It's been a busy year. I didn't have adequate time for the drafts and it shows in the number of mistakes made. 

$60M
     19th century hitters don't work at lowcaps, overpriced and horrible glove. Pitchers are ok and they can hit much better than their modern counterparts. So most of my 19th century budget went to pitchers. I did select Cap Anson because of his secondary Catcher rating and one part timer who had a rare glove rating above D-. No real drafting strategy other than get the best value for the money. The team is very balanced except for a couple bums on the bench. The nonlinear pay scale is more prominent at the lower range and it didn't seem right to step outside of a narrow range of $/IP and $/PA. On the other hand range cost is too balanced to be affordable here so I have almost all D and D- range. I chose Veterans Stadium for the 2B and HR along with a -2 singles rating which hopefully will save on fatigue. I'm not going to bother mentioning players names because you've probably never heard of them. I know I haven't.


$80M Yankees
     Yankees are known for overpaying free agent stars past their prime so they seemed like a logical choice. If the cap were $100M. I thought I could get it down to $90m until I loaded the lg# and noticed the cap was $80m. A different strategy is called for, based more on bargain pricing. Yankees have a large player pool and I already did much of the research so I stuck with them, didn't try anybody else.
     It's amazing how much difference that $10M makes in the pitching. Alll those studs are useless albatrosses now. After drafting hitting I downgraded my pitching further, it seemed more important to keep the hitters. Rotation of Gura, Pat Dobson, and Gaylord Perry not his best year. Hardin and Maglie can start as needed or pitch in relief. Doyle Alexander and Paul Lindblad are the bullpen stars, a mediocre Time Burke and Heimach in long relief, and a mopup. 
     Pudge catching because I anticipate a fair number of running teams. Velarde an average but affordable 2B. SS was a problem and I compromised with a $5M ARod with C glove. 3B was also a problem because I drafted an illegal player, rather than rearrange half my roster I replaced with a similarly priced Charlie Hayes. now here comes the beef, Olerud at 1B and a tandem of Outfielders including Raines Melky Mumphrey Mondesi Nady and Griffey Sr. They'll play the matchups and pinch hit.


$90M 72 A's.
     The most complex theme and I save it until the final weekend. Riiight. I only considered 3 teams and drafted mostly on the fly, not considering other combinations. and I confused this with the no pre-1920 theme, possibly missing out on the best teams. Just a reminder this tournament takes a LOT of time. 
     First I looked at the 2008 Dodgers and all their superstars. too pricey and I don't like Dodger stadium so I moved on. 1985 Cardinals have always been considered I good twist team but i'm not sure why, they don't have enough pitching. John Tudor and then what? In this them I could bring in Mike Scott and a closer or two, but that still left a lot of mediocre innings. The extra hitting budget didn't seem like enough to make up for it. So I looked for a pitching team and found 72 A's with Vida Blue, Catfish Hunter, Joe Horlen, and I can bring in Mike Norris, or even Ron Guidry but that one was too ugly. I really liked the pitching but only had $40M left for hitters.Entered at midnight of the deadline only to discover I had an illegal tandem. The fix was a downgrade and I learned two things, you often don't get the best version of a player and it helps to have a large player pool to choose from. So I reconsidered the 08 Dodgers. Good hitting, 3 quality SP but that's only 600+ innings by modern standards, closers were unaffordable and glove was considerably worse. So I stuck with the watered down A's.
     Catfish Hunter represents the host year. Vida Blue '71 of course, with Darold Knowles. Mike Norris brought in by a 200k bench player. I had to settle for the 2nd best Horlen '67 with Don McMahon. plenty of SP innings so Horlen may spend some time in relief. '70 Bando is cheaper but still good and pairs with Jim Roland. '69 Dick Green is also affordable and comes with his own backup, Bob Johnson. Lots of A+ arms available I took Ted Simmons who can also hit, courtesy of a bench Kubiak. SS was a problem, I couldn't stomache Campy or the other cheap options so I overpayed for Templeton via George Hendrick. This seemed more important than keeping the best Horlen with my abundance of SP. Lots of Cepeda's to choose from, I chose '62 with Felipe Alou. Ollie Brown and Jay Johnstone '75 make up 2/3rds of a platoon.Close out with the never used combination of Marty Martinez and Scipio Spinks. I had Matty Alou and a good PH but they were illegal, same season different team. No easy fix, I downgraded to a weaker Alou and no DH. I lost my backup Catcher in all the confusion so I'll have to fake it.


