Posted by Ribbentrop on 4/1/2024 11:52:00 AM (view original):

Posted by redcped on 4/1/2024 11:15:00 AM (view original):
The Senators and Kansas City A's are pretty much always a guaranteed albatross in this league.

Actually saw the latter play in Municipal Stadium downtown KC ... Had to Google the year but my Uncle Ross Nichols took.me to Bat Day 1964 (Rocky Colavito only year there) ... Was 8 on November 21st

Very cool. Also bonus points for the Iron Chef reference earlier. I loved that show.

Round 4 pick
88 Houston Astros

As a special treat, I got to assign lennyistall his second screw team. So let's dispense a team that won 87 games but I really don't know how:

1978 California Angels

The pitching is all pretty blah. You've got Nolan Ryan and Frank Tanana, sure, but neither of them had particularly good seasons, and the rest of the staff has problematic WHIPs, problematic HR/9, or both.

Offensively, this team miust be great, right? But not so much. Lyman Bostock is a nice outfield piece, and Merv Rettemund gives you a great bench bat, but the rest of the lineup is almost the definition of mediocre.

Good luck lenny!

Round 4 pick, 58 white sox

Posted by ermocito on 4/1/2024 12:51:00 PM (view original):
Current Round Draft Order (all times CDT)
Round 3 & 4 goes in reverse order from round 1 and round 2.
All round 4 windows are posted, expect to lose options if you miss your window.
You need to wait until your window unless EVERYONE before you has picked - once it HITS your window, you can go even if it jumps the line.
If you know in advance you cannot make your window, backchannel me (or pick a proxy) with picks in order and I will get you the highest pick remaining available during your window.

Round 3 (remaining)

24 lennyistall (screwed by 3dayrotation) FRI 6pm-8pm LATE (j_willis will proxy this)

Round 4 (pick your own team)
NL West
1 C_Burns04 SAT 8-10am
2 seay00 SAT 10am-noon
3 jonstephen25 SAT Noon-2pm
4 jpeterso SAT 2pm-4pm

NL Central
5 jbar8888 SAT 4pm-6pm
6 Ribbentrop SAT 6pm-8pm
7 vilefileman SAT 8pm-10pm
8 redcped SAT 10pm-SUN 8am

NL East
9 claytonengel SUN 8am-10am LATE
10 _jwillis SUN 10am-noon
11 BeAllEndAll SUN Noon-2pm
12 kentol SUN 2pm-4pm

AL West
13 Beernoser SUN 4pm-6pm
14 Razorclams SUN 6pm-8pm
15 eman7400 SUN 8pm-10pm
16 NebHusker SUN 10pm-MON 8am

AL Central
17 mavioric12 MON 8am-10am
18 whalers10 MON 10am-noon
19 PReeves22 MON Noon-2pm UP NEXT
20 calhoop MON 2pm-4pm

AL East
21 ermocito MON 4pm-6pm
22 3dayrotation MON 6pm-8pm
23 Midknight MON 8pm-10pm
24 lennyistall MON 10pm - TUES 8am

Dagger #1 can be thrown once you know all 4 teams for your target. It hits ANY player and ANY stadium used by one of those 4 teams.
Only after Dagger #1 is thrown, that person should offer dagger #2 to the thrower.
Only after the team is specified, dagger #2 can hit any player on that team.
Only after all daggers hit, you can post up a final roster for approval. More details on that latter.
Once approved, I will backchannel you the league ID for you to formally add the approved team.
Once all 24 teams are in, I will re-set divisions and make the season start. Guessing that's around a week from now, give or take.

I am up now. Taking the 1938 Washington Senators as my fourth team

Going to post this now while I have a little time. . . let's roll the 20 sided dice and see how much damage we can do to beernoser's team with the vaunted dagger attack, which gets a +1 bonus for having redcped as my mentor. Surely I can find a hole, or create a new hole, in the 48 Braves, 48 Cubs, 58 Senators, and 48 Yankees. That's a lot of 48s!

I started by looking at your offense, one position at a time:
C - You actually have 9 catchers available and it's a nice mix of starters/platoon/bench guys. You appear to be set here, let's move on.
1B - Situation looks similar to C, you have 8 options and although the talent level isn't great, you should be able to put together a workable platoon at 1B regardless of what I do. Next.
2B - Hmmm. 9 options again BUT besides a nice 331 PA Eddie Stanky and a below average full time Snuffy Stirnweiss, it ain't pretty. Still not a lot of damage I can do, as you will be able to cobble something together at 2B although without Stanky it would be largely void of talent.
SS - Now we're talkin'. Only 5 options and after that nice 48 Alvin Dark it really drops off. Oh yes, Alvin is a true high value target.
3B - Uh oh. You also only have 5 primary 3B options and the lowest salary is $2.4M. The quality is good overall but you will either overpay here or have to use a really crappy Eddie Yost. You don't need my help with this conundrum.
OF - Lots of options in lots of different salary ranges, nothing to see here folks.

