I thought we couldn't have the same player in both versions of $110m paired with different teammates. That question came up in the discussion.

The question came up on page 14 of the themes page- found here: https://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?topicID=526183&threadID=12099313#l_12099313

wink0094 asked the question. Ozomatli answered just afterward.

Ozomatli still hasn't opened my sitemail. So, I guess we need some clarification.

Posted by BigScungil on 6/12/2021 1:53:00 PM (view original):

Posted by redcped on 6/12/2021 1:29:00 PM (view original):
Anyone who quotes Townes Van Zandt is a champion in my book, Scungil.

Anyone that thinks people who quote Townes Van Zant are champions, are champions!

Byes into Round 2 for both of us. Next!

Posted by BigScungil on 6/12/2021 2:20:00 PM (view original):
The question came up on page 14 of the themes page- found here: https://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?topicID=526183&threadID=12099313#l_12099313

wink0094 asked the question. Ozomatli answered just afterward.

Ozomatli still hasn't opened my sitemail. So, I gues we need some clarification.

I think "Yes you can do that" from that link is pretty clear

Posted by rbow923 on 6/12/2021 12:05:00 PM (view original):
No fair, Big Steve entered the same teams twice.

WIS Hates Him! Find out how one user DOUBLED his win total with this neat little trick!

70M .257 Weatherby Magnum

I started out thinking about .240-.245 with a mixture of walks and HR. Couldn't draft enough of both and make the pitching work. As I starting looking at pitching again, I settled on .255-.260. Low BB and HR/9 to combat plans by other managers. All but 1 of the pitchers are starters. 6 of the pitchers are from the 20's and 30's because of normalization. My best 2 are 27 Waite Hoyt and 81 Ken Forsch. I don't believe this staff would work too well in an OL, but that's another 10M.

The offense has no real structure and is all over the place. Hoping several in my league drafted weak arm catchers as I drafted versions of Vince Coleman, Rickey, and Bert Campaneris that total 215 SB out of 245 attempts (88%). Unfortunately, Campy is the best hitter of the bunch at .260. Reggie Jackson with 36 HR leads the power dept, with a guy I've never used in nearly 2000 teams at 1B...Billy O'Brien. Tenace also helping.

Outlook: Who knows? While the pitching is decent enough, I'm afraid the hitting isn't.

Pitching: .257 OAV 1.15 WHIP 47 HRA 1351 IP (maybe too many)
Hitting: .257/.335/.395 118 HR 290 SB

Shea Stadium


90M 1914/2014 - Two Worlds Collide

Like others, I looked at 2020 pitching, but just didn't like the 1920 matchup. I settled on the 14's as several of the 1914 SP had done pretty well for me at this cap and a few up to 100M. The main culprits will be Ray Caldwell, Rube Foster, Chris Sale, Ernie Shore, Rankin Johnson, and Samardzija. The BP is led by Joe Smith and Zach Britton.

The hitting doesn't have any real studs, but some doubles and most in the .295-.325 range. Adrian Beltre at 3B and a surprising Dutch Zwilling are 2 of the better hitters. 1B is a platoon combining for .325 with doubles and triples. Defense is good except for Yasiel Puig at 1 OF spot.

Outlook: I actually like the team even though the hitting isn't killer. I believe it's got a decent shot at the playoffs.

Pitching: .207 OAV 0.95 WHIP 60 HRA 1384 IP
Hitting: .308/.365/.450 285 2B

Target Field - This bunch doesn't hit many HR (92) and I want to stop others too.


110M Fake Friends

I started out absolutely hating this theme.....a lot. Seriously, more than you would think. Spending a crazy amount of time on it, getting down to 5-6 players and just stuck. This happened several times. Finally as I sat there staring at 2 mostly built teams but still needing key components, it dawned on me. Just have every day players up and down the lineup, leaving 5-6 non-important cheap spots. I had both teams finished within 2-3 hours. They both may suck, but they're done.


Pitching: Wound up with Claude Hendrix and 1917 Eddie Cicotte, plus a couple low IP guys as starters. The BP isn't quite as strong as I normally like, but I hope decent enough. Mo Rivera, Jake Magee, and Santiago Casilla are probably the best.

Hitting: Not a dominant force, but 4 guys I really like and should do well. Speaker, Cobb, Delahanty, and Cap Anson will all bat at the top with good support guys out of 3B Bill Bradley and 2B Robinson Cano. Jason Kendall at catcher isn't bad and Ozzie...well, he's there for the glove. Team defense is pretty solid.

Outlook: Hard to figure, but I believe it has a shot at the playoffs(?)

