Posted by schwarze on 3/3/2025 2:13:00 PM (view original):
League #1, Pick #5
2007 New York Mets
So, three teams were picked in the Top 8... 2008 Mets (pick #5 by Bill_James47), 1985 Angels (#6 by ronthegenius) and 2012 Angels (#8 by footballmm11). So there is one person in front of me. I really really want the 1982 Angels here. I was an Angels fan in my youth and Rod Carew was my favorite player. Also, in my mind, there was a massive drop-off after 2012, 1985 and 1982. Surely pedrocerrano will grab a team like 2007 Mets with Pedro Martinez. Nope, he (wisely) takes the 1982 Angels to crush my soul.

So, I switch my focus on the NY Mets. There were two teams I was looking at, 1999 and 2007. I was hoping to take 1982 Angels here and thought there was a great chance 1999 Mets would slip to me at pick #9. Had there been another Angels team I really wanted, I would've grabbed them and would've surely gotten 1999 (since they ended up going at pick #12, the 7th Mets team taken). I obviously went with 2007 Mets, in order to get Pedro Martinez x2. The other SPs (Glavine x2) aren't anything special, but the bullpen is strong (Wagner x2, J.Smith x2, Mota, Ol.Perez x2).

The offense really has no weak spots unless you want to count a .320 hitter (Paul Lo Duca) as a weak spot. There is a good mixture of righty bats (Paul Lo Duca, Julio Franco, David Wright, Moises Alou), lefty bats (Carlos Delgado, Shawn Green) and switch hitters (Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes, Luis Castillo). The outfield defense is strong with A/A+, A/A+ and A/B. The catcher has an A+ arm.

Overall Outlook
Once again, I find one of my better teams stuck in a division with an even better team. The main differences between 2008 and 2007 Mets are Santana/D.Murphy/Schneider vs Glavine/Ju.Franco/LoDuca/S.Green. Advantage 2007 but Santana will allow more HRs than Glavine and having LoDuca and Shawn Green definitely offsets the Murphy-vs-Franco comparison. Prediction: 91 wins, four games behind 2007.

I could easily do a complete player by player comparison analysis on how disappointing this team turned out to be, like I did with my Padres team. All you have to do is look at the two seasons adjacent. The 2006 Mets (104-58) and the 2008 Mets (105-57) have similar rosters. My 2007 Mets finished 81-81. I had to bench my most expensive and best hitter ('00 Carlos Delgado) for long strewtches because he was so bad (he was hitting .219, finished at .235). My '99 Pedro was easily the worst of the three Pedros. We went 19-24 in 1-run games. Their .544 exp win% is indicitive of an 88-win team and that's including the underachieving stud players. I had nearly the same lineup in the same home park as 2006 Mets and scored about 100 runs less. The only bright spot was '00 Pedro, who won the Cy Young (26-6, 2.97 era). The combination of my Padres, Astros and Mets frustrating seasons is the main reason I opted to play only two teams in round 4.

Posted by schwarze on 3/3/2025 3:24:00 PM (view original):
League #4, Pick #7
2015 Kansas City Royals
Seventh pick was my lowest "first" pick among the four leagues. I had 2018 & 2016 Nationals as my top two choices for this league (but they went on picks 1 and 3). I had didn't really have any strong preference for Royals seasons. There are only two picks between this pick and my second pick in this league, and one of those has to be a Royals season (footballmm11 took Expos at #5 and picks again at #8). My favorite Expos team at this point is the Rose/Raines 1984 season, but I am going to gamble that I get them at #10, so it's going to be a Royals season.

The choices I was looking at include 2004 (Greinke, Appier, Beltran, Bautista, terrible bullpen), 1990 (Brett, Wilson, Saberhagen, Appier, good bullpen) and 2015. The 2004 bullpen was just too bad to consider. Maybe I should have taken 1990, but I just couldn't stomach the three weak spots at C, 2B, SS. Of course, there is nobody as good as George Brett on 2015, but I was convinced footballmm11 was going to take 2015 and use his magic with the RP usage to grind out 90-95 wins, so I beat him to the punch. I also thought this would put me in a division with weaker teams. I did avoid pedrocerrano's 1989 Royals (1st Royals team picked), but I did get stuck in the same division as thejuice6's 1990 team (nice pick at #15, 7th Royals team taken).

