Team Building Strategies Topic

schwarze
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Use this thread to share your thoughts on your team building strategies

8/1/2015 8:19 AM
schwarze
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$70M - The Sun Was in my Eyes
Great American Ballpark

I hate low cap leagues.  I usually just go with as many high% SB guys as I can fit under the rules.  That strategy usually gets me enough wins to make the playoffs, but the lack of offense and the fact that most of the playoff teams have A+ arms usually means an early playoff exit.  This time I tried something different.  I went with way more offense than usual and have very little speed.  My starting eight batters average .288 avg, .389 obp & .438 slugging. 

As far as the theme goes, I wanted to minimize infield errors.  With deadball pitchers, "D" fielding infielders could make 30, 40 or even 50 errors.  So I rostered Zobrist (A-/D), Madlock (A-/D) and O.Smith (A+/D+).  First base typically doesn't commit a lot of errors so I was fine with F.Fain (D/B+).  My outfielders can't really move or catch well, but I did stay away from any D-'s.  I have Cravath (D/D+), Galan (C/D+) and Hooper (C-/D).   My catcher is a popular choice - Gene Tenace.

I went with three 300+ IP starters. apparently popular low cap cookies ('09 Summers, '05 Joss, '05 Owen).  I went with a relatively cheap bullpen, spending about $8.2M on six deadball relievers (361 IPs of 1.08 whip and 0.22 hr/9). 

Although my "cookie factor" of 5.9 is higher than the average of 4.0, that's really only due to a few players.  13 of my 21 non-200K players were selected two times or fewer.  I am cautiously optimistic, although with WaitNSee in my division, I have to hope for a wildcard spot.

Hitting: 5387 PA/162, .287 AVG, .388 OBP, .431 SLG, $36.1 million
Pitching: 1319 IP/162, 1.03 WHIP, 0.16 HR/9, $33.2 million  (excludes three 200K pitchers)


$80M - Z is for Zobrist
Great American Ballpark

I guess I could say the same thing for this theme as for my 70M team.  I usually go with speed at the lower caps, but I changed my usual strategy and went with more offense and have very little speed.  Due to the nature of this theme, I started by grabbing value starting pitchers first.  Ironically, I have the same two 300+ pitchers I took in the 70M theme... '09 Summers & '05 Joss.  I needed about 400 more IPs at SP, so I grabbed '02 P.Martinez and '69 Bosman.  I filled in the bullpen after I figured out my starting lineup. 

The letter "C" was a tough call for me.  I wanted both Cullenbine and Cravath... but eventually decided on Cullenbine.  Going through each letter, one at a time, I found there were some very easy selections for me.... F = Fain, P = Phillips, T = Tenace, W= Weiss, Z = Zobrist.  That left me with two batters (3B, OF).  I strongly considered Boggs (would have to replace Bosman) but decided on the switch hitting Jim Gilliam instead ("G" was a tough letter to fill).  I needed a stud hitter to bat in the middle of the lineup and found I could also knock off a tough letter with '24 Ross Youngs (.356, .441, .521). 

For the bullpen, I went with low-inning SPs, including Newhouser, Rigney, Lyons, Quinn, Dean, O'Neill.  These six pitchers combine for 354 IP, 0.98 WHIP, 0.31 HR/9.  I'm a little light in innings with 1379 total (including 200K) - I hope that doesn't come back to haunt me. 

That left me with the following letters:  A, E, I, U, H, K, V.  Doc Ellis is my only scrub pitcher.  I was able to get a decent bench with Hornsby (.423 obp), Kenney (.412), Arnold (.381), Vitiello (.365), Uribe (.355) plus Iorg.  

My cookie factor is an above average 8.7 (avg 7.4).  That's mainly due to Joss, Summers, Zobrist, Quinn plus scrubs Iorg and Uribe.  The rest of my roster consists of players not used very much.  In fact, I have failed to roster many of the popular cookies (no Adams, Boggs, Carter, Colemen, Henderson, Nehf, Raines, Roberts, Young).  Maybe that's a bad sign for my team.  Regardless, I should be able to score some runs.

Hitting: 5377 PA/162, .293 AVG, .410 OBP, .429 SLG, $38.6 million
Pitching: 1349 IP/162, 1.00 WHIP, 0.30 HR/9, $40.6 million  (excludes one 200K pitcher)


$90M - 76 Reds, 14 Cubs, 10 Mariners
Wrigley Field

Maybe I should have spent more time on this theme.  One of the disadvantages of running this tournament, is that I need to have my teams built quickly so I can assign commissioners and get league numbers.  Anyway, I started my search by finding the "Ugly" team first.  I knew it would be hard to get $20M worth of salary from a crappy team.  When I discovered the 2010 Mariners, my search was over.  I didn't even try other combinations.

My second step was to find the "Bad" team.  I knew finding enough relievers would be difficult, so I quickly locked in to the 2014 Cubs.  They have an abundance of pitching choices.  I was thrilled with how my team building process was going.  I had my pitching staff almost completed and I haven't even selected my "Good" team yet.  The problem was that I had very little in offense (Rizzo & Suzuki).

So now I needed to find a team with LOTS of hitting.  I first tried the '85 Cardinals.  Tudor would make my pitching staff dominant.  It's been so long that I can't remember why I scrapped the Cards.  Maybe the salary didn't work or there was some hole I wasn't comfortable with.  So I then looked at those mid 70's Reds teams.  Bench, Morgan, Rose, Concepcion, Foster, Griffey Sr., Geronimo.  I decided on 76 Reds.  Of course, I still needed a SP so had to swallow Pat Zachary.

Here is my lineup:
Bench, Rizzo, Morgan, Rose, Concepcion, Suzuki, Griffey Sr., Geronimo. 

Pitching Staff:
F.Hernandez, C.Lee, Zachary, Arrieta, Samardzija, Hammel
Russell, Sarmiento, Hendricks, Ramirez, Rondon, Strop

After looking at the stats below, I now think this team will suck.  The hitting and pitching stats are worse than my 80M team.

Hitting: 5540 PA/162, .297 AVG, .376 OBP, .441 SLG, $47.7 million (excludes scrubs).
Pitching: 1389 IP/162, 1.08 WHIP, 0.50 HR/9, $42.0 million.


$100M - Fargo: The woodCHIPPER scene
Turner Field

I figured Ricky Henderson would be a popular choice thanks to his short stint with the 2002 Red Sox.  I tried a combination with '02 Boston (Pedro, Lowe, Nomar, Floyd, Wakefield), '80 Oak (Norris), '89 Oak (Lansford, Burns, Plunk, Corsi) , '93 Tor (Olerud, Alomar, Molitor) and '03 LAD (K.Brown, Lo Duca, Quantrill, Alvarez) but just couldn't quite fit under the cap.  Maybe I should have tried harder.  Others seemed to make this work.

I tried an Enos Slaugher team with '54 NYY (Berra, Carey, Mantle, Ford), '42 StL (M.Coooper, Shoun), '48 StL (Brecheen), '53 StL (Schoendienst, Hemus, Musial) and '59 NYY (Duren, Shantz).  I really liked this team but there wasn't enough RPs and I had to really downgrade from '48 to '53 Musial to fit under the cap.

I tried a team with a bunch of cheap Danny Heeps with '81 Hou (Ryan, Sutton, Knepper, D.Smith), '80 Hou (Richard, Sambito), '85 NYM (Gooden, K.Hernandez, G.Carter), '89 Bos (Boggs, Evans), '90 Bos (J.Reed, L.Andersen) and '88 LAD (K.Gibson, J.Howell).  I couldn't find an acceptable SS despite using 7 clones.

Keeping with the cheap scrub clone theme, I tried Danny Bautista.  He gave me '96 Atl (Smoltz, Justice, Borbon Jr.), '97 Atl (Maddux, Lofton, Blauser, Lopez, Cather), '98 Atl (C.Jones, Galarraga, E.Perez, Ligtenberg, Seanez), '00 Ari (L.Gonzalez, S,Finley), '01 Ari (R.Johnson) and '02 Ari (Schilling, Spivey, Kim).   The problem with this team is that I had to use too many roster spots on hitters and was short on both pitchers and IPs.

One team that really intrigues me was using Dick Schofield Sr.  I could put together a great pitching staff.  '68 Stl (Gibson, Hoerner), '66 LAD (Koufax, Sutton, Regan), '65 SF (Marichal, Mays), '61 Pit (Clemente), '62 Pit (Face), '71 StL (Torre, Simmons, Brock, Alou).  The problem with this team was I couldn't afford Marichal or Mays and had to instead go with '65 Pit (Law).  I also couldn't afford '69 Bos (Petrocelli).  This would've been a great team at a higher cap.

I finally decided on Chipper Jones as my clone - which I now see was the most popular choice.  I rostered 1996 Chipper to play shortstop and he brought along teammates John Smoltz and David Justice.  1997 Chipper is my DH and he brings Kenny Lofton, Greg Maddux, Denny Neagle and Mike Cather.  1998 Chipper plays 3B and allows me to add Eddie Perez, Tom Glavine, Kerry Ligtenberg, Rudy Seanez, John Rocker and Paul Byrd.  2000 Chipper will play out of position at 1B and he brings Javy Lopez and Rafael Furcal. And 2002 Chippers plays OF and rounds out my roster with Gary Sheffield, Mark DeRosa, B.J. Surhoff, Chris Hammond, Darren Holmes and Mike Remlinger. 

I have no scrubs.  I like this team.  But is it better than the other 14 Chipper teams?  No clue. 

Hitting: 6307 PA/162, .309 AVG, .394 OBP, .497 SLG, $53.2 million
Pitching: 1394 IP, 1.07 WHIP, 0.55 HR/9, $46.7 million


$110M - Polo Grounds Red Sox
The Polo Grounds

I pretty much made only one team.  I was set on the Giants as one of the two franchises I wanted because of their pitching depth plus Hornsby.  It really came down to Cleveland or Boston as the second franchise.  I knew many people would take Indians because of Joss.  But I really wanted Pedro & Boggs.  So it was simply a matter of filling in the rest of the roster.  I typically try to balance the salary spent on pitching vs. hitting (which I didn't really do in the other themes above). I always start with the pitching staff.

'08 Mathewson, '14 Leonard, '02 P.Martinez, '03 J.Schmidt will start games.  Toney and Hearn make for a great 1-2 bullpen punch. T.Gordon and a low-IP Pennock completed the staff with over 1400 innings of sub 0.90 whip.  I do have four 200K scrubs for mopup duty.

I had a hard time finding enough Giants hitters as the Red Sox dominate my hitting lineup.  Boggs, Pesky, Yaz, T.Williams, B.Johnson all have OBP in the .410 to .450 range.  Besides Hornsby, my other two Giants hitters are Bresnahan and Turkey Mike Donlin.   Unfortunately, I have no switch-hitters in the lineup. 

This was the easiest team to build, but I'm not sure I built the best team I could.  No '19 Ruth, no Barry Bonds, I didn't take either of Pedro's two best years.  Feels like an 85-win team at best.

