Feel free to share your approach to each theme below.

For me, after some comments against how challenging (read: time consuming) a few of the themes were last year, I wanted to make this year's themes about a different kind of challenge. I wanted to open things up a bit and make it more about knowing the game, rather than research. I think the looser feel was a nice change of pace.

I always seem to do well in every theme unless it is 90M, so I'm really hoping I made the right calculations for how many innings I'll need for the Coors theme. Overall I feel good about my teams, even after having reviewed all the rosters over the last few weeks. We'll see if that translates into a Round 2 spot.


$65M - MH Shuffleboard
Astrodome

At the risk of sounding a lot older than I am, 65M sure doesn’t get you what it used to.

Originally, this theme was called Eight Buckets, and was going to require owners to pick eight 5 year periods that were at least X years apart (never settled on what X should be). Those numbers were sort of arbitrary, though, and the lower cap was already a challenge here, so I toned it down.

I found this theme to be deceptively simple. To me, either taking the 1900’s or 1910’s was a given, as was either the 1980’s or 1990’s. There are plenty of workable players in all four of those decades. So, to build my team, I completely ignored all four.

I also ignored the 1950’s because it is very difficult to win with 50’s players; they don’t do anything exceptionally well relative to other decades. I also had a feeling I wouldn’t want to use the 1930’s or 1960’s because with only 65M, I’m not paying for poorly normalizing hitters. This left me with needing to use two of the decades from the 1920’s, 1940’s and 1970’s, and my choices would restrict which of the best four decades I would use. This was where I began looking at players.

I figured hitting would be harder (I could always use my wildcard for another cheap deadball pitcher on top of my 1900’s players), so I started there. Speed, enough XBH to get by, and not terrible defense. I was surprised that there were more options I liked from the 20’s and 70’s than the 40’s — I expected to use ’42 Cullenbine — and I might’ve gone the other way if the cap was 5M high.

I wanted to platoon more than I ended up being able to, and I am carrying 600k in dead salary, but I’m still pretty happy with this team.

Hitting: 4,910 PA, .285/.371/.391, $33.9M
Pitching: 1,292 IP, 1.07 WHIP, 0.26 HR/9, $30.2M
Prediction: I tend to do better than I expect to in low cap themes, but I'll hedge here and say 88 wins (+/- 5)


90M - MH Yikes
Coors Field

I tried to get this league up and running a few months ago and literally no one joined. But, it’s a fairly unique challenge, and I think it really tests some pieces of an owner’s understanding of how some of the basic mechanisms of the game — at bats, pitching, and fielding — work.

As others have mentioned, the big question here is how many innings you should draft. I put together a very simplified algorithm to try to answer this for myself. This was complicated by the fact that all games would be in Coors. Luckily, I had a team based in Mile High at around this cap level that was wrapping up it’s season around the time I put this team together. I was able to use numbers from that team as a proxy. The algorithm was:

(((Expected Balls in Play * Team FLDG%) * Additional PA per Error) + ((Expected Errors * Expected Error to Minus Play Ratio) * Additional PA per Minus Play) * Expected Pitches per PA) / Estimated Pitches per Inning) + Expected IP for normal 90M league = Innings Needed

As I tinkered with my team, I kept an eye on the recommendations coming from the algorithm. Want to replace 2006 A-Rod with 1895 Bill Joyce? Ok, but now you need a few extra innings too.

In the end, I stuck pretty close to the recommendations (I went a little higher just to be safe — 1,590 vs 1,565 — since this algorithm is not sophisticated). Though, 25 of them are mopup, so I sort of hit it dead on.

The second important question here is whether to:
A) Draft deadball hitters, who will cause your opponents to commit more errors in the field, and pair them with modern pitchers
B) Draft modern hitters and pair them with deadball pitchers to protect against HRs (and errors as much as possible)
C) Draft deadball hitters and deadball pitchers because you want the low strikeout hitters but also think that giving up HRs will be more damaging than making errors.

In Round 2, I probably would have gone with A, since there are likely to be fewer HR hitters. In Round 1, though, I figured there would be a fair amount of HR hitters drawn in by the lure of Coors, so I went with option C, with some modern hitters thrown in for good measure. For pitching, I went with guys who normalize really well for strikeouts (Dazzy Vance, Rube Waddell) that I think pushes this strategy over the top as the superior one.

Hitting: 5,406 PA, .342/.421/.481, $45.0M
Pitching: 1,565 IP, 1.06 WHIP, 0.17 HR/9, $44.0M
Prediction: I feel pretty confident about my IP, my only worry is that I made the wrong call by going for pitchers who normalize well for Ks rather than going for modern pitchers who let up more HRs. Call it 90 wins (+/- 4)


100M - MH Mad Dog Disease
Turner Field

I spent a lot of time looking at various scrubs from the 90’s - 00’s to try and find someone who played on more than a few great teams. There are a couple good ones out there (Chase Heisey, Gregg Zaunn, Greg Colbrunn to name a few who got chosen). However, 100M also doesn’t get you what it used to, and I couldn’t justify > 1M in dead salary for a 100M WISC league. If it wasn’t the WISC, maybe.

I thought a lot about using Tim Raines too — anyone remember ArlenWilliam winning something like 112 games in a clone theme a few years ago by playing Raines at every position except SS? That was something else — but ultimately couldn’t ignore the top tier pitchers.

For me, it came down to Maddux and Kershaw. In the end, Kershaw was simply too expensive for this cap for me to feel comfortable with the offense. And putting a team that would give up HRs in Dodger Stadium didn’t seem like a great idea either.

My main reason for using Maddux though was that, at 100M, I don't want to waste money. Money spent on Maddux is well spent, all of it — few BBs, few HRs, not overpaying for Ks. Among the top tier for this league, he had the best combo of player value + teammate value, in my opinion.

Choosing Maddux gave me two strategies to pick from.
1. Atlanta Fulton County Stadium, going all out on HRs, etc.
2. Turner Field, a more balanced lineup, less Maddux clones needed

I thought both were ok, but found the second option both easier to fit under the salary cap and more likely to succeed.

Hitting: 5,310 PA, .298/.383/.497, $47.5M
Pitching: 1,417 IP, 1.00 WHIP, 0.40 HR/9, $50.9M
Prediction: Maddux was a solid call, and there are no other Maddux teams in my league, so I feel great about this team. 93 wins (+/- 3)


110M - MH One Nine One Five
Griffith Stadium

Running the tournament is a lot of fun for me, but it sucks for building my teams for time consuming themes like this one. Due to that restriction, I only looked at deadball years.

Within the deadball era, though, there are a few ways you could have gone. I quickly ID’d 1914 and 1915 as high-likelihood choices simply due to the fact that the Federal League was around, which meant a larger player pool to choose from. Additionally, they’d give me a good balance of access to the deadball era and the better fielding 1920’s.

I also thought that the other way could be a good bet, with years like 1904 (without much talent) allowing me to grab some cheap hitting from the 1890’s. After seeing that this is exactly what brianjw did, I am rethinking my choice slightly.

The last option I considered was taking 1909, 1910 or 1911 and just using the whole range of deadball years, primarily.

The key to any optimization problem with constraints that vary in their restrictiveness is to tackle the options (in this case years) with the fewest amount of choices first, and work forward. So, using a list of high-value players I had made for myself (note that this included 200k guys, since scrubs were just as challenging to make work in this theme as regulars), along with their start and end years, I looked at the years between 1891 and 1928 where I’d have the fewest choices for useful players, and worked from there.

I ID’d 1918, 1907, 1913, 1919, 1904, and 1912 as the years to start with, and 1910, 1914, 1926, and 1915 as the years I’d be most comfortable leaving for last.

After a lot of trial and error, I have what looks like a pretty normal 110M team.

Hitting: 5,230 PA, .337/.404/.471, $54.7M
Pitching: 1,414 IP, 0.92 WHIP, 0.07 HR/9, $53.1M
Prediction: Another solid team. I could throw this in a 110M open league and it would do alright. 96 wins (+/- 3)


130M - MH TLC
Kauffman Stadium

I was joking that no one was worried about this theme, but I found it to be the easiest too (largely by design). However, I found the bullpen to be tricky.

The biggest question for me here was could I make it work with my preferred rotation (1 - 2a/b). A two man rotation would force more platooning, while a four man rotation would force less (or a smaller bullpen). I liked the flexibility offered by the four man but in the end found 1908 Ed Walsh to be too good of a value to pass on, so I went with the 1 - 2a/b.

I platooned four positions.
+ 2B (Lajoie ’02 —> Possum Whitted)
+ C (Wally Schang, Earle Brucker)
+ DH (Tuck Turner, Bob Hazle, John Cangelosi — aka three guys who have no business playing the field)
+ 1B (Reb Russell with some spillover from Hazle)

I am a little worried about PAs but overall feel confident in this team. My bullpen has a good mix of modern studs and short-season SPs who will make starts in the playoffs, should we make it.

Hitting: 5,906 PA, .349/.424/.510, $67.2M
Pitching: 1,523 IP, 0.87 WHIP, 0.23 HR/9, $62.8M
Prediction: I rostered a bit too many innings, but I don't think that will hurt me too much. 91 wins (+/- 5)


255M - MH The Best is Yet To Come
Target Field

This was my favorite theme. Yes, you could build a great 255M team, but some players (Barry Bonds, Ted Williams, Lou Gehrig, Hugh Duffy, etc.) don’t have any good seasons for Round 2 — or, at the very least, the seasons they do have at lower salaries won’t hold up against Round 2 competition. Since I hope to make Round 2, I built both teams in tandem.

There are also a lot of players who would be great at 110M who don’t have a usable season at 255M (Max Carey, Omar Vizquel, Bill Bernhard, John Kerins, etc.). Since it’s easier to absorb dead salary at 255M than 110M, I felt fine rosters these players. I believe it will give me a leg up in Round 2. I also did this with Clayton Kershaw. His 149IP dominant season will be even more dominant in Round 2 than it would be here, and I didn’t need him as an SP here, so he’s just taking up 1M and riding the pine.

Somewhat ironically, I’m using a platoon of Nap Lajoie and Rogers Hornsby in Round 2 but only rostered one of their expensive seasons for this team.