So on offense it looks like Alvin Dark is the clear favorite. But let's look at pitching now.

Wow you were prophetic when you said "Spahn and Sain and 2 rounds of pain"! Besides those two (assuming you could afford Sain's $9M price tag), you don't have much at all for a rotation. A nice Johnny Schmitz and a short list of "maybes" (Bickford? Barrett? Pascual? Raschi?). There are also very few bullpen options past Hyde and Potter. Throwing a dagger at one of those primary starters would definitely set you back. Upon closer inspection I note that Johnny Schmitz not only the best pitcher BY FAR on the 48 Cubs, but may be the best pitcher on all 4 of your teams. Finding 6 Cubs to roster would become much more frustrating for you.

What to do, what to do. Looks like it's either Alvin Dark or Johnny Schmitz. Although I feel they are both good options, I am going to take away one of the very few good options from the 48 Cubs and maybe the best pitcher on your board. Your dagger recipient is pitcher Johnny Schmitz - 1948 Cubs.

Ballpark - pretty easy one here, 3 of your parks are similar low scoring parks (Yankee I, Griffith, and Braves Field) and then Wrigley. I'll go ahead and take out the one that stands out as different to remove a true option. Daggering Wrigley Field.

Enjoy!!

PReeves22 selected the 1968 Atlanta Braves for round 4.

Eman7400 your team is balanced and awesome!!!
Really quite impressed.
redcped became my second mentor here with his dagger logic. (ermonito is my main mentor).
No where to go but 1st and make you carry two 1st baseman in the 4-6 million range. So I will be daggering:

Manny Sanguillen 1B
and, because of your fantastic pitching, I’m taking away from you:

Dodger Stadium

the other three stadiums are hitters parks so that will be a test for your awesome pitching staff

GL

My 4th round selection is the 1968 Cinci Reds.

Since it appears that 3day is not returning anytime soon, dcpeterso is filling in for him.
The round 4 pick may happen tonight or in the morning.

The dagger pick for razorclams.



He starts with Mickey Mantle at the height of his career. Add the incredible Tiger infield of Greenberg, Gehringer and Rogell.

This is going to be a good team.

The biggest problem I see razor having is just one of budgeting. Can he get Mantle, Greenberg, Gehringer and Whitey Ford into the lineup? I'm thinking he can get two of the four in. No sense daggering one then as he'd just use another.

I think the best I can do is attack the budget and dagger

Rob Picciolo (SS) 1978 Mariners

I'll dagger Ebbetts Field.

dcpeterso picks for this 4th team, the 68 Oakland A's

Time to get the NL east stabfest going!

So once again, kentol and I are in the same division. And now we’re a season wiser…I think. Last season we were screwing. This season, we’re stabbing. Let’s see how well we can place this dagger.

Kentol, you start off with a fantastic pick, one I was hoping would slide to me, the 1988 Los Angeles Dodgers! These guys are great! You get Hershiser, Belcher, and Leary for your rotation, all at affordable salaries. You also get Howell, Holton, and Pena for your bullpen. All have ERC’s under 3 and perform well at this cap level. But wait…there’s more!

Offensively, this Dodger team is led by none other than World Series hero, OF Kirk Gibson! He brings with him 2B Steve Sax, OF’s Mike Marshall and John Shelby, C Mike Scoiscia, and a couple of platoonable pieces in 1B Pedro Guerrero and OF Mickey Hatcher. That’s 13 usable players to start, including a very nice rotation. What a great pick! Hershiser seems to be the obvious dagger but…

And then the dating game starts. Your 1^st date went very well and definitely ended the night with some screwing. What’s great about this theme is, we’re not always the ones doing the screwing. Occasionally, WIS jumps in for a 3-way. And that certainly happened here.

Usually, when I think of the 92 Orioles, stud pitcher Bob Milacki is 1^st to come to mind. Not a lot of innings but certainly nice to use as a closer or starter in critical games. Oh, not here! Milacki is dropped off the roster. Bummer! Not only was he dropped off the eligible roster, so were 5 – sub-$1M bench players, including 4 less than $500k. The Orioles were already bad but you can’t even use any of their cheap bench players!

