With this theme, there really isn't a ton of "drafting" strategy. The key to this theme is to properly evaluate the various teams and determine what the best teams are. In addition to figuring out the roster strength of each team, it's also important (especially if drafting later) to consider what division you might be in. I'm not saying division strength is more important than your roster strength, but there are so many teams that are very close to each other, division strength can be used as a deciding factor.

This thread is for folks to discuss what various methods they used in determining roster strength, why they chose the team(s) they chose and also did they get sniped on any picks. Different people will have different opinions on what type of roster they are looking for. Some value pitching over offense, others focus on hitting. Some place a high value on defense, others not so much.

Also, it will be interesting to see which free agent everybody selected. ronthegenius and I were discussing (in sitemails) my 1902 pick. His choice of free agent would have been different than my choice.

I will start by saying I love researching the juice's tournament themes. This theme, in particular, was fun to research, although it was very time consuming. Unlike the round 3 draft, where others' picks would influence your future choices, this draft was very straightforward. If I could just evaluate every single team, I could rank them and simply pick the highest rated team at my turn. Well, it wasn't as easy as I first thought. I will admit now that I made some mistakes in my methods.

I started by building rosters... lots of rosters... rosters for 96 different seasons. When building these rosters, I also tried to pick the "best" free agent, usually defined as the player who would make the most impact. If a year had weak pitching, but the best free agent starting pitcher wasn't that much better than the starting pitcher he'd be replacing, then I typically went with a hitter. Likewise, in order to take a free agent hitter, he had to be significantly better than the eligible hitter at that position or else I went pitching. In many cases, the best (or most expensive) free agent hitter didn't fit (position-wise) so I would take a lesser hitter that was a better fit.

I would use the salary spreadsheet for the stats, but I would manually build the roster in the team center because it helps to see how the roster looks. I would typically use OPS# for hitting and ERC# for pitching, but would make exceptions if a worse hitter was a better defender, and sometimes I would pass up a better pitcher if his HR/9# was too high, compared to somebody with a slightly worse ERC#. (And no, I don't have 96 open teams in my Team Center... I would delete teams once I was satisfied - had those roster recorded in my spreadsheet)

After building the rosters, I needed stat totals for each team for comparison purposes. I estimated playing time for hitters so I could take a weighted average of the various important hitting stats (AVG#, OBP#, SLG#, OPS#). So if my starting shortstop only had 550 PA, I would give this player 85% playing time and another shortstop would get 15% playing time. Every position would get 100%. For pitching, I calculated the key stats (OAV#, WHIP#, HR/9# and ERC#) weighted by innings. I only counted the best 1450 innings. The free agent's stats were included.

So I now know each team's weighted average ERC# and OPS#. But I needed a way to compare the teams against each other. How do I weigh a roster with great pitching and terrible hitting (i.e., 1910) vs. a roster with great hitting and terrible pitching (i.e,. 1969)? Sure, I could rank the teams within a league in various categories, but this has a flaw... What if 5 teams are really close in a stat? The best team will be 4 ranking points ahead of the worst team when there really is no difference. The answer: Standard Deviations. By calculating the average and standard deviation of each team stat within a league, I could also calculate how many standard deviations above or below average each team is in each stat. For simplicity, I decided to use OPS# for hitting and ERC# for pitching. So I simply added these two standard deviations to come up with one score for each of the 96 teams.

But wait, what about defense? Great question. I still had about a week left before the draft would start, so I created a numerical score for each possible defensive rating. I know this is arbitrary and may be way off reality, but it was better than nothing. And by applying the playing time weights to these numerical defensive scores, I could calculate a single defensive score for each team. I then would apply the same standard deviation formula for these defensive scores. Note that all these formulas are league specific. A good defensive score in League 1 is a below average defensive score for League 4.

I applied the defensive standard deviation to the pitching standard deviation to either improve or decrease the pitching score, prior to combining it with the hitting score. About halfway through the draft, I realized that I had too much weight on good defense and not enough weight on bad defense, so I surely would have made a few picks differently if we re-did the draft tomorrow. I also realized after the draft started, that I needed to calculate the average and standard deviation for each half league (i.e., NL vs AL), especially for the leagues where there was a big difference in the early vs later years within a league.

