With all teams in and accounted for, feel free to share your strategies for creating your Round 2 rosters in this thread.

After last year, where the Round 2 themes (well, really just The Chain) were generally regarded as one of the most difficult batches ever, I tried to continue the trend from this year's Round 1 of fewer puzzle-centric themes and more emphasis on player selection. We'll see how that translates in terms of parity! Anyway, here are my thoughts for my rosters.


$70M - MH Band Pass Filter
AT&T Park

The best part of this theme was the draft, and I had the opportunity to be part of it. Getting the first pick was extremely fortuitous, because it allowed me to avoid brianjw putting someone in my division in Round 1. As I mentioned afterwards in the draft thread, selecting someone for myself in Round 1 was a bit of game theory, as I hoped that brianjw would get hit in return for hitting someone else in my conference, allowing me to accomplish three goals at once (picking my own division mate, avoiding have a top 5 player in my division, and getting a top 5 player into Brian's). This seemed to begin a multi-round chain reaction that worked out better than I could have even intended, as he now has the most difficult division.

With that said, I may have made the wrong pick. While dougpalm and mpitt76 essentially only blocked me from taking 1 player I wanted, Jdh34 blocked 3 or 4 players! Maybe I should have done more research like jmissirlis and taken redcped instead. Too late now.

I wasn't particularly worried about building specifically to beat my division mates after seeing their rosters, since I will play the other teams in my conference almost as often on a per team basis and significantly more on an aggregate basis; I didn't want to "overfit" my roster towards beating my division mates and rather just trusted/hoped that my roster would be good enough to do that.

Balancing speed and SLG is always the hard part of low caps for me. It's tough to afford both (especially if you care about defense like I do, too). I think I got a decent mix, and only have one RH hitter in my lineup (John Kerins), and it's the basic things that count the most at low caps.

Pitching-wise, I probably have a few too many IP but I think it's likely that there will be a lot of extra inning games in this league (as is usually the case in Round 2 low caps). I also thought about paying more for defense and putting this team in Mile High (since I know most people at this level will use heavy pitcher's parks. In both cases, though, I thought better safe than sorry. I don't want to blow this like I did last year with my colossal mistake of using the 1927 Yankees in the 90M league. I even went a little higher on PAs than I usually do in low caps. Just in case.

Hitting: 5,038 PA, .290/.383/.414, $35.3M
Pitching: 1,368 IP, 1.05 WHIP, 0.26 HR/9, $34.2M
Prediction: The SPs here could end up being suspect, and I may not have enough XBH. The more I think about this team the more I think it may be my worst. 88 wins (+/- 5)


$90M - MH STL OAK HOU PIT LA
Busch Stadium

There IS a way to do this in an optimized way, but it would require some serious setup time in Sheets and, as commissioner, that's something I didn't have. So, similarly to some others, I picked a few core players and built around them, only placing players in the "definitely yes" column once I was confident I had explored every option, and I kept a list of players I'd be able to add were I to switch one of my five franchises out for any other one (i.e. if I add the Yankees, I have access to Roy Culllenbine, etc).

My core players were Babe Adams (I'll advocate for his 1920 season at this cap all day), Max Carey and Willie McGee. I was a bit worried about focusing on the Pirates, but they ended up being a really strong and well connected team for me. However, the Dodgers were the real linchpin. The list of Dodgers + x players was longer for me than any other, and they gave me a ton of options with each of the 4 other teams I settled on.

My SPs and lineup aren't going to blow anyone way, but they are all really good values for this cap and there are no duds, which allowed me to spend on defense and a really strong bullpen. A team WHIP of 0.98 at 90M feels really good going into this.

Hitting: 5,240 PA, .303/.381/.445, $43.0M
Pitching: 1,424 IP, 0.98 WHIP, 0.42 HR/9, $46.2M
Prediction: I like how my roster stacks up overall, but I'm worried that I don't have enough XBH to cut it. Going to hope that the low-ish cap combined with the no-deadball rule means that others skimped on them too. I always do my worst at 90M though so who really knows. 90 wins (+/- 3)


$100M - MH It's Not You It's Me
SBC Park

There was definitely some concern on my part that this one was going to be a huge pain to research, but it ended up not being that bad for me for two reasons. 1) A surprising amount of players I looked for were available (using intuition as to who had been blacklisted) and 2) I used the Hitter and Pitcher Spreadsheets rather than the Draft Center to build my team (which allowed to simply filter out anyone who was on the blacklist to begin with).

The toughest choice for me was which albatross SP to take. Seward had the best ERC# (my primary search metric), but the worst $/IP. Morris and Davenport were both slightly worse but cheaper. I wasn't willing to sacrifice hitting or defense, so I went with the latter strategy. Additionally, Cannonball Titcomb was a good secondary SP but Tex Hughson was a slightly better value (every penny counts in Round 2). Roger Wolff, who is probably the best value for this cap left, rounds out the 1-2a/2b rotation at a slightly higher but still comparable price point.

How no one used John Reilly and Snuffy Stirnweiss in Round 1 is something I don't quite understand, but I'm not complaining. Just built a standard XBH + speed offense around them and used a bunch of 25 - 60 IP value guys of varying quality for the pen.

Hitting: 5,475 PA, .316/.397/.467, $50.4M
Pitching: 1,437 IP, 1.01 WHIP, 0.22 HR/9, $48.9M
Prediction: With the more limited player pool and a bunch of people who know the database deeply, I think it's likely that there could be a fair amount of parity in this league, so I'll cast a win net for myself and say 92 wins (+/- 5)


$110M - MH The Good Life
Target Field

The biggest surprise of Round 1, for me, was that more people didn't "bank" players for Round 2. At 255M, wasting 5M or even 10M would not make a big dent in your win total. At the very least, banking players like Bill Bernhard (who has no usable seasons at 255M but is the best value SP in the game for 110M) would likely add more value in Round 2 (where each win counts for 2x the points as it would in Round 1) than you'd have to give up in Round 1.

Additionally, banking players in Round 1 and building a close-to-ideal team for Round 2 would count for less wasted salary, in terms of the percentage of the salary cap, than it would in Round 2.

With this strategy, I still managed to win 99 games in the 255M league in Round 1 and feel even better about my Round 2 team than I did about my Round 1 team.

I am only wasting about 400k in salary for Round 2 (~250k for 1935 Babe Ruth and ~150k for 1890 Elton Chamberlain), which gives me an Effective Salary of 109.6M. I anticipate this is higher than almost everyone else. As for the roster, it's pretty comparable to what my normal 110M OL team would be. Speaker, Cobb, Carey in the OF and Baker, Lajoie, Vizquel, Connor, Kelly in the INF. 1908 Walsh (of course) leads the staff, with some modern relievers in the pen. I'm also the only person in Round 2 with 2016 Kershaw.

Hitting: 5,251 PA, .329/.405/.468, $52.0M
Pitching: 1,419 IP, 0.88 WHIP, 0.33 HR/9, $56.M
Prediction: It's difficult to predict a high win total in Round 2 considering the level of competition, but I think this is likely to be my best team. Only concern is that I'm slightly lower than I'd like to be on IP. I'll say 99 wins (+/- 3)


$130M - MH Fallacious Belief
AT&T Park

I thought that the requirement for not counting players < 500k would be more challenging than it ended up being here. I probably should have included some restriction on 1 hitter and 1 pitcher per decade, but oh well.