$100M Soup Draft
     Got off to a bad start. I broke from my usual pattern and took 3 high IP pitchers early. Sutton is a good choice, Don Wilson an ok choice, after snagging Eichhorn and a hitter Sam McDowell was a horrible choice. I thought the theme rules would leave very limited choices later and I overreacted. Some pitchers like Higuera went undrafted and they are just as good as McDowell but fewer innings. Instead of grabbing a rare top infielder I chose Fred Lynn from a crowded OF wiping out a good team and goodseason in the process. Then I took Tim Burke intending to use his big 1987 season, which of course is not eligible.
     Let's see if I can salvage this mess. Trammell at a quickly thinning SS position. Brooksie at 3rd, Cooper at 1st. I'm getting into money trouble early. an't afford the best long relievers, that's not too bad but I hated passing up the best remaining Outfielders. Other teams were already drafting the best part timers, and that's normally my Ace in the hole. Catcher is a hitting platoon of Smoky Burgess and Cliff Johnson, and they will also pinch hit. Hal McRae at OF, mostly because he had several usable seasons and I might need the flexibility. I was scrambling for some cheap platoon players when I noticed the Burke mistake just in time. Luckily I hadn't used 1985 yet, a big downgrade but I needed the extra money and innings. Dick Green at 2B backed up by Auerbach. Some semi-useful scrubs. I got stuck in the endgame trap with a horrible bench and one pitcher short. Dropping Fred Lynn to his 2nd best season solved both of those problems. 
     This team has below average pitching and probably not enough hitting to salvage it.


$110M Giants draft
      Giants are a good choice for this theme so I was glad to be in this division. Carl Hubbell with my #2 overall pick, a big dropoff from Mathewson. My rule of thumb is take whatever the draft gives you and in these tournaments the drafts usually give me hitters. Everybody took pitchers several rounds and that left me first shot at 6 hitting positions. Mays Hornsby Ott McCovey Terry. Took the 2 best 1Bmen because it's a DH league. Closers were already being snagged so I took Rod Beck. Terry was too tempting to pass up but he broke the bank. I had first shot at SS and bypassed the overpriced Aurilia for Travis Jackson. I needed to pay for a couple half decent setup men, Beck can't do it by himself. not proud of my Dick Dietz compromise. There were plenty of good part time OFs reasonably priced so I didn't feel the need to compete for more full timers. Had to downgrade Mays to complete the roster, not a big downgrade but it makes my #2 selection look questionable. The $20M restriction on pre-1920 pitchers helped me. Everyone else used up most of their quota early and I could wait until late in the draft to take my deadballers. Maybe not much of an advantage, I took cost effective pitchers and there's a good chance nobody else wanted them anyway.


$120M Anything Goes
     Easiest theme of the bunch. Maddux was an obvious choice. Big Train not as obvious because he gives up the long ball but I like that he can hit. Joss is actually the weak link here but his salary mismatch is hard to pass up. Toughest choice was wether or not to select PJ. On paper it looks better to select a bevy of top RP but that doesn't always work out better in actual play. Pedro has never been that spectacular for me, he can't hit, gives up HR, and won't match up well with all the Babe Ruth's in this league. No PJ for me. I was tempted to skip the top RP too and go all out for hitting, but that gave me the $14M Lajoie and he looked too much like an albatross. So I saved $7M at 2B and chose Eck and Gagne as myalbatrosses. Elton Chamberlain and Bob Milacki were easy choices and I have the 39ip Vida Blue. All can start but I'll probably use them mostly at setup. High pitch counts for SP discourage the use of pinch hitters and in this league I want to do lots of PHing. Toney and Northrop in long relief. Carlos and Charlton join the plethora of setup men or wherever they are needed. 
     I have 3 Babe Ruth's in the Outfield. Yes I know HR will be supressed but he is still the best. Foxx and Schmidt add to the power, getting revenge against the Martinez teams. King Kelly is the best hitting catcher and I don't imagine there will be many speed teams here. SS was a tough choice, I've always liked Honus Wagners normalized hitting though his glove is inconsistant it's not normally too bad. Sticking with Lajoie the'03 version with a ton of + plays, backed up by Doran. and 3 good pinch hitters. 

