This was my first Pai Gow draft, which is surprising in part because Pai Gow is my game of choice when I visit Las Vegas. This league fortuitously came directly after my first-ever draft of this type: a Pick 4 that was limited to players post-1960. With my appetite sufficiently whetted I was psyched to get started.
Round 1
Eddie Collins .....Hughie Jennings .....Ed Morris
Not ever having played in a Pai Gow league before, I consulted the draft results of the two previous versions for guidance. Hughie Jennings went in the first round of each previous draft, but ended up on a roster in both. However, the Pick 3 format allows people to list more players per round than the previous format did so I was aware that there’d be a good chance I wouldn’t get him, and I was not surprised that I did not. What did surprise me was that no one listed Lajoie or Hornsby. Oh well. I felt good about getting Collins, and I think Ed Morris is extremely valuable, especially for someone like me who was unwilling to navigate the upper echelon pitcher minefield.
Round 2
Charlie Buffinton .....Charlie Ferguson .....Ed Seward
I had a fair idea what my strategy would be entering this draft, but the results of this round cemented it. I’ve always been intrigued by Coors Field, but I have rarely (if ever) used it. I think Coors is impossible to use in any league with a meaningful salary cap, because the extra money you need to spend for the requisite innings and plate appearances puts you at a disadvantage. But my theory is that a league like this is perfect for Coors, both because you can draft as many IPs and PAs as you like without penalty, and because I think that pitching staffs will tend to be not as deep here as in regular leagues. Now, I don’t mean “deep” in terms of number of innings; I don’t think anyone will run out of innings. But in a league where you have to roster 3 versions of each player, since there aren’t that many pitchers with 3 dominant seasons each team will have several ”third-best” pitchers who won’t be all that effective at this level. My thought is if I can amass enough quality starting pitching innings in few pitchers, and enough high-quality relievers, playing at Coors I can get through the bullpens of other teams early enough in games that the final few innings consist of my best relievers against their worst. Will this work? I have no idea, but with Morris and the 3 pitchers here I have 1,200 – 1,600 quality innings (<2.40 ERC#) per team, so I’m ready to find out.
Round 3
Chuck Klein .....Sam Thompson .....Troy Tulowitzki
With my rotation secured, it was time to work on the offense. There were still plenty of first basemen to go around, and the only third baseman I was interested in here was Chipper Jones and I had a feeling someone else would list him (and they did) so I decided to concentrate on OF and SS. There were 4 shortstops I seriously considered: Nomar, Appling, Ozzie Smith and Tulowitzki. Each was listed by exactly one owner this round. I love it when everyone plays right.
Why did I choose Tulo? He plays really good defense, which is something I sometimes ignore at my own peril, plus he gave me access to Coors Field. I’ve never used him before, but I’ve heard it said that he tends to underachieve. We shall see. Truth be told I really wanted Nomar but I wasn’t as sure I’d get him, and I was correct. In the outfield I wanted one relatively sure thing, and it looked like Klein tended to go a bit later in the previous Pai Gow drafts so I chose him. I’ve never used him, but his numbers look good so I’m cautiously optimistic. I should have realized that I wouldn’t get Sam Thompson but I was still feeling my way through the way the draft would unfold so I figured I’d take a chance. As Meat Loaf once said, two out of three ain’t bad.
Round 4
Miguel Cabrera .....Bill Dickey .....Larry Walker
Mr. Loaf would not approve of my fourth-round performance. I decided it was high time I drafted a catcher. Unfortunately, a lot of other people thought similarly. It didn’t end well for anybody. 4 people listed Mauer, 2 chose Bench, and 2 people besides me went with Bill Dickey. No one ended up with a catcher, which at least softened the blow in a schadenfreude type of way. I should’ve known that I wouldn’t get Walker since he was one of the very best remaining outfielders, but I think I was still smarting from not getting Thompson so I tried to force it. At least I got my third baseman. I know that Cabrera isn’t good defensively, and the sim tends to punish right-handed power hitters, but he hits for a really high average so I’m hoping he’ll do well at altitude.