My main challenge was the bullpen. Most modern relievers who have elite seasons (Gagne, Kimbrel, etc.) don’t have cheaper seasons that are also a good value. Sure, you can roster 2017 Kimbrel, but he’s not well priced due to Ks, has a minuscule IP/G, and a not-great HR/9# either.

Due to this, I am rolling with 4 SPs for the 255M league — Alexander (’15 —> ’18), Walsh (’10 —> ’08), Maddux (’95 —> ’06), and Pedro (’00 —> ’05). I let myself waste a couple hundred thousand in Round 2 by indulging on Elton Chamberlain in Round 1, but other than that my pitchers will all be usable at both cap levels.

Hitting: 5,938 PA, .392/.468/.588, $134.6M
Pitching: 1,601 IP, 0.79 WHIP, 0.26 HR/9, $110.8M
Prediction: This team is good. The Round 2 team is better. This one gets 98 wins (+/- 3)

$65M 1900-40-60--90 + 1910
Aimed for an average of $25,000 per IP and $6000 per PA. I simplified it to a straightforward draft without much mixing and matching. Drafted 6 SP from 1900-09, they were a few pennies cheaper than 1910-19. For my 7th deadball pitcher I looked to 1910 (Joss) so I could use South Side Park and save on stamina. Bill Dinneen is my Ace and I've never said that before in my life. His 357 innings allow me to use a slew of pitchers with 140 ip or so, they look like better value. Some of them are good hitters the others will split time in the bullpen with the stray low inning pitchers.

I selected 6 hitters from the 1990's (Giambi McEwing Seitzer Loretta Bonilla Merced). The 80's are also good but not as many to choose from. Next I selected the 40's because of a few role players who looked like better value than the other decades (Mueller, Bergamo, Allie Clark, Rigney, Lyons). Then I used the 60's to fill in the backups and end of the bullpen. Ribant, Willie Smith , Coot Veal and three bums.

1350 innings should be enough at this cap. 1.07/.238/0.29. 5400+ pa should keep me at or near full strength I won't be pinch hitting a lot, in a -3 ballpark, and I couldn't afford top notch glove but chose mid-range glove over more bat in part because it saves on fatigue. .291/.362/.435


$90M D+ in Coors
Advantage to whoever figures out how much stamina we need to buy. I was in a mid-cap Coors league so I used those results as a baseline and adjusted adjusted downward for the lower stats here, then adjusted upward to account for bad defense. Drafted 1690 innings and 6143 PA. I can handle minor fatigue at a few positions. My new custom when unsure of IP needed is to draft 2 mopups so I didn't waste much money if overestimated. Spent $50m on pitching $40m on hitting, partly because it looked right, mainly so I wouldn't need to buy more PA.

SS Ed McKean, I was drawn in by his 759 pa. Atypical versions of Joe Morgan and Yunel Escobar with Riggs Stephenson backing up both of them. Nilsson and Nordhagen catching. 1B/OF of Lamar Johnson, Jim Rice, Babe Herman, Sam Crawford, and Dixie Walker. Yes that's one extra player I'll need him. plus Curtis Pride on the bench. .313/.382/.462
Charlie Buffinton 495ip and Cy Young 373ip anchor the rotation followed by lower versions of Frank Smith and Joe McGinnity. And 6 more arms 45-90 innings.1.02/.223/0.17


$100M Another Greg Maddux Team
I only considered Starting Pitchers, otherwise it's too much trouble trying to scrape up enough good pitching. Maddux Clemens and Seaver were the finalists. I drafted a team for each of them. Eliminated Clemens because of weaker glove and pitcher batting. Seaver team came together after I hooked into the 86 Red Sox. I was rooting for this team because it's more unique. But it wasn't close enough so I had to take Greg. Better glove at most positions, no glaring weaknesses, and Maddux has better Performance History for whatever that's worth.

The 2 big Madduxes are not affordable at this cap. I went with the next 4 best choices, 1996-97-98-92. Pulled in John Smoltz as a 5th SP. Not a 5-man rotation, I'll cycle the 2 weakest hitters through the thin bullpen.1986 Maddux mopping up so I can access his teammates. Javy catching with help from Tyler Houston. Infield of McGriff Sandberg Chipper and Blauser. Mixed OF of Klesko, Lofton not quite fulltime, and PT Mumphrey Lopes Justice. several 300k exemption bench fillers.

1428 innings is a bit light considering it includes two mops. without them I'm at 0.99/.22/0.41. Hitting weighs in at 5536pa .302/.378/.492. in Turner Field.


$110M 1915
Very time consuming. I used the first year I thought of, it took so long I didn't have time to check another year for comparison. 1915 gives access to a lot of good deadball pitchers to choose from. And enough hitters to make it work. Did tedious research and made lists, then it was like solving a puzzle. After finishing there were a couple holes in the roster. Reduced 3B Zimmerman to Bradley to fill those holes. All the moving parts made this another time wasting project, the final result was a tossup. Chose the Bradley team, don't know if it's better but it has fewer managerial headaches. Put it away until the deadline, found an illegal player but lost my notes so it was another reshuffling nightmare. Commish found another illegal player and now I hate this theme you can't just replace one player you need to shuffle everything around.

Old favorites Ed Walsh and Claude Hendrix anchor the rotation. I chose '04 Mordecai Brown and '06 Ed Reulbach from my list because they came from lean years with nobody else I wanted. They'll have to cycle through the bullpen all I have left is Quinn Hughes and 2 mops. Normally I draft a lot of pitchers but some of these themes force the opposite strategy.

Lajoie or Hornsby? Both! Nap '03 at 2B and Hornsby '17 at SS. '16 Cobb and '19 Speaker in the OF. 100-year-old George Burns at 1st. With 17 hitting slots to fill I have 3 catchers and 5 guys splitting RF. '12 Chief Meyers with Lapp and Nunamaker. 1897 Honus Wagner, '29 Ken Williams, Mann Hyatt and Schultz.


$130M
Easiest theme and the closest thing to a regular Sim league. 13 pitchers, 8 position players, and four $2M guys essentially splitting the DH position while also backing up a couple players. Motley pitching rotation of wherever I can find value. 495ip Walsh 270ip Bernhard and 183ip McGinnity who will probably spend most of his time at Long B while I throw various low IP starters. 10 pitchers in the 45-70 inning range.


$255M
Hastily drafted after I procrastinated and then lost some interest during the transition. Normally I'd emphasize round 2 it's more important, but not here, there are limited choices at $255M so that's where the focus goes. Drafted the top players who also had a suitable $110m season or 2, or a cheap bench version. I'm at a disadvantage because I never play $255m and don't know from experience what I need. And I didn't have time to draft two concurrent rosters so I just made sure some players had several versions I could choose from and be flexible for round 2.

I picked the best at most position with just a few 2nd bests to meet the budget. King Kelly, George Brett, Hornsby, Hughie Jennings, Babe Ruth, Tip O'neill, Ted Williams all in their best years with Ruth playing 1B. Mantle $14m is the 3rd OF. Big 229pa Manny Ramirez platooning with everybody. Brett backed up by Loretta and Cullenbine. Cedeno and MRyan killer PHers. 2nd best Maddux and Train, they're almost as good give up fewer HR hit better more IP less cost. Walsh might not be quite good enough but I need him for round 2. reluctantly paid PJ. Eck and Mike Adams best years just because I could fit them in. Kuo Street Charlton Soriano AMiller.

