Hello All,

I'm a WIFS oldtimer returning after a long absence, and I was curious if there were any trends right now in terms of how people were constructing their teams for open leagues. When I was last active here (god it must have been 15 years ago now) constructing a team based around high OBP+ was the going trend. Curious what if anything might be the common approach now? Thanks!

Guitargal!

Old-timers usually send me a team or 2!

Hail Chickens!

Posted by Guitarguy567 on 4/3/2020 7:06:00 PM (view original):
Hello All,

I'm a WIFS oldtimer returning after a long absence, and I was curious if there were any trends right now in terms of how people were constructing their teams for open leagues. When I was last active here (god it must have been 15 years ago now) constructing a team based around high OBP+ was the going trend. Curious what if anything might be the common approach now? Thanks!

Good to see you back... The good old days of running Tony Phillips out there have faded...

I may not be best person to answer as I, too, am just returning from a 5 year absence, but from the few leagues I'm in, A+++ range, above average AVG/OBP, and 80%+ SB success rates seem to be the popular strategies...

The current salary structure seems to have a wider variation of bargains and overpays, more so than way back when... Lots of guys I used to spend $3.5m-4.5m for now in the $1.8m-$3m range, and even a few guys that used to be around $7-8m in the $5-6m range. But then, there's also guys that used to be $6-10m that are now $14-25M. You can actually squeeze a Ruth or a 400IP pitcher onto a $40m team these days... Haven't been able to get a 400 IP guy on $40m since before they accounted for normalization in the price model and you could squeeze some of those 1894 guys (George Hemming anyone?) on your roster...

There are some good bats for singles or triples teams. The dynamic pricing freeze left behind some overpriced and underpriced. Search by $/PA and $/IP. SBC/Pac Bell/Busch are trendy. I like some cheap inning eaters but there are affordable 100-160 inning guys if you can be hands on to maximize their use. 1907 Ed Walsh sees a ton of use. 1886 Dan Casey is my cheapo flavor of the week. Off the discount rack. Jose Reyes and Wally Moon are cookies. $37M buys you an Open League pitching staff.

Thanks for the responses! I was curious how things might or might not have changed...and how badly my new team is going to get beat in an open league

Casey had awful performance history but has been decent. I'm getting good mileage from him. 40 wins recently...

General Player Information
Player:	1886 Dan Casey			Season Type:	Full	Position:	P	Salary:	$14,489,313
Team:	Philadelphia Quakers			Role:	S	Bats:	R	Throws:	L

SimLeague Batting Statistics
Type	#	GP	AB	H	2B	3B	HR	R	RBI	RC	SB	CS	BB	SO	HBP	AVG	OBP	SLG	1B	2B	3B	LF	RF
Best	1	72	234	50	6	2	1	21	27	18	0	0	13	54	2	.214	.258	.269	-2	1	-1	2	2
Worst	1	80	157	18	3	1	1	11	10	5	0	0	6	36	1	.115	.152	.166	1	0	0	0	0
Average	11	72	183	30	5	1	0	13	14	9	0	0	8	39	0	.164	.202	.208	0	0	-1	0	0

SimLeague Pitching Statistics
Type	#	GP	GS	CG	W	L	SV	IP	ER	H	HR	SO	BB	HBP	WP	K/9	BB/9	WHIP	OAV	ERA	1B	2B	3B	LF	RF
Best	1	80	80	12	40	22	0	573	190	535	15	241	196	7	17	3.79	3.08	1.28	.238	2.99	0	1	1	-4	-4
Worst	1	79	77	8	27	31	1	531	249	641	18	261	225	9	14	4.42	3.81	1.63	.295	4.22	2	0	-1	2	2
Average	13	69	68	20	29	26	0	508	206	524	19	236	195	10	18	4.18	3.47	1.42	.262	3.65	0	0	0	0	0

There is a disproportionate prevalence of Willie Wilson/Willie McGee/Max Carey types on the great teams, often in Petco/Pac Bell/Busch/Target. High contact/avg, A+ range, steals - that seems to be the recipe that is most effective vs any type of opponent. Of course, old time no-HR pitchers vaporize any power, so throw a rotation of pre-1920 guys into one of those parks, with some top notch slap hitters and you'll do well.

That said, I like to swim upstream and try to buy elite power on the cheap (6mm+ for Hank Greenberg, 5mm+ for Jimmie Foxx, etc) which makes for good, fun regular season teams, that still hold their own in the playoffs. Gun to my head, if I had to win a championship, that 6mm isn't going towards Greenberg, it's going towards Max Carey though...

There's good guidance in this thread...I would say, though, that there remain a lot of different ways to put together an OL winning team. In the past 6 months, I have won a few championships in OLs. Here are three of the teams, and yes there are some similarities, but there are a lot of differences too:
1.) Mega-platoon team (this was a lot of work to manage but a lot fun to see them succeed)
C: Platoon, Jack Lapp 1911, Shawn Wooten 2001
1B: Platoon, Jake Virtue 1890, Nap Lajoie 1896
2B: Platoon, 2009 Felipe Lopez, 1938 Jackie Hayes
3B: Platoon, 1954 Solly Hemus, 1922 Riggs Stephenson
SS: Platoon, 1993 Kevin Stocker, 1997 Barry Larkin
LF: 2018 Mallex Smith
CF: 1889 Walt Wilmot
RF: Platoon, 1944 Dick Wakefield plus AAA
SP: 1904 Joe McGinnity, 1904 Ja ck Powell, 1902 Bill Bernhard

2.) Cheap range with speed and 1890s hitters
C: 1922 Johnny Bassler
1B: Platoon, 2000 David Segui + AAA
2B: 1925 Frankie Frisch
3B: 1895 George Davis
SS: 1960 Maury Wills
LF: 1896 Tom McCreery
CF: 1889 Walt Wilmot
RF: 1942 Roy Cullenbine
SP: 1915 Dave Davenport, 1902 Bill Bernhard, 1919 Frank Miller

3.) HR power that normalizes well (aka the Buck Freeman team)
C: 1887 John Kerins
1B: 1901 Buck Freeman
2B: 1937 Billy Herman
3B: 2017 Marwin Gonzalez
SS: 1960 Maury Wills
LF: 1899 Buck Freeman
CF: 2019 Ketel Marte
RF: 2018 Mallex Smith
SP: 1920 Babe Adams, 1909 George McQuillan, 1915 Mike Prendergast, 1919 Frank Miller

And here's another team that just finished the regular season, won its division with 100+ wins:
C: Platoon, 1916 Wally Schang + AAA
1B: 1956 Wally Moon
2B: 1998 Roberto Alomar
3B: 1989 Bobby Bonilla
SS: 1923 Dave Bancroft
LF: 1889 Walt Wilmot
CF: 1984 Willie Wilson
RF: 1921 Max Carey
SP: 1904 Cy Young, 1915 Guy Morton, 1909 George McQuillan

Hail Chickens

As another person back after a long (14-15 year) break, this takes me back...