Hitting was pretty easy once I switched out 1885 Roger Connor for 1977 Rod Carew (a bit more expensive but equally good) and 1912/1913 Frank Baker for 1979 George Brett. Pretty standard team where I somehow managed to get both sides of my normal 2B platoon (1902 Nap Lajoie / 2006 Kazuo Matsui) onto the roster.

Pitching was, surprisingly to me, a lot more difficult. I committed early on to using 1908 Ed Walsh, 1902 Bill Bernhard and 2016 Kershaw again here and tried to fit the rest of the staff in around them. I managed to get a pretty solid pen together and am using 1999 Pedro as my other starter, but it was really just a ton of trial and error in a spreadsheet.

Hitting: 5,240 PA, .356/.420/.527, $66.7M
Pitching: 1,467 IP, .87 WHIP, 0.21 HR/9, $62.6M
Prediction: This team feels good but may be let down by it's pen a bit. A lot of uncertainty here again for me, but I don't think they'll be a dud. 92 wins (+/- 4)


$140M - MH Die by the George
Royals Stadium

I really enjoyed this theme. It was a twist on a suggestion dippedncrack had made a few years ago and ended up being one of those themes that look simple but can be complex to really optimize. I, at least, spent about 95% of my total time on this theme just fitting the final pieces together and switching back and forth between a few options.

As someone else mentioned, the 25th player was the key to this theme. Aside from giving you your park, the main decision point here was hitter or pitcher? I answered this question by considering where I'd gain the most value and also where it'd be most difficult to find a suitable / useful clone.

The answer to the first part was hitter rather than pitcher, since every additional hitter I draft means fewer roster spots for pitching (and I never do well when I am constrained to 8 or fewer pitchers, I find juggling the pitching staff to be an exercise that is too dependent on luck) and the answer to the second part was 3B. There just aren't that many great 3B that wouldn't cause me to waste 1M+. Caminiti would have been in play for a normal theme but, for me, that's leaving value on the table for Round 2 of the WISC. 1979 George Brett is a better value than 1912 Frank Baker, so I went with Brett to allow me to use the salary elsewhere.

I ended up with a fair amount of deadball era fielders (Clements, Connor, Lajoie, Cobb) so I emphasized modern pitchers as much as possible (Ed Walsh and Babe Adams being the exceptions just due to them being great fits for this theme). Those final pieces I mentioned before were simply what years of Cobb, Clements and Lajoie to use, along with Mathewson vs Maddux (went with Maddux) and Melancon vs other RPs.

My favorite part of this theme is that I was able to fit the beast partial season of Randy Winn with that extra salary I saved from 3B. My total Effective Salary is 138.5M, which is slightly lower than I wanted but still higher than most other teams (Roger Connor is worth it).

Hitting: 5,634 PA, .352/.408/.519, $70.9M
Pitching: 1,500 IP, 0.89 WHIP, 0.29 HR/9, $67.6M
Prediction: Another team I feel good about but hard to say for sure. I am a bit worried about bullpen depth and wish I could have afforded some more lights-out modern RPs, but I spent on hitting instead. Call it 94 wins (+/- 5)

For the 100m blacklist team.

Look for deadball pitchers with mega high innings. Found a couple that were pretty good. Only needed 2 starters to get to about 900 - 1000 innings. Ed Seward is my main starter.

For the bullpen, no one has more than 35 innings pitched, for the most part. Some half decent arms there. I like Raul Valdez, for example.

Hitters were even a bit tougher to find. I'll be platooning at least 3 positions. Some positions have over 800 PA. Damn. Thanks for the suggestion @ 3B. I used it.

$70M I haven't done well in recent lowcaps yet i kept using the same strategies that worked in the past. Balanced spending, plenty of part timers, pitchers with mismatched innings. Basically taking value wherever I find it rather than filling specific roles, then manage the motley crew. I'm not down with the extreme speed strategy others use at lowcaps, I'd rather get more hits than more bases. Pitchers ballpark to minimize fatigue.


$90M GIANTS DODGERS A'S YANKEES CARDINALS
I put this one off until the final weekend. Thought the last several positions would be easy because of many available players but the balancing act was cumbersome. I made a list of players I could use at this cap and noted which 5 teams appeared most often. That was the one and only combination I had time to try.

At first i had dodger pitching then downgraded to get better hitting. 3+ man rotation of Gibson Catfish Hubbell all in their 2nd best year, plus Mike Warren filling in when needed. Casilla closing, Rivera and Jay Howell 8th inning setup, plus Honeycutt Kontos Heimach and Red Shea. Around the horn with Dietz Hendrick/Mize Lazzeri Seager Frisch. Outfield of Medwick and a gang of part timers filling roster spots, Sheffield Abreu Berroa Slaughter and Jack Clark. Polo Grounds for the doubles.


$100M. Made a long list of players I wouldn't mind using then compared to the blacklist to see who was available. Not bloody many of them! Good theme. All the normal SP were gone so I built my rotation around Ed Seward and his 632 innings. Roger Wolff looked like the most economical starter. The remaining spot split between Schoolboy Rowe and Steve Rogers. So my rotation pattern is 1 - 2A - 2Ba - 2Bb. Bullpen of Miljus Dibut Holdsworth Littleton Asher. No problem finding an unused mopup pitcher.

$49 million doesn't buy much offense these days. Palmeiro Steinfeld Oliva are middling choices at affordable prices. McCann at C sacrificing some arm for hits and savings, backed up by Bob Montgomery. Creative shortstopping with McLemore and Grafanino playing secondary positions. Hodapp at a problem 2b is my most expensive hitter. And 2 OF platoons of Furillo Meusel Stenzel Crabtree. The best hitters are the PH Hollandsworth and Ryan Zimmerman. I'm in Memorial Coliseum for no reason other than lack of choices.


$110m Sealed my fate by selecting a strong round 1 team. Pitching is solid for this cap with 1908 Ed Walsh and 1918 Walter Johnson, with a little help form 2003 PJ. Then 7 premier closers in their not best seasons with Greg Maddux swirling a mop. Hitting features second best version of Brett H.Jennings and King Kelly with a fulltime Loretta. 1B/OF is a collection of good part timers Mantle, Ted Williams, little Babe Ruth, Cullenbine, Cedeno, and Tip O'neill. $357 Hornsby on the bench with two bums.


$130m 1951 average
98% normal team, bench and end of bullpen slightly compromised to make the numbers add up. Rotation of '08 Walsh, Hendrix, and Lady Baldwin is minimal and cost efficient. Spent for closers Santos and Karsay. Bullpen of Latman Dumont Holdsworth Chapman Melancon, Dale Murray, Leever,a mopup and a lesser pitcher in case I underestimated IP.

Break out the high average bats with Cobb Gwynn Heilman Brouthers. Semi-cookies Frisch and Baker in the infield with savings from Ted Simmons and Chipper Jones. Pinch hitters Archdeacon and Ryan Zimmerman with Blanco balancing the years, and daryl Boston pinch running.. These hitters belong in Palace of the Fans.


$140M Clonapalooza
Higher caps are normally easier but in this limited theme I could've drafted a cost efficient team for $120-125m. The biggest challenge was where to splurge on overpriced players. My calculations said more hitting was probably better than overpriced pitchers. And I have a 20-man roster with 5 wasted spots, though that gives me the freedom to use a hitters ballpark. So I went against several of my usual strategies.

