picks after me, 2 of those 4 already were gone. That left 5 owners ahead of me who still need Hornsby, and the first 3 passed on him. Then schwarze, who jumped me in the draft order this round, posted his pick for another of the seasons I targeted. That left a wait for nocomm999 to pick and see whether any lasted. And then of course the inevitable news … he took the last Hornsby I wanted.

The message came to me as I was finishing cooking dinner, and I knew I had to pivot quickly or delay the draft a little while. While I might still wind up with a super-costly Hornsby, I did have a need at this point to secure a big bat from someone in this draft for sure. I had narrowed down my Mantle options to 55, 59, or 61, but I was afraid of a repeat of the Hornsby run and decided to pick one now. There were good arguments for all of them, particularly a good bullpen arm with either 59 or 61. I made a hasty pick to go with 55 for a more balanced hitting profile than 61, which was super HR dependent. And it saved me over $1M, though it’s a gamble I can find a RP equivalent to Arroyo later as a teammate.

Looking back: Arroyo would have been nice, but Mantle got me two other key hitters ultimately: a good-fielding and not embarrassing Gil McDougald (.285/.361/.407) at 2B and half my catching from Elston Howard (.290/.336/.477)

Round 5, Pick 8: 1937 Rogers Hornsby
The run on the cheaper Hornsby seasons started up late in R4, and that meant soon I might be certain I’d be taking a $15M+ season unless I grabbed one of the final sub-$1M ones. Of course with all the mediocre LH pitching this league’s going to have, a $16M Hornsby might actually earn his salary at the plate. I just worry about all the inevitable dead weight to come and losing flexibility on teammates that could come at the end. I had to wait to see if calhoop and ronthegenius would take the two cheapest seasons ahead of me, and thankfully they left one. Now of course I have to draft a teammate season worthy of the spot, which is easier said than done, but at least I maintain more salary flexibility now. I have a strong defensive 2B option in McDougald (.765 OPS#) in hand, too, and I could do a lot worse.

Looking back: It hurts to see how good some of the lineups are with huge Ruth and Hornsby seasons, and I have neither. Even if my pitching is relatively strong, this is a hitting league and we might not be able to keep pace.

Round 6, Pick 4: 1964 Warren Spahn
There were several players I actually wanted at this point, but I’m also really aware of what I don’t want: more wasted salary than necessary. This $2.7M Spahn was the last one left under $6.2M, and I don’t see that I need any of the innings or teammates from any other version badly enough to spend the extra money on them. Granted, the opportunity cost here will be missing out on seasons and teammates I want, but I feel like salary flexibility at the end is going to be more valuable than anything at this point. I still need albatross versions of Feller and Whitehill, not to mention Lyons and Abernathy. That’s a lot of salary I can’t get much use out of!

On the plus side, though this is the worst of all Spahn seasons and will be a mopup for me, he comes with several potentially useful teammates: C Joe Torre, SS Denis Menke, and OF Hank Aaron or Rico Carty.

Looking back: Though I’d initially overlooked him, RP Bobby Tiefenauer (73 IP, 2.63 ERC#) wound up being a useful option. None of the hitters made it.

Round 7, Pick 5: 1966 Ted Abernathy (Braves partial)
When I went to bed with a handful of picks ahead of me, the 1937 Lyons I really wanted had not yet been taken, nor had the two Cuyler seasons I had highlighted. As I started to catch up in the morning, I noticed a couple Cuyler seasons had gone but I hadn’t checked yet to see if they matched my list. Then it was down to calhoop before me, and of course he took the Lyons. This marked the second time someone jumped me in the draft order and took the guy I wanted the next round, which is officially infuriating.

I decided to take stock of where a good bullpen upgrade remained among teammate options, and I realized that group got painfully small quickly. So that meant a quick pivot to a $1.2M Abernathy who comes with a great 63 IP Pat Jarvis (1.69 ERC#) and a usable 145 IP Clay Carroll (2.58 ERC#). I suspect rostering both of them will remove Bill Walker ultimately and push one of these dead-weight salary SP into some limited SP4 action. I know I know, it’s not wasted if you use it …

Looking back: I had Carroll on the team until the end, when I swapped in Tiefenauer because I couldn’t see how Carroll would actually use all his innings and he’s not all that amazing anyway. Jarvis will be the closer with no in-game fatigue concerns at least.

Round 8, Pick 3: 1931 Jim Bottomley
There were really only two strong hitting Bottomley seasons left, and I was pretty sure they wouldn’t last another round. The $7M 1925 season is definitely worthy and I would have taken it had I needed to. But this 441 PA season is almost as productive (.932 OPS# compared with .965) and more efficient to deploy. I have a handful of potential part-time RH 1B to work with depending on where else I have a need. 1937 Beau Bell can play 1B and corner OF to share time with both Bottomley and Ruth, and in fact I’m doing that with him in another theme league right now. At $5.4M, he might be the ticket. If I have the $$ (doubtful), I could also deploy 1936 Jimmie Foxx (who has OF ratings, though not exactly good ones) that way.

Another way I could go is to take one of two Joe Torre seasons available to me where he can play C and 1B. He could take 200 PA at 1B and the rest at C to share time with whichever Spud I draft. Since I’ll need a second C anyway, that would create roster efficiency. And I even have a $2,4M Bill Skowron who has 311 PA and could be a straight platoon mate with Bottomley. Combined they’d cost about $6.2M, which is a $1M savings over the 1925 Bottomley.

This is a good time to try to assess my likely 9 teammate position spots. I currently have two SP (Gomez and Walker) and two RP (Jarvis and Carroll) sitting in spots. I’ll need a 2B for sure and a second C, plus a way to fill the 1B/OF gap. That’s 7 spots. I assume Mathews plays 3B, but maybe Dark gets a bench spot and I use an 8th teammate at SS. That leaves 1 more as the backup OF to Cuyler if needed. Whether I’ll have salary space to do it the way I want to remains to be seen.

Looking back: This basically played out as planned, amazingly. Some names changed, but the roles held up.

Round 9, Pick 5: 1952 Bob Feller
I decided I’d go with the cheapest remaining Feller, 1952, if he fell to me, because it’s a $2M savings over the next lowest salary. The problem is a few owners could pick him before it got around to me. I was certain this time it would be BeAllEndAll, who had jumped me in the order this round so it would mark the third time that happened. But miraculously, no one took him so I had to pounce.

Now sure it would be nice to pick someone I want now and then, but I’ve done the math and keeping all these unwanted players’ salaries to a minimum will give me options that are better than anyone I could draft right now on offense.

As for teammates, the Bob Lemon from this season is actually quite good, 2.39 ERC# across 326 innings with a 0.44 HR/9. The problem is he costs over $10.7M and there’s almost no chance I can muster that. I would have to replace Walker and Carroll, which would hurt the bullpen, though it would save money if it comes to it later.

Looking back: Lemon is now my Game 1 starter. I have at least one RH SP in the mix after all.

Round 10, Pick 4: 1955 Alvin Dark
There was a bit of a run on Cuyler and Dark seasons, and in fact all the options for the latter that I still could stomach disappeared. At this point, they’re all going to cause pain. I can still work with a cheaper version of Cuyler, I think, though I almost jumped to take his 1931 solid season and already started writing that up before reconsidering. I’m not worried about runs on Mathews or Davis, both of whom have many options that work. And the remaining pitchers aren’t going to provide much savings, though there are two slightly cheaper Lyons seasons that wouldn’t be bad to land.

That leaves Dark as the place to go now. Two of his 5 remaining seasons have D-/D- ratings at SS, and at this point I am almost going to have to just use him at SS because I won’t be able to afford to waste his salary entirely. I narrowed it down to the two most usable defensive seasons, 1955 or 1956 (Cardinals), and just had to wait to see if BeAll, the one owner ahead of me who needs one, took either of those. He didn’t, so I took one with 535 PA at a slightly lower $/PA because I will have an easier time finding a backup with the right amount of PA. For the moment, I’m plugging in George Strickland of the 52 Indians with 109 PA (.626 OPS#) and A range, which is fine for a backup/defensive replacement.

With 8 spots to fill yet (5 draftees and 3 teammates based on what I get), I am sitting at about $80M in salary. At least $10M more will be wasted on two pitcher draftees, plus I should spend about $8M on Davis and Mathews and anywhere from $2-6M on Cuyler.

Looking back: If you’re going to just be terrible at a position offensively, SS is a good place to do it. But B-/C+ defense doesn’t exactly thrill me.

Round 11, Pick 5: 1935 Kiki Cuyler (Reds partial)
I went around and around on this pick, testing out whether I’d be happier with a $6M Cuyler with an .872 OPS and 72 speed in my lineup or taking a cheap version as a backup and cashing in my teammate savings on someone better. I did and re-did the calculations a few times, and I am pretty sure I’ll be able to put someone better in there. I’ll be able to use 3 teammates for the combination of platooning with Davis, Bottomley, and Ruth and filling the last OF spot. I have several C/1B or 1B/OF options as well as straight OF, so it will come down to how much I’ve managed to stock away. I still have no prototypical leadoff hitter, so I have my eye on taking a Cobb teammate of Whitehill, should that work out. But a lot can happen by then.

