Posted by just4me on 6/6/2012 8:33:00 PM (view original):
I'll admit, I've barely begun to tinker with team building, but the $100m seems like it would be relatively painless, especially if you build the $90m first. At least in my researching for $90m teams it has given me some good ideas for starting places for my $100m teams. 

I was thinkin the same thing

To me, the strangest thing about this game is when you find a real life team and you look and realize their stats play terribly for the attributes of their home ballpark.

I've never used a pitcher over 400 innings, what am i supposed to do with 700+

Okay, have a rough draft of all my teams. Pfew, that was fun/painful all in one. Some thoughts:

$70 mil (Low Budget Modern Franchise) - Really struggling with how to round out the back-end mop up pitching. That last few million is extra precious. Not sure I have the skills to manage a staff under 1400ip, and injuries are on, yikes? Actually never done the injuries thing before, should be exciting.

$80 (Progressive/Regressive) - Lots of guys talking about this being tough. I found it relatively easy. Without naming the names, I'm pretty sure most SIM players can name the half dozen or so stud pitchers who had stellar back-to-back seasons. And maybe your favorite cookie was a one hit wonder, but I drew from a number of guys I've had some success with who had pretty steady numbers (similar seasons every year). I didn't play around too much with players who go scrub to star, which is one way to go. Fun strategy question: for many players there will be a better year and a worse year. You go all out Year One or hold a stud or two back for Year Two?

$90 (Variable Twist) - BY FAR THE HARDEST for me. I spent hours going through dozens of teams. I'm still not really satisfied. Haven't found the perfect squad with everything, but have limited my weakness to just a couple positions once or twice. Really good placement for number of twists, always found myself just a couple twists away from a really dynamite team. Cap is great too, on one team with so-so pitching and a couple scrubs in the lineup I tried compensating with MVP-type seasons and wound up busting the cap.

$100 (5 x 5 x .500) - Another one people are bemoaning that I went through relatively easy. Do the math: 3 players from each team times 5 teams is 15 players. That's a whole lineup and rotation, easy. There are plenty of sub-.500 teams with 3 SIM-worthy stars on them.

$110 (Silver King) - Plenty of money and all your favorite cookies get to come along, at least in the lineup. I've no idea how to use King, so I don't hold out much hope here, but with the roster flexability anyone can make a decent team. This league I think will really separate the wheat from the chaff (I'm guessing I'm chaff).

$120 (Clones) - I wish there'd been something different here, as I'm most comfortable at $120 mil (Most of my experience is at $120 mil theme leagues). As Jtpsops postulated earlier, it just seems really unlikely that the $5 mil penalty is worth going as low as 2-3 players. At this high a cap, you're playing HOFers at every postion, and there just aren't that many HOF types that played 4 or 5 spots on the diamond. Personally, I would have liked to see this same theme at a lower cap, or maybe penalized more for extra players ($10 mil instead of $5) as I just don't see the pay-off for going any lower than 4 players. Maybe I'll be proven wrong though, I'm still pretty much a noob around here. 

Fun discoveries while researching the Variable Twist league (apologies if I give anyone's actual team away):

- Those 90's Atlanta Braves, just wow. So many seasons in a row with an all-time ace season from a guy, yet never was there a time when two players had that career-year. Still, what a run.

- It's very, very rare to have two starting pitchers both thoroughly dominate in the same season . I looked through many of the great two/three man pitching tandems, and by WIS standards, only one of two was usually WIS-ace material.

- Bullpens: Going to be really interesting to see how people fill out those 'pens. WIS has totally ruined my concept of what makes an effective pen. Almost no team has a WIS-dominant pen on one untwisted roster. With limited twists, how much to you risk exposing the pen to improve the usually more important starting rotation and lineup?

- Zack Grienke, poor fellow. Now that Kansas City has a few players with some useful seasons, I thought I'd mine the mid-2000 Royals for some 10+ twist teams, knowing Greinke was at least one good pitcher. Wow was there some horrible pitching on those squads. Maybe someone will risk starting twisted Gil Meche as a number 3/4 starter, but I just couldn't do it.

- Can't wait to see the ratio of high win% teams to low win% teams. I think we all hope there's some crummy 1950's squad that miraculously had eight HOFers on it. Good hunting fellows! In the meantime, I feel there are plenty of serviceable high win% teams. But they always come with holes. Take the 1927 Yankees (c'mon you know you at least peeked there once). WIS-standard crummy 3rd starter and a no hit, no field 3B and you only get the one twist. Maybe you can live with the scrub 3B, but it's just not ideal. It's all a game of number of roster holes vs. number of twists, and I'm really curious what the most common ideal twist/hole ratio is.

- Just really enjoyable working my way through the collective history of a dozen franchises. I ran into a whole host of ballplayers I've never heard of before, especially when you've somehow arrived on the baseball-reference.com team page from some .500 1944 squad with two HOFers, one WIS cookie, and a whole host of names you've never heard of, some of whom had amazing careers.

I agree Ioma!!!!   I haven't worked on anythign but the 90 MIl franchise and i'm not sure I really want to stop workin on it.   The teams you can build are endless and you re-learn this about the history of the game that you might have forgotten.     I have a team from the 2000's a team from the 90's a team from the 70's and a team from the 60's to choose from.   

As I said before, I only looked at one team.  But I can't imagine taking a team with less than 7 or 8 twists at the bare minimum.

At that cap, the effect of twists are minimized. I've actually twisted a few players down on a couple teams to fit more actual players under the cap. I don't think the number of twists, in and of itself, is a guarantee of success

ok. i'll give this a try. 

I'm pretty satisfied with my $90, 100, and 110 teams. Went with my gut on the first two and didn't look back, though I did peek at a few other ideas just to see if my gut was even close. My first build on my $110m team put me at $110,002,312 with 7 $200k players, so, after shuffling my DH a bit (slightly worse hitter, but more PA) I come in at $109,973,048. Amazing what a difference $2,312 makes.

I haven't even started looking at the $70m yet. I've got a good core of hitters for the $80m, and I've got three very different teams built for the ~$120m cap I'm trying to decide between (ones a two man, ones got three, and the other four).

After about 15 trys, I have a 100 million team.  Which makes me feel like I will be the only team in the year the decade falls in

Three questions.
1. How do you get off the waiting list?
2. If and when you get off the waiting list, where or who do you submit the teams?
3. Do you submit the teams regardless if your on the waiting list or already part of the 96?

1. Looks like you found the thread.  I've put you on the wait list.
2. At some point over the next few weeks, I will determine (and post) the league numbers
3. Feel free to build the teams, but you must be part of the 96 to submit the teams.

People drop out all the time.  Even long after all 96 purchase their GC, and the deadlines start approaching for submitting teams, people drop out.  Then I zip through the wait list asking for those who can build their teams quickly. 

Posted by schwarze on 6/2/2012 7:04:00 PM (view original):
Q/A for $70M Theme

Q: Do you have to use 25 consecutive years for your roster (I.e. 1965-1989). Or can they be any years?

A: They do NOT have to be consecutive.

How do I sign up?

Here is the link for the WIS Championship.  There is a wait list.

http://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?TopicID=455728&Page=1&TopicsTimeframe=30