I'm basically going to have to use everyone but Bottomley, which means ~$61M (5818 PA) out of $63.4M (6266 PA) should play.

Depending on how much Abernathy pitches, I will have between $43.4M (1392 IP) and $45.2M (1472 IP) of salary pitching (out of a total of $56M with 2033 IP). As expected, about $15M of dead pitching salary.

Initial Pick Babe Ruth 1929. By the time I joined all the pitching had been taken. I then checked position players. Low and behold I found the Babe with only 16 choices and some nasty salaries. This could be fun. I chose a very usable choice (under 9 mil though only 610 PA) for me and waited for fireworks to start.

Pick 1.5 Lefty Grove 1928: Lefty will serve as my SP2. He has a 2.42 ERC# for 278 IP. But better yet he brought along 3 friends. Al Simmons hitter with 539 PA for 5.43 mil. Jimmie Fox who will platoon between catcher and 3b with 501 PA batting .328. He also has A- range at third and an A+ arm behind the plate. Jimmy ***** will provide backup at all positions except catcher. He is a .277 hitter with 303 PA.

Pick 2.10 Rogers Hornsby 1920: I was going to take Rogers with my first round pick but I thought I would be OK waiting a round. I was and still got a top of the order hitter. He had 695 PA batting .370 and having A- range at second for only 9.24 mil. A real bargain. Oh did I mention I was enjoying seeing the run on the Babes. These first three picks were easy now the difficult for me was starting with all 16 of us having put our Ruth and Hornsby’s to bed.

Pick 3.13 Earl Whitehill 1937: Time to start saving cap room while a cheap Earl was still available. 2.50 mil.

Pick 4.10 Bob Feller 1946: But wait I still needed pitching. What better place than to get 391 IP at a 2.44 ERC#. It only cost me 12.05 mil. Also my 3^rd string catcher in Sherm Lollar. A little in game flexibility.

Pick 5.15 Alvin Dark 1954: With cap space being tight I needed to start drafting a few position players that will actually play for me. Mr. Dark gave me my starting shortstop for only 5.32 mil. A .293 hitter with 729 PA and another A range fielder. He also had a good friend in Hoyt Wilhelm which I kept as a RP. I was also considering Don Mueller and Willie Mays. I had both Liddle as a reliever and Johnny Antonelli as my SP3. I will explain later.

Pick 6.14 Mickey Mantle 1952: The mick brought be another starting position player. He cost 6.29 mil and batted .311 for 659 PA.

Pick 7.13 Carl Hubbell 1942: 3.45 mil. Also brought a RP in Ace Adams.

Pick 8.13 Ted Lyons 1936: 3.44 mil.

Pick 9.13 Howie Pollet 1951: 2.12 mil. Oh wait in the midst of salary cutting I found Stan Musial. He batted .355 in 714 PA for only 10.10 mil. He also played both 1B and OF. B+/A+ at first and B+ range in the OF. I wanted to keep him. But how. I knew I was going to get an expensive Spahn later on anyway. Could I replace my 7 mil+ Antonelli with a Spahn? And I still needed a couple of more relievers. It would mean going cheaper on Cuyler, Bottomley, Mathews, and Davis. I still needed one of them to be decent. Because if I kept Musial, Simmons,, and Foxx I would be one short. This decision had to be made before my next pick. It would affect how I drafted going forward

Pick 10.13 Jim Bottomley 1934: I decided to go big. I really had no choice with Bottomley. He isn’t too bad a hitter. He hit .284 for 3.55 mil. He will need to supplement Simmons for 200 PA.

Pick 11.11 Kiki Cuyler 1937: .271 hitter for 2.16 mil. Will need to use him for 100 PA to supplement Ruth. I probably should have taken a good Mathews here. Still kicking myself. Did not anticipate the last three Mathews going before my next pick. Up to this point in the draft I had done pretty well.

Pick 12.10 Eddie Mathews 1965: .251 Hitter with 32 HR’s for 4.05 mil. At least this version brought me my closer in Billy Odell.

Pick 13.12 Warren Spahn 1962: Better grab a Spahn if I am going to use him as my SP3. 270 IP at 2.86 ERC#. Not bad for this late in the draft. Also picked up my 4^th RP with /Don McMahon. I dropped Liddle This move saved me over a million with only a loss of 30+ innings.

Pick 14.13 Spud Davis 1934: My starting catcher .300 hitter with 407 PA for 3.13 mil. C+ arm behind the dish. He will platoon with Foxx.

Pick 15.10 Ted Abernathy 1955: 1.98 mil.

Bottom line I had an above average draft but not great. My defense has good range except for the Babe. I staid under the cap while adding Musial, Foxx, and Simmons to my lineup. I have about 950 solid starting innings and added. about 400 decent relief innings. I am about one position player short to be formidable. I do have high .270 to .290 hitters to cover.