The 2015 roster doesn't have any great offensive players, but it's very balanced with every starting hitter with at least an .800 OPS. Also, I have a great mix of 4 switch hitters (Zobrist x2, K.Morales x2) and lefty batters (Moustakas, A.Gordon x2). Zobrist doesn't have the range I'd like at 2B and SS, but he's an A- fielder at both positions. I rostered two Lorenzo Cains for his A+ range. And 21 S.Perez has an A+ arm to help with all. the Willie Wilsons. I picked Sicks Stadium which is -3 for triples to offset those Wilson and Brett triples.

Pitching is this team's strength, as I am trying out footballmm11's strategy of minimal SP innings and lots of great RP innings, so I went with 13 pitchers, and will probably go with a 3-man rotation, then bring in 6-7 RPs (all with sub 1.00 whips) every game. Cueto (244 ip), Blanton (230) and Ch.Young (171) are the only SPs over 150 IPs on the roster. Overall, the pitching stats are 1492 IPs, .202 oav, 0.99 whip, 0.58 hr/9.

Overall Outlook
A team like 1990 would have been much easier to play. Just throw out Saberhagen and Appier for a 4-man rotation, then use Gordon, Montgomery, Farr as the main setup guys, and let things play out with minimal oversight. But having F.White, Boone/Macfarlane and Stillwell at the bottom of the lineup means a 1-2-3 inning two to three times per game. If my A+ arm catcher can keep Wilson from stealing too often, I can see a lot of 3-2 games, hopefully in my favor. Prediction: 90 wins.

This was my only team below .500 (80-82). I should've have taken the 1990 Royals, which ended up winning the division (87-75). I was bad mouthing the 2B, SS, C positions of the 1990 team, but that team (with Brett, Wilson, etc) outscored my crappy Royals team by 115 runs. This team was dead last on offense. No player had more than 90 RBIs. The pitching finished 3rd in the AL and the bullpen actually pitched very well (7 of 8 RPs had ERAs below 4). But much of that was pitching with a deficit. My non Cueto SPs were awful. Joe Blanton (5-22, 6.72) and Danny Duffy (5-13, 7.04). It's actually an amazing accomplishment we almost finished .500 with those two combining to go 10-35. My expirement with a crappy offense, crappy SPs and very strong RPs has ended.

Posted by schwarze on 3/3/2025 9:49:00 PM (view original):
League #3, Pick #8
1983 Milwaukee Brewers
Ugh. What terrible runout for me. I already had my Padres team. So I had four Brewers teams I liked at the start of the draft, then a huge dropoff. 2019 and 2018 Milwaukee were two of my top choices, but they went early (picks 5, 6 in league 3). The other two teams I thought were worthy of early picks were 1982 and 1984. ronthegenius took 1982 with pick #4, the first Brewers season taken. So including those three Padres teams taken in the Top 8 (2008, 2007, 2022), that six picks. I have to wait for cstrohmier. He should take 2021 Padres, right? Nope - he grabs 1984 Brewers. F*ck! That's the second time, I missed what I thought was the top choice left by one pick (when the person picking in front of me could have chosen from either franchise).

So once again, I am going to take a season that will play in the same division of a season that is better than the one I'm taking. I am considering both 1983 and 1985 Brewers. All other things being equal, I'm supposed to take 1985 since there's a chance that they aren't in the same division as 1982/1984 where 1983 will certainly be in the same division with 1982 and/or 1984. The offenses are essentially the same, but 1983 has better SP with Sutton x2, Caldwell, Candiotti, while 1985 has Higuera, Darwin, Haas. Wegman. Meanwhile, 1985 has Rollie Fingers x2, Jim Kern & Ray Searage out of the pen while 1983 has Pete Ladd, Bob McClure and Jaime Cocanower. Ugh. But the starting pitcher is just too strong, so I went with 1983. (Note that 1985 was the very next Brewers season taken, so I think I was on the right track)

The offense is pretty solid, with Ted Simmons x2 (C/DH), Cecil Cooper, x 2 (1B/DH), Paul Molitor x2 (2B/3B), Rob Yount x2 (SS/OF) and Ben Oglivie x2 (OF/OF). Don Money, Dion James & Randy Ready gives me some depth as my total offensive slash line is: .318, .383, .503 with solid defense.

