Posted by schwarze on 3/29/2023 8:22:00 PM (view original):
League 8, Pick 10
AL Central, Pick 4
1995 Braves, 1994 Astros, 1996 Mariners

Remember my stupid 1990 A's selection? That was my first team in this league (pick #4). I should have taken one of the Braves teams, but couldn't decide which one, so I figured I'd wait, take whichever Braves team is left and get a higher 2nd round pick. Sure enough, right after I picked the '90 A's, the next four picks were '98 Braves (ybjsports), '96 Braves (ronthegenius), '94 Braves (footballmm11) and '94 Braves (d_rock97). There was one person to pick before my turn and two Braves teams left ('93 Braves and '95 Braves). Glowguy surprised me by taking the '95 Indians next, so now I still had a choice to make. But the '93 Braves would be the 2nd pick in the AL East, while the '95 Braves would be the 4th choice in the AL Central, so that's the pick I made. Besides rostering the best season of the best pitcher on the planet, this team isn't exactly loaded. Based on my next two picks, I will end up having to roster very medicore seasons of Smoltz and Glavine. The '95 Braves hitters are decent, not excellent. Javy Lopez, Fred McGriff, David Justice and Ryan Klesko... not exactly Murderer's Row. And three of those four aren't full-time players.

The reason I waited on the Braves is so I could take the '94 Astros. They have a very strong SP, Doug Drabek, along with three solid relievers (T.Jones, Hudek, Veras). Sadly, I also have to roster Shane Reynolds to get enough SP innings. But, the best thing about this team is Bagwell and Biggio. Also, Ken Caminiti will be my starting 3B. Wait, that's all I get from the '94 Astros? I really didn't think this through.

So with my last pick, I need a SS, two OFs and lots and lots of pitching. I'm sure that will be easy to find with the 12th and last pick of the divisional draft. In retrospect, I should have taken the '95 Dodgers instead of the '94 Astros. Instead, glowguy got a steal to go with his solid '95 Indians offense. Anyway, there were a couple of teams that had two decent SPs available, but those teams didn't have a SS or really much anything else on offense (which I suppose is why those teams were still available). I finally said to myself "F*ck it" and went with all offense. Let's add '96 A-Rod (1.045 ops), '96 Griffey (1.020 ops) and '96 Edgar Martinez (1.059 ops) to an offense with '94 Bagwell (1.201 ops) plus Lopez, Biggio, McGriff, Justice, Caminiti. I may have to play McGriff out of position (OF) just to get everybody in the starting lineup.

Prediction: 69-93
With what is most likely the league's leading offense behind him, '95 Maddux could go 35-5. '94 Doug Drabek could go 20-15 while the rest of the team combines to go 14-73. The defense isn't very good and the relief pitching is suspect. Bagwell, A-Rod and Griffey might all finish in the top 5 in the MVP race. I just need to keep reminding myself that it's ok that some of my teams do not advance to round 4. It's always interesting how different people feel about their hitting/pitching as it relates to their team's overall projected success. I'm sure others (who prefer offense over pitching) would look at this roster and think, this team will crush it offensively and the lower end of the pitching isn't terrible. 90 wins is reasonable.

Final Overall Rank: 69th
Final Record: 87-75
League Hitting Rank: 2nd
League Pitching Rank: 21st

Well, 87 wins was way better than anticipated although I was right about ranking high in offense and low in pitching. My fielding% was top 5, but range below average. Maddux ended up going 28-5, 2.80 (ranked 3rd in ERA, behind both versions of '94 Maddux) and won the Cy Young, as expected behind this offense. Drabek was 17-10, 5.97. The rest of the team went 42-60. The bullpen was atrocious (35/51 in saves).

Bagwell (.332, .415, .625, 152 RBIs) was 3rd in MVP. Griffey was solid (.299, .382, .560). A-Rod (.317, .369, .494) was so-so considering his actual stats (.358, .414, .631). Not surprisingly, the team was great offensively at home (Kingdome).

'95 Greg Maddux started 37 games for me and went 28-5 with 4 no-decisions. Here are the games Maddux didn't win (in reverse chronological order). He had 3 *bad* games.

Lost 2-0 to '94 Greg Maddux
No decision, bullpen blew 5-3 ninth inning lead
Lost 8-1 to '92 David Cone
No decision, left game tied 1-1 in 8th inning (allowed just 1 hit)
No decision, left game leading 1-0, bullpen blew ninth inning lead.
No decision, left game after 6, tied 3-3
Lost 8-1 to Melido Perez (who pitched 8 innings, allowing 1 run and improved his ERA to 6.34) - WTF?
Lost 7-3 to '88 Roger Clemens
Lost 1-0 to '96 Greg Maddux

Posted by schwarze on 3/29/2023 12:53:00 PM (view original):
League 9, Pick 11
AL East, Pick 2
2006 Twins, 2005 Mets, 2005 Cardinals

barracuda3 selected this 2006 Twins team with pick #5, so I was more than happy to grab the AL East version with pick #11, even though I have to play in the 2005 Astros division. Mauer (C), Morneau (1B), Castillo (2B) are the useful hitters while the pitching is deep. 2006 isn't Santana's best season, but it's still good and the Twins bullpen provides 3 pitchers and 242 innings.