Round 5
Fred Lynn .....John Olerud .....Ted Simmons
In my previous draft of this type (post-1960) I waited a little too long to start looking at centerfielders, kept getting denied, and ended up with Al Bumbry. Suboptimal. I didn’t want that to happen again, so here I went with a very solid Fred Lynn, whose only downside is that he only has two starting-quality seasons. I figured I could pick up a single-season CF at some point later. We’ll see how that turned out. I also wanted a first baseman in this round, and was pretty sure I’d be able to snag Olerud because, like Lynn, he only has two good seasons. With the likes of Cochrane, Torre, Hartnett, and Campanella still available I was hoping I could sneak away with Ted Simmons, but unfortunately three other owners thought the same. Worth the effort though.
Round 6
Albert Belle .....Trevor Hoffman .....Greg Holland
Albert Belle was a bit of a Hail Mary; he was clearly the most dominant offensive player still available, but my lineup was looking a bit too lefthanded so I figured I’d swing for the fences. With my other two picks I started building the deep bullpen I’d need playing in Coors by picking guys who each have three excellent seasons. This round went according to Hoyle.
Round 7
Jack Clements .....Mark Eichhorn .....Babe Herman
My worst round of the draft. Not because I don’t like Eichhorn, but because I needed to come away with more here. I guess on some level the Clements pick is defensible, because he was the best available left-handed hitting platoon catcher still available (and he is pretty dominant), and only one other owner tried for him so I had a legit chance. At this point after striking out thrice I decided to punt the catcher position until the endgame; with so many good catchers already burned I figured a second-rate platoon would yield as much production as whatever was still left.
However, I absolutely should have known from experience that there was no way that I was going to get Babe Herman here. Listing him was moronic, and the only thing more moronic was the reason why I did it. Since I still needed one centerfielder, the guy I really wanted was Lenny Dykstra. Great range, ton of PAs, perfect Coors CF. The reason I didn’t take him? I looked into past Pai Gow draft history and saw that he was taken by pedrocerrano both times, right around this time in the draft. Needing a CF I thought he’d take him here too, so I figured with no chance at Dykstra I’d take a stab at Herman. So, of course, pedrocerrano lists Herman and not Dykstra. And, of course, I’m a dumbass.
Round 8
Tom Gordon .....Jeff Montgomery .....Mark Melancon
This round I KNEW pedrocerrano would list Dykstra so I didn’t again, and this time I was right, but he ended up with him which made me feel doubly foolish. This demonstrates why he wins this theme and I suck at this game. Instead I decided to keep bolstering my bullpen and got the 3 guys I wanted: Melancon with 3 really good seasons, and Gordon and Montgomery with 2 excellent, relatively high IP seasons. My bullpen is now where I want it to be.
Round 9
Jack Fournier .....J.D. Martinez .....Billy Williams
With my pitching staff complete (actually, I was still considering adding one more pitcher depending on how the rest of the draft went but that didn’t work out) it was time to take stock of what I needed to do to finish my lineup. Other than catcher I needed one starting season at 1B, one starting season at CF, and starting RFs and DHs for all 3 teams. Mission accomplished! Wait, what? For one thing, where’s the CF? Oh, come now, you’re not familiar with that bastion of defensive excellence that is J.D. Martinez? Of course not, but hear me out. In 2018 he’s an A+/B-, with a 1.000 fielding %. The latter means he probably won’t make any errors, and the B- in CF will probably yield 10-12 minus plays. Not so bad. And by this point I’d decided that only 2 of my 3 teams will play in Coors; the other will play at the neutral Philadelphia Base Ball Grounds as sort of a control group, and a way to lessen the number of IPs/PAs needed overall. J.D. will play there, so my biggest concern isn’t his glove, it’s his bat. I mean, wow, is that performance history godawful. I know that 1 is the mother of all small sample sizes, but I fervently hope that what we’re looking at there is the worst one-tenth of one percentile. 7 home runs? Really? Yikes.
