Hello all. I’m back with yet another seminar on how not to assemble your teams. Last year I didn’t make the cage after having advanced the previous two years because of dropouts. My general trend is down so I’m not very confident about this year’s teams, and I’m not going to even try to make predictions. Quoted stats are normalized and don’t include $200K guys unless they’re going to have to play.
$70M
.257 Magnum
Bennett Park
I only play low caps in the WISC, so I generally don’t have a good sense of what good low cap teams look like. Something tells me that they look nothing like this team.
This team took me the longest to build. I built 6 different versions and never really liked any of them. My initial thought was to use as many super-high OAV and super-low AVG $200K guys as I could get away with. I eventually settled on 4 hitters and 3 pitchers, though I went as high as 5 pitchers at one point. At first I wanted as high an average as possible, and my first team was at .270, with an AVG# of .285 for the non-200K guys. Those early teams were heavily reliant on hitters walks though, and I felt after a while that everyone would want high OAV pitchers, who would probably be low BB guys, so relying on walks for offense didn’t seem to be the right strategy. I built a couple of teams where the pitchers were decent hitters, with the idea of batting them leadoff to save PAs for the hitters, but I didn’t like those teams either. I finally decided to trim down the number of $200K pitchers and focus on home runs, so I didn’t care as much about AVG. I don’t like this team either, but I was running out of time and ideas.
The $200K pitchers got me 18 points of BA, which seems worth it.
Offense: 5.369 PA, .262/.335/.445 (.271/.339/.458 x-$200K, which will be relevant if I by some miracle make the postseason), 229 HRs
Pitching: 1,354 IP, 2.55 ERC#, 0.32 HR/9+
$90M
Se7en
Shea Stadium
I’ve never seen this movie. But I have a vague idea of what it’s about, and the relevant sin here would seem to be sloth.
I feel like the pitchers from the second half of the first decade of the 20
th century tend to be good values, so when I saw this theme I immediately decided that I would use one of those years. As this was probably the first team I completed, I don’t particularly remember my reasoning behind choosing these years, but I’m guessing it has to do with the fact that the 2007 Posada (who will also appear on my following two teams) and Chipper are among my most often used players in the sim. I only used two 1907 hitters, Sherry Magee and George Stone. My pitching staff is all 1907 except for 4 relievers. I like my offense here quite a bit, but for some reason I skimped on pitching. I spent $49.9M on bats and only $40.1M on arms. I don’t know why I did this. I suppose it’s because I prefer offense, and others tend to spend less on offense which allows me to get away with spending less for hurlers. I chose Shea to try to stretch out my mediocre innings. Maybe I should have spent more time on this team, although that doesn’t appear to have worked for my $70M team so who knows?
Offense: 5,387 PA, .319/.395/.489 (.323/.401/.496 in the postseason), 149 HRs
Pitching: 1.397 IP, 2.37 ERC#, 0.17 HR/9+
$110M
G – I – R – L – F – R – E – N
Braves Field
It’s rather depressing to me that there’s likely an entire generation of people out there who either don’t know who Jonathan Richman is, or only know him from his Greek chorus-esque appearances in the movie There’s Something About Mary. He should be universally known for having fronted The Modern Lovers, who, in their first iteration, recorded just one early 70’s album but featured drummer David Robinson, later of The Cars, and keyboardist Jerry Harrison, later of Talking Heads. The original Modern Lovers album is an absolute joy, featuring the anthemic Roadrunner and other classics such as Pablo Picasso and Astral Plane. My team name here refers to another of that album’s songs, Girlfriend, which includes my favorite drum entry of all time. The drums can best be described as *stumbling* into the song; the percussive equivalent of when you’re walking through the woods and your foot gets caught on one of those tree roots that grow out of and back into the ground.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veNzHk-ZNEs&list=RDveNzHk-ZNEs&start_radio=1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Modern_Lovers
Given the song’s mention of the Fenway it would’ve been optimal for me to have chosen Fenway Park, but I didn’t think I drafted enough innings for that. The Museum of Fine Arts (with the room where they keep the Cezanne) is across the street from the old Huntington Avenue Grounds so I would’ve loved to have played there, but I didn’t have any players who called that home, so I settled for Braves Field, which was just a short pleasant walk from the MFA through the Fenway.
As for the team? Well, $110M is the cap where I feel most comfortable, so if it’s not good I’m in trouble. I think it is good. The process of creating it was pretty basic: find a bunch of players who I like at this cap who either have teammates who are also usable at $110M or have $200K teammates. Assuming I advance, each of my $110M teams will feature a late Red Sox Babe Ruth. I’m guessing that Kauff/Falkenberg and Bernhard/Lajoie will be popular combos. I’m guessing that Pagliarulo/Poole will not be. I’m using ’92 Schilling in a 2-man tandem (tandem is the only way to use that Schilling at just over 5 IP/G) which is fine, but using his teammate Kruk as my starting 1B in round 2 is probably evidence that even if I advance I’m in trouble.
