Post your comments on the draft here.

Coming into this draft, I knew pitching dominated the era, so I wanted to get a great offense built right away. I still would try to get some A+ range guys, but hitting was a bit more important than pitching here. Also position scarcity… I wanted to get my infield set early.

Round 1, Pick 12
1913 Frank Baker ($6,697,127)
Well, we’ve now had two drafts and I drew picks 13 and 12… That total of 25 is the worst of all sixteen people. That sucks. Had I draw pick #1, I would’ve taken 1908 Honus Wagner. Ronthegenius got him at pick #4. That’s two drafts in a row where my top choice fell outside the top 3 picks. With two picks to go before my turn, I was trying to decide between 1913 Frank Baker and 1912 Honus Wagner. Then wouldn’t you know it… both guys go right in front of me. WTF? I already hate my team and I haven’t made a pick yet. So now, I have narrowed down my two choices to 1917 Rogers Hornsby and 1913 Frank Baker. I type in Hornsby, ready to hit submit. I text njbigwig to see if he is ready (since he is right after me). He says he will be ready in 30 minutes. In the meantime, I change my mind and take 1913 Frank Baker. Two reasons: (1) I like some of the shortstops I can get later in the draft better than the third basemen I can get late and (2) I’d rather have the lefty bat with A+ range over the right bat with A range. I might still get a decent Honus Wagner season next round, or I could wait till very late and take switch hitter Donnie Bush.

Round 2, pick 5
1911 Joe Jackson ($11,067,734)
Of course, njbigwig selects ’17 Hornsby immediately after I post my Baker pick. But 3dayrotation takes ’14 Frank Baker right after that so there was no chance that I was getting both players. If I were going to take a SP here, I would’ve considered ’14 Dutch Leonard but thejuice6 took him at 2.02 (nice pick). The best SP available was ’12 Walter Johnson and I briefly considered taking him. All the Cobb and Speaker seasons are still on the board, so why did I take Joe Jackson (C/C-)? I figured that I can still get really a good Speaker and a really good Cobb in the later rounds, but guys like Joe Jackson and Benny Kauff will be long gone if I wait.

Round 3, pick 6
1915 Benny Kauff ($7,618,028)
The top SP here is ’09 Mordecai Brown and it was tempting to take him, but I’m sticking with the all-offense strategy early in the draft. The top two Cobb seasons (1911, 1917) and the top Tris Speaker season (1912) were taken before my turn. I strongly considered taking ’14 Speaker here, specifically to play him at 1B (A+ range), but I plan on grabbing ’09 Sam Crawford much later for that. I decided to zag when everybody else was zigging by grabbing one of the two stud Benny Kauff seasons. Njbigwig must be thinking along the same lines because he grabbed 1914 Kauff two picks in front of me. I have them pretty close in rankings. 1914 is a better hitter with more PA, but 1915 has A+ range so I’m fine taking him. Of course, ronthegenius take ’14 Speaker two picks later.

Round 4, pick 5
1910 Ty Cobb ($10,116,322)
Before I went to sleep, I thought about taking ’15 Eddie Plank with this pick. There are so many good lefty bats in this league and so few really good LHSP, that Plank could be a stud. Alas, I woke up to see that thejuice6 left me a one-player proxy - 1915 Eddie Plank. Obviously, juice is also aware of the lefty-batter thing as he has taken Dutch Leonard, Art Nehf and Eddie Plank. If he gets enough offense, his team will be very strong. The best SP on the board is ’17 Cicotte. Hard pass as he doesn’t usually do well for me. Also, I did not expect the massive run on Tris Speakers last round (1914, 1917, 1916, 1913, 1915). I completely missed his top seasons… There are still a few good ones left, but I’m not going to reach when there are still a bunch of stud Ty Cobb seasons on the board... I'll take his best available season. Unlike the last draft where most of my stud hitters had over 700 PA, I now have two players with only 620 PA (Cobb, Kauff). Although I have three stud OFs, I still want to take a Tris Speaker season next round and move Joe Jackson to DH.

Round 5, pick 5
1910 Tris Speaker ($7,081,136)
My instinct was right… after I took Cobb, there was a run on Cobbs (1918, 1916, 1915, 1913, 1909, 1919). The Speaker I wanted last round was still available. This 1910 version has the second best RRF-OF (3.09) among all eleven eligible Speakers and his 140 OPS+ is sixth best. Two of the shortstops I was looking at (’17 Buck Weaver and ’14 Sherry Magee) got taken. Hoping ’10 Honus Wagner falls to me.

