Let's use this thread to discuss our thought processes, strategies, etc. with respect to how we decided on our teams.

$70mil – 2010 Mariners

For this theme, my primary focus was Mariners and Padres teams of the last 10-15 years. The reason being that a) they had some poor teams with solid players, which gave me options/flexibility for filling out the $35mil. As well, I wanted to use Petco or Safeco to minimize IP and AB, thus allowing me to get more quality.  I looked at the ’98 Padres (with Brown anchoring the rotation) and the ’07 Padres with Peavy, but eventually settled on the 2010 Mariners. Hernandez and Lee, with their low walk totals, should do really well in Safeco, and Vargas and Fister provided cheap options for filling out the rotation. I eventually dumped Ichiro because I decided I didn’t need to pay for 700+ PA in this league. Eventually ended up with a solid roster that includes Zobrist, Tulo, Utley and Molina, and Koji, League, Street, Aardsma and a partial Dan Haren in the bullpen.

$80mil – 1910s and 1980s. 

I decided to go with a team based on OBP and SB, with a little pop. I decided to go with deadball pitching to minimize HR, and then took Shea Stadium as a pitcher’s park to help them out. I’ll probably give up my fair share of singles, but low walks, and the strength of my offense should offset that. I have almost 700 BB in my lineup, along with 270 SB (vs. 60 CS).  I’m not sure how confident I am given how these leagues usually turn out, but this was the easiest team for me to make and the one I put the least thought into. I think it’s a solid strategy that should at least keep me competitive.

$90mil

This is another theme I tried not to overthink, as I suspected many rosters would be similar in content. I focused on a mix of attributes in my lineup, with a couple 100+ walk guys, two with 30+ HR, some good SB numbers and solid averages. I didn’t really have a defensive strategy (ie: range over defense, or vice versa) because again, there wasn’t much fluctuation. For pitching I focused on guys with low walk totals (Saberhagen, Bonham, Tewksbury, Pedro), and again went with a pitcher’s park, this time the Oakland Coliseum. I even splurged on Milacki for my pen, for those tough games in-season and (hopefully) the playoffs.

$100mil – ’61 Whitey Ford, ’75 Gary Nolan, ’76 Vida Blue, ’98 Kevin Brown

When I started this them, my goal was to find two really good starters, and two average starters with great teammates. I took a few tries, but I think I ended up with a good balance. I was set on Blue early on because he has a good season in ’76, and also offered me cheap and defensively solid options at 3B and SS with Bando and Campenaris. Bando has some pop and Campy has decent walk and SB totals. I also took Bosman for long relief. Brown is my other stud, and I went with 50 HR Greg Vaughn, utility man Andy Sheets, and relievers Carlos Reyes and Trevor Hoffman as his teammates. I wanted some good Yankee options on offense, which brought Ford into the mix. His ’61 season is solid and he brings teammates Mantle, Maris and Elston Howard into the fold, along with good slugging Johnny Blanchard to back up at C. Lastly, I ended up with Nolan because his teammates filled the gaps for me. He doesn’t have bad numbers, but the fact that he came with a very good Joe Morgan, a cheap 1B option in Tony Perez, backup 1B Dan Driessen and reliever Rawley Eastwick sealed the deal. With 250+ HR and nearly 800 walks, I decided to go with the Murph as my stadium to help my pitching. My bullpen between the starters and Hoffman is the biggest question mark.

$110mil – Roger Clemens, 1986 and 2000

This one gave me fits. I initially started with Russell Branyan and was very pleased to have Cliff Lee, Felix, Gooden and Hershiser, until I realized that I’d been working with two different seasons of the Indians and Hershiser and Gooden never played together. I tinkered with many lineups, trying to find the best pitching rotation possible and go from there. I finally ended up with ’86/’00 Clemens, and teammates Seaver, Gooden and Cone. I relied heavily on the 2000 Yankees in making up this team, with Jeter, Tino, Canseco, Bernie, Posada, Justice, Lilly, Nelson and Rivera. Rice, Barrett, Boggs and Sambito are my main Red Sox contributors. I’m confident in my team, but I may have screwed myself a bit. I built this team around Yankee Stadium II, thinking I could use either of Clemens stadiums. As I re-read the rules, I discovered I had to take the stadium of the year I chose, and since I took ’86, I had to use Fenway. I made a last minute swap to add a few more innings, but hopefully I have enough IP and AB to go around without serious fatigue issues.

$120mil

This team gave me fits and took me the longest to enter. I wanted to find a way to spend $60mil on pitching, but I also wanted a) enough IP and b) quality innings. I figured others would build huge offenses and take the best pitching they could for what they had left, so I did the opposite. I met the requirements with the bare minimum I could. I tried to find .350 and .400 hitters as close to 500PA as possible, and then supplement them with cheap .300 hitters to fill out my PA. I ended up with a lineup up of Sisler, Carew, Boggs, Ozzie, Thompson, Manny, Delahanty, Gwynn and Kendall.