Pitching: .199 OAV 0.90 WHIP 56 HRA 1425 IP (including the wonderful 2018 Tommy Milone!)
Hitting: .330/.391/.462 Plenty of 2B and 3B.

AT&T Park (Not really fond of this.)


120M Singularity

I looked seriously at all types of hits, but settled on singles as you can still wind up with a decent amount of 2B and 3B. Actually, the finished product just looked better to me than the other versions I'd built.

Pitching: I'm a little worried about this. Normally, my pitching staffs are usually very good, among the best in the league. Most of the time I include a $45,000/IP+ stud SP to lead the staff and use a couple of my lower priced, part time SP at this cap. Not this time...although I do have 3 in the $42,000 range. DeGrom, 64 Joe Horlen, and Chris Sale lead this bunch, with Roger Nelson, Oswalt, and Daniel Hudson all lower IP guys with great WHIPS. The BP is led by Mike Adams, Kolarek, and Victor Gonzalez. Jim Hearn is the long reliever. Wish I had invested in a couple 2020 guys.

Hitting: Cobb, Brouthers, Hardy Richardson, and Tip O'Neill are probably the best bats with Lave Cross and Bill Sweeney not too bad. The range is good at every position.

Outlook: I'm a bit iffy on this one...should finish .500 but hoping for more.

Pitching: .187 OAV 0.86 WHIP 86 HRA 1427 IP (no mopup)

Hitting: .349/408/.470 Decent amount of 2B and 3B.

Pac Bell


140M 1920's, 2000's, 2010's

The 3 choices I wanted to use were all in Box 1. I looked at 2020 but decided on 2010's for the bulk of my pitching. The 2000's added some nice BP help. The 1920's would make up a good part of the lineup.

Pitching: Verlander, Greinke, DeGrom, Sale, and Kershaw will eat up about 1000 IP. Wish I would have taken Arrieta instead of Greinke. I'll have to watch where I pitch DeGrom and Verlander. The BP is solid with Rivera, Papelbon, and Jansen.

Hitting: Cobb, Al Simmons, and Manush make up the OF. Frisch, Freddy Sanchez, Carlos Guillen, and Helton make up in INF. Not exactly thrilled with Helton, but I wasn't going to use Bill Terry, he's never performed well for me. Harry Heilmann is the DH.

Outlook: Should finish .500+, but a playoff spot is questionable.

Pitching: .179 OAV, 0.80 WHIP 105 HRA 1420 IP (Hopefully not an excess of extra inning games.)

Hitting: .355/.415/.540 403 2B

Target Field


Variable Cap .34 Will Be Among the Lowest

I jumped into this one too fast without thinking it over enough. The wasted IP - high HR/9 strategy is a nice one...wish I'd had used that.

Pitching: My biggest mistake may have been using 1910 Walsh. With all those IP, it was hard to drive the HR/9 total up to improve my cap. Hoping he stifles opponents HR enough to keep me in games. Arrieta, Greinke, and Kershaw fill out the rest of the starts. Everyone should have a solid BP here, so I won't name names.

Hitting: Cochrane, Brouthers, Lajoie, Baker, and H Wagner make up the INF. Not particularly thrilled with Baker at 3B. The OF is made up of Speaker, Delahanty, and 24 Ruth (he doesn't kill you with his glove). Fantastic lineup, but there will be many better because of my lower cap. Dummy me takes Ruth and chooses the Baker Bowl which is +2 HR to left field and +1 to right.

Outlook: I like the team, but just not confident because of the cap differential.

Pitching: .176 OAV 0.77 WHIP 56 HRA 1495 IP

Hitting: .368/.442/.580 384 2B 123 3B 140 HR

Baker Bowl


Overall Outlook

Probably less confident than I've ever been. I've entered the tourney 9 times and never failed to make the 2nd round. Not many with 5 or more entries can say that. Top ten 6 of the 9 times with a high of 3rd. This group of teams stands a pretty decent chance of breaking the string. Good luck everyone!

So this is my first year in this. Been playing mostly theme leagues the last 12 months. Have not had much success at the higher CAPs, but do all right at $90m and under.

I'm also a contrarian by nature, so I went that way on a few of the teams.... This was the first team I created and enjoyed this theme a lot.

$70m - HWY .283. Miller Park (HR LF/RF:1/1 1B:-2 2B:0 3B:0)

So I guessed right that most would choose a lower number. .230 (2), .240 (5) and .250 (6).

Only three of us are in the .280's and I'm tied for the top at .283.