Hitting: 5599 PA/162, .332 AVG, .429 OBP, .497 SLG, $55.5 million
Pitching: 1410 IP/162, 0.89 WHIP, 0.31 HR/9, $53.5 million (excludes four 200K pitchers)


$120M - This Theme Gave me a Headache
The Polo Grounds

I saved this theme for last as I thought it would be fairly easy.  It turned out that this theme took me the longest to build.  I'd get 20-22 players selected, then I'd get stuck not liking the remaining options and I'd have to back up and try something slightly different....  but as you know, one or two tweaks means many more changes are necessary.  It got to the point where I just wanted to be done and once I got something that worked, I was done.  I basically tried to pair two of the opposite PA groups into a single platoon, to make managing easy.  For the most part, that's how my offense turned out...

C: '21 Schang (544 pa) / '31 Hargrave (94)
1B: '12 Votto (475) / '19 J.Harris (265)
2B: '09 Zobrist (599) / '91 Barberie (164)
3B: '89 Boggs (742)
SS: '09 Wagner (630)
OF: '91 B.Hamilton (753)
OF: '41 Cullenbine (662)
OF: '50 T.Williams (438) / '63 Mantle (215)
DH: '72 W.Mays (364) / '86 Schomberg (364)

The pitching was actually the easy part.  I had that done early on.  Here is my pitching staff, in order of IP.

SP: '08 Joss, '68 Tiant, '95 Maddux, '13 Harvey
RP: '88 Chamberlain, '01 P.Martinez, '87 Burke, '46 Ruffing, '58 Latman, '72 Rau (and '35 Cain, 200K)

High cap leagues are always a crapshoot.  I have lots of OBP, not much power and solid WHIP.  I spent more on pitching than maybe I should have but the high cap and DH kind of worried me. 

Hitting: 6266 PA/162, .321 AVG, .436 OBP, .487 SLG, $58.2 million
Pitching: 1540 IP/162, 0.89 WHIP, 0.29 HR/9, $61.6 million (excludes one 200K pitcher)
 

8/1/2015 1:12 PM (edited)
trd3
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My favorite part of the WISC and the best thread on WIS all year.
8/1/2015 10:09 AM
skilly006
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                    70M K.C. Skillz

Great American Ball Park

     On this theme I really tried to stick with most off my "cookies". Zobrist, Johnson, Hafey, and the like. I dont think that offense will be the problem. My biggest Wild Card in this theme will be 1960 Eddie Yost. He has the most PA's of anyone on my team and really only brings a high OBP to the table. His 3B defense is D+/D+ so with him playing every game I hope he doesn't hurt me too bad. I also went with bad fielding and good range in CF. 

     The problem for me in this league is pitching. Obviously in the Low-Cap league you have to make some hard choices at P and I was no exception. .I was able to find 1338 innings with a OAV of .227 and a WHIP of 1.05. The only regret I may end up having is I did not roster a 200K player in order to potentially spend more on another guy. Hopefully this theme doesn't get too wild and I wind up needing more PA's/Innings than I planned on. 



          80 MIL K.C. Skillz

Bennett Park

     This was a pretty easy theme for me to build, I basically just went down the alphabet and filled in the guys that I tend to favor in Open Leagues. Took HOJO over Addie simply because he can help me Win every game so that is why I went with him. I was surprised how many of my favorite 80 mil players I was able to plug into this team. I have 777 PA's to use between Tuck Turner and Larry Walker, so figuring out how to platoon those two effectively may be a challenge. I am pretty happy with a team OPS of .905 in Bennett Park. 

     My Pitching staff was full of guys that I typically like to use in 80 Mil leagues. Leever, Krause, Pfiester, have always been pretty reliable. I finished the rotation out with Kid Madden. Steele, Nehf, and Falkenberg typically perform well out of the pen for me.  My OAV is higher than I like at .215 but WHIP is still .97. Starters have 862 innings pitched w/13 HR's allowed. Hoping to have a very solid record at home. 


          90 MIL K.C. Skillz via 72' Royals 02' Royals and 13' Dodgers 

Kauffman Stadium

         I had no idea where to start with this league. This was a very innovative idea by Schwarze to eliminate the dead ballers and have a more modern theme. Everything in this league fed off of pitching with the exception of the 02' Royals, who it seemed like scored 7 runs a game and still found a way to be "Ugly".  My main issue (that I hope turns out to be no issue at all) will be playing A-/B- 1B, Big John Mayberry at second base so that he and Mike Sweeney are in the lineup at the same time. I have some okay hitters but probably not a lineup that will be feared in this league. TEAM OPS. 818 will require Kauffman stadium to help my pitchers keep it in the yard. 

          My staff is dominated by the 13' Dodgers Headlined by Kershaw, Grienke, and Jansen. I am really banking big on getting an above avg. performance out of 72' Roger Nelson (1.30 WHIP avg. in open leagues.)  Also I will need 72' Split to hold down the back end of my rotation. I fell very good about the bullpen so hopefully I will be able to protect leads. .217 OAV and WHIP 1.05 for the staff are respectable. I will need the pitching as don't think I will be able to slug it out with some of the teams more balanced to the hitters. 

     This theme was legit. I really tip my cap to on this one, it was difficult and probably has the most players thinking "Oh yeah, how did I forget about those guys...."


     100 MIL K.C. Skillz via 2 decades of Buckner 
     
Royals Stadium 

     Another good theme, so many directions to go with this one. The direction I picked was to get as many eligible top 50 ERC guys as I could in my rotation 72' Sutton, 86' Clemens, 89' Saberhagen, and after some debate I went with 72' Tommy John over 89' Tom Gordon. All of these pitchers have slapped hands with the infamous Bill Butler after a Win at some point in their careers. After I had the rotation I did my best to fill the team in from there. I opted to leave Jim Rice off the team in exchange for slugger Kingman and I waffled back and forth on 89' Eisenriech or '89 Bo for days. At the end of the day I have Buckner 5 times, the 70' option allowed me to add a decent CF option in Willie Davis. This is perhaps the team that I have lost the most confidence in since Schwarze has released some of his data. I guess we will see if my strategy of pitching first holds up in this theme. Even though it looks like I missed the boat on Reggie and the combo of Blue, Hunter, and Guidry. 

Team OPS .785 YIKES!!!!!!  OAV .206 and WHIP of .99 are great. 



                    
         110M K.C. Skillz via FenwaytoL.A.viaBrooklyn

     Ebbet's Field

     Easiest theme for me next to Alphabet Soup.  Tried to get the best pitching I could manage and then fill in hitters from there. Obviously the Dodgers have a number of front end of the rotation options and the Red Sox have 00' Pedro. 


     Both of these teams have ample options at bat with nearly 2 and a half centuries of player seasons combined. Everyday lineup is 19' Ruth, 55' Teddy, 11' Kemp, 38' Cronin, 03' Mueller, 55' Campanella, 07' Kent, and 25' Joe Harris. I was surprised to find Wade curiously absent after I finished this build went back looked at it and decided to stay with Mueller (.540 SLG). Team OPS .978 I'll take it. 

     The PItchers are the foundation of the team Sutton, Leonard, Pedro, and Kershaw. I also have some real solid bullpen options. Team OAV .184 and WHIP .87. In this league I'm gonna need it.............


     120 MIL K.C. Skillz 

Cinergy Field

     In this league I kind just tried to just start at the top and get the Best OPS I could manage from each PA bracket, and then start to fill the spots around the diamond as I moved down the PA list. I payed a bit more attention to defense up the middle than the corners but really just focused on the OPS.  Speaking of OPS team avg. is .956 (including two defensive replacements that will not be getting many AB's)

     I am VERY interested to see the pitching in this league. I went with Joss, Martizez, Tiant, and Roger Nelson in the rotation. I must have went back and forth on this a thousand times. I hope I don't regret  staying away from 95' Maddux and his much lower HR/9 compared to Pedro due to the sluggers I expect to see day in and out in this league. Also Maddux and his lower salary allow some better pen options. At the end of the day I feel the staff is formidable, but there will not be many holes in the lineups either, so I guess we'll just see. Team OAV .185 WHIP .88.  I really cannot wait to see the other choices that team's made with regards to pitching in this league. 

GOOD LUCK EVERYONE. THIS YEAR'S TOURNEY SHOULD BE GREAT. THANK YOU AGAIN SCHWARZE. 


 


8/1/2015 3:56 PM
ozomatli
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As someone who's returned to the game recently after a long time away, I'm sure I'll learn more in this thread than anything else, but I figure it can't hurt to share. My overarching strategy was to pay a lot of attention to the bang-for-your-buck stats ($/IP and $/PA), even more so than I usually do, due to the level of competition.

$120M - The Stew
Municipal Stadium

Going into this theme, all I knew was that I wanted to use Municipal. It's my favorite park for 120M-160M because it simultaneously makes defense more important, usually negates opposing teams' power hitters and lets me not worry quite as much about HR/9# as I usually do.

For this theme in particular, not having to worry quite as much about HR/9# let me snag '68 Tiant. My pitching staff came together in one draft, for the most part, with '08 Joss, '88 Chamberlain and '95 Maddux being no brainers. I just had to build the rest around them. I used three slots on mop up pitchers so that I didn't end up with more IP than I needed.

Hitting took much longer but still not as long as I was expecting. The toughest choice was between '94 Tuck Turner and '94 Sam Thompson. I knew I wanted a team with a lot of XBH, so Tris Speaker was a must. '87 Dan Brouthers seemed like the best option over 750 PA to me, so that was another tentpole choice. Tried a bunch of combos with '39 Padgett at catcher, but couldn't get it to sit right. Ended up with the following:

C: '61 Burgess / '08 Sandoval
1B: '87 Brouthers
2B: '04 Lajoie
3B: '31 Hornsby / '99 Shumpert
SS: '11 Reyes
LF: '22 Speaker
CF: '54 Ashburn
RF: '85 McGee
DH: '94 Turner / '41 Waner

SP: '08 Joss, '68 Tiant, '95 Maddux
RP: '14 Kershaw, '88 Chamberlain, '40 Bonham, '03 Cormier, '88 Milacki + scrubs

I feel very confident about this team and think it may end up being my most successful.

Hitting: 5703 PA/162, .349 AVG, .416 OBP, .518 SLG, C+/C, $61M
Pitching: 1387 IP/162, 0.84 WHIP, 0.31 HR/9, $56.5M

$110M - Giants & Indians
Candlestick Park

The Giants and Indians were my first pick after taking a look at the records of various franchise leagues in the Theme Leagues forum, but I spent a good amount of time making sure my instinct was correct.

I ended up making 28 different teams for this theme. All combinations of the Giants, Indians, Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals, Phillies, White Sox and Cubs. I gave each a rank (1-10) for pitching and another for hitting. Only the Giants / Indians, Giants / Yankees and Indians / Yankees got 19 points, so I narrowed my choice down to those three. I then temporarily entered each team into a random 120M or greater public theme league, which allowed me to use SimMatchup to make my final selection. I really liked the Indians / Yankees team on paper, with guys like Joss, Ford, Ruth, Gehrig, Averill, Dickey and Speaker, but after simulating close to 500 games on SimMatchup in various parks with various SP and lineups, it was clear that the most successful was my Giants / Indians combo.

We've got a strong defense and a dominating pitching staff. My concern is that I didn't draft enough pitchers (I only have 6, with a seventh as mop up), but I didn't think taking on lower quality innings was worth having more pen options.

Hitting: 5114 PA/162, .349AVG, .411 OBP, .553 SLG, C+/B, $57.4M
Pitching: 1393 IP/162, 0.84 WHIP, 0.11 HR/9, $50.7M


$100M - The Judge
Memorial Stadium

For this theme, I wanted a hitter who could give me a dominant pitching staff and a decent defense. I came up with a list of hitters off the top of my head who I thought could provide at least one of those while still being good hitters in their own right. I focused on the 1960's-2000's due to my dissatisfaction with the cost effectiveness of prior decades at this cap.

