This is where those in the 16x16 draft can post their comments regarding their drafting experience, including draft strategies, screwups, and how much they hate their team.

Usually I fall prey to going too low on salary - I save money up front, but then end up not being able to spend it all at the end. This time, I went with the best nomination for me, regardless of where it left me in the draft. I also had a focus on versatility among teammates. I wanted to make sure I had a bunch of options at all positions, so I could construct a full roster with whatever players I ended up having to start from the nominated ones.

Nomination: '02 Derek Lowe - $8.5M

Strong pitcher who also brought along Pedro Martinez. I often take cheap versions of SP in these leagues, relying on teammates. I decided to start myself with two strong SP options from the get-go. I initially had Nomar Garciaparra and Manny Ramirez penciled in, but they didn't make the final cut.

Round 1 - '65 Tommy Davis - $279K

Davis was cheap and brought along Mr. Koufax. End of story.

Round 2 - '73 Jerry Koosman - $6.67M

Koosman was a guy I identified early as someone I didn't want to be stuck with a bad version of. I can use this version as a 4th starter. He also brought along a very good Tom Seaver season, but sadly, Seaver didn't end up making the cut.

Round 3 - '66 Ted Abernathy - $283K

Cost-saving pick, and because Ted had a lot of seasons I didn't want to get stuck wasting money on. He also brought along Ron Santo as a strong teammate option, though I ended up passing on him.

Round 4 - '53 Vern Stephens - $1.4M

I wanted to take a 3B version to use as a starter, but I totally missed that slainte had already taken the '51 version in Round 1. I grabbed this version here to save some money and have a good PH/sub option that wouldn't be a waste of money.

Round 5 - '97 Juan Castro - $208K

Due to the Wilson selection, pretty much everyone needs a teammate catcher. Castro brought along a stud Mike Piazza season. The fact he only costs $200K is a nice bonus.

Round 6 - '93 Willie McGee - $3.1M

I really wanted Barry Bonds and this version brought along a nice one. Plus this Willie is passable enough to use as a cheap starter in the OF. I had Rod Beck to anchor my pen, but he was a last minute salary crunch.

Round 7 - '18 Chase Utley - $709K

I had a devil of a time trying to figure out when to take Utley/Frisch and which season to grab. Ultimately, based on options left, I decided at this point to just use Frisch at 2B/3B depending which version I got, and use a teammate at the other position. Utley brings along Manny Machado at SS and Walker Buehler for the pen/spot starting.

Round 8 - '28 Jimmy Wilson - $1.32M

I didn't want to waste any money here, with Piazza in the fold, so this is a nice complimentary bench piece who can hit and spell Piazza if needed.

Round 9 - '94 Luis Gonzalez - $4.6M

I had a couple teammate OFers I wanted to use, but I ultimately realized I wasn't going to have enough slots unless I wasted money on an overpriced bench player. This Gonzalez is not ideal, but having him and McGee at the bottom of the order freed up cash for stud teammates Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio. I felt good about this selection.

Round 10 - '04 Fred McGriff - $200K

I planned to leave McGriff until the end, with so many decent starting seasons available. But with Bagwell in the fold, and this $200K season still on the board, it was a no-brainer here.

Round 11 - '71 Juan Pizarro - $2.5M

With Pizarro seasons dwindling, most remaining were similar in price, but not quality. I opted to grab this one to use as a Setup B and not have it be a total waste of money.

Round 12 - '96 Alan Embree - $333K

Another cost-cutting pick, who brought along teammate options in Jim Thome, Albert Belle and Kenny Lofton, if I ended up needing them.

Round 13 - '34 Frankie Frisch - $4.45M

I waffled too long on this one. He's passable at 3B and shouldn't be too much of a liability offensively, given how stacked the top of my order is.

Round 14 - '90 Jim Dwyer - $202K

Cost-saving pick at $200K.

Round 15 - '92 Kevin Brown - $6.5M

I knew early on I didn't want to use Brown as a starter. I planned to grab the '04 version but schwarze beat me to it. That cost me Tom Seaver.


A few picks that didn't go my way, but if they had, it might have changed my whole draft. I'm very pleased with my final roster. Only $1.6M of scrub salary on offense, and maybe $2M of useless innings on the pitching side. This is the best I've ever felt about a team in this league, so we'll see what happens.

Lineup
2B - '94 Biggio - .318/.411/.483
SS - '18 Machado - .297/.367/.538
1B - '94 Bagwell - .368/.451/.750
CF - '93 Bonds - .336/.458/.677
C - '97 Piazza - .362/.431/.638
LF - '94 Gonzalez - .273/.353/.429
RF - '93 McGee - .301/353/.389
3B - '34 Frisch - .305/.359/.398

Totals (including scrubs): .309/.389/.511, 342 2B, 212 HR, 675 BB

Pitching
SP1 - '65 Koufax - 336 IP, 0.86 WHIP
SP2 - '02 Martinez - 266 IP, 0.92 WHIP
SP3 - '02 Lowe - 220 IP, 0.98 WHIP
SP4 - '73 Koosman - 265 IP, 1.18 WHIP

SP5/Long A - '92 Brown - 266 IP, 1.27 WHIP

Setup A - '18 Buehler - 136 IP, 0.96 WHIP
Setup A - '18 Fields - 41 IP, 0.95 WHIP
Setup B - '71 Pizarro - 102 IP, 1.17 WHIP

Totals (including scrubs): 1,626 IP, 1.06 WHIP, 2.77 ERA, 2.42 BB/9, 7.6 K/9, 0.66 HR/9

Before I begin, I should note that I was keeping a running log as the draft progressed. Everything was going smoothly until I made a series of spectacularly bad decisions. I will post what I had written. I'm fairly certain you will be able to tell when the train went off the rails. Blue = usable drafted player, Green = Teammate. Red = mostly useless cannon fodder. Will post player stats at the end to avoid cluttering up the summaries.

Nominated Player
2002 Alan Embree
When I came up with the unique rule of having to draft the highest salaried version of your nominated player, I assumed that cheap relievers (w/ good teammates) would be the popular option. My initial pick of Warren Spahn would enable me to get a head start at building a good starting pitching staff, while at the same time forcing others to have to roster a worse version of a still-expensive Spahn season. But then everybody except calhoop nominated a starting pitcher. Getting the last pick in round #1 with all these higher-priced starting pitchers is not what I had planned for. So, I changed my pick to move into an early round 1 selection. I almost switched to ’96 Trevor Hoffman (which would given me a stud 3B, Ken Caminiti). Then when found ’02 Alan Embree, it was a slam dunk considering I originally was hoping to get Derek Lowe. This change temporarily got me the number #1 overall pick. Then mllama54 made a subsequent change and undercut me with Jim Dwyer. At this point, I am unsure if I will be using ’02 Pedro Martinez or not. Depends on if I get ’99 Lowe with my top pick and what my salary situation looks like when the draft is over.

Pick 1.2
1999 Derek Lowe
‘99 Derek Lowe was my top choice all along so mllama54 moving ahead of me didn’t end up mattering. Before the draft got underway, I had determined that there are a lot of crappy seasons of the nominated players, so I needed to roster as many usable versions of drafted players as possible, so I wasn’t going to worry about grabbing cheap unusable versions of players just to snag a good teammate. I will deal with the salary cap ramifications later. With only 9 teammate spots, getting a usable RP with 100 innings plus two really good teammate options is a fine start. Both ’99 Pedro Martinez and ’99 Nomar Garciaparra are studs. I have no interest in using Vern Stephens at SS. Other players I considered with this pick were ’63 Pizarro (+ Gary Peters), one of the better Koosman (+ Tom Seaver) seasons and ’99 Gonzalez (+ Randy Johnson). I doubt the starting pitchers will make it back to me, so I am really hoping to get ’99 Luis Gonzalez in round 2.

Pick 2.5
1999 Luis Gonzalez
Sure enough, ’63 Pizarro went as well as ’77 and ’68 Koosman. A couple of the top Kevin Brown seasons also got selected and I considered grabbing the best Brown left (1999), but there are other Browns that I can live with as my SP4. I really wanted a good hitting Gonzalez who won’t kill me on defense. ’99 Gonzalez brings along a solid, albeit HR-prone '99 Randy Johnson. My next target is either ’90 McGee (prefer OAK), ’96 McGriff (w/Smoltz and/or Maddux), ’99 K.Brown or maybe one of the 3B-eligible stud Frankie Frisch seasons. And yes, I realize all of these usable players I want to draft will move me down in the draft order.