Ed Walsh '08 is a tad light for $140m but it's hard to turn down a bargain. Babe Adams '19 a more questionable choice with no alternatives I liked much better. Both have low IP versions. Claude Hendrix is the wild card, chosen after drafting hitters and seeing what I was working with. Betancourt closing only because he has a 25ip version too. Dale Murray in relief has done ok for me and comes with his own mop. Saved the setup clone until the end so I knew how much money was left then went with Melancon.

Hornsby or Lajoie? Babe or no Babe? I chose Nap '10 splitting time between 1B and 2B, with part time 1899 Nap playing a mean 2B. Chose '24 Babe and his worthless sidekick because of said splurging and HR park. Arod .354 has a bench season. Lave Cross too, his bench year can be a 3rd or 4th PH. Foxx $5m and $1m, because Catcher is a wasteland and I have to save somewhere for all that splurging. Ty Cobb and Big Ed Delahanty join the OF, both with part time clones for backing up 1B and pinch hitting. Weegham Park, I have stamina, hits, and HR suppression.

The Worst Picks First ($70M)
I was worst, so I picked first. Played pretty safe with switch-hitters, doubles, and low cap faves. I love me some 1906 Harry Davis and 1898 John Anderson. Took advantage of the first pick to block as many cookies with my bench/bullpen as I could, so I went over the list of top players from round one to eliminate a bunch of low-hanging fruit from the division (Coleman, Douthit, Fernandez, etc.).
4,867 PA - .279/.348/.429 - 261 2B, 50 3B, 122 HR - 191 SB - $36.5M
1,337 IP - 1.08 WHIP - .245 OAV - 3.28 K/9 - 1.57 BB/9 - $33.5 M

Pentagon Franchise Puzzle ($90M)
Started with the rotation - '80 Reuss and '81 Sutton were both LAD/HOU, so that was two teams off the bat. I looked at position players I liked at this cap and year range, and OAK and STL kept coming up. Definitely wanted '16 Zobrist to save some money at the cap, so it was a pretty quick choice to settle on CHC as the fifth team. I drafted more power than I would have usually since the post-1920 limit and cap should make HRs more doable. The one part that really gave me trouble was finding eligible bullpen arms, especially lefties.
4,900 PA - .291/.381/.480 - 267 2B, 43 3B, 191 HR - 86 SB - $46.2M
1,398 IP - 1.05 WHIP - .226 OAV - 5.04 K/9 - 1.98 BB/9 - $43.8M

Round One Blacklist ($100M)
Nothing I love more than an insanely restrictive blacklist. There were some surprisingly good bats available I thought, while decent pitchers were much harder to find. I thought about doing the apparently popular 500+ IP deadball strategy, but I actually liked the starters left better than the relievers, which probably shows what I know. (I am very excited to see how the new-to-me 1888 John Reilly does because I love deadball guys with those kind of batting lines.) On offense, I spent a little more on fielding than I may have otherwise, since the pitchers seem weaker, and went more for high-BA profiles for similar reasons. My rotation is guys I've used before in more restrictive leagues with success - Appier, Wainwright, Adonis Terry, Tex Hughson. The relievers...ugh. Not a fan. Put the team in the +1 1B Columbia park and hoping for some big offense.
5,024 PA - .312/.378/.469 - 299 2B, 60 2B, 123 HR - 191 SB - $51.4M
1,402 IP - 1.06 WHIP - .214 OAV - 6.62 K/9 - 2.43 BB/9 - $48.6M

Wait & See Pt. 2 ($110M)
I actually did draft this team simultaneously with the Round 1 version, although for some reason I went much lower on IP than I really should have been comfortable with. It's pretty much a cookie all-doubles offense (Wagner, Cobb, Musial, Lajoie, Delahanty) and rotation (Walsh, Joss, Maddux, Brown), although I picked some glove-first guys as well (Roush, Elston Howard). Round One me really cut it close on the bullpen though, so thanks for that.
5,125 PA - .323/.389/.468 - 280 2B, 90 3B, 95 HR - 184 SB - $57.3M
1,368 IP - 0.98 WHIP - .210 OAV - 5.58 K/9 - 1.93 BB/9 - $52.7M

Law of Averages ($130M)
I had no clue where to even begin with this draft so I just winged it. I picked two guys I wanted on offense ('28 Hornsby and '01 Delahanty) and then a couple modern guys to balance them out ('83 Boggs and '94 Walker), then pretty much alternated between pre- and post-1951 trying to keep the average calc in Excel as close to 1951 as possible. On pitching, my first couple attempts were just way off, so I figured the easiest way to approach was to use all deadball in the rotation and all modern in the bullpen, since that's probably where the best fits are on each side. That made it easier. So Johnson and Brown anchor the rotation along with White and Bernhard; Murphy, Saito, Felipe Rivero in the pen plus George McQuillan and Mychal Givens to balance out the years. 1951 is aptly represented by mopup man Milo Candini.
5,846 PA - .332/.414/.503 - 332 2B, 78 3B, 122 HR - 206 SB - $61.6M
1,531 IP - 0.91 WHIP - .197 OAV - 5.62 K/9 - 1.87 BB/9 - $68.4M

Live by the Sword ($140M)
Because I'm stupid I thought it would be fun to have two Babe Ruths in the outfield. And one of them should be 1923. So for no good reason I basically made this an albatross league for myself. Had some fun finding sub $7M players who could plausibly play at this cap (and had half-price bench seasons), and hopefully the Ruths will hit enough to drive them in. Hughie Jennings and Carlos Beltran I'm going to squint and say might be okay, but then it's help us Pablo Sandoval and George Burns, you're our only hope. The pitching was more straightforward - Walsh and Adams and their low-IP seasons, plus Christy Mathewson as the wild card for fitting in the salary and having a decent home park. In the bullpen, Rivera and Chapman both have strong seasons plus usable low-IP seasons, and Marshall Bridges finished the roster with a low-IP/mop-up pair of seasons. I'm going to say this team is potentially entertaining and probably not very good!
4,961 PA - .329/.418/.517 - 296 2B, 82 3B, 158 HR - 137 SB - $75.8M
1,519 IP - 0.89 WHIP - .204 OAV - 5.91 K/9 - 1.42 BB/9 - $64.1M

StL NY SF Cle LA ($90 Million) - SBC Park
I originally had the A's instead of the Indians (along with the other four teams listed above), but didn't like how that team looked so I scrapped it and started over. I really like '72 G.Perry at this cap so that's where I started. Along with '36 Hubbell and '68 Marichal, I have a nice 3-man rotation. The bullpen (V.Romo, Honeycutt, Mails, A.Rincon, Herges, Maglie, Baez, Howell) is not that great and will probably cost me some games in the late innings, but that's because I spent a bit more on hitting than I usually do at this cap. I really like my offense... Scioscia, Moon, Frisch, Minoso, Sewell, Galan, G.Harper, E.Combs. I didn't pay up for awesome defense, but Moon and Frisch should get 20 or more "+" plays on the right side of the infield.
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Hitting Totals (excluding scrubs) 5545 pa, .312 avg, .409 obp, .460 slug, $46.0 million
Pitching Totals (excluding scrubs) 1380 ip, 1.04 whip, .223 oav, 0.41 hr/9, $43.3 million
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The List of Black ($100 million) - SBC Park
I built this team a long time ago, so I don't really remember what my thought process was. I do however remember going back in to tinker and discovering I had the cap wrong. I originally built a 90M team. So it was kind of fun going in and upgrading at a bunch of positions. I do know that I started my roster with a two-man rotation of Charlie Ferguson and Dave Davenport. I love Davenport and am surprised he isn't used more frequently. He's currently 20-12 with a 4.18 ERA (top 20) for me in a $255 cap league. I added Schoolboy Rowe as my long relief / spot starter. Johnny Miljus and Jason Isringhausen are my other two "main" RPs. I added five short-inning guys, including Les Howe, Garrett Richards and three guys named Dennis (Burns, Burtt, Boucher).