My list was Rickey Henderson, Frank Robinson, Kenny Lofton, Manny Ramirez, Willie McGee, Gary Sheffield, and Pete Rose. I narrowed that down to the first three after playing around with pitching staffs and then applied a point system (1-12) to each team to determine which to go with.

Robinson - 9 Defense + 11 Pitching + 9 SLG + 7 Speed + 8 AVG + 11 Park = 55
Henderson - 8 Defense + 9 Pitching + 7 SLG + 11 Speed + 7 AVG + 10 Park = 52
Lofton - 9 Defense + 7 Pitching + 8 SLG + 10 Speed + 10 AVG + 11 Park = 55

Ultimately, since I had said pitching was most important to me, I went with Robinson. I feel good about this team due to a rotation with '72 Sutton, '68 McNally, '69 Cuellar, and '74 Perry. The pen is also solid with no one above a 0.90 WHIP. My division is tough with former champ jfranco77 and another Robinson team from crystalao, but I'm hopeful we'll be a tough out.

I wish I had dug around to find Greg Colbrunn, which is ironic because I saw him on three teams ('96 Marlins, '97 Braves, '98 Rockies) that I looked at for the 90M theme.

Hitting: 5862 PA/162, .291 AVG, .371 OBP, .464 SLG, B/B-, $50.6M
Pitching: 1355 IP/162, 0.94 WHIP, 0.61 HR/9, $47.6M

$90M - '97ATL, '96FLA, '10SEA
Turner Field

Obviously, there are less Ugly teams that are usable for this theme than the other two levels. So, my first task was to compile a list of Ugly teams that I deemed preferable. This list ended up being only three teams long; '10 Mariners, '04 Diamondbacks and '72 Phillies.

Next, I figured that quality pitching would be at a premium in this theme, so I searched for the best pitching team available. I deemed that to be the '97 Braves, so they went to the top of my list for my Good team, but I didn't lock them in yet. I also played around with the '85 Cardinals (for their switch hitters), the '69 Orioles and '66 Dodgers.

I missed the '81 Astros and may regret that, because I really like how they go together with the '98 Rockies. I had tried the Rockies with the '97 Braves but wasn't as comfortable with the pitching as I wanted to be. I think I also should have spent more time with the '02 Red Sox, because I really like how they go with the '04 Diamondbacks.

I felt there were a bunch of Bad teams that were good (no pun intended), but ultimately felt that having two aces ('96 Brown and '97 Maddux) would be most beneficial. Ultimately, it came down to basically a tossup between the '85 Cardinals and the '97 Braves.

I don't feel as confident in this team because my hitting may end up being anemic, but I'm cautiously optimistic.

Hitting: 4844 PA/162, .300 AVG, .376 OBP, .445 SLG, B/B, $39.7M
Pitching: 1357 IP/162, 1.02 WHIP, 0.49 HR/9, $46.4M

$80M - The Ol' Switcheroo
Yankee Stadium (II)

This is the team I'm least comfortable with because 80M is likely the cap where most owners are most comfortable. However, I tried to leverage that knowledge and built my team with it in mind. After all, this is essentially an open league except that most teams will be built in the spirit of a "good" OL team (speed guys, deadball arms, A+ arm catcher).

I didn't want to play into the trap of putting a bunch of speed guys up against a league full of A+ arm catchers, so I went the other way and selected some of my favorite mashers for this cap. '89 HoJo, '15 Cravath, '11 Berkman. Taking HoJo made taking Joss impossible, but I was okay with that as long as I grabbed another top flight SP ('05 Cy Young) and a great CF ('77 Lemon).

It was very important to me, as my team name suggests, to select a bunch of switch hitters. My lineup has 6. The only real difficult lineup choice for me was '94 Bip Roberts or '81 Tim Raines. Ultimately, I liked Bip's defense and higher number of PAs because I had to skimp at other positions.

Getting a bullpen I was happy with ended up being more difficult than I expected. Ended up having to take '19 Nehf instead of my original CF (Billy North) due to this. '09 Harry Krause will be spending a bunch of time in the pen while also spot starting.

Hitting: 4803 PA/162, .294 AVG, .374 OBP, .473 SLG, C/C-, $36M
Pitching: 1347 IP/162, 0.93 WHIP, 0.14 HR/9, $41.9M

$70M - Shouldn't Won't, Can't
Target Field

A Can't Move team seemed like the better way to go from a defensive perspective, since I planned on using a bunch of deadball pitchers. I didn't spend too much time considering a split team but maybe I should have. Some positions seemed better suited for it than others. I also thought it would be important to focus on pitching rather than hitting, since my team wouldn't be getting to as many balls as usual. Due to this, I regrettably had to scrap the idea of using '89 HoJo again like I had wanted (though that did allow me to use Target Field).

I somehow missed the boat on both Vizquel and Zobrist, but with 6 switch hitters I feel okay. I definitely had trouble getting SLG in this theme but being in Target Field should alleviate some of that at least and level the playing field a bit. My pitching staff's WHIP is under 1.00, so I'm expecting to do well there considering the cap. Hopefully there won't be too many extra inning games.

Hitting: 4699 PA/162, .304, .358 OBP, .412 SLG, B+/D-, $30.1M
Pitching: 1331 IP/162, 0.99 WHIP, 0.13 HR/9, $38.6M
8/2/2015 10:03 AM (edited)
PennQuaker
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$70M - Not Moving
Dodger Stadium

From playing in both seasons of schwarze's Can't Hit/Pitch/Run theme, I learned that low range won't usually hurt as much as a low fielding rating, especially for modern players so I went with Can't Move players.  Since the game charges more for higher range, I thought that I'd be able to get better offense.  Once I made this decision, I chose Dodger Stadium as my park because the lack of range would hurt less due to the negative ratings for doubles and triples.

In general, I tend to build more balanced lineups rather than fill in around a few stars particularly at lower caps.  This is a classic Dodger Stadium team with 705 walks and 156 HR per 162 for the non-pitchers.  Each of the 8 starting hitters has at least 64 walks.  I was able to get two high percentage base stealers in Davey Lopes and Ozzie Smith as well.

The pitching staff makes me more nervous because I usually don't play $70M cap leagues but I think I'll be OK.  With one exception, I focused on strong control and low HR/9 as Dodger Stadium will yield some HR and I didn't want pitchers who added a lot of extra base runners through walks.  I chose 1902 Dinneen and 1899 Joe McGinnity as a 2-man rotation who will normalize OK.  I added two long relievers with 100+ IP/162 in '33 Waite Hoyt and 1901 Brickyard Kennedy.  '24 Babe Adams is the closer and the rest of the staff is comprised of six pitchers between 30 and 67 IP/162 with good control and low HR/9.

Hitters: 5,415 PA/162, BA .276, OBP .374, SLG .438   $35.5 million

Pitchers: 1,382 IP/162, OAVG .247, HR/9 0.195, WHIP 1.18  $34.5 million

$80M - All But X
Target Field

This team came together surprisingly quickly for me.  I focused on the pitching first and decided on a 3-man rotation of '03 Joss, '40 Bucky Walters, and a long-ago sim cookie in 1888 Henry Gruber.  Walters and Joss are above-average hitting pitchers which doesn't hurt.  I built a strong bullpen with '19 Nehf as the long man (with an OK bat) and filled in with five low WHIP, low HR/9 40-55 IP/162 pitchers.   Once I built the pitching staff, I knew that I wanted to help Walters and Gruber by playing in a negative HR park so I went with Target Field because I want to stretch my IP by not increasing singles while giving some additional extra base hits through the +1 rations for doubles and triples.

I chose Cullenbine over Cravath because of the home park.  John Kerins should normalize well at this cap level and he's one of six hitters with more than 10 triples per 162.  Usually, I stay away from the 1894 players due to low normalization but Bill Lange and Heinie Reitz fit both the salary cap and the desire for triples.  I tried 1887 Otto Schomberg for the first time because of normalized offense and range at 1B.  Hopefully, errors by him, Reitz, Lange won't kill this pitching staff.

Hitting: 5,515 PA/162, BA .297, OBP .377, SLG .431  $39.0 million

Pitching: 1,330 IP/162, OAVG .215, HR/9 0.28, WHIP 0.99  $41.0 million

$90M - 97Atl-09Wash-14SDP
Nationals Park

While the $70M and $80M rosters came to me quickly (maybe too quickly), this was one of the themes that took me a long time to have a team about which I felt good. IMHO, this was the best designed theme of the six because of the 1966-2014 era, the winning percentage groupings for each category of teams, and the $20M minimum salary required from each team.  I started by developing short lists of the teams in each category that would be desirable.  I wanted to have pitching from the Good team as it would be hard to get it from the Bad and Ugly teams without having weak offense.

In general, I prefer balanced teams which is why I avoided some of the stronger pitching teams in the Bad and Ugly categories.  Originally, I focused on the 60s and 70s due to the strong pitching but couldn't find an offense that I liked.  My runner up choice to the team that I actually submitted was the combo of the '74 A's, '71 White Sox, and '72 Phillies which gave me a rotation of Carlton, Hunter, and Wood.  But, I didn't like the remaining $7+ million of players that I had to use from the Phillies and the offense was too imbalanced for my liking.

I ended up leveraging all of the work that I had done on the $100M theme which I had made before making this team.  The 4-man rotation of the '97 Braves and a solid offense at C (Javy Lopez) and SS (Jeff Blauser) was too much to refuse.  I really tried hard to use the 2012 Braves because of the bullpen instead of 1997 but there wasn't enough quality starting pitching.  Like others, I looked hard at the '67 Orioles as the Bad team because of the strong bullpen.  But, I discovered the 2014 Padres with Benoit, Street, and a couple of others having strong normalized numbers that fit well with the Braves Big 4 rotation.  This gave me more flexibility with the Ugly team as I didn't really need any more pitching.  For the Bad and Ugly teams, I searched for teams that were imbalanced either way.  I found the 2009 Nationals and 3B Ryan Zimmerman, OF Adam Dunn, and 1B Nick Johnson fit in perfectly.  The non-pitchers drew 684 BB/162 while hitting 167 HR.

Since I ended up with over 1,500 IP/162, I wouldn't have minded playing in a hitter's park which is unusual for me.  But, Nationals Park (all 0 ratings) was the best offensive park of the three in question.  Despite spending only $42 million on offense, this was by far the best offensive team that I assembled in this theme.

Hitters: 5,541 IP/162, BA .287, OBP .382, SLG .462  $42.0 million

Pitchers: 1,547 IP/162, OAVG .227, HR/9 0.63, WHIP 1.09  $47.8 million

8/1/2015 5:14 PM
trd3
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70 Mil: Hey oug, Where’s the D? - Safeco Field

This was the first team I built, but the last team I entered, as I tinkered and tinkered. I play in a lot of lower cap leagues and I generally don’t put that much emphasis on defense, particularly range. So, this team was not too far outside my comfort range. I started with the low-cap staple, switch hitters with speed, although without Raines, Nixon,  and Coleman. Alomar, Figgins, Bip, Meacham, and Javier are my speed crew. Personal low-cap favs Dmitri Young and Tony Fernandez should be very productive at this cap. Wally Schang rounds out the RH lineup with an eye toward limiting the other speed/SB teams, of which there will be many. Useful hitters Loretta, Bloomquist, Hunter, and Larkin man the bench. In almost every case I went with “Can’t Move” players, settling for guys who would for the most part catch what was hit at them. Hopefully.