Pick 3.6
1990 Willie McGee (StL)
’99 Brown was taken by pedrocerrrano (nice pick - I probably would have taken him). I was hoping for the Oakland version of ’90 McGee but he got picked. McGee doesn’t have many good full-time seasons available and by taking this version, it opens up one more teammate spot w/o hurting my offense too much. No useful '90 Cardinals teammates to mention. calhoop had just grabbed the first Frankie Frisch seasons and I almost took ’24 Frisch here, but he has a number of usable seasons at 3B, so I will wait at least one more round. I would still like to use a version of Kevin Brown as my SP4. The last two halfway-decent Kevin Brown seasons I am eyeing (’95 & ’97) are still left and I may have to grab one next round, depending on how many Frisch’s get taken this round.

Pick 4.8
1924 Frankie Frisch
As expected, we're moving down the draft order... 1.2 to 2.5 to 3.6 to 4.8. This expensive pick will surely move me near the bottom, but I really want to make sure I have as many teammate spots available as possible. I had my eyes set on ’24 Frisch as my regular 3B but also to provide extra shortstop PA’s for ’99 Nomar. This Frisch also comes with a couple of decent teammates, outfielder '24 Ross Youngs and catcher Hank Gowdy (for a possible platoon w/Wilson). Next on the “want list”, Chase Utley, as he only has four solid full-seasons that I can use. I’ve pretty much decided to wait on Brown & Koosman until I get the starting hitters I want. Assuming I get a good Utley and McGriff, that leaves only 3 teammate spots to use on the offense (C, SS, OF) and SIX for pitching! (3-4 SP, 2-3 RP).

Pick 5.14
1996 Fred McGriff
After joerat1 took ’06 Utley at 4.14, I was holding my breath, really hoping to get ’05 Utley here, but after having to wait for 22 picks to be made, I had time to review things a bit closer. What I realized was that all the decent starting pitchers available as teammates were flying off the board. After ‘97 Kevin Brown went, I decided I will use 4 of my teammate spots on my starting staff. The top two available SPs (’96 John Smoltz and ’96 Greg Maddux) just happened to be connected to the same player. So I passed on ’05 Utley and I grabbed ’96 McGriff even though he’s not quite up to par in terms of his offense (relative to his other seasons). Since I already have my Frankie Frisch (who is A++ range at 2B), it won’t kill me if I don’t get a great Utley season. Also, ’96 Chipper Jones (terrible fielder at 3B, but ok at SS) could slide into my SS spot if I need to save salary and dump ’99 Nomar.

Post-Draft Edit: This might have been draft mistake #1. There are a ton of McGriffs left. Would somebody have taken a light-hitting '96 McGriff this early just for the starting pitching? Maybe. But I absolutely should have grabbed a usable Utley here and opened up that extra teammate spot. I could have figured out the rotation even without Maddux and Smoltz.

Pick 6.13
2004 Kevin Brown
Well, my gamble failed and the last three remaining good Utley seasons got taken, including one pick in front of me (not the last time I get sniped with one person to pick in front of me). Also, the last semi-usable Kevin Brown is gone, so now I need to save some salary. ’04 Brown is the cheapest left and it could be argued that he’s the best Brown left statistically. Without that extra teammate spot, I will have to use Brown in long relief. He brings along a very nice 90-inning '04 Tom Gordon season. This pick also means Frisch moves back to 2B. Lots of good 3B teammates still available. Next round, I need to save salary on Stephens and will try to get one of the two remaining cheap versions.

Pick 7.13
1952 Vern Stephens
This was a tough call. Since I missed out on a full-season Utley, I need to make sure I get one of the cheap Utley seasons. There are three left. But there are only two cheap Stephens seasons left. Two is fewer than three so Stephens it is. No teammates worth discussing. Oh crap, two of the three cheap Utley seasons get picked right away. Now I have to sweat out the last cheap Utley season. Stephens will pick up some of the PA's that '99 Nomar is missing.

Pick 8.13
2015 Chase Utley
Whew! Getting 2015 Utley was a $1.4 million savings over the next cheapest version. It looks more and more likely that I will keep ’99 Nomar at SS and instead use ’96 Chipper (w/ his terrible range) at 3B. I don’t see any 3B teammates I feel are better than Chipper, given the salary I’d have to absorb to obtain them. Eddie Mathews was a possibility, but it would require wasting $2M+ on an unusable Pizarro season. That being said, my roster is almost complete. On offense, I have ’96 McGriff (1B), ’24 Frisch (2B), ’96 Chipper (3B), ’99 Nomar (SS), ’90 McGee (OF), ’99 L.Gonzalez (OF) and maybe ’24 Ross Youngs (OF). I still need to figure out the starting catcher situation. Looking at ’73, ’75 or ‘78 Ted Simmons (via Jim Dwyer). I have four solid SPs w/’99 Pedro, ’99 R.Johnson, ‘96 Smoltz and ‘96 Maddux and three decent RPs w/ ’99 Lowe, ’04 T.Gordon and ’02 Embree. Unfortunately, losing Utley means I lose an extra RP teammate, so ’04 K.Brown will have to be my long reliever. Next pick will be another salary saver.

Pick 9.10
1973 Juan Pizarro
The choices here are ’81 Koosman (cheapest left), ’36 Jimmie Wilson (cheapest left) or the guy who I ended up taking, the $282K Cubs version of ’73 Pizarro. That’s a $1.5-2.0 M savings over most of the remaining Pizarro seasons left. This pick eliminates the possibility of me using Eddie Mathews as a teammate.

Pick 10.7
1981 Jerry Koosman
These last few cheap player selections has me moving back up the draft order. I almost grabbed ’75 Dwyer to lock in my starting catcher, then I realized I needed to get my cheap ($2.1M) Koosman now, otherwise I could get stuck with a $5M+ version if there was a Koosman run. I guess I will wait until next round to grab my starting catcher.

Pick 11.9
1975 Jim Dwyer
Up until I pulled the trigger, I was still undecided between the better fielding Simmons (’73) or the better hitting version. Of course, I went with offense and will be starting '75 Ted Simmons. Also, ’75 Dwyer is an ok hitter and may get a few spot starts as my starting OFs will all need to sit a few games. There is one more player I am going to try and get, then my last three picks are meaningless. I’d like to upgrade ’24 Ross Youngs to ’24 Cy Williams. So we’re hoping ’24 Jimmie Wilson slides back.

Post-Draft Edit: No "might have been" this time. This was definitely draft mistake #2. With three Ted Simmons available to me, I should have grabbed '24 Wilson instead. Hang on - it gets worse.

Pick 12.7
1934 Jimmie Wilson
I was hitting refresh all night Sunday night, hoping to make my last meaningful pick before I went to bed. Ended up sending my proxy (’24 Wilson) to njbigwig and calhoop. Woke up Monday morning to find out footballmm11 took ’24 Wilson right in front of me. F*ck! Now, I could simply keep Ross Youngs as my third OF, but I think I can still upgrade here. So now, the guy I am looking at is ’70 Billy Williams but that would cost me a $2.4M Davis, which means I could end up over the cap if I don't prepare first. There are 4 people who still need Davis and only three cheap Davis left (around $1M each), so I should be able to wait a round. So this round, I grabbed the cheapest Wilson (which saves me up to a $1M). I’ve slotted in the most expensive Abernathy & Castro I could end up with and I’m still slightly over the cap. Need to see how the next round plays out. Had ’24 Wilson made it to me, the last three rounds would have been meaningless – now I need to sweat it out. Considering I could have landed my Ted Simmons this round, I should’ve taken ’24 Wilson last round.

Pick 13.8
1963 Ted Abernathy
Another salary savings move, also this Abernathy is the best one left statistically and I may need to use him a few times. Now all I need is to grab the Cubs version of 1970 Tommy Davis and my roster set. Going to the Journey concert but I can easily check for mllama54's pick, and once he makes his pick, I can take 1970 Davis.