Anyway, most of the draft turned out ok, but I definitely made some mistakes. The next few posts will be related to the teams I drafted.

With the overall #2, #3, #5 picks, I needed to decided which teams/leagues I wanted the most. I went League #1, pick #2 first, then went League #3, Pick #1. My next pick was tough. After ronthegenius took League 2, pick #1 (1944), I strongly considered picking 2nd in that league (taking 1933), but decided to go with league 4.

League 1, Pick #2
1902 + Ed Siever (+1.4 std ERC#, +0.3 stdev OPS#, +1.7 stdev DEF)
Was happy 1910 went first. Great pitching but bad hitting. The 1902 pick was a no-brainer and when I told ronthegenius that was my pick, he confirmed he had them as his top pick also. This team is strong in hitting, pitching and defense... a rarity. Ron says he would add Ed Delahanty as a free agent while I wanted to improve the pitching (Siever's ERC# is 2.19 compared to Red Donohue's 3.20). I reserve the right to change my mind.
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League 3, Pick #1
1969 + Any Messersmith (-1.2 / +2.1 / -0.8)
I've modified my formulas multiple times since we started the draft, but I will say that 1969 was one of the years that I overrated. Not only did splitting the leagues into AL and NL hurt this standard deviation (the offense went from +2.9 to +2.1 when removing the weak hitting 1970's and early 80's), but I also under-penalized the pitching due to bad defense. Also, this team is in a very tough division with 1970 and 1971, two other teams I had ranked high. I should not have taken this team this early.
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League 4, Pick #1
2011 + Clayton Kershaw (+1.0 / +0.8 / +0.3)
My numbers have 2020 as the top pick in league 4, but I just don't like playing with players like this. High HR, high K, low OBP hitters. A bunch of SP with < 200 IPs, relievers with barely 1.0 innings/game. lots of HRs allowed by pitchers. So I instead went with 2011 which is strong everywhere., ranked 3rd, 4th and 5th (ERC, OPS, DEF) in the NL. No regrets here. I was shocked 2020 went as low as 4th.

I will post more later.

i was thinking about posting till i read shwarze talking about 100 rosters and multiple standard deviations and realized how inadequate i am.

Posted by 3dayrotation on 2/8/2022 2:06:00 AM (view original):
i was thinking about posting till i read shwarze talking about 100 rosters and multiple standard deviations and realized how inadequate i am.

Know what you mean

It's comical how little time I put into this compared to schwarze. I had all low picks so I deliberately waited until it was either close to my pick, or my turn to pick to research the teams. That way I didn't have to do extra research. Then I made a spreadsheet and researched the remaining teams. I made one column for hitting/defense and one for pitching. Then I assigned a score of 1-5 to each team for each category. If there was a clear highest rated team, I'd choose that one. I did exactly that with league 3 and 4. If there was a a tie, I'd look to see which was in the weaker division. Without researching the other teams, I just assumed that a high pick was a good team, so I tried to avoid selecting a team that was a year or two away. Also, if all else was equal, I'd take a look at the free agent choices. My league 1 and 2 selections were made this way. I still like my league 1 pick, though I was very tempted to take 1895 as no one had made a 19th century pick by that time. But that team has some major holes in it. Most notably, 2nd and SS and major issues with defense despite having the best pitching of the bunch. My league 2 selection of 1946 was a bit rushed as I was heading out the door with my family for lunch. My best HR hitter has 8 HR on that squad. It's strong pitching, decent defense and a bunch of high OBP guys. And I'm in a tough division. I did do some research after my selections to see how I would have ranked some of the teams in my division and I found that some owners would favor strong pitching teams at the expense of a weak hitting team. I think that all of my teams are more evenly balanced.

I spent about 1 - 1.5 hours of research on each league. I didn't make a single roster, no standard deviations. This is probably why schwarze has 15 teams in this round and I have 4.