So what does that leave you? Their best pitcher has an ERC# of 3.63. Yikes! It just get’s worse from there. On offense you start with Oriole fan favorites Eddie Murray at 1B and Cal Ripken Jr. at short. Both are affordably priced although you are paying for more PA’s than you need. Then there is Fred Lynn as a platoon OF option with some power. And maybe you can use the catcher platoon of Mickey Tettleton and Terry Kennedy? Orsulak in the OF for your 6^th?

For your 2^nd date you were gifted the 1958 Philadelphia Phillies. At 1^st, the Philly pick seems like a loving pick. They come with a stud Richie Ashburn in the OF along with a very usable OFer in Harry Anderson. Solly Hemus can hit although he doesn’t field 2^nd well. Willie Jones plays 3^rd and Granny Hamner and Dave Philley are decent platoon players. There’s even a $2.4M Wally Post in the OF. On the pitching side, Robin Roberts offers 284 of so-so innings for just under $7M. Sounds a little loving, right? Well let’s hold our horses for a second. Hamner is their only eligible player with a sub $1M salary at $922K. Other than that, they, much like Baltimore, only have expensive bench players. Hmmm… this sounds like one of those screws where you don’t really know what you got until a few days later…not good.

To help you recover from all that screwing, you did yourself a favor and went to 1938 Pittsburgh for some nice Pirate options: SS Arky Vaughn, OF brothers Paul and Lloyd Waner, OF Johnny Rizzo, and 1B Gus Suhr. Arky is a little on the high side at $7.8M and drafting him would definitely take Ashburn out of the mix… or make it very tough to land him.

The Pirates aren’t without pitching options either although none of them are studs. But Bauers and Klinger are both starters who bear consideration as is Brandt in the bullpen. Pittsburgh also offer 3 players and 1 pitcher under $1M. I suspect you’ll need to use one or two of them.

Putting it all together it seems like you have the right pieces available to you to make a strong team. But getting the right salaries to fit could be a challenge. As I sit here sharpening my knife and analyzing your team, I see your pitching will mostly come from the Dodgers. I would say 6 of them would be on your initial roster, including the aforementioned Hershiser. With 3 SP’s coming from the Dodgers, you have your choice of Roberts, Bauers, or Klinger for your 4^th. I’m assuming Roberts since he’s cheaper and has the most innings. You’ll need to pick up some cheap relievers and your only non-Dodger options are Don Aase or Rip Sewell. The rest are over $1M.

Hitting Roberts would force you to replace those innings with a more expensive starter, or less talented starter, or 2 starting pitchers for under $7M. Hitting Hershiser takes out your best pitcher… or is he your best pitcher? Hitting Tim Belcher would be interesting. He’s just as good as Hershiser but he doesn’t have as many innings. The talent drop in comparable replacements for under $5.5M is pretty significant. There might be something here.

On offense we see Jim Traber at 1B. With 6 Dodgers already selected, I’m not sure you want to waste your bonus pick on Franklin Stubbs so Traber would be the next option as a back-up to Eddie Murray. Hitting Traber brings you to Ed Bouchee for $2.1M, costing you $900K.

At 2B you only have 5 options and your cheapest is Ted Kazanski at $1.3M. For starters you have Sax, Pep Young, and Solly Hemus. Sax is a Dodger and Hemus can’t field. Hitting Kazanski here makes Billy Ripken your next cheapest option at $2.4M or Hemus at $2.6M. Maybe Sax becomes an option now???

2B isn’t the only position where you only have 5 options. At SS you have 3 starters and a Dodger platoon of Alfredo Griffin and Dave Anderson. Griffin is the cheaper of the two at $1.6M. Anderson is only $2.0M. I’m assuming you want Arky at SS but you could probably live with Ripken. Hitting Griffin may force you to pass on Arky to get the more affordable Ripken.

And then there is hitting OF Woody Jensen, your cheapest OF at $374K. Non-Dodger OF’s get past $1M after Jensen and could cost you an extra $1M in salary. I don’t think you’ll draft Ashburn and if you do pick up Arky Vaughn and Lloyd Waner, Gibson may be tough to add, too. Not to mention, you probably need that bonus roster spot for Griffin. What to do…

Now that the knife is sharp, I think the best place for it would be in Tim Belcher. Hopefully, replacing him will cost you enough to force you to give up on either Hershiser or Vaughn. But maybe you can land Gibson now???

As far as stadiums, you have good options. But Dodgers pitchers tend to pitch best in pitchers parks and Dodgers Stadium is the best one you have. Not anymore. Looking forward to seeing your puzzle solving skills on this one. Good luck!

Round 4 pick: 1988 Detroit Tigers

Okay BeAllEndAll, it's time to take your medicine.