With my next pick, I needed a 3B, SS, OFs and more pitching. I could foresee that I wasn't getting 4 good pitchers in this draft, so I wanted 3 really good pitchers. The '05 Mets gave me David Wright, Carlos Beltran , Cliff Floyd and most importantly, Pedro Martinez. I also got 4 RPs / 306 IPs. But crap, I only have 2 starting pitchers so far. There aren't any teams with 2 good starters, so I have to add Tom Glavine's crappy '05 season to the rotation. The third team will need to fill SS, OF, DH and at least one stud SP. The '05 Cardinals fit the bill with Eckstein, Edmonds, L.Walker and a stud Pujols. Chris Carpenter means I have three really good SPs (693 IPs) and one crappy SP (Glavine).

Prediction: 85-77
Oddly enough, I think this team might do better than initally expected. The defense is really good. Carpenter, Santana & Pedro are 3 of the top 10 starting pitchers in this era (2004-06). The bullpen has 342 innings of sub 1.02 whip. The hitting isn't great, but won't be the worst in the league (maybe slightly below average). I think that is enough to get the team above .500 and maybe battling for a wildcard spot if things break right (i.e., 1-run game luck).

Final Overall Rank: 172nd
Final Record: 75-87
Expected Winning%: 520
League Hitting Rank: 23rd
League Pitching Rank: 2nd

There were only two teams that failed to advance to round 4 that outscored it's opponents for the entire season. This team (+33 run diff) and boddicker's 1920 Pirates team (+7 run diff). One more win, and they advance (knocking out nordawg). So yes - I can claim I had the best "unluckiest" team. I predicted 85 wins and the .520 exp win% equates to 84.3 wins. Although they were 22-23 in 1-run games, they were 11-20 in 2-run games.

The offense has two top 10 most underachieving players with Justin Morneau (.689 sim ops vs .984 rl ops) and Jim Edmonds (.683 vs .918). At least '05 Pujols was good (3rd in MVP race, .323, .403, .546, 26+ plays at 1B). Speaking of defense, this team ranked top 5 in fielding% and #1 in range (105+ plays vs 19 -minus plays). So for those that argue great defense & great pitching equates to winning close game luck, here's an example to prove you wrong.

The pitching staff was solid (#2 ranking), and in a very rare occurrence for my teams, the bullpen was much better than the SPs. The top six bullpen ERAs (in 373 combined innings) were 1.51, 2.57, 2.93, 3.02, 3.17, 3.39. Meanwhile, my supposedly good 3 starting pitchers' ERAs were 4.22 ('06 Santana, 13-15), 4.63 ('05 Pedro, 11-14) and 5.23 ('05 Carpenter 14-18). I was right about '05 Glavine sucking though... 12-19, 7.00.

I'm pretty sure that if we re-played this season 1000 times, this team's 75-win result would be in the bottom 5-10% of outcomes.

Posted by schwarze on 3/29/2023 3:28:00 PM (view original):
League 1, Pick 13
AL East, Pick 3
1909 Cubs, 1908 Pirates, 1908 Tigers

This is my third team in League 1. The 1909 Cubs was ranked first in this division, slightly ahead of 09 A's and 09 PIrates who were the first two picks of this division. I really wanted 1908 Pirates, but couldn't pass up the depth of this Cubs pitching staff (Brown, Overall, Reulbach, Kroh, HIgginbotham = 1167 innings). Chance, Evers & Hofman are usable hitters. Now, I need to hold my breath on the fourth pick.

pedrocerrano jumped into this league at pick#4, but he chose the '08 Giants and '10 A's, which is a strong combination. But I really wanted '08 Honus Wagner, so while sitting in the airport's cell phone lot waiting for my daughter's flight to come in, I quickly snapped up the '08 Pirates. Beside Wagner, this team provided me a 3B (Tommy Leach), two OFs (Fred Clarke, Roy Thomas) and three pitchers (Vic Willis, Howie Camnitz, Irv Young).

When I got home, I started to look at what my next pick should be. That's when I realized that I may have been better off taking the '09 Tigers instead of the '08 Pirates. Although the Tigers SS (Donnie Bush) was a downgrade from Honus, the team would have provided way more offense with Sam Crawford and Ty Cobb (when compared to Fred Clarke / Roy Thomas). Damn. Both the '09 and '10 Tigers went before my turn came up. But, the good news is that the '08 Tigers was still available, so I was able to get a much lesser version of Cobb & Crawford plus Matty McIntyre is an upgrade over my Pirates OFs. Sadly, I don't have any good catcher options so I am starting two guys with OPS of .617 and .556. Ugh.