Round 6, pick 5
1919 Rogers Hornsby ($6,309,610)
’10 Wagner went a few picks after I took Speaker. It looks like I am going to wait on shortstop. It feels a bit too early to take Peckinpaugh or Chapman. I can get Donnie Bush very late in the draft. After ’12 Bill Sweeney went at pick 5.13, and ’12 Johnny Evers went two picks later, it was time to address the second base position. Although Bill Kenworthy is a better offensive player, I preferred the C/A+ over the C-/B+ fielder. After taking lefty bats in rounds 1 thru5, Hornsby is my first right-handed bat.

Round 7, pick 5
1909 Sam Crawford ($6,111,554)
After pedrocerrano took 1910 Walter Johnson at the beginning of round 5, I had my eye on 1915 Walter Johnson. I had ’15 Johnson’s name all written in to draft when my turn came up… all I had to do was hit “Submit Post”. But after reviewing everybody’s roster, I realized that hardly anybody had drafted their 1B yet. And even though ’09 Crawford was a slightly worse offensive player than ’14 Steve Evans and ‘07 Crawford, The 1909 version always does well for me. I expect 30-35 plus plays at 1B and his offense normalizes well. Had I taken ’15 Johnson, a bunch of teams behind me would jumped me in the order, giving them two chances at picking Crawford before I could. Plus, Crawford was near the top of the available OFs. The main reason I passed on ’14 Speaker was because I wanted ’09 Crawford later. So, I changed my pick. I figured that I can always grab a slightly worse Walter Johnson later.

Round 8, pick 4
1915 Art Wilson ($3,634,688)
Of course, footballmm11 got a steal by getting ’15 Johnson at pick 7.16. Shortstops Peckinpaugh and Chapman went at the end of round 6, so I’m done looking at shortstops for a while. Since I have every other position covered and there’s not a starting pitcher I want here, it’s time for a catcher. ’15 Art Wilson has a sweet .442 obp in 375 PA. I’m sure I can get a Roger Bresnahan or Wally Schang later in the draft, to platoon with Wilson.

Round 9, pick 3
1918 Hippo Vaughn ($12,521,371)
I had drafted eight position players so I needed to start drafting innings. It was obvious very early in the draft that there was a premium on LHSP (due to all the stud lefty batters in the league). I missed out on Dutch Leonard and Eddie Plank. So, I waited until the right time to grab Vaughn. After calhoop drafted Vean Gregg at pick 8.05, that was the indicator. As soon as I made the pick, lefties ’09 Harry Krause and ’16 Babe Ruth were selected. I was also looking at SPs ’07 Mathewson, ’08 F.Smith and ’09 F.Smith, but hopefully one of those guys would make it to me in round 10.

Round 10, pick 7
1908 Frank Smith ($10,569,683)
Both ’07 Mathewson and ’09 Smith got taken in round 9, so I had to wait and cross my fingers ’08 Smith made it back to me. As much as I wanted to take a cheap SP like Cy Falkenberg (to move up in the draft order), I couldn’t risk missing out of Smith. His performance review is very strong.

Round 11, pick 8
1915 George Dumont ($1,794,025)
So I am looking at ’17 Walter Johnson here. He’s the best of three similar Walter Johnson seasons, but after going from pick #3 to pick #8, I didn’t want to fall anymore. A bunch of the medium and low-inning guys are flying off the board. I have to get a couple of these guys. ’15 George Dumont (1.57 erc#) was the best available.

Round 12, pick 6
1915 Hooks Wiltse ($2,045,427)
I was driving when I got the text that it was my turn. I didn’t really spend a lot of time thinking through this selection. I had stopped at a drive-thru to get some food, looked at the best short-inning guys, and saw Wiltse was the best lefty short-inning guy on the board, so I grabbed him. I strongly considered taking ’08 Bresnahan here, but I wanted a cheap guy to hopefully move up enough spots to grab ‘17 Walter Johnson before somebody else does.

Round 13, pick 6
1907 Cy Morgan ($4,012,918)
It was late (I was tired from a late poker night) and my pick was coming soon. I wanted to go to sleep, so I typed out a text message to njbigwig to select ‘17 Walter Johnson. Before I hit send, I checked the draft thread one more time and saw that calhoop had just drafted ’17 Johnson at pick 13.03. Damn! I quickly pivoted to ’07 Cy Morgan who has a solid performance review, so I re-typed the text message proxy and went to sleep. I am hoping one of the two good Walter Johnsons will make it back to me.