On the other side, I get a couple of A++ range guys (Schomberg 1B, Shotton OF), but focused more on offense. I am also platooning at three positions. here is my lineup: (C) Munson/P.Collins, (1B) Schomberg, (2B) J.Panik/Davanon/Witek, (3B) Hack/Berg/Sudakis, (SS) P.Reese, (OF) J.Ryan, H.Hooper, B.Shotton, (PH) Hosey, Parmalee.
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Hitting Totals: 5662 pa, .310 avg, .399 obp, .448 slug, $48.9 million (wow, this offense is worse than my 90M offense)
Pitching Totals: 1448 ip, 1.02 whip, .217 oav, 0.13 hr/9, $51.0 million
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The Usual Cookies ($130 million) - American League Park
This theme was not very challenging. I would imaging most people would simply draft a normal $130M team, but tweak it here and there to keep the average year around 1951. I built my roster in pairs, adding two players at a time, trying to keep their season average close to 1951. I knew at the end, I could maneuver to get the exact season of some pinch hitter or short-IP reliever I needed. I will confess that I made a mistake on my roster and had to fix it Sunday night. Although I was doing the math all along as I built my roster, I must have forgotten at the very end that hitters and pitchers EACH had to average 1951. I had to modify a pinch hitter (+6 years) and short reliever (-6 years) to get legal. Not a big deal though.
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I won't bore you with the details, but here is what the hitting and pitching looks like: (C) Schang/Hassey (1B) Speaker (2B) Alomar (3B) Boggs (SS) Wagner (OF) T.Williams, K.Williams, Cullenbine (PH) Seitzer, Valo, D.Sutton, Pickering. Pitching: 08 Walsh, Arrieta, Bernard, '16 Kershaw, Niggeling, Wiltse, Rincon, L.Howe, Podgajny, Carlos
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Hitting Totals: 5730 pa, .343 avg, .441 obp, 523 slug, $68.0 million
Pitching Totals (excluding scrubs): 1430 ip, 0.87 whip, .200 oav, 0.17 hr/9, $61.5 million

About the team names: I noticed that I’d worked Roman numerals into the first two teams I built, but not with any purpose. So I decided to find a way to get them into all of the names. If you don’t know Roman numerals, it’s OK because they’re not particularly clever names anyway. And I apologize for the long writeups. Was it Twain who said he didn’t have time to write a short letter so he wrote a long one instead? I’m good at editing other people’s work, but I can’t hack my own prose once I’ve created it.

$70M: The Worst Picks First (Again)
LXX Victories Maximum

I’ve had little success at low caps, and the $65M was my worst R1 team by far. To get better this time I looked at some good rosters in my R1 league and a few in a low-cap TOC by veteran owners and try to figure out how those teams did well. I looked at the $/PA and $/IP from the seasons they picked and some of their key players. Pitchers parks seemed popular. As did switch hitters. Some speedy contact guys. Pitchers who don’t waste money on strikeouts and limit walks. So, after scrapping about 10-12 players the other division teams took, I tried to recreate success with something close to that formula.

I couldn’t find enough guys in the salary range who could get on base with speed and decent defense, so I sacrificed on the latter two. I’ve got 6 switch-hitters in the lineup. I steered clear of homers (only 48 RL). All the starters have OBP of .370+ so hopefully that keeps enough activity on the bases. Only two guys with good speed, though. That might hurt. Key hitters will be Roger Connor (.952 OPS), Chick Stahl (.905) and Mitchell Page (.926). Have always wanted to use that ‘77 Page and it fit here. I went very low on PA, because why not try to milk it? No one on the bench over 500K.

The rotation is headed by 3 similar guys from the 19-aughts, Pelty, Powell and Garvin, and the similar 81 Rick Honeycutt. Grabbed a few relievers with good IP/G for spot starting. I like to have at least 4 guys to work the late innings effectively and probably won’t designate a closer here. ‘69 Joe Hoerner seems likely to get a lot of the saves.

Ballpark: My pitchers won’t give up many homers anyway, but since I won’t be hitting them at all I went with Target Field. I’ve actually never used it, but it fit the bill here.
Starters: C Wally Schang 1915, 1B Roger Connor 1894, 2B Miller Huggins 1912, SS Billy Rogell 1938, 3B Roy Cullenbine 1942, OF Mitchell Page 1977, Billy North 1975, Chick Stahl 1897. Rotation: Barney Pelty 1905, Jack Powell 1907, Ned Garvin 1902, Rick Honeycutt 1981. Bullpen Keys: Joe Benz 1917, Tot Pressnell 1940, Rube Marquard 1919, Joe Hoerner 1969

5271 PA .292/.387/.416 232 2B, 91 3B, 48 HR, 187/122 SB/CS $36.16M
1433 IP .243 OAVG, 1.13 WHIP, 2.84 ERA 533K-322 BB 46 HR $33.83M
Outlook: We might not be as terrible as I think, but I doubt we prove jmissirlis a prophet either. My team name predicts we can’t top 70 wins, and with this competition and my low-cap struggles I’ll be surprised if we do much better than that. I’d be thrilled to flirt with .500.


$90M: Pentagon Franchise Puzzle
XC Losses Minimum

I’ve got the Red Sox, Yankees, Cubs, Dodgers and Braves. I saved this for last because I had no idea how to start. I found a few SP who fit the cap range and started looking for team pairings that would fit. I aimed for teams with long histories to maximize my choices. I didn’t find the BB-Ref tool as useful as I expected and just searched desirable stat ranges for players who might fit the teams I picked. I built the whole pitching staff except a couple filler spots and then made the hitting work around the team restrictions I’d created. I never tried to make a second team with a different combo, and though I might have had time I just decided to let it ride.

I skimped a lot on PA again, but eventually I added some after worrying that a hitters’ park could mess me up. No hitter cost as much as $6M as I went for a little more depth. I ended up with minimal speed again, alas. I would have preferred more range, too; I have a low error infield with C range and two stiffs in the outfield corners.

I’ve got a few big 2B hitters, including the ridiculous ‘31 Earl Webb, whom I’ve never used. Seemed like a Sox doubles machine in Fenway made sense anyway. ‘36 Ben Chapman has a little speed and big 2B ability atop the lineup. A nod to the modern era in the infield, with 2017 Freddie Freeman and Corey Seager making the cut along with 2012 Dustin Pedroia and 1991 Wade Boggs. I used 1977 Reggie Smith in one of my first open leagues and he was tremendous, so hopefully he can provide some thunder at this cap, too. He doesn’t really get enough 2B to be a perfect fit, but he was one of my favorite players as a kid with that high bat wave stance so I went with him anyway.