Posted by 3dayrotation on 2/8/2022 2:06:00 AM (view original):
i was thinking about posting till i read shwarze talking about 100 rosters and multiple standard deviations and realized how inadequate i am.

The one "downside" of having so many teams (including having picks in the overall top 8), is that I have to do the research for all the teams in all the leagues ahead of time. If I only had a a handful of teams, and/or if I was picking a bit lower, I would simply wait until I knew which leagues I was in and would only care about the available teams left in those leagues.

With only 50% of the 96 teams advancing to round 5, it really doesn't matter how much I researched, I'm still probably going to miss round 5 with at least 6 teams (6 of my 15 teams had draft picks 14 and later).

How about "the heart wants what the heart wants?"

In League One, with the fourth pick, 1910, 1902, and 1911 were gone. A couple other teams in that 1910-1915 band looked good to me, but I didn't want to be in the same division with two other top five picks.

So I looked to branch out, up and down. Checked out an intriguing 1890s possibility, but the raw pitching stats were too much, or too little...

Checked out the 1919 season which included Babe Ruth's great hitting year, but the rest of the offense was bleh.

So I circled around 1901 and 1924 - two years with very good hitting and mediocre to bad pitching. In the end, it came to anchoring a squad with 1901 LAjoie or 1924 Hornsby. I've used that Lajoie season a couple of times and been disappointed, while I'm not sure I ever used that 24 Hornby season. I also like having one true ace ('24 Vance, a truly historically great SP season, even if he underperformed for me the couple times I used it) rather than a deeper offense.

So 1924 it is, adding Eppa Rixey to be my second best pitcher. (which in this league is itself a bad sign, but again, the heart wanted what the heart wanted.)

League 4 was my highest pick. I went with 2018, which I think should be competitive. The defense is great, with an A-/B average, and a solid .282/.351/.482 slash line and 274 HR that should take advantage of some of these modern pitching staffs. FA Max Scherzer will anchor the rotation, with a solid back end to the bullpen.

Leagues 2 and 3, I was at the bottom, so not a lot to work with. League 2, I went with 1935. I like the offense, but the pitching is suspect. The FA pitching options weren't much better than what I had, so my FA is Buddy Myer, providing a good bat and D at 2B. League 3, I picked last and went with 1975. I actually don't feel too badly about this team. No playoff aspirations, but I think it can get me to the next round. The pitching is decent, so with good D and a steady offense - including the addition of FA Fred Lynn - I think we can win some games.

League 2, Pick #4
1954 + Mike Garcia (-0.8 std ERC#, +1.9 stdev OPS#, -0.2 stdev DEF)
After pedrocerrano took 1933 with the second pick, I am really regretting my 1969 pick. 1944 and 1933 are the class of this league and I should have grabbed one of these two years... Damn. With pick #3, DarthDurron grabbed 1957. They have solid pitching, but the offense was a bit below what I was looking for. My choices are 1927, 1928, 1954 & 1955. Both 1927 & 1928 are very good pitching teams but slightly below average in hitting. I just couldn't pass up an offense with six players $6M+ in salary, including Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Duke Snider, Gil Hodges, Pee Wee Reese and Red Schoendienst. Not great pitching, but Mike Garcia should win 25 games with this type of run support. Of course, 1927 & 1928 went with two of the next three picks.
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League 1, Pick #7
1913 + Joe Jackson (+0.4 / -0.3 / +1.5)
My rankings tell me that I should grab 1901, but I already had 1902 so I wanted to get a team in the other division. The top two teams available based on my rankings were 1919 and 1913. I actually have 1919 ranked slightly ahead, but it's close. I liked the lefty/right mix on the 1913 team better. Also, I thought there was a decent chance that 1919 would end up in the same division as 1924 and 1925. I was almost right but then 1922 was inexplicably selected with pick 24, pushing 1919 into the same division as 1913. And of course, pedrocerrano grabbed 1919 on the very next pick.
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League 3, Pick #8
1976 + Joe Morgan (+0.9 / +0.2 / -0.2)
In this league, I have both picks 8 and 10, with crazyamos picking in between. I already have 1969 so wanted a team in the later years. At this point in the draft, I had already recalculated the league averages and standard deviations based on AL vs NL. By splitting this league up, some teams moved way up because the AL is overall weaker than the NL. In particular, 1982, 1979 & 1976 were now the top 3 selections in the AL (prior to the change, these teams were below 4 or 5 teams from the 1960's and early 70's). I passed on 1979 (ranked 2nd) because they are too right-handed. I actually selected 1976 first even though they are ranked 3rd, because I can start 7 lefties or switch-hitters. This will be a fun team to play with Carew, Morgan, Bostock, Singleton, Grich, Smalley, Carty & Reggie Jackson. These were the players I grew up with.