I am counting on good defense, decent pitching, and a murders row of Hornsby, Ruth, Musial, Mantle, Simmons, and Foxx to carry me. Of course the hitting is negated by everyone else having a murderers row also. Hopefully by having cheaper Ruth and Hornsby and having them being just as efficient as the more expensive ones will help. Also in this league having so many A range fielders could give me an edge. We will see.

We got 10 out of 16 league members to post a writeup, detailing their drafting experience. That's pretty good.

I apologize for not doing a write-up every time. I often forget to keep notes during a draft like this and by the time I think about it, we're half-way through and I can't remember why I made the picks I did. Judging by my overall, twenty-year history in the W/L column, you guys aren't going to learn much from me anyway...LOL.

As the Classified ad clearly states "The Best Draft Ever". Truth in advertising if there ever was. With the parameters set in place for this version and nominees chosen, it was set up to be one of the "Best of the Best" if not the best ever!

The 1920 starting year allowed for only 16 versions of Ruth and Hornsby, the essence of 16 x 16

I got the memo about the sign-up while at work and did not see all of the rules clearly. I did see that lowest cumulative salary drafted first round-by-round but did not notice the exception that the first round would go highest-to-lowest. I consider this a genius move on schwarze's part.

That being said, I had originally nominated Red Ruffing and chose his low innings 1946 season which was cheap, good and left a lot of high-priced garbage for others to chew on. Typical nominee. Then I reread the rules. As other nominees came in, particular Ruth and Hornsby as well as Mantle and Ted Williams, I figured that I would try to decrease my odds of getting stuck and switched my nominee to 1931 Lefty Grove. This allowed me to get at least one strong starting pitcher with no wasted salary and move up in the Round 1 draft order. The only downside here was the new rule not allowing teammates of nominees, another genius move for this version.

Round 1.3 - 1931 Babe Ruth. This Babe was number 1 overall on my draft board. Relatively affordable but studly. Included in the package was a pretty good Lefty Gomez (especially within the 1920-1974 range) which was locked in from the start. Also worthy of roster consideration would be Bill Dickey (I would definitely need to add a free-agent catcher). Of course, Lou Gehrig had a great season but adding high-priced free agents was not an expectation, especially at this point in the draft. I moved from 3rd pick in Round 1 to 14th pick in Round 2 but no regrets here.

Round 2,14 - 1947 Warren Spahn. The second-best Spahn of his career would give me another decent starter without having any wasted salary. I was not looking at teammates but did notice a very nice 3b Bob Elliott just in case I found it necessary or preferable to punt Eddie Mathews.

Round 3.15 - 1943 Carl Hubbell - I had now missed all of Hubbell's good seasons and gladly cut bait by adding his only sub $1mm salary to my roster. This also helped get me a little move down in the draft order. Only 3 spots but helpful

Round 4.12 - 1956 Bob Feller - Another salary dump on a player that could have been very wasteful and it came with some good pitching options in starter Herb Score and reliever Ray Narleski. Also moved from 12th pick to 7th pick the next round.

Round 5.7 - 1926 Rogers Hornsby - All that was left of Hornsby at this point were 5 options. 2 under $1mm, 2 over $15mm and a very mediocre (by Hornsby standards) 1926 year with 630 PA/162. By taking this version I would be able to use him as a drafted player, bat him 8th, and save for a free agent. Not expecting any teammates here but did have some pitching to consider in Pete Alexander (either full or partial) and low-HR reliever Hi Bell. Both wound up making the final cut. Adding Old Pete also gave me my team name of Grove and Grover (which I will always be referring to in my mind as Dumb and Dumber)

Round 6.8 - 1958 Alvin Dark - Not a lot of action yet on Dark and I was looking ahead at all of the usable free agent Appling years that came along with Lyons. I was pleased to see that this sub-$1mm season was still on the board and grabbed it. Noticed later that a cheap .449 OBP Joe Cunningham would also be available in this package. He did not, however, make the cut

Round 7.4 - 1937 Ted Lyons - I needed a Lyons and this one was moderately priced which would allow me to avoid some degree of pain a little down the road. Of course, not only is a usable Appling included here but a stud Monty Stratton, which I had been targeting since the draft began. Both are immediately penciled in but Appling would unexpectedly be replaced soon.

Round 8.5 - 1955 Howie Pollet (Cubs) - Another sub-$1mm salary dump from whom I had not expected to use any teammates. I had not remembered that this was a huge season for Ernie Banks, Mr Cub himself. Loving his potential against all of the left-handed pitching nominees here.

Round 9.4 - 1954 Eddie Mathews - I had been hoping to take the 1968 Tigers cheap season but schwarze grabbed that one. I would have rostered the 1947 Elliot and OPS monster Gates Brown and passed on McLain. Anyhow, this is one of Mathews' best seasons and saves me yet another free agent spot.

Round 10.5 - 1956 Ted Abernathy - This was the only sub-$1mm Abernathy left and the next lowest salary was $1mm higher. Getting this out of the way and improving my draft position.

Round 11.3 - 1929 Spud Davis - A high batting average season to go along with some potential teammates Lefty O'Doul and Chuck Klein. Neither one made the final cut, however.