$65 Million - Decade Challenge
I used to say that I had no experience with low cap teams but that isn't strictly true anymore. I've built a low capper every year for this tourney. I knew I wanted to use the 1980s for most of the offense (lots of high success rate SBs and a bit of power) and the 1900s or 1910s for my SP. So I ended up with Coleman, Raines, Morgan, Henderson, HoJo and Tolly. We'll steal a lot of bases IF any of these guys can manage to get on base at all. The offense is a little anemic. I filled out the lineup with a late career Mantle (at 1B) and my wild card guy ('71 Ed Kirkpatrick) for a cheap, cheap catcher with an A+ arm. I used the 1940s to fill out my bench.
On the pitching side, I went with Donahue, Siever, Coakley and Sparks from the 1900s and then used a cheap Kitson and Buster Brown to fill out the bullpen. The useable part of the pen came from the '60s (Dick Hall, Don Dennis, Wally Bunker and Whitey Ford). I can't shake the feeling that the pitching won't hold up, but what do I know? I stuck this mess in the Astrodome and I'm hoping for the best.
Offense: .247/.345/.356/.701 428/548 SB 92 HR $32.5M
Pitching: 1453 IP 2.44/1.18/.258/1.94/0.17 (ERA/WHIP/OAV/BB/HR) $32.5M
$90 Million - No Defense in Coors
This was a new experience. The question here is how much pitching, both in quality and quantity. Between Coors and bad fielding my guess is we'll need a lot. I thought about going with strikeout pitchers but they seemed too expensive. I went with Leifield, Blackwell, Mort Cooper and good old Ed Siever, nearly 1100 IP. In the pen I staffed Burgmeier, Ramon Hernandez, Eichhorn, Arellanes, Steele and Joe Nathan, another 520 IP. Will that be enough....? I think so. Will the quality be good enough....? Who knows? It's only a little better quality than the $65M staff.
My offense only consists of 4 full time regulars (Ross Youngs(OF), Edgar Martinez(1B), Alex Rodriguez(3B) and Ned Williamson(SS)). The rest are platoons. C-Halligan & Chance / 2B-Crandall & Barrett / OF-Galan & D. Harris / OF-M. Hegan & Cravath. The platoons gave me a little more offensive punch and didn't cost any more. But there isn't very much HR power for Coors. Maybe it'll work or maybe not. Probably not now that I think on it a bit more.
Offense: .307/.410/.479/.889 117 HR $41.5M
Pitching: 1695 IP 2.23/1.14/.235/2.50/0.17 (ERA/WHIP/OAV/BB/HR) $48.5M
$100M - Cloned Teammates
I did a search for all available SP that met the rules and quickly decided I wanted a modern team with Kershaw, Greinke and Scherzer. I started out with Chris Heisey. I got all 3 of the SP I wanted. Plus, on offense I got Harper, Votto and Rolen. But then I ended up with a bench of only Chris Heise along with Heise as a platoon OF in my regular lineup. At the end, the team was too top heavy for my taste. So I scrapped that one.
Then I tried to pair up Maddux and Pedro. But I kept having to down grade my pitching to fit the cap. No crime in that but I did it often enough that I lost the sense that I was getting the Maddux/Pedro pairing I wanted. So I scrapped that one too.
Then it hit me... if you want Kershaw, why not use him as the clone. My starting rotation is all Kershaw with a hint of Greinke. I used the '08 Kershaw to act as my LR and bring along his teammates. My bullpen is primarily Wade, Kuo, Jansen and Morrow. I'm worried I might be a bit light on IP but only time will tell.
My offense is '08 (Manny, Martin and Ethier). '17 (Turner, Taylor, Bellinger), '13 (Adrian Gonzalez) and '14 (Hanley Ramirez). Good HR power up and down the lineup but no one great thumper. The OBA is much lower than I'd like but I'll be trying to win with pitching. We play in Dodger Stadium. If the pitching dominates, we'll do well. If not, this looks like a .500 team. The smart money is betting on .500
Offense: .291/.373/.486/.859 181 HR 82/26 SB $38 M
Pitching: 1462 IP 2.20/0.95/.204/1.91/0.62 (ERA/WHIP/OAV/BB/HR) $62 M
$110M - Single Season Twist
Going into this one I knew I wanted to use a season in the 1920s. The idea was to use the earlier years for my pitching and the later ones for my hitting. I quickly decided to use 1925 because that was Gehrig's first year in the sim. I had an early glitch because I didn't initially realize that we could use each year only once. So it was back to the beginning.
The only certainty was that I had to use '19 Ruth and some version of Gehrig. Ruth is a great player in the sim and doesn't break the bank while Gehrig offers lots of options. I went with '12 Collins, '32 Gehrig, '30 Traynor and '17 Hornsby for my IF. My OF is Ruth, '24 Youngs and '26 Heilmann. '21 O'Neil handles the catching. My only useable bench player is '36 Cochrane to fill out the catching PAs. Otherwise the bench is below $236K.
My rotation is '08 Walter Johnson, '14 Dutch Leonard, '20 Babe Adams and '28 D. Vance. The bullpen is '22 Barnes, '18 Quinn, '46 Ruffing, '29 Ehmke, '27 Mays and '15 Nehf. I think this team is a good balance between hitting and pitching. I put it in Sportsman's Park to accentuate the doubles hitters I have. I like this team. It'll be fun to watch I think. At least until it starts to sink of its own weight.
Offense: .330/.422/.496/.918 105 HR (mostly from Ruth & Gehrig) $54.6 M
Pitching: 1504 IP 2.04/1.00/.219/1.86/0.17 (ERA/WHIP/OAV/BB/HR) $55.3 M
$130M - No One Under $2M
The key in all these themes is to get the most bang out of the cap money. Here I quickly decided to go with a 12 man pitching staff. I picked '09 Mordecai Brown and then used tandem starters with relatively low IP ('01 Pedro, '16 Kershaw, '19 Nehf, '80 Richard, '85 Ramsey and '40 Bonham). Those guys will rotate into the pen from time to time. The regular RP is '69 Dick Hall, '83 Dipino, '16 Melancon, '89 Burns and '15 Watson. I like this staff given the rules of road.
I also really like the lineup I put together on this one. '99 Abreu and '04 Berkman are favorites of mine. '05 Helton, '19 Ruth, '96 Edgar, '74 Morgan, '89 Boggs and '06 Carlos Guillen provide a good balance of pop, OBA and some speed. My catching is a platoon of '27 Schang, '17 Barnes and '70 Tenace. That leaves 2 spots for a bu IF and OF. I chose '07 Keppinger to bu all the IF spots and '02 Joe Kelley to spell all 3 OFs.
I think I used the cap well here. I put these boys into National League Pk II to give my doubles hitters a boost. I have hopes for this team. Generally that's the kiss of death.
Offense: .319/.434/.528/.962 195 HR 105/135 SB (mostly from Abreu & Morgan) $65.7 M
Pitching: 1504 IP 2.04/1.00/.219/1.86/0.17 (ERA/WHIP/OAV/BB/HR) $64.3 M
$255M - 2 for 1
I used to make the uber-cap teams all the time for the fun of using the very best players. I only had moderate success because the winning formula seemed to stress dead ball pitching and hitting. I liked mixing in more modern players, So here I intended to be smart and build a real deadball team. But then I decided I wanted to use my old favorites. Winning is overrated anyway!
The key here was to build both teams at once. In general, my $255 bench will be 2d round starters (if I get to the second round). So my lineup is '86 King Kelly, '21 Ruth, '24 Hornsby, '27 Gehrig, '48 Musial, '95 Delahanty, '87 Boggs and '96 Jennings. If I get to Rd 2, Ruth, Gehrig, Musial, Delahanty and Boggs will be joined by Foxx (as C), Larkin and Zobrist. Leyritz, Mumphrey and Mike Ryan ride the bench for both versions.
This pitching staff is just a greatest hits lineup -- '15 Alexander, '10 Walsh and '08 Joss. '09 Babe Adams is the swing man. My main bullpen arms are '14 Miller, '99 Wagner, '12 Kimbrel, '90 Eckersley and '16 Britton. '07 Bernhard and '72 Horlen will eat some innings here and then be part of the Rd 2 rotation.
I'll play these guys in Sportsmans' Pk to boost my hitting a bit. I honestly don't know how any of these big cap teams will do. Seems like chance will play a big part in who succeeds here and chance doesn't love me very much.
Offense: .372/.468/.628/.1.096 249 HR $148.0 M
Pitching: 1749 IP 1.33/0.84/.189/1.54/0.15 (ERA/WHIP/OAV/BB/HR) $102.5 M

#1: Decade Shuffle $65M

I ended up redoing this league a bunch of times trying to find a lineup I was comfortable with. Either the 1900s or 1910s were easy choices for pitching at around $24,000/IP; I ended up with the 1900s so I could do a three-man rotation (Cy Young, Red Donahue, Buttons Briggs) and save a few of the six decade spots. Initially I had the idea of a high-end defense playing in a offensive park, but I just couldn’t get it to fit at $65M. I’ve had success with good fielding/low range players in lower caps before, so I skimped on that half of defense to trim a few million. I went for more high-contact batters, as I’m guessing that there will be a lot of deadball pitchers with relatively low walk rates and high OAVs in this league. Stuck them in Baker Bowl for the same reason. The third or fourth version of the lineup finally worked - mostly ‘80s guys (Bell, Remy, Fletcher, Maddox), a couple from the ‘40s (Dallessandro, the great Johnny “Ugly” Dickshot), and 1906 Harry Davis (who I’ve had some tremendous seasons from in this cap range) as the big bat. The ‘60s were my fourth decade, basically just to get Randy Hundley and his 40% CS. I had initially planned to use 1914 Steve Evans (a favorite doubles machine) as my wildcard player but I just couldn’t fit him in the cap. I ended up using the 1910s anyway (1919 Doc Ayers) to pile on some more innings. The rest of the bullpen was just the best available arms from the remaining decade slots...maybe not the smartest idea. Probably the biggest weakness on this team. That and/or my bright idea for offense just doesn’t work.

O: 5,321 PA / .280-.342-.390 / 245 2B / 37 3B / 69 HR / 107-177 SB $33.7M
P: 1,349 IP / 1.16 WHIP / .256 OAV / 3.73 K/9 / 1.75 BB/9 / 0.14 HR/9 / $31.3M

#2: Ball in Play $90M

No clue if my strategy here is any good, but this was fun to draft at least. The two things I focused on were (1) highest possible RRF and FPCT# for each position player, and (2) lowest possible Hit Rate for each pitcher. On the first, I have definitely seen from experience that not all D fielding/range is equal, so I figured getting some marginal benefit there could make a difference, especially at Coors. On the second, I have no clue whatsoever if it's going to help at all (or if it even factors into the engine), but strikeouts are too expensive, and I needed something to search by ¯\_(?)_/¯. Ed McKean, Larry Doyle, and John McGraw all graded out relatively well on RRF and FPCT#, and should all hit in this league too. Ralph Garr looked like one of the better “center fielder” options, and Moose Solters and Smead Jolley looked OK as well. Kind of punted catcher, just took a platoon of whoever fit and hit a little. Rounded it out with 1906 Harry Davis again. Other than Davis' good normalized HR rate, I didn’t really draft HRs, as I think it’s very easy even at this cap to draft a bunch of < 0.1 HR/9 pitchers, and it seems to me that with all the D gloves, more balls in play and more doubles and triples might be the way to go on offense (but again, who knows). For pitching, I tried to get hit rates (and HR/9) as low as possible, as well as avoiding the deadball guys with the extremely low K-rates to help out these awful fielders when possible. Ended up with Cy Morgan, Jimmy Dygert, Joe Bush, and Art Fromme for my 1,200-inning rotation, and filled out the bullpen with another 500 innings of similar profile types. Very interested to see how this league goes even if/when I lose 100 games.

O: 6,018 PA / .305-.363-.445 / 287 2B / 95 3B / 95 HR / 168-336 SB [and nobody better even think about stealing a damn base] / $40.9M
P: 1,703 IP / 1.09 WHIP / .205 OAV / 4.47 K/9 / 3.33 BB/9 / 0.09 HR/9 / $49.0M

#3: Clone Teammates $100M

I like the 1940s Cards for these types of clone and/or teammate WISC leagues. There’s good (or at least decent) hitters at every position, the pitchers tend to perform well even though their numbers are not eye-popping, and most of the players are very cap friendly. Plus there’s lots of clone options as there was not much roster turnover - I went with Mort Cooper to maximize use of the clones. I tried a bunch of different guys as well - made teams for Maddux (of course), Adam Wainwright, Don Sutton, and had a Hoyt Wilhelm team I really liked too. But I felt best about Cooper. Rotation is the three best Cooper seasons (1942, 1943, 1944) plus Harry Gumbert as swingman; Breechen, Pollet, and Munger fill out the bullpen. Then, and this was what I liked best about Cooper, I took two mopup/LR seasons of his in 1945 (BSN) and 1947 (NYG). With those two seasons, I could round out the usual Musial-Kurowski-Marion-Slaughter STL suspects with 1945 Tommy Holmes, 1947 Johnny Mize, and 1947 Walker Cooper, which makes for a pretty strong 1 through 5 (.329/.399/.566 with 185 2B/149 HR). Biggest problems are an alarmingly lefty heavy lineup, and a sort of oddly structured bullpen with all those 120-140 STL pitchers. Will have to manage the pitching staff pretty closely.

