Posted by chargingryno on 6/14/2021 1:25:00 AM (view original):
A couple things about me before I move onto the mindset of each team (as much as I can remember at least as all 6 teams were finished within 2 weeks of them being posted). I hate using deadballers. I don’t enjoy them, I feel they never perform as I hope (see last year's tourney where my Joss/W.Johnson/Cicotti team lost 95 games). So I tend to stay with modern pitchers, with a few deadballers perhaps thrown in. I don’t use spreadsheets when creating my teams like some do, and try not to think too much about it, but rather just pick the players I like and then make small adjustments as I go. I also try to be unique. Also, I’m horrible with predictions so I don’t even try, but I have high expectations for all my teams, and while I’ll see small tweaks I wish I could make, I still love the overall makeup of all my teams.
$70m: The Two Eight One Club:
Stadium: Petco Park
I built two teams for this theme. My initial strategy involved drafting guys like Eddie Stanky, Max Bishop, and Yank Robinson and other very low AVG/HIGH OBP hitters. My team avg was .240, and I was able to build a solid pitching staff that focused on preventing walks (2020 Hendricks, 1992 Tewksbury, and 2010 Lee led my Rotation). I assumed most teams would build similar style offenses that focuses on high BB and good defense so I decided that because most teams will likely go that route, I didn’t want to do it. So I started playing with ways to get the best hitters possible. Stanky was the only low avg/high OBP player I kept at 3B, and then a pretty crappy SS in Rodney Scott and Walt Wilmot in CF (at least I’ll get 30-60 plus plays from Wilmot and hoping for 60-80 SB from Scott). However, I upgraded many other positions and got 31 Goslin, 1913 Cravath, 2006 Victor Martinez, 1971 Reggie Smith, and 1887 King Kelly for a team AVG of .281 once adding my backup scrubs. I doubt anyone will have as strong a core of hitters as me, and I’m hoping that they’ll still perform even in Petco, while Petco will prevent some hits from my high OAV pitchers (as well as my defense of Wilmot, Smith and Kelly). I expect this team to do well. Goose and Gavvy willl both battle for MVP of the league, and Wilmot, Kelly and Smith to win gold gloves.
Hitting:
PA/162 AVG OBP SLG Salary
5,480.00 0.281 0.357 0.549 $37,960,70
Pitching:
IP/162 OAV WHIP BB/9 HR/9 Salary
1,302 0.281 1.26 1.3 0.77 $32,035,773
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$90m: The Bug Holliday of 1894-1994:
Stadium: Veterans Stadium
In the $90m I went with 94 which I’m sure will be a unique year, with maybe 1-2 other owners picking it at most, but I knew 20 was gonna be really popular, and I try to be unique in my team building. Of all the themes in this year's WISC, this is the one that took the longest, simply because I felt it had a lot of great options. Others here will say there was only one true option with 20, and maybe they’ll be right in the end, but I disagree. I played around with 11, 13, 15, 19, 20, 85, 86, 93, 95, 96, 98, all having really strong hitting and pitching rosters, before really falling in love with my 94 team. My goal in creating this was to have deadball hitters/fielders (remember my dislike for deadball pitchers) with modern pitchers. My team is pretty much an even split between 1894 hitters and 1994 pitchers, with a couple backups of each era mixed in. My raw stats don’t look too intimidating for my pitching, but they normalize really well and the offense absolutely rakes. Tuck Turner (.416/.456/.540) hits 9th. Wanted to play in Baker Bowl, but missed it by 1 year (95) and so I settled with Veterans. I expect this team to do well. There’s only one player on this team that I’ve used previously is 1894 Roger Connor, who bats 5th and should drive in 120+.
Batting Totals: |
PA/162 |
AVG |
OBP |
SLG |
Salary |
|
5752 |
0.347 |
0.411 |
0.493 |
$44,040,619 |
Pitching Totals: |
IP/162 |
ERA |
OAV |
WHIP |
BB/9 |
HR/9 |
Salary |
|
1,453 |
3.19 |
0.223 |
1.16 |
3.07 |
0.72 |
$45,876,988 |
——————————————————————
$110m: Sandy King of the Hill:
Stadium: Baker Bowl
For this theme, there’s a bit of a backstory, and an interesting twist at the end.
There was a similar theme last year, where you drafted a team and then had to twist players a specific number of years forward or backwards and all players had to follow the same number. So it could be 1,2,3, etc years forward or back. I spent more time on that team than any other last year and finally put in a team I thought was going to dominate, with Cicotte, Joss, and Walter Johnson anchoring both teams. I think I won (maybe) 60-70 games. And never got to use my 2nd team.
So this year, I took a much more simplistic route of team building and built the absolute best round 1 team I could build, with no thoughts on even building a round 2 team unless I needed to build one down the road. Picked up my favorite player in the sim, 1919 Gavvy Cravath, and will have him platooning with 73 Reggie Smith and 1894 Roger Connor (partial 537 PA version). Heilman (.394), Burkett (.396), and 1887 King Kelly (another sim favorite) anchor my offense. Picked up the best 4 man rotation I felt I could in the cap, (Verlander, Kershaw, Santana, Koufax) and drafted what looks on paper to be a dominant bullpen.