Great writeup.  Hope others follow your lead and post here.

60Mil: Nightmare Scenario

Offense: .291/.371/.417    113/206 SB
Pitching: 3.39/1.26/.249 (ERA/WHIP/OAV)    0.53 HR/9    1281 IP

For hitting, I have lots of platoons. I wanted great arms at C since many owners like to steal gobs of bases at this level. So, Inge and Wooten are platooning at C since the old-timers didn’t have any A+ arms that were usable. 1B is a two man platoon with old-timers since fielding isn’t as important at 1B. 2B is a two man platoon with Fred Dunlap, who actually is decent in the field even as an old-timer, and another modern hitter. SS is Everth Cabrera, my only speedster, platooning with Ruben Tejada (who also helps at 2B). 3B is Geoff Blum, a modern hitter, platooning with mostly nobody (shorting myself ABs there, uh oh). OF is a combination of three old-timers and a modern hitter covering the three spots. Again, I picked old-time OFs who weren’t bad. I found that 1B and OF had some old-timers who were not complete butchers in the field, but for C, 2B, SS, and 3B, there was no way to plug in an old-timer without suffering greatly in the field.

For pitching, I found that Sadie McMahon was pretty good, and really the *only* decent starter I could find that would work at this level for the old-timers. Most everyone else on my pitching staff are modern pitchers, including Buerhle and Jerome Williams, ugh. Still, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had more IPs than most.

My team has absolutely no power, so I put them in Busch Stadium to protect the pitchers and reduce the innings I need.

80Mil: They WERE Giants… But Not Anymore

Offense: .294/.392/.453    78/112 SB
Pitching: 2.58/1.07/.229 (ERA/WHIP/OAV)    0.45 HR/9    1391 IP

Two of my favorite pitchers at this level, Mike Caldwell and Bob Knepper had one thing in common: They both pitched for the Giants, so it all started from there. From there, it was reasonably easy to build a team. I have lots of platoons (*again*) at C, 1B, 3B, and one OF spot. Joe Morgan can also fill in at 2B if needed, but he’s one of my OFs mostly. I’m not sure if the Giants are better or worse than other teams, but it looks like only WaitNSee also used the Giants. My guess is that all of these teams are pretty even, so it will come down to managing, so I’m likely screwed. However, it does appear that I have more innings than most everyone, so maybe I can win by outlasting everyone else? We’ll see.

90Mil: Ben Demott’s 1910 Cleveland Tribe

Offense: .309/.371/.437    186/382 SB
Pitching: 2.12/0.93/.179 (ERA/WHIP/OAV)    0.09 HR/9    1455 IP

Well, of course I wanted to get Addie Joss, and some of the other deadballers. Of course! Unfortunately, it was really hard. I spent more time on this team than any of the others (probably like most of us). It took lots of mixing and matching and gnashing of teeth, but I finally made it fit. Having Joss and the 1917 Cicotte will be great, but I also have the ’08 Steele and the 1915 Wiltse and Falkenberg too. The 1909 Harry Krause ain’t too shabby either. My pitching looks excellent, and markedly better than most of the other teams.