Round 14, pick 4
1914 Walter Johnson ($13,484,842)
So I wake up and see the njbigwig immediately takes ’16 Johnson at pick 13.07. I have to sweat out 12 picks before I finally luck out and get my Johnson. After I posted, Jtpsops lamented that he should’ve taken Johnson with pick 14.01. My strategy of continually waiting on Johnson finally pays off. I now have three SPs with 1074 innings plus three guys who will pitch in relief (233 innings). Things are progressing nicely after a disappointing start.

Round 15, pick 8
1915 Phil Douglas ($989,730)
I almost grabbed my backup catcher here (Les Nunamker) but I am seeing all these cheap low-inning pitchers getting taken, so I might as well jump in and grab another one. Douglas has a 1.85 erc# and has solid performance review numbers. Anytime you can grab your fourth RP with 27 IPs ahead of your starting shortstop, you just got to do it.

Round 16, pick 6
1916 Les Nunamker ($3,035,637)
Sweet… the guy I wanted last round made it back to me. Every team will beed at least two catchers and some teams will need three. So, I always want to get my backup catcher before the double-picks start in round 17. I am happy that my two catchers combine for 687 PA and have OPS+ of 133 and 121, respectively. Nunamaker also has an “A” arm. How did he last this long?

Round 17, pick 6
1914 Steve Yerkes ($1,777,426)
1907 Carl Lundgren ($7,825,963)
I was going to wait to grab another SP, but when Allen Sothoron got picked by 3dayrtoation at pick 17. 04, I decided to grab Lundgren now. Three other people still need innings and Lundgren is near the best available It was between him and 1915 Mordecai Brown but Lundgren’s performance review is a bit better and his oav# is significantly better. Lundgren’s got a high walk rate, but I’m hoping my solid infield range will erase some of those walks with DPs (1B Crawford, 2B Hornsby, 3B Baker all with A++ range).

I still haven’t decided what I’m going to do at shortstop. There are two other teams without a SS. There are 4-5 guys I am fine using, but one guy that should have some value is part-time player ‘14 Steve Yerkes. His defense is a respectable A/C+ and the guy can hit (.338, .386, .508 #) albeit in only 171 PA. Grabbing Yerkes now means that I have the option of taking guys with fewer than 600 PA (i.e., ’13 or ‘16 Wagner, ’13 Tinker or ’14 Herzog) instead of taking a weaker-hitting full-time SS like Donnie Bush. I like having options.

Round 18, pick 6
1915 Dutch Zwilling ($6,440,338)
1915 Bill Bailey ($1,022,733)
Coming into this round, I need only a starting shortstop, a backup 1B/OF and 1-2 more warm bodies to pitch. I will continue to wait to draft my SS. The 1B/OF that I wanted has more PA than I needed but his defense is too valuable to risk waiting another round. Dutch Zwilling is rated A-/A+ at 1B and B+/A in the OF and he can hit a little bit (122 OPS+). I was going to take one more SP here (’15 Mordecai Brown), but decided to wait and grab a second LHSP later. I wanted a cheap pitcher and Bailey is a lefty and was the only pitcher remaining with an erc# < 2.00.

Round 19, pick 9
1913 Honus Wagner ($4,064,559)
1915 Ed Lennox ($494,120)
It's funny how much strategy there is in these last couple of rounds, with respect to division placement. I really wanted to add another LH SP (Ed Karger), but doing so will put me into the National League. There are also a couple of expensive hitters I want to add, but I don’t want to give away my position yet. Let the others in front of me continue to draft cheap players to stay in the American League. I decided to grab my starting shortstop here. I also took a cheap decent fielding 3B in Lennox, which allows me to keep my options open next round. After this round, my team has the eighth lowest salary which means, if I wanted to, I could guarantee myself a spot in the A.L. by drafting three 200K players.

