JBarr gets the 1938 Cardinals

Why thank you Vilefileman! I will learn to love or hate those Cardinals!

Well vilefileman you started with the 1968 Baltimore Orioles and were gifted by one of our amazing neighbors the hapless 1988 Texas Rangers.

The Orioles have a main man at the helm for SP's and, like said before by redcped, a quality staff but a lack of cheap alternatives on the bench.
The Rangers do not offer much in ways of the "cheap" bench players as well, the staff is almost unusable, so probably using some of their hitters.

After taking that all in:

Drum Roll!!!

Sending you some California love with the Halos! Yes, Your prize is the 1968 California Angels! They have a few P's you can use but the hitting and bench are just horrible. Only one hitter above .256? Bench is $763K, $994K, and then $1.1M and up! I could not think of a better gift.

Am looking for redcped

Looking at the 88 Reds and 68 Senators

I gift thee redcped with the 1988 Seattle Mariners

And there bounteous plenty (broad strokes)

The 1988 Seattle Mariners

Looks like the wrong third team is listed for Ribbentrop on the first post:

19 Ribbentrop ... 78 Royals, 78 Twins, 48 Tigers

He was actually assigned the 1948 Pirates, not the Tigers.

Posted by _jwillis on 3/26/2024 3:10:00 PM (view original):
Looks like the wrong third team is listed for Ribbentrop on the first post:

19 Ribbentrop ... 78 Royals, 78 Twins, 48 Tigers

He was actually assigned the 1948 Pirates, not the Tigers.

Correct, and the wrong team has the strikethrough on the list of 1948 teams.

_jwillis chose the '78 Yankees as his first team and then was gifted the '48 Reds. Those Yankees give you some serviceable if not great options at several positions, especially with Nettles at 3B. Guidry and Gossage are good pitching prospects, although both are expensive. The '48 Reds roster looks VERY thin - maybe you can use Vander Meer and there are some usable OF's as well as a few low cost back-ups available. I searched for a team that would allow you to continue your search for a decent SS and cheap back-ups while also giving you limited pitching choices. I also thought I'd give you a team that I wouldn't want since I'm about to get screwed myself.
I finally decided that the best choice for you are those 1978 Atlanta Braves. You've got Neikro (if you can afford him) and Garber to help your pitching staff along with a decent OF Burroughs but not a whole lot else...

Sorry, BeAllEndAll - I just saw your post or I would have waited. I'll re-do mine if necessary...

Posted by kentol on 3/26/2024 7:02:00 PM (view original):
Sorry, BeAllEndAll - I just saw your post or I would have waited. I'll re-do mine if necessary...

I'll redo mine. I just saw your pick. I was stuck at work trying to write this and work... bad timing this draft pick

Claytonengel started off his team by selecting the 1988 Oakland A’s. What an offensive powerhouse, led by 40/40 club member Jose Canseco, power hitting Mark McGwire, and .300 hitting defensive CF Dave Henderson. They also have a nice C platoon with Steinbach and Hassey and a nice 3B with Lansford. Weiss also provides a nice defensive switch-hitter at SS. They also come with a plethora of platoon options in the OF. They’re only missing a 2B from fielding a complete offense. 7 possible players. Very nice.

On the pitching side Oakland is strong in relief, led by Dennis Eckersley who is a very affordable $2.5M. They also have not great but usable relievers Gene Nelson, Greg Cadaret, Todd Burns, and Eric Plunk. Leaving Honeycutt off this list seems wrong but he would be your 3^rd best LHRP. Plenty of options here.
Where Oakland is “weak” (they are the A.L. Champs) is at SP where his best option is Dave Stewart at $7.3M. Past him there’s Bob Welch and his 3.74 ERC# for $5.2M if you dare (please do!). Other than that though, they don’t have much to offer.