The starting pitching should allow my team to take leads into the late innings. '72 Sutton, '73 Sutton and '78 Caldwell are a very strong top 3. After that, it gets a bit ugly. Pete Ladd (0.93 whip) will close. '91 Candiotti has 107 ips, with a 1.07 whip. '86 Moose Haas has 73 ips, with a 1.06 whip. Bob McClure has 53 ips with a 1.03 whip. Rick Waits, Jaime Cocanower, Jaime Easterly all are over 1.10 whips.

Overall Outlook
Of course, 1985 ends up in the AL Central while my 1983 team is stuck in the AL East with both 1982 and 1984. Dumb pick by me. I should've taken 1985 (although they share a division with 2018). The AL East has 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023. Assuming two of those teams advance, plus 2018, plus 1982 and 1984, I think it comes down to 1983 or 1985 as the last advancer. I am not feeling optimistic. Prediction: 80-82, with a Exp Win% of .530, but fail to advance due to 14-21 record in 1-run games.

This team was never really a threat to do anything. They hung around the .500 mark all season, and went 4-1 over the last 5 games to barely advance to round 4 (by 1 game). This was a lucky team, with a 24-15 record in 1-run games. They were ranked 11th in the AL in offense. Not a single batter even sniffed an .800 OPS. Dion James (.271, .357, .406) was my team's best hitter by ops, LOL. Playing home games in Comerica Park didn't help, but we sucked offensively on the road too. We finished 6th in pitching. My '72 Don Sutton sucked almost the entire season but came on strong near the end. He was 13-16, 4.86 era and finished 20-17, 4.04. On the flip side, my '73 Sutton pitched reasonably well most of the season (9-9, 41.2) before hitting a tail spin and ending up 11-14, 4.58. It's not a surprise that the 1984 Brewers team that I badly wanted finished at 94-68. Oh, and the 2018 Brewers finished 104-58 and is currently waiting on it's World Series opponent.

Posted by schwarze on 3/3/2025 10:18:00 PM (view original):
League #1, Pick #9
2016 Los Angeles Angels
After losing out on the 1982 Angels, I decided to pick a Mets team with pick #5, figuring that nobody else would take an Angels team before my turn at pick #9. I was right, so I basically was able to get my 2nd Mets choice with the 5th pick and my 4th Angels choice with the 9th pick.

As for the Angels teams, I considered 1986 (who still had Don Sutton), but without Rod Carew, it was just way too much of a downgrade from the 1982 & 1985 teams. I also had built a 1973 team (w/Frank Robinson and Vada Pinson) and a 1961 team (w/ Ted Kluszewski, Dean Chance), but 2016 was easily the best team available, IMHO.

Mike Trout x2 and Albert Pujols x2 (1B/3B) is a great start to the offense. Brendon Ryan (A/A+ at 2B) and Andrelton Simmons (A/A at SS) give me solid defense up the middle. Unfortunately, Ryan only has 429 PA, so I am using Yunel Escobar (B/A+ at SS) out of position as a backup 2B. The rest of the offense isn't great (C: Geovany Soto, OF: Kole Calhoun & DH: Daniel Nava). Hopefully, Trout and Pujols can do the heavy lifting. Total hitting stats: .300, .386, .505.

But the pitching is what make this roster so desirable. Tim Lincecum x 2, Jered Weaver x 2 & Garret Richards make up the starting rotation. But the bullpen rocks, with Richards' 28-ip stud season, plus Andrew Bailey x 2, Huston Street x2, Joe Smith x2 and M.Shoemaker. The defense is very good, which will only help the pitching. Total pitching: 1529 ips, .204 oav, 1.02 whip, 0.54 hr/9.

Overall Outlook
Every single pitcher on my roster is right-handed and most of my hitters are right-handed and I have great defense, so Hilltop Park seems to be the obvious choice for a home ballpark. Hopefully, I have enough innings for this extremely offensive park. But the -3 HRs for lefty bats should help vs the Fred Lynn and Reggie Jacksons. Sadly, I am stuck in the same division as the team I should have taken #1 overall, 2012, so my best hope is a wildcard. Hopefully, this team can win 86 games and advance to round 4.