Looking back: I really pinned my hopes on getting a Cobb to lead off and didn’t have a decent second option. I’m not sure I did much better than Cuyler ultimately.

Round 12, Pick 3: 1961 Eddie Mathews
I had left my Cuyler proxy with schwarze before bedtime and then woke up in the middle of the night and checked the draft status (as one does, of course) to see that two Mathews seasons had gone already. This of course sparked a brief panic that every last usable Mathews season would be drafted before it came back to me, and I had to settle my brain sufficiently to go back to bed. But I was pretty resolved that this was the round to take the one I wanted among those remaining, because getting stuck with a soft version of his for $4M would definitely take some punch out of my lineup. I was pleased to wake up and see a string of not-Mathews picks that at least ensured I’d get a strong season.

The feared run never came, so I had my choice of Mathews seasons still. Sometimes it’s easier when the other owners only leave you one acceptable choice, alas. It came down to njbigwig as the last owner who could take a Mathews, and I had the 1959, 1960, and 1961 seasons all rating out pretty similarly. He took 1959 off the board for me, which was of course the one I had just settled on as my favorite. I went with 1961 for the better glove and higher AVG of the two.

Looking back: Glad I waited on Mathews as long as I did because I am happy with this version, but maybe I should have taken my preferred Whitehill here and pushed it one more round on Eddie?

Round 13, Pick 4: 1931 Earl Whitehill
There’s definitely a chess game at play now as I try to spend as little as possible on my Lyons and Whitehill picks and also get a Davis season I like. Only two of us still need Lyons, and there’s an 800K difference in the salary if schwarze takes his first. There are still 4 Whitehill seasons under $6M, but potentially I get stuck with more salary if a run begins after my pick. And I think I have enough catcher platoon options to manage whatever I get from Davis.

Though there are some teammates I might consider if I were to have been stuck with a more expensive Whitehill, at this point the one I really wanted is gone (I waited one round too long for the 1925 and Cobb) and the rest are just ballast. Might as well lock in some savings here and avoid a potential run that costs me more later.

Looking back: Wow, that’s a lot of wasted pitching salary I’ve accumulated. But at least I knew I’d get nothing from this guy regardless.

Round 14, Pick 4: 1928 Ted Lyons
The last of the dead-weight pitchers joins the party, ballooning us to nearly 2,400 innings. Was this a good strategy? Was there a great alternative? Too late now!

Round 15, Pick 3: 1935 Spud Davis
I had two choices left, but at least this one hits for average. His 373 PA fit with Elston Howard’s 321 decently enough. Howard should face the more HR-vulnerable pitchers or play in the parks that favor them, at least if I manage it right.

Looking back: What Davis also brought to the table was an option not previously on my radar for my last OF spot: Joe Medwick (.353/.386/.576). He doesn’t walk or run well, but he will have to work for a leadoff guy anyway. I tried a few other guys in this spot, including an $8.8M Aaron and a $10.4M Mays, but I was able to roster this $7M Medwick and add Bob Lemon with the salaries working out just right.

Summing up: So I wound up with Mantle, Mathews, Medwick, Foxx and McDougald as everyday players, plus the catching platoon and Dark occasionally spelled by his backup. The 1B/LF spot will rotate among Bottomley and Ruth with Foxx flip-flopping positions and ultimately Bottomley being a really good PH for quite a lot of games. Cuyler will just rest starters and such, but he’s really the only wasted hitter at $1.5M. And there will be a lot of high-scoring games, so extra PA won’t likely hurt.

As for pitching, I have 1,416 desirable innings, which means the albatrosses don’t have to do much of anything except occupy space. But I do have 981 innings worth of them, so that at least promises some occasional late-inning fun in blowouts and extra-inning nightmares. We’re bound to give up a couple 7-run 11th innings.

How to deploy my innings ideally remains to be seen, as Lemon and Gomez can pitch nearly every third day with Grove and Hubbell filling in the gaps. They will just move into setup roles when they’re not in the rotation, but it might be hard to use all their innings well. I really only have 3 relievers with 260 IP, so I’d imagine there should be plenty of opportunities for that extra starter to get used. I’ll find out soon enough.

I had no idea what ballpark to use here. I don’t think we necessarily will hit more HR than other teams, though we have good power. No one really hits a mittfull of 2B or 3B either aside from Medwick, and I have a few .280+ hitters along with just three who exceed .340. My compromise was a fairly neutral park, Forbes, with +1 for 1B to help my hitters but not push my pitchers too much. Possibly an extreme pitchers park would have been smarter, but it was a decision I left until the end of a really long day and just punted for something middle of the road. I’m sure like many other things, I’ll regret it soon enough.