Round 20, pick 8
1907 Ed Karger ($10,066,273)
1919 Geoge Burns ($6,770,382)
1909 Donie Bush ($5,028,521)
Here is the reason I decided to voluntarily move into the N.L. I’ve been tracking everybody’s roster. Most of the teams in the higher-salaried N.L. drafted stud right-handed pitchers early. In fact, of the top 31 SPs drafted into the N.L., only 3 were LH. I have one of the three ('18 Vaughn) and calhoop has the other two (’07 Pfeister, ’11 Gregg). Now, a couple of the later round picks by N.L. teams were lefty starters, but they are much weaker pitchers compared to the RH SPs on those teams. Is footballmm11 really going to start guys like ’16 Rube Marquard or ’13 Willie Mitchell over ’10 Walsh, ’10 Ford or ’15 W.Johnson just to get a platoon advantage vs my team?

Anyway, I wanted a second LH SP and ’07 Ed Karger (2.39 erc#) has a good performance review and there are a bunch of teams that are heavily weighted with lefty bats. And unlike those who took LH SPs late, since I waited so long to draft SPs, there isn’t much difference between ’07 Ed Karger and my best RH SP (’08 Frank Smith).

Also, since i just drafted one expensive player, I can now take two other expensive players that can help my team, even if it's marginally. ’19 George Burns provides a right-handed bat (.303 avg, .396 obp) who is a very strong defensive outfielder (A/B+). ’09 Donie Bush is a switch-hitting shortstop that may end up being better than’13 Honus Wagner. Wagner has the better batting average (.300 to .273) but Bush has the better OBP (.380 to .349). Wagner’s got a better glove (B/A- vs C-/A).

My expectation that pedrocerrano would go cheap and move to the A.L. was accurate. Also, both calhoop and footballmm11 drafted more expensive guys with their last pick, so they pushed me out of the NL East and I will be playing in the NL West vs. kstober, bigsteve12 & ronthegenius – none of these three have left-handed pitching of note.

Batting Stats

Pos	Draft Pick	Bats	PA162	AVG#	OBP#	SLG#	OPS#	Def_C	Def_1B	Def_2B	Def_3B	Def_SS	Def_OF	Salary
C	'15 Wilson	R	375	0.309	0.447	0.461	0.907	C+/B/B-	--	--	--	--	--	3,634,688
1B	'09 Crawford	L	706	0.325	0.380	0.491	0.871	--	C/A+	--	--	--	C/A-	6,111,554
2B	'19 Hornsby	R	683	0.321	0.394	0.454	0.848	--	D-/D+	C/A+	C-/B-	C-/C-	--	6,309,610
3B	'13 Baker	L	682	0.341	0.415	0.518	0.933	--	--	--	D+/A+	--	--	6,697,127
SS	'13 Wagner	R	494	0.301	0.351	0.399	0.751	--	--	--	--	B/A-	--	4,064,559
OF	'15 Kauff	L	620	0.346	0.451	0.532	0.982	--	--	--	--	--	C-/A+	7,618,028
OF	'10 Speaker	L	644	0.351	0.416	0.506	0.921	--	--	--	--	--	C-/A+	7,081,136
OF	'10 Cobb	L	621	0.395	0.468	0.588	1.056	--	--	--	--	--	C/A	10,116,322
DH	'11 Jackson	L	679	0.401	0.463	0.603	1.065	--	--	--	--	--	C/C-	11,067,734
	.
C	'16 Nunamaker	R	312	0.304	0.384	0.435	0.818	B-/B+/A	--	--	--	--	--	3,035,637
1B	'15 Zwilling	L	677	0.291	0.371	0.464	0.835	--	A-/A+	--	--	--	B/A+	6,440,338
3B	'15 Lennox	R	65	0.306	0.388	0.475	0.863	--	--	--	C/A+	--	--	494,120
SS	'14 Yerkes	R	171	0.338	0.386	0.508	0.894	--	--	B/D-	--	A/C+	--	1,777,427
SS	'09 Bush	S	721	0.282	0.394	0.349	0.743	--	--	--	--	C-/A	--	5,028,521
OF	'19 Burns	R	723	0.306	0.406	0.428	0.834	--	--	--	--	--	A/B+	6,770,382
	.
	Avg (Starters)			0.343	0.420	0.506	0.926

Pitching Stats
(Will be posted later)

My entire draft can be summed up in a couple of sentences...

When looking at the offense, I noticed that 50 of the top 67 Position Players (by salary) available in this 13-year era were left-handed. 50 OUT OF 67! Only 16 right-handed batters and one switch hitter. That told me that my best chance of doing anything in this draft is to draft as many great left-handed innings as I could to try and hold those guys down. Of course, by going with pitching first, my offense won't be nearly as dominant as others but hopefully we'll be able to score enough runs to at least keep us in games. If the pitching doesn't work out the way I figured, it's going to be a Looooooooooooooooong season.