O: 5,872 PA / .300-.369-.491 / 287 2B / 72 3B / 190 HR / 59-118 SB / $53.3M
P: 1,535 IP / 1.11 WHIP / .227 OAV / 4.20 K/9 / 2.51 BB/9 / 0.27 HR/9 / $46.7M

#4: Unique Season Twist $110M

My first version of this team was centered on 1905, in order to get all those great deadball pitchers (plus Wagner, Cobb, etc.). But the bench options in those years were just dire. After making several attempts, and seeing the lineups get progressively weaker, I threw in the towel on the deadball idea and went with an ‘80s/’90s focused team instead. I figured there were some great (and reasonably priced) pitching seasons in that era, as well as some excellent OBP/SB seasons for the offense. That team came together much quicker, centered around 1989. I have Raines, Julio Franco, Barry Larkin, and Gregg Jefferies for speed, plus Paul O’Neill (who I love at this cap) and young Gary Sheffield to drive them in. Defense should be solid with Fisk’s A+ arm and Lemon in CF. Rotation is Gooden, Maddux, Brown, and Reuss, plus Zane Smith, Tim Burke, and Tom Niedenfuer in the pen. (I initially had John Tudor instead of Gooden, having somehow missed that Tudor was inactive in ‘89. Luckily subbing Gooden in for Tudor was available as relatively easy switch, although it meant downgrading the mopup/LR bullpen arms to make up the salary difference. The reduced IP leaves me feeling somewhat uneasy, and I always seem to ruin at least one team with fatigue every year...)

O: 5,622 PA / .318-.393-.489 / 273 2B / 33 3B / 167 HR / 237-302 SB / $57.9M
P: 1,347 IP / 0.99 WHIP / .220 OAV / 6.47 K/9 / 1.69 BB/9 / 0.47 HR/9 / $52.0M

#5: Everybody Plays $130M

I hate platoon leagues. So given that self-imposed strategic constraint, I went with a 12-man pitching staff, platooned three spots (C, 1B, LF), and took 2007 Keppinger (like a lot of other people, I’m guessing) as the super-utility sub. I went with a heavy doubles team (Ed Delahanty, Harry Heilmann, Nap Lajoie) in Target Field. The three platoons are Joey Votto/Frank Thomas at 1B, Babe Ruth/Bob Fothergill at LF, and Fred Carroll/Johnny Bassler at C. Pretty predictable pitching staff with Bill Bernhard, Jack Pfiester, Mordecai Brown, Lady Baldwin, and then the best arms in the $2M-$3M range. Nothing super innovative here, just hope it works.

O: 6,521 PA / .346-.427-.530 / 422 2B / 124 3B / 120 HR / 121-256 SB / $70.2M
P: 1,532 IP / 0.93 WHIP / .203 OAV / 5.04 K/9 / 1.87 BB/9 / 0.17 HR/9 / $59.8M

#6: Wait & See $255M

I’ve never played a $255M cap, so I didn’t really know what to go for here. I took some of the usual top-salary suspects - Ruth, Cobb, Kelly, Hornsby on offense; Joss, Walsh, Maddux, Brown, E. Chamberlain as pitchers. Conveniently, most of them have seasons usable at $110M as well. I used the bench for a few position players with short seasons who can sub in for the second leg where there was no second season I could fit - Elston Howard takes Kelly’s spot, Nap Lajoie subs for Hornsby, and Edd Roush comes in for Ruth. Musial, Boggs, Wagner, Delahanty, and Cobb can stay in the lineup at lower salaries. The rest of the bench is guys with one big season who would drop down to ~$200k next time. On pitching, Joss/Walsh/Maddux/Brown will stay as the rotation, while the bullpen is lesser and/or cheaper versions of Kuo, Rivera, Babe Adams, and George McQuillan. I forced Chamberlain in despite his salary and lack of secondary season (if it even comes to that!) because I like him as a high-cap reliever, although I’m not sure how much, if at all, $255M plays like the $150M range. I'm guessing not much! I drafted a ton of innings (>1,900) just because I have no clue how many you’d need at this cap. Going to preemptively chalk this league up as a learning experience.

O: 6,368 PA / .381-.459-590 / 470 2B / 160 3B / 181 HR / 321-586 SB / $140.3M
P: 1,928 IP / 0.83 WHIP / 1.87 OAV / 5.68 K/9 / 1.52 BB/9 / 0.13 HR/9 / $114.5M

Wish I would’ve discovered last years write-ups before drafting any of my teams. It’s really helpful to read other owners thought process especially when building theme league teams. I don’t want to give away my draft formula in this as it’s helped me create a steady stream of competitive teams, but I’ll share some strategy! In general, I like to build all-around solid teams with balance being the spine of every team I draft. By balance I mean balanced Pitching, 900+ solid IP by starters and at least 400 solid IP in the pen with some strikeouts, low WHIP#, low HR/9#, and low OBA. Balance position players have to have good defense up the middle (C, SS, 2B, & CF) so i generally like A+ range (arm for C) at those positions, low SO, steady walk rate, .300+ avg, and high sb/sba % if possible. I followed this (and my formula) throughout these drafts. Some themes were more challenging to stick to than others, but that’s what makes theme leagues so fun and unpredictable.

$65 Million Decade Shuffle

Team name: Player Piano, Jazz Age, Disco, & Grunge

I played a number of open leagues to prepare for this one as there weren’t enough 24 team low cap theme leagues that would fill quickly enough for me to experiment. So I would rotate lower salary players with more standard $80 mil cap players to see how the lower guys performed. I also did this with a number of low salary pitchers, and at 3, 4, & 5 man rotations.

By far the best results I had were with 06 Jack Taylor and 04 Patsy Flaherty (currently in the TOC finals with one of their teams and another won 104 games). They both hit over .200 and walk more than they strike out when at the dish. On the mound they put a lot of balls in play so they require solid defense, but man, they have been effective pitchers. Their salaries worked for the $65 mil cap so I built this team completely around them.

I had to choose 1900’s to get my pitchers. I filled out most of my position players from the 1970’s and 1990’s and sprinkled in some 1920’s players to round it out.

All position players have to be solid defenders who ideally hit from both sides of the plate and draw some walks (to balance out Jack and Patsy’s walk rates). I was able to find 6 players under $4 I was comfortable with and two over $4 to come in around $32 million. I definitely share some folks' nerves for this one ,but can’t wait to see how this dynamic dead-ball duo performs at a lower cap.

Stats:
.278 .349 .368 C+/C- $32,767,370

1,315 2.43 .240 1.15 2.67 2.34 0.20 356-312 $32,230,035

Prediction: 98-64

$90 Coors with weak D

Team name: Bad News Beers

I may have let this one get in my head a bit as I dislike Coors in the sim. It saps my players fatigue and throws their stats way off causing slumps, so the thought of playing every game at Coors kind of gave me a headache.

I ended up drafting way too many errors to get the type of offense I wanted but did splurge more on strikeouts than I normally would when drafting my pitchers so I’m hoping that helps to take a bit of pressure off of this forgettable defense.

Hard to imagine this team winning many games but everyone else is drafting with the same crazy limitations so they might have a chance.

Stats:

.303

.382

.445

D/D

$37,383,213

1,614 2.39 .211 1.05 6.85 2.60 0.30 1157-439 $52,610,530

Prediction: 71-91

$100 Clone with Teammates

Team Name: OctoSmoltz

My first instinct was to draft a Greg Maddux, Ed Walsh, or Pedro Martinez team, but the pool of players were too small to get the type of balanced team I wanted at this cap. That meant I needed a starter-turned-reliever who had success at both for a period of years. “Hey there John Smoltz!" I grabbed 8 clones of him! But the team really came together.

I got a Greg Maddux after all, and the defense behind the pitching on this team is solid. Will we give up too many HR’s? Yes we will, but I’m banking on a lot of you being powerless to resist cloning a deadball pitcher along with his slap-hitting teammates which hopefully helps Smoltz keep it in the ballpark (AFC).

Stats:

.291

.372

.502

B-/C+

$49,929,172

1,448

2.68

.221

1.05

8.58

2.16

0.61

1372-345

$50,070,129

Prediction: 87-75

$110 Twisted Season

Team name: 1991

While this team took a lot of shuffling bench players to make it work (which was time consuming) I totally picked 1991 just as a starting point because I love my old 1991 Nissan Hardbody. Yeah, that’s right, I picked 1991 because of my truck. But here’s the thing, once I started building this team out it all fell into place and looks like my best group. From 1977 to 2006 this team spans 30 seasons!

Gooden, Maddux, Sabrehagen, and Schilling round out a deep 3 aces rotation.

We’ve got steady hitting, speedy switch-hitters who play outstanding defense at nearly ever position with HOFers up and down the lineup and bench.

Stats:

.307

.386

.448

C+/C+

$55,082,900

1,407 2.13 .206 0.99 7.41 2.20 0.45 1143-339 $54,916,149

Prediction: 99-63

$130 Everyone Plays

Team Name: TImEd

Couldn’t get the pitching right with this one until I tried drafting a two man rotation. Then things fell more into place.

DH and 1B are platoons. Very similar to my $110 team (with a few of the same players) in that with each bench player being $2 million+, and there being a DH it actually drafted like a $115 million cap team with a super-bench/platoon, so it wasn’t as much of a stretch to share players with a $110 cap league.

Offense may be a bit weak for $130 mil, and I still consider my pitching a big question mark too which is why I over-drafted bullpen IP.

Stats:
.317 .384 .454 B/C+ $62,143,774

1,553 1.57 .191 0.87 6.73 1.67 0.10 1030-256 $67,816,928

Prediction: 85-77

$255 Million / $110 Million

Team name: The Contract Season

I’ll admit that I didn’t officially draft the $110 team as I can’t guarantee I’ll be around for round 2 (this is my first WISC). I eye-balled it enough to give me a shot if I get there but really wanted to go for it in round 1.

Tried to get great defense and as close to .400 hitters at every position as possible with nobody hitting under .350. Pretty easy to achieve at this cap.

Pitchers were easy to afford too, and as long as they had a solid season at roughly half the price (and hopefully a low salary season too) then I considered them. Beyond my normal search parameters for pitching I relied heavily on performance history as the deciding factor for who to draft as I don’t have any experience at this high of a cap so I figured the best performance history would give me the best chance to perform well in a league full of .400 hitters.