But that means my hitting would suffer, right? Well, maybe not! I still was able to fit the 1917 Joe Jackson (allowing me access to Cicotte), and Duke Kenworthy, and the 1919 Peckinpaugh is a good player too. My OF is a bit suspect beyond Jackson, and I had to sacrifice Bill Bradley’s ’02 season for his much lesser ’03 season, but overall, I’m happy with this team. The raw hitting numbers seem to be about the same for the other teams too, but mine normalize better (of course the pitchers normalize in the wrong direction, so who knows…). I’m surprised there were not more deadball teams actually; there appears to be only nine of them total, and only three in the National League, and I’m the only one in my division, all of which I think (hopefully) gives me an advantage.

100Mil: No Yankees Were Good Enough

Offense: .313/.399/.508    53/81 SB
Pitching: 2.32/1.03/.208 (ERA/WHIP/OAV)    0.58 HR/9    1485 IP

I had the 3rd pick, and felt that I needed a great pitcher. I thought Don Sutton was going to be my pick but then decided that Mike Scott was just slightly better, so I went with Scott (and Sutton went immediately after, so I hope I’m right…). My next two picks I decided to continue with pitching. I didn’t want to have to worry about getting a starter later on, especially since everyone else was clearly going for pitching with very few exceptions. At this point, with Wilbur Wood and Bill Singer as my next two selections, I had about 1000 innings of good pitching, so I figured I would be fine to pick my hitters, and nearly *all* my hitters, from then on. My first hitter I picked was Dick Dietz to fill my C spot, who is one of, if not the best hitting catchers of that era and a bargain, and I figured his noodle arm wouldn’t hurt me at this level. Following that, I picked Roberto Clemente because he seemed to be the best hitter available and his defense was decent. Then I went for my middle infield with Dick Groat and Lou Whitaker. Those two are my worst hitters, and they are pretty good (especially for middle infielders). I then went for Darrell Evans to fill 3B and decided to go with John Lowenstein who was awesome in a half-time role. Then Norm Siebern to play 1B and Sixto Lezcano to play OF. By this time, most of the relievers were gone, but I saw that Vicente Romo was still available and really the only reliever left at his level, so I picked him, and also Clint Hurdle to platoon with Lowenstein.

By now, I had filled up my hitting, pretty much, so it was just a matter of picking the middle relievers to fill in the pitching (although Gene Locklear more or less filled in the remaining OF holes I had). I left 1977 open for my last pick and it came down to the Yankees and Seattle as the last two franchises I hadn’t filled, although I could have also moved Manny Sarmiento from Cincinnati to 1977 and picked something in 1978 if necessary. The point is that I wanted lots of options for that last pick so as not to be closed out somehow. As it so happens, I had no problems and had many options to choose from. I chose Stan Thomas who as it happens, pitched for *both* the Yankees and the Mariners in 1977 so I could have chosen either version. I decided to choose the Mariners version just to stick it to the Yankees ;-).

110Mil: Giant Taco Locos

Offense: .321/.419/.506    75/149 SB
Pitching: 1.92/0.95/.200 (ERA/WHIP/OAV)    0.41 HR/9    1419 IP

I had the 1st pick in my mini-draft, and went with Christy Mathewson, which I think was pretty obvious. My strategy in this draft was that, it appeared to me that there were plenty of hitters available for every position (I only needed one of the top 4 after all for each spot, except for OF where I needed 3 of the top 12). Pitching however was at a premium, so every one of picks for the first 9 rounds were pitchers. This got me about 900 innings of excellent pitching. In the end, my pitching appears to be the best in the division. And yet, I was still able to get plenty of good hitters, including Stanky as my 2B, and a great C platoon (yes another platoon!), and a mix and match system for 1B and OF. My 3B Sid Gordon is a bit weak, I think, but SS is pretty strong with the overpriced, but still good Aurilia. My power is not quite as good as others in my division so I put my team in the Polo Grounds to suppress the homers a bit.

160Mil: Pumpernickel Iceplant

Offense: .375/.483/.580    349/619 SB
Pitching: 1.40/0.78/.181 (ERA/WHIP/OAV)    0.27 HR/9    1568 IP

I went with the usual pitchers, Joss, Maddux, and all the great relievers. Also Elton Chamberlain and Fred Toney. Probably the only slightly questionable pitcher is Pedro Martinez, but I just think he is just too awesome to ignore, homers or not, and the homers really isn’t that big a problem (his HR/9+ rate is still excellent).

