Post here your strategies, comments, the good, the bad, the ugly... everything related to which teams you took , and why.

Part 1
The process

Since I had 29 teams advance to round 2 and also had a number of Top 30 selections, I needed to research every league well before the draft actually started. This would be a massive undertaking.

I quickly determined that I would *not* be able to build every team in time for the draft, so I needed a shortcut to help me rank the various teams. Using the player database spreadsheet, I ranked the top X% of hitters (min PA) and the top Y% of starting pitchers (min IPs) and top Z% of relief pitchers in each league. I then counted how many of these players appeared on each team in their respective league. I sorted these teams by total salary (of these top players). That's where I started building teams. I built about 10 teams per league, and for each team, I calculated a weighted average of every important stat category (i.e., ERC# & OPS#) and also have a formula to rate the overall defense per team. Using standard deviations, I determine how much above or below the league average each team is in offense, defense & pitching.

But I needed more than 10 teams per league for this standard deviation formula to be statistically significant. So then I parsed out the total salary for each team, by "better team" and "worse team". As one would expect, the better team typically accounted for 70-80% of the total salary. Where the % was lower, I would then investigate those teams and I built another 5-8 teams per league. The ideal situation is where the worse team had a lot of usable RPs plus at least 4 starting batters.

I had about 200 rosters built when it was time for the Top 30 draft. The teams in the league that had the highest standard deviation is where I would be focusing on.

To be continued.

My method (and likely my results) were much less sophisticated but interested in folks thoughts given this rules for this round.

• First, I looked at the seasons range overall (1899-1910 in this case) and did a draft sort of elite seasons and by whom to identify the difference makers and if there were multiple on a team. (I define it as 7m hitters / 10m+ pitchers). Basically because this is a short window and not progressive you must heavily on those high dollar guys.
• Second because all teams will basically play against others in same 1-2 seasons. I used OPS+, ERA+, etc. as I think knowing how much they exceeded league average for the respective year is more important than OPS# which would say how it normalizes vs. all time frames. Do I understand that right?
• Third, I didnt find it hard to hit the 10/15 targets but it was a factor in team selection. Basically I looked at the number of ELITE seasons available for the 2 yr window (defined above) and looked to see who had most and if hopefully there were some on both teams.
• Finally, I just started with the bad team and drafted their best 15. From there go to the good team and pick their best 10 which included your ELITE guy. Once you have that then do a draft forum search of the combined teams and replace guys you may have missed, can upgrade or needed position holes. It literally didnt take me long as that removes a lot of decisions if you are already at your bad team target of 15 from there, you dont have many decisions to make. I dont think I would do that any different if I had 10+ teams.
• Now if I finish 62-100, I can also fall back on I picked 22nd of 24.

Initially before I knew which league/era...I started just looking at those All Time great seasons (2000 Pedro, 1995 Maddux, 1920 Ruth, 1927 Gehrig, 1972 Carlton, etc. Those guys alone can usually carry a team so long as they had anything around them.

OMG. I just spent an hour typing up my Top 30 draft comments, and just as I was about to hit submit, my dog bumped my hand holding the mouse, and I lost everything. F*ck.

bad dog

Oh, I feel that pain. I've had posts disappear like that. I am now in the habit of writing them out in a Doc first and then pasting it.

Part 2
The Top 30 Draft

Having 9 picks in the Top 30 draft, my goal is to get as many as my top choices as possible. I define my top choices as those teams that have the highest standard deviation above average for the respective leagues. In many leagues, the top teams are bunched together, so those aren't the teams I am looking at. Here is who I originally had as the top teams in each league. Teams with an asterisk are the teams I was targeting with one of my top 30 picks.

League 1:
*1885-1886: Detroit Wolverines - Philadelphia Quakers
*1887-1888: St. Louis Browns - Cleveland Blues
League 2:
1901-1902: Philadelphia Athletics - Baltimore Orioles
League 3:
1915-1916: Philadelphia Phillies - Cleveland Naps/Cleveland Indians
League 4:
*1933-1934: New York Giants - Philadelphia Phillies
*1927-1928: New York Yankees - Philadelphia Phillies
League 5:
1943-1944: St. Louis Cardinals - Philadelphia Athletics
League 6:
*1949-1950: New York Giants - Boston Braves
*1951-1952: St. Louis Cardinals - Chicago Cubs
League 7:
1967-1968: Baltimore Orioles - Chicago White Sox
League 8:
1971-1972: Houston Astros - New York Yankees (I accidentally built an Astros/Mets team)
League 9:
*1981-1982: Kansas City Royals - Houston Astros
League 10:
1987-1988: Cincinnati Reds - Houston Astros
League 11:
*1995-1996: Baltimore Orioles - Florida Marlins
League 12:
*2003-2004: San Francisco Giants - Arizona Diamondbacks
League 13:
*2007-2008: Los Angeles Dodgers - Atlanta Braves
League 14:
*2015-2016: Los Angeles Dodgers - Oakland Athletics
League 15:
*2019-2020: Houston Astros - Kansas City Royals
*2019-2020: New York Mets - San Diego Padres

