JTPSOPS, I'm anxious to see how your '66 Astros compare to my '65 Astros. I went back and forth on both. I went with 5 Morgans instead of 3, and Cuellar, Turk Farrell instead of Roberts. Like you, I hadn't heard of Jim Wynn which scared me! Good luck.

calhoop, I will be following your 2008 Braves team closely. Maybe you were able to get it to fit by not taking '96 Smoltz? I just didn't want to give that season up, which is probably why I couldn't get it to work.

First off, I have been away from the site for a few years now, and am excited for this year's tournament to see how out of it I really am. I have a feeling those Top 20 finishes from a decade ago are going to feel like a distant memory somewhere around game 40 this year. So I would take the following with a grain of salt.

70M - Expansion Ball
72 Mets 85 Astros and 96 Padres
Angel Stadium

I saved this theme for last, which was probably a mistake as I must've built a handful of teams all using different teams, before going with the teams I built on the first attempt. I originally focused on finding two teams that could build a staff around and another team to focus on the offense. Quickly found the 72 Mets with Seaver, Matlack and McGraw, and the 85 Astros with Ryan, Scott, Dave Smith and Jeff Heathcock. Then added the 96 Padres as they had a number of hitters who could help fill in the holes with Rickey Henderson, Tony Gwynn, Wally Joyner and Chris Gomez. I added Trevor Hoffman at $3.97 million to strengthen the bullpen even more. Used my extra cash to fill in the holes on offense, there will be a lot of platooning here. There isn't a lot of speed or power here, just a bunch of ok OBP's and with a strong staff decided to put them in Angel Stadium and try and win a lot of low scoring games. My expectations are fatigue will kill this team and they'll win somewhere around 70 games.

Hitting: 4900 PAs .275/.376/.404
Pitching: 1371 IP .226 OAV 1.16 WHIP

90M - Real Team + Clones w/ DH
Eck, Tony and the 87 A's
Oakland Coliseum

I originally looked at an Orioles team cloning Frank Robinson and Jim Palmer, but felt the team still had a lot of holes, and figured the best play here was to find a player that played a lot of different positions and a pitcher that had useful seasons as a starter and as a reliever. The first two names I thought of were Tony Phillips and Dennis Eckersley and I knew they were teammates on the A's. The lineup consists of 6 different versions of Phillips with McGwire, Lansford and a Steinbach/Tettleton catching platoon. The staff is 7 different Eck's with Dave Stewart and Curt Young in the rotation, these two scare me in general, but even more so at this cap. Again an offense that should get on base but will struggle for power and rely heavily on McGwire, the pitching could be doomed by the aforementioned Stewart and Young combo, hopefully playing in the Coliseum helps that. My expectations are nothing can save Stewart and Young, the offense fails to turn BBs into runs and they struggle to win 70.

Hitting: 6532 PAs .278/.378/.433
Pitching: 1360 IP .230 OAV 1.08 WHIP

100M - Hitting the Limit Twist
1902-11 Pittsburgh Pirates
Exposition Park

I was surprised at how easily this team came together for me, and probably should've been a sign that there was a better option out there to be found. I figured deadball was the way to go here and was able to build an offense around Honus, Chief Wilson, Ginger Beaumont and Fred Clarke. Went back to 1902 to grab Heinie Peitz for his A+ arm at C and Claude Ritchey for a .370 OBP season at 2B. Twisting from the '03, '05 and '10 teams allowed me to build a rotation of Camnitz, Pfeister, Falkeberg and Leever while adding Babe Adams, Elmer Steele and Nick Maddox in the pen. Had a choice between Exposition and Forbes, went with Exposition to suppress homers even more considering we're not going to hit any anyway. My expectations are the pitching should be good enough to allow this team to compete and finish somewhere around .500.