Round 12.4 - 1925 Earl Whitehill - One of the lower-priced Wasteful Whitehills left on the board and from the start I wanted either 1924 or 1925 given the Tiger teammates. Both Harry Heilmann and Ty Cobb did make the final cut. Johnny Bassler did not.(beaten out by a better Dickey from)

Round 13.3 - 1934 Kiki Cuyler - All along this process I had been trying to save salary to have the option to accommodate the $14 million 1957 Mantle, who was still available (along with the $18mm version - not going to happen, 2 of his cheapest versions and the so-so 1960 season price a little over $7mm). Now that I had the option, I decided to go with a usable full-time Cuyler, which saved salary waste and put the $14 million to better potential use since I had a lot of decent free agents to consider.

Round 14.3 - 1951 Mickey Mantle - At this point, only BeAllEndAll needed Mantle and only Juice and I needed Bottomley. I ruled out the 1957 version I had been considering as described above. Now my choices were going cheap on Mantle or taking the 1960 version and living with that. As usual, I had not really done much homework on how all of my options would play out, I just knew I had a lot to tinker with. A lot of those options were strong-hitting outfielders (fielding not so much but what else is new with my "strategies"). I decided to bail on the Mick and save.

Round 15 - 1933 Jim Bottomley - I figured I would save a little over $1mm and take this useless version. I could use the 1931 Ruth at 1b and could use either of the remaining Bottomleys as a backup so cheap wins.

Thanks for sharing calhoop. I definitely wanted '37 Stratton as well, but I waited too long to pull the trigger.

Calling on pedrocerrano....

Posted by schwarze on 1/24/2024 5:01:00 PM (view original):
Thanks for sharing calhoop. I definitely wanted '37 Stratton as well, but I waited too long to pull the trigger.

Calling on pedrocerrano....

I was all set to take him that round, too. Calhoop jumped me in the draft order and took him just before I could.

Eddie and the No Cluisers

When this version popped up in the classifieds, I knew I wanted in, even if it’s an era I’m not all that familiar with. These drafts are a lot of fun and are very competitive. I jumped in right away with a TBD, not wanting to lose a spot. Good thing I did as the league filled in ~4hrs. I wonder if we could fill a 30 team league (2 15x15 drafts)…

Nomination Strategy: Now that I was signed up, I needed to come up with a strategy and a nomination rather quickly. I skimmed the ad in the classifieds for the new era and assumed the rest of the rules were the same as v32 (more on that in a minute). Since my familiarity is, for the most part, 1960 and up, I didn’t have any go to players for nominations. I decided I would do the same as last time, find pitchers I liked and then a matching teammate to be an exclusive. Past that, we would just have to wait and see who the rest of the nominees are and the teammate pools they create.

Nomination: 1953 Eddie Mathews, 3B, $7,456,736 – I initially chose Eddie Mathews because I assumed the rules were mostly the same as the last version and ignored all of the highlighted warnings. This included the assumption that our nominated players’ teammates would be a part of our player pool. I like 1953 Warren Spahn so it seemed like a no-brainer pick. Luckily for me, schwarze took 1953 Spahn as his exclusive which triggered the conversation that led to ronthegenius giving sage advice on thoroughly reading the rules. Still would have been a pretty savvy move had my interpretation been valid. Although I had time to change my nomination I opted to keep him. At least I would have one of if not the top third basemen in the league. His defense leaves a little to be desired (C-/B) but his offense is pretty decent (.300/.402/.613, 6 HR/100#).

Draft Strategy: Strategy??? Ha! Who needs a strategy? Seriously though, once the 24 hr period ended and the exclusives list was finalized I ended up with the 8^th pick. I knew I would have minimal research time before my pick and normally, I would pick the best available pitcher, most likely 1934 Carl Hubbell. But, after looking at all of the high salaries we would have to navigate and not wanting to exceed the salary cap, I decided I should play it safe and ensure I didn’t get stuck with the high salary Hornsby, Ruth, or Mantle seasons. There would be plenty of good teammates, offensively at least, so I didn’t need to worry about getting the best at every position. I could punt a few and pick up replacements later. I think the best bet for me is to build a good teammate pool to ensure I have enough flexibility in case I do need to draft one. Sounds like this is a plan to have no plan…

Round 1.08 1932 Babe Ruth, OF, $7,964,161 – This was a zero research pick. I looked at who was picked already and 4 of the reasonably priced Ruth’s were already gone. Normally, this is a pitcher pick for me and 1934 Hubbell was who I was initially thinking about. But if I was going to draft a Babe Ruth who was going to start and was affordable, I would have to do it now. Ruth has horrible defense (D+/D-) but for $8.0M, his .333/.480/.650 slash and 9 HR/100# seems to be a bargain. I’ll just need to make sure I draft enough range for my other two OF’s. Ruth does bring with him Gehrig, Lazzeri, Dickey, and Ruffing with draftable seasons at affordable prices. Not the typical start to a draft I would make but it’s a safe one.

