24	schwarze	Chicago White Stockings	90
25	schwarze	Montreal Expos	65
26	blackmink18	Brooklyn Dodgers	80
27	calhoop	Cincinnati Reds	85

I almost took the Reds instead of the Expos.  I liked Pedro over Seaver and I really couldn't use Bench since King Kelly is playing catcher... Clearly, Reds' 2b / 3b / ss are better than what the Expos have.  Luque/Rixey is probably better than D.Martinez..  Hmmm, looks like I should've gone with the Reds. 

Wow, I'm at the top. Hope my boys can live up to expectations.

wow - i don't feel my team matches my ranking.  

Though my original strategy was to go with a strong hitting 5 in the first round and pitching in rounds 2 and 3, I felt forced  to switch to pitching first when the Browns went off the board right in front of me.  The choice came down to Giants (hitting) and Dodgers (pitching).  I went pitching, hoping to catch the Rockies on the flip side.  Rockies went, and the best available for round 2 (IMHO) was the Padres - another pitching team -  this time bullpen.  Had I picked the Giants first, the Padres would have been a nice complement (argh).  Alas, I decided to try out a purely pitching dominated team in a pitchers park (Petco).  Problem then became, my best hitter (Piazza) felt like too much of a liability for my small ball game.  As I began to then select hitters for defense, the offensive production dropped off to squat.  I could have bailed on some of the bullpen strength and built up hitting, but I'll let this team fly and hope.  Not too confident with an active salary under $120m.  Will struggle to score 400 runs.

Thanks jfranco for creating a league in which I had to decide between drafting Orphans and Perfectos!

I really liked the strategy in this draft and was fortunate to get a high draft slot (#3).  As a result, I was able to trade down to #7 in rds 1-2 while keeping the 3d pick in rd 3.  I thought that would give me useable teams at each pick and it did.  In the first round, at #7 I was considering 3 teams (Cards, Browns, Cubs).  Of the 3, I rated the Cards the highest because it had a great mix of hitting and pitching options.  I considered trading down further but ultimately decided the risk wasn't worth the benefits and took the Cards.  I knew I was going to use Hornsby, Musial and Gibson.  And that left a lot to pick from in my other two choices (hitting: Simmons, Torre, Pujols, McGwire, Mize, O.Smith, Edmonds) (pitching: Tudor, Brecheen, Cooper).  At that point, I knew I wanted a modern team in rd.2 (mostly to fill out a bullpen) and then probably a dead ball pitching team in rd. 3 to finish the rotation. 

As rd. 2 started, I zeroed in on the Marlins.  On the pitching side, it offered SP Kevin Brown plus good bullpen guys.  For the lineup it yielded Sheffield, Cabrera, Piazza, & H. Ramirez, covering catching, 3B and SS and freeing me to use the Cards best hitters (rather than inferior ones just to cover positions).  After sweating out 23 picks, I was surprised to find the Marlins still there and pounced.  That left me needing SP and a good OF bat from my round 3 team.  Picking early in the round left me lots of options and I ended up with 4-5 teams on my final list when my pick came.  None of them were absolutely what I wanted, some had more pitching and less hitting, others the opposite.  I ended up going with the Highlanders to get Russ Ford and Jack Chesbro.  I decided that I didn't want to have too few quality IP and, as usual, I really didn't know how much would be enough.  On offense, the Highlanders gave me Birdie Cree for the open OF slot.  Not my first choice but I think I'll end up platooning him with Cliff Floyd, at least at the beginning of the season.  

My teams ended up fitting together pretty well.  My strengths are hitting (both OBA & SLG), HR pop and great normalized WHIP, particularly in the rotation.  The weaknesses are team defense (always a weakness with my teams) and the fact that my team is glaringly righthanded (both at bat and on the mound).  The bullpen is good but not great, although with my starting staff I'm hoping to stay out of the bullpen more than usual.  

All in all, I'm pleased.  I got pretty much what I wanted out of the draft .... so of course I'll be lucky to win 50 games.     

I really enjoyed being part of this unique draft.

I was pleased to draw the 22nd position in the first round (therefore also the 27th position overall in the second).   The limitation of only taking only 5 players from the first round franchise made this draft especially interesting.  I did not expect to get a lot of help in round 3 no matter where I would pick (Wrong!!)   So I figured I would have 15 usable players from my first 2 picks.

I was happy to see Atlanta available at 22 and did not hesitate to take them.  Maddux, Chipper and Aaron were locks to make the team, and did, of course.  Never mind that in the schwarze mega-franchise tourney, the Braves are cumulatively 13th out of 16. 

I was surprised to see 121 years of Cincinnati Reds still available and figured they had to be my best option, at least for sample size to choose from.   I had to take them even though they have a reputation of being classic underperformers.  (Theory supported by the evidence that this franchise is #16 out of 16 in the aforementioned mega-tournament).

My third round pick became an adventure when my home computer went dead the night I had my third round pick at 10:30pm.  At 9:25 I sent out a proxy from the Apple Store nearby listing the only team that looked like they still may be available (Indy Hoosier-Feds).  When I got to work the following morning, I found out that they had been taken before my time slot had arrived.  Probably a good thing.  This gave me a few moments to check out the dregs and would up with the New York Metropolitans.  (Ed Cushman, john Shaffer, Dave Orr, 2 crap starters totaling 980 IP and a host of weak fielding backups).

Knowing that all the other teams would have tons of dead-ball pitching, I only rostered pitching that had very low raw HR allowed numbers (normalization does not matter in that category)  What I wound up using was:

Atlanta Braves:  1994 Maddux, 2008 Chipper, 1971 Aaron, 2003 Javy Lopez and 1966 Carty

Cincinnati:  1890 Billy Rhines, 1923 Luque, 1924 Rixey, 1986 Rob Murphy, 1972 Bench, 1975 Morgan, 1996 Larkin, 1905 Seymour, 1962 F Robby, 1969 Rose

Metropolitans:  1885 Cushman, 1886 Shaffer, 1886 Orr - rest unimportant.

My prediction--- schwarze is happy to have me in his division

 

 

 

My hardest decisions came after the draft.

I wanted the Browns or Cubs and tried to deal up to get them.  Nothing happened with that but to my surprise both were there at the 9th spot; I picked 10th.  I was thrilled to get the Browns but OH the pain trying to only select 5!  Next round I could have done better pitching wise, but the Boston Braves added to my hitting and gave me an ace closer which I like to have.  For the last round, I wanted either the Whales (Hendrix) or the Blues (Bernhard).  I got the Blues which gave me some good bats to platoon with plus a season of Joss I've never used.

The hardest part was putting the team together.  I really struggled with my 5th Brown.  First I was going with Stone in CF and leadoff but his OBP didn't excite me.  I worried Ken Williams would face too many deadballers to make use of his power and, once I had my 3 teams I knew it had to be a lefty/switch leadoff type.  I ended up going with Caruthers and his big OBP.  It took a lot of re-engineering to make that work but I was determined to have someone set the table for Hornsby, O'Neill, Sisler and Holmes.

It makes me nervous to have drafted a consensus contender.  What if I chose the wrong players?  Even the stadium selection was a headache.  Who knows I coulda blown it there.  And I gotta tell ya - I think there is some TOUGH competition in my division.

Anyway, it has been great fun and I think we'll contend for a playoff spot.

Good Luck everyone. 

Posted by schwarze on 5/13/2011 3:34:00 PM (view original):
I predict markeking will win 98 games.  Sure glad I'm in the other league.

From your mouth to God's ear!!!