Hitting: 5934 PAs .299/.361/.402
Pitching: 1464 IP .212 OAV .99 WHIP

120M - Choose Your Soup
From Alexander to Zobrist
League Park

As has been mentioned a lot already, alphabet soup was going to be the toughest to pair with one of the other two so I felt like this was the play for round 1 (not that I have any real expectations of making round 2). Once I knew where I was going, I knew I wanted to build the rotation around Johnson, Mathewson and Alexander added Gagne, Nehf, Uehara and Valdes to makeup the pen. Built a team of high average doubles hitters, Waner, Speaker, Cronin, Boggs and Heilmann. I went back and forth between the '16 Ortiz and '93 Olerud at 1B, went with Big Papi because I liked his bat more in the middle of this lineup despite the D/D- defense he's going to play. So I grabbed Elster, Iglesias and Queen for their A fielding at 1B, SS and OF and we'll defensive replace Ortiz, Cronin and Heilmann early and often. I was confident enough in the pitching to put them in League Park. My expectations are somewhere between 80-90 wins for this team.

Hitting: 6025 PAs .320/.402/.493
Pitching: 1476 IP .201 OAV .92 WHIP

Variable Cap - Out of Range
Gentlemanly C's
Kauffman Stadium

I went with C defense here figuring you'd be paying for the better defense twice, both in the salaries and in the reduced payroll, but I wasn't daring enough to make a team of D fielders (see the above and my concerns about Ortiz). I went with Raines, Ted Williams, and Shoeless Joe in the outfield, added Delgado, Lajoie, Sewell and Pepper Martin in the infield and Darrell Porter for his A+ arm at catcher. I built a rotation of high K/9# guys to try and limit the damage of my poor defense, so the rotation is Vance, Newhouser, Randy Johnson and Nolan Ryan. The bullpen consists of Henke, Eck, Bryan Harvey, Billy Wagner and Carter Capps. The offense has decent 2B/100# and 3B/100# numbers and a pitching staff that should limit the balls in play so we're playing in Kauffman. My expectations are the high pitch counts will lead to fatigue issues and the offense won't hit enough to overcome the bad defense and fatigued pitching and will end up somewhere around 80 wins.

Hitting: 5982 PAs .331/.420/.516
Pitching: 1492 IP .197 OAV 1.01 WHIP 10.32 K/9

140M - XBH Challenge with DH
Double Trouble
Polo Grounds

I knew I wanted to go doubles here, never had much success with a home run team, and the season limit meant a lot of the deadball triple hitters were unavailable. Focused more on high OBP and SBs here figuring we'd need to find a way to score on the road. So this team features Rickey, Raines, Gwynn, Morgan, Carew, Molitor and Hanley. Had to add Boggs who's a SIM favorite of mine and Ted Simmons for an A- arm. Team was a little short on both PAs and the needed doubles so there's a 451 PA Milton Bradley on the bench who will spot the outfielders and DH some as Molitor will need to play some infield occasionally. Again went with a 3 man rotation of Carlton, Koufax and Vance. The bullpen consists of Rivera, Britton, Davis, Kimbrel, Pete Ladd and Andrew Miller. The Polo Grounds should help the HR/9 here. My expectations for this team is Koufax and Carlton give up too many HRs, everybody has an A+ catcher that limits the speed game and this team struggles to a .500 record.

Hitting: 6712 PAs .333/.425/.527 407 2Bs 372 SB
Pitching: 1458 IP .192 OAV .94 WHIP

I updated my write-up with predicted W-L records.

70m - Royal Ranger Mets (1983, 2013 and 1999, respectively)

I will admit that I didn’t spend a ton of time on this team. The scope was just too broad and I didn’t really have a good way to narrow things down. I started by assuming that everyone would be playing in Petco or the Astrodome and drafting Willie Wilson and his Royals teammates. So I knew I’d be spending some of my “free” money (70mil - 54mil gives you at most 16mil to play with) on Bob Boone ‘82, the all-time nuclear option for base stealers.

I thought about trying to go against the grain and build a team that would beat those teams (I don’t know… homers in the Kingdome?) but if everyone was playing in a canyon, that team would be awful on the road. So I just decided to join the herd. I wanted to find some high OBP bats who could run, so I started searching for those first. The 99 Mets had a pair - Rickey and Roger Cedeno - and also a great OBP John Olerud. Boom - one team done. Now I needed a CF and some infielders, plus some pitching. I couldn’t find an Ozzie/Gene Richards Padres team that I liked, but enter the 2013 Rangers with Andrus and Kinsler up the middle, some platoon outfielders and an ace in Yu Darvish. (initially I had the team with Derek Holland instead of Yu, but I didn’t like it, and refactoring it with Darvish made it a lot better.)