League 2 (1907-19)

Pick 1.06: 1910 Ed Walsh (SP)
Two of the top pitchers went among the top 5 picks, as expected, but the other 3 picks were (relatively) cheaper middle infield hitters, including two Honus Wagners right before my pick. To me, the clear best hitters is 1911 Cobb, though he comes with the gargantuan $20m+ salary and takes you out of the running for the numerous other good Cobbs. While 08 Walsh and 15 Alexander, the two pitchers that were taken, ranked highly for me, I had 13 Walter Johnson and 10 Walsh slightly ahead. I decided to pivot from my usual offense-first, offense-second, offense-third strategy and go with a pitcher, opting for Walsh’s extra innings and lower HR numbers over Big Train’s better WHIP. Hilariously, I guess this went very noticed as both njbigwig and pedrocerrano made forum comments on my pitching selection.

Pick 2.13: 1911 Ty Cobb (OF)
None of the Cobbs have gone yet?! Five Wagners and four Home Run Bakers have gone. I get these are good and cheap players, but isn’t the point of moving up the draft order that you might get a stud? I will be drafting last for the foreseeable future but (a) I have arguably the best pitcher and best hitter in the league and (b) the nice thing is that you still get one pick per round! In fact, it would be kind of interesting as a league if the next pick was always the owner with the lowest cumulative salary regardless. Now THAT would make me pause on a Cobb pick right here.

Pick 3.16: 1913 Tris Speaker (OF)
Yes, OF is deep and yes, there are a lot of good Speakers but this is the last of the elite class. With a few picks to go, I was hoping I might actually nab the even better 1916 version but chewy3344 took him a few spots ahead. Happy with this version at the end of the 3rd round.

Pick 4.16: 1914 Sherry Magee (SS)
There was a run on Cobbs in this round, including 3 in a row and 5 total (and then two more went immediately after me!). I hadn’t yet filled a premium position and my two best hitters were lefties. There aren’t a lot of right-handed sluggers in this era, but Magee has a surprisingly strong year and plays a decent enough SS (C/B-).

Pick 5.16: 1910 Russ Ford (SP)
Waiting for my pick and there are no position players standing out well above the rest. Some I’m considering include 2B 1914 Bill Kenworthy, OF 1916 Joe Jackson, 1B 1918 George Sisler, 3B 1919 Heinie Groh, and OF 1919 Gavvy Cravath. A couple of the stud relievers went but there are a handful of top-notch starters left. Three of them are Walter Johnsons (and a bunch more a tier or two down) along with 1910 Russ Ford, 1915 Dave Davenport, 1919 Pete Alexander, and 1908 Cy Young.

While I was tempted to grab Cravath as he’s by far the best right-handed bat left, he is stuck to DH, only has 300 PA, and his low salary doesn’t actually help me at this point (maybe moves me up one pick?). I decided to hold off on the Johnsons since there are more options there and lock in the best remaining starter on a per-inning basis in Ford.

Pick 6.16: 1919 Gavvy Cravath (DH)
Narrowed this down to one of the top starters left (1915 Davenport or 1915 Walter Johnson) or one of the stud hitters. There are lots of options there including 18 Ruth, 14 Steve Evans, 15 Fournier. But 19 Cravath is unique as the best righty bat and this time I pulled the trigger.

Pick 7.16: 1915 Walter Johnson (SP)
15 Johnson is still there and while there are some intriguing hitters–catcher 15 Art Wilson is the best full-time-ish guy out there, 2B 19 Possum Whitted has a huge partial, 1B/OF 13 Beals Becker is intriguing as a platoon with Cravath–I went with the pitching to complete a pretty solid 3-man rotation.

Pick 8.16: 1916 Lew McCarty (C)
I’m starting to worry that although no hitters are separating themselves from the pack in a big way, I am waiting too long to fill out my lineup–15 Wilson and 19 Whitted both went last round. But I do think the depth at the positions I need is still pretty good (2B, 3B, 1B/OF/DH) except for catcher. I almost went with Beals Becker here. I also considered one of the top relievers–15 Cy Falkenberg or 18 Jack Quinn, among others. Then I started looking at just the best position players left and 10 Joe Jackson shows up with his 92 PA but right below him is 16 Lew McCarty who plays a solid catcher (B+/B/B+) in an 83 PA partial season. I noticed his full season of 266 PA is still pretty good (.874 OPS) and so I went with that one for an extra million with the flexibility to downshift to the 83 PA season if I don’t need the extra PA.