1932 Yankee notables – 1B Lou Gehrig ($7.9M), C Bill Dickey ($3.7M), 2B Tony Lazzeri ($6.3M), Red Ruffing ($8.8M)

Round 2.09 1965 Warren Spahn, P, $1,306,765 – I was all set to take the best SP available for this pick. I really wanted 34 Hubbell but he was the 1^st pick of the 2^nd round. 31 Hubbell was my next choice but then he got drafted 3 picks later. 1927 Lyons went right before my pick. That brought me to 1932 Hubbell or 1947 Spahn. But when I saw the 65 Spahn had Juan Marichal, who would be a better ace than any of the other exclusive pitchers left, I made an abrupt switch. Not only could I bag Marichal, I would also improve my draft position which will hopefully let me net a few low priced exclusives to replace as starters with teammates. Spahn doesn’t offer much (72 IP, 3.83 ERC#) and if/when used, it will be in a relief B or LH specialist spot.

1965 San Francisco Giants notables – OF Willie Mays (9.3M), 1B Willie McCovey ($5.1M), SP Juan Marichal ($10.4M), RP Bill Henry ($1.2M), SP Bob Shaw ($6.1M), RP Frank Linzy ($2.1M), RP Masanori Murakami ($2.0M), RP Bobby Bolin ($4.3M)

Round 3.04 1932 Rogers Hornsby, OF, $238,344 – We moved up 5 spots with that low cost Spahn pick. The 1920 Hornsby was the most I wanted to spend and he was drafted last round, as was the 1923 version. That left the 1926 version to start at 2B or the 1931 version to play really bad 2B since I already had Mathews starting at 3^rd. The 1926 version played horrible defense, too. I do have Lazzeri so taking a Hornsby scrub isn’t a bad idea. The 1930 and 1932 versions were considered and I opted for the cheapest version, which also had a usable Lon Warneke. Hornsby won’t play but he’ll give heartwarming words of encouragement to the rest of the team.

1932 Chicago Cubs notables – 2B Billy Herman ($5.5M), C Gabby Hartnett ($3.5M), SP Lon Warneke ($8.4M)

Round 4.03 1935 Lefty Grove, SP $8,582,012 – I was in a good draft position. Initially I thought I should pick my Mantle now but with 18 seasons available, I should be able to get either the 1955 or 1961 version a few rounds later. I like the 1961 version best and I’m in a financial position to land him. Pairing him with Mays would help the OF defense tremendously. So for now, time to get another SP to go with Marichal.
I was torn between 1946 Feller and 1935 Grove. Feller’s 391 IP/162 and 2.44 ERC# sure look good but, his 3.53 BB/9# scared me off and I started to remember some very disappointing seasons I’ve had with him. Grove on the other hand, is a lefty and not only has a decent 2.66 ERC# over 290 innings, he also has a 0.22 HR/9#. He and Marichal will be our 1-2 (gulp) punch. Maybe I can find another teammate pitcher…

1935 Boston Red Sox notables – OF Moose Solters ($6.4M), C Rick Ferrell ($4.2M)

Round 5.04 1949 Howie Pollet, SP $6,618,363 – Even with a $8.6M pick last round, I only dropped 1 spot. Turns out, a lot more of you are comfortable with $10-14M players than I am and I had a lot of gap between myself and fatguyrd, who picked 6^th. About $4.2M worth of gap. I had some leeway to spend some cash without much impact to draft position. Maybe now is a good time to take my Mantle. I’m already considering picking up 65 Mays which means I’ll need to punt an Ofer. I already have Ruth slotted in left. Mays plays good defense in the OF but I need another. Mantle has quite a few seasons with good range and his 1961 version is no exception. But I can wait. $11M is a lot to most at this point in the draft. And besides, I need more pitching.

I still needed a Feller and 1953 is still available. I still needed a Hubbell. The 1937 and 1935 versions were both available. But then I saw I also need Pollet, another LH starter. The 1949 and 1946 versions were both available. Both were better than my Feller and Hubbell options. 46 Pollet had the better ERC# (2.89 vs 2.98) and OAV# (.238 vs .256) but he also had a higher BB/9# (2.77 vs 2.18) and HR/9# (0.48 vs 0.22) than 49 Pollet. In this league, I think it will be important to avoid pitchers who allow HR’s and walks. Too many Ruth’s, Mantles, Hornsby’s, etc. Using that thought process, I drafted the 49 version. The 49 Cardinals also bring Stan Musial, Enos Slaughter, Red Schoendienst, and Gerry Staley. Musial gives me an option in the OF to use rather than Mays. Or I could play him at first…

1949 St. Louis Cardinals notables – 1B/OF Stan Musial (9.3M), OF Enos Slaughter ($6.6M), 2B/3B/SS/OF Red Schoendienst ($7.0M), SS Marty Marion ($4.1M), SP/RP Gerry Staley ($5.1M), RP Fred Martin ($1.9M), RP Ted Wilks ($3.2M)