Well, if my goal was going to have a OAV of .283, I wanted to get 5 SP's and RP's that had super low BB/9. My staff projects for 154 BB in 1538IP. Staff WHIP came in at 1.21 and ERA at 3.63.

2001 Radke

1993 Tewksbury (using him for first time now. Slow start, but great lately. I think he's 15-11)

2003 David Wells

1915 C.Mathewson

1922 B Adams (I guess these last two are not so contrarian from prior posts LOL)

Quis and Wilton Lopez lead a pen of Low HR/BB guys.

Lineup looks like:

CF 60 WMoon

RF 70 AKaline

LF 53 SGordon

1B 99 TClark

SS 20 CTaylor

3B 62 ASmith

2B 05 RCano

C 35 Dickey and 16 Lucroy
283/359/470 173Hr

Hitters - $34.96M

Pitchers - 34.98M

Hoping the (-2)1B for Miller Park really hurts those <..260 clubs that come to visit.

-------------------------------------------

$90M - 1888/1988 National League Park II (HR LF/RF:-1/-1 1B:0 2B:3 3B:0)

This was the fourth team I created. I was slammed at work at the time, so didn’t spend a whole lot of time on this one.

Wasn’t too comfortable with the pricey SP’s at this cap in some of the first 4-5 years I looked at that I thought would be good for SP’s, so settled for this….

1888 HGruber
1888 CTitcomb
1888 ATerry
1988 TBelcher
1988 JRijo (plan to use as 5th when needed and long man in pen)

1888 BGeorge/JWeyhing
1988 RDibble/APena/PMirabella/JHowell
Decent pen.

Lineup-
1888 RF MTiernan (always a fave)
1888 CF OBurns
1988 1B FMcGriff
1988 LF DWinfield
1988 SS ATrammell
1988 3B CLansford
1998 C BBoone
1998 2B M.Lee/GJeffries/1888 Joe Quinn

P - $49,715,446 1515IP, .205/1.04/2.16
H - $40,250,626 295/352/443

SP’s will be yanked early with a 4 setting and hope pen keeps me in games.
-----------------------------------------------

$110M - $110M buys only 25 friends. Petco Park (HR LF/RF:-3/-3 1B:-3 2B:-3 3B:2)

This was the last team I created, because well, no offense to the creator, but I really, really disliked this idea of having to create two teams from the start. It took for freaking ever to get the second team to work out position and cap wise. I think the second team came out better LOL.

SP-
68 L Tiant (have a man crush on him now)
92 GMaddux
49 VTrucks
85 MSoto (he will get a 5 rating LOL and might pitch only in Petco)

Have 6RP between 40-49IP and a 7th at 63IP. So I have enough for 2 IP/game. Rijo from a 5 to 1. LOL.
13 GPerkins, 14 JBroxton, 75KSanders, 15KUehera, 19TGosolin, 02 SShields, 35 LChagnon.

1400IP on the nose. Lowest of my six teams by 100IP.

Lineup-
1887 1B RConner
1987 CF EDavis/1934 HWilson
1926 RF HHeilmann
1999 SS Nomar
2020 3B MMachado
1948 2B BDoerr
1964 C EHoward
1974 LF PRose

H - $60,782,459 314/398/512 198HR
P - $47,578,023 1400IP/.200/1.05/2.02

-----------------------------------------------

$120M - Make That a Triple Please!! Kauffman Stadium (HR LF/RF:-2/-2 1B:1 2B:2 3B:3)

Love, loved loved this theme and triples were my first and only thought on it. Second team I created.

SP-
1967 JHorlen
1992 GMaddux
1971 DWilson
1948 JSchmitz

Deep pen. 2020’s C.Martin, J.Hahn, NAnderson will handle 7-8-9, when leading.
04 RKing for mop up. 81 GGarber for long.
77 E Sosa and 11 Josh Hohnson to fill in the rest.

Lineup:
1926 LF JMostil
1890 1B RConner
1912 SS HWagner
1932 2B TLazzeri
1988 CF AVanSlyke. Had enough AB’s to fit in 25HR
1921 3B HShanks
1888 C BEwing
1994 CF LJohnson

Solid fielding and solid bench.

P - $56,759,397 1527IP/.196/0.99/2.17
H - $62,747,429 307/378/472


----------------------

$140M - 1920/1960/2010 League Park (II) (HR LF/RF:-2/-2 1B:2 2B:3 3B:0)

So in this theme, I could see a lot of people taking 2020, because that is the flavor of the day, but I’m not seeing that as a winning strategy if so many do it. At least 25% of my league has chosen 2020 so far. No one has taken 1960’s so far other than me, which I like a lot.