We shall see.

Stats:

.379 .453 .575 B-/B- $144,782,213

1,780 1.47 .182 0.81 7.84 1.50 0.27 1464-281 $109,890,858

Prediction: 81-81

65 Million
I took the following decades:
1990’s Hitting Gaetti, McGriff, Polonia, Raines, Loretta, and Harper
1970’s Defense Kessinger, Bosetti
1950’s Starting Pitching Raffensberger, Simmons, Grim, Meyer (Elston Howard C)
1900’s Bullpen Raymond, Coakley, Hilldebrand, Vickers, Yerkes, Dent
1988 Closer Jeff Reardon
I really don’t like low caps so this is all I am going to say. Tried to get a workable balance between bullpen, starters, power, average, and defense. The 1950 starters have been underused so their salaries are deflated compared to other decades. The deadball 1900’s are good for a bullpen. I needed a closer. 1988 Reardon at lower caps has worked for me before.
Batting 5584 PA, .276 BA, .337 OBP, .398 Slg
Pitching 1406 IP 2.83 ERA .246 OAV 1.22 WHIP

90 Million
Three premises.
1. High strikeout rate pitchers have higher pitch count available. Should be able to pitch longer.
2. High strikeout rate pitchers have fewer balls in play so a lesser chance of errors. Of my pitchers only 1 has a strikeout rate of less than 7.81/9 IP.
3. Low strikeout rates by batters means more balls in play thus chance of more errors by the opposition. Set my search criteria of less than twelve strikeouts per 100/Abs
a. I selected a high average low strikeout third baseman in Tommy Davis over a high strikeout high homerun player in Alex Rodriguex (which I had originally).
b. I also selected a 30 home run low strikeout RF in Del Ennis.
c. I selected a platoon of catcher Ernie Lombardi and Bill Salkeld which have high home run rates and low strikeout rates.
d. Lou Brock is my CF with over 100 SB and a relatively low strikeout rates.
e. 2b Larry Doyle, LF Chipper Jones, SS Mark Koenig, and 1b Al Oliver fill out my lineup.
Batting 5920 AB .314 BA .374 OPS .480 SLG .854 OPS
Pitching 1597.7 IP 618 BB 1678 K .214 OAV 1.17 WHIP 271 ERA

100 Million
I like everyone else looked at Maddux, Kershaw, and Big Unit clones but instead I chose Rafael Belliard as my clone. I chose his years Pirate years of 1989 and 1990 and Brave years of 1991 and 1996.
1. The total cost of all 4 of my Belliards was under $2 million. Or a workable salary of $98 million to build my team. The $2 million I spent on Belliard was literally the only money I threw away. Any other combination I tried had a minimum waste was at least $7 million.
2. I chose the Pirate home field of Three Rivers Stadium which is a better pitcher’s park than Fulton County stadium. If you examine the Brave’s teams of the 90’s, the Braves pitcher’s pitched better in Turner field but their hitters hit much better in Fulton County stadium. I am hoping that Glavine’s best year 1991, and Smoltz’s best year 1996, and Maddux’s 1996 so so year will pitch better in Three Rivers than they did in Fulton. My 4^th starter is Doug Drabek who I have had good success in the past.
3. My defense is anchored by A range defenders at 3B, 2B, C, and 1B. Grissom is an A/B defender in CF. I am playing a B+/D+ Chipper at short though. Also Bonilla in right is a liability.
4. My offense has a lineup of Grissom, Pendelton, Bonds, Jones, Bonilla, McGriff, Lopez, and Lind. Nixon is my SB threat off the bench. Perez is my backup catcher. Bonilla can be a backup at 1^st and 3^rd. I will use a Belliard at 2b or ss when necessary.
5. My bullpen which normally was a weakness of the 90 Braves is now a 7 man strong with my addition of the Pirate relievers to the Brave bullpen. Landrum, Z. Smith, Kipper, Bair, and Tomlin from the Pirates to Berenger and Stanton from the 91 Braves.

Batting 6531 AB .286 BA .344 OBP .451 SLG .795 OPS
Pitching 1487 IP 352 BB 1112 K .219 OAV 1.04 WHIP 2.57 ERA

110 Million
I literally read the instructions to this theme incorrectly. I thought it said one team for one season and not just one season. So I chose the 2005 New York Yankees. When Donburgh pointed out my mistake I kind of flipped out but upon further examination I decided that my team was pretty good. I really only have 3 players under $750,000 that are roster fillers.
1. The three roster fillers have a total salary of 1.3 million which gave me a workable salary of 108.7 which I used in its entirety.
2. My infield is rock solid. My lineup in Yankee stadium has ARod batting cleanup at 3^rd, Giambi batting 3^rd at 2st, Cano batting 2^nd at 2^nd, Jeter at SS batting 7^th, Womack (77 SB) batting leadoff in left, Bernie in CF batting 7^th, Sierra batting 5^th in right, and Posada C batting 8^th. Matsui, Sheffield, and Flaherty make up my bench.
3. My SP has Randy Johnson, Kevin Brown, Mike Mussina, and Al Leiter.
4. My bullpen has, Mariano, Gordon, Felix Rodriguez, Groom, Embree, Stanton, and Quantrill.
I have a solid lineup, great starters, and a solid bullpen. It all worked out pretty well even though I screwed up.
Batting 6481 AB .300 Avg .378 OBP .485 SLG .863 OPS
Pitching 1491 IP .218 OAV 1.05 WHIP 2.42 ERA 386 BB 1270 K


130 Million
This was a pretty straight theme. The only catch was there would be less platooning than usual. Knowing I would have pretty hefty bench players I decided I only wanted three of them but I needed the biggest bang for my buck with them with minimal extra at bats.
1. I went with Ryan Hannigan as Catcher, Felipe Lopez a multiposition switch hitter, and Jeff keppinger another multi-position player.
2. I have 6400+ PA which is where you want to be with a DH.
3. Since platooning is at a minimum I went with 6 switch hitters. One of which is Lindor whom I have not used before. Maybe the wrong place to experiment but he is an A/A fielder at SS.
4. This theme I went with Joss, M.Brown, D. Leonard, and Lincecum as my starters. At higher caps I have found Leonard to be a stud. Lincecum has been quite useable at 120 million cap leagues.
5. My bullpen really needed to fit at the cap. Plenty of choices.
Batting 6444 PA .322 BA .405 OBP .514 SLG .919 OPS
Pitching 1527 IP .202 OAV .97 WHIP 1.84 ERA 375 BB 1075 K

255 Million
I built this league in conjunction with the Round 2 theme using an Excel spreadsheet. My salary for this league came in at $242+ mil and the league 2 came in at $109,837+. I used studs in the 255 league where ever I wanted with backups that I could use in the 110 million league as starters while the studs became backups..
1. In 255 Hornsby at 2^nd and in the 110 mil I will use Frisch.
2. In 255 Tulowitski at SS and in the 110 mil I will use Furcal.
3. In 255 Ruth in RF and in the 110 mil I will use Raines.
4. In 255 Leonard as a SP and in the 110 mil I will use Randy Johnson.
5. In 255 Gagne as closer and in the 110 mil I will use Kimbrel.
6. The other starters in both leagues will be Cobb, Mantle, Sisler\McCormick, C. Jones, Mauer\Redmond.
7. My other SPs in both leagues are Joss, M.Brown, and Kershaw.

Batting 7633 PA .360 BA .442 OBP .561 SLG 1.003 OPS
Pitching 1651 IP .179 OAV .81 WHIP 1.26 ERA 306 BB 1463 SO

$65M Decade Shuffle
Salmon Fishing in the Camden

The last league I played with a low cap was in the WISC last year, and my 70M team was my lowest finisher of the six. So I had zero comfort zone. It wasn’t the decade challenge that worried me so much as the uncertainty of the key to a successful team at this cap. My closest experience came from limited draft pools and leagues like the historical progressives I’ve played, where you definitely are going to have some very bad players and significant weak spots. But those just kind of arrive out of necessity, not as part of a plan, and here you have to build a team with a planned set of weaknesses. And strengths, too.

So the lessons I had learned were that you could get away with a few good hitters and a few worthless ones. And some of the bench will be dead weight, or minimum salary throwaways. Plus, value is going to be relative to the talent pool, so you don’t need superstars so much as just some plus talent that can carry the team a little. So my goal was to fill 5 spots in the lineup solidly, be able to get 6-7 innings reliably from starters day in and day out, and have maybe 2-3 tougher relievers to call on.

Since the decade range did include deadballers, I figured I’d look for some sturdy SP with low HR rates to secure a bulk of innings for me. I tried a lot of $/IP ranges and settings to figure out how much I could really afford to spend on these guys, and I ended up finding a few pitchers in both the 00s and 40s who fit well. That meant I couldn’t use the 10s, 30s or 50s. The 20s would be on the table if I wanted those hitters.

With deadball starters in 1903 Roy Patterson (347 IP) and 1907 Lew Moren (282), I knew that I could get extra pitches out of them because of low K/BB totals and get deep into games reliably. 1947 Red Barrett (222) slots in behind them, and I have a handful of other pitchers capable of filling whatever starts remain as they slide in and out of bullpen roles. Top 3 starters get ~850 innings for just under $20M. I used four pitchers each from the 00s and 40s, and once the lineup started taking shape I found more good options among the 60s and 80s than the other decades.

I hadn’t figured out how best to use the 25th player on the roster until it dawned on me to try to use it for a critical spot I couldn’t fill well in my other decades. I wound up with 1998 Tim Salmon with a .300/.411/.533 slash line for just over $4M that shapes up as an offensive centerpiece. 1988 Ellis Burks (.294/.367/.481) and 1965 Lee Thomas (.271/.361/.464) come in at less than $9M combined. I decided on platoons in LF, with 1980 Yaz (.275/.350/.462) and 1963 George Alusik (.267/.345/.439) for under $4M combined, and at 3B, with 1989 Dave Magadan (.286/.367/.393) and 1980 Eric Soderholm (.287/.353/.462) for just over another $4M. Sucking up space in the rest of the lineup are a catching platoon and middle infield for a total of under $10M for the four players.