I started my pitching staff with Maddux, because he could pair a Braves season with Dodgers or Cubs. Roger Clemens gave me a Bos-NYY option. Burt Hooton was good for me in a R1 league so I brought him back as a LA-ChC combo. Whitey Ford is my lifetime Yankee. It wasn’t hard to find a handful of good relievers who played for these teams, and I’ve got Kimbrel, Chapman and Smoltz in there as finishers. I went as low as I’ve ever gone on innings with 1409 in a hitters park. But I’m playing with house money here, so why not try to maximize the talent and hope for the best?

Ballpark: I decided on Fenway to maximize the doubles, because the other options with these teams just didn’t fit. But I am worried about fatigue causing some grief.
Starters: C Walker Cooper 1950, 1B Freddie Freeman 2017, 2B Dustin Pedroia 2012, SS Corey Seager 2017, 3B Wade Boggs 1991, OF Earl Webb 1931, Ben Chapman 1936, Reggie Smith 1977. Rotation: Greg Maddux 1993, Roger Clemens 1991, Whitey Ford 1964, Burt Hooton 1975. Bullpen Keys: John Smoltz 2002, Craig Kimbrel 2013, Aroldis Chapman 2016, Mike Stanton 1991

5404 PA .304/.386/.487 344 2B, 31 3B, 152 HR, 67/36 SB/CS $44.30M
1409 IP .222 OAVG, 1.07 WHIP, 2.59 ERA 1154K-357 BB 82 HR $45.69M
Outlook: The team name is another prediction, this time for 90 losses. I hope that’s an exaggeration, but I’m sure other people are far more skilled at fine-tuning rosters for this cap level. In a less competitive group of owners, I’d feel decent about this group’s playoff chances though.

$100M: Round 1 Blacklist
MMCMVL Fewer Choices

I started on this one early, painstakingly going through potential draftees and then scrolling endlessly through the blacklist in hope of finding some options. It was a very slow build, that’s for sure. The fun part is I’m using almost entirely players I’ve never used, and that pushed me to look at different potential strategies. I wanted a park that favored something strongly, and the result was Triples with a +3 in Chase Field. So I have a speedy team with great range going, a total departure from the 70M and 90M squads. And what a relief to punch in the roster checker and get a green light, too. Would have been easy to miss a name in there.

I poured almost every penny of offense into the starters and went ultra-cheap on the bench. The lineup has some major speed with Harry Stovey (100), Bid McPhee (96) and Jake Stenzel (93). Elmer Smith is a triples machine, along with Stenzel and McPhee. Hal Trosky can hit it out if we face enough modern pitching. Catcher was by far the hardest to fill, with virtually everyone I could imagine using blacklisted. Settled for Alex Avila with a B arm and some pop. Infield defense is big on range, with A+ at 2B-SS-3B, plus Stovey in CF. Trosky is the only guy here I’ve ever used, but he raked in the 2 HOF league for me.

Dave Davenport (414 IP) and Spud Chandler (267) will top the rotation. I had to save some money on the third starter, so Dummy Taylor is a bit of a gamble here. There were at least a few reasonable options for starters. I considered Ed Seward’s 632 innings but was concerned I wouldn’t manage it well enough and Davenport appears very close in skill at a good bit lower $/IP. Looks like a few people are using Seward, but happy to see schwarze endorse Davenport! None of my starters give up homers, and the whole roster only allowed 31 in 1462 IP. The bullpen was a tougher group to set with virtually all the top seasons blacklisted. My backend guys are lower in innings than I usually prefer, so my starters have to go deep in this league. Grant Balfour and Alex Torres are very hard to hit, but they do give up walks and might be tricky to keep fresh.

Ballpark: My Chase Field pick was based on the +3 triples, and I think I got a lineup that’s pretty well-suited for it. Not a high-strikeout pitching staff, so my great range defenders have to be on the ball. I’m worried they’ll make a lot of errors, though.
Starters: C Alex Avila 2011, 1B Hal Trosky 1934, 2B Bid McPhee 1887, SS Glenn Wright 1930, 3B Buddy Lewis 1939, OF Elmer Smith 1894, Harry Stovey 1886, Jake Stenzel 1894. Rotation: Dave Davenport 1915, Spud Chandler 1943, Dummy Taylor 1904. Bullpen Keys: Grant Balfour 2008, Alex Torres 2013, Mike Gonzalez 2004.

5801 PA .315/.388/.504 299 2B, 130 3B, 136 HR, 335/166 SB/CS $49.95M
1462 IP .216 OAVG, 1.03 WHIP, 2.17 ERA 828K-372 BB 31 HR $50.04M
Outlook: Like the other leagues above, I’d feel decently about this team among lesser competition. But I know you guys have dug deeper into the player pool before and will likely emerge with better hidden gems than I did. If I nailed the speed-range-triples thing, this could be a team that surprises me with a decent run. It might be my best shot at the playoffs.

$110M: Wait & See, pt. 2
Wait and CX

Yeah, this was how the Roman numerals got started. C = 100, so Wait and CX just sounded good. I had set up a full roster before R1 just to make sure all the parts fit together in a workable team. I changed 9 of my initially planned hitter seasons and tinkered it into a better team now. Not good enough to give me much confidence, though. I suspect this will be one of my lowest finishers.

Part of my problem with this team is that I boxed myself into needing to use a Ruth season at 1B unless I moved Cobb there instead, but those options didn’t add up. I got torched by Ruth’s terrible range in the 255M league, and at least a D+ season won’t be quite so bad. My other biggest challenge was finding a Schmidt season at 3B I could squeeze in, instead of using (as originally planned) a Dave Hollins season there and a terrible wasted 172PA Schmidt on the bench. I downgraded my Mantle and Cobb seasons to make it work, so the lineup is a little deeper if not exactly fearsome. Cobb’s the only great average hitter, and I worry about the sluggers being neutralized by deadball arms. There is a lot of speed, but the defense is barely mediocre.

On the pitching side at least, I stuck with my original plan. Johnson-Maddux-Pedro is a solid rotation topper, but I’ve moved Eck into the rotation this time with an OK ‘85 season. Walsh moves to the pen with his 29-inning season instead. Still a formidable set of seasons for Kimbrel-Adams-Uehara, with a weaker Kuo by a lot though. When I tinkered with the hitting, I slashed my innings from 1510 to 1432, which barely feels sufficient.

Ballpark: I went fairly neutral with Forbes in R1 and just have to live with it now. But it’s not a lineup that favors any extreme anyway, so it might be OK.
Starters: C King Kelly 1888, 1B Babe Ruth 1922, 2B Joe Morgan 1977, SS Lou Boudreau 1943, 3B Mike Schmidt 1986, OF Ty Cobb 1925, Mickey Mantle 1952, Hugh Duffy 1890. Rotation: Walter Johnson 1919, Greg Maddux 1993, Pedro Martinez 2002, Dennis Eckersley 1985. Bullpen Keys: Craig Kimbrel 2017, Mike Adams 2011, Ed Walsh 1915, Koji Uehara 2011.