Lately I have been messing around with different variations for my starting pitching, including using high-innings guys (400+ IP) and tandems. I think in this case I get a better pitcher at $13.5 mil than I could by combining 2 other starters at that price. It’s a risk, as I could probably get more innings from 2 separate starters, but you need to take some risks to have a chance in the WISC. So, Joe McGinnity and the tandem of Floyd Bannister/Ervin Santana will start the majority of games. I see that many teams used Ed Summers here, and he was on my team for a long while. I eventually took him out to strengthen the bullpen a bit. I think this team goes as McGinnity goes. If he can be good, this team can be good. If not, it will struggle. Danny Darwin and Wandy Rodriguez will be the long men. Mike O’Neill, Woody Williams, Pascual Perez, Berenguer, and Riske are the main bullpen arms and hopefully can keep us in games late.


Like I said above, I play in a few low-cap leagues and this is the team I am most confident in and I think it  will play pretty well, but with so many great owners the competition will be tough.


80 Mil: Now I Know My ABCs-Target Field

Like most other owners I assume, I started with players I most wanted to use at 80mil, again looking at switch-hitters. Raines, Coleman, Figgins, Chipper, DYoung, and Vidro quickly made the cut. Add a cheap Roy Smalley to play SS and Brandon Inge to hopefully limit some SBs and we cover the necessary alphabet. This line-up, like the 70mil one, is filled with guys I use on a consistent basis.No idea if that is good or bad but it should be a representative offense at 80mil.

McGinnity makes a repeat appearance from the no-D team.


I wanted to use Christy Mathewson but couldn’t make it work. So “Iron Man” McGinninty gets the call again. Pete Alexander covers letter “A” - not just for the alphabet but hopefully for “Ace” as well. Pascual Perez and Mike O’Neill make a repeat appearance from the 70mil team. Guante, Zimmerman, Warren, Qualls, Noesi, and Honeycutt round out the ‘pen, a decent bullpen under the circumstances. Nothing of note on the bench, as it became a process of matching needs with remaining open letters.


I almost always build my teams pitching first, but on this team I started with the guys I wanted in the line-up first. I generally like the pitching staff but after seeing some of the other teams I wonder if I should have put more emphasis on pitching when grabbing spots early on.

This team came together fairly quickly, and since it all fit together and the overall numbers were good, I didn’t tinker much at all. Last year I may have over-analyzed everything too much. I felt like there was always a better option. That didn’t really work out. This year, if it looked good, I went with it. In looking at other teams actually feel a little better about this team.


90 Mil: Seattle Tiger Dodgers Local#101199-Safeco Field

This is a classic schwarze WISC theme. The year limits (1966-2014) were both a blessing and a curse, as this theme required a lot of research. There are in the neighborhood of 1200 teams to sort through. The years cut down on the overall number of possibilities, making the research easier, but also limited the options.


Finding a “Good” team wasn’t going to be too bad, as there would be a number of choices depending on what was needed after finding “bad” and “ugly.” The challenge was finding the under .500 teams that had enough good/usable players to make up a team. I wanted to find “Bad” and “Ugly” teams that had a strong or at least solid starting pitching options. I knew I needed a way to sift through the teams. I settled on using the team pages at Baseball-Reference and looking at the leading WAR for the teams. If the leader in WAR wasn’t good enough to make the cut, I moved on the the next season/team. If the WAR leader was good enough to be considered, I looked at the whole roster and made a list of all usable players. I’m sure I will read much better ways of sorting through these teams and finding the gems, but this is the method I went with. I repeated this process for all three categories of teams. Once this was done, it became a big jig-saw puzzle. I tried a few different Orioles and Mets teams, but never put together whole team I liked.  


I settled on the 2011 Tigers (Good), 1999 Dodgers (Bad) and the 2010 Mariners (Ugly). This combo gives me 3 strong starting pitchers in Verlander, King Felix, and Kevin Brown, and strong hitters in Miggy, VMart, Sheff, Grudzielanek, Ichiro, and Beltre as well as solid seasons from Eric Young and Brennan Boesch. Cliff Lee, Fister, and Benoit lead the relief corps. I wish the bullpen was stronger, but with this type of puzzle league, it is almost impossible to find a “perfect” team, although after seeing the teams others chose I am starting to think I should have done more research or tried a different method. While the 2010 M’s were a popular choice, my other 2 teams were not. I am not unhappy with my team I just think maybe there were some better choices. We’ll see.



100 Mil: Don’t Call Me Larry Jones-Turner Field

I half-heartedly tried a few studs at first, Ruth and Jimmy Foxx, who I used in clone league a number of years ago. They were too expensive and I didn’t love the pitching options. I then moved on to switch hitters, trying Tim Raines, but again, I thought I could do better with the pitching. Then I remembered that Chipper “Don’t Call Me Larry” Jones has a usable season at SS, in addition to a few in the OF to go with the many good 3B seasons. I’ve also used Chipper quite a bit through the years and he usually performs very well. Then it just became a matter of sorting through the years to find the best combo of teammates. I settled on 96 Chipper to play SS, 00 to play 3rd, with 95, 01, and 02 in the OF. 99 Jones will DH and 2006 will platoon at 1B. No cheap Chippers to use on the bench, but 7 in the starting line-up gave me plenty of options for the rest of the roster. Furcal and McCann complete the regular line-up with Wally Joyner to  partner at 1B.


If you are going to be limited to one franchise for your clone, the 90s and 00s Braves are not a bad choice. Chipper gave me access to strong seasons of Maddux, Smoltz, and Millwood, with an innings eating Glavine as #4. Much like the 90mil team above, the bullpen is not what I would ideally want, but again, you need to make certain concessions to fit the theme. Borbon, Wohlers, Holmes, Remlinger, and Karsay hopefully will be able to do enough. I think I missed the boat on 2012 Chipper. It would have hurt my offense a bit but I would have had Beachy and Kimbrel in my bullpen. I might want a do-over on that one.


It turns out that my Chippers are the highest salaried collection of clones in the entire tournament. I put almost all of my eggs in the Chipper basket. It is interesting to see all the different approaches owners took. I wanted a guy with many good, usable seasons, preferably a switch hitter. I knew Jones had access to the pitchers. Others seem to have gone with less clones and/or cheap seasons, relying mostly on the teammates to fill the roster. I am happy with my offense but in looking at other teams I wonder about my pitching. I have another Chipper team in my division and I think on paper they are better.


110 Mil: New York, New York (and SF)-Polo Grounds V

There were so many great options to choose from. As a Yankee fan and a believer that Babe Ruth is a good start to any team, the Bombers were my first choice. After messing with a couple of teams, I went with the Giants. I have been wanting to use Christy Mathewson lately and this seemed like as good a place as any. And how on Earth can you go wrong with an OF of Ruth, Mantle, and Mays?


Russ Ford and Ron Guidry will team up with Matty in the starting rotation. A very strong bullpen features Gossage, Mike Jackson, Fred Toney, and Art Nehf. I wish I could take an arm or two from this bullpen and use them on some of my other teams.


Going with the high-priced, all-time OF meant going with some lower profile hitters to fill the rest of the line-up. It’s a nice situation when lower-profile still means Wade Boggs, Derek Jeter, Chief Meyers, Willie Randolph, and Bill Mueller. These guys are all solid but Ruth, Mantle, and Mays are driving this bus. Traditionally I have not had much success at higher leagues, although the 110mil theme has probably been my most successful in the WISC, so go figure. Like the 120mil theme, I have absolutely no idea how this team might stack up. This is the type of team I usually feel good about until I see the other teams and the games start.


120 Mil: Puzzle Me This Batman-Polo Grounds V

While the 70mil team was the first I started to build, this was the last. For whatever reason I have a difficult team even finding a place to start with themes like this. Worry about the salary range first, or the years? Pitching staff first, or batters? I knew that I wanted to use Ruth, Mantle, and Pete Alexander, so I slotted them in. From there I just went in order, starting with the pitchers. Guidry and Pedro start with Alexander. This theme is a rare chance to use Elton Chamberlain. Konstanty, DeLeon, Wilhelm, Oswalt, and Tom Henke also formed pieces of the pitching staff puzzle. Mike Tiernan allowed me to check off the 750+ PA and 1880’s box. I found room for Tim Raines. I’ll see how low-cap studs Dmitri Young and Tony Fernandez do at the opposite end of the spectrum. Glasscock and Bejma will share SS while Ken Oberkfell and Eddie Lake will split 2B.


Like some of the other teams, this one came together pretty quickly and required very little tweaking. I was generally satisfied with the overall numbers and decided to leave it alone. This felt like theme you could have spent a month on and still not exhausted all the possible combinations. So, I didn’t try to. One and done. Just like my WISC history. I just hope this and the 110mil teams can play well enough to give the other teams a chance.


8/1/2015 7:02 PM (edited)
rbow923
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I didn't have much time this year so I composed most of my rosters on the first or second take. no trying out 20 different combinations like I normally do. I don't know if that is a bad thing or a good thing.


$70M. Real Men Don't Use D+

I like to use D range at low caps anyway. Range is expensive, and probably overpriced for low end players. The lower the cap the more I find D range to be cost effective. I only have one D+ range fielder and most of them are D-. The good news is this team won't make many errors. I'm following the Derek Jeter philosophy, don't try for the difficult plays and you'll make fewer errors.

Infield has some familiar names. Wade Boggs for $3.9M at 3B even though I think he's overrated. Ben Zobrist is my all-star 2Bman. Mark McLemore is a good lowcap SS as long as you have a backup. and Dmitri Young at 1B seems to do well against bad pitching. Gene Tenace at C to throw out all the speedsters so many people like to draft. Outfield of Sam Thompson, Enos Slaughter and a 3-headed tandem. Does anybody remember why I selected these guys? Of course Ed Summers is the Ace with Fred Glade alongside him and Burns/Benz sharing the 3rd spot. Chick Robitaille and Cliff Curtis lead the bullpen.. Anybody notice a pattern? You guessed it, they're all deadballers. Actually I have the 74ip Maddux on my team too, and some bozo from the 40s. if I forgot to mention Pratt Piatt and Suggs it's because nobody cares.



$80M No Soup For Xerxes.

This is one of the teams I crated mostly on the first try. Take the players I want, then in mid-draft take some good players with unusual letters, then fill the bench with whatever is left. Addie Joss may be a little pricey for this theme but he's the best bargain. balance him out with Ed Summers who belongs in a lower cap. Somebody on this forum did an analysis showing Cy Morgan is the second best bargain in the game. I rarely use the full season version but this seemed like a good time to try. couldn't pass up Artie Nehf, will probably use him in the pen supported by Robitaille and Arellanes. Carter at C was automatic. Somehow I always end up with Wade Boggs. Time for some unusual letters, Valentin and Zobrist in the infield, Eberhardt in long relief, Quirk backup C and PH, Iorg at 200k.. Justin Upton and Taffy Wright in the OF, this may be my weak link but they can't be much worse than anybody else in the allotted price range. I did an inventory of remaining letters and saw T was still available and this is really where I decided on Summers so I could have Frank Thomas. In retrospect I should've improved the OF instead of paying Thomas but what's done is done. I chose Riverfront to minimize fatigue while still getting power and XBH.