This allowed me to have a rotation of ’17 Cicotte, ’72 Perry and 04 ‘McGinnity, who will be my 3^rd starter, but who’s 400+ innings provide a ton of insurance. I have ’89 Nolan Ryan as my long man, and perhaps a spot starter against teams with few walks. With the BA requirements, I have a feeling there will be more than a few teams with low walk totals, so Ryan should be able to handle them fairly well. By “skimping” a bit on offense, I also was able to severely bolster my bullpen, which I remember after last year is hugely important in high cap themes. I have ’18 Carmen Hill, ’10 Uehara, ’10 Wagner and ’10 Mariano Rivera at the back end of my pen, and 1,700 IP in total. If nothing else, I should not have any fatigue issues. Hopefully that will make the difference come season’s end. I went with American League Park I (2,0,0,0,0) to get as close to neutral as possible within the theme rules.

Team Building Process

70M
"My 2006 Halladay in LA"

Total IP: 1348 (1290 good innings)
Total PA: 5245 (including backups)

When I first started building this team, I wanted to find lots of SBs. I rarely play at caps below 80M. The only way I know how to win is to grab high% SB guys because these guys still seem undervalued. So I started searching through the years trying to find a year with as many high% 50+ SB guys as possible. I ended up finding 1987 (with V.Coleman, W.Wilson, B.Hatcher). I tried the KC Royals as my anchor team, as they had an entire starting staff already in place so I could cherry pick the hitters I wanted. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t stomach the pathetic quality of their pitching. In fact, I tried but couldn’t find any teams I liked from 1987. I also tried some other years in the mid 1980’s but couldn’t make any of them work. Back to the drawing board.

Instead, I decided to search for bargain starting pitchers… solid 200-ip guys with relatively low salaries. I wanted to stay in the modern era. I found 2006 with Halladay, Maddux, Lowe and Wang… almost 870 decent IPs for only $21 million. I decided to investigate this further. Since the 2006 Dodgers had both Maddux & Lowe, that’s the team I selected. The problem with LA is that most of their position players have < 600 PA. Even the position players I wanted to add (Vidro & Punto), were under 600. But I was able to find a reasonable backup/platoon partner for each of them. That also means I didn’t waste dollars on a bunch of 200K scrubs. So my lineup looks like this (Dodgers highlighted in Blue).

As I have mentioned in previous years, except for the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, there is no annual event I look forward to more than schwarze's WISC Championship.  And here we are!   Here is what I remember about my various team-building strategies:

$70mm -   I rarely play in small cap leagues so this salary cap is always an adventure for me.  As soon as the themes were announced, I figured that this would be the team that I would enter on the final deadline day.  However, I was nominated as a guest commissioner and assigned this as one of my 2 themes so my procrastination/digestion strategy was ammended to just slapping something together.  Very similar to this past week on Capitol Hill.  I usually try to go with a variety of low-walk pitchers, high-walk hitters and oppressive pitchers parks in low cap leagues.  However.having to use so many players from the same actual team made me look for something simpler.  That became "go dead ball era and don't look back".  I always liked 1909 players and especially the 1909 Pirates with Wagner, Adams, Camnitz, Clarke etc. so I dabbled with them as a first draft.  Cheap, low WHIP, low HR/9 pitching was available on the Pirates and the league in general.  I couldn't afford Camnitz or Adams but the rest of the Pirates pitching looked functionally mediocre enough to use.  Second tier Pirate hitters gave me the necessary amount of $1mm+ players I needed, but Wagner and Clarke were budget cuts as well.   I filled in with some below-average years from name players like Lajoie and HR Baker to make me feel better and just went with it. 

$80mm -  My only two choices for pitching decades were 1900s and 1910s.  Low HR/9s, low WHIPS, don't strike anybody out.  I really like 1910 decade pitchers the best (1919 Adams, 1918 Toney, 1919 Barnes) but I chose to go with the 1900's staff instead because they were significantly cheaper.  I wound up taking low-inning starters 1906 White, 1909 Krause, 1907 Pfiester and 1908 Burns (all lefties).  Then we bring in long-inning relievers 1906 Patterson, 1908 Steele, 1905 Griffith and 1909 Curtis (all righties).  Close out with lefty 1908 H Coveleski.   1,369 IP, 0.93 WHIP, 12 total real life HRs allowed.   Hoping to lift starters for pinch-hitters around the 5th or 6th innings and have the bullpens contribute.   My only choice for hitting was the popular 1990s.  I especially like the .400 OBP plus guys who are really cheap.  Starting lineup: C 1996 Piazza (only semblance of power),  1b 1992 Kruk, 2b 1991 Randolph, 3b 1995 Boggs, SS 1995 Weiss, OFs 1993 Lofton, 1996 Gwynn, 1991 Otis Nixon.  Will need to use bench extensively for pinch--hitting and starting but they are more than servicable.  Hitters including bench (only 5240 PA/360, .313 BA, .402 OBP).  Playing at Dodger Stadium.