So I sent my team in to Ozo for verification, Sending him just my round 1 team and hadn’t even considered who anyone on my round 2 roster would be except for Sam Wise, as I knew he’d be a perfect companion for my 1887 King Kelly. So when ozo replied and said “go ahead and send me your round 2 team”, I slightly panicked. But did some quick looks (pulled up team from player links and then just picked the players that best filled out my team. In all, it took me about 1-2 hours and I put together a roster that rivaled my initial team, but is still a drop in overall talent, and I didn’t need to make any roster changes to my original team. Both teams had less than $50k cash leftover. I had to be a little more creative when building the 2nd roster, but still got some solid players with 26 Babe Ruth, 16 Trout, 89 Henderson, 88 Cap Anson, 87 Sam Wise, 2015 Grienke, and 2020 Degrom and Maeda thanks to some scrubs from team 1. Did most owners spend more time on these teams than me? 100%. Will their extra time and work pay off? Most likely, but I think my teams are pretty solid nonetheless!
ROUND 1:
|
PA/162 |
AVG |
OBP |
SLG |
Salary |
Batting Totals |
5729 |
0.334 |
0.411 |
0.508 |
$56,650,177 |
|
IP/162 |
ERA |
OAV |
WHIP |
BB/9 |
HR/9 |
Salary |
Pitching Totals |
1,408 |
2.43 |
0.201 |
0.96 |
2.09 |
0.77 |
$53,333,520 |
ROUND 2:
Batting Totals |
PA/162 |
AVG |
OBP |
SLG |
Salary |
|
5863 |
0.308 |
0.402 |
0.477 |
$57,506,110 |
Pitching Totals |
IP/162 |
ERA |
OAV |
WHIP |
BB/9 |
HR/9 |
Salary |
|
1,415 |
2.46 |
0.212 |
1.01 |
2.09 |
0.56 |
$52,443,948 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
——————————————————————
$120m: Babe’s on 2B, Goose on First?:
Stadium: Baker Bowl
This was my favorite theme to build, as I loved finding guys who I may not normally use, and also guys who’re some of my favorites (with the group I selected (doubles) I grabbed some of my sim favorites 19 Cravath, 87 Kelly, 31 Goose). My strategy for this theme, as I am sure it was for many owners, was to grab guys who fit as closely to the other hit types without going over. I have a few guys with 3B’s in the 2.0’s, a few HR’s in the 5.0’s, and 1B’s in the 20’s, hoping to optimize my offense with a little bit of everything.
My first order of business however was my pitching. The restriction of 1930-2020 didn’t change my team building whatsoever as, you may recall, I hate deadballers. I split my salary in two and made the best rotation I could with $60m. It’s very similar to my $110m rotation with 15 Kershaw, 11 Verlander, 04 Santana returning, but with 97 Pedro taking over for Koufax with the extra salary. Also created a lights out bullpen with Sherriff, Manaea, Smyly, Bailey, Tiefenauer, Erasmo, Romo, Rivera and Gagne in the pen. Rivera’s .209oav is the highest in the bullpen, as is Bailey’s 0.96 whip. With my pitching completed, I then set to making different teams with each hit type to see what I liked best.
I made a singles team, and hated it because of the lack of power. Created a triples team, and hated it because it just didn’t look as competitive as the other teams I built. Created a doubles and a home run team, and I loved them both. While this was my favorite theme to build, it’s the only one I have regrets with as I wish I’d have gone with my HR team over my doubles team. Not because I feel it’d necessarily win more games, but it would have stayed true to my unique team entries, and I think it just would have been a lot of fun. Alas, I decided that while the doubles team didn’t hit as many bombs as the HR team, they can still mash, and put up a team total of 174HR. One of the reasons I put this team in the Baker Bowl was to absolutely capitalize on my doubles, but also to see increases in 3B and HR.
|
PA/162 |
AVG |
OBP |
SLG |
Salary |
|
|
Batting Totals |
5894 |
0.346 |
0.431 |
0.558 |
$61,667,137 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
IP/162 |
ERA |
OAV |
WHIP |
BB/9 |
HR/9 |
Salary |
Pitching Totals |
1,370 |
2.11 |
0.189 |
0.9 |
2.05 |
0.7 |
$58,316,766 |
——————————————————————
$140m: Why afraid?? Cause 70 Eight(y) 90
Stadium: Baker Bowl
Like with most of the teams I created, I didn’t think too hard about overall composition or make spreadsheets on the different options I had, I looked at group 1, and liked the idea of 1890 hitters/defense, looked at group 2, and I liked the 1880’s hitters/defense/pitching, and then in box 3, it was really just between 1970 and 2000 for pitching/bullpen, and since I’d pretty much exclusively made my teams at this point with pitching >2000, I decided to have a little fun and took 1970. For reasons I don’t remember now, I knew I wanted 1888 Tim Keefe (a rare deadballer on my team) to anchor my staff, and then went with 1971 Vida Blue, 1885 Toad Ramsey, and 1886 Jim Handiboe who will all alternate days with Keefe in a unique 2A/2B/2B/2B rotation. With 1970 I knew I had a lot of great RP’s, and while their numbers aren’t as gaudy as the 2000/2010/2020 numbers, this staff is built to win.