I have picks 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 11, 12, 26, 27

I finally decided my top 4 choices are (in no order):
2019-2020: Houston Astros - Kansas City Royals
2015-2016: Los Angeles Dodgers - Oakland Athletics
2003-2004: San Francisco Giants - Arizona Diamondbacks
1981-1982: Kansas City Royals - Houston Astros

With 4 picks between my 3rd and 8th, I knew I'd probably lose one of these teams. Ironically, the highest ranked team of these four turned out to be the team I decided to let go. The Bonds-Bonds-Schmidt-R.Johnson SF/Ariz team was ranked way above average, but had a couple of things I didn't like. Both of Bonds years were short on PA and the rest of the offense is abysmal. And the team defense is poor. Most of the teams I have targeted have strong defenses. So I let that team go.

Pick #1 --> 2019-2020: Houston Astros - Kansas City Royals (Lg 15)
I knew right away from building a bunch of teams that teams in League 15 were going to suck b/c of limited IPs and sometimes PAs. Hardly any 2021-22 teams were even selected. Even without all the number-crunching, this team would've ranked high on just about everybody's list.

Pick #2 --> 2015-2016: Los Angeles Dodgers - Oakland Athletics (Lg 14)
Had I taken the Bonds team, this team would have been the team I left out of the top three. But the 2015-16 Kershaw-Kershaw-Greinke trio is too high profile and for sure would've been taken by somebody before my next pick.

Pick #3 --> 1981-1982: Kansas City Royals - Houston Astros (Lg 9)
This was the first team I assembled, even before all the spreadsheet work. Getting all those Astros pitchers w/o having to worry about the 10-player limit was just too good to pass up. DarthDurron confirmed my belief when he commented that this team was his first choice.

The next 4 picks were made, and all were solid choices, although only one of the teams did I have listed as a top 30 choice. Of course it was the team I almost took, Barracuda3 grabbed the 2003-04 Giants/D'Backs and told me this was his #1 overall team. Of course, now I am regretting my decision to exclude them. Maybe those 2015-16 Dodgers would have made it to me at pick #8?

Now, I have four of the next five picks, with Barracuda sliding in there to steal another one of my teams. So I need to decide which two are the most important. I know the three leagues I absolutely want to draft teams from are League 1, 4 & 6. I have two teams each from those leagues that I have ranked very high. I decided that League 1 is the league I could be happy with either one of the top 2 teams (in case barracuda took one of them), so I went with...

Pick #8 --> 1951-1952 St. Louis Cardinals/Chicago Cubs (Lg 6)
This is one of the few teams across all leagues that ranks high in offense, defense and pitching. They also have a lot of lefty hitters plus I love Stan Musial. Ironically, this team is ranked 2nd in League 6, but there's a reason (which I will divulge later) why I passed on the other team in this league.

Pick #9 --> 1933-1934 New York Giants/Philadelphia Phillies (Lg 4)
I was thrilled when this team made it to me. There is very little pitching in League 4, and this team has three top-10 starting pitchers (when I include Carl Hubbell twice). I have this team +1.6 standard deviations better than average in pitching and +0.9 StDev in defense and only slightly worse than average offensively.

barracuda3 took the Chipper Jones led 2007-08 Braves/Dodgers team, which I had on my list, but there are a couple of other teams from that league that I like, so I wasn't taking them quite yet.

Pick #11 --> 1885-1886 Detroit Wolverines/Philadelphia Quakers (Lg 1)
It was really a coin flip between this team and the Silver King / Tip O'Neill 1887-88 Browns team. Certainly an argument can be made to take the Browns team first. Silver King is better than either Lady Baldwin and there is no comparable reliever on my team comparable to Elton Chamberlain. And Certainly Tip O'Neill is better than any hitter that I have. Wait a minute... why in the hell did I take this Wolverines team? It really came down to defense. Not saying that any defense is particularly good in this era, but the defense on that Browns team might be the league's worst.