Then I needed a CF, 3B and more SPs, so I just had to figure out which Willie Wilson season I’d use. I settled on 83 to give me George Brett, Black and Splitorff and a ton of cheap relievers. Then I added Boone, a #1 starter (low Ks, expansion - Ken Forsch was the best I could find) and a closer. I was glad I had the flexibility to still add some meaningful pieces after hitting 18mil for my 3 expansion teams. They’re playing in the Astrodome.

90m - Adjusted 2008 Braves

I really liked this theme. Granted, there were some tough limitations. If you picked an NL team or an AL team before 1973, you had to twist a hitter to cover the PAs for the DH. So you needed a team with a complete staff, or multiple twists. You needed a team with a lot of cheap bench bats, or a twisted hitter with a lot of cheap seasons. You also couldn’t really go crazy and twist someone like Babe Ruth because of the cap… or even pick a really expensive team for the same reason. So no 27 Yankees. No 39 Yankees either, unless you want Keller to be your twist. Tried that, didn’t like it as much as the other choices.

I thought about all the usual multi-position guys (Frisch, Hornsby, Foxx, Pete Rose, Vern Stephens, Pesky) but none of them really had a team I liked. I was closest with the 33 Cards (did you know they had both Frisch and Hornsby??? did you know you can build an entire pitching staff out of Jesse Haines??) and a Haines/Frisch duo. The 77 Reds cost too much. The 25 Yankees cost too much. The 2015 Dodgers didn’t really have a good offense or back of their staff. The 2014 Red Sox didn’t cost enough. The 2012 Angels with Pujols and Greinke were interesting. The 2016 Cubs with a twisted Zobrist were really interesting, but way too HR prone and a bit short on innings. I kept coming back to one of the teams I did early on - the 2008 Braves. They had 3 twists, and both Smoltz and Tim Hudson had a lot of usable seasons, plus they had Chipper. In the end, I had to go with a pretty terrible defense and didn’t get some of the more expensive Chippers, but I was reasonably happy with the lineup. I had to leave off the ace-level Smoltzes too, but in the end I fit 4 Huddys [2003,2004,2012,2013] and 6 Smoltzes [1999,1998,2002,2004,2008,2009] onto my staff, plus Will Ohman and a mop-up guy.

100m - They Might be 13-22 Giants

Another theme I really liked. With no restriction on deadballers, I knew I’d have to use them. In these leagues I usually have the most success with a mix of deadball pitchers and live ball hitters, so I wanted a team that could span the 1915-25 range. I looked at the As, the Yankees, and the Cards, but I didn’t really love any of them. The Giants were the best bet. I started with a team in the 1919-28 range to get some big bats, and decided there wasn’t anything in ‘28 I needed so went down to 18-27, with 21 and 27 as the base years. This team was good, but I wanted to keep looking.

I noticed the first Giants team was using both Frisch and Bancroft from the early 20s anyway, so switched to 1913-22, with 22 and 14 as baseline teams. I added 1916 later since I wasn’t using any 1916 players anyway. Moving back gave me a Matty/Tesreau/Barnes rotation and more bullpen options. My infield range is outstanding with Frisch/Bancroft as A+ and Groh and Kelly as As. Fielding...well, we have great range.

The trickiest part of this league was filling out the benches. You had to find a player who played in one season and was a cheap guy in another. After I had the Giants done, I kept looking for other teams, but the earlier you go into the deadball or even 1890s teams, the harder it is to fill out a 25-man roster, so I just stuck with the Giants.

120m - Alexander Hamilton’s Alphabet Soup

So I am thinking that if I make it to round 2, a decade/franchise combo would be the easiest to pull off. Lots of old-time franchises that don’t exist any more, etc. Which leaves alphabet for this one. Alphabet isn’t too bad anyway. I figured this would be a standard Target Field team, looking at a rotation of pitchers who have low Ks and whose prices haven’t been destroyed by dynamic pricing.

I knew all along that the bullpen would have Izzy and Quinn. I found some tough-letter SPs that still had good prices and worked well in tandems, so I’ve got Pedro/Sale, Ontiveros/Righetti and Koufax/Eichhorn. With those letters done I went for hitters whose prices stayed low, but also offered great infield range, and great extra base hits. Enter the infield of Brett, Wagner, Frisch and Delahanty. I couldn’t find a catcher I liked, finally settling on a combo of Fred Carroll and Steve Nicosia. With my leftover letters I got a starting outfield of Gore, Lajoie and Billy Hamilton, then filled out the rest of the bullpen with whatever was left over.

Variable Team - O Say Can You C (or C+)?

I’ve done a fair bit of testing and research (though a while ago, the sim hasn’t changed much) and I know a little bit about what range is worth. It’s worth a lot more in the infield, so I wouldn’t be stressing too much about the outfield, no matter what. So for me, there were only 2 choices here. A range isn’t useful, but A+++ range is. And having Ds in both fielding and range is really painful, but having Cs won’t be nearly as bad. So I didn’t think the extra 5k for dropping to D was worth it, and if I wasn’t going A++++, I didn’t see why I’d stop at B.

I built the A+ team first - Honus, Bierbaeuer, Joyce and Connor in the infield, Gore/Browning and Thompson in the outfield. If I was going with this team, I wanted the guys from 1885 who could get on base via other team’s errors. A lot. Of course, there were lots of bad fielders there, so that would have been paired with a modern staff (Kershaw, Schmidt, Felix, Seaver, Sale). I really liked this team; I didn’t think I’d be dissuaded.

Then I built the C team. Ted Williams, ol’ C/C+ himself, in CF. Bob Caruthers and Ty Cobb in the corners. Honus (different one)and Lajoie - both C/C+ up the middle. I did try to get as close to the ceilings for both fielding and range as I reasonably could. John McGraw and Brett Barberie at 3B. Sisler at 1B.A similar pitching staff to keep the errors down - Kershaw, Clemens, Pedro, Garrett Richards, McQuillan and Arrieta.

The A-team had weighted AVG#/OBP#/SLG# of 335/406/496. The C-team had 358/449/558. The difference in OBP# was 43 points - call it 280 baserunners over 6500 PAs. What was the difference in + plays? It wasn’t that much. The A-team would have maybe 120 in the infield and 10 in the outfield. The C team would have maybe 30 - plays. That’s a difference of 160, which is a lot less than 280. Now, the A-team will turn a LOT more DPs. Maybe 100 more, all things being equal. But the C team also has a 60-point edge in SLG# which is maybe 400 bases. As much as I love the A-team, and believe me it fits my aesthetic better, I had to go with the Cs. [I should note, the A team did have slightly better pitching, which isn’t factored in here, and it probably should have been.]

140m - Double Your Pleasure

I wasn’t as big a fan of this theme. Taking out the old-time hitters (for no real reason that I could see) pretty much makes a triples team unusable. There are still enough ways to suppress HRs that I didn’t think too many people would build HR teams. So, it’s an all doubles league. There were never going to be many HR teams. I would have preferred that triples be a realistic option. Poor Chief Wilson owns the triples record and can’t even play!

I’ve got a similar rotation to my other teams, with reasonably low K9# pitchers who haven’t gone up much in the dynamic pricing (Kershaw, Horlen, Pedro, Schmidt, Scherzer). There really aren’t many modern MIs that I like at these prices, so I just went with Hornsby and Nomar. Boggs was a natural fit at 3B, Earl Webb at DH, and Musial/Speaker in the outfield. I’ve got Joey Votto and Jeffrey Leonard platooning at 1B and Paul Waner in RF. I tried to draft a few HRs and triples in case anyone decided to build those teams. I think I’m at 452 doubles, 81 triples and 111 HRs. I’ve never been great at doubles teams, so this team will probably be mediocre at best.

Another 2008 Braves team.

Posted by schwarze on 8/8/2017 12:44:00 PM (view original):
Another 2008 Braves team.