What could go wrong? For starters, I don’t have much power or speed, so this fairly adequate set of hitters has to string rallies together to score. I’m counting on the mediocre pitching letting that happen often enough. With deadball pitching available, I couldn’t see building around power. And speed proved hard to afford without sacrificing elsewhere more than I wanted to.

Ballpark: I needed a park from 1998 and didn’t want anything too extreme. Camden Yards had a little under 1.0 park factor, to give the pitchers extra help. I figured my staff will keep HR down but will also allow a lot of balls in play, so Camden hurts the 2B and 3B at least. The +1 HR gives my weak lineup a little help anyway.
Starters: C Haywood Sullivan 1962/Sport McAllister 1903, 1B Lee Thomas 1965, 2B Don Blasingame 1960, SS Buddy Kerr 1948, 3B Dave Magadan 1989/Eric Soderholm 1980, LF Carl Yastrzemski 1980/George Alusik 1963, CF Ellis Burks 1988, RF Tim Salmon 1998. Rotation: Roy Patterson 1903, Lew Moren 1907, Red Barrett 1947. Bullpen Keys: 1982 Bob Stoddard, 1946 Woody Abernathy, 1909 Deacon Phillippe

5517 PA .265/.344/.396 221 2B, 34 3B, 114 HR, 68/37 SB/CS $32.2M
1457 IP .241 OAVG, 1.17 WHIP, 2.92 ERA 452K-401 BB 66 HR $32.8M
Outlook: We might struggle mightily to score, and the potential for miscalculation is so high here. This team could definitely struggle to be .500, and it strikes me as highly unlikely we’ll be much above it no matter what. Playoff confidence is just 33%, and I’ll guess 81 wins. Maybe the obscure movie reference in my team name is worth an extra couple wins?

90M Ball in Play
Dr. Strangeglove Cup

This was definitely a fun one to build because I had to throw out so much conventional wisdom about what I like in a team and just let it go. I think I ended up scrapping almost everyone I started out with as I retooled. Plus, I feared underdrafting quality innings and PA, and that meant planning for lots of ugly games. The theme puts a premium on hitters who put the ball in play and pitchers who minimize it, but I also expect lots of deadball hitters who won’t strike out no matter who’s pitching. At least you aren’t wasting any money on defense, though, right? That led me to target $40M on hitting and $50M on pitching. You get more value for hitters who can’t field anyway and who cares if bad defenders get a little fatigued because they are already awful?

I did want defenders at the high end of the scale at least, so I favored better normalized FLD% to minimize the carnage. I ended up with some platoons to improve matchups and no one over $5M on the hitting side. Spent about $42M for hitters after feeling I had settled too cheaply at a couple spots. I really wanted to get Dick Stuart on this team because it would have been so fitting, but I settled for referencing his nickname in the team name instead.

I wanted some 100+ inning guys in the pen, a couple to be innings eaters and a couple to be useful setups (44 Munger and 43 Brecheen have done well for me before, so I worked them in). Ideally I wanted a rotation of similar IP totals who could stay on schedule without needing many spot starts, and then a couple of really good late-inning guys to nail down the close ones (Andrew Miller and Joakim Soria filled the bill). You can’t afford dominance at this cap, so I went for above-average competence with reasonable K/9 and OAVG. No one over $7.5M.

Ballpark: Coors, of course.
Starters: C Ernie Lombardi 1932/Glenn Myatt 1923, 1B Paul Molitor 1996, 2B Larry Doyle 1915, SS Charlie Irwin 1894, 3B John McGraw 1897, LF Chipper Jones 2003, CF Lance Berkman 2000/Rube Bressler 1921, RF Wally Post 1961/Sammy Strang 1906. Rotation: Dwight Gooden 1986, Don Sutton 1982, Jim Scott 1910, Burt Hooton 1975. Bullpen Keys: Andrew Miller 2015, Joakim Soria 2008, Red Munger 1944, Harry Brecheen 1943

6183 PA .307/.385/.453 294 2B, 67 3B, 119 HR, 183/154 SB/CS $42.2M
1677 IP .219 OAVG, 1.11 WHIP, 2.61 ERA 1113 K-529 BB 86 HR $47.8M
Outlook: How good will our record be in games in which both teams score double digits? I think that’s a better marker than 1-run games for a league like this. A lot could go wrong in my planning, especially if I get into fatigue trouble early and just can’t disperse the innings. Even if I planned well there, there is enough uncertainty to give me no more than 50% confidence in making the playoffs. Let’s call it 85 wins (+/- 3).

100M Clone Teammates
K is for Kershaw

I knew I’d need to build a few rosters to compare their strengths and weaknesses and test out a few possibilities. I ended up with full rosters for Roger Clemens, John Smoltz, Joe Horlen, Rickey Henderson, and Clayton Kershaw. The Horlen pitching staff was very nice, but I couldn’t manage enough hitting to feel good about it. Nothing really wrong with the Clemens or Smoltz rosters, but I narrowed it to Rickey and Clayton eventually. I actually entered the Rickey team, with a fine top 3 starters in 80 Norris-02 Pedro-02 Lowe and thought I was set, but I kept feeling the pull of the Kershaws especially once I started setting the lineups and realized none of my pitchers could hit at all.

I’ve gotten great results from the 15 Greinke-15 Kershaw combo, and adding 13 and 17 Kershaws was a tempting rotation. The 17 looks like a great value to me in fact. 09 Kershaw is the 5th starter and swingman, for a $40M+ rotation. In Dodger Stadium, we ought to have one of the top staffs in the league. And unlike the staff on the Rickey roster, they can swing the bat pretty well too.

I ended up using 10 players from the 2017 Dodgers, which is the part that worries me the most. There’s lots of power, a bit of speed, lots of versatility, and strong defense. My home team bias might have led me into a bad decision ultimately, but I feel very good about the pitching and defense and think the lineup will produce enough.

Ballpark: Only choice was Dodger Stadium. If it worked for these guys in RL, let’s hope it does the same here.
Starters: C Yasmani Grandal 17, 1B Cody Bellinger 17, 2B Howie Kendrick 15, SS Corey Seager 17, 3B Justin Turner 17, LF Chris Taylor 17, CF Matt Kemp 09, RF Andre Ethier 09. Rotation: Kershaw 15-17-13-09, Zack Greinke 15. Bullpen Keys: Kenley Jansen 17, Brandon Morrow 17, Paco Rodriguez 13

5608 PA .284/.356/.485 292 2B, 28 3B, 218 HR, 100/31 SB/CS (stats for non-P) $43.3M
1412 IP .201 OAVG, 0.98 WHIP, 2.33 ERA 1504 K-356 BB 103 HR $56.6M
Outlook: I feel like I got a lot of offense for $43M, with 7 starters at 20+ homers, and virtually everyone fields well too. The starting rotation will determine our success, though, and if they perform to expectations this team feels like a 90+-win squad to me. I give it an 80% shot at playoffs, and the rotation lines up very well in a playoff series too.

$110M Unique Season Twist
Not Much Happened in 1915

It wasn’t as hard to settle on a year as I thought it would be. With all eras open, I decided that deadball was the smartest choice for getting pitchers who kill the long ball and can feature some workhorses atop the rotation. I knew finding great relief seasons would be the hardest part of the era, as there are few lower-inning great seasons to pick from. So I sorted for the best of them, then checked what seasons a few of them shared as a possible base year. 1915 worked out pretty quickly as a strong option, so I set out to find the rest of a team with that parameter. I liked that it gave me access to some 1920s years with some stronger hitting options as well as some of the great pitching dominators of the deadball days. It took a while to look through a lot of sorted lists to find guys who had 1915 seasons and were good fits, of course, particularly as you get to the outer edges of the range and the choices are very limited. Some of the scrubs came from those years. I never did build a second roster for this theme once I had it set. The fact that there are no fewer than five teams in my league with 1915 as base year (plus a 1914 and 1916) tells me my thinking was pretty sound here.

The rotation starts off looking a lot like the 130M squad, with 08 Walsh in there again but with 1917 Walter Johnson in this time for 7M less but still very solid. That’s well over 900 innings accounted for right there for $32M. The rest of the starter innings go to 1909 Babe Adams and 1926 Pete Alexander, with the other getting long relief when needed. That’s another 10M for 300 more innings. This should be a lower scoring league generally, and I’ve got 5 guys for the late innings with 46-62 innings each to spread out the work a bit.

We won’t hit many homers, and because of the era they’re all contact hitters basically anyway. A lot like the 130M team in philosophy here, but with more limited choices. Went for batting average, doubles and triples, with hopefully some speed. Eddie Collins, Joe Jackson, Jack Fournier, Bill Bradley and Birdie Cree will be the main weapons. I worked through a handful of permutations before settling on this group. Defense is not going to be a strength, alas, with only SS Dave Bancroft and CF Zack Wheat offering much in plus range, and some low fielding percentages. Nature of the era, though.

Ballpark: Wasn’t too hard to find a park from the era that fit my roster well. League Park is -2 for HR, which is just icing since my pitchers only allowed 15 in RL anyway. But modern teams will struggle a lot here. The +2 1B and +3 2B work well for my slap hitters. Could have maybe used more 3B boost, but we’ll get those anyway.
Starters: C Wally Schang 1921, 1B Jack Fournier 1925, 2B Eddie Collins 1923, SS Dave Bancroft 1920, 3B Bill Bradley 1902, LF Joe Jackson 1913, CF Zack Wheat 1914, RF Birdie Cree 1911. Rotation: Ed Walsh 1908, Walter Johnson 1917, Babe Adams 1909/Pete Alexander 1926. Bullpen: George McQuillan 1907, Carl Weilman 1912, Carmen Hill 1918, George Dumont 1916, Ray Caldwell 1919

5934 PA .333/.406/.479 288 2B, 121 3B, 74 HR, 197/178 SB/CS $56.2M
1444 IP .208 OAVG, 0.94 WHIP, 1.91 ERA 732 K-275 BB 15 HR $53.7M
Outlook: I think the deadball teams are going to fare quite well in this league, and about half my league went that route. Let’s see how the divisions break down, but barring a major misbalance I expect this team to be highly competitive. I’ll go with 85% playoff confidence and 90 wins projected.

