I am done with drafting decisions other than which season of Billy Pierce becomes the little-used long man. '27 Jimmie Foxx will round out the draftees.
I think I've narrowed down my team selections to 3 choices for how to use my final roster spot. Each has an advantage and a disadvantage, of course.
A) Use 1995 Piazza (.346/.400/.606) as my primary catcher and let McCarver grab whatever PA are leftover. This leaves me with a three-headed rotation between 3B and DH where Rolen and Chipper platoon at 3B and occasionally one of them spells Burks (.301/.362/.541) at DH. Burks is also my only other OF and is terrible defensively, but my starters won't need much time off thankfully. Downside is wasting McCarver's PA, which join Offerman's as just filler.
B) Play McCarver (.288/.343/.400) every day and back him up with '27 Foxx against some LHP, then use the extra spot to upgrade at DH. The best option is '27 Simmons (.392/.436/.645), but he has only 482 PA. It's a much better hitter in there for those 530 or so AB, but at the same time the catcher spot is much weaker. In fact, it's a net drop in OPS. But Simmons is really awesome, and Piazza always underperforms for me. So this idea lingers.
C) Play both McCarver and Burks and upgrade my rotation instead. I already have '95 Nomo and '07 Peavy as teammates, and fellow Padre Chris Young (.191 OAV, 2.19 ERC#) is a pretty appealing improvement for the 171 IP he offers, compared with letting Reuschel get those innings. This means carrying only 13 hitters, but I have the PA covered everywhere. It's just a softer bottom of the order. And more wasted innings instead of PA.
There's also a D) which is add '89 Eckersley to the bullpen, which is already fairly full with '77 Sutter, '77 Gossage and my Rivera and Hoffman. It's a terrific 58 innings out of Eck, but it's ultimately less impactful than the other guys would be, I think,
Decisions, decisions ...