Post-Draft Edit: You can probably imagine how this turns out. I am at the concert. Toto is the opener. Enjoying "Hold the Line" and "Africa". I quickly check my phone and see that mllama54 posted his pick: I read the post... "Davis, Tommy 1970 Chicago Cubs 2,387,253". WHAT THE F*CK? How can that happen? Why isn't he taking a cheap version of Davis like he's supposed to? I can't even enjoy Journey now because all I am thinking is that I first screwed up and missed '24 Cy Williams. Then I was so worried about cap issues, I missed '70 Billy Williams. Guess what... those so-called cap issues would have only happened in a worse case scenario. But people didn't draft the cheapest version of guys. I would have been totally fine had I simply taken the guy I wanted. So now, my last two picks don't mean diddly because I'm going to be $3+ million UNDER the cap!

Pick 14.9
1976 Tommy Davis
So we're now in between groups and I see mllama54 site-mails me and says I can pick my Davis now. Gee thanks, mllama54. I'm so distraught, Ican't see straight and accidentally site-mail him to select '77 Davis from KC. There is no '77 Davis. Of course, I meant '76 Davis. Why did I take the 1976 version? Because I am changing my offensive strategy now. I'm going from a power hitting third outfielder (either Cy or Billy Williams) back to a high-average no-power Ross Youngs, I am now going to punt on '96 Chipper at 3B and instead use '76 George Brett. He's a high-average hitter and a much better fielder than Jones - he just doesn't have any power. Plan on playing in a -4 HR park (with apologies to McGriff, Nomar & Gonzalez).

Pick 15.4
2008 Juan Castro
Meaningless pick. No salary cap issues. No teammates. No hope.


Statistics (all numbers are normalized)

Starting Offense:
C - 1975 Ted Simmons .335, .397, .498 (C/B/D+)
1B - 1996 Fred McGriff .295, .364, .481 (B-/A)
2B - 1924 Frankie Frisch .317, .383, .463 (B-/A+)
3B - 1976 George Brett ..337, .382, .473 (C/A)
SS - 1999 Nomar Garciparra .350, .409, .575 (B/B+)
OF - 1924 Ross Youngs .344, .436, .516 (D+/D+)
OF - 1999 Luis Gonzalez .332, .396, .525 (B-/C-)
OF - 1990 Willie McGee .328, .377, .418 (D/A+)
TOTAL: 5361 PA, .332, .394, .499

Pitching
SP - 1999 Randy Johnson 272 ip, .206 oav, 0.98 whip, 0.74 hr/9
SP - 1996 John Smoltz 254 ip, .216 oav, 1.00 whip, 0.54 hr/9
SP - 1996 Greg Maddux 245 ip, .241 oav, 1.03 whip, 0.32 hr/9
SP - 1999 Pedro Martinez 217 ip, .198 oav, 0.87 whip, 0.26 hr/9
LongA - 2004 Kevin Brown 132 ip, .259 oav, 1.24 whip, 0.70 hr/9
SetupA - 1999 Derek Lowe, 110 ip, .021 oav, 0.94 whip, 0.40 hr/9
SetupA - 2004 Tom Gordon 90 ip, .177 oav, 0.86 whip, 0.35 hr/9
SetupB - 2002 Alan Embree 62 ip, .206 oav, 1.07 whip, 0.65 hr/9
Total: 1379 IP, .219 oav, 1.02 whip, 0.66 hr9

Total salary = $116.6 million (so glad I saved salary so I could be $3.4M under the cap)
Salary of usable players: $104.3 million. Projected Record: 73-89 (tying my worst 16x16 record ever)

Blue = usable drafted player, Green = Teammate. Red = mostly useless cannon fodder.
Nominated Player
1994 Fred McGriff
When I first started looking at players I started with 2002 Derek Lowe in mind. But I continued looking and when I checked later, Lowe was gone. So I went to back to looking and, specifically, at relief pitchers. I did find Embree and heavily considered him but decided that a lot of the value of that pick was lost with the inability to take both 2002 Lowe and Martinez as teammates. I continued to look at relief pitchers with the hope of a pick at the top of the draft. However, when I checked in again with the thread all the pitcher spots were taken.
Upon turning to hitters my first thought was 94 Fred McGriff who brings my favourite of the Greg Maddux seasons. But I didn’t really like the idea of leaving other good Maddux seasons available to others so I ultimately decided on 1996 Sheffield who is an OBP/OPS monster and comes with the excellent 96 Kevin Brown. And….that pick went down in flames with calhoop’s eventual switch to K. Brown. So I started to go back to researching further players and then quickly said screw it, closed out baseball-reference, and simply went with McGriff. He’s a good hitter, a childhood favorite player, and gives me one of the best pitchers in the sim as a teammate. As an added bonus, his 94 season was relatively cheap enough to give me a pick in the middle of round one.

Pick 1.8
1948 Vern Stephens
I always seem to prioritize pitching at the beginning of these drafts. And that’s exactly where I was looking here. 2015 Utley and 1999 Lowe were longshot hopes but, of course, were long gone by pick 8. 98 Brown (and Hoffman) were on the list but my first choice was 63 Pizarro. He was the only usable Pizarro and came with a good Gary Peters teammate to boost the starting rotation. It looked like I might get him but, of course, happyhours crushed me with the pick before mine. I was debating between 98 Brown, 64 Davis (Koufax and Drysdale), 04 Gonzalez (Randy Johnson) and a few others. But in my angst over losing out on Pizarro I realized that Happyhours not only had my Pizarro & Peters but already had a great start to his lineup with a good Stephens at shortstop, a great Ted Williams, and even a really good Bobby Doerr. That’s when I decided to forgo pitching for another round and follow happyhour’s lead. Taking 48 Stephens got me, in my mind, the second best Stephens and the second best Ted Williams and maybe a better Doerr. The sealing point was that I could also get 48 Dom Dimaggio and his A+ CF range and decent ability to bat leadoff.

Pick 2.12
1972 Ted Abernathy
OK, had to go pitching here for sure. A lot of the good pitchers and/or their good pitching teammates were gone by this point. 64 Davis was still available and a few good Kevin Browns and, for reasons I still don’t understand, all of the other available Madduxes (who was off limits to me - #stupidnoclonerule) But, in the end, I opted to go with the most usable of the available Ted Abernathys who also brought 1972 Roger Nelson and Steve Busby with him. At the time of the pick I was envisioning Busby as my closer but, in the end, he didn’t make the final roster. 9 teammate picks is never enough to fill all the holes…

Pick 3.10
1966 Tommy Davis
Having Dom Dimaggio and Ted Williams already and planning for Cy Williams and/or Barry Bonds in a few rounds, I knew I wasn’t going to be using Davis, McGee, Gonzalez, or Dwyer as starters. 64 Davis had just gone but 66 Davis was still there and was an easy pick. I’ve left him in blue as he’s actual an OK hitter and will be used off the bench to pinch hit. He’s also cheaper than a lot of the other Davis options and most importantly, obviously, added 66 Koufax to the starting rotation.

Pick 4.7
2001 Derek Lowe
Need a catcher, an infielder, and my third outfielder. But more than that, I still need pitching. I still couldn’t believe that 95-97 Maddux were still available at this point but, blocked from those, I was looking to grab a Pedro Martinez here. I debated between the 2003 Pedro (more innings) and the 2001 Pedro (better quality). The 2001 Lowe was 2.5M cheaper than the 2003 Lowe so that swayed me to go with 2001 as he’s just going to be a mop-up for me anyways. I also thought that maybe I could have my cake and eat it too and take 03 Embree in a later round and still have 03 Martinez as a starting pitching option if I had the salary to fit him in (Note, barracuda ruined this plan)

Pick 5.5
1994 Willie McGee.
My first choice for third outfielder was 23 Cy Williams. 23 Jimmie Wilson is also one of the cheaper options for him and comes with 400 pa of a good Butch Henline at catcher that can be platooned together. But I figured I could wait on Wilson for a round or two. My plan up to now was to use Frisch at 3B and 48 Doerr at 2B. However, a few of the better 3B Frisch seasons had gone. So I was looking at 1920 Frisch who has good defense and speed at 3B but his batting was low enough to make me hesitate. 94 McGee brings 94 Matt Williams and his great defense and great homers. The plan now is to platoon Frisch and Utley at 2B.

