Posted by schwarze on 11/27/2024 6:44:00 PM (view original):
Waiting for one roster fix, but this is the what the salaries look like...
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ronthegenius	196694020
footballmm11	188508102
eblankenstei	174191750
pedrocerrano	170093183
...
cholatse	166580572
thejuice6	163540831
calhoop	163480797
schwarze	157673298
...
mpitt76	156885564
redcped	155214900
3dayrotation	154625531
nocomm999	153863171
...
njbigwig	151786936
mllama54	146551736
joerat1	144310982
happyhours	143064473

Comments on the alignment. As teams were being entered, I was somewhat keeping track of where my team fell. After 9 teams, I was 5th. After 11 teams, I was 6th After 13 teams, I was 7th. After 15 teams, I was 8th. This could go either way. The last team to enter was footballmm11.. His salary was very high.

Hooray!! I would be the highest salary in the A.L.

So then I start checking rosters. mpitt76 rostered the wrong 1993 Hoffman (Padres combined). After he made the fix to the Marlins partial, that lowered his salary to less than mine. Nooo! Now I'm the lowest salaried team in the N.L.

I don't like my chances. Prediction 78-84.

But there’s a lot of dead salary on every team. It might not mean much really.

I liked HAPPYHOUR's summary - short and to the point. Mine will be even shorter and pretty much pointless...

Nominated Player: 1909 Eddie Collins. Steady Eddie has never done extremely well for me but he's usually consistent. The prize with nominating him was the 3 or 4 Starting Pitchers that come with him. The 1909 A's staff with Bender, Plank, Morgan and Krause were awesome and I knew that I already had the majority of my Starting staff - if not the entire thing.

1st Round: Along with an already established Starting Rotation, now let's find some hitting. After looking at all of the possibilities, how can you go wrong with 1896 Willie Keeler, who comes with a $12M+ Hughie Jennings, a $9M+ Joe Kelley and Willie himself who comes in at $7.8M+. Pretty good start there.

2nd Round: Let's add some more hitting - 1931 Bill Dickey gives me an $11M+ Babe Ruth and a $9M+ Lou Gehrig, along with a serviceable Lefty Gomez should I need him.

3rd Round: Dumbest pick of my draft (and that's saying something): 1981 Reggie Jackson. I'm thinking that it gives me a good Dave Righetti for middle innings relief, a serviceable Ron Guidry and an awesome Goose Gossage to be my Closer. By the end of the drafting, I ended up not using ANY of them and Reggie is just a knot on the end of my bench. Totally wasted pick.

4th Round: Back to hitting - 1931 Waite Hoyt (who will be permanent "Mop Up" man) gives me access to Jimmie Foxx, Mickey Cochrane and Al Simmons (among others). Ended up only using Simmons as I was going to get Foxx later on and Cochrane wasn't needed.

5th Round: Again, hitting. Another wasted pick with 1966 Eddie Mathews. I'm thinking I can get that awesome season of Joe Torre to platoon with Dickey behind the plate and have a decent Hank Aaron, Felipe Alou as well. Plus, a nice Pat Jarvis season for the bullpen. This is beginning to sound like a broken record but, again: Ended up not using ANY of them. Mathews is down at the end of the bench keeping Reggie company.

6th Round: 1939 Lefty Grove. A fairly serviceable Starter but he gives me Teddy Ballgame, Jimmie Foxx (again), Bobby Doerr and a host of many other possibilities. What I was beginning to realize at this point was that I was loading up on too many "additional players" and I was running out of room for the ones that I still HAD to take. I tried every which way I could to keep Ted on the roster but he just wouldn't fit. I was able to keep Foxx as he's going to be my full-time 3B - but that's it.

7th Round: Looking at my roster, I realize that I have a shortage of infielders. Should the need arise for a fill-in (for whatever reason), it would be nice to have someone like a Frankie Frisch on stand-by. Okay, let's take 1930 Jim Bottomley. I don't really need him with Gehrig already at 1B but he does give me a nice Frisch season to go with him. Yep - you guessed it: Ended up not using him either.


8th Round: By this time, I'm already subtracting my "additional players" that I wanted, which includes 1909 Eddie Plank. Looking at my remaining SP options, none of them are really exciting. I figure I better get one that can give me some innings if nothing else and that's where 1920 Pete Alexander comes in. No teammates - just Pete.

9th Round: Okay, this is where I had to dump Joe Torre to open up another spot. 1906 Roger Bresnahan will now be platooning with Bill Dickey behind the dish.

10th Round: It was around this time that I started to notice that one particular owner kept taking players that I was looking at. NJBIGWIG must have the same talent scouts out there that I have. Of course, judging by my record in WIS, I don't know if that bodes well for him or not. Anyway, now that I've had to dump 1966 Pat Jarvis and 1981 Goose Gossage from the roster, I figured that I better start working on my bullpen. Most of the good Hoffman and Wilhelm years have gone already so I grab the best one (in my eyes) that's still available - 1997 Trevor Hoffman.

The remaining picks were just roster filler and dream crushers (by having to eliminate much better "add-on's" to make room for them:

11th Round: 1931 Dazzy Vance
12th Round: 1935 KiKi Cuyler
13th Round: 1978 Ozzie Smith
14th Round: 1975 Dennis Eckersley
15th Round: 1960 Hoyt Wilhelm

BALLPARK: Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, Ohio Why? Hell, I don't know...

END RESULT: I ended up wasting more than one pick by grabbing someone for the players that came with them - to only end up having to dump most of those additional players along the way. Next time, I'm going to TRY to pay more attention to that fact as I go along. As it is, my Starting Nine should be formidable when it comes to scoring runs. I'll predict "Top Five" when it comes to offense. The pitching staff on the other hand - it depends on if those three deadball era pitchers hold up over the course of 162 games and, hopefully, 1920 Alexander can give me a few decent games as well.