Round 6.02 1940 Ted Lyons, SP $5,210,094 – Somehow, I spent $6.6M and moved up in the draft. No complaints…I think. I wanted to keep beefing up my pitching. Besides Feller, who keeps getting more and more depleted now, and Hubbell, I also needed a Ted Lyons. As I scanned my list I saw I had the 1940 version rated almost as high as Howie Pollet. Innings are a little low (197 IP/162) but no one will be short innings. I could pick him up and then draft a cheaper Whitehill and Hubbell. Or, I could pick up 1937 Hubbell who was the best Hubbell left. I decided on Lyons to give me a balanced staff of LH’s Grove and Pollet paired up with RH’s Marichal and Lyons. Doesn’t sound very imposing…

1940 Chicago White Sox notables – SS Luke Appling ($6.1M), SP Johnny Rigney ($8.6M), SP Thornton Lee ($6.9M)

Round 7.03 1941 Carl Hubbell, RP $3,549,256 – We dropped one spot in the draft. I’m starting to think about how my line-up is going to fill out. More specifically, the teammates I want to use. Bill Dickey at C, Stan Musial at 1B, Red Schoendienst or Tony Lazzeri at 2B, Appling at SS, and Mays in CF. For pitchers, Marichal for sure. The rest don’t really stand out. That’s $46M in teammates. I need to make sure I have salary to do so. I’m going to have a horrible pitching staff…

I needed a cheap Spud Davis, Jim Bottomley, Alvin Dark, Kiki Cuyler, and probably two SP’s. Only 3 of us needed a Hubbell. 1940, 41, and 42 were all available. 42 was the most expensive and had more innings than I wanted. 1941 looked ok and was the cheapest but allowed 1.14 HR/9#. The 41 version was $100K more and walked nearly one more batter normalized. But he was almost half the HR/9# (0.63). He’ll pitch in relief…somewhere…

1941 New York Giants notables – OF Mel Ott ($5.0M), RP Jumbo Brown ($1.5M)

Round 8.04 1922 Jim Bottomley, 1B $1,220,769 – Did I really say I could wait on 61 Mantle??? Yeah, that was dumb. The LAST person I thought (at this time) would take a $10M+ Mantle was njbigwig but, here we are. Crap. I did some quick math and decided I could upgrade to 57 Mantle. If nobody has picked him by now then no one wants to spend the money, right? Right. So, we’ll wait and draft him in the 15^th round.

That brings us to salary conservation. Early in the draft I had considered just trying to get the best Whitehill season and try to use it. That would be either the 1926 or 1933 versions. They are also his most expensive. At this point in the draft, all of his cheap seasons are gone. His cheapest is the 1928 version at $4.3M. Downgrading here will help pay for the $3M+ Mantle increase. And I really don’t need Whitehill to be a #5 starter and long reliever. He can wait… I think.

I had pretty much decided that I would put Either Musial or Gehrig at 1B. I needed to get a cheaper Bottomley. Like Whitehill, the cheap Bottomley’s also got picked early. But there was one who was kind of cheap, 1922 Jim Bottomley of the St. Louis Cardinals. His salary was “only” $1.2M and he carried a normalized slash of .308/.348/.534 and 5/2/4 for normalized 2B/3B/HR. He doesn’t play defense but as long as I put Musial there, I should be ok. He’s an expensive pinch hitter but he should be a decent one.

1922 St. Louis Cardinals notables – OF Les Mann ($1.3M), C Eddie Ainsmith ($3.4M)

Round 9.03 1935 Kiki Cuyler, OF $1,196,901 – Something I neglected to do up to this point was to secure a cheap Alvin Dark so I could use Appling. This is where a mistake I made with how I built my draft sheets began to affect me. When generating my master draft list for the exclusives, I pre-chose which versions I wanted to use. These tended to be based solely on those which performed better with little to no consideration given to salary. Once I decided on which I would want, I DELETED THE OTHERS. I wouldn’t figure this out until later in the draft but it affected how I wanted to handle Alvin Dark now. On my sheet, I only show 1 version under $1M and in truth there were 3, along with a $1.1M version I was missing. The $1.1M version (1956) was still available. But I listed the full season and everything I showed was either a full SS season or a 3B season, I decided to draft him as a starter, target the 1953 version at $7.3M, and, like Mantle, wait until we are closer to the end of the draft.

I still needed to ensure a spot for Mays in the OF by taking a cheap Kiki. Like Dark, I had the same issues with Kiki. But this time, it worked out for me. The cheapest Cuyler was on my list and he was still available. Not necessarily cheap ($1.2M), but cheap as he was going to get. He doesn’t hit well but he does have B/B- in the OF and we can use him late in games to replace Ruth in LF. And the 1935 version has a bonus… C Gabby Hartnett, OF Augie Galan, and 2B Billy Herman. I’m starting to have some choices at the positions I’m going to fill with teammates…

1935 Chicago Cubs notables – C Gabby Hartnett ($5.4M), OF Augie Galan ($7.0M), 2B Billy Herman ($7.2M), 3B Stan Hack ($4.1M), SS Billy Jurges ($4.1M), SP Lon Warneke ($7.0M)

Round 10.02 1928 Earl Whitehill, RP $4,319,519 – I still need Whitehill, Abernathy, and Feller. I had a plan for Alvin Dark but that got shot to hell when nj once again took the most expensive player. Didn’t see that one coming either. Good thing he already has his Mantle. Dark and Mantle are the only two starters I have left to draft. I should be safe with taking Mantle last.