Some great stuff here. I hope everybody is reading this.

Some stats on the rosters. As expected, lots of wasted innings. 3dayrotation's hitting is going to be insane. $72 million for his start 8 batters.
.

Owner	#Pitchers	Total IPs	Pitcher Salary
redcped	12	2,397	64,290,104
fatguyrd	12	2,477	63,054,125
nocomm999	13	2,527	62,158,022
pedrocerrano	13	2,064	59,054,644
thejuice6	12	2,271	58,608,862
schwarze	12	2,072	58,281,618
calhoop	13	2,069	56,947,202
eblankenstei	9	2,033	56,013,295
ronthegenius	13	1,877	55,167,363
PrimetimeTW	12	1,986	55,024,338
mllama54	12	2,138	54,568,188
BeAllEndAll	11	1,848	48,708,404
njbigwig	11	1,803	47,683,217
happyhours	10	1,632	43,446,691
footballmm11	10	1,511	43,313,066
3dayrotation	8	1,637	40,275,193
.
Average	11	2,021	54,162,146

The WIS spreadsheets list both a player's actual salary and their "base" salary, which is what the salary was before dynamic pricing was introduced (at least, that's my understanding). If we call the difference between those two "inflation", here are the owners who have the most inflation from their drafted (nominated) players.

In this draft, nearly all inflation was from the hitters and specifically, Ruth, Hornsby, and Mantle. No other player (hitter or pitcher) had a season over $1m inflation, but those 3 had 16 of their 51 seasons at $1m+ inflation (Ruth had 8, Hornsby 5, and Mantle 3). Ruth's 1921 season led the way at +$8.9m (yay, me), with 1923 close behind at +$8.2 (primetimetw). happyhours got the next-highest Ruth (+4) and the highest Hornsby (+6.5). BeAll got the most inflated Mantle (+5.8).

In theory, this is "wasted" salary, if a player's base salary is their "true" value. Then again, the reason for dynamic pricing is that the most-used players were undervalued and needed to be adjusted. Then again then again, dynamic pricing was handled incorrectly and those heavily-used players got over-inflated before it was stopped. So anyway, maybe some of the inflation reflects their value but most of it is probably bad. Please correct me if my understanding is wrong.

Most Inflation (in $millions)

happyhours	10.6
footballmm11	10.2
PrimetimeTW	8.4
BeAllEndAll	6.4
njbigwig	5.0
3dayrotation	4.1
eblankenstei	4.0
ronthegenius	2.9
schwarze	2.0
calhoop	1.9
mllama54	1.9
pedrocerrano	1.4
thejuice6	1.3
fatguyrd	1.3
redcped	0.8
nocomm999	0.8

Obviously we stand with the Deflate-gate crowd on this issue.

It would be interesting too know what each team's effective salary is (after eliminating wasted players and inflation).

I have $60.8 million spent on usable offensive players which includes a platoon at catcher (Davis/Schulte), some backup PA at 3B (Estalella) and a great pinch hitter (G.Brown). This represents 5736 total PA (or 717 per lineup spot). I'm only wasting about 0.7M on unusable players (cheap Matthews, cheap Ruth). I am assuming the 2.0M inflation (from the table above) is mostly due to '21 Hornsby.

I have $47.2 million spent on usable pitchers. Guys I won't use (except in mop-up duty) include Whitehill (6.0M), Grove (3.8M), Abernathy (1.3M). My other 9 pitchers represent 1510 innings. I doubt I have much inflated salary with any of my pitchers.

So, my total effective salary (excluding inflation) is roughly $106 million.

Where's pedrocerrano's writeup?

I have 5580 PA from hitters and 1511 IP. Assuming I’ll need to use all of those, my only wasted salary is the $10m inflation so I’m around $110 effective.

I do hope to not use Lefty Grove in important innings, which would give me around 1400 innings. If you exclude his $1.9m, I’m around $108.

My offense, with only a 4-man bench, has virtually no wasted salary. My pitching? Don't ask. I drafted a league-high 2,527 innings, which includes 5 pitchers and 660 innings that will contribute nothing to this team.

I should use $54.1M out of $55.6M on offense, excluding only a Cuyler who will just PH and play late inning substitute. There's about 5,800 PA for the 8 spots without him.

I only want to use about $46.1M out of $64.3M in pitching, with 1,416 "good" innings and 981 (!) for filler.

That only brings me in at $100.2M of effective salary, and now that I look at that it feels potentially troubling. I do think my effective pitching should be at the top of the league, but I'm not sure it will matter against $70M lineups.