SP-
2015 ZGreinke
2015 CKershaw
1968 LTiant
1964 SKoufax
1964 J Horlen

Pen - 11DFister, 14MPineda, 66PJarvis, 19TGlasnow, 29AGrabowski and CL 67 CCarlos.

Lineup -
1922 CF TCobb .401
1923 RF HHeilmann .403
1925 LF ASimmons .387
1964 DH D.Allen
1929 3B P.Whitney
1927 2B CGehringer
2015 C BPosey (have never used him but always wanted to)
1922 1B ESheely
1923 SS DBancroft/1963 FMantilla for 150PA

Starting 8 avg 39 doubles each in a (+3) 2B park. Should be fun.

P - $69,179,189 1515IP/.189/0.89/1.82
H - $70,776,783 340/405/512
-------------------------------------

$162M - Variable League - 0.11/HR/9 Sicks' Stadium (HR LF/RF:2/2 1B:-2 2B:1 3B:-3)

Played the contrarian again as only one other in my league went this low. $160M is a huge cap. Wasn’t sure how much another $10m would actually help.

I have noticed any P over .55/HR9 gets rocked pretty hard on the HRs higher than that rate. Like how many times have you seen 2020 Bauer give up a 1st or 2nd inning HR?

So I went with a High HR, low singles park that is becoming one of my faves to use.

SP-
1994 GMaddux
1909 CMathewson
1910 RFord
1916 BRuth

Like $60m there.

Pen led by 10Kuo and 74DMurray.Five other great RPs.

Lineup
1975 2B JMorgan
1939 CF JDimaggio
1996 LF KGriffeyJr
1970 C JBench
1953 3B ARosen
2010 1B APujols
2011 SS TTulowitzki
1959 RF AKaline
Def here is A/A

P- $79,996,392 (1704IP/.193/0.93/1.58)
H - $81,950,647 320/405/583 334HR

I have no idea how any of these teams will do. Just hope to be in the hunt on a few.

Posted by BigScungil on 6/12/2021 4:03:00 PM (view original):

Posted by redcped on 6/12/2021 1:29:00 PM (view original):
Anyone who quotes Townes Van Zandt is a champion in my book, Scungil.

Anyone that thinks people who quote Townes Van Zandt are champions, are champions!

Sim League Baseball: easier than waitin’ round to die.

Finally posted my own writeup on Page 1

oldtimer59- We are in different leagues but my decade team is pretty similar to yours, thought we could compare notes. I went with 1980's for your 1920's, , but other 2 same, as follows -

DECADES 1960/1980/2010 - Olympic Stadium (HR LF/RF:-1/-2 1B:-1 2B:2 3B:0)

SP-
'65 Koufax
'68 Gibson
'85 Gooden
'88 Orel
'16 Kershaw

Pen is '17 JV, '88 Myers, '16 Miller, '63 Tiefenauer, '18 Herrera, '17 Jansen

Lineup -
'87 TGwynn
'13 Trout
'64 Aaron
'15 Goldschmidt
'60 Mays
'16 Ramirez
'64 Freehan
'85 Sweet Lou
'89 TFernandez

Actually, oldtimer59 I thought our players overlapped more - but not so much as I typed it out. Still, I'd be interested to see how your team does - i'm sure I could learn some things..

My "Strategy" was that I tried to make my lineup constant, within reason. Obv no one would confuse Gwynn and Fernandez - but I wanted to build a "bland" team, with similar pressure on opposing pitchers throughout the lineup. We kinda have power, sorta have speed, hit for a modest average, defend okay. I think we can win 81 Games.

This is my first championship and I am still in the single digits of total seasons played, so I'm just taking it all in and learning - I really am enjoying getting to know this community, the sim, and reading about strategies and what not. My expectations, while hopeful, are certainly managed for this year, but I can't wait to get started.

I will try to come back and add my other teams to this post like others indicated. My strategies are very weak (I costanza'd one team - I did the opposite of what my intuitions were telling me to do, etc) so nobody missing anything if I can't really, but I do appreciate the conversation and feedback. Best of luck oldtimer59 - and everybody!

$70M: P274 Municipal Masonic Lodge

My goal here was to go with a high AVG/OAV so I could be cheap on the pitching, offset the high OAV with A+++ range, and still have enough left over to have some good hitters. We have 5 A+ range regulars including all four infielders, speedy John Kerins and his A+ arm at C, and then triples specialists Kyle Tucker and all time WIS favorite Dexter Fowler in the corner outfield spots. Went with a mostly deadball pitching staff to limit home runs since I figured a lot of people would draft three true outcomes types, hopefully the reduced HRs make up for all the errors my mostly 19th century defense will make.