Pick 6.5
1995 Kevin Brown
1923 Wilson is still available but now I have 94 Bonds slated in for the third outfield spot and Cy Williams is no longer a priority. Always need pitching and there’s not much left from the nominated players. I was hoping for 97 Brown but slainte took him so I went with what I consider the best of the Kevin Browns left.

Pick 7.13
1923 Jimmie Wilson.
94 Bonds, 48 Williams, and 48 Dimaggio is a great outfield. However, I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to grab the best home run hitter in the draft. I say that knowing that 01 Bonds, 94 Bagwell, and others will be in this league. In real life, if I was looking for a home run hitter I would go with Bonds in a heart beat. In the sim, however, it is Cy Williams that rules, especially for the moderate cost. And, as mentioned previously, 23 Wilson/Henline is an acceptable, affordable (paying for 94 Maddux and 66 Koufax has consequences, after all) platoon at catcher.

Pick 8.4
1935 Frisch
There were lots of players a liked better here but salary is a major concern at this point and this was the cheapest of the Frisch still available. I wanted to grab 2010 Utley as the left handed portion of my planned 2B platoon but there were lots of somewhat similar Utley seasons available and only one cheaper, but still usable, Frisch seasons.

Pick 9.4
2008 Luis Gonzalez
Thought about taking 2010 Utley here but still needed to worry about salary and the next cheapest Gonzalez was much more expensive

Pick 10.4
1972 Juan Pizzaro
Thought about taking 2010 Utley here but still needed to worry about salary and the next cheapest Pizarro was much more expensive

Pick 11.4
1984 Jerry Koosman
Utley or more pitching? 2001 Pedro and 1972 Nelson are limited in innings. 72 Pizarro, 01 Lowe, are unusable. Therefore, Koosman was the choice here with 200+ ip of not-quite-usable-but-better-than-the-other garbage-or-dying-with-fatigue-options

Pick 12.5
2004 Embree
On the outer edges of some usability but maybe the best of the Embrees left. Furthermore, upon a closer examination of all remaining catching options in the 3.5-4.0m salary range I decided 2004 Varitek was a slight upgrade over 23 Henline. Only a few Utley options left on the board, but 2010 is still one of them so going with Embree is the call.

Pick 13.4
2010 Juan Castro
2010 Utley or the cheapest Castro option left? Still need to save money so Castro it is.

Pick 14.3
1975 Jim Dwyer
WIS rosters demand 25 players so I need to take a Dwyer.

Pick 15.4
2010 Chase Utley
Hey, last one to pick an Utley and look what’s still available – sometimes things work out.

I’m not good at posting normalized statistics but here is the proposed line-up

• 48 D. Dimaggio
• 48 T. Williams
• 94 McGriff
• 23 C. Williams
• 94 M. Williams
• 48 Stephens
• 10 Utley/35 Frisch
• 23 Wilson/04 Varitek

SP1 – 94 Maddux
SP2 – 66 Koufax
SP3 - 95 K. Brown
SP4 – 72 Nelson
Long A – 84 Koosman
Long B – 01 Lowe
Setup A – 01 Martinez
SetupA – 72 Abernathy
SetupB – 04 Embree
MopUp – 72 Pizarro

This version's write-up is brought to you by I Have No F*ing Idea Why I Did That in partnership with No Seriously, What The Hell Was I Thinking?!

Usually I have time to dive into a schwarze draft strategy before the draft or at least very early on. That never happened this time as I was swamped but as always it was a very enjoyable experience and needed distraction. That said, most of my picks I can't remember my strategy and/or there was no strategy that went into them.

So, here we go.


Nomination: 1927 Frankie Frisch
TEAMMATE: Johnny Schulte
I was one of the last nominators and so could only nominate either a 1B or an infielder. Is his most expensive season only marginally better (at best) than his other seasons, giving me no advantage for nominating him? Check. Does his high average salary drop me far down the draft order? Check. Does he come with absolutely no teammate options whatsoever? Check! Hey, at least he satisfies the one rule that's a must: Does Frisch have 16+ player-team-seasons? Check.

(NOTE: I didn't even realize this until I was half-way through my write-up, but I actually did use a teammate! Johnny Schulte will provide 221 PA at my catcher platoon. Great use of a teammate spot!!!)

Pick 1.13: 2001 Alan Embree
TEAMMATE: Barry Bonds
TEAMMATE: Rich Aurilia
Frisch came with no teammates so I set out to find some. In particular I did notice that the SS options among nominated players were...uhhh...lacking. Embree himself sucks but he brings along a monster Bonds and a really good Aurilia to play short. Now I just have to make sure I can fit $25m in teammate salaries!

Pick 2.8: 2003 Kevin Brown
TEAMMATE: Eric Gagne
Kevin Brown was pretty good himself in 2003 and his teammate Eric Gagne was lights out. Luckily, he only costs about a million dollars per inning. Between Gagne and Bonds, I've wasted $6m on dynamic-pricing inflation. Woo hoo!

Pick 3.12: 2016 Chase Utley
TEAMMATE: Clayton Kershaw
Bad pick. Utley is useless but still batted 565 times so he costs almost $3m. I think I picked this one because he was teammates with Kershaw and Jansen, but I didn't even end up using Jansen. Given Utley sucks, I've now wasted at least $9m.

Pick 4.10: 2007 Derek Lowe
TEAMMATE: Takashi Saito
I realized that I needed a teammate catcher given Jimmie Wilson's paucity of good seasons. I chose to grab a decent-but-not-great Lowe season who comes with Russell Martin, passing on the better 2006 version in the process. I ended up not using Russell Martin. Crushing this draft!

(NOTE: I did end up using Saito as a teammate, but only because I couldn't fit 2016 Jansen and had to downgrade to save the extra $500k. So I don't think this pick deserves credit for that.)

Pick 5.9: 1955 Vern Stephens
I finally made what I think is a good pick. Pretty sure my thinking was that with Frisch on board and Utley's terrible PAs, I DEFINITELY don't want any of Vern Stephens crappy at-bats inflating my salary. I took the last cheap version of him here. I am, amazingly, happy with this pick in retrospect. I am 1-for-6 so far.

Pick 6.8: 1984 Willie McGee
I think I decided I needed someone who could play CF? Ummm sure.

Pick 7.8: 1993 Fred McGriff
TEAMMATE: Greg Maddux
Just now realizing I probably need somebody to actually start the game who won't get annihilated. Greg Maddux is good! Let's get his...8th-best season. I will say, I liked that I picked the combined version of McGriff here, even though his partial is a much better value. This added to my cume salary, but it gave me flexibility later on. I liked this so much, I guess, that I just did it again the next round.

Pick 8.9: 1995 Luis Gonzalez
Honestly not really sure why I picked him outside of being able to do a cool trick where I inflate my cume salary for flexibility that I should have not needed if I just had spent time to plan out my attack. I ended up using the partials for both McGriff and Gonzalez.

Pick 9.11: 1972 Tommy Davis
TEAMMATE: Billy Williams
Cheap Davis and he has a potential Billy Williams teammate if I need an OFer (who I did end up using).

Pick 10.8: 1970 Ted Abernathy
This is a not-terrible Abernathy season. Like all my other not-terrible innings, they will have to be used. He also came with a potential Billy Williams teammate!

Pick 11.7: 2006 Juan Castro
I think I just picked this version because he was cheap (though most of Castro's seasons were) and could actually hit a little bit (I think the highest OPS# of Castro's seasons). Only 100 PA but I don't need any more infield at-bats given I have all of Utley's in excesss.

(NOTE: It's around this point that I think I realized...holy crap, I might need to play Utley at 3B. This was not a fun revelation. Luckily I didn't have any time to actually research this further, which means no time to dwell on it and certainly no time to actually address it.)