$90M '69 & '04 Orioles, '72 Phillies.

I knew it could be difficult to get enough pitching so I looked for a good team with a lot of fine pitching. Enter the 1969 Orioles. They gave me half of my innings no problem, along with Frank Robinson and several other hitters if needed. ended up using Boog Powell and Davey Johnson. OF is easy and I didn't want to get stuck with a weak infielder so when I stumbled upon the bad 2004 Orioles with Mora Javy and Bordick I took them to fill 3 key positions. added part time OFers Newhan and Surhoff. The problem is the O's have no pitching, just 200 innings of middling relief. Now I need 500 innings and an OF from an ugly team. Simplest solution is to take Steve Carlton's 360 innings and fill in with bums. I tried the popular 2010 Seattle team but couldn't get the cap to work. so Carlton it is. Luzinski in RF is not too bad except for his tin glove. This team's fate could hinge on Barry Lersch, what a scarey thought.



$100M Manny Ramirez x 6

My first thought was Tim Raines until I tried drafting a Raines Special and wasn't satisfied with the available pitching. looked at Rickey Henderson, he's just an expensive Tim Raines. so I did it backwards, looking at the elite pitchers of the 60s-70s-80s searching for star Outfielders who played with several of them. Didn't work, they all came in over budget. With some compromising I got Frank Robinson under budget. Willie Davis made budget with perhaps the finest rotationof all but not enough hitting. I even thought Mel Ott was worth a looksee but the hitting years didn't match the pitching years. I thought of Manny Ramirez early on but not seriously at first, I don't like modern teams at these types of drafts because the pitching is awkwardly spaced. I eventually took a closer look and saw that Manny had enough pitching. The three finalists were Raines Manny and Frank Robby. I ruled out Frank, just looked like too many underperformers. If he wins we'll call that silly logic. Manny has better pitching than Raines, no doubt about it. but is it enough to make up for Raines tremendous speed advantage? Manny's power advantage is mostly a mirage but overall his team has the better hitting. Can we negate that because of defense? I'm out of time so the final call is take the team with better pitching and better hitting, don't try to get too clever. This team belongs in Fenway but I chose U.S. Cellular to avoid fatigue problems.

I have Manny from 2000, 02, 03, 04, 08 and 2010. The last one is a bench player taken so I could fill in with a few of his White Sox teammates. 2002 is a great pitching year, PJ Lowe Wakefield Urbina. Schillng and Foulke from '04. closing out the pen with '08 Kuo Wade Saito. 2010 has Hudson and Thornton. and 2003 has my worst pitcher, Byun yung Kim. so why did I select that year? You'd think with those seasons I could get some monster hitting but the GM said No, he'd already spent enough on Manny and the pitchers. I was able to get .300 hitting infielders from 2000 Alomar and Fryman but they didn't bring their A glove. That honor went to Alexei Ramirez '10 who forgot to bring his best bat. '08 Russell Martin is the best I could do at C and he'd better show up to work because I don't have a backup. part time David Segui '00 fills in when one of the many Manny's says he need some rest .My backup infielder is $250k Wilson Delgado... so that's why I selected 2003!.



$110M Chief Bromden, a Giant Indian

Giants and Indians, what can I say? You can probably guess most of my players. only surprises are Melky Cabrera to save money and the choice of Bill Bernhardt as my #3 pitcher.



$120M Puzzle Palace. A classic schwarze puzzle theme and I wait until the last day to draft it. not a smart pan.

Can anybody think of a reason not to have Greg Maddux and Addie Joss? I can think of one reason, too many innings for this theme setup. I penciled in Randy Johnson but later changed it to John Tudor for tactical reasons. Now I'm way over IP even if I select the minimum everywhere else. which I didn't, I kept the new guy Harvey. Looks like I'll end up burning two or three mopup positions. 130ip choice was easy, Elton Chamberlain who will be use mostly as a 2-inning closer. 80ip was also easy with Dizzy Dean for cheap. 100ip was a challenge with what I had left ultimately I went with long reliever Tiny Bonham from the 40s. Many ways to play 60ip and 40ip so I'll wait to see how much money I have left.

I spent a lot on pitching so I started the hitting with our old $3.9M friend Gary Carter. Hitting could get complicated but I'm up against the clock and need to keep it simple. Full time positions will go to infielders so I don't have to count out platoons. Lower numbers to outfielders because they are interchangeable with DH and 1B as well as each other. besides, part time infielders tend to have awful range ratings. I chose George Kell at 3B because he didn't burn the bank, then promptly paid a lot for 2B Charlie Gehringer. I just remembered there are two decades in the 1800s so I quickly slipped Dan Brouthers into 1B and lowered SS to John Valentin's 500pa with a backup Kid Elberfeld. Lots of good hitting OFers including Heilman, Ted Williams, Cravath Wakefield and Ellis Burks. not enough glove in the OF but that doesn't always matter at $120+, just grab the big hitters and pray. at least that's what I keep telling myself.

For once I have plenty of stamina so I took this chance to use a hitters ballpark. That might come back to haunt me if I have to use my mediocre scrubs too much
8/1/2015 8:46 PM (edited)
evil_twin
Posts: 7294 (1)
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Random Ravings of a Madman (AKA my WIS Championship team building strategies or lack thereof)

$70 M White Men Can't Field

My initial thought was that if the theme was guys who can't field, I wanted to give my fielders fewer chances to screw up.  This led to big K guys in Randy Johnson, Scherzer, Lidge, Rocker and Gossage.  I added a couple budget friendly guys who didn't walk many in Pavano and Lee.

I then decided I'd spend some money on bats, using the flipside of the same idea....I wanted to make my opponents fielders field the ball as often as possible, so I went for low K guys in Rose, Traynor and Teddy Ballgame....I love the idea of a big bat like Ted in lower cap leagues in general.

I then noticed that I didn't have a single Latino, black or Asian player on my team, as I was musing the negative connotation of the theme title (CAN'T field, CAN'T move) and thought back to the Wesley Snipes / Woody Harrelson classic, and with one minor adaptation, had my team name...because even in Sim baseball, marketing is important.

I then wanted a catcher who could clobber the ball and fit the budget in York, then I applied the low K white guy requirement to the rest of the roster, and found a few bullpen guys who were cheap but didn't suck that bad.
8/1/2015 9:40 PM
mllama54
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Going with the Clint Eastwood theme I named all my teams after his movies,

70 M Kelly's Heroes

I like to balance my teams as much as possible.  Thus I split the cap in half and divide by eight to determine how nuch for each position.  In this case a little over 4 million per spot.  I also noticed for the same four million those with an A+ field are better hitters than A+ range.  Also an A+ fielder has close to a hundred more chances than a D Range player.  Where a D fielder only has about 45 more errors than a A fielder.  With this logic that means an A+ range will generate 50 to 60 more outs than a D range player.  Right or wrong this is the logic I used.  Therefore if cant catch are considered better fielders and cant move are considered better hitters at the same salary, I did as a good baseball GM would, good defense up the middle (A range) and good bats on the edges (A field),  I did bump up my salary a bit in CF for Willie Mcgee a good hitter,

80 Million Space Cowboys

In building this team I built the team first and then went back and worried about the alphabet.  SP I had Mordeci Brown, Tim Hudson, Bob Tewksbury, and Krause.  All but Krause I have used successfully in the past at a range of caps.  Eddie Murray, Gary Sheffield, and Pete Rose have performed well at lower caps for me.  Vince Coleman should run wild.  Butch Wynegar usually throws out 40+ percent of the potential basestealers.  Jackson and Fuentes are good up the middle.  I added Either in the OF for some power and an E player.  In all of these themes I concentrated on excellent bullpens.  This one is anchored by Aguilerra, Olson, and Ziegler.

90 Million Good, Bad, and Ugly

Started with a bad team  To be honest I never saw the 10 Mariners.  I wanted a starting pitcher and a couple of other players to give me 20 million.  I wanted the 04 Diamondbacks but couldnt figure out anything beyond Johnson.  The 82 Reds had Soto, Concepcion, and Cedano to play and along with a couple of relievers put me just over 20 million.  Like a lot of others Kevin Brown, Gary Sheffield, Jeff Conine, and Al Leiter were good picks from the 96 Marlins.  That left me with catcher, 1b, 2b, 3b, and a bullpen to get with my good team.  It was obvious that the 06 Twins fit the bill.  Mauer, Morneau, Santana. Nathan, Liriano, Neschek, and Reyes fit the bill.  Castillo and Punto were above average fills at second and third.  Average was decent but too little speed from Castillo and two little power from Punto.  But at a 90 million cap this team should be competitive.  Honestly I did not enjoy this theme and finished it as soon as I thought I had a competitive team.

100 Million Two Mules for Sister Sarah

Let me say right now as much as I didnt like the 90 million theme I loved this one.  Carlos Baerga at this or any other cap would be my choice.  My SP 1-3 is the best, 04 Johnson, 02 Martinez, and 02 Lowe.  Starters 4 and 5 are 03, Webb and 03 Schilling are adequate but not thrilling.  My bullpen is awesome. 95 Mesa, 99 Hoffman, 02 Wakefield, 02 Embree, 02 Urbina, and 03 Mantai.  My lineup 1-7 is super  96 Lofton, 95 Baerga, 02 Nomar, 96 Thome, 96 Belle, 96 Manny, and 99 Gwynn.  I am sacrificing 8 and 9 in my batting order.  The trouble with having 6 clones who are not OF is they compose your bench and will be used as a DH.  But having a powerful lineup 1-7, a super starting staff 1-3, and a shutdown bullpen is worth sacrificing 8 and 9 in the batting order and starter 4 and 5.  

I did consider the Braves but never any playoff success or even getting to the playoffs with them.  I think one the problems with this sim is the way it treats Koufax and Gibson, two of the greatest ever  The same for the Orioles of the 70s.  I haved used the big red machine before with some success.  The 90s Indians were one of the underperforming teams of the 90s primarily because of there pitching.  Adding the pitching I did should help.  If the cap was 110 or 120 I would have dropped the 03 diamondbacks and added the 98 Mets.  Leiter, Olerud, and Piazza would have supplemented this team nicely.

110 Million Dirty Harry

I started with pitching and noticed the Royals had a super bullpen.  If they left Kaufman and went to a pitcher's park the sim should treat them nicely.  I needed a starting staff so I went with the Cubs.  The early century Cubs might be the best squad ever in the NL.  So I went with Brown,Pffer, and Prim(45) from the Cubs with Nelson from KC.  I didnt go with the Indians because beyond Joss not real happy with other starters.  Offensively Willie Wilson was my common thread on my successful teams this past year.  Not my best year but Willie has been outstanding defensively, SB wise, and always a .320 plus average.  My lineup is Wilson, Young (Cubs), Brett (Royals), Hack Wilson (Cubs), Grace(Cubs), McCra (Royals), Banks (Cubs), and Porter (Royals).  My pitching and defense should keep me in all games.

120 Million Million Dollar Babies

Fairly staightforward and fun in building a theme.  Joss, Clemens, Kershaw, and Seaver are my starters with an assortment of good relievers. I needed solidarity in the infield so went with high PAs there.  Rose, Frisch, Ozzie, and Mize are there.  Mauer as my primary catcher.  I also went with a high PA of Mantle.  The rest of my outfield needs to be pieced together.  Bonds, Cobb, Sheffield, Hafey, and Fairly.  My reserves for the infield and catcher will complement the others.  I did not directly take a DH position.  I have about 6400 PA.  I will be juggling the extra PAs into the DH position.