Prediction: 84-78
This team has A and A+ range at almost every position and combined with my pitching staff, that means this team should be among the top 5 in run suppression. The offense will rely on my four good hitters (Wagner, Crawford, Cobb, McIntyre), but the bottom of the order will struggle to score. Feels like a lot of 2-1 games. Knowing my history in 1-run game luck, I am lowering my win total by 4 games as I write this.

Final Overall Rank: 57th
Final Record: 88-74
League Hitting Rank: 8th
League Pitching Rank: 4th

LOL, I lowered my win total from 88 to 84 wins and ended up winning 88 games. I was right about my luck in close low-scoring games though as this team went 17-27 in 1-run games. Their .582 Exp Win% was the best in the A.L., but we ended up getting the wildcard. This division was very tough as all 4 teams won 80+ games and all four had an Exp Win% of .539 or better.

Defensively, we had 100+ plays but that only ranked 13th (below average). The team was below average in fielding%. This team ranked 4th in run suppression as expected but when I sorted the teams by ERA, this team ranks third.... and I just realized that my three teams in this league rank 1-2-3. Individually, '09 Mordecai Brown (30-14, 2.72) won the AL Cy Young against strong competition. '09 Orval Overall (14-14, 21.28 saves, 2.82 in 94 games) was my main long reliever / closer and finished 8th in ERA.

Despite finishing 5th in OPS, '08 Wagner (.344, .406, .490) didn't crack the top 5 in MVP. His 106 RBIs was 2nd best on my team, one behind '08 Cobb (.326, .375, .445). As I expected, '08 McIntyre (.300, .401, .385) and '08 Crawford (.300, .328, .437) were the only other batters with an OPS over .700 on my team.

Despite two of my three League 1 teams underachieving their Exp Win%, I like this era way more than the modern era, so I'm glad I had three teams in this league.

Posted by schwarze on 3/29/2023 5:54:00 PM (view original):
League 6, Pick 14
AL West, Pick 3
1974 Reds, 1972 Dodgers, 1972 Cubs

This is my second team in league 6 and it had to be an AL team (1968-74). I didn't want to be in the AL East with pedrocerrano's '69 Orioles juggernaut, so I could either pick 4th in the AL Central or 3rd in the AL West. I chose the AL West because I thought the '74 Reds offense would have a huge advantage over the weak hitting teams in this era. This Reds team had seven starting batters that had OPS+ of 106 or higher, which gave me lots of flexibility. In retrospect, I should have taken the '74 Dodgers which had a ton of pitching plus some usable offensive pieces. Not surprisingly, kstober grabbed them at pick 4.

So this is where researching too many teams cost me. After kstober's double pick on the end, it was my turn. I had a bunch of recent drafts where I was picking on the end and drafting two teams in a row, I did the same thing here. I built a team I really liked using the '72 Dodgers and '74 Braves (to add to my '74 Reds). After doing all the research, I was ready to post my two picks - and that's when I realized I wasn't picking at the end. Due to lack of SP options, the '74 Braves were the better choice, given that I had to wait 4 picks before I could select my third team. But I didn't want to hold things up so instead of posted the '72 Dodgers instead. Other than '72 Sutton, this team really isn't that strong. The offense sucks and Tommy John is ok as an SP3 or SP4. THey have a couple of decent RPs. So of course, the 74 Braves get taken and now I'm scrambling.

At this point, I know this team is going to suck at starting pitching. I decide to roster '74 Don Gullett from my Reds team. I still need another 400-500 innings. Oh, and I need a 3B and some OFs. When I know my team is going to suck anyway, let's go with offense. Losing 10-8 is way more fun than losing 2-0 all the time. Welcome to the team Ron Santo, Billy Williams, Jose Cardenal, Fergie Jenkins, Bill Hands and Rick Reuschel.

Prediction: 73-89
Even had I taken the '74 Braves in round 2 and had a better starting pitching staff, I'm not sure what team I would've taken in round 3 (assuming '72 Dodgers were off the board). Maybe this team was doomed from the start. I absolutely should have taken the '74 Dodgers first and locked up the pitching. Anyway, this team should be above average offensively, but is going to be a bottom 10 pitching staff. Once again, a reminder for myself that it's ok if a few of my teams suck and don't advance to round 4.

Final Overall Rank: 87th
Final Record: 84-78
League Hitting Rank: 20th
League Pitching Rank: 10th

So clearly I know nothing. I drafted this team for offense and thought the pitching would suck, so of course, this team can't score and has been carried by the pitching. Makes perfect sense. My offensive study showed that this team is the 2nd most underachieving offense in the league. I posted this in the forum a couple of days ago... "Big Red Machine sim batting averages: .238 (Bench), .235 (Rose), .220 (Morgan), .243 (Concepcion), .214 (Geronimo), .190 (T.Perez). Plus Don Gullett 9-15, 6.32 ERA. A solid first round selection." Who knew that the reason the team is doing well has nothing to do with any of the Cincinnati Reds players?.