Pick 12.6: 1924 Jimmie Wilson
It's also at this point I realized I probably couldn't roster Russell Martin at catcher given I would need my Wilson pick to play. But I still need a catcher to go with him. This is how you end up with a 327 PA mediocre catching option platooning with a super-hitting, but only 221 PA, partner (Schulte). Only 548 PA...no worries, I'll just hit them last in the batting order and fill in any fatigue with Chase Utley. Can you imagine if you actually pitched this in real life? "Hey, manager, we have this really good catcher, can probably only play about 1/3 of the games. Then we have this crappy catcher, he can probably play about half. Yeah, that doesn't really add up to 162 games, but you can just use 38-year-old Chase Utley as your 3rd catcher. What's that? No, he's never played catcher in his life. Good luck!"

(NOTE: The only thing that made me feel good about this pick was somehow it screwed up Schwarze. But not at all for any reason that makes this an actual good pick. He wanted Cy Williams as a teammate, LOL. I did actually have Cy Williams in my penultimate iteration of team-building but swapped him out for Billy Williams at the last minute. At least we didn't have to get a new jersey printed.)

Pick 13.7: 1982 Jim Dwyer
I'm at this point getting a vague sense of my salary situation. I am juggling a few things: (1) making the salary fit under the cap (duh), (2) getting enough innings, and (3) how to use my last teammate spot. For my last teammate spot, do I get a 3B so I don't need to use Utley? Or do I use it on another pitcher to help with innings and upgrade my pen. That decision is tied in with which Pizarro or Koosman I draft. There are some Pizarro options that give me a better pitcher with more innings, but I also may need to use him to get Eddie Mathews as a teammate. Then I need to balance that with Koosman to fill out my pitching and stay under the cap.

I also may need to take a cheaper teammate in the OF to make it all fit. John Lowenstein is an interesting option and Dwyer himself provides pretty decent at-bats. I ended up not needing Lowenstein, however.

Pick 14.7: 1959 Juan Pizarro
TEAMMATE: Eddie Mathews
Okay, I can finally just build my team and make it fit. Going with Utley at 3B just didn't give me enough good innings to make it worth it and I was too far under the cap. I thought about just using a cheaper 3B option (1972 Santo) but Mathews was so much better. I wanted to fit him and Billy Williams in, but I couldn't get under the cap. I swapped out to the other Billy Williams, but I was like $27k above the cap. Ugh. I then changd to Cy Williams, but that put me a bit below the cap. I finally realized I could swap Jansen out for Saito and then upgrade back up to the best Billy Williams.

Long story short, I took Pizarro here to get Eddie Mathews.

Pick 15.1: 1982 Jerry Koosman
The other Koosmans cost $5m+ so this is the one that fits. However, it leaves me well short of 1500 IP and many of those aren't really any good to begin with.

BALLPARK: Safeco
To help out, I just stick this team in Safeco and hope we can survive the fatigue death spiral.

======================

LINEUP
2B Frisch
RF Williams (1B)
3B Mathews
LF Bonds
1B McGriff/Gonzalez (RF)
SS Aurilia
CF McGee
C Schulte/Wilson/Utley

PITCHING STAFF
Rotation
SP1 Maddux
SP2 Brown
SP3 Lowe

Bullpen
Closer Gagne
SetupA Saito
LongA Kershaw
SetupB Abernathy
LongB Koosman
LongB Pizarro
Mopup Embree

Very enjoyable reads so far. Keep 'em coming!

Per usual, I didn't have any time to research before draft day. I've been digging Willie McGee of late, and he's the first I checked for eligible seasons. He had 'em, I nominated 'im.

My strategy, as has been the case for a while now, is to draft usable players, teammates be damned. I find a usable player, check in on teammates, but don't let that be a limiting factor.

Round 1: 51 Stephens. I don't like bad infield defense. I noticed Vern has a usable 3B and thought there were no 3B starters on the board (I hadn't noticed that Frisch has 3B available). Plus Vern had a mild salaried Ted. I didn't use Ted.

Round 2: 63 Davis. He can hit and I'll start his bad defense in the OF. He brings Koufax to start alongside Tudor.

Round 3: 81 Koosman. I'm now looking at the pitchers for the first time. There aren't really any good usable pitchers that I like, save Brown. I have my eye at this point on 95 Brown (I've used him before and have had good luck) and figure he'll be there later. Koos is a disaster and I see a cheapo. I figure at this time I'm using most of my teammates on pitching. Koos brings no teammates.

Round 4: 95 McGriff. I notice Maddux. He's expensive. Are other people eyeing this guy? Seeing if they can make him fit? I will make him fit. McGriff is inexpensive and a good fielder, even if he can't hit. This emerges as my theme for hitters: if they can start and not cost a lot, can either catch the ball or, what the heck, drop the ball is cool too, then they have a spot.

Round 5: 97 Brown. Gonna need to have Brown as a starter. Never used 97 before and he has more IP and better performance history than the 95 Brown I was eyeing. He's got a SS teammate (that I won't use). Rotation is now 85 Tudor, 63 Koufax, 95 Maddux, and 97 Brown. This makes me happy. My hitting will be very very poor.

Round 6: 26 Frisch. Gotta figure out the Utley/Frisch thing. There is a usable 2B Frisch left and a couple trash Utleys. Need to grab these 2 now. Don't think I ever looked at teammate here.

Round 7: 03 Utley. He can give me trash PA at 2B while Frisch moves over to 3B to fill out Vern's lack of PA. Plus he brings long relief in Cormier.

Round 8: 73 Pizarro. Saving $$ is the name of the game from here on out. Based on the years left on the board from all the undrafted players, I know I'll be able to find relievers. Drafting Pizarro here potentially saves $1.5M.

Round 9: 10 Castro. Realizing my lineup will be below $50M, I fully commit to beefy pitching. I want Kuo here.

Round 10: '12 Lowe. Can't wait on a $2M Lowe.

Round 11: 30 Wilson. Wanted the best Wilson, but Pedro grabbed him earlier. Will need to spend one of my few hitting teammates on a backup catcher, but I can go crap if I need to in order to make salary work.

Round 12: 57 Abernathy. Cheapest available.

Round 13: 83 Dwyer. Need a PH and a spot OF starter. He brings Cal. I have the choice now of 85 Ozzie and 83 Cal, depending on salary requirements.

Round 14: 06 Embree. Cla Meredith or Joey Devine? Meredith gets more IP and this Embree can pitch as mopup.

Round 15: 06 Gonzalez. The question here was the $3M Gonzo with 550 PA, which would have required me to use a teammate on a low PA OF, or 06 which allows me to use a 6th teammate (Jansen) as a pitcher.

Lineup:

C 30Wilson/97Zaun
1B 95 McGriff
2B 26 Frisch
SS 83 Ripken
3B 51 Vern
OF 85 McGee
OF 63 Davis
OF 06 Gonzalez
OF 83 Dwyer

PA help: 10 Castro, 03 Utley

PA 5372; AVG .304; OBP .361; SLG .461; B-/B-

Staff:

63 Koufax
95 Maddux
85 Tudor
97 Brown
03 Cormier
10 Kuo
06 Meredith
10 Jansen
91 Koosman

IP 1324; ERA 1.93; O?V .201; WHIP 0.94; HR/9 0.42

benched: 06 Embree, 57 Abernathy, 12 Lowe, 73 Pizarro

Astrodome

Your pitching is scary. Your offense... well, lots of 2-1 games.

Very scary pitching staff.

I don’t pretend to be any good at this, but I like the process.

Nomination Chase Utley 07.
I like to start with good pitchers and middle infielders. In Philly Utley is a god. However he really only has 5 or 6 very good years. Then he goes down hill. 07 also gives me the MVP season of Jimmy Rollins. Middle infield covered.

Round 1 Dwyer 84 I wanted to get him out of the way, and get a Balt pitcher. Took Boddicker and as a bonus, get a good Eddie Murray.

Round 2 Stephens 55, still looking for pitching got a good season of Billy Pierce. Wound up with C. Sherm Lollar, none of my other draft picks had a full season catcher.

Round 3 Koosman 70 plus Seaver, like this pairing.

Round 4 Kevin Brown 89. I knew I would take another Tex pitcher, but had to wait till draft was over to see how much money I would spend. Wound up with Nolan Ryan.