The 08 Braves are one of (possibly the #1 - I have yet to count the selections) most common team(s).

Posted by jmissirlis on 8/8/2017 10:42:00 AM (view original):
JTPSOPS, I'm anxious to see how your '66 Astros compare to my '65 Astros. I went back and forth on both. I went with 5 Morgans instead of 3, and Cuellar, Turk Farrell instead of Roberts. Like you, I hadn't heard of Jim Wynn which scared me! Good luck.

I mulled the '65 version but the MIF options scared me more. I'm guessing you're taking your chances with Morgan at SS and 3B as well.

I'm intrigued to see how Wynn does. He seems like a decent under-the-radar option who hasn't been hit too badly by the salary updates. 25+ HR, 100+ BB, high-% speedsters are not easy to come by. I'm surprised he hasn't been used more.

If Wynn wasn't right-handed, you can be sure his salary would have increased.

Posted by ozomatli on 8/8/2017 12:55:00 PM (view original):

Posted by schwarze on 8/8/2017 12:44:00 PM (view original):
Another 2008 Braves team.

The 08 Braves are one of (possibly the #1 - I have yet to count the selections) most common team(s).

I swear that I checked B-Ref 50 times to make sure they really finished below .450. Seems inconcievable.

Posted by Jtpsops on 8/8/2017 12:56:00 PM (view original):

Posted by jmissirlis on 8/8/2017 10:42:00 AM (view original):
JTPSOPS, I'm anxious to see how your '66 Astros compare to my '65 Astros. I went back and forth on both. I went with 5 Morgans instead of 3, and Cuellar, Turk Farrell instead of Roberts. Like you, I hadn't heard of Jim Wynn which scared me! Good luck.

I mulled the '65 version but the MIF options scared me more. I'm guessing you're taking your chances with Morgan at SS and 3B as well.

I'm intrigued to see how Wynn does. He seems like a decent under-the-radar option who hasn't been hit too badly by the salary updates. 25+ HR, 100+ BB, high-% speedsters are not easy to come by. I'm surprised he hasn't been used more.

I believe he used to be a cookie in the very early days of this site. I remember using him a bunch. I think very early on walks were extremely underpriced.

Posted by Jtpsops on 8/8/2017 12:56:00 PM (view original):

Posted by jmissirlis on 8/8/2017 10:42:00 AM (view original):
JTPSOPS, I'm anxious to see how your '66 Astros compare to my '65 Astros. I went back and forth on both. I went with 5 Morgans instead of 3, and Cuellar, Turk Farrell instead of Roberts. Like you, I hadn't heard of Jim Wynn which scared me! Good luck.

I mulled the '65 version but the MIF options scared me more. I'm guessing you're taking your chances with Morgan at SS and 3B as well.

I'm intrigued to see how Wynn does. He seems like a decent under-the-radar option who hasn't been hit too badly by the salary updates. 25+ HR, 100+ BB, high-% speedsters are not easy to come by. I'm surprised he hasn't been used more.

I'm punting SS! Likely a poor decision.

Lillis, Bob

1965

R

124

408

34

90

12

1

0

20

20

10

6

2

2

.221

.267

.255

.522

439

B/D- 1.65M

After this season '65 Bob Lillis will have Performance History for everyone to research. And his salary will increase by 1 dollar.

Ya, that D- range at SS is what scared me away. I suppose I could have tried a Morgan with really good D at 2B there.

70M - 76 Mets, 88 Padres, 07 Angels - Polo Grounds V

This was the last team I started working on, waiting until after the salary update. One thing I did do was go back and read some of the team building threads from past years based on real-life teams (Improve a Real Team, Good/Bad/Ugly, X+Y). There were 3 goals I had when I finally started researching and building this team:

• I wanted an “ace” pitcher, relative to the cap

• I wanted close to a $36M P/$34M batter split. This guided my search process

• I wanted my 3 teams to be as close to $18M as possible, to allow more $ and more flexibility to fill the remaining holes.

I researched and made extensive lists in my notebook of about 75 teams. When I started to try and put the puzzle together, 2 teams immediately stood out: 1976 Mets, and 2007 Angels. Both teams have many usable players at a number of different positions.The Mets gave me my ace (Seaver), a couple of relievers (Apodaca, Sanders), half a catcher (Grote) and a 2B (Millan). Millan provided the added bonus of 587PA for only $3.2M, allowing me to upgrade elsewhere. The Angels gave me 2 relievers (Speier, Oliver), 1B (Kotchman), 3B (Izturis),OFs (Willits, Guerrero), as well as the other half of the tandem at C (Napoli). My original 3rd team was the 1976 Rangers, but after making everything fit all nice and neat, I realized I was using the combined version of Roy Smalley. I tried Toby Harrah but instead it put me over the $20M limit. I didn’t want to start over, so I began to look for teams with 2 starting pitchers and a SS. From my research I found the late 80s/early 90s Padres had a number of usable pitchers at this cap: Benes, Hurst, Whitson. I settled on the 88 Padres with Eric Show & Andy Hawkins. Dickie Thon gave me a SS. The move also allowed me to add Tony Gwynn and P Dave Leiper. The change from the Rangers to the Padres also saved $, so I was able upgrade the rest of the roster: (Tolleson, Magadan, DYoung, Maldonado,Frias, MLeiter, Beimel, and a solid SP in David Price.)

I messed around a little bit with some different combinations, but once I built this team I knew this was the one I wanted to go with.

90M - 2000 Astros - Enron Field

Like the 70M team, I went back and read some older threads about real life teams. I loaded quite a few teams into the draft center to study. Most of the 1 Clone teams were either too expensive or had too many bad PA/IP. I decided I wanted to use either a 2 or 3 Clone team. I went to BR and looked for teams that underperformed their PYTH%, trying to find teams with either strong pitching or hitting.This long and winding process led me to 2 teams from 1984 - Reds and Expos, that had a common player: Pete Rose. Rose might be the perfect player for this theme. Good seasons at 1B, 2B, 3B, and OF make him a stud here. However, I couldn’t get either team to where I like it, The Reds pitching was OK, but the hitting besides Rose was not good. The Expos had a strong lineup with Carter and Raines to start with, but with one less Clone the best I could do was build a staff based around Jeff Reardon. I was disappointed because I really wanted to use Rose, but it got me thinking about other star players who played multiple positions. Hello Craig Biggio and the 2000 Astros. This team was bad, so it allowed for 3 Clones. It also had an excellent offense. The irony here is that I ended up cloning Lance Berkman and not Biggio. The toughest choice was leaving Bagwell off in favor more OF PAs with another Berkman. Melusky, Biggio, Lugo, Spiers, Alou, Eusebio, Caminiti, and Cedeno join 5 Berkmans(02, 03,04,10,13) in powering the offense. The salary update did cost me at least one better Berkman. The 2000 Astros had the added bonus of having Doc Gooden(85, 86, 89, 93, 98) on his way out, in addition to a great reliever in Billy Wagner(01, 02, 05,07,08).I don’t love playing in Enron Field, but you gotta do what you gotta do. I think I like this team.

100M 98-07 Yankees Yankee Stadium II

I knew I wanted to use this team as soon as I read the theme. I play in a lot of twist leagues - they’re my favorite type of league and where I generally have the most success. In the past few months I had used the both 2000 and 2005 Yankees, so they were fresh in my mind. Both are solid twist teams by themselves. Put them together and you really expand your quality options. The thing that immediately drew me to the team was the starting pitching. There are 3 really good starting pitching options here, 97 Clemens, 04 Johnson, and 99 Brown. Throw in 02 Mussina and it is a good starting rotation. The solid bullpen has Rivera, Quantrill, Lilly, F. Rodriguez, Karsay, Neagle, and Groom.

The salary update forced me to change my primary C from Posada to Flaherty, but Jorge sticks around as the backup. The rest of the lineup is pretty good at hitting, getting on base, or both - Jason Giambi, Cano, ARod, Jeter, Bernie Williams, Sheffield, and Justice. A solid bench is led by Glenallen Hill, Jim Leyritz, and Russ Johnson.