League 3, Pick #10
1982 + Robin Yount (+0.3 / +0.8 / -0.8)
crazyamos grabbed 1958. I actually had 1958 ranked pretty high when I grouped all 32 league 3 teams together, but now being compared just to teams in the tougher NL, they dropped down in the rankings. I was happy to add 1982. This is one of the few teams I drafted that actually has a decent bullpen (led by Gossage 1.75 erc# in 93 innings). Again, this era is in my wheelhouse for players I loved watching. Adding AL MVP Robin Yount to a roster that already has Pete Rose, Mike Schmidt, Willie Randolph, Sixto Lezcano, Oscar Gamble, Dave Winfield, etc.... should be fun.

League 4, Pick #9
1993 + Greg Maddux (+0.3 / -0.6 / +1.2)
I actually have 1996 ranked way higher than 1993, but I liked how this team fit together better. But there was a different reason why I selected this team (even made an ambiguous comment when I selected them). I anticipated they would be in an easy division because I didn't like any of the teams around them. Now that being said, I now see that my overweight of defense had this team ranked too high and now it's only ranked 8th out of the 12 AL teams in League 4. The good news is that I was right about the division. I have 1991 and 1994 ranked 11th and 12th in the league and I have 1998 ranked about the same as 1993. The division winner may only get about 83 wins.

More to come later

League 2, Pick #10
1951 + Ted Williams (-0.9 / +0.5 / +1.2)
I made a mistake with this pick. I should have picked 1939 (which went to mllama54 on the next pick). I honestly can't remember why I picked 1951, although based on the numbers, it looks like my overweighting of defense pushed them up higher than they deserved. After the recalc, this team is only ranked 7th in the AL, behind the 1945 team that I took 11 picks later. Meanwhile, 1939 is ranked 4th in the NL. Also, I had 1955 ranked very high and passed on them because I already had 1954. But really, 55 vs 54 is not that much different than 51 vs 54. Should've taken 1939 or 1955. At this point, I am hoping this team can go .500 with Robin Roberts leading a very poor pitching staff. We should score some runs with Ted Williams and Stan Musial driving in on-base monsters Richie Ashburn, Eddie Joost and Ferris Fain.
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League 1, Pick #11
1901 +Jesse Burkett (-0.2 / +1.3 / +0.4)
I already have 1902, but I just couldn't pass on 1901 again. Based on my numbers, this team should have been taken in the top 4 or 5 picks in league 1. Their "effective salary" of $101 million is the highest of all 96 teams. (I measure effective salary by multiplying each player's actual salary by estimated playing time). And yes, I know Nap LaJoie's inflated salary is part of that number. Still, the average salary in this league is $86-$87 million. There wasn't an obvious pitching free agent, so why not improve the already-strong offense with Burkett's .972 OPS#. What's interesting is now my 1902 team is bumped into the division with three extreme pitching teams (1904, 1905, 1906). Hmmm... maybe I should add Delahanty to that team instead of Siever.
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League 4, Pick #14
1996 +Greg Maddux (-0.8 / +1.8 / +0.4)
This is another example where my good defensive rating helped the poor pitching more than it should have. At one point, I had 1996 ranked first in the NL. But after fixing my formula, this team is still ranked 2nd (behind 2002). The reason I passed on this team before is because this offense is wayyy too right-handed. But with pick #14, I can't pass them up again. Even after adding Maddux, this pitching staff is still a bottom three staff in the NL. But this team will score runs. Galarraga, E.Young, Castilla, Larkin, E.Davis, Burks, Canseco, L.Walker & M.Vaughn. Get ready for some 12-10 scores.
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League 2, Pick #14
1940 +Paul Derringer (-0.3 / +0.3 / +0.7)
We're at the point in the draft where I'm just trying to get a team that can win half it's games. I already have two teams in the AL in League 2 (1954 & 1951). I strongly considered adding 1955 (which went one pick later to calhoop), but that would've been a pain in the butt for alignment. Now, I really wish I had taken 1939 instead of 1951, then I could've added 1955 with this pick. Anyway, I needed a team from the NL. There is really no pitching still available on that side of the league. 1943 has the best pitching left, but their offense is pretty bad. This 1940 offense isn't too bad (slightly above average) and although I've never used Derringer before, his numbers look decent enough and more importantly, he has 315 innings (which means I don't need to use Harry Gumpert and his 3.59 ERC#).