Round 5 Somewhere I decided to get rid of the rest of the pitchers, before worrying about the hitters. Took Pizarro 58

Round 6 Wilson 28. Hadn’t decided on Lollar yet so I needed some AB at catcher

Round 7 Abernathy 65; brings along Santo and Billy Williams. Infield is done and got first OF starter.

Round 8 Lowe 05 + Round 9;Embree 99. Done drafting pitchers.

At this point, My wife informed me that we would be spending the next 48 hours with her cousins from Wisconsin.
I turned to Schware for help. I asked him to get me two OF starters from the nominated players.
His picks
Round 10 McGee 91
Round 11 Gonzalez

The last 4 picks were about getting some bench hitters, but saving enough money for Nolan Ryan.
Round 12 McGriff 93
Round 13 Davis 60
Round 14 Castro 03
Round 15 Frisch 33

Line Up-Not Normalized

1. Jimmy Rollins 296/349/531
2. Sherm Lollar. 261/374/408
3. Eddie Murray 306/410/509
4. Billy Williams. 315/377/552
5. Ron Santo. 285/378/510
6. Chase Utley. 332/410/566
7. Willie McGee. 312/357/408
8. Juan Gonzalez 267/310/475

Best of Bench
Tommy Davis 271/302/426
Frankie Frisch 303/358/398
Fred McGriff. 275/361/497

Starters
Tom Seaver 2.82—-214—1.08
Mike Boddicker 2.79–228–1.15
Nolan Ryan. 3.20–.187–1.09
Billy Pierce. 1.97–213-1.10

Long Reliever / Spot Starter
Jerry Koosman 3.14–.237-1.23

Closer
Juan Pizzaro. 2.70–.212–1.27

Probably won’t turn out good, but it was fun.

Nominated Player - I have played almost all of the 16 x 16 and 12 x 12 drafts and I don’t think I have ever had the first pick in the first round or any round for that matter. I am usually quite satisfied swimming at the bottom not worrying about where I draft. So after I stumbled upon Jim Dwyer I said what the heck I will swim with the big fish.

Round 1.1. - After much internal debate with myself I decided to take 2015 Utley here. The last two times I had used the 1999 Lowe he has stunk. So it was a question 450 quality starter innings in Greinke and Kershaw versus 220 quality innings in Pedro and a SS in Nomar. I took the additional starter.

Round 2.1 - I had my heart set on taking the 2006 Juan Castro here. Growing up in Minnesota I always have been a Twins fan. This Twins team had been one of the best from a statistical teammate point of view. But Calhoop sniped him with the last pick of the first round. I was ticked. I was so ticked I said screw it. Time to take a new strategy. I never take relief pitching this early so why not. the 1965 Juan Pizzaro brought over 310 IP of quality relief in two players in Wilhelm and Fisher so I grabbed them. I also decided don’t plan too far ahead and I won’t be disappointed.

Round 3.1 - Still at the top I decided to finish my starting staff. I wanted at least one lefty starter and 1976 Kooseman brought along a good Seaver. At this point with so much invested in pitching I would need to take Dodger stadium and grab defense wherever possible.

Round 4.3 - Probably one of my best picks of the draft here was 1970 Ted Abernathy from the Cardinals. it brought me Joe Torre who could play third, catcher, or first and hit .320. Great flexibility depending on who was available later on.

Round 5.2 - Assuming my teammates would take up 9 of the critical 14 positions (4 SP, 2 RP, and 8 position players) which 5 nominees would it be. I already had one in Kooseman. I decided that I would add a usable 1945 Stephens here. He could play both SS and 3b.

Round 6.3 - 1928 Frankie Frisch was my next usable nominee. He also brought.two potential teammates I never had used Taylor Douwit and Chic Hafey. Also a very good Jim Bottomley. I really liked Frisch’s fielding of B/A+ at 2nd base.

Round 7.4 - After doing the math of having used 5 of my 9 teammates on pitching, I realized I better grab the 1999 Fred McGriff here. Bottomley was out even if he was a better option but this was a good McGriff.

Round 8.7 - Another good pick here. I really wanted good defense especially up the middle. So I took the 1987 Willie McGee. I will need to use him in the outfield but he brought along Ozzie Smith best season. His A+/B+ defense at short plus batting first or second in the lineup. My up the middle defense of Ozzie A+/B+, Frisch at second B/A+, and Douwit in CF. Of B/A+ goes nicely with my pitching. I also can have Vince Coleman in LF with his 107 SB.

Round 9.8 - At this point, I am going to be 4 million over the cap if I get screwed on the rest of my picks even the little guys. I decide to take the 1991 Brown. Picking him here saves me the most.

Round 10.9 - Then the 1991 Lowe.

Round 11.8 - Then the 1992 Gonzalez. I wanted to take someone else here but I was going to be gone for awhile so rather than messing around with a messy proxy I decided to jump ahead and take Gonzalez. At this point I was still about 1.5 million over the cap. I saw the 1970 Billy Williams sitting there with the 1970 Davis but it was too risky to grab him now. I may have to lose my stud fielding CF if things went bad or not use Williams at all.

Round 12.10 - I was sitting in a bad position if I wanted to pick Williams later on. Believe it or not picking the el cheap 07 Castro here would save me about 1 million in cap space from waiting the end.

Round 13.6 - I now was at least above the other users in my quest for the 1970 Davis Williams combination but I needed to save about 800,000 to make it work. So I could either take a Wilson which would save the money or take an Embree which would save the money and keep me ahead of the others. I took Embree.

Round 14.6 - I couldn’t believe it. 1970 Cub version of Davis was still there. I grabbed him. And I could still use both Douwit in CF and my number 3 hitter in Williams in left because the expensive version of Jimmie Wilson went at the end of the prior round.

Round 15.6- I took my backup catcher 1933 Wilson.

starting lineup
Smith SS. .303 BA 43 SB A+/ B+
Frisch 2b. .300 BA .374 OBP B/A+
Williams LF. .322 BA .391 OBP 42 HR
Torre C. .325 BA .398 OBP 21 HR
McGriff 1b .310 BA .405 OBP 32 HR
Stephens 3b. .289 BA .352 OBP 24 HR
Doutwit CF .295 BA .384 OBP B/A+
Mcgee RF. .285 BA .312 OBP B/B

Pitching
Kershaw. 2.13 .194
Greinke. 1.66. 187
Seaver. 2.59. .213
Koosman. 2.69. .226

Fisher. 2.40. .205
Wilhelm. 1.81. .177

“1928 Frankie Frisch was my next usable nominee. He also brought.two potential teammates I never had used Taylor Douwit and Chic Hafey.”

Douthit is a + play machine. I got 52 out of him one season.

Another year, another 16x16 draft. This one was a bit different, and I welcomed the interesting twist that you had to use the most expensive version of your nominated player. At least I thought I welcomed it. As it turns out, this draft brings to mind the classic Groucho Marx quote: “I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening…but this wasn’t it.” Oh well. A bad 16x16 draft is still better than a good toothache.

Stats normalized, italicized quotes were taken from the initial draft pick post, yada yada yada…

Nomination: 1967 Ted Abernathy (107 IP, 1.71 ERC#, $4.8M)