130M Everybody Plays
Play Today, Sit Tomorrow

I started with pitching as usual, and at this cap you can get a lot of great seasons in there. With no restricted years, I looked for deadball starters and a handful of relief aces. No cheap mopup possible, so I just filled every spot with a useful arm. Started the rotation with two bulldogs in 08 Ed Walsh and 12 Walter Johnson. That’s 1000 quality innings right there for $40M. And 43 Whit Wyatt gets the SP3 spot for as often as it’s needed and long relief if needed.

I got 5 excellent setup relievers to spread out the innings, all between 2-4M with 50-70 innings, plus the partial 87 Doyle Alexander as a long guy, and even found room to grab the 70 Vida Blue just for the heck of it. Who knows, I might even be in a situation to use him as a secret weapon at some point. I spent $67.3M on pitching, and I think they can even survive Fenway’s extra pressures.

For my offense, I had to assume a lot of deadball pitchers so I didn’t look for HR hitters. Focus was on guys with good gloves, high batting averages, plenty of doubles, and good speed. We’re going to have to manufacture some of these runs after all. I knew I’d be platooning some because of the $2M factor and that led to some guys in lower PA ranges who bring a lot of value to the lineup.

I’ll have a multi-headed DH spotlighted by two ex-pitchers who had monster seasons around 250 PA, 22 Reb Russell and 21 Joe Wood. Russell has been killing it for me in thejuice tournament year after year, but of course you can only play him like 2 out of every 5 games. Only 3 players with over 600 PA, but all 15 have over 200. Should be a good managing challenge, but I like the pieces I’ve got.

Ballpark: With a doubles-heavy lineup and a lot of strong batting averages, Fenway’s +4 2B and +2 1B seemed to play to my advantage. Not worried about restricting homers, since my entire staff gave up just 20 in 1485 RL innings.
Starters: C Bubbles Hargrave 1926/Sy Sutcliffe 1891, 1B Joey Votto 2012, 2B Eddie Collins 1923, SS Jimmy Rollins 2008, 3B Justin Turner 2017, LF Chick Hafey 1930, CF Mike Griffin 1894, RF Lance Berkman 2004, DH Reb Russell 1922/Joe Wood 1921. Rotation: Ed Walsh 1908, Walter Johnson 1912, Whit Wyatt 1943. Bullpen: Rob Murphy 1986, Kenley Jansen 2016, Cla Meredith 2006, Johnny Niggeling 1943, Barry Latman 1958, Vida Blue 1970, Doyle Alexander 1987

6280 PA .334/.422/.521 376 2B, 75 3B, 156 HR, 221/112 SB/CS $62.7M
1485 IP .192 OAVG, 0.89 WHIP, 1.51 ERA 1005 K-299 BB 20 HR $67.3M
Outlook: Like many of these teams, I spent more on pitching again. I really like this staff a lot, and it feels potentially very dominant. Did I spend enough on offense to get us over the top, though? I’m an active manager and feel I can keep these moving parts working well. I’m going with 75% confidence in making the playoffs. Upper-80s feels right for a win total.

$255M Wait & See
Making the Forbes List

I think the first question is: Do I have a prayer of making Round 2? If no, then you really could ignore the Round 2 limitation and figure if you made it anyway you would just suffer the consequences. But … I had to plan for both and think through what kind of team would be competitive in each scenario. I built both rosters at the same time, moving pieces around so they both remained workable as I went.

My starting point was with pitching as usual. The target was to sort through to the best seasons of all-time and find pitchers who also had good seasons at about half the salary. With all the best choices out there it isn’t hard to assemble a comically awesome staff.

I happily overspent on 95 Greg Maddux and 00 Pedro Martinez, because both also have fine seasons in the $8-9M range for the 110M staff. I knew I’d go a little heavier on innings with this theme just be safe (not sure exactly what gives the most when the best hitters meet the best pitchers every single PA). I went with the now-very-familiar Ed Walsh (1910 this time) and Walter Johnson (1913 on this one, my 3rd WJ season in 5 teams now). That rang up a tidy $81M-plus for the rotation, which isn’t even a third of the budget. Not even sweating on money at this point.

For the bullpen, it was the same strategy, and once again it’s a who’s-who of the most ridiculous seasons in the sim. The 90 Eckersley (can use at SP or RP at 110M, which is nice flexibility), 13 Uehara, 10 Kuo, 09 Adams and 12 Kimbrel with their microscopic ERAs and WHIPs pack the pen. Those guys mostly have excellent seasons at half the salary, too. You wonder how anyone will score on them, but then you remember the offense you built and start wondering what’s gonna give.

Fitting the offense together was definitely harder, working back and forth between the two rosters and looking for some of the all-time amazing seasons who might be able to serve as a scrub on the other roster. Getting the right amount of PA and building benches definitely took some reworking time and again, particularly the last 3-4 spots that really proved stubborn. But I did wind up with a ridiculously productive bench for the limited PH opportunities they’ll get. Because of some uncertainty about how this theme will play out, I went higher than I probably needed to on PA and IP.

I grabbed C King Kelly ‘86, SS Lou Boudreau ‘48 and 2B Joe Morgan ‘75 right off. I wanted to use Babe Ruth, because why wouldn’t you? But so many amazing OF, and defense to worry about as well, so I ended up deciding to make ‘20 Ruth my 1B. ‘11 Cobb, ‘94 Duffy, and ‘57 Mantle eventually won the outfield sweepstakes, but ‘81 Mike Schmidt was a less-than-desirable 3B pick for me just because he might be too power-reliant. He just worked out as the best combination with what I had on both teams. I also worry about Morgan, who underperforms for me sometimes. But as a No. 8 hitter, I can live with it considering what he brings in glove and speed.

Ballpark: This was a tough decision, because it affects both rounds, and I really didn’t know if my pitchers or hitters would need the help more in either round. So I played it safe and chose a near-neutral park in Forbes Field. It’s +1 for 1B and 0s for the rest. I’m sure I could have used this more to my advantage somehow, especially with a + doubles park, but I played it safe.
Starters: C King Kelly 1886, 1B Babe Ruth 1920, 2B Joe Morgan 1975, SS Lou Boudreau 1948, 3B Mike Schmidt 1981, LF Mickey Mantle 1957, CF Ty Cobb 1911, RF Hugh Duffy 1894. Rotation: Greg Maddux 1995, Pedro Martinez 2000, Ed Walsh 1910, Walter Johnson 1913. Bullpen: Dennis Eckersley 1990, Koji Uehara 2013, Craig Kimbrel 2012, Hong-Chih Kuo 2010, Mike Adams 2009, Rich Hill 2015, Art Nehf 1919

6345 PA .372/.474/.613 359 2B, 98 3B, 236 HR, 344/194 SB/CS $136.1M
1665 IP .176 OAVG, 0.77 WHIP, 1.31 ERA 1489 K-243 BB 56 HR $118.8M
(how ridiculous are these numbers???)
Outlook: Here’s where the confidence starts to falter. I’m sure I have some flaws in my building logic despite the cap, so it’s hard to guess what’s to come. Once I see the other rosters, I might have a better idea, but for the moment I’m going with 50% playoff confidence and a projected 86 wins. A little better than average seems reasonably optimistic.

$65M – Food Stamps
Astrodome

I knew right away I wanted an extreme pitchers park to maximize on IP and PA at the low cap. I knew from the beginning I wanted some 90s pitching. I focused on low BB pitchers that should do well in the Dome. ’92 Tewksbury, ’98 Mussina and ’98 Reed are part of the staff, rounded out by ’88 Bryn Smith as my 25^th man. ’37 Shoffner, ’76 Wood, ’72 Jackson, ’71 Hamilton and ’98 Timlin make up a versatile pen.

OBP and speed were the focus for the offense. ’57 Temple, ’56 Sievers and ’55 Rosen provide a bit of pop for the road, with the likes of ’97 Raines, ’96 Rickey, ’35 Collins and a strong platoon bench options round things out.

I’m never super confident at low caps, but I’m cautiously optimistic about this team.

Hitting: .278/.381/.418
Pitching: 1,187 IP, 1.11 WHIP, 3.10 ERA

$90M – A Mile High and Falling Fast
Coors Field

I had three strategies I wanted to stick with going into this:

1. Deadball hitters and modern pitchers to boost D
2. Tandem SP to maximize on PH opportunities
3. High K, low HR pitchers, especially in the bullpen

I was not able to stick exclusively to any one of these, but was able to incorporate a good balance of all three. ’93 McGraw and ’94 Daly were easy affordable options for the top of the order with their crazy walk totals and high OBP. ’31 Webb, ’96 Edgar and ’06 ARod (who seems to be a popular choice for this theme) provide middle of the other slugging. Platoons round out the roster with partial seasons from the likes of Cobb, O’Doul, Lombardi, Anderson, Hill, etc. This offense is built on doubles and walks.

Everyone is going to hit in this theme, so I opted for low-BB pitchers as much as possible, to minimize baserunners. A three man rotation of ’63 Drysdale, ’72 Jenkins and ’81 Leonard will set the tone and hopefully eat some innings. ’06 Sheets and ’72 Kaat will support the rotation, and the pen is stacked with high #K/9 guys who can go multiple innings: ’11 Fister, ’17 Pagan, ’59 Harshman, ’85 Henke, ’01 Smoltz, ’88 Milacki, ’15 Hill.

I have no clue how this team will do, but it should be a fun theme.

Hitting: .326/.418/.513
Pitching: 1,508 IP, 1.06 WHIP, 2.79 ERA

$100M – Indianapolis Smoltz
Turner Field

I drafted about 20 different teams and agonized over which one to use. Ironically, the Smoltz team was the last one I drafted, a day before deadline, and I liked it instantly. It offers a lot of balance on offense, with speed from Furcal and Grissom, and slugging and BA from Pujols, Chipper, Sheffield and Holliday. The defense is solid too.

Like many, I focused on pitchers because they could fill the most slots. Unless you found an OFer with lots of stud teammates or a really versatile utility player, it was hard to make a hitter work. Smoltz offers high quality seasons in the rotation and pen, which made him ideal. ’96 Smoltz, ’96 Maddux, ’09 Carpenter and ’07 Smoltz make up the rotation. 4 Smoltzs are in the pen, along with ’02 Holms and ’07 Soriano. The scariest thing about this pitching staff is that I don’t have a single lefty. I hope that doesn’t come back to bite me.

Turner Field should help the pitching staff without hurting the offense too much. Looks like a lot of strong teams in this theme so I really have no clue where I’ll end up.