Offense: 5,461 PA, .328/.428/.533, 142 HRs (R2: 5,402 PA.329/.415/.533, 155 HRs),
Pitching: 1,397 IP, 1.88 ERC#, 0.34 HR/9+ (R2: 1,427 IP, 1.99 ERC#, 0.21 HR/9+)
$120M
Double, Double Toil and Trouble
National League Park II
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and owlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
How did Willie the Shake know what my 2021 WISC $120M team would look like?
Actually it’s probably not as bad as all that. It looks like a decent $120M team. I went with doubles since most of the guys I’d usually use fell into that category, but you’d think I’d try out teams from the other categories just to make sure that I liked doubles team the best. But I didn’t. Which is very odd. I certainly had the time, and team-building is perhaps the most fun aspect of playing this game. And not only is team-building fun, it’s free. And yet, with my $90M, $120M and $140M teams, instead of trying out various combos I pretty much picked one and went with it. And then I wonder why I don’t advance. Sometimes I’m my own worst enemy. Maybe most of the time.
The team itself should be fine though. I hadn’t used ‘93 Olerud in a while; it seemed like he was good for a long time but then got bad but hopefully he’s good again. Some more of the usual suspects made it: Posada, Berkman, Goslin. I’ve recently had great success with the 2016 Daniel Murphy so I gave him a whirl. Bill Mueller tends to outperform his meager salary so I included him. My pitching staff is a bit risky. I went with three 2-man tandems, which is fine, but I’m going to need to have each tandem average around 8 innings per game because I only drafted 145 non-$200K relief innings. My tandem starters have enough innings/pitches to make it work, but a few long extra inning games early on might doom this team. Not sure if it was worth the risk. And, of course, my first game was an 11-inning loss. Hell-broth indeed.
Offense: 5,416 PA, .345/.428/.547, 154 HRs
Pitching: 1,405 IP, 1.68 ERC#, 0.36 HR/9+
$140M
1900’s Need Not Apply
West Side Grounds
Alternate team name: 1900’s? We don’t need no stinkin’ 1900’s.
I feel like around 7 years ago everyone used to use the 19
th century hitters and I’d get all aggravated about it, and now I’m using them more than everyone else. Go figure. I’ve been on an 1890’s Phillies kick recently (Clements/Thompson/Delahanty/Hamilton), and I’ve always liked the 1880’s pitchers, including Lady Baldwin and Tim Keefe, both of whom seem like pretty good bargains. Keefe will make half of the starts, with Baldwin and 2005 Pedro tandeming the other half. Pedro will likely get consistently rocked here, but hopefully not surrender too many insurmountable leads. My bullpen, mostly from the 2000’s, is good. This is a DH league so I needed more innings, but it’s still a pretty big red flag that this team’s ERC# is significantly higher than that of my $120M team.
My offense should be good (and it better be), with Brouthers from the 1880’s and Utley and Nomar helping out the ‘90’s Phils and their crosstown compatriot Denny Lyons. I’m worried about my pitching here, but at least I’m pretty confident that I inadvertently win the prize for the most balanced salary totals across my three chosen decades:
1880’s - $46,647,801
1890’s - $46,803,626
2000’s - $46,548,112
That and a couple of bucks gets me on the subway.
Offense: 5,979 PA, .362/.439/.576, 132 HRs
Pitching: 1,464 IP, 1.77 ERC#, 0.24 HR/9+
Variable
Giving 110%
Ameriquest Field in Arlington
When I first saw this theme I thought that I'd resist the bait and instead choose my usual high-cap pitching staff. But the more I thought about it, the 2020 pitchers should have their HRs allowed normalized down so significantly that I should be able to draft a decent staff with a high gross HR/9. 7 of my 10 non-$200K pitchers are from 2020, with the exceptions being Santana (who I assume will get pummeled here since he gets hit hard at $120M, but oh well), ’16 Kershaw and ’17 Kimbrel. I added three extreme suck $200K guys to get my gross HR/9 up to 1.1. For some reason I didn’t even think to look for the Lima strategy that ozomatli discovered, and I regret that. But what I really regret is screwing up my stadium. I think the +1 HR rule originally registered with me, but then I forgot it and submitted a team with Jefferson Street Grounds. But really, the optimal play here was Mile High, but when I was informed of my incorrect stadium it was too late to change my roster to add the extra needed innings so I just went with Ameriquest. Fail.
I think my team is still decent though. The extra high cap enabled me to use a bunch of guys I’d never consider, such as the ’80 Brett and the ’41 Williams. I think my numbers look pretty good; I just wish I’d done a better job of thinking it all through beforehand.
Offense: 5,645 PA, 374/.475/.617, 180 HRs
Pitching: 1,485 IP, 1.43 ERC#, 0.53 HR/9+
See you all next year.