I don't know how I always seem to come up short on salary in these leagues. I know I started with some low-cost options to avoid wasted salary, but I have some pretty high-priced teammates as well. And yet I'm maxing out around $115M. I guess it balances out - if you avoid wasted salary, your cap ends up lower; and if you hit the cap, you probably just have more wasted salary.

I have a little less than $15M of wasted salary. But I am not playing any bad seasons of the drafted players.

My last player is 1971 Thurman Munson

This season's strategy was to see if I could get the worst season of every nominated player. I almost did it.

I think I have enough production but I think Bobby Murcer is going to have to play second base.

I thought I had a good strategy for this one (and I don't feel bad about it), but knowing I have extra salary left, I would have made a couple decisions differently. I originally nominated '15 **** Hernandez to get Greinke and Kershaw, but didn't think I would end up rostering both with the solid pitching nominations. So I switched to '15 Baez to get Arrieta instead. Then DeGrom was unnominated and that threw things off a bit.

I identified a few players I wanted to pick early (Sorensen, Rau) to avoid wasting millions on crap, and some players (like Cole, Munson, Haney, West) that I was willing to wait on, either because their crappy seasons were cheap, or they had a depth of useable seasons.

Nomination: '15 Baez

This served to get me Arrieta and the top pick.

Round 1: '87 Sorensen

I could've taken '15 Hernandez here, and looking back, maybe I should have, but I'm not unhappy with this pick. I identified Sorensen early on as a source of significant wasted cash. I didn't really want to pay for his top season, even though it was decent, so I opted to save money by going with this version. It also brought me a very good Tim Raines and Tim Burke for the pen. Burke ultimately had to go to bring in more innings. Sigh.

Round 2: '18 Adam Eaton

I wasn't enamored with Eaton's seasons. This one jumped out as strong platoon one, especially with Yelich and Conigiliaro having some lower PA seasons. He also brought along another ace in Max Scherzer, and Trea Turner to start at SS.

Round 3: '73 Rau

Rau was another player that presented the possibility of significant wasted salary. In hindsight, I probably jumped the gun a bit with this pick in an attempt to save money. But he brings along a good Don Sutton to help in the rotation.

Round 4: '20 Cole

I thought I could wait longer on Cole, but there was a bit of a run on him and since I needed him in my rotation, I decided to jump in here before all the decent seasons were gone. He brought along a good DJ Lemahieu, but he got left on the cutting room floor.

Round 5: '78 Remy

It became clear around this point that pitching was running out, so I would need to save as many teammates as possible for my pitching. This Remy is a decent hitter with good defense, so I decided to take the plunge. He brings along a stud Jim Rice as a nice consolation prize.

Round 6: '16 **** Hernandez

This move saved a little cash and brought along Mr. Kershaw and Kenley Jansen, so it served a couple purposes. Though clearly I didn't need to save as much cash as I did.

Round 7: '19 Jose Abreu

Another hitter I needed to use, and the options were dwindling, so I took him earlier than I wanted to to get a good season.

Round 8: '61 Johnny Roseboro

I had initially planned to take the '63 or '64 version, but they went off the board earlier than I anticipated. I banked on others being scared off by Koufax's salary and was wrong. I'll need to use Roseboro, so this one comes with a solid slugging % and a very good arm.

Round 9: '64 Tony Conigiliaro

Not much to this one. Went with a lower PA/higher quality season to platoon with Eaton.

Round 10: '13 Christian Yelich

Another pick with not much thought. He's usable off the bench or as a PH. I also ended up using Jose Fernandez to give me more quality innings, even though I really wanted to keep Burke.

Round 11: '73 Thurman Munson

I had eyed '72 Munson earlier in the draft for Murcer but ultimately went a different direction. Given my need to minimize hitting teammates, Munson will play 3B for me this season.

Round 12: '98 Chris Haney
Round 13: '89 David West
Round 14: '65 Pete Ward (this nomination sucked)
Round 15: '17 Matt Harvey

These 4 are my wasted salary picks, though Ward will have value as a defensive replacement for Munson at 3B. About $6M in wasted salary, plus I'm looking to come up $4-5M short of the cap, so in all, I'll be playing with around $110M.

Lineup:

1. Tim Raines, CF (B+/B) - .330/.429/.526
2. Sammy Sosa, LF (C/B-) - .308/.377/.647
4. Jose Abreu, 1B (B/A-) - .284/.330/.503
4. Howard Johnson (A+/D-) - .287/.369/.559
5. Thurman Munson, 3B (N/A) - .301/.362/.487
6. Tony Conigliaro, RF (C/D+) - .290/.354/.530
7. Johnny Roseboro, C (C+/A+/A+) - .251/.346/.459
8. Jerry Remy, 2B (B/A-) - .278/.321/.350

Pitching
Jake Arrieta - .185 OAV, 9.28 K/9, 1.89 BB/9, 0.39 HR/9
Clayton Kershaw - .184 OAV, 10.39 K/9, 0.66 BB/9, 0.48 HR/9
Max Scherzer - .188 OAV, 12.24 K/9, 2.08 BB/9, 0.94 HR/9
Gerrit Cole - .197 OAV, 11.59 K/9, 2.10 BB/9, 1.73 HR/9
Don Sutton - .209 OAV, 7.02 K/9, 1.97 BB/9, 0.63 HR/9

Jose Fernandez - .182 OAV, 9.75 K/9, 3.02 BB/9, 0.52 HR/9

Kenley Jansen - .150 OAV, 13.63 K/9, 1.44 BB/9, 0.52HR/9

Rau and Sorensen will get some Long A/Setup B work when needed. West, Harvey and Haney will be last resort mopups.

Conclusion: I actually like my team. It’s one of the better ones I’ve assembled in this theme. However, I feel the salary I’ve let on the table will end up hurting me. With all the good pitching, I suspect my offense will be in the lower half of the league.

EDIT: To use more salary, I'm bravely going with '89 HoJo over '18 Turner at SS. I figure with a lot of low OAV/high K pitchers, in a -2 singles park, his poor range won't hurt as much. Also switching from '78 Rice to '98 Sosa.

....Round 14: '65 Pete Ward (this nomination sucked)

lol. I think this is a compliment.....I think....

"About $6M in wasted salary, plus I'm looking to come up $4-5M short of the cap, so in all, I'll be playing with around $110M."

Only $6 million in wasted salary is amazing. So being $4-5 million under the cap + $6 million in wasted salary is still better than $15 million in wasted salary. It really comes down to "effective salary". I'm at $105 million. You're at around $110 million. I would be shocked if other teams are much higher. In previous (non-deadball) 16x16 versions, most teams end up somewhere between 105-110 million of effectively salary.

Down to about $7.5M in wasted/missing salary now, with the HoJo addition. Maybe my strategy will pay off better than I think.