My last three picks are picks 21, 22 & 24. Not expecting any miracles on those teams.

About a month before the draft I kind of thought that all six of my teams would qualify me for the fourth round and four of them with quite high draft picks. So I decided to build my own little universe of players for each of the four leagues. I ended up spending about 15 to 20 hours building 96 teams, 24 in each league of usable players for each team.

I built a spreadsheet for each league. With each team I extracted the cumulative team amount for six hitting (runs, sb, ba, obp, slg, and bb tot), six for pitching (era, oav, whip, k, bb, and hr allowed), and two for fielding (field and range). Once I did that I ranked each team 1 thru 24 for each category. For each team I came up with a total ranking by adding all of the individual rankings together. I also came up with a total pitching ranking and total hitting ranking. I then ranked the total rankings, the hitting totals, and the pitching totals to find the most complete teams.

As it turned out in league 1, I had the 6th and 21st pick. In league 2 I had the 11th and 23rd picks. In league 3 I had the 4th pick. And league 4 I had the second pick..

League 1. With the 6th pick , I was able to take 1904 which I had rated as my number 1 pick. There pitching was ranked number 1 and hitting was number 12 out of the 24 teams. My fa is Willie Keeler.
League 1. With the 21st pick, I was able to take 1912 which I had ranked as my number 10 pick. There pitching was ranked number 19 and their hitting number 6. My fa is Honus Wagner.

League 2. With the 11th pick, I took 1939 which I had ranked as my number 3 pick. The pitching was ranked 9th and hitting was ranked 2nd. My fa is Jimmie Foxx.
League 2. With the 23rd pick, I took 1953 which I had ranked as my number 13 pick. The pitching was ranked 10th and hitting was ranked 16th. My fa is Ted Klusewski. I was going to take Musial until I realized he hadn’t played first that year.

League 3. With the 4th pick, I took 1970 which I had ranked as my number 2 pick. I passed on my number 1 and 3 ranked teams of 1988 and 1979. I had 1970 as my number 1 ranked hitting team and my number 16 pitching team. Carl Yastrzemski is my fa. This decision was my most difficult because 1988 was my number 4 pitching and 1979 actually got ranked higher than 1970 in a number of categories. But I just felt comfortable with 1970.

League 4. With the second pick I took my highest ranked team of this league in 2003. It’s pitching ranked number 2 and it’s hitting ranked number 12. My fa is Todd Helton.

All of my free agents are hitters. I felt that the free agent pitchers under 9 million would not make as big an impact as Keeler, Wagner, Foxx, Klu, Yaz, and Helton. When I built my teams the number one criteria was a good ERC#. For hitting was a good ba, obp, and slg.

Other Juice tournament teams especially the snake drafts, I would wait until it got close to my picks before I took the deep dive. This time I really felt I needed to look at the options in conjunction of all other choices. Just for laughs I put all 96 teams into one large spreadsheet and reranked them comparing the 96 teams. The top five were 1911, 2003, 1979, 2021, and 2002.