Pick #12 --> 1927-1928 New York Yankees/Philadelphia Phillies (Lg 4)
This was a tough choice. I don't pick again until pick #26, so this pick was more of a defensive pick than anything. Which leagues were i ok with taking a lesser team vs which league did I absolutely not want to drop any lower? It came down to three teams, all from leagues I already had a team... I almost went two League 1 teams in a row by taking the Silver King led Browns (pedrocerrano's head would've exploded). League 15's 2019-20 Padres/Mets is rated just as highly as my 2019-20 Astros/Royals. But I went with this Yankees Ruth-Ruth-Gehrig team. They are just too high-profile. I know Pedro will take the Silver King team, but there's a chance the Padres fall to pick 26.

And right on queue, pedrocerrano takes 1887-88 Browns/Orioles.. However, I did not expect him to double up in League 1 by taking the King Kelly 1885-86 White Stockings team, especially since he only has 12 teams - I did not think that was allowed. (In fact, thejuice6 had to put in a rule to prevent this from happening in future Top 30 drafts). Many other of my top picks got selected, as expected. Sadly, d_rock97 grabbed the 2019-20 Padres/Mets. So now, it's back to me.

Pick #26 --> 2005-2006 Minnesota Twins/San Francisco Giants (Lg 13)
You'll notice that this team isn't mentioned on the list above. One of the reasons I didn't take the Bonds SF/Ariz team is because I figured I could get either the 2009-10 Cardinals/Mariners team or this team later in the draft. njbigwig grabbed that Cardinals/Mariners team at pick #14, and there was a huge drop-off after this team in League 13, so I thought this was a better choice than maybe grabbing a league's 2nd best team. I strongly considered the 1995-96 Orioles/Marlins after two of the Maddux teams got taken.

Pick #27 --> 1949-1950 New York Giants/Boston Braves (Lg 6)
This is my second double-up. I actually have this team rated slightly ahead of the 1951-52 Cardinals/Cubs team I drafted at pick #8. The reason I passed them up is because a couple of key players on this team sucked for me on my '36-51 Giants team in round 1. Stud RP Jim Hearn had a 5.83 ERA, and the team's best SP (Larry Jansen) went 10-23 for my 90-72 team. But the raw numbers still says this is the best pitching staff in League 6. The over/under for number of games before I complain about Jim Hearn is 3.5.

Edit:
As I was contemplating my last pick in the top 30, I went back to League 8 and started looking at the roster for the 1971-72 Astros/Yankees team. I had them ranked very highly, and couldn't figure out why nobody had selected them yet. That's when I realized... "Wait a minute, Tom Seaver & Jon Matlack didn't play for the Yankees!". Damn it! I screwed this team up... I built an Astros/Mets team by mistake. So all my averages and standard deviations for league 8 are off. I finally fixed this after the regular draft had started. (When you build 200+ rosters over 5-6 weeks, you are almost certainly going to screw up at least once).

To be continued

I'm calling the theme in this Round, "The Great Equalizer." Something tells me that there will be quite a few surprises this time around as far as teams that are supposed to be good that may not play that way - and vice versa. At least that's what I'm hoping since most of my teams suck on paper...lol. Of course, I could be wrong since most if not all of the teams in this round will be playing other teams from the same era - so real-life numbers overall should be "relatively" realistic. The total salary of some of my rosters are hilarious. They go from WAY up there around $180M+ (League 1) all the way down to $96M+.

Honestly, after just building my last roster and entering it into the league, I don't know what I was looking at on some of these. My God, the horror. Then, at the same time, some of the teams I ended up with when taking late picks (i.e., Pick 20, 21, 24, etc.) I actually like more than some of my higher picks.

I'll either luck out and get at least 10 teams into Round Three (which is ten leagues) or be bumped completely out of my own tournament. Only time will tell...

...and by the way - I won't be posting much in the next few days. I'm getting ready to go in and set my rotations and line-ups for all of these teams (my least favorite part of the SIM experience) and I'll be a monitor zombie for awhile. Man I hate this part of the process...

Part 3
Who Wants to Trade Draft Slots?