The two best hitters on the team are Billy Williams (.273, .332, 543) and Ron Santo (.260, 323, 406)... Not exactly Murderers Row statistically. Joe Morgan (.222, .372, .346) is my third best hitter and he ranked as the 14th most underachieving hitter in the league. So how in the hell does this team win 84 games?

Well, '72 Don Sutton (23-9, 2.65) wins the Cy Young so that helps. But raise your hand if you thought Bill Hands (16-13, 4.16) and Tommy John (14-11, 21/27 saves, 4.58) would be positive contributors. With the exception of Don Sutton, this entire team's statistical profile is upside down. The hitters should have been way better and the pitchers should have been way worse.

Posted by redcped on 3/28/2023 6:13:00 PM (view original):
League 1, Pick 6
AL Central, Pick 1
1912 Red Sox/1912 Pirates/1912 Giants

When my spot came up here, there were 5 owners in 5 different divisions. I only gave a little thought to being a second team anywhere, but I suppose maybe I should have. There are definitely deeper division groups than others, and I hope this works out well. The fact that all the teams I drafted were taken in the first 6 picks of the 1912-14 division feels pretty validating at least. There are some super dominant SP available in this division, but some of them (looking at you, 1910 Ed Walsh) have such abhorrent offenses attached to them that it's no surprise no one took them. But one thing I was pretty sure of is that every team would have a pretty strong pitching staff in this league and that I'd better have some offense to counter that.

I'm not sure if the 1912 Red Sox were a clearly great first pick, but they brought a strong Joe Wood (too bad pitchers don't hit here!) and a couple other rosterable pitchers in O'Brien, Collins, and Bedient. Most importantly, they brought a brilliant Tris Speaker in one of my favorite seasons for him, and a few other decent bats if not world-beaters. I still needed to fill 6-7 lineup spots and 2 rotation spots with the other picks, and that made it basically untenable to grab a superstud SP who had no help. The 1912 Pirates offered a handful of useful pitchers (Hank Robinson will make an unlikely 188-inning closer who will hopefully get 6-9 outs on a regular basis), a strong Honus with a great glove, and triples machine Chief Wilson, plus another A+ outfielder in Max Carey. The 1912 Giants filled the rest of the lineup out with Merkle, Meyers, and Doyle, and I got 2/3 of my rotation in an OK but not amazing Mathewson and a slightly walks-prone Jeff Tesreau.

All in all, it looks like a competitive team to me. I don't think the lineups will be good enough to make my slightly underpar pitching suffer too much. I've got outstanding range in the outfield and decent gloves except at 2B in the infield. Every hitter in the lineup was .300+ so there's some depth there. The ballpark choices didn't really suit my offense all that well, so I settled for a basically neutral Forbes over Fenway or Polo that favor things we aren't especially awesome at (doubles). I don't like to make predictions, but I see this as a team that should advance to R4 at least.

Final Rank: 186 (missed cut)
Record: 74-88, 4th place, 5 games back

Despite being in a division without an 80-game winner, we still fell short after going 34-47 in the 2nd half. The offense was a tad better than league average, but the pitching was poor (4th-worst ERA). Tris Speaker was quite good (.344/.424/.474), but only one other player had an OPS over .700. Honus Wagner was particularly useless (.250/.317/.346), and Chief Wilson managed only 21 triples. The outfield racked up 65 of our 112 plus plays, but they also combined for 42 errors.

Joe Wood (25-23, 4.25) was an effective enough workhorse and Tesreau actually had a slightly better ERA (4.17), but Mathewson (11-24, 5.53) allowed a .338 OAV and gave up a whopping 526 hits in 358 innings. If he'd pitched on par with the other starters, we would have been a .500 team. Praise to Hank Robinson for a 2.84 ERA and 38 saves, but I just couldn't squeeze enough innings out of him (86 in 63 appearances). I probably shouldn't have designated him as a closer, even letting him pitch in non-save situations as I did.

Posted by redcped on 3/28/2023 6:44:00 PM (view original):
League 2, Pick 17
AL East, Pick 3
1922 Browns, 1920 Giants, 1921 Cardinals

The AL West was still sitting there with just toysboys in it, and I considered joining him. But I really didn't love the team choices in 24-26. I did think being on the plus side of 1920 would assure a strong offense but hopefully with enough pitching. There was only one NL division with spots in it, and I didn't really think being the 11th team over there was a great strategy for moving on. So to the AL East I went, after a lot of stressing over the choice.