5765 PA .305/.397/.495 269 2B, 83 3B, 168 HR, 243/126 SB/CS $54.42M
1432 IP .209 OAVG, 0.96 WHIP, 2.08 ERA 1227K-284 BB 65HR $55.51M
Outlook: The more I look at this team, the less I like it. Don’t do anything particularly well. The pitching is not much better than my 90M or 100M teams (have 93 Maddux in this and the 90M, so that might not be ideal). The hitting isn’t much better either. Probably a last-place team in this tournament.

$130M: Law of Averages
MCMLI

What a difference $20M makes! This team can actually hit and pitch and might even be pretty decent. I built this one first, and with the help of my trusty calculator managed to get what I wanted the first time around. I have no players from the 1950s at all. Only one from the 60s, two from the 40s, none from the 30s or 70s, two from the 20s, and one from the 80s. As it turned out, the averaging came from the extremes. I have 9 from pre-1920 and 10 from 1997-present. I’ll be curious if some people have a better historical mix.

Pitching was easier to average out, because a few modern relievers balanced well with a few deadball starters. I feel pretty good about the Mathewson-Alexander-Brown-Kershaw rotation. I’ll have a great arm out there every game. Plenty of reliable short relievers, so I feel covered there too. I went a little heavier on innings because of the park and cap, but I don’t think I wasted any money either.

This lineup is going to produce. Five guys hit .360+ (Browning, Speaker, Connor, Gwynn, Lajoie) and the team average is .352. Lots of doubles and triples up and down the lineup and some reasonable speed in there. Lots of A+ range too, so I feel like it’s as complete a team as any of these. It’s built for what I expect will be a lot of similar deadball pitching and I think it’s probably a better offense than my 140M team actually.

Ballpark: I needed to maximize the singles and doubles for sure, with little interest in helping homers. League Park II gives me +2 1B and +3 2B along with -2 HR, all of which suit the lineup well. I wouldn’t have minded boosting 3B, but I preferred minimizing the homers from other teams.
Starters: C Wally Schang 1926/Brent Mayne 1999, 1B Roger Connor 1885, 2B Nap Lajoie 1902, SS Carlos Guillen 2004, 3B Frank Baker 1913, OF Pete Browning 1887, Tris Speaker 1913, Tony Gwynn 1997. Rotation: Christy Mathewson 1908, Pete Alexander 1919, Mordecai Brown 1904, Clayton Kershaw 2016. Bullpen Keys: Kenley Jansen 2016, Andrew Miller 2014, Johnny Niggeling 1943, Steve Ontiveros 1985, Babe Adams 1924.

5758 PA .352/.415/.514 363 2B, 101 3B, 88 HR, 338/217 SB/CS $65.27M
1491 IP .196 OAVG, 0.87 WHIP, 1.67 ERA 990K-248 BB 33HR $64.71M
Outlook: There is ample danger in having any confidence at all in this tournament, so I cautiously and optimistically selected this as the team I think will do best. I did better in this cap range in R1 than in the low and high ones, so maybe with a little luck in division draw I’ll be competitive.

$140M: Live by the Sword…
There’s an LVI in Elvis

This was definitely a fun theme to test out different combinations and figure out how to allocate salary effectively. Inevitably, you have to waste a little, I think, but as I compare this with my 130M team I’m not sure it’s anywhere close to $10M better. So that could be a sign I should have kept digging for better options.

The 25th guy is really the linchpin of this theme, IMO, because of his salary level and the ballpark. I toyed around with a few possibilities before deciding on 2017 Elvis Andrus. I used him once in the DEAL because his range was amazing, and he has speed and power. It worked out pretty well, and he comes with a park that adds a lot of offense, too. At $7.25M, he is high enough to allow me to use a player in two lineup spots, which you need at least one of basically. Also, the middle three letters of Elvis are an actual Roman numeral (not that 16 means anything, but don’t burst my bubble).

I decided pretty quickly on pairs of Tris Speaker and Pete Browning, because they had sub-1M seasons available. Switch-hitting Duke Farrell backs himself up behind the plate and makes a great PH. The ‘02 Lajoie with 459 PA pairs well with the less productive ‘05 (286 PA), who will play against LH to benefit a bit from the platoon advantage.

My toughest final choices were 3B and 1B/OF. After toying with Brett, Boggs, even Chipper, I landed on ‘13 HR Baker despite having to waste basically all of his $1.61M second version as a pinch hitter. I struggled mightily with the best total use of salary between the two spots, and ultimately his good season fits the best so I went with it.

I tried a lot of options in the 1B/OF spot, needing a good enough 1B season that was half the price. I had a Delahanty combo I liked, but it gave me too many RH hitters in the lineup. Once I decided on LH/SH only, I had to find a way to make Musial work. His $6.5M ‘55 season works well enough at 1B, and I get to use his excellent ‘48 season behind Speaker and Browning atop the order.

Some of the pitching slots filled themselves quickly. The ‘08 Walsh atop the rotation and the 29IP ‘15 in the pen. The ‘01 Pedro’s 118 IP fit nicely just under half of the ‘99 version for 332 total Pedro innings. Maddux has a useful LR season from 2006, so I worked in the best version I could afford in the rotation after all my other moves. I had all RH starters and needed at least some LH innings in the pen, so welcome aboard Arthur Rhodes (fresh in my mind from the 16x16 league, where I knew he had several good seasons). I went with ‘81 Gossage to close with a mediocre 38-inning ‘92 to be a mopup guy. The last pair was the toughest to fit to get enough strong innings out of just over $5M with the required salary ratios, and I tried about 8-10 options. Rafael Betancourt just worked out the best, with his excellent 25-inning ‘09 season to go with the 79 innings from ‘07.

You have to get creative with this theme, and I’ll be curious how many people used some of my same pairs. A handful seemed like no-brainers, and I expect to see a lot of Walsh, Maddux, Pedro and Speaker.

Ballpark: I wanted to favor 1B and 2B for sure, 3B if I could, and HR weren’t a huge concern. Ameriquest met the goals and with the great Elvis in there it just worked out well.
Starters: C Duke Farrell 1891, 1B Stan Musial 1955, 2B Nap Lajoie 1902, SS Elvis Andrus 2017, 3B Frank Baker 1913, OF Pete Browning 1887, Tris Speaker 1912, Stan Musial 1948. Rotation: Ed Walsh 1908, Greg Maddux 1998, Pedro Martinez 1999, Pedro Martinez 2001. Bullpen Keys: Rafael Betancourt 2007-2009, Arthur Rhodes 2002-2005, Rich Gossage 1981, Ed Walsh 1915.

6201 PA .341/.408/.527 361 2B, 100 3B, 156 HR, 322/240 SB/CS $75.56M
1508 IP .204 OAVG, 0.91 WHIP, 1.88 ERA 1349K-267 BB 54HR $64.37M
Outlook: The raw stats for this team aren’t quite as good as those for the 130M team, so maybe I wasted a little more salary than I should have. The PA are definitely higher than I need, as the lineup is virtually locked in every day. But I couldn’t find enough superstars who have sub-300K seasons and had to make some compromises. The pitching money was spent more effectively overall, and a few extra innings seem wise with my park and the cap. I hope I’ve got a competitive team here. It certainly looks good on paper.