I'm glad juice allowed trading again. And I like the fact that it's for only a limited time (and prior to any drafting). No more.. "I can't believe this team has slid this far in the draft, maybe I can trade up to get this team". Instead, trading is valuable for anybody that wants to get out of a certain era and into a different era.

For me, there were three trades I was considering. I only pulled one of them off. The key to trading is to find a partner where the opposite side of the trade can benefit them as much as whatever your trying to do on your end.

Trade Goal #1
I wanted to get out of League 15. I don't pay much attention to modern baseball. I could probably name more players from the 1800's than I can from players playing in the last two years. Also, I just didn't want to have to deal with the innings-issue with these teams. Managing 29 teams at the same time is hard enough... tying to navigate a team light on innings is just too much of a headache. The problem is that I have 29 teams and there are 15 leagues. The only league I could trade into was League 3.

So, I looked for people in league #3 that didn't have a team in League #15. I also cross-referenced with the individual's round 1 teams. I found that jrig21's round 1 teams were mostly in the modern era, so I offered him a trade - I give him pick #10 in league 15, he gives me pick #7 in league 3. And to balance the scales, we swap picks in league 14 (pick 8 for pick 12). He accepted, so I was done researching in League 15. I am assuming jrig21 prefers modern teams anyway, so this was a win-win.

Trade Goal #2
I wanted to move up in League 7. I was currently picking #8 but wanted to move up so I could draft the 1967-68 Orioles/White Sox, which I had ranked very high. thejuice6 had offered me a trade where he wanted to move up in League 2 and offered to move down in League 10. I countered with me moving up to pick #3 in League 7. He declined b/c he had his heart set on 67-68 Indians/Braves. So no trade was made. Ironically, I ended up with the team I wanted at pick #8, so this non-trade turned out to be a win.

Trade Goal #3
I wanted to move down in League 12. With pick #3, I was basically up next in this league and the top rated team by my numbers was the 1999-00 Red Sox/Brewers team with two dominant Pedros and nothing else, and I really wanted to gain elsewhere so I wouldn't have to take this team. I would have been happy with the 2003-04 Dodgers/Pirates that went 10 picks later. But I just couldn't find a match where I could move up significantly elsewhere. So I never even made an offer to anybody and begrudgingly took the Pedro team. I probably should have posted something, and maybe somebody else would have figured out a deal that would've worked. I won't know how this non-trade turned out until I see how this Pedro team does.

To be continued

Part 4
The Draft, Day 1

League 2, Pick #4 --> 1905-1906: Cleveland Naps – St. Louis Browns
The top three teams from this league were selected in the Top 30 draft, so I knew I was getting the top choice of the remaining teams as soon as the draft orders were announced. This was an incredibly difficult choice. I had three choices that I really liked and had another pick in this league at pick #8. Which team was most likely to slide back to me? In retrospect, I should have taken the Addie Joss 1907-08 Naps/Americans. That team was extremely strong in pitching and defense, but was very righthanded. There is so much pitching in this league, I wanted a team that had lefty batters and that could hit. This George Stone led team fit the bill and is very strong defensively. Midway through the draft, I came to the conclusion that I had defense weighted a bit too high, so I lowered it. Had I done that before this pick, I would've taken the Joss team. This team should be decent (probably over .500) but not great. Not really worth the #4 pick though.

League 11, Pick #3 --> 1995-1996 Baltimore Orioles/Florida Marlins
I was fortunate to get this draw, as I had actually considered taking this team in the late Top 30 (after two Maddux teams got picked). Of course, the pitching isn't in the same zip code as those Maddux Braves teams, but the defense is above average and the offense is strong. An added bonus is that I can start as many as 5 switch hitters. Note that the other (available) really good team I liked in this league is the 1995-96 Mariners (great offense), which got taken 2 picks later (which is the main reason I didn't select this team in the Top 30). Fun fact that toysboys pointed out: I get to roster both Baltimore Kevin Brown and Florida Kevin Brown as my clone.

League 12, Pick #3 --> 1999-2000: Boston Red Sox - Milwaukee Brewers
It's really hard to accurately rate a "stars and scrubs" team. All the stats are weighted by IPs and PAs, and based on that, this team has one of the best pitching staffs in the league, but it's really just 431 innings of Pedro and 220 innings of decent relief pitching (Lowe, Garces, King, Beck). Saberhagen & D'Amico have 282 usable innings. So that's 934 solid innings. The remining 500-600 innings are incredibly terrible. Hideo Nomo (1.38 whip#, 4.19 erc#), Jamey Wright (1.45 whip#, 4.27 erc#) and Steve Woodard (1.34 whip#, 4.14 erc#) need to account for roughly 36% of my team's innings. And just to make matters worse, the offense & defense is below average. Why did I take this team again?

League 5, Pick #6 --> 1945-1946 Boston Red Sox/Cleveland Indians
I really wanted the 1943-44 Yankees/Giants team, but barracuda3 grabbed them at pick #4. My other choice besides the team I took, was the 1943-44 Tigers/Dodgers team (d_rock97 took at pick #9). Their pitching is way better than this team but the defense was below league average. This Red Sox team has a strong offense led by Ted Williams (.346/.498/.676 in 707 PA). Ironically, they have three really good full-time shortstops (Pesky, Boudreau, Lake) and I rostered all three and will start one out of position at 3B, since the only decent full-time third baseman is a guy named Don Ross. The pitching and defense is league average, so the offense will need to carry the team.

League 3, Pick #7 --> 1917-1918 Cleveland Indians/Pittsburgh Pirates
One of the reasons I never considered the 1915-16 Phillies (Pete Alexander) team is because I figured this combo would make it to me in the draft. I have the pitching and offense ranked at slightly better than league average, but the defense is easily the best in the league. I decided to clone Stan Coveleski (over Speaker) and with Wilbur Cooper, that's almost 1100 innings of sub 2.40 erc#. The rest of the pitchers are all around 2.60 to 2.80 erc#. I almost took the 1915-16 White Sox/Cardinal's here, so imagine my delight when they lasted to me at pick #11.

League 8, Pick #7 --> 1971-1972 Baltimore Orioles/Philadelphia Phillies
This is the league where I screwed up the rankings pre-draft. After fixing the '71-72 Astros/Yankees roster and recalculating all the numbers, there still was no clear-cut "Best Team" (those 71-72 Astros/Yankees were still high, but they went at pick #2). This team is ranked above average in pitching and defense and about average on offense, so overall, the numbers put them at the top of my list of available teams when my turn came up. The pitching is led by '72 Steve Carlton, but no real studs in the pen. Offensively, this team is too right-handed and I don't have a good clone option. I ended up cloning a .252 hitting Tim McCarver just so I didn't waste an Orioles player at backup catcher. I wouldn't be surprised if this team underachieves.

League 7, Pick #8 --> 1967-1968: Baltimore Orioles - Chicago White Sox
Well this combo falling to me totally made my day. Like I mentioned earlier, I tried to trade up to get this team. I have them rated right up there with the 1963-64 Dodgers/Koufax team that went at pick #2. Like many of the teams I will eventually draft, this team is a bit weak on offense but very good at pitching and the defense is the best in the league. The downside is that the offense is too right-handed. Also, I just realized that I drafted a lot of Baltimore Orioles teams.

League 1, Pick #10 --> 1885-1886: New York Giants - New York Metropolitans
I only built 13 rosters for league 1, so it won't be a surprise if I missed some good ones. But after the top 3 groups were taken in the Top 30 draft, I had this group ranked fourth, but with an asterisk. The way I calculated weighted ERC#, is that I only count the best 1500 innings on a staff. For old-timers with over 600 innings, I only count as 600 innings. With this team, I got to 1500 innings with '85 Welch (600) + '85 Keefe (579) + '85 Cushman (83% of 287=238) + '86 Shaffer (83) = 1500. Based on this formula, this team has a top 5 pitching staff. I know in reality, other pitchers will have to get into the game, so my numbers will be off. That being said, a cloned Roger Connor makes the offense above average. And at pick #10, there was no other team even close.

This ends day 1 of the draft.

To be continued.

Part 5
The Draft, Days 2-3

League 2, Pick #8 --> 1901-1902: Boston Americans - Cincinnati Reds
When I wrote about league 2 earlier, I mentioned there were three teams I liked... the 1905-06 Naps/Browns (that I took at pick #4), the 1907-08 Naps/Americans (that went to toysboys at pick #6) and the third team was this team. After adjusting my formula to lower defense weighting, this combo actually scores much higher than the 1905-06 team I drafted at pick #4. I guess I will just pretend I took this team first and the other team second. The defense is below average, but the offense and pitching is above average for this league. I get 900 innings from a cloned Cy Young. And the offense is led by sim favorite '02 Charlie Hickman, along with sluggers Sam Crawford, Buck Freeman, Cy Seymour & Joe Kelley. Using a C-/C- at shortstop in the deadball era makes me a little queasy though.