Starting Nine:

C: 1931 Bill Dickey / 1906 Roger Bresnahan
1B: 1931 Lou Gehrig
2B: 1909 Eddie Collins
3B: 1939 Jimmie Foxx
SS: 1896 Hughie Jennings
OF: 1931 Al Simmons
OF: 1896 Willie Keeler
OF: 1896 Joe Kelley
DH: 1931 Babe Ruth

Starting Rotation:

1909 Chief Bender
1909 Harry Krause
1909 Cy Morgan
1920 Pete Alexander
1939 Lefty Grove (emergency 5th Starter)

Bullpen:

Not worth mentioning...

Prediction: A whole lot of pain - some for the other team's pitchers, but mostly my own. I'd be thrilled if this team obtains a record above .500.

I'm glad you can laugh about it at least, juice. The lack of a cap made this a totally different kind of draft, but you have definitely put a finger on the key to the whole thing: using those limited teammate spots effectively. Whoever does that the best usually comes out on top.

...continued...

Round 5, Pick 1: Trevor Hoffman, 2009
I need usable seasons from at least a couple of pitchers. Hoffman fits the bill. He had a couple of teammates that were possibilities but none made the cut in the end. He will join with two others to play important rolls in my bullpen.

Player	T	IP/162	ERC#	OAV#	HR/9#	WHIP#
Hoffman, Trevor	R	R	1.46	0.185	0.26	0.9

Round 6, Pick 1: Eddie Mathews, 1954
Continuing to select nominated players who will have an active role. Mathews will man third and continue the line of starters with an OPS# of over 1. No teammates make the cut.

Player	B	PA/162	AVG#	OBP#	OPS#	SPD
Mathews, Eddie	L	633	0.288	0.42	1.01	62

Round 7, Pick 1: Jim Bottomley, 1931
I had been looking at Jim for a while. I intentionally picked a Ruth that could play both 1B and OF so that there were options for my LH platoon choice. I like this Jim better than the Reggie options so welcome to playing first against LH starters...No teammates (again)

Player	B	PA/162	AVG#	OBP#	OPS#	SPD
Bottomley, Jim	L	441	0.4	0.932	0.532	53

Round 8, Pick 1: Dazzy Vance, 1927
Starting to get worried about my pitching. I have two starters... but that isn't near enough. The options are disappearing. In a perfect world Vance would be long relief/mop up. We don't live in a perfect world and nothing about this draft is perfect. He will be part of my day 3 tandem with a future pick. They will have losing records.
.

Player	T	IP/162	ERC#	OAV#	HR/9#	WHIP#
Vance, Dazzy	R	290	3.09	0.254	0.22	1.27

Round 9, Pick 2: Ozzie Smith, 1984
I need to take an Ozzie. I will have 41 Cronin starting at short. He will need a defensive replacement. I really would have loved to have the #1 Smith but missed him... now this one will have way too many innings but with no cap it should be a huge issue.

Round 10, Pick 2: Hoyt Wilhelm, 1958
A pitcher I can use. Mr. Wilhelm will be a big piece of my bullpen. During the draft I was getting very worried about my pitching and thinking about adding another starter (not any of the Eck's left)... Can I hope to win 75% of the first two starters games... and get enough from scrubs in the last slot?

Player	T	IP/162	ERC#	OAV#	HR/9#	WHIP#
Wilhelm, Hoyt	R	139	2.16	0.209	0.35	1.09

Round 11, Pick 2: Willie Keeler, 1892
My panic about pitching led to this pick... and then I didn't end up using the pitcher i was looking at. (Amos Rusie w/571 IP and a 2.62 ERC#). As I moved on I realized the pitching upgrade would require me to use a season of Reggie... who I have never had success with. This pick did make me change my teammate catcher. I replaced a Cochrane season with a RH speedster.

Player	B	PA/162	AVG#	OBP#	OPS#	SPD
Ewing, Buck	R	463	0.32	0.378	0.881	85
Keeler, Willie	L	62	0.331	0.375	0.78	73

Round 12, Pick 1: Reggie Jackson
Best defensive Jackson left. He will mostly be a defensive replacement. Could spell an outfielder now and again.

Round 13, Pick 1: Dennis Eckersley
I was still thinking about the extra starter... but still want to take the best Eck left. Not that it's great. He will be mop up. The pick did allow me to safely move Hornsby to DH by adding Ryne Sandburg to play second.

Round 14, Pick 1: Bill Dickey
We all get one. None of them are 100% painful

Round 15, Pick 1: Roger Bresnahan?.
Took his pitching season because it was the cheapest. He shouldn't ever play.

Player	B	PA/162	AVG#	OBP#	OPS#	SPD
Sandberg, Ryne	R	705	0.318	0.372	0.9	85
Dickey, Bill	L	534	0.378	0.424	1.061	42

Prediction:
If I made the right choice with my first pitching teammates (Lefties) There will be some bad innings pitched by my staff. Hopefully they will win at a high clip while my third starter can pick up a few wins.

88 wins. Misses out on the playoffs.

It would have been more appropriate for me to have posted this yesterday when I first realized it.

When I took 1905 Bresnahan with the first overall pick it was obvious that 1905 Mathewson was the key but I also factored in at the time that I should add OF "Turkey Mike" Donlin as a teammate as well. In 1905, Donlin slashed 356/413/495 good for an OPS+ of 140. Somewhere along the line he got lost and by forgetting that I already had that OF free agent in the pocket certainly had an influence on my future picks.