Hitting: .307/.384/.511
Pitching: 1,324.3 IP, 1.06 WHIP, 2.91 ERA

$110M – Fahrenheit 1915
League Park II

I made 6 iterations of this team: A 90s team, a 70s-80s Astrodome team and 4 deadball teams. I decided to go the deadball route.

The offense is built on average and no-homer slugging. I went with League Park to capitalize on all the singles and doubles, so hopefully my pitching staff can keep up. The park will also limit opposition homers, since I have almost none. The lineup features a good mix of reliable hitters including Carey, Lajoie, Speaker, Cobb, Wagner and Collins. Carey provides me with A+ range in CF and Collins and Wagner both provide A+ range up the middle, which should really help my pitching staff.

I went with a two-man rotation of Mathewson and Brown, with Schupp and Nehf to back them up. The pen also features Quinn, Alexander, Ames and Hughes. As long as I can manage the innings well enough, I feel confident about this team.

Hitting: .333/.399/.485
Pitching: 1,316 IP, 0.92 WHIP, 1.72 ERA

$130M – Platoon
Griffith Stadium

I’m curious to see how this team does – and how the theme goes in general. I suspect we’ll see quite a bit of variance in these rosters vs the other themes.

I started off by drafting quality hitters with salaries as close to $2M as possible, to see how much money I had left over to fill some full-time roster spots. I ended up with strong partial seasons from Furcal, Abreu, Roush, Collins, Keppinger, Larkin, McBride, McCarty and Stanky. Raines, Delahanty, Ruth and Davis provide full-time PAs at the top of the order, for stability. The bottom 5 spots will take a lot of managing. I think that’s where this theme will be won or lost.

Pitching was a bit easier, as it’s easier to fill out a pitching staff with the $2M minimum than it is to fill out a lineup. ’08 Mathewson will start every other day, with ’16 Kershaw, ’88 Chamberlain and ’01 Pedro takin care of the rest. ’38 Dean backs them up. Effective staples like Wagner, Carlos, Meredith, Steele, Adams and Rivera round out the pen.

Due to the variance, I’m not sure how this theme will go, but I do think I’ve built a strong team. Griffith Stadium will help me stretch my innings out a bit and kill opposition homers, as only Ruth has more than 20 for me.

Hitting: .341/.437/.519
Pitching: 1,269 IP, 0.82 ERA, 1.63 WHIP

$255M – The Billionaires Club
Robison Field

Caps like this are a crap shoot, so I only built two iterations, mainly to nail down my Round 2 roster (hopefully I can use it).

I don’t know why, but I try to use my Robison Field strategy every WIS Championship. It’s my staple, to mixed results. Gehrig, Ruth and Bonds will give me a lot of thunder from the left side. Cobb, Lajoie, Hornsby, Schmidt and Porter round out the order that features a good R/L mix. A strong bench of Hill, Loretta, Perez, Stone and Williams will also allow me to mix and match a bit to try and gain an edge in certain matchups.

Walsh and Alexander will serve as a two-man rotation, with Maddux and Pedro backing them up. Miller, Milacki, Eckersley and Fister round out the pen. I drafted Berhnard, Wagner and Johnson as mopup guys to stash away for Round 2.

Status: Who knows?

Hitting: .372/.469/.683
Pitching: 1,567 IP, 0.87 WHIP, 1.72 ERA

Many will be surprised to see me post to this forum. dippedncrack and I are sharing the 72nd spot in this tournament. He took three teams, I took three teams. I actually spent some time building a couple of the themes way back in June, but I just got too busy to continue which is why i backed out. I was able to put the time in to finish three teams so this tournament could get started. I am posting now while everything is still fresh in my mind. I don't know if dippedncrack will post his strategies. Anyway, I entered 90M, 110M and 130M teams.

90M Theme - Ball in Play
Team Name: Bad News Bears
Ballpark: Coors Field
I actually spent a ton of time on this theme back in June and simply tweaked things this weekend. I struggled with quantity vs quality in terms of innings pitched. I really wanted to get a bunch of high strikeout pitchers (i.e., '24 Vance is one of my favorites) so I wouldn't need as many innings, but it was just too expensive. I settled on 1665 innings of modern day pitchers with decent (not great) strikeout totals. I chose modern day pitchers to help reduce the error totals my fielders will make, Those folks drafting deadball pitchers will have a really high error count. I also chose all short-inning "SP" for my bullpen so my IP/G are all over 6 which should help a little bit. Pretty much all my pitchers have whips between 1.05 and 1.11. My four-man rotation includes '86 M.Witt, '94 B.Saberhagn, '08 R.Halladay and '05 C.Carpenter.
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Similarly, I selected mostly deadball hitters to help increase the number of times reached on error for my offense. I wasn't sure how many plate appearances was needed for my hitters, but I choose 6000 (about 750 per position). I did focus on trying to get D+ fielders where possible and completely avoided D- guys. Because of the limitation D+/D+ or worse even at secondary positions, I have a feeling a lot of teams will have many of the same players. My starting batters include '41 N.Etten (1b), '94 B.Lowe (2b), '38 C.Lavagetto (3b), '91 E.McKean (ss), '93 J.McGraw (of), '11 M.McIntyre (of), '47 D.Walker (of). I have a three-man platoon at catcher.
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Hitting Stats: 6017 PA, .309, .396, .422, $39.6 million
Pitching Stats: 1665 IP, .231 oav, 1.06 whip, 7.2 K/9, 1.8 BB/9, 0.63 HR/9, $50.4 million
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110M Theme - Unique Season Twist
Team Name: Big Ed to Dazzy '15
Ballpark: Robison Field
In similar previous themes (i.e., 25-Year Silver Anniversary theme), I always want to draft from the deadball years (for pitchers) and into the 1920s for hitters so I knew I was going to select a year in the teens. I started with the thought of how can I get both Ed Walsh and Dazzy Vance? Well, 1915 was Walsh's last season and Dazzy's first season. So that was the starting point. I then tried to find pitchers that I wanted and then checked to see if they played in 1915. Needing only 200 more IPs at SP, I added '04 M.Brown. The bullpen consisted of '16 J.Benz (another favorite of mine), '18 C.Hill, '12 C.Weilman and '10 F.Smith. That gave me 1440 solid IPs.
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Now for the offense. I started with '13 E.Collins (2b), and quickly added a favorite in '20 E.Roush (1b, A++++). I really wanted Frank Baker but it appears he didn't play in 1915 so I settled on '03 N.Lajoie (3b). I tried to get H.Wagner on the roster but settled on '19 Peckinpaugh (ss). I had '14 Speaker rostered for a while, but salary was starting to add up so saved a little by pivoting to '23 K.Williams (of). Added '17 B.Veach (of) and '01 S.Crawford (of) as my last two regulars. Now, most of the years close to 1915 were used up and I still needed catcher. I found a nice platoon with '11 R.Bresnahan and '28 W.Schang. The cheap backups / scrubs were a lot harder to fill in, but I made it work.
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Hitting Stats: 5502 PA, .328, .403, .482, $54.5 million (excl. scrubs)
Pitching Stats: 1440 IP, .205 oav, 0.95 whip, 0.10 HR/9, $53.8 million (excl. scrubs)
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130M Theme - Everybody Plays
Team Name: Zero HRs Allowed
Ballpark: Pac Bell Park
I started building my roster with the bullpen. Again, I like to use low-IP "SP" as my relievers. So I set search my search criteria for SP with salaries between $2 million and $3 million and just started picking off players. I realized I kept taking guys with HR/9 = 0.00 so I kept doing this... '67 C.Carlos, '43 J.Niggeling, '92 D.Rasmussen, '70 V.Blue, '07 N.Maddox, '81 A.Rincon, '88 B.George, '18 C.Hill, '18 J.Northrop, '18 J.Quinn. Now all I needed was three SP. I knew I was taking '08 E.Walsh. I completed the rotation with '19 Adams and '06 White. Yes, I know their HR/9 > 0.00, but barely. I expect to lead the league in lowest ERA.
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With 12 spots left to fill, I went with a 3-man platoon at catcher and a 2-man platoon at DH. That left 7 full time position players. I focused on range and/or OBP for most of my starting lineup. '14 Tris Speaker (1b), '30 F.Frisch (2b), '13 F.Baker (3b), '97 G.Davis (ss), '41 R.Cullnbine (of), '10 S.Magee (of), '44 B.Johnson (of). My catcher platoon includes '27 J.Schulte, '11 J.Lapp & '82 B.Wynegar. My DH platoon is '46 A.Galan and '95 T.Tucker. You can see I focused on range at the four infield positions... not so much in the OF.
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Hitting Stats: 6079 PA, .334, .429, .497, $62.1 million
Pitching Stats: 1544 IP, .199 oav, 0.87 whip, 0.03 HR/9, $67.8 million

"I chose modern day pitchers to help reduce the error totals my fielders will make."

So glad an experienced successful owner shares this strategy with me. Hopefully I employed it well.

I rarely play open leagues, but one of my favorite open league teams was a team I built that included a bunch of 1880's and 1890's batters with A+ range and D fielding ratings, and a bunch of modern day pitchers. Then I got to watch how many more errors my opponents' "better fielders" would make against me, when compared to my fielders. My guys would improve their 70-90 real life errors to somewhere in the 30's (or even fewer depending on position).

Posted by Jtpsops on 8/14/2018 2:04:00 PM (view original):
"I chose modern day pitchers to help reduce the error totals my fielders will make."

So glad an experienced successful owner shares this strategy with me. Hopefully I employed it well.

I will be curious to see how this all plays out, because I'm not sure how useful a strikeout pitcher can be against a hitter who never strikes out. If teams put a premium on contact hitters, was it worth spending extra on higher strikeout pitchers? I definitely went for pitchers who could strike out guys who are prone to it, but I fear there's only so much they can do against deadball hitters. My team is about half deadball hitters, but even the modern guys aren't big whiffers (highest total is 83).

It's not about strikeouts. Modern pitchers improve the defense of deadball fielders because of the era they come from. The deadball fielders will have an improved fielding % on balls in play behind modern pitchers.

As I am reading the comments above, I see somebody else picked a team name very similar to my 90M team. I chose Bad News Bears, because as I was building this team, I kept hearing "Carmen" from the original Bad News Bears movie.

Wow, I see 1915 was a popular choice. Looking forward to seeing a summary of all the selections.