There seem to be two schools of thought in this league when it comes to daggers. Some people like to just dagger the best player on a team, the guy they least want to see staring at them from the opposing dugout. Other folks prefer to find ways to nickel and dime you into submission by forcing you to spend empty salary on useless players.

I'm usually in the former category rather than the latter. This is because the whole point of forcing someone to waste their cap space is to prevent them from being able to roster their best (and presumably most expensive) players, and if that's the case, why not take aim at those players directly?

In your case, the choices here are pretty obvious. On the hitting side of the ledger, you've really only got two players with salaries over $5M, both of them Brewers: Robin Yount and Paul Molitor. Neither of them is really replaceable--both of them would take a pretty big bite out of your lineup if I took away either.

As for pitchers, you've got a great, deep staff that can reconstitute itself around almost any dagger. The only pitcher who really sets himself apart from the rest of the bunch is Luis Tiant, whom you happen to have in his legendary 1968 season.

Losing any of these three would be a blow to your team, sure. But the thing is, I'm not sure you have the cap space to roster all three of them anyway. At least, not if you want to also use Sam McDowell ($8.8M) and Teddy Higuera ($8M) to fill out your rotation. And especially not if you want all-world closer Vicente Romo ($3M) closing down games at the back of your bullpen.

So now I'm thinking that if I dagger Tiant or Yount or Molitor, maybe I'm doing you a favor by making a hard decision easier. You'll certainly be able to afford two out of the three, and it might be less of a dilemma for you to agonize over if you've only got two of them as options.

Which means I've gotta go against the grain and try to bleed your cap space. And fortunately, there's an obvious choice here.

See, the 1968 Indians have the best all-around staff in this entire draft class, but what they don't got is a single bench bat under $1M. And the only bench bats they've got are at C, 2B, and OF. So when you drafted the Indians in the first round, you set yourself up with a short bench, and that just might be your undoing. Because in spite of the great team you've assembled here, you've really got no SS to speak of.

Cleveland has Larry Brown, who'll run you almost $2.8M for mediocre defense and a sour bat. Though he's probably better for the money than Andres Thomas, the only SS on the 88 Braves and a true garbage dump at $3.6M. Boston's Rabbit Warstler is maybe the best value of the bunch at $2.6M, but he's still rocking an OPS (.573) that would make Rey Ordonez blush. Dale Sveum is a switch-hitter, which I guess is kind of nice, but not so much when your OBP is .274 and you cost $2.6M.

So you've got 4 bad options to choose from at SS, all of whom are too expensive for my liking anyway. But at least you've got one silver lining in the form of Boston's Jim Hitchcock, your 5th and final shortstop. His .171 batting average may not be much to look at, but he's a sweet kid, and his $201K price tag is downright swoon-worthy.

But what happens if Jim Hitchcock gets taken out of the equation?

Well, for starters, that $201K cap hit for your backup SS balloons to at least $2.6M, so that's about $2.4M flushed down the toilet right there. Oh, and did I mention that of all these knuckleheads, only Sveum can play another position? He plays 2B (quite badly), so if you want to start him there instead of Ron Gant or Tony Cuccinello... knock yourself out. It'll mean one fewer decent Brewer that you can roster, and one fewer decent bat in your lineup.

But wait, there's more!

Because Hitchcock is also by far the cheapest player on the 1938 Boston Bees. That means in addition to coughing up $2.4M for a backup SS, you'll need to find another Bee to roster, and he'll be a bit more expensive than Hitchcock. My guess is you already planned to use backup OF Harl Maggert, since his .770 OPS is a solid value for $521K. So if we keep looking upward, we're staring at Gil English (backup 3B for $784K) or Bobby Reis (mop-up P for $828K). So consider that an additional ~$600K that we'll carve off your cap, bringing the total hit to around $3M.

But it gets still worse. Because English is about $150K more than the backup 3B you probably had in mind (Ernie Riles), and Reis is $400K more for a mop-up than Juan Eichelberger, the 88 Braves pitcher you probably want to use when the game is out of reach. Maybe you'll take Eichelberger anyway--you need 6 of these 88 Braves one way or the other--but maybe you'll have to carry Reis at the expense of someone cheap and useful, Dan Plesac.

Anyway, when you add the price jumps from Riles to English and Eichelberger to Reis to the total, I come up with a total cap hit somewhere in the neighborhood of $3.55M. Which is, incidentally, almost the exact difference in salary between Sam McDowell ($8.8M) and Luis Tiant ($12.3M). Go figure.

So yeah, I think I'll be taking away 1938 Jim Hitchcock (SS), along with his home ballpark of Braves Field. Good luck to you!