The top 5 pitching teams were 1910, 1904, 1908, 1906 and 1916. The top 5 hitting teams were 1998, 1954,1895, 1898, and 1995.

I may not get any teams to the next round but it was fun going through the process. And I felt this ranking of teams would be better than throwing darts at a board.

League 3, Pick #22
1963 + Willie Mays (-0.4 std ERC#, +0.1 stdev OPS#, +0.1 stdev DEF)
I have 1975 ranked a bit higher than 1963, but since I already have 1976 and 1982, so I figure I would simplify the alignment by going with an earlier year. 1963 isn't anything special and I don't expect them to make the playoffs or anything. Their pitching (2.81 ERC#) is slightly below average (2.86#) for this league, but they have really good SP1 with Dick Ellsworth (2.23) and the rest of their staff are all hovering around 2.85 to 3.15. The offense is ok, not great, led by Billy Williams, Ron Santo and Al Kaline. This team needs to have some 1-run luck to get to .500.
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League 2, Pick #21
1945 + Nels Potter (+0.6 / -0.3 / -1.5)
I had this pick narrowed down to 1953 or 1945. Of course, I already had 1951 and 1954, so 1953 would have forced some alignment issues. Even after officially picking 1945 right before I went to sleep, nobody picked when I checked the next morning, and I considered changing my mind to 1953. The problem with 1945 is there are too many good Giants players and I had to make some tough choices of which Giants to leave off the roster. I went with Nels Potter as the free agent (another pitcher I've never used). His ERC# is a solid 2.48 in 274 innings. I may change my mind as the 1B position is very weak and I could add Phil Cavarretta (.945 OPS#) instead of using stiffs like Weintraub and Rocco. This is my worst defensive team in the tournament. Oddly enough, this team is ranked 6th in the AL, just ahead of the 1951 team I drafted 11 picks earlier. I just don't see them sniffing .500.
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League 4, Pick #24
2014 + Johnny Cueto (+1.1 / -1.3 / -0.9)
I already had 1993 and 1996, although I strongly considered 1997 here. Another team with phenomenal hitting. I could add a stud '97 Randy Johnson and he would crush it. Sadly, there was not a single pitcher on the roster that was worth crap. I guess that's why 1997 was not selected. I think 2014 was the obvious last choice here. Unlike most of my teams, this team is great in pitching and poor in hitting and defense. Pretty much the opposite of what I look for when selecting a team. Nothing really to be excited about with this team, other than a solid bullpen. Maybe I can squeak out a bunch of 3-2 wins.

First, I’d like to say that there was a time I could have calculated a standard deviation but those days are long gone.

Second, I’d like to recognize toysboys for his approach: assigning a value of 1 – 5 to each season’s hitting and pitching. That’s an approach I frequently use for juice drafts.

I started prepping for this draft earlier than usual because I knew that I’d have one team in each league which meant a lot of research and schwarze would be out of the country - I know I’m capable of holding up the drafts while I do my research. As a result, I was able to spend more time than usual. I took the same approach as schwarze with the pitching; getting a weighted average of WHIP#, ERC#, OAV#, and HR/9# for the top 1510 IP for each season (1450 – 1470 would probably have been better). After ranking the pitching, I eyeballed the hitting, primarily looking at the hitting associated with the top 10-12 pitching staffs but also looking for any great hitting teams. With this approach, I was hoping to identify the top 6 or so teams in each league I would be interested in. After identifying those teams, I would then build a lineup and calculate weighted average for AVG#, OBP#, SLG#, and OPS#. Prior to the draft, I was able to finish the pitching calculations for each league but only able to look at the hitting for leagues 1 and 2.

League 1 (8^th pick – 1919 plus Cobb??):
Prediction: 87 wins

I had identified six teams that I liked: 1902, 1910, 1911, 1913, 1919, and 1924. Of these, 1902 and 1911 stood out. With the eighth pick, I was just hoping for one of the other four teams to drop to me. I got lucky as 1913 and 1919 were available when schwarze picked at #7. I probably would have selected 1913 as well due to Shoeless Joe as the better FA selection.