I messed around a little bit with a couple of deadball era teams, but nothing made me my mind. I like this team but I also didn’t spend a lot of time looking at alternatives.

120M X Doesn’t Mark a Spot - Polo Grounds V

I recently built an 80s Franchise Soup team, so my first thought was to do Franchise Soup. But the idea of doing Alphabet/Decade Soup team in Round 2 didn’t appeal to me at all. Of course I realized that I’ve never even been close to Round 2, and that building a challenging team in Round 2 would be a nice problem to have. Then I remembered that in recent years, we’ve built both Alphabet and Franchise/Decade teams. So I shifted to Alphabet Soup and will be thrilled to face the challenge of building another Franchise/Decade team.

Some of the choices were fairly easy- Ruth, Alomar, Berkman, Hendrix, Mathewson, Waddell, Ozzie, and Mike Jackson. Filling in the rest wasn’t too difficult. Here’s the complete team:

Alomar, Berkman, Cullenbine, Wade Davis, Eusebio, Fernandez, Gregerson, Hendrix, Inge, Mike Jackson, Keeler, Loretta, Mathewson, Ni, Oswalt, Pineda, Quinlan, Ruth, Ozzie Smith, Tucker, Uehara, Vinton, Waddell, Ernie Young, and Zeber.

I generally like this team, but as with several of the other ones, this one came together pretty quickly and I decided not to try too many other options.

Variable Defense - Tenacious B - Polo Grounds
My first thought was use a B team. I generally don’t focus a whole lot on defense, and I am pretty comfortable at $120M. So I built a team that was very strong offensively, and had a pitching staff led by Walter Johnson and Claude Hendrix. Then the little voices in my head started talking. The better owners would probably build A defensive teams, and it might provide them with an edge. Also, deadball pitchers might hurt defense. So, I built an A team, and in the process moved from deadball to modern pitchers. But while the defense was obviously better, the hitting was significantly worse. .338/.430/.505 down to .317/.415/.455. I maybe could have done a little better, but the truth is I didn’t really want to. It was too much offense for me to give up, so I kept the pitching staff and went back the B lineup. I feel like the increase in runs scored by my lineup will outpace the loss in runs saved by the defense. At least that’s my hope.

Lineup: Ruth, Delahanty, Cullenbine, Fain, Alomar, Reyes, Rose, and Bassler

Pitching Staff: Sutton, Verlander, Cueto, Deleon, Fitzsimmons, Calero, Ontiveros, Jackson, Perez, Rigney, and Springer

As it turns out, maybe I was looking in the wrong direction. C teams seem like the way to go. I was hoping my offense would make up for the drop in defense. Now I hope my defense can make up for my drop in offense. I felt much better about this team before I saw the other teams. I think I might have missed the boat here.

$140M - Double Nickel Wins - Polo Grounds V
This team worries me because I didn’t see too many other options. I don’t play many higher cap leagues, but given what I’ve seen and read, HRs didn’t seem like a viable option. I’ve never built a 3Bs team before, so the clear choice for me was 2Bs. So I built my team fairly easy enough. Then I started to question my choice. It seemed too obvious. Sometimes in this tournament, you need to be on the popular choice to succeed. But sometimes you need to zig when everyone else zags. So I tried to 3Bs team, which I liked quite a bit. I was all set to enter it until we got the league numbers and I was told I had a number of players outside the theme. I totally missed to post-1920 rule when building this team. So, back to the doubles I went. I ended up with a team that hit .345/.434/.505 with 435 2bs, 35 3bs, and 140 homers. Tris Speaker, Tony Gwynn, Larry Walker, and Ferris Fain lead the offense.

The pitching staff was designed to limit not only HRs, but hits in general, with low OAV guys. Mike Scott, Randy Johnson, Clemens, and Pedro make up the rotation. With the exception of the long man, the bullpen arms all have sub 1 WHIPs and under.200 oavs, as I am sure most other teams have.

I have no idea how this team will do. I suspect doubles oriented teams will make up the majority of teams. If that is the case, there could be a lot of similar teams.

With people using A++ arm catchers why are so many people still drafting speed teams at low cap? Doesn't the CS% and lower attempts make it a waste of money?