70m - Worst Picks First, First Finishes Worst

I was one of the top six, so I had to assign other owners to divisions. I'm not necessarily good at low caps. Nor am I good at this kind of strategery. So this was not a good setup for me. There's basically 2 things you can do... put someone "good" as far away from you as possible, or put someone "bad" in your own division. (Truly I have a dizzying intellect. Wait till I get going!) The good thing about putting someone "bad" in your own division is that nobody else can put someone "good" in your division that round. So I looked at how many games each owner won in the Round1/65m league, as well as how they finished Round 1 overall and their overall record (mostly based on playoff winning %).

In Round 1 I put humdogs in my own division. Only won 77 games in R1/65m, not a ton of experience overall. In round 2 I probably went awry putting bothways in my own division - 87 game winner in R1/65m, but a low finish overall. In round 3, I doubled down on my stupid strategy, picking magicdreamer who finished poorly overall but did well in the 65m league. It was between MD and odalisgagne who is way more experienced but had a meh 65m team. I decided, for reasons that escape me, to bet on MD's 65m team being a fluke. At least when I finish 4th, I'll know I did it to myself. In hindsight, if owners did well in a relatively restricted 65m league, they should be even better at a basically unrestricted 70m league. Oops.

Anyway, to the team building. There is some advantage in knowing exactly who all the players in your division will be. And really, none of the 3 owners in my division took anybody I desperately wanted. That's a bad sign. But for the most part, my division has a bunch of old dude fielders and deadball pitchers. Aha! I decided to focus on really old hitters, getting a few 1885s (staring outfield of Paul Hines, Ed Swartwood and Pete Hotaling... who???) to make my division mates kick the ball all over the field. Since none of my division mates had any power hitters to speak of, I loaded up on modern pitchers who might be a little HR prone but are good otherwise. They'll keep my own fielders' errors down to boot (no pun intended). I've got A+++ range in the infield (Bancroft 23, Critz 24, Bill Joyce 97, Wally Moon '56) Ezra Sutton will be our Ben Zobrist as all my hitters are somewhat short on PAs. My 5-man rotation is Odalis Perez, Dallas Braden, Cory Lidle, Hisashi Iwakuma and Josh Tomlin. Homer-prone WHIP monsters from the 2000s, all. This is probably a big gamble but hey, maybe it will pay off.

I put this team in Palace of the Fans which, probably I'll regret that.

90m - Puzzle Palace

I spent way too much time on this theme, ultimately building 5 teams. I started by finding the core of my team and figuring that I'd always build from there. In this case that's Frankie Frisch and Dave Bancroft. Yup, another team full of speedy switch hitters with tons of range. Those two bring the Giants, Cardinals and Braves to the party, so I just needed to find a pair of teams to complement them. They also brought Willie McGee (his partial 1990 season) along, and he was basically the 3rd musketeer on all these teams. I kind of assumed that bench bats and relievers would be easy to find from the one-team guys, since I could just pick someone really recent or someone who only played one season.

At first I looked for good low K pitchers since they'd be cheaper, and built a team with the Twins and Yankees. That was a good team. I could have stopped there and been happy but ... well in hindsight I'm not sure why I didn't. Not enough thump I guess. My 2nd team was the Pirates and Yankees. Love the Spanky/Sluggo duo at catcher and Babe Adams as an ace. But even less punch. Version 3 was the bitter rivals- Yankees and Red Sox. Billy Werber replaced Terry Pendleton as the 4th man in. I really didn't love their catchers but everything else was good. Version 4 was the Reds and Red Sox. More speed but not a switch hitter. This team even had Edd Roush and his crazy range at 1B. But I had to go with a 3-man rotation of guys in the 285-300 IP range, and didn't have a reliever over 60ip, so they were too risky.

Finally I decided to try and build a Johnny Bassler team, which meant the Tigers. I added the A's to get Cobb. Went back to Pendleton at 3B. Added a surprisingly cheap Bill Terry at 1B. Added Melky Cabrera to the outfield. Ironically, this team is the A's and 3 teams that their Big 3 pitchers dispersed to (Mulder/Cards, Huddy/A's, Zito/Giants). Hudson and Mulder made the cut; Zito did not.

This was always destined to be a team that played in AT&T, unless I'd kept the Twins and played in Target.

100m - The Island of Misfit Toys

Having to use the tool to verify made this one a challenge. But I persevered. I decided almost immediately that I'd use two rando 500ish IP pitchers from the 1800s, and a bunch of 25-40 inning relievers, since those were 2 groups of players that probably didn't get used much in round 1. Welcome, Billy Rhines and Mickey Welch. Then I looked for guys I liked (speedy switch hitters) who seemed a little off the beaten path. Shortstop was easy (how did Jonathan Villar not get used), and John Reilly was an easy pick at 1B. Catcher and 2B were way harder, and I ended up with Duke Kenworthy at second and a Bibb Pocoroba/Con Daily platoon behind the plate. Len Randle handles 3rd and I had a lot of money left over so I splurged on Bill Lange to play CF. He's always been great for me in other leagues. RF/LF are a couple of random platoons. Walton Cruise and Count Campau, I can't believe they didn't get used! Picking a park was harder, as some of my RPs were HR prone and we didn't have much power to speak of.

I can't believe nobody used SBC Park, so I went with that.

110m - Dramatic Pay Cut

Boy, I was so happy when I built a 255m team and concurrently built a 110m team that fit under the cap. In hindsight I don't love them as much as I should, but maybe that's just because I remember their glory days at 255m. Cobb and Tip O'Neill platoon in RF, Ruth and Riggo Stephenson in LF, and Edd Roush plays CF in one of his lesser seasons. We do have 3/4 of a great infield defense but Roger Connor's random 1892 season with C- range dilutes things. (Lajoie, Brett, Boudreau are the others).

A 4-man rotation of Kershaw15, Koufax64, Verlander11 and Pedro05 seems like the strength of the team, even if that Pedro always seems to underperform fo me. Super short IP versions of Alexander and Maddux and Walsh are in the bullpen along with more notable names in Kenley, Kimbrel, Rivera and Wagner.

These guys were in Target in round 1, so they are there again now.

130m - The Average Heard Round the World

I figured I'd just have a strong mix of really early players and really late players here. My 130m team in round 1 was outstanding so I tried to keep the best of them. Those players averaged out to 1928 for hitters and 1967 for pitchers. Round 1 also had a DH so I had a little more cash to spend. On offense, the big question was, what seasons do I not hate? I have Trea Turner 2016 and Milton Bradley 03 coming back. I replaced Chipper with Jose Ramirez '17 who I always wanted to use. I had to add Votto '12 and Barry Larkin '97 as platoon players to bring up the average. The old dudes are still here - Billy Hamilton '93, Tuck Turner '95, Tip O'Neill 85, Frisch, Cobb, Buck Ewing... just a little more modern flair. In the end I had two spots left (backup catcher, platoon 1B) and had to cram in Carl Taylor as Votto's 1B platoon partner and then draft the best catcher from 1987 to make the numbers work. Those 2 guys aren't who I would have picked if I had a choice, but they're fine.

Pitching was easier. Kershaw '16 was obviously sticking around. I replaced Garland Braxton with Randy Johnson in my 2-tandem rotation (so I've got Bernhard, Unit, Alexander and Pfiester). Added a bunch of deadball relievers and then Kenley Jansen and Adam Warren to bring the average up. When I had 1 spot left I added the best fit from 1978 (John Hiller) to make it work. The median year for my hitters is 1945 and the median for pitchers is 1919.