There are still a few options for Dark (49, 55, 56) so I can wait. I have been eyeing 65 Abernathy, who is also the most expensive. Surely nj won’t grab him, too, will he? I can wait on him as well. I’m having a hard time drafting Feller. I love him in real life but the sim has me afraid to use him. So I pass on him. Plenty of Spud Davis platoon options. He can wait. Looks like we grab the cheapest Whitehill, the 1928 version. He boasts 207 innings of 4.05 ERC# so, he won’t play much, if at all. Mop up and LH specialist duty for him.

1928 Detroit Tigers notables – 1B/OF Harry Heilmann ($5.4M), OF John Stone ($1.1M), 2B Charlie Gehringer ($5.7M)

Round 11.02 1956 Alvin Dark, SS $4,086,919 – The 1955 version of Alvin Dark went shortly after I picked. I really didn’t want the 1949 version since this was going to be a starter pick. I had better grab the 1956 StL version now. His defense is barely tolerable (C+/B-) and he barely hits or runs. But he does have 699 PA’s so I won’t need a back-up. This is wasted/not-wasted salary. Wasted because he sucks for this league. Not-wasted because he’s a necessary starter.

In regards to teammates…holy smokes! They have 33 hitter teammates and 22 pitchers teammates! Unfortunately, none of the pitchers were any good. They did have cheaper versions of Stan Musial and Red Schoendienst, both of whom could possibly make the team.

1956 St. Louis Cardinals notables – 1B/OF Stan Musial ($6.6M), OF Bill Virdon ($6.1M), 3B Ken Boyer ($5.2M), 2B Don Blasingame ($6.1M), C Bill Sami (($1.9M), 2B Red Schoendienst ($4.0M)

Round 12.02 1938 Spud Davis, C $1,399,832 – You have got to be kidding me. 3day took 57 Mantle. CRAP! Now what??? Do I punt Mantle and take his $2.3M 1951 season and throw more money away? I could start Gehrig at 1^st and move Musial to RF. But I probably can’t start Gabby, would have to switch to Dickey. I have some flexibility at 2B, too. Red Schoendienst, Lazzeri, Herman, and Gehringer. Maybe I take his $18M season? I wonder if I could fit it…

I have no chance for Gabby if I don’t take a cheap Spud. That would be the 1938 version for $1.4M and 294 PA’s. Hopefully, I’ll only need to use half of those at the most. He also comes with a nice Ernie Lombardi and usable Wilcy Moore. Not sure I would take Lombardi over Gabby…

1938 Cincinnati Reds notables – 1B Frank McCormick ($6.1M), OF Ival Goodman ($6.1M), C Ernie Lombardi ($5.9M), RP Whitey Moore ($2.6M), RP Jim Weaver ($3.6M), SP Johnny Vander Meer ($6.6M)

Round 13.01 1964 Ted Abernathy, RP $1,341,612 – So I’m still scrambling on how I’m going to deal with my Mantle situation. I want to roster teammates Musial, Mays, Hartnett, and Lazzeri to go with Ruth, Mantle, Mathews, and Dark. And I want to roster Marichal. I still need to draft a Feller. The 1949 or 1950 versions are my preferred versions of what is left. If I can land one of them, they will pitch. I’m leaning towards 56 Mantle. Calhoop also needs a Mantle and he also looks positioned to possibly draft the 56 version. I built teams for all 4 Mantle versions and the 56 version wasted the least amount of salary. Maybe this is the way…

I decided to wait on both Mantle and Feller and turned my sights on Abernathy. Committing to an $18M Mantle means I needed a cheap version. ~$2M or less. After my pick last round there were 9 owners who still needed one. Schwarze kicked off the run with the 12^th pick of the 12^th round and two more went before I could kick off the 13^th round. I decided to stick to cheap over quality and picked up the 1964 version. He’ll pitch batting practice and warm up relievers in the bullpen.

1964 Cleveland Indians notables – RP Don McMahon ($3.0M), RP Luis Tiant ($3.5M)

Round 14.01 1949 Bob Feller, SP $5,698,653 – Surprise, surprise, nj takes the more expensive 1950 Feller. This time I’m relieved. I need the cap space for Mantle. At this point, I’m feeling really exposed waiting to pick 56 Mantle last. Calhoop still hasn’t picked his Mantle either. If he takes him I either punt Mantle with the 1951 version and spend excess cash on innings I probably won’t use or use the least desirable 1960 version and have excess cash I can’t spend on anything useful. I go ahead and bet that calhoop is not taking 56 Mantle and pick up 49 Feller. He’ll pitch for us both starting and in relief. We’ll need to score runs if he’s going to win any games.