The 1922 Browns appealed to me because Sisler and Williams are the start of a very strong offense, and for the era Shocker and Vangilder seemed like at least acceptable SP options. Jack Tobin, Marty McManus, and Hank Severeid also looked like solid starters to me. The key to this combination working, though, turned out to be the 1920 Giants falling to me at my second pick. For one thing, I'm getting my whole rotation from them (Barnes, Nehf, Toney). Add in a A++ range Dave Bancroft and a potent Ross Youngs to the lineup, and it was an easy call. That still left me with question marks at 3B and an OF/DH spot, and I decided to go all in on the offense with the 21 Cards. For one thing, there's a marvelous Hornsby who can play 3B and gives me three fabulous hitters atop the lineup. Add in two more .900+ OPS guys in Austin McHenry and Jack Fournier and suddenly Tobin finds himself out of the lineup.

The offense will, I assume, be among the best in the league, although I've been wrong before. We've got pretty good range but will make a lot of errors, so that combined with iffy arms does seem a harbinger of a lot of 10-8 games. I feel like we can be on the plus side of enough of those to cause trouble, though.

Final rank: 180 (missed cut)
Record: 74-88, 3rd place, 21 games out

So ejstockman sent me a SM during the draft saying when I took the 1920 Giants, the division was over. Turned out, he was right in the opposite direction. He won 95 games, took the division by 20 games, and earned a top-14 pick. I ... did not.

The offense did what it was supposed to do. We were 3rd in runs and 4th in OPS. Our pitching wasn't the worst, only the 5th worst (6.17 ERA, a run higher than league average). And all that added up to an exactly .500 EXP%. But somehow we finished 14 games below .500 anyway. We were 19-23 in 1-run games, not enough to explain it. Just bad luck maybe?

George Sisler was hitting .407 at one point midseason but tapered off to just .362. Hornsby, Williams, and McHenry all put up great seasons offensively. Seven hitters racked up 200+ hits, and the other two had 197 and 192. So no, offense wasn't the problem.

Dave Bancroft racked up 42 plus plays and a GG, and we had 102 plus plays overall (1 more than league average). The 174 errors surely didn't help, though that was only 1 more than league average.

It adds up to what should have been an 81-81 season and a trip to the next round. Instead it's just a disappointment, missing the cut by 2 wins.

Posted by redcped on 3/29/2023 1:21:00 AM (view original):
League 4, Pick 17
NL West, Pick 3
1943 Cardinals/1942 Yankees/1942 Giants

I saw no great team to take to join schwarze's AL Central even though 3 spots remained at this pick. But I hopped into his other division instead. As it happens, my best teams in each round so far have featured the wartime Cardinals ... so why not start off with the 1943 Cards and see what I can surround them with.

The Cards have a lot of quality pitchers, though most lack the innings to be full-time rotation pieces. This isn't the best of Mort Cooper's seasons, but he did really well for me in R2 (23-8, 3.29) and I'll take that any day. I'll also be using Pollet, Brecheen, Gumbert, and Brazle -- the usual suspects. On the offensive side, well there's a lovely Mr. Musial to build around, and Walker Cooper is a solid catcher. Whitey Kurowski is usable at 3B if needed, too. I went with the 42 Yankees to get a very good Tiny Bonham for the rotation, plus a decent enough Red Ruffing to be a 3rd starter depending on how I configure those Cards guys. But the big plus is I'll get 5 lineup pieces from these Yankees: Gordon, Rizzuto, and Cullenbine in the infield, and DiMaggio and Keller in the outfield. It's not a great year for Joe D, alas, so he's batting 6th. The Giants filled the remaining lineup holes with Ott and Mize quite nicely, along with a couple of useful enough arms.

Overall, it's a team with a good but not great defense, almost no speed, a strong top 2 starters and back end of the bullpen, and a competitive lineup that gets on base well. For a late pick, I feel pretty good about how the pieces fit together. For the era, I think it's a solid team. We're playing in Yankee (I) because once again there were no great fits. I didn't pay attention to parks when I drafted at all, possibly a mistake, and just picked the best of the 3 later.

Final rank: 37 (my best team)
Record: 91-71, won division by 5 games

The offense was just below league average, but we posted the best ERA in the NL and had the best record by 3 games on that side. We had no Silver Sluggers or Gold Glovers, and our only award was the 4th-place Fireman in Howie Pollet. So this qualifies as a depth team, I'd say.

Though Joe Gordon massively underachieved (.250/.330/.375), the next five guys in the lineup put up OPS between .830 and .870 and gave us plenty of depth. As advertised, a solid lineup.

Mort Cooper didn't quite match his R2 performance (17-13, 4.56 this time), but he and Tiny Bonham (16-10, 4.42) anchored the rotation. The rest of the time I swapped in an assortment of tandems that proved effective enough. Pollet (10-6, 17/22 saves, 2.83) and Ace Adams (2.95) did a nice job closing things out. No complaints with how this turned out, though a 1-6 finish cost us any shot at the top 14.

Posted by redcped on 3/28/2023 7:49:00 PM (view original):
League 5, Pick 5
NL East, Pick 1
1951 Dodgers, 1950 Giants, 1952 Indians

My strategy as elsewhere was basically to take a team in an open division if I could, assuming one jumped out at me as the best choice. Sometimes, I just went for it anyway even without that feeling. I don't feel comfortable with pitching in this era at all, so I hope I got enough of it. And everyone will be able to hit, so it's hard to gauge. The fact that schwarze and pedro both took the '56 Yankees a couple picks after my pick suggests I should have thought longer and harder about them. But oh well ... it's nice to have some Dodgers on hand anyway.

The 51 Bums had two of the best players at their position in Campanella and Robinson and several other useful hitters. There's not a ton pitching-wise, alas, with just Newcombe and Labine making the cut. The Giants pick will likely only turn out as well as Jim Hearn fares. If I get a good season, I'll be in good shape. If I get a schwarze season, then I'm probably not making the playoffs. Larry Jansen qualifies as a strong arm for the era, so he boosts the rotation. The only hitters who made my lineup were the .460 OBP Stanky (redundant as a 2B, but one can DH) and SS Alvin Dark. The 52 Indians filled the remaining gaps pretty well, with Lemon moving atop my rotation and bringing a couple solid relief arms. Larry Doby and Al Rosen pop nicely into the lineup, along with Dale Mitchell (probably platooning with Andy Pafko).

This squad has a little bit of speed, a solid defense, some nice table-setters atop the lineup, and plenty of thump following. Ebbets Field boosts the power a bit, because why not? The pitching won't be so fantastic regardless. I'm pretty happy with the balance here and no big holes. Hopeful there's a playoff contender lurking in this bunch.

Final rank: 50
Record: 89-73, won division by 8 games

At the halfway point this team was a major disappointment, 38-43 and on the edge of not advancing. But we went 51-30 in the second half and won the division going away. We finished 5th in runs scored (9th in OPS) and 6th in runs allowed (10th in ERA). Turned out there was a contender in this group, even if they hardly showed it early.

A lot of the difference in the two halves comes down to Jim Hearn's bullpen work. At the midpoint, he'd managed to get his ERA down to 5.29 with a 1.46 WHIP and a .277 OAV. But he finished the season at 3.97 with a 1.19 WHIP and a .222 OAV. In 70 second-half innings, he had a 2.96 ERA and a 1.00 WHIP, allowing just 46 hits and 9 homers. I guess I reverse jinxed him with all my negative posts in the first half. Overall he was 9-5 and 11/14 in saves but mostly critical in eating up those 7th and 8th innings.

George Spencer was an outstanding closer for me, with 30/32 saves and a 0.88 WHIP and 2.93 ERA in 31 innings. The three-man rotation all managed to win 20+ games, though none really stood out otherwise.

Stanky (.408 OBP, 129 runs) and Robinson were good at getting on base atop the order, but overall Jackie was a disappointment at .268/.364/.390. The middle of the order picked up the slack, with Rosen (.294/.368/.530), Doby (.270/.360/.516) and Hodges (.258/.360/.533). Campanella was a bit subpar at .259/.322/.473, but he was still 3rd in RBI with 118.

Posted by 3dayrotation on 3/28/2023 11:59:00 AM (view original):
League 8, Pick 13

1992 Pirates
Seven of the 12 picks before me were AL Braves teams. Do not want me none of that. The options left there might look ok... until you compare them to the ones that already went. NL it is. Lets go offense and defense again figuring that three teams of pitchers should give me enough to be at least average. The Pirates give me a bottom of the order defense minded SS, a Bonds who can still run as well as hit and a center fielder in Van Slyke. It also covers my catching with some good D, Arms and bats. Drabeck and Wakefield will pitch so the defense will be needed.

1992 Blue Jays
Mover average pitching that will need the offense and defense to support it. Alomar, Winfield, and Olerud will play (some in platoon type roles) and Devon White will be a defensive replacement and pinch runner... something you can only spend $5.4 Mil on in a league like this. This team ended up brining in more pitching than I thought it would... probably not a great thing. The rest of my starting pitchers were filled out after this pick. They make up a decent percentage of my bullpen too.

1992 Padres
I need a third baseman to finish out my batting order. Other pieces would be nice too. I had two teams on my list after my last pick. This team and the 90's Reds. Both teams gave me an option at third and a back up at short. Thanks to Schwarze I didn't have to choose. Shefield is another bat with D. Why not have a team that is easy to hate with him and Bonds hitting 3/4 every day. McGriff and Gwynn will also finish out some platoons.

Outlook:
Not at all sure. I like some of the players individually but I am not sure the team fits together right. I have WAY more IP and PA's than I need and am afraid the team is too average to be successful. At least I won't have to beat the Braves teams head to head.