I can’t really figure out why, but after all these years I still haven’t gotten the hang of the whole nomination thing. Unlike the previous version of this theme, when I was away for the weekend when the league was announced and didn’t have my laptop handy, this time I had plenty of time to research nominations. I just couldn’t find the right one. I considered Koosman, and was leaning toward using him until I saw that he was taken. I then nominated Orel Hershiser, wanting at the very least to lock in the ability to nominate a pitcher, which I thought was a good idea at the time, like the time in a hotel room in NOLA when I surmised that the reason that hotel room coffee machine coffee isn’t good is because the water doesn’t get hot enough so I ran the water through the machine once without the coffee pod just to heat it up and then immediately ran it through again but the water was so hot that it melted the plastic tray that you put the coffee pod in and flooded the floor of the room. So I still don’t know why hotel room coffee machine coffee isn’t good, but I know that the correct nomination was Derek Lowe, who I never even considered, probably because I have a total mental block when it comes to these nominations whereby I can only think about not giving other people good players instead of giving myself good players. However, ’85 Hershiser, while also yielding interesting team name possibilities (the only aspect of my draft strategy that I ended up executing successfully), had one or two useful teammates: Guererro and possibly Scioscia. His nomination also would’ve allowed me to tell the story here of how I attended game 4 of the 1988 NLCS. But when all the nominations were made I saw that my draft position was 14^th, and I felt that he wasn’t a good enough nomination to warrant such a poor draft slot, so I searched for alternatives. My peculiar brand of 16x16 sadomasochism led me to Abernathy, who has zero useful teammates but is a good reliever, which is an especially valuable commodity in this theme. I switched to him from a hotel room in Cooperstown, NY on the Friday night of my BBHOF weekend visit, which moved me up to 4^th in the draft and bought me another day to do research. Fortunately I had my laptop with me and unfortunately Cooperstown isn’t much of a nightlife town so I had some time for draft prep, though not as much as I usually spend. After mllama changed his nomination and dropped me to 5^th in the first round I very strongly considered switching again, this time to Anibal Sanchez, who would’ve brought with him a really good Miggy Cabrera and a decent Scherzer, would’ve inflicted more draft pain on my fellow owners, would’ve allowed me to quote Poe in my team name (Chilling and killing my Anibal Lee), would’ve bought me another 24 hours to do research, and would’ve allowed me to tell the story of the time I saw him (Sanchez, not Poe) pitch when he was a 20 year-old in short-season A-ball. Come to think of it that would’ve been a better call, but I didn’t feel like incurring the wrath of the rest of the league for delaying the draft again so I stood pat. You’re welcome.

Round 1 – 1997 Derek Lowe (scrub, $728K)
“OK, screw it. If I wait until I get home and then do 2 or 3 hours of research I'll get to bed at like 1AM and still make the wrong pick. So why not put myself out of my misery?”

When I moved down to the 4^th pick (or so I thought) I believed there was a chance that I might get one of my top 3 choices, which were the ’99 and ’00 Lowes and the ’15 Utley. Which were, of course, the first 3 picks in the draft. I was hoping that someone would maybe take the ’65 Davis or something super early but y’all are too smart for that. Sadly, I really didn’t have a backup plan, as suggested by my quote. I went with the cheap Lowe because the Wi-Fi wasn’t working on the Amtrak train I was on, plus I saw him as the biggest minefield in the draft, and anticipated that the Lowe run would continue through much of the first round. Nope. One was taken in the rest of round 1, and the next was taken with the last pick in round 2. But at least I got to bed at a reasonable hour, and he netted me two teammates: the overpriced and underperforming Ken Griffey Jr. (.300/.376/.624, B/A, $8.9M) who at least saves me from playing Manny Ramirez (spoiler alert) in CF, and Randy Johnson (213 IP, 2.22 ERC#, $7.9M), who is decent but just slightly better than pitchers who were available in the 14^th round. This was a mediocre pick, making it one of the high points in my draft.

Round 2 – 1996 Juan Castro (scrub, $453K)
This is almost certainly a stupid pick, but as Casey Stengel said when he drafted Hobie Landrith with the Mets first pick in the expansion draft, if you don't have a catcher you have a lot of passed balls. Of course, the catcher associated with this guy will have a lot of passed balls anyway...

Almost certainly? ALMOST certainly??? I guess Albert Einstein was almost smart. Unlike me. One of my favorite adages is that while you can’t win your league with your first round pick, you can lose it with your first round pick. This selection proves that this saying also applies to the second round. My initial strategy, such as it was, was similar to that of most of my other drafts in the history of this theme: build a dominant offense which can be afforded by using lesser nominated pitchers instead of wasting their salaries. Or #INWIYUI (It’s Not Wasted [salary] If You Use It). So here’s my “reasoning” at the time of this pick: “to have a dominant offense you need to have a dominant offensive catcher.” OK so far, I guess. “Piazza is one of the few dominant offensive catchers available to me in this draft.” Sure, I can see that. “The $10M Piazza isn’t really worth $10M so I won’t take him because there are so many other dominant offensive players still available for me to spend that money on.” Good luck with that, and that line of reasoning kind of negates your entire strategy, but I agree that he’s a bit overpriced. “Let’s make sure I get one here.” WTF ARE YOU THINKING?!?!?! Great idea. Waste a second round pick on one of the least risk-laden nominees in the draft to get a catcher who couldn’t throw out a diseased yak in quicksand. Yeah, people will be lining up to make that pick. Let’s see, if I didn’t get the ’96 Mike Piazza (.336/.421/.550, B+/A/D-,$6.1M), who would have provided virtually identical production? The ’98 Piazza or the ’75 Simmons, who both came with cheap nominees. Where did they go in the draft, pray tell? The 13^th and 14^th rounds, respectively. Great second round pick, dumbass! I guess the good news was that I moved up two spots in the draft order so I could make my next dumb pick quicker, but at this point my draft was effectively over. If this draft were in real-life this pick alone would be a fireable offense.

Round 3 – 2003 Luis Gonzalez (.304/.400/.514, B+/D-, $5.2M)

Immediately after my previous dumb pick schwarze took the Gonzalez that I was targeting, fearing a Gonzalez run. That run didn’t materialize in the second round. Fearing that it would in the third, I made this dumbass pick. Because, you know, he gets me so much closer to executing my strategy of having a dominant offense. He must come with some awesome teammates, right? Not a one, nay nay nay. I mean, it’s true that to have any sort of a pitching staff at all in this theme you need to start some nominated offensive players, but is this Gonzalez that much better than the ones available several rounds later? And does that difference outweigh the difference between the few remaining dominant players and the guys I’d have to use in their stead? Of course not. In the previous version of this league, the only one which I’ve won, I pivoted from #INWIYUI when I realized that I wouldn’t be able to build as good an offense as would be needed to win with that strategy and instead took a player with a dominant Koufax. In this draft, even with my awful previous pick, I had the opportunity to do the exact same thing with the ’66 Tommy Davis, and failed to do so. The hits keep on coming.

Round 4 – 1930 Frankie Frisch (.323/.390/.486, C/A-, $6.4M)

Lo and behold, a pick that actually made some sense. I correctly predicted a run on Frisch (4 others went during the rest of the round) and nabbed the most reasonably priced one with the highest OPS#, and the one with the least wasted salary had I decided to use him at third base (where he’s a similar C/B), which was my plan at the time with so many good offensive Utleys still on the board. Plus, I had taken a photo of his sweater while I was at the HOF, solely for the purpose of posting it in this writeup. But I don't remember how to post my photo. It was a nice sweater.


Round 5 – 1969 Juan Pizarro (100 IP, 3.97 ERC#, $1.95M)

So let’s see how this whole draft strategy thing is going. My plan was to draft a dominant offense consisting mostly of dominant teammates. It’s now the 5^th round and I have a total of two usable offensive teammates, one of whom is not appreciably better than one I could’ve gotten in the endgame. Awesomesauce. What a great draft I’m having. So here perhaps I reach a bit, but at least I get the best remaining offensive shortstop Rico Petrocelli (.306/.407/.595, A/B-, $9.1M), albeit one with whom I have little experience and who is probably overpriced. Which reminds me, I keep mentioning the overpriced thing. Most dominant players are overpriced. If your strategy is to draft dominant players you have to expect a lot of them to be overpriced. I don’t know why this season I suddenly tried to pretend otherwise.

Round 6 – 1992 Fred McGriff (.292/.401/.563, C/D, $5.2M)
“If my team wins more than 60 games it'll be a miracle. I couldn't have screwed this draft up more if I had tried.”

I just figured this out now???

The sad thing is that, even if this team couldn’t win, it at least could’ve been interesting. If I had decided to stick with my original plan I still could’ve ended up with both the 70 HR $11M ’98 McGwire, whose McGee was chosen in the 11^th round, and the 64 HR $11M ’01 Sosa, whose McGriff went in the 12^th. If I had taken one of the two remaining good Utleys here I would’ve had a pretty darned dominant offense, at least home run wise, with 190 in just three players alone. And homers should play in this league with no deadballers and despite people who shall not be named who refuse to have fun and instead choose parks like Target Field and the Astrodome. But inexplicably I aborted the mission just so I could get an admittedly good Gary Sheffield (.337/.392/.587, B/B, $7.1M) to play third base and maybe afford a little bit better pitching. The team I ended up with might not win any fewer games, but the other team would’ve been much more fun.