5336 PA, .274/.345/.417
1349 IP, .274 OAV, 1.19 WHIP, 0.33 HR/9 (0.26 HR/9 without 2020 Tommy Milone who will get slaughtered in mop-up duty)

$90M: Three Black Sox, Two Dodger Arms

Like many others, I couldn't resist a staff of 2020 pitchers plus 1920 Babe Adams. Thanks to all the 2020 cookies we managed a team BB/9 of 0.96, can't ever remember approaching that.

Offense will be carried by the Black Sox trio of Buck Weaver, Joe Jackson and Happy Felsch, and we have strong defense up the middle with Kolten Wong at 2B and Dave Bancroft at SS.

5354 PA at .315/.372/.457
1343 IP, .223 OAV, 0.93 WHIP, 0.88 HR/9

$110M: Sam Wise and The Hobbits

Spent a lot of time on this one making sure I had two teams I'd be happy entering into a $110M no restrictions league. First team is a standard Target Field team with speedy deadball hitters and modern pitchers.

5678 PA at .333/.398/.490
1382.7 IP, .191 OAV, 0.87 WHIP, 0.85 HR/9

$120M: Come Meet Singles Near You!

My first thought was to go for a home run team given the no deadball pitcher restriction, but didn't like the limited choices at second base. I also made doubles and triples teams but I rejected those for reasons now unclear, doubles I think I felt the team was too slow, triples I'm at a loss to remember so maybe I should have done that! Anyways I ended up with singles, so of course I'm going to Dodger Stadium and it's a good thing there are hardly any home run teams in my league because my staff wouldn't hold up against that, but should be quite strong against everything else.

5432 PA at .356/.421/.496
1385 IP, .176 OAV, 0.80 WHIP, 0.86 HR/9

$140M: I See A Little Arrieta Of A Man

This was a well-designed theme with all the best pitching decades in the same box. I chose the 2010s as that gave more options than 2020 by itself and I generally go with modern pitching when available unless I'm worried about people drafting home runs. Then I went 1920s to open up the many stud hitters from that decade (Cobb, Speaker, Sisler, Jackson), and then the 2000s for Pedro, Mauer and Ortiz since it's a DH league. Went a bit heavy on innings pitched since the combination of a DH league and restrictions on pitching tend to lead to very high scoring leagues, so we'll see how this goes.

6155 PAs at .353/.420/.550
1472.7 IP, .187 OAV, 0.84 WHIP, 0.56 HR/9

$164M: Nugan Brad Hand Bank (0.21 APR)

I knew immediately I wanted to go with a deadball rotation since everyone is in a HR park and just about everyone will have Ruth, I know from running Ruth clone Yankee III teams in high cap leagues that modern pitchers will get lit up by lineups like that, so I'm going with a 2 man rotation of 08 Walsh and an 08 Mathewson/16 Kershaw tandem, plus a bunch of relatively low HR/9 modern relievers.

I have some power on offense with 1924 Ruth, 1930 Gehrig and the Clements/Milligan platoon, but I wanted guys who would hit well against deadballers too, so I also have 1920 Hornsby, 1911 Jackson, 1896 Delahanty and OBP machine 1899 McGraw, and then Tulowitzki and Larkin sharing SS.

We also have 25 useful players on the roster, which seems a far cry from what others are doing. We'll see how stacking a bunch of very high HR/9 works out for people, will the extra money be enough to offset the limited pitching staff flexibility and general inability to pinch hit for the pitcher late in games? It would be nice to have more cash to upgrade a couple positions but it's not like I'm running out scrubs, see the following slash lines:

5780 PA at .379/.467/.607
1506.7 IP, .183 OAV, 0.79 WHIP, 0.21 HR/9

Good luck everyone, was a lot of fun to put the teams together. Thanks so much to ozomatli and everyone else involved for taking so much time to verify rosters.

Posted by ozomatli on 6/12/2021 9:11:00 PM (view original):
Finally posted my own writeup on Page 1

Variable Cap: MH Arbitrage .80
Stadium: Target Field

This was the most interesting league. The stadium restriction is the key to this theme. Since everyone will be in a HR+ park

Target would be an illegal Park for this theme, no?

Oh whoops sorry, I'm using Yankee III. Was writing in a hurry

I think at this point I just assume I'll have used Target Field in every league

Variable Cap Addendum
Several teams in my league didn't draft enough innings for high cap. They'll give up more hits, and Voila! I don't have enough hitter stamina.