93-69, won division.

VERY happy i didn't have to face the braves teams over and over and over. think that might have been the best part of this team.

gold gloves at 3b, ss and center. silver slugger at 2b and bonds losing out to himself in the mvp race (and rf silver slugger i assume). team hit well, pitched around league average and played stellar defense. for a good part of the season it looked like they might get a top pick in next rounds draft... and then they ended slow and gave up too many runs. guess they did fit together.

LG 1 – 1914 Whales / 1913 Athletics / 1914 Phillies
Pick 1 - I love the Whales pitching staff. It’s practically a complete pitching staff already. Claude Hendrix is a legit ace. He may not be as dominant as 1914 Joe Wood, but he’s got a 100 innings over him. The other 4 starters, Lange, Fisk and Watson will likely be league average – which is not a bad thing as it allows me to upgrade with a later pick or focus on offense for picks 2 and 3. I also get a good OF and one of the best C of the era.
Pick 2 –I was not missing out on the other offensive juggernaut of Collins and Baker. There were other OFs and SS that I could get from a Tigers or Phillies team with pick #3, so I could wait for either of those. They also gave me three pitchers for my bullpen.
Pick 3 – It was between the 1914 Tigers and 1914 Phillies. Phillies had a better offense in Cravath, Becker and Magee. The Tigers had better pitching, but they didn’t have any pitchers that I would have used anyways, so Phillies it was.
This is a good team in my opinion. My hitting is solid 1-9. My only weakness is offense at 1B (110+ OPS), but I got a couple of guys there who can duke it out to see who can win the job. My defense is a bit problematic mostly C’s and D’s. At least this is 1914 and not 1894. I think I’ll do well in my division, not sure how I’ll do against the rest of the league.
Prediction – 88 wins

Actual Wins 88
Exp Wins 86
RS 5th place
RA 12th

Hey, I was exactly on target! Essentially using my 1st pick on my pitching staff and turned out fine. Hendrix (3.76), Lange (3.86), Watson (4.00), Fiske (4.80) and Rankin Johnson (3.33) had solid ERAs. They accounted for 82% of my innings pitched. Even though I was ranked 12th in RA, this allowed me to focus on offense with picks 2 and 3 and I was ranked 5th overall in RS. Also, I find that funny as I didn't have a player in the top 25 in OPS. My highest OPS was Eddie Collins with .780. But my average OPS was .718 (4th overall) which means I had a deep lineup, which is what I said in my original post. I also lead the league in homeruns hit and homeruns allowed.

LG 2 – 1914 Whales / 1914 Phillies / 1914 Athletics
Pick 1 – see above
Pick 2 – see above
Pick 3 – see above
I actually drafted this team first so my league 1 team is a copy of this team. The difference is 1914 vs the 1913 A’s. I got a weaker 1B, The pitchers are worse too. They are slightly better defensively. They’re still pretty good.
Prediction – 86 wins

Actual wins 81
Exp wins 78
RS 18th
RA 8th

For a team that picked first, I really did a poor job. I was lucky to have a .500 record as I was sub .500 for most of the season until the pretty late into the season. I scored slightly more runs than my league 1 team, but allowed a lot more as well. That likely has to do with deadball vs live ball teams. Hendrix (3.60), Lange (4.18), Fiske (4.58), Watson (4.94) and Johnson (3.57) all played similar to lg 1 with slightly higher ERAs. And they still comprised 78% of all innings. Unfortunately, Eddie Plank (7.96) and Pete Alexander (5.13) were a pretty bad other 11%.

LG 2 – 1925 Reds / 1925 Cardinals / 1925 Pirates
Pick 1 – the pitching of course. Donohue, Rixey and Luque give me 3 aces. This was a no-brainer. Roush is OK and is an average starting OF for me.
Pick 2 & 3 – back to back – These two teams fit well together. I got most of my offense here including a $12M Hornsby. Sure, I looked at the other Hornsby, but it was a question of quality vs quantity and this Hornsby was not as good defensively, but about equal offensively and the 25 Cards had better versions of Ray Blades and Jim Bottomley. I also got my platoon C in Mike Gonzalez is weak offensively but at least has an A arm which is still important for this era. The Pirates pick gave me an excellent Max Carey, Kiki Cuyler and at least average SS Glenn Wright, 3B Pie Traynor and C Earl Wilson which were needs. I got a 4^th starter in Lee Meadows, but he’s below average and will get pounded.
This team features strong starting pitching and a strong lineup. My bullpen and my 4^th starter are weak and my defense at 2B is bad with Hornsby’s D+/C-.
Prediction – 86 wins

Actual wins 82
Exp wins 81
RS 7th
RA 18th

My pitching was not as good as I thought. Donohue (5.04), Luque (5.42), Rixey (5.89), Meadows (7.42) I guess didn't normalize too well. I had to demote Meadows halfway through the season because he was so bad and I had enough innings from the other guys to go with a 3 man rotation. The hitting was pretty solid all of the way through. My platoons worked out pretty good as well. I finished 1st place in the division despite the barely over .500 record.