Predicitions are hard for me.  I studied Brianjw last year because I consider him the best.  In a couple of cases we had extremely similiar teams but his teams outperformed mine.  He is an excellent manager.  So as much as I think I will be competitive it is in how you manage them.  If all of my teams finish at least at 500 which I expect, I will be bordering the cage.  If one flops I will be out.  If one excels I should be close.  If two excel I should be in.

70s    85 wins
80s    85 wins
90s    81 wins
100s  90+ wins
110s  84 wins
120s  90 wins
 
At least two playoff teams.  Thanks again to Jeff for organizing this.  How he continually comes up with challenging and fun themes make him the number one user in WIS. 





8/2/2015 12:04 AM
PennQuaker
Posts: 951 (0)
Hall of Famer
1329
Prospect
$100M - F Robby's Men
Dodger Stadium

This was by far the hardest team for me to assemble.  I think I've written elsewhere that I made 12-15 versions of this team.  Once I looked back at excel, I probably undercounted and made at least 20 versions of this team.  Having to use a DH also significantly influenced team selection.

For me, this was all about the pitching.  While Mel Ott was on my short list of potential choices and I also made teams with Frankie Frisch and Edd Roush, I was never comfortable with the quality of the pre-WW2 pitching staffs for this tournament.  And, while I made a Stan Musial team which got me some of the 1940s Cardinals pitching, I wasn't comfortable with most of the 1940s and 1950s pitching either.

With the focus on the last 50 years, it came down to the best pitching and a balanced lineup.  I didn't have as much luck when I used scrubs like Mike Mordecai and Rafael Belliard because getting all of the years that I wanted left me without room for a true backup for each position.  Jim Wynn also made the short list with good normalized offense and mid 1970s Dodgers pitching.  There wasn't enough offense with the Don Buford team and I made two different Chipper Jones teams and didn't like the defense and OBP on either one of them.

In the end, I chose Frank Robinson because of the late 60s Orioles pitching (McNally/Hall/Drabowsky/Watt), the '72 Dodgers (Sutton, Brewer, Rau, Mota, and the park), and '74 Gaylord Perry (w/ the $200K F Robby).  The normalized pitching for this team was the best of any that I had made with a strong OAVG.  The normalized offense was the best of the teams that I assembled.  Using 1965 let me get solid catching (Edwards/Pavletich) and a 3B in Deron Johnson who could hit.

Hitting: 6,414 PA/162, BA .287, OBP .366, SLG .474 $50.5 million

Pitching: 1,499 IP/162, OAVG .202, HR/9 0.57, WHIP 0.99  $49.3 million

$110M - Giant White Sox
Candlestick Park

This team came together after only a few iterations.  I knew that I wanted to stick with the original 16 franchises and needed strong dead ball pitching.  The Giants, White Sox, Indians, and Red Sox were the teams that fit the bill.  I didn't like the offense that I had with any of the Indians combos despite having the strongest normalized pitching with an Indians/Giants team.  Separately, I wasn't really interested in a lot of HR power on offense because of all of the deadfall pitchers who would likely be in the league.

The Red Sox/Giants combo that I made actually had a slightly better normalized offense than did my final choice of the Giants and the White Sox.  But, I've never had good luck with 2000 Pedro and I didn't like the idea of relying on 1901 Cy Young for half of my starts.  The Giants/White Sox pitching has a lower normalized WHIP and OAVG but with fewer IP/162.  Walsh and Mathewson at the top of the rotation were easy choices.  I believe that the key to this team will be the performance of the '64 Horlen / '37 Stratton tandem in the third starter spot.  Stratton normalizes very well but the sim doesn't always reward strong normalized numbers from the 1920-41 pitchers.  If I can get reasonable performance from those two pitchers, this team could do well.  The bullpen has four Giants and Cisco Carlos.  The reasonably priced strong Giant relievers were also a factor in choosing this combo.

Offensively, I built this team with high walk players (Thomas/Stanky/Ott/Bonds) with Appling and Joe Jackson having seasons that would normalize well.  1951 Minnie Minoso's adequate defense at 3B also helped build this team.  I ended up with a little more HR power than I wanted but like the normalized OBP.  I chose Candlestick Park to help the pitchers, which is usually my goal with park selection.

Hitting: 5,818 PA/162, BA .320, OBP .425, SLG .501  $53.6 million

Pitching: 1,504 IP/162, OAVG .198, HR/9 0.23, WHIP 0.88  $56.4 million

$120M - Across History
PNC Park

This team came together quickly as the constraints on roster selection obviously limited options.  For the pitchers, I knew that I would use a 3-man rotation because drafting a super high IP pitcher such as Silver King isn't a viable strategy at this cap level.  Because I would have two sub-300 IP pitchers in the 3-man rotation, I chose '15 Alexander as the highest IP pitcher as the best combination of performance and IP.  I had '95 Maddux for a long time in the 200-239 IP slot but went with '96 Brown to have more $ to spend on offense.  1985 Tudor was the choice for the 240-279 IP slot as I've not had good results from '78 Guidry and Tudor is cheaper.

Chamberlain was an obvious choice for me and I also wanted to have the low WHIP 2009 Mike Adams in the 30-39 IP slot.  I again have eggs in the 1937 Monty Stratton basket as he will be in a tandem with Brown in the #3 rotation spot.  Grant Jackson's '76 season has always been a favorite of mine and Joe Berry was an easy choice for the 40s once I decided not to use any of the 200-279 IP pitchers. 1963 Bobby Shantz and 2012 Edward Mujica wouldn't be my first choices for those spots but you always have to make choices when building a team and neither should make or break this team.

On offense, I started with the highest PA slot and worked my way down.  The cap actually provides more challenges for the higher PA slots in order to balance normalized performance with cost.  Combined with the sim generally charging more for HR power, that's why I built this team more around doubles/OBP.  The popular 1889 Mike Tiernan was not a hard choice as the DH and 1880s spot.  I then thought of Lou Gehrig for the next PA slot and I've always liked '35 due to high OBP/BB  and A- range in a season that normalizes better than many other 1930s AL seasons. 1890 Ed Swartwood gave me an OFer with reasonable defense and good normalized OBP in the next PA slot.

For the next two slots (600-649 and 550-599 PA), I wanted to have middle infielders because I've found that it's harder to platoon at those positions.  While '21 Eddie Collins' normalized offense wasn't the strongest, he has a solid A+ range factor and fits in well with the offensive strategy.  2000 Nomar's 51 doubles, .992 normalized OPS, and 599 PA/162 made him my choice at SS.  Fred Snodgrass and Roger Bresnahan were deadball era choices similar to Ed Swartwood.  I haven't used him often but have always had good results with Snodgrass.  David Wright rounded out the IF at 3B with .909 normalized OPS and above-average defense.  The last OF spot is a platoon between two high-OBP and low-HR hitters in '46 Augie Galan and '93 Randy Milligan.  Unfortunately, using Bresnahan made me unable to use 1908 Buck Herzog who is also a favorite of mine.  The hitters combined for 896 BB which is what I wanted.

Consistent with the offensive strategy, I chose PNC Park for the team.  Since everyone's team will have relatively similar IP and PA totals, I wonder if there will be fewer extreme parks in use, especially the stronger offensive parks.

Hitting: 6,303 PA/162, BA .321, OBP .425, SLG .479  $58.9 million

Pitching: 1,583 IP/162, OAVG .198, HR/9 0.27, WHIP 0.90  $61.0 million


8/2/2015 10:43 AM (edited)
contrarian23
Posts: 19284 (2)
Hall of Famer
1761 1
Hall of Famer

Invariably, I am neither in serious contention for the championship, nor the savviest at putting together my teams (two facts that are probably closely correlated).  Last year was first time in the cage in several years, so I was hopeful to build on that this time around.  However, I ended being able to spend much less time on my teams than I would have liked, had to take several shortcuts, and am not particularly optimistic as a result.  So, caveat emptor with all of the below. 

70M: A Whole Team with Jeter’s Range

I started this team with the following principles in mind:
1.) An A+ arm catcher since I expected most teams to build heavily around speed
2.) A diversified offense with some speed, some average, some OBP, and at least 1 HR threat
3.) At least 3 switch-hitters in the starting lineup (SH have a big advantage, in my opinion, at 100M and below)
4.) Good gloves at 2B, 3B, SS, CF; Good range at 1B; and focus on the best bats I could afford for my other 2 outfield slots
5.) Play in Petco to reduce everyone else’s offense, limit the damage done by the defense, and keep the number of IP I would need to a minimum.

1894 Jack Doyle was an easy choice at 1B, as was 89 HoJo at SS, 07 Luis Castillo at second, and 1994 Bip Roberts in the outfield.  That gave me my 3 switch hitters, an excellent DP combination, and 4 hitters who should do very well at this cap.  Then it was just a question of filling in the pieces.  88 Rickey joins the outfield and should give me a 5th cookie in the lineup.  To fulfill principle 4, I wanted an A glove in CF, and to fulfill principle 2, I wanted a good OBP guy.  Not a lot of money to spend, so I had to be stingy here…hello 1960 Gene Woodling and his .401 OBP.  1982 John Wathan gives me a pretty cheap A+ arm catcher who will also steal a few bases himself.  Just needed a third baseman; really wanted the 95 Boggs, but couldn’t fit him in without sacrificing the pitching staff more than I was comfortable.  I figured the rest of the offense was pretty good, so I just looked for the best bat I could find on an A- or better fielding 3B, and eventually landed on a player I’ve never used: 1927 Heinie Sand.  We’ll see how well his .299 average plays at this cap.

For the pitching, 09 Summers and 05 Joss were no-brainers.  I was tempted to buy a 3rd stud starter, but I decided to gamble and put more money into the bullpen.  If this team makes the playoffs, they should do OK; if they don’t, I’ll blame my choice of 73 Lolich as my 3rd starter.  Two of my favorite RP at this cap are the 100-IP Joe Benz and Rickey Horton; they’ll rotate between the bullpen and the occasional tandem start.  2012 Mujica and 2003 Acevedo should make a pretty good closer tandem.

Offense:  .298/.374/.412, 281 SB
Pitching: 1382 IP (including mops), 1.13 WHIP

80M: I wish his name was Addie Koss

This is the team with which I spend the least time.  I started with as many typical OL cookies as I could:

1908 Joss (a no-brainer over HoJo for “J” in my opinion; there are lots of other good SS at 80M; there’s only 1 Addie)
95 Boggs
86 Raines
88 Rickey H
80 Dilone
75 Carter (tough choice over Cravath and Coleman for “C”)
09 Summers
09 Zobrist
18 Toney
19 Nehf

Of the remaining puzzle pieces, the 2 I’m least excited about are 96 Offerman as my 1B, and 06 Ewing as my 3rd SP.  The gem I found was 1914 Steve Yerkes for “Y”, 170 PA of good D at 2B/SS and a .879 unnormalized OPS.

Am I concerned that the offense on this team is probably worse than the 70M?  Yep, I sure am.