Pick 9.16: 1910 Fred Snodgrass (1B/OF)
I still need lots of hitters and likely many of them will be platoons. I’m also still eyeing an ace reliever, though Jack Quinn is gone. I’m tempted to take Cy Falkenberg here. However, as I look through the hitting options, I’m drawn to 10 Fred Snodgrass for his strong right-handed bat, the ability to leadoff (speed + OBP), and the flexibility he affords by playing both a good 1B and OF. His 519 PA are a little awkward–too many for the short-side of a platoon but not enough for a full-time spot. Still, he could pair nicely with a strong lefty bat that’s short on PA.

Pick 10.16: 1915 Cy Falkenberg (RP)
I’m getting closer to getting out of the 16th spot! Cy Falkenberg is still there and the time has come to grab him. 52 innings with a 1.52 ERC# and no outlier HR/BB numbers that sometimes make pitchers less valuable than they appear. Oh yeah, and for the first time, it moves me out of the cellar and into 15th!

Pick 11.15: 1916 Eddie Collins (2B)
I’m now a bit right-handed heavy. 13 Beals Becker went last round but there are still some bats like 11 Larry Doyle, 18 Billy Southworth, and 11 Fred Clarke that will help. However, the pickings for left-handed C and 2B/3B are slim. At catcher, I’m looking closely at 11 Bresnahan to be half of my catcher–he’s got the best combination of reasonable defense and solid bat. He’s a righty but the left-handed or switch-hitting catching options aren’t great, with Wally Schang providing most of the best options.
At 2B/3B, I had kicked around the idea of taking 16 Heinie Groh as he is A-/A+ at 2B and B/A- at 3B, but he’s just an okay hitter and he’s right-handed and the flexibility doesn’t really help me much–2B is much stronger than 3B and I still would want a left-handed bat. There’s a couple different Doyles that can actually field (unlike 1911) but they can’t hit very well. Eddie Collins is pretty clearly the best full-time left-handed 2B/3B who is still available. It’s certainly not the best Collins season and I could probably get a comparable righty 2B later on, but I decide to lock in a lefty since my 3B will almost assuredly be right-handed.

Pick 12.14: 1918 Billy Southworth (OF)
There are a few Edd Roushes that are pretty intriguing with a decent bat and elite range. However, I wanted to get a little more pop if I could and with both Cobb and Speaker having A+ range, Southworth’s B/B defense should be just fine. With 357 PA, he’s pretty solid as the heavy side of a platoon. I solidified this choice over 11 Bresnahan once 11 Clarke went earlier in the round.

Pick 13.13: 1912 Roger Bresnahan (C)
Third straight round of moving up a spot! 11 Bresnahan went a few picks earlier to pedrocerrano, but 12 Bresnahan isn’t a bad consolation prize. He comes with fewer PA but his 132 should be enough to allow me to move McCarty to his partial and still give me over 200 PA from my right-handed catchers. Still need a lefty/switch hitter for the other 400+.

Pick 14.13: 1914 Red Smith (3B)
I still don’t have a 3B but none of the full-time options are calling out to me. There’s a couple part-time options that are decent though and I went with 14 Red Smith. He brings A+ range, OBP over .400 and 266 PA to the table as a right-hander, much better than I can do with a full-time guy. Like with catcher, I’ll need to get a left-handed bat for the bulk of the PA, but my lineup vs LHP will be stronger at these two positions.

Pick 15.13: 1913 Ham Hyatt (1B)
I still need a few things, mostly platoon partners for guys I already have. I need a righty 1B/RF to platoon with Southworth. And I need the left-handed hitters for DH (platoon with Cravath), 3B (Smith), C (Bresnahan/McCarty) and 1B (Snodgrass). The last one is the one where Snodgrass with 519 PA will play about half-time vs RHP. Hyatt isn’t quite enough extra (96 PA) probably to cover Snodgrass but close enough.

Pick 16.13: 1918 Bob Bescher (OF)
Pretty much a luxury pick, but Cobb and Speaker probably need a few breathers and Bescher has the best bat left in the draft pool. He’s a switch-hitter as well, which wins out over 1918 Joe Jackson. Keeps me higher up in the draft pool as well for the start of double picks next round.