These guys play in Municipal Stadium, where home runs go to die.

140m - George Brett's Dozen Halves

I really liked this theme even though it wasn't all that hard. Pitching was easy- Alex, Walsh, Unit and Maddux... all guys with easy pairs of seasons. Mo Rivera too - I took his 108ip season and then figured I'd take whichever season fit at the end. Then I decided to get creative and added both Reb Russell and Joe Wood as both hitters and pitchers. I rounded out the bullpen with perennial favorite Andy Rincon.

I did that mostly because finding hitters who could platoon with themselves was harder than I thought. I could have just drafted guys who had a 200k season and a real season but I didn't want to waste the bench spots. Partly because it was silly to waste money but honestly partly because it was more fun. In the end I've only got 1 player <900k, and that's Roger Connor's 94 season. Catching was hard. I figured I'd go Mauer since I couldn't find any good switch hitters. I assumed Wally Schang would work but he didn't. In the end I had money left over and upgraded Mauer to Jack Clements.

For 2B I did find a guy who could platoon with himself in Lajoie. His '02 season and '05 season can go together well. At SS I went with Honus '08 and for the other Honus, I took Honus '97 who is an outfielder. That gave me a platoon partner for some lefty outfielder and I went with Cobb. His '17 season handles CF all alone and his '14 season platoons with Honus. The other outfield corner was mostly covered with Reb (263pa) and Wood (241pa) so I will just use Connor out of position for those other 100 PAs. Then I added George Brett as my 25th man rather than deal with 3B. This team is a little short on PAs and there is no room for error so it will be interesting to see how it goes.

Because of how I split Reb and Wood, I have 8 different pitchers on my 12-man staff. I didn't have to do that, but it seemed fun.

These guys play in Royals Stadium, because apparently it wasn't renamed Kaufmann Stadium until later. But Brett was almost always going to be the plan at 3B since this team is built for that kind of park.

I really wish I'd thought of the Russell/Wood thing. I used them as a DH platoon in R1 to good success. That was a stroke of genius to work them in here like that. +1

Totally wasn't expecting to be here as this is the first time I've made it to Round 2 since 2010. I have little doubt that I'll get my rear handed to me so we can just treat this as documentation of what not to do.

70 mil - Ampullae of Lorenzini

Re the team name...my 8yo daughter LOVES sharks and these parts of a shark have the coolest name ever. So, there you go. I had first pick in my division (see above) so I really tried to pick as many low cap cookies as possible (even adding cheap Jeffries, North and Strang as bench guys). I looked closely at who did well at 65 mil and blatantly stole some guys off brianjw's roster (73 Yaz is a defensive wizard at 3b?!?) to go along with old favorites Bishop, Tenace, Coleman, etc. Pitchers where mostly guys who were successful in Round 1 (08 Ewing, 06 Cy, 09 Arellanes, with Rankin Johnson as the long guy and a bunch of short inning low whip guys). In Safeco, of course.

Hitting - 272/382/380, 219 SBs Pitching - 1387 IP, 1.05, .242 OAV

90 mil - Brave Yankees Dodging Astro Pirates

Started with pitchers--like 80 Reuss, 42 Bonham and 05 Pettite at this cap so that gave me NYY, PIT, LA and HOU. Looked for good balance and switch hitting in the batting order--giving me 05 Berkman, 03 Furcal (hello, Braves), 98 Chipper and 25 Carey. Filled in with affordable Joe Ferguson at C, cheap Merced and Dion James in the OF, Steve Sax at 2b. Babe Adams rounded out the rotation and then filled in the bullpen. Octavio Dotel was perfect here because he played on four of my five teams so I could just keeping switching his assigned box.

Hitting - 297/381/451, 120 HR, 164 SB Pitching - 1414 IP, 1.02, .229 OAV

100 mil - Chicks Dig The Longball

OK, here's where I got stupid. I noticed Wrigley Field available and thought...hey I could build a HR team because most of the good deadball pitches are unavailable. Of course, the operative word there is "most", especially judging by the writeups thus far. But hey, too late to turn back now. Luckily (or not), there were tons of HR hitters available so I stocked up...to the tune of 335 HR on my roster, including 61 Maris, 73 Davey Johnson, 15 Arenado, 99 Hidalgo, and 54 Hank Sauer. My low HR guy is Joe Hauser with 27 (and he hit a ton in the minors). Clearly this is a recipe for disaster. My pitching is pretty blah...except that I get to use the immortal Cannonball Titcomb (can't believe nobody used him in Round 1). Also, my pitching stats are worse than for my 90 mil team. Wonderful.

Hitting - 285/357/553, 335 HR Pitching - 1420 IP, 1.04, .203 OAV

110 Mil - Bear Market

Wasn't expecting to get here so didn't think too much about the Round 2 roster...but I managed to conjure up a legal one...and it includes a Ty Cobb/Mickey Mantle platoon (wonder how that would have worked in real life).

Hitting - 325/421/533, 197 HR, 138 SB Pitching - 1375 IP, 0.96, .207 OAV

130 Mil - Below Average

Didn't like this theme at all because it was basically another open league theme. The easy out would have been an all-1951 team but have you looked at the pitching from that season? Yuck. So I just took balance on each side (15 Kershaw and Greinke over here, 02 Bernhard and 04 Brown over there). I did take a 51 Ted to anchor the lineup and then tried to balance the old (Frisch, Connor, King Kelly) with the new (Chipper, Ozzie) and a couple 2002 cheapies (Loretta and Pratt) to help offset Babe and Cy Williams. This is the team I voted as "most concerned about" because I know I don't match up in an open league setting (also somehow the hitting is worse than my 110 team).

Hitting -- 327/423/520, 182 HR, 214 SB Pitching -- 1449 IP, 0.90, .198 OAV

140 - Dr. Joyce's Brothers

This was a fun team to build although I was really counting on winning the Net competition in the draft league. Like others, I looked for a mix of expensive and cheap yet productive...so Walsh, Smoltz, Pedro in the rotation with 100+ IP seasons from Nehf and 01 Pedro. Mike Adamsand Kenley Jansen filling out the pen plus the cheap Smoltz and Walsh, giving me 12 pitchers. Looked for hitters I could double up so using Foxx at C and 1b. Like newarkwilder, I also was enamored by the two Babe strategy, so I took 24 and 33 (yep, roughly 1/7 of my total payroll). Platooning Tulo at SS, added Snuffy at 2b and Cravath in the OF and then had roughly 7 mil to spend on 3b so Bill Joyce was the best fit there.

Hitting -- 324/428/567, 235 HR, 113 SB Pitching -- 1460 IP, 0.89, .193 OAV

Lol -- I wish somebody had the guts to do an all 1951 team. Maybe if it had been a lower cap?

I just added my write-ups to the first post.

My predictions:

League___	Prediction___	Wins___	Correct?
70M	88 +/- 5	94	No
90M	90 +/- 3	98	No
100M	92 +/- 5	90	Yes
110M	99 +/- 3	89	No
130M	92 +/- 4	91	Yes
140M	94 +/- 5	95	Yes

So, overall, I predicted I'd finish with 555 wins. I ended up with 557. That's better than I expected.