Offense: .288/.362/.402, 281 SB
Pitching: 1444 IP, 1.02 WHIP

90M: 99 Royals, 02 Red Sox, 07 Twins

Normally I love this kind of theme; this year I knew I didn’t have the time to devote to it.  I even volunteered to commish this one so that I would have an incentive to make my decisions fast.  Of course, that means I’ve had a month to second guess myself.  I had a pretty good idea that I wanted to start with the 2002 Red Sox (Pedro, Lowe, Wakefield, Nomar, Manny, and some useful other pieces if needed.)  For the ugly team, I confess I never even considered the 2010 Mariners.  Part of this is my fault for simply not putting the time in, but part is that I wanted one thing out of that team: as many bats in the lineup as I could get.

I remembered from the WISC several years ago that the 99 Royals were a popular choice for a similar theme, and when I looked them up on B-R.com I could see why.  Four players who could fill the lineup: Randa, Damon, Sweeney, Dye, plus decent options in Beltran and Febles.  That gave me a lot of flexibility, and they even contributed a back of the rotation SP in Rosado. 

With the lineup now mostly filled, and ¾ of the rotation set, I focused my search for the “Bad” team on clubs that could give me a catcher, 1 good SP, and a couple of good bullpen arms.  Bingo, 2007 Twins, with their all-A+ arm catching platoon of Mauer and Redmond, a good (if gopher-ball prone) Santana, and 230 innings of useful RP in Guerrier, Nathan, and Neshek.  They even gave me the option of upgrading from Febles to the cookie Castillo at 2B.

Frankly, this team will be bad, now that I’ve seen the combos other came up with.  Those 96 Marlins, in particular, would have been a good starting point, and I’ve used them before in other themes, so I’m kicking myself for not doing so here.  C’est la vie.

Offense: .303/.370/.461
Pitching: 1461 IP, 1.07 WHIP

100M: Feeling Chipper Today, Mr Jones?

Speaking of second-guessing, wow.  I made so many teams here, probably spent more time on this theme than on every other one combined, and I still couldn’t decide.  Among the guys I looked closely at: Reggie Jefferson, Greg Colbrunn, Pete Rose, Tommy Davis, Ed Spiezio, Dick Schofield, Pedro Guerrero, Craig Biggio, Jay Johnstone, Willie McGee, and Ken Singleton.  I loved the Singleton team and the Colbrunn team.  Then I stumbled upon Bill Skowron, and that was my favorite by far…the Mantle-era Yankees, plus 63 Koufax plus the 64/67 White Sox pitching….except that I could never get the offense I wanted to fit under the cap, and ended up having to significantly downgrade Mantle.  If it had been 110M, I think Skowron would have been my choice, and I still regret not spending more time trying to make that one work.

In the end, I kept coming back to Chipper: all those Braves SP, multi-position flexibility, plus you get a switchhitter with a good bat throughout the lineup, he mixes up some good OBP seasons with some stellar slugging seasons…ultimately I think Chipper was by far the best choice for this theme, and the more I look at other rosters the more I am convinced of it.

Can’t understand why so many of the Jones users passed on 2012…that was an easy one for me, with the amazing Medlen, Beachy, Kimbrel bullpen. 

That said, boy did I mess up the rest of the team.  For some reason, I ended up not using 1997, so my rotation is not as good as it could have been (I have 95 Maddux, 96 Smoltz, 99 Millwood, and 10 Hanson.)  And for reasons I can not now fathom, I way underdrafted PA.  I knew there was a DH, so I can’t figure out why I screwed this up.  So I feel like I got the right guy here, but will end up with one of the worst records among the Jones contingent. Blech.

Offense: 5825 PA (yikes!),  .293/.383/.491
Pitching: 1469 IP, 1.01 WHIP.

110M: Phillies? White Sox? Seriously?

Of the canonical 16 franchises, I believe that the 2 with the fewest WS appearances are the Phillies and the White Sox.  So hey, let’s combine them, what could go wrong?

This is another case of the kind of theme that I love, but just had no time to put into it, so I started with a very clear rule of thumb: at 110M-120M I love, love, love Ed Walsh and Pete Alexander in the rotation.  So honestly, that was about how much thought I put into this.  Grabbed those 2 guys, and then just built the best team I could.

Offense: 5761 PA, .341/.420/.490
Pitching: 1533 IP, 0.86 WHIP

120M: This is why I hate jigsaw puzzles

I actually love jigsaw puzzles, but for this theme drove me crazy, and as with so many of the others, I just picked a few guys that I knew I wanted, and force-fit everything else around them:  10 Walsh, 64 Horlen, 88 Chamberlain, 94 Doyle, 00 Keeler, and some version of Lajoie (ended up with 1912).

Offense: 6329 PA, .351, .414, .500
Pitching: 1544 IP, 0.90 WHIP

8/2/2015 12:54 PM
firesalt
Posts: 2442 (1)
Hall of Famer
241 1
Rookie

$70m Defense Department Defects
My team name was not intended as a reflection of the current political landscape but if the shoe fits… Actually, my OF defense is quite bad, with no starter better than C in either category. I did make sure my IF had A or B in one category so fewer balls would make t to the OF. I decided not to compromise on pitching and play in the Astrodome to keep scoring down. My pitching is almost exclusively deadball, with only one player (besides mop) not from before 1920, and that is '32 Rixey.

My offense consists of high OBP, SBs, and 5 switch hitters in the starting lineup. If I can scratch out a couple of runs every game I should win most of them. The entire offense has only 36 HR. Low PAs and probably more IPs than I need, and I will be happy if this team wins 90 games. 81 is a real possibility.
Hitting: 5070PA/.281/.400/.384     Pitching: 1362IP/.219/0.98/20 HR allowed

 

$80m Lexical Diversity
I did not spend much time on this one. I tried to get a bunch of cookies and fill in the gaps with backups. The first player I chose was Milacki, then Gary Carter. For F I wanted Figgins, switched to Falkenberg, and ultimately ended up taking Figgins. I wanted Krause for K. After that I just toyed with different names until I filled the roster. I ended up with a lot of cookies (Carter, Figgins, Dilone, Raines, Milacki, Joss, Toney, Wiltse, League). I hope they don't crumble. 

As in the $70m theme, I have no power and a lot of SB. I didn't even realize until now that I took the Astrodome in both of my lowest salary cap leagues. That helps me keep PAs low, and I ended up with only 5172. Only 52 HR means I need to get the most of my 262 SB. 

My pitching is top shelf, and my general strategy is that great pitching will beat great hitting. It is true in RL and far more so in the sim. '08 Joss and '06 Sparks take up most of the SP, while Krause and Toney share the S3 duties.
Hitting: 5172/.305/.385/.406          Pitching: 1369/.207/.0.92/24 HR 

$90m 96 Marlins/ 10 Mariners/ 11 Tigers
I searched the best pitchers in the era and checked the rest of the teams that those pitchers played for. I insisted on finding three teams that produce 4 good starters. No compromise! I specifically searched for Kevin Brown, wanting to have him on my team. I found the best place was the '96 Marlins, who also had some RP and several good hitters, including a stud version of Sheffield. For all the tinkering I did with different good and ugly teams, I really never deviated from the '96 Marlins as my bad team. They were the anchor. 

I do not have much experience with players from recent years, so I decided to focus on the last 5 or 6 seasons and see what is out there. I discovered a gem of an ugly team in the '10 Mariners. I could not believe there could be such good pitching on such a bad team. Lousy teams sometimes hit well, but they rarely have more than one decent pitcher. This team, wow! A great S2 in Hernandez and a solid S3, who will be my S4, in Lee. Sweeey also finds a place in the bullpen. Any offense this team provides is just icing on the cake, and Ichiro makes for a decent dessert. If that's not enough, they also give me a great stadium to play in. 

I now have three SP and over 200 innings of RP and the team I still have the good team left. I tried to get a stud SP like Gibson or Pedro or Maddux, but the hitters they provided just did not satisfy my needs. But the '11 Tigers give me a good S1 in Verlander, an MVP candidate in Cabrera at 1B, and some IF help with Avila, Peralta, and Betemit. I am a little weak in the strangest of places, the final OF slot, but I am willing to use mirrors to fill that position for the reward I get everywhere else. 

It's funny, I found these teams really quickly and toyed with other squads for a couple fo weeks, but never could justify replacing ant of these with another team. If I could have it over again, I might take the '85 Cards over the '11 Tigers, and get McGee for the final OF spot, but I just fell in love with Cabrera and was not willing to let him go. Bigmc is in my league and he took the same teams as mine, except he has the '85 Cards instead of the '11 Tigers. I guess we will find out which choice was best. 

I feel really good about this team, which makes me nervous. Last year the team I like the most ended up 81-81, missed winning the division in the final game of the season, and left a real sour taste in my mouth. I am believing for better things with this team. My prediction is this team will have the most wins of the six I have entered.
Hitting: 5246/.301/.383/.471          Pitching: 1,398/.218/1.01/102HR

 $100m Pedro and the Hendersons
I originally wanted Greg Colbrunn for the great pitching he brings and thought I would never give him up. But in the final analysis, Rickey Henderson offered more. A lot of pretty good SPs come from the A's teams of the '80s, and the '02 Red Sox furnish me with Pedro and Lowe. It would have been a much easier decision if the cap were a little higher, and I really struggled to get under it. I could not find a satisfactory resolution until I resolved that I could not roster '03 Gagne or '90 Eck. Settling for '89 Eck, I was able to field a team I liked. I also like Dodger Stadium, and the '03 Henderson gives me that. I prefer a higher BA fr that stadium, but the theme made that impossible. I just hope my BA is higher than that of my opponents. 

I was enamored with Jimmy Foxx and the explosive offense he brought. But I could not put my trust in the mediocre pitching and nixed the idea. I also looked up Galarraga, Andre Dawson, Jose Cruz Jr., Terry Pendleton, and Jose Offerman, but of those, only Galarraga was worth a second look. It was truly between Henderson and Colbrunn, and when I saw I would have to field a version of Colbrunn with over 500 PAs and sub-par numbers, I decided to go with Rickey, more SBs, and a solid lineup from top to bottom. 

It's a little ironic that I have Rickey Henderson, but my C arm is so bad he can't even throw out the trash. I was willing to get a light hitting C with an A+ arm, but the options were pretty bad and the savings was very little. So I unashamedly start Piazza and hope there aren't a lot of other teams with Rickey or Raines in my league. Turns out this league is full of Chipper Jones with only 3 Hendersons competing against mine and 1 Raines, and none of them in my division. I like the shake. I am counting on this team competing for a division title and some postseason wins.
Hitting: 6114/.301/.404/.457                       Pitching: 1,412/.213/1.05/83HR 

$110m Oakland, Philly, Boston
If I have any regrets before the season opens, it is that I took the Athletics instead of the Giants. I wanted to use the Dodgers and Dodger stadium, but I just did not feel good about the players I generated from that team. I intentionally avoided Cleveland because I took them in a similar theme last year and I just wanted to do something different this time. Sorry, Addie. 