With 1919, I’m still debating which FA to use: Cobb or Heinie Groh. They both provide about the same upgrade in OPS# and Groh (A/A) provides a big defensive upgrade but I’m leaning towards Cobb. I think that adding a second big bat in the 2 – 4 spot is better than upgrading the 5 – 6 spot.

Note: I would really have liked 1924 to drop – that looks like a fun team. No real holes in the lineup; Hornsby, Wheat, and Fournier to hit 2-4 and just enough pitching with Vance and Rixey.

Note to schwarze – I would have taken Siever as my FA in 1902

League 2 (2^nd pick – 1933 plus Schumacher):
Prediction: 94 wins

In this league, I found four teams that I liked: 1927, 1928, 1933, and 1944. I thought 1944 really stood out. It had the best pitching staff, a solid lineup with only one hole and the perfect FA (Stirnweiss) to fill it. That would have been my top choice overall.

In making my selection, I discarded 1928 primarily because of Garland Braxton who never seems to perform for me. Selecting between 1927 and 1933 was a bit of a toss up. Choosing 1933 was based on two things: first, I really liked having Foxx in the lineup and second the FA selection. With 1927, although there were some hitters I liked, the upgrade in pitching with Wilcy Moore (225 IP – 2.27 ERC#) over the innings being replaced would have been the obvious choice. Unfortunately, Moore (like Braxton), never performs for me. Therefore, I liked Schumacher (276 IP – 2.41 ERC#) better.

League 3 (3^rd pick – 1971 plus Aaron??):
Prediction: 86 wins (brutal division)

This was the one league where no teams really stood out. I would have loved to have had the third pick in league 1 and the eighth here. I ended up looking at 10 teams: 1963, 1964, 1966, 1967, 1970, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1982, and 1987. I’m sure I would have included 1969 but schwarze had already selected them when I started looking. In the end, I focused on three years: 1970, 1971, and 1976.

I really liked 1970 the best and would have selected them except for one thing: the FA choices. This team really needed a good FA pitcher and there weren’t any available. The best choice with more than 150 IPs was Jim Perry and his ERC# of 2.86 was nowhere near the upgrade needed. That would have left taking Yaz as the FA which would have been a fun lineup to play but probably not the best choice.

Choosing between 1971 and 1976 was tough. 1971 has better overall pitching and one standout bat (Murcer) but also a gaping hole at SS. 1976 has good overall pitching with a better bullpen, great speed and defense but no standout bats. With the FA choices, 1976 offered Seaver verses Morgan. However, the 1975/76 Morgans (like Braxton and Moore discussed before) always underperform for me. 1971 offered Sutton verses Aaron/Torre. Sutton’s ERC# of 2.50 is just not enough of an upgrade so with 1971, I be adding a bat. With Seaver, 1976 would have the better pitching but I choose 1971 because of the better offense. I’m still trying to decide on Aaron vs Torre; the better bat (Aaron) verses more PAs (Torre).

Note: the fact that I ended up in schwarze’s division was just a bonus.

League 4 (8^th pick – 2005 plus Clemens):
Prediction: 89 wins

This was the last league I started researching and 2002, 2003, 2011, and 2020 were already selected. I probably would have taken 2020 first with 2011 a close second. I ended up focusing on five years: 1993, 1998, 2005, 2008, and 2021. The hitting in 2005 just stood out. The only problem was it involved three first basemen and two third basemen. Once I mentally got over Derek Lee in LF (no OF grade) and Miguel Cabrera in RF (C/D-), it was an easy choice. Clemens with his 1.86 ERC# was an easy FA choice.

I should point out that I calculated everybody's average "StDev score" per team and pedrocerrano came out #1. Not surprising based on his methods..
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Here are the top three. Kudos to DarthDurron also. Note that two of these three folks focused more on pitching while the other one loves hitting and defense...
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Owner	Teams	StDev	ERC#	OPS#	Defense
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pedrocerrano	4	0.87	0.82	0.10	-0.19
DarthDurron	7	0.71	0.85	-0.09	-0.22
schwarze	15	0.68	0.09	0.51	0.32