Of all my teams in round 3, this was the one team that basically did exactly what I expected. We projected 86 wins and actually won 87 games, The division was as difficult as expected, and my 87 wins was third best (behind the 93-win 2012 team & the 91-win 2014 team). My pitching was very good, but it's not obvious due to playing home games at Hilltop. We ranked 9th in the AL in ERA but were 2nd on the road (4.29), and 11th at home (5.43). '09 Tim Lincecum (18-10, 3.81) was 5th in AL Cy Young. '11 Jered Weaver (2.25 erc#, 1.03 whip#) was supposed to be my team's best SP, but ended up my worst (14-20, 6.23 era). This best real life player = my worst sim player seemd to be a running theme on many of my teams this round. Anway, the offense finished 5th in the league, led by AL MVP, '09 Albert Pujols (.305, .404, .514, 131 RBIs, 20+ plays at 1B). '13 Mike Trout (.300, .396, .426, 16 + plays) was 5th in MVP. My 109 + plays was 2nd overall. Somehow, Andrelton Simmons finished with a higher batting average (.281) than '01 Pujols (.270) and '15 Trout (.256). All-in-all, I was pleasently surprised that this team actually made it to 87 wins, given that they were 14-28 and the worst team in the AL through 42 games.

Posted by schwarze on 3/4/2025 8:55:00 AM (view original):
League #2, Pick #9
2013 Texas Rangers
I mentioned earlier that I chose an Astros team at pick #4 in this league because I couldn't decided between 2013 and 1991 and figured one of these years would be available at pick 9. Well, both are still available as the only Rangers teams off the board are 1993, 2012 and 1989. Speaking of 2012, I have a blind spot when it comes to finding teams that are relatively weak at SP but very strong at RP. I hadn't even considered 2012 b/c they didn't have D.Lowe (where 2013 did). Instead, they have Roy Oswalt but they also have K.Uehara and M.Adams where 2013 had J.Soria. More importantly, 2012 has Josh Hamilton and Mike Napoli compared to L.Berkman and G.Soto. In any case, it seems obvious that 2012 is the better team. Just another instance where I have no better than the 2nd best team in the division.

Anyway, I did finally decided on 2013 over 1991 even though it appears 1991 is pretty strong, with K.Brown, N.Ryan, J.Russell, R.Gossage, J.Poole, I-Rod, Palmeiro, Sierra, Ju.Gonzalaez, Ju.Frano. This is a very good team. I passed mainly because of the outfield defense. Who's playing CF, Juan Gonzalez (C/C-)? Also, I was worried being stuck with 1993 and 1989 (2 of the top 3 Rangers seasons selected).

Anyway, 2013's strongest attribute is their infield defense. 1B: Berkman (B/A-), 2B: Kinsler (C/A+), 3B: Beltre (A/A-), SS: Andrus (A-/A+). The offense is full of HR hitters, with 285 HRs from their starting nine. But the team is also full of .300 hitters, with an overall team batting of .311. The lineup is heavily right-handed with Berkman x2 and Mitch Moreland as the only non right-handed bats. Overall batting: .311, .374, 552.

The pitching staff (Lowe x2, Darvish x2, Garza x2, Nathan x2, Soria x2, Holland, Feliz) is mostly right handed but we are not playing at Hilltop since we don't want to mute Berkman's HRs. Also, some of my pitchers do give up the longball, so we went a little more conservative with Riverfront (+1 HRs). Overall pitching: 1533 ips, .216 oav, 1.03 whip, 0.62 hr/9.

Overall Outlook
Not feeling super confident about this team. I don't usually like to go with the high-HR, but lower OBP type of teams. Berkman is the only regular starting batter with OBP > .390. So, it's going to be tough to score runs if we aren't hitting HRs. We have no speed and all six starting batters have over 100 K's. We're in a division with 4 of the top 7 Rangers picks, so we could be over. 500 and still finish fourth. I don't think team will finish over .500. I should have taken 1991 (as they avoided 1993). In fact, pedrocerrano's 1993 somehow gets to be in the same division as 2002, 2007 and 2010, the last three Rangers teams taken. Unreal. Prediction: 77 wins.