1949 Cleveland Indians notables – OF Dale Mitchell ($6.0M), SS Lou Boudreau ($5.4M), SP Mike Garcia ($5.8M), RP Satchel Paige ($2.4M), RP Al Benton ($3.7M), SP Bob Lemon ($10.4M)

Round 15.01 1956 Mickey Mantle, CF $18,122,106 – Phew! Calhoop is punting on Mantle and took the 51 version. I made one more review of my options before officially pulling the trigger on him. On paper, taking on his 18M salary is best use of my budget at this point in the draft. But it’s certainly not the best value.

1956 New York Yankees notables – C Yogi Berra ($6.0M), SS Gil McDougald ($5.3M), SP Whitey Ford ($7.2M), RP Tom Sturdivant ($5.2M), RP Bob Grim ($2.1M)

Team Build – Now that the draft is over it’s time to finalize my build. I have some decent teammates in my pool. My drafted exclusives are not very good but it was going to be tough to get the best.

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

Catcher – I had 294 PA’s from 38 Spud Davis (233/.292/.293, $1.4M) and a C arm. The less he plays the better. I have a lot of options to pair with him: 56 Yogi Berra (.299/.371/.528, $6.0M), 38 Ernie Lombardi (.339/.391/.527, $5.9M), 35 Gabby Hartnett (.335/.403/.540, $5.4M), 35 Rick Ferrell (.292/.376/.403, $4.2M), 32 Bill Dickey (.302/.352/.471, $3.7M) and 22 Eddie Ainsmith (.278/.333/.442, $3.4M). I was torn between the left-handed Dickey and the more expensive, offensive powerhouse Gabby. If I make some sacrifices, I can fit Hartnett. He’s in.

First Base – I was pretty excited to get 32 Lou Gehrig (.341/.442/.610, $7.9M) with 32 Ruth as one of my options but getting 49 Stan Musial (.338/.435/.621, $9.3M) who was better defensively than Gehrig was a win. He’s in. 22 Jim Bottomley (.308/.348/.532, $1.2M) and 56 Eddie Robinson (.223/.317/.512, $0.3M) won’t see any playing time out in the field but they will be called to pinch hit against right-handers.

Second Base – Another nice pick-up from 32 Ruth was 32 Tony Lazzeri (.292/.390/.494, $6.3M). That made it easy to punt on Hornsby having a good option so early. As the draft went on, we picked up some more good options: 35 Billy Herman (.332/.381/.471, $7.2M), 49 Red Schoendienst (.297/.348/.353, $7.0M), 28 Charlie Gehringer (.310/.387/.444, $5.7M), 32 Billy Herman (.306/.359/.397, $5.5M), SS Lou Boudreaux (.284/.368/.366, $5.4M), 56 Gil McDougald (.312/.399/.437, $5.3M), and 56 Red Schoendienst (.305/.360/.361, $4.0M). I really wanted 35 Herman or 32 Lazzeri but not getting 61 or 57 Mantle and settling for the $18M version pretty much killed the possibility of spending $6M+ on a position or 2. This would have to be one of those 2. 56 Schoendienst can hit some singles and plays decent defense (A/C). The only issue, he’s a little shy on PA’s at 564. We added 38 Alex Kampouris (.254/.353/.354, $0.5M) with his 93 PA’s and C+/A glove to fill in the rest.

Third Base – This position was decided before the draft started, our exclusive 53 Eddie Mathews (.300/.402/.613, $7.5M). He doesn’t play great defense (C-/B) and I considered adding 41 John Davis (A/C-, $0.3M) but opted for a pinch hitter on the bench instead. Interesting note, this position had the least number of viable teammates in my entire pool, although I didn’t necessarily have a ton of relief pitcher options either.

Shortstop – This was a position I didn’t handle well in the draft. I initially planned to punt on Alvin Dark and by the time I realized I wouldn’t have many options, it was too late to get one of the better starting seasons. I did have some options: 49 Schoendienst, 40 Luke Appling (.343/.412/.429, $6.1M), 49 Boudreaux, and 56 McDougald. I really wanted to roster Appling but ended up with 56 Alvin Dark (.278/.310/.359, $4.1M) covering short. His defense is suspect (C+/B-) and as much as I wanted to get a defensive back-up like 56 Jerry Lumpe (C/A+, $0.4M), I opted for a Robinson to pinch hit instead.

Left Field – This was my 1^st pick in the draft, 32 Babe Ruth (.333/.480/.650, $8.0M). His defense is horrid (D+/D-) but he’ll be a great bat in the 3^rd spot.

Center Field – My last pick in the draft, 56 Mickey Mantle (.354/.457/.700, $18.1M). Hopefully, his A-/A defense in center will help cover some of Ruth’s shortcomings.