Offensively, I had a ton of options, but knowing I had Keefe, Handiboe, Ramsey for the 1880’s, Blue and the bullpen from the 70’s -plus 1973 Reggie Smith and some key bench players in Gates Brown, George Thomas, and Oscar Gamble, I knew the bulk of my offense needed to come from 1890. Insert Ed Delahanty (.410), Sam Thompson (.392/.654slg), George Davis (.353), John McGraw (.391/.547obp), and Billy Hamilton (.330) anchor my offense, with 1880’s Roger Connor (.355), King Kelly (.322) and Cap Anson (.371) filling the holes. This team, like my $90m theme, absolutely rakes.
Box 1: 1890: $45,884,965 |
Box 2: 1880: $52,141,091 |
Box 3: 1970: $41,917,672 |
3B |
1899 John McGraw |
C |
1886 Cap Anson |
OF 1973 Reggie Smith |
|
SS |
1897 George Davis |
1B |
1886 Roger Connor |
OF |
1979 Oscar Gamble |
OF |
1899 Ed Delahanty |
2B |
1887 King Kelly |
2B |
1972 Larvell Blanks |
OF |
1895 Sam Thompson |
SP |
1888 Tim Keefe |
SS |
1974 Rick Auerbach |
OF |
1892 Billy Hamilton |
SP/RP |
1886 Jim Handiboe |
OF |
1971 Gates Brown |
|
|
SP/RP |
1885 Toad Ramsey |
OF |
1970 George Thomas |
|
|
|
|
SP/RP |
1971 Vida Blue |
|
|
|
|
SP/RP |
1974 Dale Murray |
|
|
|
|
SP/RP |
1973 Don McMahon |
|
|
|
|
SP/RP |
1976 Grant Jackson |
|
|
|
|
SP/RP |
1979 Bruce Sutter |
|
|
|
|
SP/RP |
1972 Doug Rau |
|
|
|
|
SP/RP |
1972 Steve Busby |
|
|
|
|
SP/RP |
1972 Ramon Hernandez |
|
PA/162 |
AVG |
OBP |
SLG |
Salary |
|
|
Batting Totals |
6684 |
0.358 |
0.432 |
0.525 |
$79,731,683 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
IP/162 |
ERA |
OAV |
WHIP |
BB/9 |
HR/9 |
Salary |
Pitching Totals |
1,518 |
1.9 |
0.189 |
0.95 |
2.4 |
0.25 |
$60,212,045 |
——————————————————————
$178m(var): .70 Reasons Coors Was a Mistake
Stadium: Coors Field
I am not a high cap player. I do really well in 60-80m, do alright in 90-120, but anything over that and I really start to struggle. So when I got to this team, I didn’t think too much on the value of each player, or think of ways to increase my HR/9. My thought process was to just grab the best of the best, and then see where I am at from there. Built my pitching staff first so that I would know what I had to work with and started with 13 Walter Johnson, then 2000 Pedro, and rounded out my rotation with 2020 Lamet, Bauer and Maeda. My bullpen is nothing but power studs, Andrew Miller, Smyly, Kimbrel, Verlander, Feliz, Anderson, and 16 Kershaw to anchor my bullpen. Kershaw’s .184oav is the worst in the pen this time, with Johnson’s .187oav the highest on the team. We give up some HR, but not much else. I spent almost $92m on my pitching and with my .70hr9, my offense had about $82m to play with, and play with it we did. 1920 Hornsby and Ruth, 1912 Baker, 1886 Anson and Connor, 1895 Thompson, 1960 Ted Williams and 2020 Trea Turner round out the starting team, with 1919 Cravath (told you he’s a favorite), 79 Gamble, and 41 Valo’s .420avg coming off the bench. We hit for avg, we hit for power, and with everyone in a hitters park this team should do well, and I figured “what the hell” and decided to put these guys in Coors just to see what happens and maybe **** off some opposing owners.
|
PA/162 |
AVG |
OBP |
SLG |
Salary |
|
|
Batting Totals |
5982 |
0.360 |
0.436 |
0.611 |
$82,317,995 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
IP/162 |
ERA |
OAV |
WHIP |
BB/9 |
HR/9 |
Salary |
Pitching Totals |
1,593 |
1.67 |
0.167 |
0.75 |
1.5 |
0.7 |
$91,678,350 |
——————————————————————
Finally finished write up on first page.