I’m a bit surprised I was able to get Fournier this late. He’ll be my starting 1B on one team and my LHH DH for the other two. Billy Williams will start in RF for all 3 of my teams. I used to use him a lot and vaguely remember him underperforming, but I hope I’m wrong about that.
Round 10
Charlie Blackmon .....Ron Hassey .....Ernie Lombardi
Mostly what I needed now was one OF/DH for my third team, and a catching platoon. I took a stab at Blackmon and one other owner listed him. OK, no biggie. I love Lombardi’s bat, and while there may have been better LHH catchers still available I’ve always liked Hassey. Fine.
Round 11
Daniel Murphy .....Magglio Ordonez .....Cecil Travis
We’re really in the endgame now. I need one starting OF/DH, and Magglio fills that bill really well. Daniel Murphy is a good backup 2B/DH for the two teams in Coors that will need extra PAs. But I also still need a platoon partner for Tulo’s dominant half-season. I honestly thought I’d get Travis here. People tend to shy away from shortstops who can’t field so I thought he was mine, and he would’ve been able to back up at 3B which would’ve freed up a roster spot for another pitcher. But not one, not two, but three other owners listed him, which shows how far off I was. In hindsight I should’ve taken Travis instead of Blackmon in the 10th, but in hindsight everyone’s teams would be completely different and much better so that’s pretty much a meaningless statement.
Round 12
Terry Pendleton .....Joe Sewell
Two roster spots left to fill: the aforementioned SS platoon/backup, and a backup 3B. I had a feeling that anyone who listed Travis would go for Sewell here (they didn’t, but someone else did) but there was nobody else I really liked so I tried for him anyway. For my backup 3B I was surprised to get Terry Pendleton. He’s perfect to back up Miggy because he’s a switch-hitter and a good fielder. I was surprised to get him because wasn’t he all the rage at some point? Like, didn’t people used to draft him like 9 rounds too early and be all like “damn, I didn’t get Pendleton so now I have to settle for Ron Santo”? Didn’t that used to be a thing? I guess he’s old news now? Did I not get the memo? I never get the memo.
Round 13
Carlos Guillen
I finally get my backup/platoon SS. His admittedly weak third-best season won’t be used much in my neutral park and his best two seasons are fine for what they are needed for.
Epilogue
So how did I do? I didn’t get everyone I wanted, but one never does. I executed my strategy well enough that I’ll be playing two of my three teams in Coors Field. All three will be of very similar quality so the third will be a good control group for this experiment. I’m not sure how many PAs or IPs I’ll need in Coors but I’d usually say 6,000 / 1,450 for a DH league so I’ll assume 20% higher than that, or 7,200 / 1,740. Here are how my teams look at those usage levels, normalized:
Team 1 – Pai Gow at Bally’s – Coors Field:
7200 PA, .339/.419/.564
1740 IP, 2.00 ERC#, 0.19 HR/9+
Team 2 – Pai Gow at the Flamingo – Coors Field:
7200 PA, .335/.405/.564
1740 IP, 1.95 ERC#, 0.25 HR/9+
Team 3 – Pai Gow at the Golden Nugget – Philadelphia Base Ball Grounds:
6000 PA, .340/.414/.564
1450 IP, 1.97 ERC#, 0.19 HR/9+ (I only included 640 of Morris’s 838 IP here*)
I have no idea how good the other lineups will be so it’s tough for me to judge how good these teams will be, but it should be fun finding out. Thanks yet again to calhoop for running this.
*I went back and forth on how to use the 1885 Ed Morris. My initial consideration was to try to even out the quality of my teams, and he happened to end up on my non-Coors team. But he has the most allocated pitches available, so it would seem to make the most sense to use him in Coors Field. If I had thought this through beforehand I probably would’ve switched the Morris and Seward between teams 1 and 3, parity be damned, but by the time I figured this out I’d entered my teams, so out of laziness (I’d already set lineups and other settings) I kept Morris in the neutral park.