For hitters: C is King Kelly. There is no better hitting C and his defense isn’t a problem at this level. 1B is Roger Connor, 2B is Nap Lajoie, 3B is John McGraw backed up by part-time player, and I have Ruth, Williams, and Mantle in the OF, all with some of their best years. Nothing unusual about this. SS was the toughest position to decide on, and I went with the ’05 Wagner for the defense and great normalized numbers.

All of the teams are of course pretty similar. I think it will all come down to managing (and perhaps luck).

"I chose Stan Thomas who as it happens, pitched for *both* the Yankees and the Mariners in 1977 so I could have chosen either version. I decided to choose the Mariners version just to stick it to the Yankees ;-)."

LMFAO

Another great writeup.  I hope others add their comments.  It's not too late.

My roster selection, to sum it up, suffers from what it did the second time I entered this tournament. I just didn't spend enough time challenging my ideas for the non-live-draft themes. It's really time consuming to do this tournament. Yet more, to choose second and third lineups, to see if one might project better than what he first constructs.  I may post some notes in this space about my teams later on, maybe for a grin or a smirk.
My current guess is there are two clear front-runners (but we'll see) and of those, one appears the favorite. Neither is me. 

My strategy apparently, was to come into this tournament grossly inexperienced of late in high salary cap themes, in order to fail at them, and thus avoid winning the championship.

$60 Million: First 15 / Last 15 97W-65L at Target Field (HR LF/RF:-4/-4 1B:0 2B:1 3B:1)

Position players:
This is the first team I built for round 2 WISC. My plan was to create a speed team with high batting avg. Therefore, Chone Figgins 04 is a must; Brandon Inge 04, Luis Castillo 07 and Omar Vizquel 04 are the cookies that cannot miss. The 19-century players tend to have good range and bad fielding, which are not harmful to 1B and outfield defense. So it would be OK to have a 19-century 1B and two 19-century outfielders in my team. I planned to draft about 5300 PAs and ended up with 5310 PAs. I selected Target Field (HR LF/RF:-4/-4 1B:0 2B:1 3B:1) as my home park because of the following reasons: 1. My position players can hit a lot of doubles and triples. 2. They do not have enough PAs. 3. They cannot hit homers.

Pitching:
Innings are expensive in low-caps leagues. So I decided to go with ~1330 innings --- ~950 innings from 3-4 SPs, ~200 quality innings from 4-5 RPs, and 200 innings from mopups. My experience told me that sometimes mopups perform well in low-caps leagues. This is why I am not afraid of using them in regular season. CM Wang 05 is the first SP I selected because he has the best cost-performance value under 24,000 $/IPs. Then I selected Deacon Phillippe 99 because he is a great SP under 24,000 $/IPs. I selected Jesse Tannehill 99 because I wanted a cheap lefty who can eat innings. Finally I used the rest of the budget to get my 4th SP Pud Galvin 85 and build the bullpen.

Hitting Stats: 5310 PAs, .280 avg, .339 obp, .382 slg, 242 SBs @ 66.3%, $30.65M
Pitching Stats: 1330 IPs, 3.46 era, .272 oav, 1.30 whip, 0.32 hr/9, $29.33 M


$90 Million: Twist Twelve plus Teammates 97W-65L at Polo Grounds (V) (HR LF/RF:-1/-1 1B:-1 2B:3 3B:0)

This is the second team I built for round 2 WISC. My strategy for this theme is simple. First, I wanted a team that enables decent pre-1920 deadball pitchers. Second, it would be better if the team enables some decent post-1920 position players. So I decided to go with a Cubs or Giants team in the season between1907 to 1924. Eventually I found 1913 Cubs and 1922 Giants. The key players of my 1913 Cubs team includes Cy Williams 20, Frank Schulte 11, Johnny Evers 12, Dave Bancroft 20, Fred Toney 18, Mordecai Brown 06, Jack Pfiester 06, and Ed Reulbach 05. Sorry I can’t remember all the details of the team. My 1922 Giants team is listed below:
 