League 3, Pick #11 --> 1915-1916: Chicago White Sox - St. Louis Cardinals
Anytime I am deciding between two teams, and the team I didn't take makes it to my next pick, I am thrilled. This is one of those instances. Unlike most of my teams, this team has average pitching, below average defense, but really strong hitting. That's probably why I passed on them before. They will have nearly 5 lefty or switch hitters starting every game (so many teams are right-handed dominant). I had a tough decision with my tenth Chicago White Sox player. The five batters were locked in so I had to exclude either SP/RP Ed Cicotte or RP Mellie Wolfgang. Wolfgang can close for me and has a cool last name. Cicotte would've been a solid long-reliever / spot-starter and would've taken some innings away from a worse long-reliever. I decided to keep Wolfgang.

League 9, Pick #10 --> 1981-1982: Atlanta Braves - New York Yankees
For most of the draft, I was going with teams that I had already built that I had ranked highly. As teams got taken, I needed to start creating more rosters, to see if I missed any good teams. In this league, I hadn't really looked at anything since I grabbed the '81-82 Astros/Royals team in the Top 30 draft. Now, it was my turn to draft and I had really no idea which team to take. The highest rated team I had already built was the '79-80 Dodgers/Rangers. Now, I'm sure this team will be fine (kstober took them at pick #18), but's it's the type of team I don't like. Good in offense and pitching, terrible defensively, especially range. So I started building more teams, when I came across this team. It fits the "above-average-in-2-out-3-stat-categories-as-long-as-one-is-defense" requirement. Actually, the starting pitching is just ok, the bullpen is very good with a cloned Goose Gossage. Of course, finding this diamond-in-the-rough makes me wonder how many other solid teams I missed out on b/c I simply didn't build the rosters.

League 10, Pick #8 --> 1991-1992: Texas Rangers - Baltimore Orioles
So I started building new rosters and one of the new rosters that I built in this league jumped to the top of the rankings, and I chose not to take them here. The team... the 1989-90 A's/Braves. I have them ranked above average in pitching, well above average in hitting, but way below average in defense. The bullpen (with '90 Eckersley) is great of course. Instead I decided to go with another Orioles team. Like the A's team, this team is above average in hitting and pitching and below average in defense. They are worse than the A's in hitting AND pitching but slightly better in defense. Wait, what? What was I thinking? Dumb pick here. Also, like every other Orioles team I've taken, it's extremely right-handed. Maybe I can get the A's team with my next pick. Nope - they went 4 picks later to Ribbentrop. You're welcome.

End of day 2

League 5, Pick #19 --> 1939-1940: New York Yankees - Philadelphia Athletics
When I made this pick, I made the following comment "I almost took this team with my last pick (pick #6), so I guess I have to take them with pick #19." Well, thank God I didn't pick this team at pick #6. With every single draft selection I made {except this one}, prior to making the pick official, I would re-build the roster in my team center and make sure I liked the team (all my roster builds went into a spreadsheet, then I deleted the team from my team center - it's not like I have 200 open teams sitting out there). Anyway, for some reason, I didn't rebuild this roster before submitting the pick. I liked how it looked on the spreadsheet, so I just went with it. Yesterday evening after juice announced the league numbers, I went to build this team and that's when I discovered my error. I had accidentally built a Yankees/Phillies team. Crap! Now it makes sense to me why this team lasted until pick #19. Had I realized this, I would have taken the 1945-46 Cubs instead, which went to toysboys with pick #24. This will probably be my worst team.

League 11, Pick #14: 1997-1998: Anaheim Angels - St. Louis Cardinals
I was hoping the Cone/Appier 1993-94 Royals/Mariners team would make it to me here, but they went with pick #10 to gworear. This is a below-average team that has terrible pitching and slightly below-average defense. There just wasn't any teams that really jumped out at me, so I decided that if my team is going to suck, let's have some fun. It's much more fun to read boxscores where I lose 10-7 than where I lose 2-0. I cloned Mark McGwire.