Based on my pre-season projection, team overachieved to get to 83 wins. This wasn't due to luck since their Exp Win% indicated an 86-win team. The three-leg six-pitcher tandem ('11/'14 Garza, '20/'22 Darvish and '08/'02 Lowe) seemed to do ok as our pitching staff finished 4th in the league in ERA. This kept the bullpen from being overworked and the six RPs actually did ok (RP eras: 2.58, 3.22, .3.42, 3.42, 4.07, 4.78). The offense wasn't great, ranking 8th. But Lance Berkman was awesome. '06 Berkman (.305, .407, .605, 52 HRs, 121 RBIs) won the AL MVP. '01 Berkman (.33, .393, .515) was 3rd in MVP. My two Adrian Beltres were decent. But my four worst regular batters were very bad. Kinsler, Andrus, N.Cruz, A.Rios all had OPS under .700. But Kinsler, Andrus & Cruz were in for defense as they combined for 50 + plays and only 27 errors. Overall, my team had 85 + plays (vs 8 - plays), third best in the league. Although they didn't make the playoffs, this team did advance to round 4, which I didn't expect, so this selection was a win.

Posted by schwarze on 3/3/2025 11:24:00 PM (view original):
League #4, Pick #10
1984 Montreal Expos
With pick #7, I grabbed a Royals team, hoping the my preferred Nationals/Expos season would make it to me. Both the #8 and #9 picks were Royals teams, so I didn't lose anything by picking KC first.

Now, it's decision time on which season to take. The four NL teams selected so far are 2018, 2016, 1989 and 1994. I think the obvious pick is one of the Scherzer late 2010's teams, but the problem is it would be another Division of Death situation. It seems like every one of my teams is in a division of death. Heck, my eight teams could average 88 wins and not win a single division. I kind of already made up my mind that I was taking 1984, unless they got taken, then I'd go with 2015 or 2017 Nationals. I'm tired of having the 2nd best team in a division.

1984 is similar to 1983, 1982, 1981, but the key difference is 1984 has Pete Rose. So now I get Raines and Rose giving me 4 everyday switch-hitters. Gary Carter will play C and 1B. Dawson and his A+ range covers CF and LF. Rose covers 3B and RF. Raines covers 2B and DH. SS Chris Speier is the weak spot on offense. Offensive numbers: .307, .378, .469.

My pitching isn't even close to those Scherzer/Strasburg teams. Steve Rogers, Bill Gullickson, Bryn Smith, backed up by RPs, Jeff Reardon, Bob James, Greg Harris, Charlie Lea, Joe Hesketh, Gary Lucas. Stats: .222 oav, 1.08 whip, 0.50 hr/9. But at least we're in the weaker NL East, with two of the last three Expos teams picked (1981, 1983).. calhoop's 1989 is the class of the division with Randy Johnson and Larry Walker leading the way.

Overall Outlook
It really ticks me off that 2015 Nationals ended up in the NL Central. Had I known that, I would've taken 2015 instead of 1984. I have been way off on projecting divisions during my various selections. Oh how things would be different had I taken 2012 Angels instead of 2008 Padres. Although in the grand scheme, only four of my eight teams can advance, so hopefully, it will work out ok. As far as this team goes, I think winning the division is a long shot, and with all Scherzer teams probably winning 82+ games this team is destined to finish below .500 --> prediction: 75 wins

Well, I was really off on some of my comments about the other teams I was consdering. I said 1989 Expos was the class of the division. They went 71-91. The 2015 Nationals finished 69-93. I didn't even consider 2019 Nationals and they won 96 games and are pariticipating in the World Series. I was right about the NL West being strong, as te four Nationals teams (2016-2019) averaged 93 wins. My Expos finished the season on a 9-3 run and edged out redcped's '17 Nationals by 1 game for round 4 advancement. But the 1981 Expos ended up winning my division.

Playing in Hilltop park, we finished 2nd in the NL in runs scored (1st at home, 5th on the road). The pitching was awful, finishing 11th in the league (6th on the road, 11th at home). The bullpen was a disaster. My best RP, Bob James (2.07 erc#), was horrible (5-9, 3/10 in saves, 6.28 era). My team blew 20 saves. I probably should have chosen a different home park. The batters I was trying to help didn't really hit that well. Right handers, '81 Dawson (.255), '82 Dawson (.264) and '82 Carter (.264) all hit worse than I would anticipate with this home park. Of course, my two Tim Raines and two Pete Roses each hit very well... big shock why I prefer swtich hitters over righty batters. '84 Gary Carter (.308, .370, .474, 130 RBIs) is the only right handed hitter that benefited from my home park. The bright side is that my pitching staff finished 2nd in the NL in fewest HRs allowed.... of course, dead last in OAV (.302).

We did do better than my prediction, and this was my fourth best team, so I'd say this selection was a win.