Your first gifted team, the Kansas City A’s, didn’t do a whole lot to help this pitching, just Duke Maas in relief and a lot of bad options. Offensively they do provide your best offensive option in Bob Cerv although I’m not sure you can roster him, Canseco, and Henderson on the same team. They also fill your hole at 2B with a usable but not good Hector Lopez. Other than a Vic Power platoon, the rest of this team makes me want to puke. Glad they were gifted to you.

A lot of crappy teams have been gifted but I found one you may like…for the moment. I present to you, the 1978 Atlanta Braves. The good: Phil Niekro and his 335 innings for only $9.44M. You’ll need those innings considering you have only 2 SP’s now. There is also a nice Gene Garber and a usable Larry McWilliams in relief. The rest, blech.
On offense there is a nice Bob Horner to platoon with. Jeff Burroughs is nice on offense but his defense in the OF is suspect. Gary Mathews is the same. Maybe you draft Murphy and play him at C?

Sounds like a lot of what you already have, OF’s, C, and 3B. Good luck finding your missing pieces (pitching). Looking forward to batting practice at your place! Good luck!

Well, claytonengel get’s off lucky…or does he. I switched up my search criteria and found two viable options. But I can only give him one so please give a warm Bad Neighbor welcome to the 1958 St. Louis Cardinals! Yeah, sure they have a cheap version of Stan Musial, at 1B. But their only other two good offensive options are 3B Ken Boyer at a spendy $6.8M and another 1B, Joe Cunningham. Combined with Musial, that’s over $9M at first. A McGwire combo with either still hits between $7-8M. The rest are a bunch of no-fielding punch-and-judy hitters whom we’d love to see make your team.

On the pitching side there is one SP in Sam Jones but he’s not better than Stewart. And they have one RP in Jim Brosnan. The rest of the pitchers, well, they’re worse than the Braves staff I was about to give you.

Still looking forward to batting practice at your place. Good luck!

68 Red Sox

I think the Tiger problem is fixed and all caught up.

Alas, I don't see a clear way to screw kentol.

His first pick, the 1988 Dodgers, basically ensures that he will have a healthy pitching staff. There's too many good options--he could take 7 pitchers if he wanted, but he's got a few useful hitters that he can flex for if he ends up with enough pitching elsewhere.

His first screw pick, the 1988 Orioles, are pretty bad, but they fill some important gaps for him. Bad as they were, these O's give him a good 1B in Murray, a good SS in Ripken, a useful C (albeit only 318 PAs) in Tettleton, and a couple of playable-if-uninspired OFs. Depending on the daggers, he's on his way to a passable lineup to go with his deep pitching staff.

The one thing kentol doesn't have is any budget-friendly backups. The Dodgers have only two players who cost under $1M: one backup OF and one mop-up type pitcher, both of whom are still over $800K. The O's fair even worse in this regard: they have only one player on the entire roster who costs less than $1M, and he's another mop who costs $740K.

So the best way I can think to screw him is to squeeze his budget even further. Which leads me to...

The 1958 Philadelphia Phillies.

Not unlike kentol's other two teams, the 58 Phils have only one player who costs under $1M: a backup 3B who costs $922K. So with three of his rosters on the books, kentol has a total of... four players who cost under $1M, and none with salaries below $740K. That will make it pretty hard to roster Richie Ashburn, who is far and away the Phils best player but comes with a whopping $9.6M price tag.

I still don't think this will screw him too badly, but hopefully, it will squeeze him in terms of which teams he can consider for his final round pick. Good luck!

Posted by claytonengel on 3/26/2024 11:45:00 PM (view original):
68 Red Sox

Interestingly, I had them on my list of possible Round 4 teams.

Posted by redcped on 3/27/2024 1:38:00 AM (view original):

Posted by claytonengel on 3/26/2024 11:45:00 PM (view original):
68 Red Sox

Interestingly, I had them on my list of possible Round 4 teams.

I had them the running as well...

Going to pause for a few hours.