My first received dagger, C Sherm Lollar, did limit my options but I didn't have him on my first attempt at a roster. The second dagger, OF Willard Brown, did mess up my plans a lot, though. Because I only had one other cheap OF backup option, I had to take Sam Bowens from the 67 Orioles there instead. I already had to take 5 Orioles pitchers due to the fact that they were basically all my good ones, plus backup SS Mark Belanger. So I had 6 spots locked up and was originally going to use 2B Davey Johnson as my last Oriole. But the addition of Bowens forced me to try to use $8M+ 2B Nellie Fox instead and figure out where to save $4M in the process. It was either Fox or platooning two lousy Browns, and I decided to overpay for that A-/A+ glove and 756 PA for reasons we might not ever truly understand.
My first instinct in building one of these teams is to see what the best pitching staff I can build looks like. I had 9 available pitchers with ERC# under 3, and I am using 8 of them. There was a big gap above them, from 2.92 to 3.51, so I had to get all the quality innings I could from the top group regardless of how they fit together. In this case, there are 5 Orioles all between $2.5M and $3.6M and from 95 to 134 innings. They'll include a couple top bullpen arms and a couple tandems ultimately, slotting behind White Sox SP Billy Pierce and Dick Donovan in the rotation. Chicago's Gerry Staley is another workhorse reliever in the mix with 111 innings. That's 1,157 good innings however I work them all into the mix. A 10-man staff makes tandems difficult, but I'll see how it plays out. I had to roster 186 really weak innings from Bob Muncrief (.299 OAV, 4.90 ERA), who's just going to have to pitch every 4th game or so and try not to suck too much. My hopes are pretty low for him.
The top of the order will have Fox (.321/.404/.415), 3B Harlond Clift (.296/.399/.529), OF/1B Beau Bell (.329/.377/.492), and OF Jeff Heath (.254/.363/.494). SS Vern Stephens (.283/.357/.415) and part-time 1B Earl Torgeson (.299/.408/.438) are the only other fairly reliable contributors. I'll have a C platoon from the 47 Browns that includes a .150 hitter in Les Moss, and their not-so-thrilling teammate Paul Lehner has to man CF most of the time.
Among those who couldn't find a way onto the roster are OF Frank Robinson (no room for any more O's), OF Minnie Minoso (sacrificed in the Fox maneuver), and CF who can hit in Larry Doby, Paul Blair or Sam West (ditto). It leaves me with a team slash of .274/.359/.414, which doesn't exactly strike a ton of fear. Also, not much speed to be found outside Lehner and a couple bench guys. The defense should be fairly strong, though, especially Fox and Clift in the infield.
Only two of my hitters top 15 HR, so I figure I might as well go with HR-negative Comiskey Park over my other option, Sportsman's Park.
Comiskey Park
Salary $79,955,411
1937 St. Louis Browns (6)
1B Jim Bottomley $445,029
2B Red Barkley $486,022
3B Harlond Clift $6,817,226
OF Beau Bell $5,371,508
OF Ethan Allen $2,479,228
P Tommy Thomas $299,344
1947 St. Louis Browns (6)
C Jake Early $2,101,659
C Les Moss $1,502,727
SS Vern Stephens $4,824,664
OF Jeff Heath $4,425,302
OF Paul Lehner $3,483,690
P Bob Muncrief $3,076,139
1957 Chicago White Sox (6)
1B Earl Torgeson $2,295,436
2B Nellie Fox $8,338,910
3B Fred Hatfield $405,906
P Billy Pierce $7,593,299
P Dick Donovan $6,065,663
P Gerry Staley $2,791,248
1967 Baltimore Orioles (7)
P Eddie Watt $3,594,239
P Moe Drabowsky $3,138,413
P Jim Hardin $3,310,962
P Gene Brabender $2,543,335
P Pete Richert $3,339,343
SS Mark Belanger $655,384
OF Sam Bowens $570,735