LG 3 – 1934 Yankees / 1936 Pirates / 1934 Tigers
Pick 1 – No choice had 2 true aces, so I took one ace and one average starter (Gomez, Ruffing). But it also came with Lou Gehrig and an old but still productive Babe Ruth.
Pick 2 – I was hoping the 1935 Pirates would fall to me, but Nordawg took them. I thought about taking them with my first pick, but I only really liked a few players and the rest would be scrubs. The 1936 version still gave me the OF, SS and 2^nd starter that I wanted (Waner, Vaughn, Blanton). I knew I could get everything else I wanted from the 34 or 35 Tigers squad and they were so similar that even if Darthdurron took one, I could take the other. Now that I have the Waner brothers, I can now say “Waner, Waner chicken daner”.
Pick 3 – Darth took the 35 squad so the decision had already been made for me. The 34 Tigers gave me the DH, 3^rd and 4^th starters (Greenberg, Bridges, Rowe), C, 2B and 3B that I needed (Cochrane, Gehringer and Owen).
Top heavy lineup. Average pitching. Defense is average.
Prediction – 84 wins

Actual wins 84
Exp wins 82
RS 10th
RA 13th

Another one I got right! This was a fun league because it had a ridiculous amount of offense. Lou Gehrig (MVP) hit 61 homeruns. Paul Waner hit .367, Gehringer hit .362. My starters ERAs were Bridges (6.73), Gomez (5.30), Rowe (6.43) and Lucas (6.12) were considered league average (6.12 was league average ERA). If I had micromanaged my team more, I probably could have won the division, but came up short by 1 game.

LG 4 – 1940 Reds / 1940 Yankees / 1938 Red Sox
Pick 1 – Got 2 aces and one average starter in Bucky Walters, Paul Derringer and Jim Turner. I got a league average 1B, 3B and C in McCormick, Werber and Lombardi.
Pick 2 – I needed an outfield and I wanted the other Joe D. Got a lot of position players here: CF, LF, RF, 2B in Dimaggio, Henrich, Keller, and Gordon. And a surprisingly good bullpen as well. Also, got my 4^th starter in Russo.
Pick 3 – picked them because I needed a SS, and Joe Cronin was the best available. But it also came with DH Jimmie Foxx. However, that’s it. The others are 5 bench players and a Long A. In retrospect, I should have grabbed the 1935 Giants which chisock grabbed with the next pick. He got a SS, Mel Ott, and 2 useful pitchers.
So that’s two aces, and two average pitchers. I have a good offense and an average defense. There are three good relievers. It’s at least an average team but if I had picked that Giants team it would have been better.
Prediction – 85 wins

Actual wins 78
Exp wins 79
RS 13th
RA 16th

I did a poor job of managing this team. I had Johnny Murphy as my closer all season and he ended up with a 7.32 ERA and was 23 for 35 in save opps, so that's my fault for leaving him in there. Jumbo Brown didn't fare well for chisock (7.46 ERA) so I guess it wasn't just me. Also, I could have squeezed a few more starts out of Bucky Walters. In the end, it's just another league where I lost out to barracuda who finished in 1st place despite his .500 record.

Lg 4 – 1944 STL / 1946 DET / 1944 BOS
Pick 1 – I got three good starters (though no aces) in Wilks, Cooper and Lanier. Red Munger is a good setup A. Also got a good CF, LF, C, 3B and SS in Hopp, Musial, Cooper, Kurkowski and Marion. There are no backups on this team. This was an easy pick as I noticed schwarze took them first too.
Pick 2 – The Tigers compliment my first pick with a true ace, a good Long A, DH, 1B and 3B (Newhouser, Trout, Cullenbine, Greenberg and Kell) that can platoon and compete for the job.
Pick 3 – I really like Bob Johnson as my RF and I needed a 2B, which I got Doerr. I did get a 2^nd ace in Tex Hughson. But the rest are scrubs. No regrets here, but this was the best choice available.
A good team all-around. Good hitting, good fielding, good starters, good relievers.
Prediction – 88 wins

Actual wins 98
Exp wins 96
RS 5th
RA 5th

Wow what a team! Cullenbine (.374/.453/.562), Musial (.361/.435/.554), Johnson (.322/.427/.530) kicked *ss. Even when 3B Whitey Kurkowski sucked with his .618 OPS, it was a good thing I rostered George Kell to take over and he rewarded with a .707 OPS. There were no pitching standouts, but were pretty solid across the board. Out of 14 teams this was my best team. I had the 2nd best record in the league. And of course, the best team was barracuda's, where I finished 2nd in the division.....by 8 games.