Round 7 – 2003 Alan Embree (55 IP, 2.81 ERC#, $1.3M)

Having eschewed my chance to take the 2001 Sosa, here I grab one of the better offensive outfielders still available to me, Manny Ramirez (.322/.425/.564, B-/D-, $6.1M), and also one of the better starting pitchers still available, Pedro Martinez (187 IP, 2.06 ERC#, $7.2M). And this Embree might be able to get a few hitters out, and guys like that are at a premium in this theme. This was probably my best pick in this draft. Hoo-ray me.

Round 8 – 2004 Chase Utley (backup 1B & 2B, 287 PA, .266/.306/.447, A/D+ & B/C, $1.7M)
“Geez, you compliment my video, then you take my player.”

The video, in case you missed it, was posted on the anniversary of Lee Elia’s epic rant. Check it out if you haven’t already (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uv23pqH9iG0 ) I had wanted the cheaper available Utley, who would’ve included a really good Rheal Cormier who I wouldn’t have ended up using anyway. But slainte took him so instead I took a $1M more expensive Utley that should serve as a decent backup. The last cheap Utley went later this round, so this worked out OK.

Round 9 – 1975 Tommy Davis (complete waste of humanity, DH-only, can’t hit, $2.2M)
“So I still need a starting pitcher. Actually you can argue that I still need like 3 starting pitchers, but let's focus on one for now. There's the one who I think is the best one available to me, and who in theory should be the best one available to me, and who currently is pitching very well for me in a $110M league. But his performance history is slightly worse than that of the other guy, and choosing the other guy would save me almost $2.7M between him and his teammate who I'd be drafting. If I hadn't completely botched this draft the second guy would be a no-brainer because I'd be able to use that extra $2.7M to improve my team, but I probably can't do that with the losers who I've drafted and the paucity of talent still available to me. And the first guy has 41 more innings, and I need all the good innings I can get, because, you know, my team blows. But there's an outside chance that if I go with the first guy I'll be saddled with enough extra salary in the endgame that I might not be able to afford everyone I'm planning on using, which would be kind of a disaster since even the guys who I'm planning to roster aren't all that good. And there are people who think that quantum physics is complicated.
OK, screw it. I don't think I've made a correct decision since this league began, so why start now? $2.2M worth of awful DH-only in a non-DH league, here we come! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And to those of you who didn't completely botch this draft and who will be looking to fill out your roster with a cheap Tommy Davis like a normal person, you're welcome.”

Yep, that pretty much sums it up. And here’s where I would’ve gotten a lot of the money I would’ve needed if I had drafted McGwire and Sosa. The other pitcher I mentioned was 1976 Tanana, who came with the ’76 Davis who was drafted in the 14^th round and has a better performance history than Jim Palmer (330 IP, 2.21 ERC#, $10.8M). The rest would’ve come from using a Koosman instead of another starting pitcher teammate.

Round 10 – 1936 Jimmie Wilson (backup, .270/.311/.342, D/D/C-, $1.4M)

At this point, as suggested by my previous draft-day comment, with more than one-third of the draft left to go the die had been cast. I pretty much knew what my team would look like, and it wasn’t pretty. By now, almost all of the players who could improve my team had either been drafted or had been blocked by my prior pathetic picks. However, there was one guy still available to me as a third starter who would be marginally better than the guy I knew would be available to me as a third starter. In order to gain this incremental increase, I would just need to get the exact version I needed for three different players (and one of four cheap Dwyers when most people still needed theirs), and doing so would result in me having:

• a bad defensive catcher backing up the man about whom saying “he throws like a girl” is an insult to girls
• 33 fewer (and possibly worse) innings of the awful Kevin Brown who is my 4^th starter
• a Koosman long reliever who can’t get anyone out even by Koosman’s standards
• a Dwyer pinch-hitter who can’t hit

What do I get in exchange for all of that? An increase in IP from 245 to 281 and a decrease in ERC# from 2.34 all the way down to 2.33. And I can only pull off that “coup” if I pretty much get EVERY PLAYER I NEED for the remainder of the draft. If one pick goes wrong the entire strategy is sunk. And I decided to go for it. Do you know why? Because I was almost sure I’d be able to pull it off. How did I know that? BECAUSE THE PLAYERS I NEEDED WERE STUPID @#$&*%! PICKS!!! I knew that nobody was going to take those losers. So I went ahead with my stupid strategy because it was the only strategy I could implement. That’s how bad this draft was.

Round 11 – 1989 Willie McGee (defensive replacement/pinchrunner, .244/.282/.360, C/A-, $1.3M)

That having been said, I wanted to have a backup plan for my stupid strategy. If I didn’t succeed in making the rest of my team worse just to get a marginally better third starter, I at least wanted to have the marginally worse third starter in the fold. That man was 1989 Jose DeLeon, who is the type of pitcher I love to use in this league, and would’ve been happy to have used if I had drafted enough good players for it to have made sense for me to have used him. Anyway, McGee will replace Manny Ramirez in the 9^th inning of the few games I’m ahead in, so that he can get to, and drop, the flyballs that Manny would just watch sail on by.

Round 12 – 1946 Vern Stephens (backup despite 514 PA, .310/.357/.470, C/C, $3.8M)

In a world where I had drafted McGwire, Sosa and the expensive Piazza I probably would’ve started this Stephens, hit him 8^th, and subbed in Castro for maybe 20 games tops. That would’ve been a fun world.

Round 13 – 1993 Kevin Brown (233 IP, 3.36 ERC#, $5.7M)

Just about the only thing I got right about this draft was knowing that I could get either the ’92 or ’93 Brown in the endgame as my 4^th starter. I kept waiting for Jtpsops to take his Brown so I’d know whether I still had a chance to implement my stupid strategy, but he refused to save me from myself so I decided to keep chasing the dream and take the cheaper of the two “usable” Browns so I could perpetuate the fantasy of perfectly executing my stupid strategy. You need to have something to live for, after all.

Round 14 – 1975 Jerry Koosman (240 IP of suck, 4.02 ERC#, $5.0M)

STUPID STRATEGY EXECUTION ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED!!!! At this point enough people had taken non-cheap Dwyers to ensure that I’d get a cheap one in the final round so I could acquire my long-awaited marginally better third starter who made much of the rest of my team worse, namely Tom Seaver (281 IP, 2.33 ERC#, $9.4M). I’d like to thank the Academy, my mother, and all the little people who made this possible…

Round 15 – 1973 Jim Dwyer (scrub, .196/.210/.248, A+/D-, $201K)

A fitting end to an abysmal performance. I was going to write “useless”, but he’s probably better defensively than my starting leftfielder is, as awful as that seems, so he may see the field.

EPILOG

Well thank God that’s over…

Starting Lineup, order approximate; not sure it matters:
2B Frisch .323/.390/.486
LF Gonzalez .304/.400/.514
CF Griffey .300/.376/.624
RF Ramirez .322/.425/.564
SS Petrocelli .306/.407/.595
C Piazza .336/.421/.550
3B Sheffield .337/.392/.587
1B McGriff .292/.401/.563

Starting pitchers, probably deployed in two tandems:
Palmer 330 IP, 2.21 ERC#
Johnson 213 IP, 2.22 ERC#
Seaver 281 IP, 2.33 ERC#
Brown 233 IP, 3.36 ERC#

Bullpen:
Abernathy 107 IP, 1.71 ERC#
Martinez 187 IP, 2.06 ERC#
Embree 55 IP, 2.81 ERC#
Pizarro, Koosman – the game’s over
Lowe – no, seriously, the game’s over

Offense (including 150 PA for Utley and 50 PA for Stephens) - .313/.398/.557
Pitching (not counting the “the game's over” guys) – 1406 IP, 2.39 ERC#
Wasted salary – depending on how the bench gets deployed, ~$17M
Stadium – Atlanta Fulton County Stadium, so that more than 1 or 2 homers will be hit this season
Postseason chances – Slim and none, and Slim just left town

Thanks as always to schwarze for running this and thank you all for providing excellent competition. Good luck to all.