1922 New York Giants - Kelly, George
1929 Chicago Cubs - Jonnard, Claude, 1929 Chicago Cubs - Moore, Johnny
1925 Pittsburgh Pirates - Smith, Earl, 1925 Pittsburgh Pirates - Carey, Max
1921 New York Giants - Frisch, Frankie, 1921 New York Giants - Youngs, Ross
1921 Philadelphia Phillies - Meusel, Irish, 1921 Philadelphia Phillies - Keenan, Jimmie
1920 New York Giants -Bancroft, Dave, 1920 New York Giants -Hubbell, Bill
1920 Cincinnati Reds -Groh, Heinie, 1920 Cincinnati Reds -Napier, Buddy
1919 New York Giants -Nehf, Art, 1919 New York Giants -McCarty, Lew
1919 Chicago Cubs - Robertson, Dave, 1919 Chicago Cubs - Alexander, Pete
1918 Pittsburgh Pirates - Hill, Carmen, 1918 Pittsburgh Pirates - Boone, Lute
1918 Chicago Cubs - Douglas, Phil, 1918 Chicago Cubs - Vaughn, Hippo
1918 New York Giants -Toney, Fred, 1918 New York Giants -Sallee, Slim
1914 Cincinnati Reds -Rawlings, Johnny, 1914 Cincinnati Reds -Mollwitz, Fritz
 
I rated and analyzed the two teams:
1913 Cubs: A++ SP, B+ BP, B in-field def, B+ outfield def, A- offense (good OPS), B+ speed
1922 Giants: A- SP, A+ BP, A in-field def, B outfield def, A offense, A speed

The 1922 Giants team is a better choice. I believe this team can beat my 100M and 110M teams.

Hitting Stats: 5719 PAs, .312 avg, .368 obp, .439 slg, 187 SBs @ 65.6%, $45.57M
Pitching Stats: 1444 IPs, 2.02 era, .223 oav, 1.02 whip, 0.17 hr/9, $44.41 M
 
$80 Million: Used to Play For  86W-76L at AT&T Park (HR LF/RF:-3/-3 1B:1 2B:0 3B:2)

I knew it takes time to build a good team for this theme. Too bad I just did not have time to try many possibilities. Therefore I decided not to spend much time on this theme. I went with Giants directly because many cookies such as Gary Carter 75, Omar Vizquel 99, and Willie McGee 90 are legal Giants players. Then I searched some other candidates to fill the holes. I planned to have 1400 IPs and 5500 PAs and eventually got 1401 IPs and 5571 PAs.
 
Hitting Stats: 5571 PAs, .298 avg, .368 obp, .416 slg, 212 SBs @ 68.8%, $38.96M
Pitching Stats: 1401 IPs, 2.63 era, .230 oav, 1.08 whip, 0.42 hr/9, $41.04 M


$160 Million: Anything Goes  105W-57L at Municipal Stadium (HR LF/RF:-4/-4 1B:1 2B:3 3B:3)

I won several championships and TOCs at this level of caps. So it is really easy for me to put up a good team. At this cap, high pitching K/9#, low OAV#, low WHIP#, low HR/9# are preferable since they reduce team runs-allowed. High defensive range of position players is preferable for the same reason. I usually choose a hitter-friendly park that does not allow many homers. This is where the super-range players benefit your team the most. I prefer position players with high ba#, high obp# and low K# at this cap. Those players usually produce enough runs to win a lot of games. I seldom draft high ops# players such as Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds at this cap. I like to have them at a cap of 200m or more. They are expensive at a 160-cap league.
 
Hitting Stats: 6150 PAs, .377 avg, .439 obp, .541 slg, 504 SBs @ 58.5%, $85.88M
Pitching Stats: 1571.7 IPs, 1.44 era, .172 oav, 0.78 whip, 0.31 hr/9, $74.11 M