League 14, Pick #12: 2013-2014: Detroit Tigers - Miami Marlins
So this is the league where I swapped picks (8 for 12) with jrig21 in order to trade out of league 15. Well, that seemingless minor pick-swap cost me getting my 2nd ranked team in this league, the 2011-12 Tigers/Rockies, which went one pick in front of me to kstober. Damn it! However, I do have this Tigers/Marlins team rated among the top 6 teams. This team has below average pitching mostly because the bullpen kind of sucks. We will surely blow some 9th-inning leads. But we're solid on defense and can hit a ton (Miguel Cabrera cloned). Ironically, Cabrera represents my only two bad fielders (at 1B & 3B).

End of day 3

To be continued

Part 6
The Draft, Days 4-5

League 13, Pick #16 --> 2007-2008: Arizona Diamondbacks - San Diego Padres
I was playing poker late Friday night when I realized my pick was up. I actually left the game early (up $200) and spent some time researching before posting my pick at 1:00 am. I had three choices I was considering. The two combos that I passed on ended up not getting selected by anybody... 2005-06 Mets/Reds and 2009-10 Rockies/Cubs. Both these teams have terrible pitching and very good hitting. The Mets/Reds team's defense was not great so I eliminated them from consideration. The Rockies/Cubs defense was strong so I would've taken them except that I didn't want to exasperate the pitching woes by having to play home games at Wrigley or Coors, so I went with the strong pitching / strong defense / terrible hitting D'back/Padres team. The team's best full time hitter... Adam Dunn (.237/.384/.497). Bet the "under" when this team plays.

League 12, Pick #18 --> 2003-2004: Minnesota Twins - Colorado Rockies
Every team that I built (pre-draft) in this league was taken except for three truly awful teams that went undrafted. So I needed to start building some new rosters hoping to find a team I wouldn't vomit every time I had to look at a boxscore. I came across this Twins/Rockies team. They have a stud Johan Santana season with some really good relievers (Nathan, Rincon, Guardado). In fact, I am using 8 of my 10 allotted Twins on pitching. I am cloning Helton and playing one of his seasons out of position at 2B. The goal of this team is to win just enough games to be annoying and for Johan Santana to win 25+ games and compete for Cy Young Award for this 90-loss team.

League 7, Pick #22 --> 1963-1964: Baltimore Orioles - Houston Colt 45's
This team is similar to my '67-68 Orioles/White Sox team, except this team is a worse hitting team, a worse pitching team and a way worse defensive team. Actually, the defense and pitching is above average, just not as good as my other league 7 team. The offense is pretty bad, though. I am starting a guy with a .631 ops# and another guy with a .602 ops# will be playing about 1/3 of the time. Maybe I should have built some more teams. I don't need (or want) all 29 of my teams to advance to round 3, anyway.

League 8, Pick #20 --> 1975-1976: Los Angeles Dodgers - San Diego Padres
This team surprisingly has a high score in my rankings formula, but it's another extreme no-offense-great-pitching-great-defensive team, so I understand why they fell this far. What's really odd about this team is that if you sorted all the pitchers by ERC#, the first six pitchers listed are all starting pitchers with 224+ innings. The relievers suck, the starters are good. Check this out for the top 5 SP stats (totaling 1402 innings) --> ERC# 2.26, 2.33, 2.33, 2.34, 2.40 WHIP# 1.04, 1.05, 1.05, 1.06, 1.06. This includes cloning Randy Jones. So I basically am rostering eight pitchers with a combined total of 1854 innings.

End of Day 4

League 10, Pick #21 --> 1989-1990: Kansas City Royals - St. Louis Cardinals
This was my last team - we had to wait for reddtrain's 24 hours to expire, so this league was behind most of the others. I did spend all the extra time building different rosters. When I found this team, I loved it right away. Similar to most of my late round teams, this team is defense and pitching with little on the offensive end. '89 Saberhagen is one of my sim favorites and '89 Montgomery should be good as a closer. Oquendo, Pendleton, Ozzie are defensive studs in the infield. Add in Coleman and McGee and that's 5 switch-hitters in the starting lineup. (Hold on, I think I need a cigarette after that). Coleman actually hit .295 and will steal some bases. Pedro Guerrero & George Brett will get all the RBIs. I really think this team will do well, especially considering where they were drafted.

End of day 5

Looking forward to reading others' comments.

I picked #22 in League 2. We are likely not a threat but we have 1200 IP of sub 1.00 WHIP Walsh/Walsh/Smith so playing us will be like quick sand. Our hitting is like watching paint dry...not a lot of great averages but a decent OBP and above average defense for the era. I see a lot of 1 run low scoring games for "In Ed we Trust" this season. Just trying to survive.