I liked the Athletics because they provide good pitching at a fair price (and Chief bender is a personal favorite), and some really good hitters from the early years. My strategy was to get great hitters from the deadball era, so the Athletics fit that criterion well. I went with Boston because I thought I could afford Pedro, as a replacement for Addie, by getting a couple a good, low cost, supporting cast members, like '08 Steele and '14 Leonard. I did not have trouble staying under this cap, and I feel I have a competitive team, but I think I will be coveting Toney and Nehf and Mathewson on the teams that took the Giants. I just hope I win enough games to push that out of my mind. Somewhere between 85 and 90 wins will keep the sour taste away from the buds.
Hitting: 5606/.331/.424/.513          Pitching: 1,385/.195/0.87/33HR

 $120m Puzzling Decadence
I wanted to find a word with "decade" in it and this was the best I could come up with. Clearly I do not spend as much time naming my teams as I do filling them. I didn't even spend much time filling this squad. I decided I wanted my highest PA player to bat leadoff, so I looked for someone with speed and not a lot of power. I ended up taking Hughie Jennings over Richie Ashburn. I really like Ashburn, but for some reason I consistently end up choosing someone else over him. At least the SS position is filled. 

The other top PA spots will be filled with my top players, where I am willing to spend extra money per PA. Babe Ruth gets the 700-749 slot, though I took a different version than others who went the same route because he was about $500,000 cheaper. But is is also clearly less of a player than the '32 Ruth and I may regret trying to save a few dollars at this important spot. The 600s get King Kelly and Wade Boggs. I was surprised that neither Kelly nor Jennings was taken by many other owners. I am crossing my fingers that this will work in my favor. 

At the lower PAs I tried to produce some lefty/righty combos that I could start against opposite handed pitchers. That way I won't have a nightmare of roster changes throughout the season. I think that is where the decadence comes in. at DH, lefty '01 McGraw and righty Riggs Stephenson should maintain high BAs and keep the runs coming in. 

Not every team has Elton Chamberlain, but it's pretty close. I am also not alone in rostering Joss and Maddux, but that's fine. We'll let the rest of our rosters sift out the great teams form the good. This is a coin flip as to how good this team is. Here's hoping for 85 wins and being placed in a weak division.
Hitting: 6208/.337/.437/.488         Pitching: 1,513/.193/0.92/58HR

 

8/2/2015 4:19 PM
mpitt76
Posts: 2099 (0)
Hall of Famer
465 1 2
Prospect
120M – The entire key to this league was managing plate appearances. The 750+ slot needed to go to a guy who didn’t eat up a lot of salary, plus someone who could perform at the top of the line up and not waste plate appearances. Enter Billy Hamilton – after looking at Boggs and some cheap singles hitters from the 1800s. My 700+ slot went to ’85 Cap Anson, one of my favorite players. Decent hitter who will get you 30 + plays at a corner infield position, all for less than 6M. Again, batting second and not wasting PA. Cecil Travis at SS was the next player chosen – normalizes well and takes up the 40s slot. The rest I tried to fill with players I like at this cap. Billy North and Roseboro to cut down the opposing offense. Spend more on pitching than on offense, as I always do. Joss, Tudor, Maddux, Sutter, Carlos, Betances, Chamberlain, Rivera.

110M – This theme took ten minutes. With franchise leagues, I always go with the Cubs. Harry Steinfeldt and Glenn Beckert are extremely undervalued and the Cubs have Brown, Jack Pfiester, and Pete Alexander plus other pitchers to choose from. Grab the Indians with Addie Joss and Bill Bernhard as my #5 SP.
Speaker, Joe Jackson, Nap Lajoie. My hitters average .341/.399/.471 and my pitching WHIP is .94 which includes 100 IP of crap. I’m high on this team which should translate to 80 wins.

100M – Pitching, Pitching, Pitching. Did I mention Pitching. Looked at Dick Schofield, Willie Davis, Tommy Davis. Went with Tommy because of the Pitching. Can’t even compare to the Chipper teams. Chipper teams in my league WHIP – 1.03, 1.14, 1.11, 1.10. My team is at .98 with Vida Blue, Don Drysdale, Larry Dierker, and Sandy Koufax. Phil Regan and a decent Grant Jackson and Doyle Alexander round out the bullpen. Yes, hitting was sacrificed and will definitely miss the switch hitters but I’m hoping the pitching makes up for it. Got the hitters to .295/.350/.413. Add Roseboro to cut down on the Rickey and Raines teams. I feel good about my strategy, which of course will yield 75 wins.

90M – Wrote down all the Ugly teams and checked them all out, starting in 1966 and working my way up. Got bored around 1980 and just went with the ’72 Phillies. Missed the Marlins and the Mariners. Oh well. Then looked for a great pitching team and a great hitting team. Settled on the ’66 Dodgers and a really good Rockies team. Hoping to get .500 from this team.

80M – Raines or Roberts. Roberts or Raines. Went back and forth on these two for weeks. The position player versus the SB. One day it was Raines for sure, then Roberts. Asked my wife, my daughter, my son, and about 10 people from work. Came back with a 50/50 split. Then I chose Raines. Woke up the next morning to plug him in and went with Roberts. The night before the team was due I flipped a coin and Raines won.  Then a few weeks later I won the award for this league with the most cookies which tells you about the rest of my team. My pitchers have instructions to hit Bip Roberts every time he comes up against me.

70M – 7 switch hitting can’t move hitters. Tenace to catch and Boggs at third. Not very original. Plugged in 1350 innings of your favorite pitchers as well.


The key to this tournament, I find, is to limit your mistakes. Make sure you have enough IP and enough PA – avoid the pitching death spiral of hell. Make the safe choices and count on others to give you a few games here and there. You could have five teams over .500 and one crappy team, and completely miss round 2.

Good luck, everyone - this is the best part of WIS - thanks again Schwarze.


8/2/2015 4:39 PM
beaneball
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I went into each of the teams I built with the idea to draft based on how I felt the majority of the teams would be drafting and counter them. In all leagues I went for the lowest possible HR/9 I could get.

70M - More D's than Mons Venus

Having recently completed a 70M league where everyone used nothing but switch hitting speedsters and exploited non A+ Catcher arms I made sure I was ready for that choosing ‘74 Tenace. I chose more power hitters than normal since I am betting a majority of owners will sacrifice a bit of the HR/9. Three HR threats in the middle of the lineup in Freeman, Cravath and Williams along with Tenace and Thompson providing cheap HR potential near the bottom make it one of my more HR friendly teams, especially since Yankee Stadium III will be the home park. Decent AVG, Good OBP and SLG.

The pitching should be solid and was pretty easy to put together. I generally don’t use too many of the SP cookies and even though it’s slightly worse than I am used to, the bullpen is pretty solid.

Hitting: .285 AVG/.379 OBP/.462 SLG
Pitching: .219 OAV / 1.01 WHIP/.14 HR/9

80M – Another Beaneball Creation

To combat the switch hitter/SB exploitation I went with Tenace again and put Dunn in front to keep with the bottom of the lineup cheap HR power trend. Since 80M is mega-cookie I tried to stay away from them as much as possible. My teams overall power is lower but the OBP and XBH ability should be good using Cinergy field. Good AVG, OBP & SLG

The Pitching staff should be a strength and will not give up many HR so I am expecting a good showing. Different SP than I normally use but still solid and the bullpen should be a pretty good.

Hitting: .303 AVG/.398 OBP/.478 SLG
Pitching: .214 OAV/ .98 WHIP/.14 HR/9

90M – ’81 Astros, ’99 Rockies, ’92 Mariners

I tried a few different combos but this was the one where I feel having HR surpression with your pitching and a HR-Heavy lineup will separate the good from the great teams. The restriction in years from ’66-‘14 is great imo and will test an owner’s understanding of the HR/9 vs. OAV.

I knew I was going to use ’81 Astros for their pitching but besides Alan Ashby at C, nobody on their offense was going to cut it. I knew I wanted HR’s which is why I went with Colorado ’99. The fact they had a bunch of usable 2-300 PA guys is what sold me on them along with Walker and the other HR hitters. I looked for my UGLY team by whichever had the best offense/defense combo at SS and 3B and found ’92 Seattle. Having Griffey Jr. to go along with Edgar Martinez and Omar Vizquel didn’t hurt. Very solid and should play up bigtime based on all the homer-prone pitchers, playing my home games in The Kingdome.

The Pitching is only ’81 Astros. I looked for some other teams to put in place of my Rockies and Mariners choices to get a few more RP’s but in the end I trust my IP’s from the Astros and wasn’t going to sacrifice 3-4 inferior offensive players for 70-80 RP innings.

Hitting: .309 AVG/.372 OBP/.500 SLG
Pitching: .234 OAV / 1.15 WHIP/.34 HR/9 (.43 if you include the scrub 200k mop ups)

100M – Roush Hour

This team is either going to be really good, or really bad. I am betting on the former and normalization to help with the pitcher’s OAV. I went with the best possible HR suppressing staff as I could. I toyed with a pretty sweet Arky Vaughan team but I just felt the pitcher’s OAV was a bit too high at this cap and the normalization wasn’t as good. I made a team using Harry Spillman (who?) as my clone that was actually really good but I was coming in 10 mil under the 100M cap and just could not go into the league taking that big of a gamble. That and I didn’t have enough roster spots to add 7 Spillman’s plus an entire starting offense since he would be used exclusively as access to his teammates.
Roush can play multiple positions and was extremely consistent, offering 330+ AVG and decent (70+) speed across almost all his clones. I was able to get a sweet short PA C in Bubbles Hargrave and some nice seasons from my infielders and a big power bat in Mel Ott. Redlands field should help my offense with the HR’s and I won’t give up many at all.

The pitching OAV normalizes amazingly well and will definitely keep the ball in the yard better than every other 100M tourney team. I’m really banking on the HR surpression to be the difference maker here.

Hitting: .329 AVG/.389 OBP/.492 SLG
Pitching: .253 OAV / 1.19 WHIP/.15 HR/9

110M – Giant Yankees

Since you get the best pitching not from your starters, but your relievers I went with the Giants since I wanted a lights-out bullpen and Schupp, Toney and Nehf give me that. SP’s Matthewson and Ford should do their thing pretty well. The RP’s are from 2 of the oldest franchises so finding enough to make a good bullpen was easy. This team won’t give up many HR either.

I wanted some serious OBP/Power combo guys on this team and no franchise does that better than the Yankees. Gehrig and Ruth will carry the offense and between the 2 franchises I wasn’t lacking in choices. For a guy who loves making weird team concepts, taking the easy way out using these 2 franchises makes me feel kind of icky inside. I have no doubt this will be one of my better teams.

The offense and pitching winds up being better than my 120M team…
Hitting: .328 AVG/.429 OBP/.554 SLG
Pitching: .195 OAV/ .91 WHIP/.15 HR/9

120M – 3-Finger Brown invented The Shocker

My Lineup was based on the highest % of my budget was to go to my high PA guys since this would make it easier to build the offense and makes sense from a fundamental standpoint which is why I started with Gehrig and Ruth. The rest of the lineup is heavy on OBP and has some pop sprinkled here and there but I felt much more limited than the 110M cap. Lots of lefty power and Robison should help me more than my opponents.

I tried to match the best decades with their IP requirements and make sure we kept surpressing the HR’s as best as possible. Higher cap, more HR hitters so it’s super important. I feel like overall it’s pretty good but in terms of absolutely perfect, I wish I could have found a better choice for the ‘20-‘29 and 160 IP choice of Howard Emke but he should be ok.

Hitting: .326 AVG/.416 OBP/.524 SLG
Pitching: .203 OAV/ .98 WHIP/.13 HR/9

Overall, I think my teams should perform pretty well. My 120M and 100M teams have me the most worried but I believe in the numbers and they should be just fine. Very cool themes and it was really neat to finally see what everyone else had been working on with their teams.
8/2/2015 6:07 PM (edited)
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