Pick 17.21: 1911 Larry Doyle (DH)
Pick 17.22: 1912 Larry Gardner (3B)
I moved up to 11th for this round. I’d been eyeing Doyle for a while but my initial intrigue with him was when I hadn’t yet figured out 2B and he could steal some PA there (D+/D-). With Collins in the mix, I don’t need that, so he’s purely a DH play. But he’s pretty good at that.

I could probably wait on Gardner and get him later or close enough. But he’s the best combination of left-handed, decent defense, and decent bat at 3B and with 1916 Frank Baker (one of my other targets) going the pick ahead, I decided to lock him in now instead of settling for a slightly worse version later on.

Pick 18.25: 1914 George Burns (OF)
Pick 18.26: 1916 Wally Schang (C)
I was out during these picks so tried to make a list of guys I needed for (a) the RH 1B/OF to platoon with Southworth and (b) the LH/SH catcher to platoon with Bresnahan and McCarty. Two of my OF went in 12 Birdie Cree and 15 Braggo Roth. I was down between 14 Burns and 19 Ira Flagstead. Burns was the better fielder and faster, while Flagstead had more power and was cheaper. Even though I didn’t need all of Burns’ PA, I felt he was the better option. He also may give me a few fill-in at-bats at 1B if Snodgrass and Hyatt can’t quite cover it all.

As for catcher, I had the three Schangs from 15-17 at the top of my list, all pretty similar. Njbigwig took 17 Schang earlier in the round, but I liked 16 the best. He has a few more PA, which is nice since I’ll be a little tight there, but he also has 61 speed whereas most catchers are in the 40s. 15 Schang had 66 speed and better OBP but much lower slugging and a slightly worse arm (A vs A+) compared to 16.

Pick 19.27: 1907 Tom L. Hughes (RP)
Pick 19.28: 1916 Rube Marquard (SP)
Pretty simple picks here. I still need some innings and haven’t drafted any since the 10th round and no real bulk since the 7th. Hughes is a productive low-inning (30 IP) reliever with a walk problem but otherwise very good stats. Marquard provides some bulk and more importantly my first lefty to battle the Cobbs and Speakers of the world.

Pick 20.40: 1914 Dots Miller (SS/1B)
Pick 20.41: 1915 Fred Toney (P)
Pick 20.42: 1913 Willie Mitchell (P)
The last pick is usually about strategizing for division/league placement. As it turned out, I would likely avoid schwarze whatever I did–if I went for smaller salary to get under his salary, I’d go to the NL West and he’d move the East; if I stayed above his salary, we’d flip. No offense to the rest of us, but I think we all usually try to avoid schwarze if we can!

I still needed some innings and with no real salary incentive, I got two guys with over 200 innings in Toney (RHP) and Mitchell (LHP), who gave me a second lefty. Offensively, I was pretty set but I could use a backup SS for PA and defense and a 1B defensive replacement. Dots Miller has A+ range at both spots and can hit a little bit as well, so welcome to the club Dots!

Overall, I’m a little worried about my lack of left-handed pitching, which seemed to be at a premium, though I do have three stud right-handers in my rotation. With Schang and Bresnahan I was able to upgrade (though downgrade salary!) to the Lew McCarty partial season.

Ballpark: Hilltop Park
Maybe went too aggressive here but I do have some right-handed pop in Cravath, Magee, and McCarty. I went with Hilltop to give them a chance to hit some out, while everyone else will just load up on singles, doubles and triples. I don’t have the greatest infield defense, but my outfield defense is pretty good with both Cobb and Speaker having A+ range. Plus, for once I have legitimate starting pitching so hopefully they can be less affected than other staffs.

Lineup:

I have 4 players that play pretty much every day–CF Cobb, LF Speaker, SS Magee, and 2B Collins. The rest of my 5 positions are pretty straight L/R platoons, with Snodgrass the one other guy who will play significantly against same-handed pitchers. Bescher will spell Cobb and Speaker when needed. Dots Miller is the only one of my players who won’t start games, he’ll be purely a bench player.

C - McCarty/Bresnahan - Schang
1B - Snodgrass - Hyatt (Burns)
2B - Collins
3B - Smith - Gardner
SS - Magee
LF - Speaker (Bescher)
CF - Cobb (Bescher)
RF - Burns - Southworth
DH - Cravath - Doyle