Right Field – One of the bonuses from drafting 65 Spahn in the 2^nd round was 65 Willie Mays (.325/.408/.649, $9.3M). That made it easy to decide to punt on Cuyler. I did have some other good teammate options: 49 Musial, 49 Schoendienst, 35 Augie Galan (.306/.398/.463, $7.0M), 56 Stan Musial (.313/.390/.512, $6.6M), 49 Enos Slaughter (.336/.415/.507, $6.6M), and 28 Harry Heilmann (.318/.382/.500, $5.4M) to name a few. I seriously considered putting 49 Musial here instead of Mays and putting Gehrig at first but with Mathews, Ruth, and Musial already hitting from the left side and the plethora of left-handed starters in this iteration, I decided I needed another right-handed bat to go with Hartnett that wasn’t Alvin Dark. At least Mantle is a switch-hitter.

Outfield – Our last two spots go to 32 Rogers Hornsby (.218/.358/.304, $0.2M) and 35 Kiki Cuyler (.260/.330/.384, $1.2M) to back up in the outfield. Actually, only Kiki will be an OF back-up. His B/B- defense will replace Ruth late in games. And as we mentioned earlier, Hornsby is on the team purely for moral support.

Starting Rotation – I really screwed the pooch when it comes to pitching. The strategy of not drafting any of the top pitching options for the 1^st 3 rounds showed once I took a deep look at my options. 65 Juan Marichal (2.05 ERC#/.212 OAV#/0.96 WHIP#/0.74 HR9#, $10.4M) was by far my best option so he will be our ace. 35 Lefty Grove (2.66/.248/1.15/0.22, $8.6M) will be our #2 and I am hoping he will be somewhat effective. I am also hoping 49 Howie Pollet (2.98/.256/1.22/0.32, $6.7M) can be on the effective side. Our 4^th starter will be 49 Bob Feller (3.42/.247/1.26/0.78, $5.7M) and if he can break even, it would be a huge win. Our 5^th starter (yes, you heard that right, 5 starters) will be 40 Ted Lyons (2.97/.247/1.15/0.78, $5.2M) His HR’s are a little high but he’s another one I am hoping will be on the effective side. I would have liked to roster 49 Gerry Staley (2.54/.237/1.12/0.34, $5.1M) but I already had too many innings and drafting him would’ve wasted more of them.

Bullpen – As you can probably tell, I pretty much decided to punt on pitching this iteration and try to build an offense that can outscore my opponents through brute force. The bullpen is where we took the biggest hit in order to do that. I don’t think this is going to be a good strategy. But we’ll see what we can do. I’m going to carry 11 pitchers, 5 SP’s and 6 RP’s. Really, it’s more like 3 RP’s with one or two starters coming in to pitch relief from time to time. 41 Carl Hubbell (3.80/.268/1.35/0.63, $3.5M) will handle long relief duties. If he has to come in, the game is probably going to be a blowout.
Pitching in Set-up1 will be 49 Fred Martin (2.76/.242/1.19/0.36, $1.9M) and 32 Wilcy Moore (3.21/.266/1.26/0.39, $0.5M). These two are my best RP’s and the reason why we are trying to get as many innings as possible from our starters. From here, it only gets worse.
The only other somewhat usable pitcher I have is 65 Warren Spahn (3.83/.263/1.32/0.91, $1.3M) but he will be a LH-specialist only. Our last two spots are reserved for 28 Earl Whitehill (4.05/.272/1.46/0.46, $4.3M) and 64 Ted Abernathy (4.41/.255/1.58/0.50, $1.3M). Hopefully, these two only see the field to pitch batting practice…for us.

Ballpark – I decided I needed to try to help my pitchers, while at the same time, not limit our HR hitters. We don’t hit a ton of doubles or triples. Dodger Stadium seems like an appropriate park for this team and league.

Outlook – We really dogged this draft. Our pitching is horrible. Our infield defense is not good. Ruth is an anchor weight in left but anything going to center or right should be handled with ease. We’re slow. We won’t steal many bases. But we can hit. And so can everyone else. But we don’t have a true leadoff hitter and we’re weak out of the 7, 8, and 9 spots. We’re actually going to try Musial at leadoff and see how that pans out for us.

It’ll be a miracle if we finish 3^rd in our division. At least we won’t get shutout much. Great draft. Already looking forward to the next one. Good luck everyone!

Usable Players

PA/162	AVG#	OBP#	SLG#	OPS#	2B/100#	3B/100#	HR/100#	Salary
5555	0.315	0.400	0.548	0.948	4.3	0.6	4.7	$67,578,494

IP/162	ERA#	ERC#	OAV#	WHIP#	BB/9#	K/9#	HR/9#	Salary
1394	2.76	2.82	0.242	1.15	2.08	4.90	0.56	$39,699,765

Great stuff. Thanks!

This has all been great to read. You could at this point almost create a round-by-round "what were we thinking" and reconstruct the draft with commentary. I'm not sure I have quite that much free time on my hands, though.