$90mm -  I am always reluctant to pay for fielding so I am really dealing mostly with hitters I would not ordinarily use.  Even now, I really cannot tell what I was thinking when I put this together.  I know I went for high OBP players that walked a lot.   I have a 3 man platoon at 2b (1936 Myer, 1997 Counsell, 2003 Figgins).  I have 1922 Bassler and 2 sub 300k backup catchers totaling barely 640 PA/360.  How about 1974 Bud Harrelson and 1926 Hod Ford at short??   For pitching, I went with low BB/9 pitchers (deadballers of course).   1908 Joss, 1919 Barnes, 1905 Cy Young - 1906 Patterson, 1916 Sallee - 1912 Weilman, 1993 Boucher, 1983 Heathcock in relief??  total of 1408 IP/360 with .90 WHIP but it looks thin.   Also playing at Dodger Stadium.    Total high maintenance mess.

$100mm -  Truly a mindbending puzzle.   I looked at balanced and unbalanced rotations.  My first thought was the same as in the $70mm league - 1909 Pirates.  Camnitz is acceptable as a starter, Wagner and Adams are perfect for this theme and the 3rd player could fill in a gap.  I liked the idea of 1895 Sadie McMahon and his 153 IP/360 but the stud hitters were not cost effective because of so many AB.  I also thought 2006 Santana had usable parts with Mauer, Morneau and interesting bullpen variables.  I settled on Camnitz and Santana as my foundation since it covered C, SS and bullpen and left only OF, 3b and 2b to fill.  Cruising throught thejuice6's "Green Cathedrals" leagues in which I am currently playing, I noticed that a shrewd owner had used 1898 Al Maul.  His 1.07 Whip season is perfectly acceptable and gives me much more affordable pre-1900 Orioles like McGraw, Jennings (with c-/c+ OF eligibility) and Keeler.  After trying to search for the missing 2b part I went back to the well and used DeMontreville from the same 1898 O's team.  I now had one OF and hopefully some more RP options to fill.   1996 Kevin Brown had exactly what I was looking for (Sheff, Nen, Helling)  and that group seemed to work well.  Big question mark in lack of OF range but otherwise pretty solid.  A truly enjoyable team to put together (maybe not so much to watch play out). 

$110 million -  This was a theme that I knew from the start I would create about a dozen teams for.  Plan A was to find a way to blend Ruth with some good pitching.  Played around with Ruth, Speaker and Leonard teams and liked them pretty well.  Plan B was to find a way to get Maddux involved.  I liked the 1995 Braves/2008 Dodgers a lot but was concerned about going modern era.  Plan C was to go with the obvious and team dead ball low-WHIP pitchers with a monster hitter period.  Tried the obvious Collins and liked those teams too.  Eventually, I went back to one of my favorite twist teams (1910 Naps) and decided I had to use somebody from this gold mine.  Joss and Cy Young.  Joe Jackson and Lajoie.  Nice base.  I tried a few guys like Flick and Mcguire to keep my season options open but eventually decided I was going to use the 1910 Lajoie season in any event.  and I knew his early Phillie teams between 1896 and 1900 were loaded as well.  They all have Delahanty and Al Orth.  1899 and 1900  had Bernhard and Roy Thomas (both sweet adds).  However, I got greedy on hitting and worked my way back in time.  1896 would have been a slam dunk if Jack Taylor was really Jack Taylor.  Sadly, this Taylor passed away in 1900 and was not the familiar Cubs/Orphans 1902-03 stud.  Very confusing that the WIS data base does not distinguish between the two.  I wound up settling on the 1897 Phils.  No Bernhard or Thomas but Lave Cross, Sam Thompson and Jack Clements are there.  So is Tully Sparks who has a good season on paper but I haven't ever used it before.  My team batting average (including bench hitters) is a ridiculous .363 (and I get to play in League Park (II)).   Team WHIP (including a couple of <300k punching bags for insurance) is 0.93 with 1485 IP/360.   I have played in several similar themes.  Thoroughly enjoy the research.  Usually really like my team.  Rarely, if ever, make the playoffs. 

120mm - My main goal was to get about 1500 innings of my favorite and most reliable pitchers on the roster.  With every team loaded with high average hitting, I wanted to minimize walks allowed and of course minimize gopher balls.  Went with 1919 Adams, 1995 Maddux, 1996 Kevin Brown, 1914 Leonard to start.  1906 Patterson, 1919 Nehf, 1918 Toney and 2010 partial Cliff Lee.  Only 8 pitchers to make 1501 IP but none under 100IP.  Then I filled in the hitting portion in stages:  1) compare all the .400 hitters and rank by OBP+ and $/PA.   Look for the best 2 values in the 650-700 PA/162 range and came up with 1911 Jackson and 1923 Heilmann.  Next, I wanted the 1931 Ruth and 1985 McGee for two of the required 350+ guys.  After that, I had to go cheap and used 1930 Cochrane and 1887 Caruthers (excellent value) to finish that requirement.   My infield again has a lot of moving parts: 1991 Randolph, 1948 Appling, 2007 Keppinger, 1922 Stephenson, 1945 Garms, 1999 Grebeck.   Playing in Jefferson Street Grounds.

As always, my only goal is to advance to Round 2 and hopefully get the chance to do it all again. 

I'm working on comments for my other teams, but since my 110mil comments are ready, and long-winded, I thought I'd just go ahead and post them: