ROUND 25
Pick	Owner________	Prev. Salary___	Player__________	Max Salary_____	Salary_______	Final Salary
1	3dayrotation	91,546,768	1985 Dwight Gooden	18,292,590	12,251,170	103,797,938
2	alice	94,496,818	1988 Wade Boggs	16,962,077	9,076,014	103,572,832
3	mllama54	96,132,449	1985 Willie McGee	14,399,002	9,737,793	105,870,242
4	mpitt76	97,043,689	1974 Gaylord Perry	12,390,563	10,173,920	107,217,609
5	schwarze	97,267,971	1986 Mike Scott	13,535,094	12,354,070	109,622,041
6	thejuice6	98,158,634	1964 Mickey Mantle	10,274,950	6,143,564	104,302,198
7	bigsteve12	98,615,823	1986 Tim Raines	11,281,632	8,347,459	106,963,282
8	Jtpsops	98,888,790	1969 Rico Petrocelli	11,163,399	9,110,922	107,999,712
9	redcped	100,583,959	1987 Tim Burke	9,160,411	4,411,812	104,995,771
10	reddtrain	100,715,340	1980 J.R. Richard	8,275,599	6,150,726	106,866,066
11	pmars2001	101,282,133	1973 Joe Morgan	8,940,661	8,216,504	109,498,637
12	happyhours	101,303,364	1970 Roberto Clemente	8,893,231	4,350,939	105,654,303
13	Chisock	102,298,276	1984 Willie Hernandez	8,917,621	5,942,198	108,240,474
14	nocomm999	102,466,995	1988 Pascual Perez	7,070,136	6,318,145	108,785,140
15	BeAllEndAll	103,139,902	1987 Paul Molitor	8,346,948	5,555,732	108,695,634
16	ff09	105,415,219	1991 Phil Plantier	5,746,634	1,852,148	107,267,367
17	vilefileman	105,495,400	1975 Terry Harmon	2,532,494	236,960	105,732,360
18	calhoop	105,607,163	1971 Tug McGraw	5,739,124	4,144,183	109,751,346
19	njbigwig	105,898,796	1963 Mickey Mantle	3,474,125	3,021,375	108,920,171
20	ronthegenius	108,703,959	1978 Tim Johnston	1,030,980	287,981	108,991,940
21	pedrocerrano	109,655,283	1982 Vicente Romo	1,186,205	1,048,171	110,703,454
22	NebHusker	103,999,030	1977 Rich Gossage	6,857,254	5,647,356	109,646,386
23	midknight	110,216,233	1973 Max Leon	<300,000	247,520	110,463,753
24	footballmm11	111,646,693		<300,000

My overarching goals for this draft:

1) Have 25 useful players on my roster.
2) Have solid defense everywhere
3) Use my bonus spot on a pitcher
4) Do not draft too many innings

I did have a roster mocked up that I was happy before the draft started. Of course, I didn't document who was on it for comparison's sake, but I can remember most of it, so here goes nothing:

Catcher: I originally had 1978 Simmons slotted in, with 1991 Tettleton as my backup plan. However, both those options left the board quickly, and I knew I wanted a lefty or switch-hitting catcher (drafting 600 PA at every other position makes it difficult to platoon), so I quickly settled on 1967 Tim McCarver.

First Base: I started out with 1971 Allen slotted in, then as things changed I monkeyed around with it, but always winding back up where I started. I was the last owner to take a first baseman, and I got the one I wanted in 1971 Dick Allen, so I can't complain.

Second Base: The original plan was 1970 Morgan, but I wasn't grabbing him with any great conviction - he was relatively cheap, and he came packaged with the Astrodome. However, when 1978 came available and I had already locked up another Astro, I turned my sights towards 1978 Davey Lopes - and was happy to get him very late.

Third Base: I planned on spending much more than average on 3B, SS, and my bench, and I had 1973 Evans down in ink from the beginning. When he was cruelly stolen out from under me, I bounced around through a few other options. I regretted blocking 1967 (Santo) and 1969 (Bando) early on, but 1963 Eddie Mathews fell to me, and with what was left I grabbed him and ran with it.

Shortstop: I had 1983 Ripken slotted in by default, but wasn't terribly attached to him. I really didn't like many of the choices, so when Ripken was selected, I figured I should make a decision and stick with it. I'm happy with 1992 Barry Larkin - was always one of my favorite players, and he fit the stats profile of players I was interested in.

Outfield 1: On my first pass I had 1990 Butler listed. When that was taken from me, I slid back to 1975 Singleton. No such luck, so I decided to grab 1976 Cesar Cedeno. He gave me the Astrodome, which allowed me to be flexible at second.

Outfield 2: I zeroed in on 1964 Robinson immediately. I was just about to pull the trigger multiple times, but always talked myself into filling another position first. When he was gone, there were a lot of players I was interested in, but none badly enough to commit immediately, so I kept my patience to see who would fall to me. The one guy I really wanted was 1986 Gwynn, but once he left, I settled for 1988 Brett Butler. My plans for power had gone out the window completely, but...

Outfield 3: There was no doubt at all in my mind that I wanted 1982 Henderson. I didn't mess around at all. I grabbed 1982 Rickey Henderson very early in the process.

Backup C: I was originally debating between 1991 Stanley and 1980 Moreland, knowing that I wanted a good platoon bat. I held out on Stanley too long, figuring I might need other help from 1991, then had 1985 open up. I grabbed 1985 Alan Ashby to take care of lefties in McCarver's stead and be a potential bat off the bench otherwise.

Backup CI: I went through several iterations early on, but once Frank Robinson wasn't in the cards, I zeroed in on 1964 Frank Thomas. I needed someone who was a threat to homer more than once a month...

Backup MI I went through multiple iterations here - I'm pretty sure I had half a dozen of these guys on my projected roster at any given point in time. Not in love with 1970 Frank Baker's bat, but Larkin is a bit low on PA, and he can play solid SS defense.

Backup OF: I had this one marked down in pen. I had used 1979 Miller a few times, and he was always great for me. Good outfield defense, could draw a walk, and stole bases like crazy. I talked myself out of him several times to work on filling other needs, figuring no one would spend that much on a guy without a huge bat on the bench, and I was right...until I was wrong. Much shuffling led me to picking 1981 Gene Roof, which was not a pick I wanted to make - I wanted to leave the option of Righetti open for the bonus player slot.

Pinch Hitter: I started out with 1991 Barberie listed here, but rotated through several options. Once Barberie was gone, however, I knew I wanted a really good bat there, and 1984 Jeff Stone was the best available to me. Fortunately, I had him when Miller fell through - I still have an elite pinch runner.

Starter 1: 1989 Saberhagen was the plan all along. When he got picked, I went into scramble mode. Fortunately, 1977 Tom Seaver wasn't much of a downgrade overall.

Starter 2: 1986 Clemens wasn't on the board very long, which wasn't shocking. 1965 Marichal was next, and I was prepared to take him with my next pick when he was grabbed. That left me with two viable options that I could draft: 1964 Ford and 1989 Deleon. I decided to wait for someone to take one, and then I'd immediately grab the other. Unfortunately for the commish, we both had the same idea, and I had spent less overall, so when I grabbed 1989 Jose Deleon, it hurt.

Starter 3: I wanted to minimize the innings I got from my starters, so I zeroed in on guys with low IP in the SP3 and SP4 spots. 1969 Dick Bosman fit the bill better than anyone else I could see, so I made him my first pick.

Starter 4: I rotated through 1968 Bolin and 1965 Siebert before looking seriously at 1966 Earl Wilson. He had a relatively low number of innings pitched, and they were pretty good innings, so I grabbed him early.

Relief 1: Honestly, I think it's easier to list the guys that WEREN'T rostered by me at one point than it is to list who were. I eventually settled in on 1965 Miller, but had my hopes dashed when he was grabbed. (With Miller went my planned team name: The Miller-Miller-Allen Hallelujah Twist *grumble*) After that was 1986 Candelaria, 1989 Burns, 1970 Sanders, 1972 Lyle, 1991 Ward...but I finally grabbed 1973 Steve Rogers. I'm not terribly happy with this pick, but there were much worse options available when I got here.

Relief 2: 1988 Jones was the first guy on the list. I also went through 1980 McGraw, 1974 House, and 1991 Frohwirth before settling on 1983 Tom Niedenfuer. Not a guy on my radar, but his stats look strong - I'm excited to see what he can do.

Relief 3: Once again, it's easier to list the guys who didn't wind up on my roster than the guys that did. I seem to remember that 1965 Roberts was the first guy on my list, but as my choices kept getting pilfered, I decided to grab 1987 Tom Henke. His propensity for giving up dingers scares me, but everything else is solid.

Relief 4: Originally my plan was to save money in this slot with 1984 Solano, but as more of my expensive options kept getting pinged in other positions, I decided to spend up for the best I could. 1990 Zane Smith is a cookie, and I was glad to roster him.

Relief 5: My initial pick was 1976 Jackson. I flittered through other Jackson seasons and a dalliance with 1988 Nunez before settling on 1968 Steve Hamilton. He's not going to be a traditional closer, but he'll be pitching the ninth for me.

Relief 6: Another clown car full of candidates. 1968 Hoerner, 1970 Blue, 1972 Busby, 1973 Sanders, 1981 Hrabosky, 1991 Eckersley...and landed on 1986 Gary Lucas.

Relief 7: First on the chopping block was 1975 Sanders. From there I went through 1968 McMahon, 1970 Monteagudo, 1972 Rau, 1992 Valdez, 1991 Gray - and then when all of those were gone, the only guy I could legally grab was 1974 Dick Selma.

Bonus: I wanted to leave as many of 1980, 1981, and 1991 available as I could, because Richard, Righetti, and Ryan were the most impactful guys with a reasonable number of innings. I wound up blocking 1981 off with Roof, so I was crossing my fingers that I'd have one player I wanted available. 1980 J.R. Richard was there, so I was happy to grab him.

How did I do on my original goals?

1) I wound up with 23.5 useful players (Selma counts as 0, Baker counts as 0.5).
2) My worst starting defender is 1978 Lopes (C/B at 2B). I think that qualifies.
3) I grabbed Richard, so that's an easy check box.
4) I drafted a total of 1499 IP. Some of them aren't exactly the ones I would have liked, but I'm happy with that total.

And so you have the rationale behind The Bosman Indecision.

All's Farrell in Love and War
Astrodome Busch Stadium

EDIT: My dreams were slightly crushed when I realized the Astrodome did not open until 1965. Thanks for nothing, Turk.

Having not played in the 1st two iterations, I had no lessons to apply - which may be a good thing, I don't know. My initial reaction was being able to afford a truly stud player in Round 25 was probably a detriment, as it would mean a lot of wasted IP or PA. The structure of the league makes it so you can't draft a scrub (or minimal IP/PA) at any position. But as the draft went on, I realized most people would end up in a similar boat.

Round 1 - 1973 Tom Seaver - SP1
I wanted to prioritize pitching. A few good pitchers went off the board before my pick, so I opted for '83 Seaver. I contemplated some of the more expensive pitchers, but having no experience with this theme, I opted for a solid pitcher that didn't cost too much. I was a bit shocked when this picked dropped me to 20th in Round 2.

Round 2 - 1963 Turk Farrell - SP3
I had a few pitchers in Group 4 I liked, so I opted for Farrell here. Again, a decent pitcher that kept my payroll low as I got a lay of the land.

Round 3 - 1985 Andy Rincon - RP5
Rincon is a cost-efficient staple on quite a few of my teams. His IP/G and good stats were a good addition from the RP5 group, and helped move me up the draft board.

Round 4 - 1987 Raines - OF3
The Rincon pick moved me all the way up to 4th, so I opted to grab a versatile stud hitter here in Raines. Getting him from the OF3 group also ensured I'd have a few more good options available in the other OF groups when I got there.

Round 5 - 1985 Bret Saberhagen - SP4
I had Saberhagen on my radar for a few rounds and opted to pull the trigger here. A solid option as SP4, and allowed me to leave SP2 for a few more rounds, with some good options still on the board. At this point, I realized hitters were going off the board faster than I anticipated, and I also noticed how top heavy some of the position groups are. At this point, I decided I was going to use an Astrodome Busch Stadium team (thanks for nothing, Turk). From here on out, I primarily targeted low-K hitters, with as many walks as possible and good D. Also, pitchers with low walk rates.

Round 6 - 1964 Bill Freehan - C1
Catcher was getting thin and I wanted a productive one, not an albatross. Freehan is a good hitter with a great arm. As much as I liked this pick, it's the one I want a do-over on. I had my eye on both Marichals in SP2 for a few rounds, determined to grab one as soon as the other came off the board. I missed BeAll's pick of '66 Marichal a few picks before mine, and naturally, '65 Marichal went before my next pick. I definitely would've taken him here had I been paying attention.

Round 7 - 1988 Roger Clemens - SP2
After my lack of attention cost me Marichal, I wanted to grab my SP2 ASAP. This group saw a steep drop in quality towards the bottom half, IMO - lots of high IP pitchers with lower quality. Hopefully Clemens does enough to keep me competitive.

Round 8 - 1986 Johnny Ray - 2B
Quality options at 2B were dwindling. Ray brings a moderately priced, .300-hitting, switch hitter with more walks than Ks and good D. I'm good with him manning 2B.

Round 9 - 1990 Tony Gwynn - OF2
Dipped into my own season here for a cheap OF2 option. Gwynn hits .309 with only 22 Ks and good D in a corner OF spot. Just the kind of hitter I was looking for.

Round 10 - 1974 Mike Schmidt - 3B
I'd been saving money for a few rounds, so decided to splurge here. There were a couple stud 3B still available, but I figured Schmidt would do best in the Astrodome Busch Stadium with his 100+ walks and strong defense. On the road, I expect him to carry my lineup.

Round 11 - 1973 Pete Rose - OF1
Another splurge, and a great fit for the Astrodome Busch Stadium, IMO. Good BA, lots of walks, few Ks, switch hitter and great D in CF. He'll easily start every game as my leadoff hitter.

Round 12 - 1977 John Wathan - C2
C2 seemed like a group where it would be easy to waste money. I needed my C2 to contribute, but I didn't want 100+ weak ABs I had to plug in to spell Freehan. Wathan brings a solid bat and can easily be plugged in to start a few games.

Round 13 - 1965 Dick Hall - RP2
I decided to address the pen here. Hall is a moderately priced option that saved some money in the RP2 group and brings a really low walk rate.

Round 14 - 1992 Phil Clark - B4
I decided to go with a stud PH here in a .400+ hitting Clark. Also a move to help me move up the draft order a bit.

Round 15 - 1980 Wally Backman - B2
Another solid bench option, with a decent bat and good D at the two MIF positions.

Round 16 - 1970 Luis Aparacio - SS
Options at SS were growing slim. Aparacio fit my mold - more walks than Ks, .300+ hitter, good D. You know the drill. At this point, I started eyeing '89 Larkin in Round 25, to supplement at SS with a stud half-season.

Round 17 - 1983 Rod Carew - 1B
I'd been waiting on Carew for a bit and decided to pounce here, even though only Pedro was left needing a 1B/1982. Carew was cheap and checked all my boxes. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Round 18 - 1979 George Throop - RP7
This pick was to save some money and to knock off a year I knew I wouldn't want anywhere else and keep my options open.

Round 19 - 1978 Ron Reed - RP1
There was a lot of money to be wasted in this group, IMO. Plenty of bullpen innings in the other groups, I didn't want to spend a ton on a long man. Reed should be decent in that role.

Round 20 - 1991 Dennis Eckersley - RP6
A surprisingly solid option for the RP6 group, and one that helped deepen my pen a bit with a good pitcher.

Round 21 - 1976 Larry Gura - RP4
This was not the pick I wanted to make. I wanted '68 McDaniel in this group, but at this point, I realized I had a shot at '69 Petrocelli in Round 25. I was the only one left to pick in the RP3 group, but my options were '68 Drabowsky and '69 Watt. McDaniel and Watt would've been my preferred duo, but that would've blocked me from Petrocelli. Gura it was.

Round 22 - 1975 Ed Armbrister - B3
Need to make this pick to keep my salary down and ensure I didn't go over in my pursuit of Petrocelli.

Round 23 - 1967 Ossie Chavarria - B1
This pick annoys me. I really wanted '84 Francona for my bench. However, he put me $100K over my salary to get Rico. I had a few of my 1990 players left and thought about taking Francona anyway, banking someone would draft one and increase my cap. I played it safe and took Chavarria. Sure enough, pedrocerrano took '90 Shane Mack shortly after and upped my cap, but Francona didn't make it back to me in Round 24.

Round 24 - 1968 Moe Drabowsky - RP3
My final pick, that I'd known about for a few rounds. That made it a bit easier to maneuver.

FINAL SALARY CAP: $110,052,189

Round 25 - 1969 Rico Petrocelli - Bonus
I got my man. I'm leaving $2M on the table, but all I really lost was a stud bench player in '84 Francona. Petrocelli shores up a weak position with a great bat and D. He'll take a bit of a hit in the Astrodome Busch Stadium, but should still do a lot to carry this lineup.


Not sure how to feel about this team. I feel like I've built a team that should thrive in the Astrodome Busch Stadium, but there are some stud teams opposing us, so it will be a grind. I'm going to place this team at 84-86 wins.

Final Hitting Stats: .304/.380/.453, 659 walks to 591 Ks, A-B defense at every position
Final Pitching Stats: 1,481 IP, 1.02 WHIP, .220 OAV, 1.91 BB/9, 0.66 HR/9

A Cobra, A Vulture, A Moose & A Ryno

Nomination Year: 1981
It will be interesting to see how many players don’t get used from this team. I think the whole bullpen should be chosen, and the only SP who worries me is Steve McCatty after seeing that he’s one of the worst ERC# choices at SP1. Among hitters, I went with a cheap Gorman Thomas for someone seeking a power bat who won’t hurt much with the cap. The biggest concern is at 2B, where there were few options with 600 PA. I probably should have asked for the exemption for 595 PA Bobby Grich, my choice for Round 25, because I instead wound up with a very good glove and speed version of Tommy Herr who can’t hit a lick. Hopefully those assets and a switch bat get him rostered somewhere.

(Footnote: 4 of the 8 lineup members were not picked, though every pitcher was.)

Round 1, Pick 10
SP3, Joe Horlen, 1967
I almost always go pitching first and as of this point almost everyone else did, too. After Guidry and Koufax (both taken in the top 4), he was the best available in SP3 and with a sub-9M salary a pick that wouldn’t sentence me to the bottom of R2. There were 7 SP3 taken in R1, so I’m glad I did this.

Round 2, Pick 14
1B, Willie McCovey, 1970
I usually would have gone pitcher here, or away from a deep position. But I couldn’t resist one of the best bats in the draft at just $6.3M, since we are working with a cap and all. No pitcher I really wanted badly went the rest of the round, so I felt like this strategy paid off.

Round 3, Pick 12
2B, Ryne Sandberg, 1990
Several good 2B went off the board ahead of me, and I decided to pounce on one of the few dangerous hitters left here. I’ve had mixed results with other Sandberg seasons, but his 40 HR should play well in this league, and he makes very few errors. His range isn’t so hot, but he’s got 79 speed, can play 162 games, and still cost under $7M. So far, I feel I’m playing the budget game pretty well at least.

Round 4, Pick 14
OF3, Dave Parker, 1978
I was sure I’d take an SP1 or SP2 here … but I just couldn’t pass up the Cobra. Teams seemed to be taking a good number of hitters early in this draft, and I knew I could get SP later I’d be happy enough with. Parker was one of my favorite players growing up, just a fearsome figure at the plate with a cannon arm (that WIS ignores, sadly). He’ll make a great No. 2 hitter with his average, power, and solid speed.

Round 5, Pick 10
OF1, Rickey Henderson, 1981
OK, I was definitely going to take that next SP this round … but almost everyone I still wanted was on the board and I was very conscious that in V2 of this league I wound up with a weak leadoff hitter who definitely hurt my offense. And who’s a better leadoff guy than Rickey? Just ask Rickey! What’s not to love with a .320+ average, lots of walks, 94 speed, and A++ range in CF? He’s a tad costly for an OF, but I need someone to make plays out there and set the table so I can justify it. OBP, speed, and A++ range just don’t come cheaply.

(Footnote: Wound up with tons of leftover salary and could have splurged on Puckett here instead.)

Round 6, Pick 12
SP2, Mike Mussina, 1992
I couldn’t wait any longer to secure a decent SP1 or SP2, and I felt like it made more sense draft-position-wise to go SP2 first. I tossed this up between Moose and Whitey Ford. Ford allows about half the homers and at least has hitting stats, but he’s $1M more expensive for quite similar stats. Hopefully schwarze is wrong about Moose disappointing.

(Footnote: schwarze totally got in my head about Moose, and I nearly took a SP in R25 ultimately because of this ... so he'd better perform now!)

Round 7, Pick 13
SP4, Atlee Hammaker, 1983
I had gone to bed with about 8 picks ahead of me and woke up to a barrage of SM that I was up. I took a look at the SP1 landscape and still saw my top 3 remaining targets available. So … why not dive over into the SP4 pool where the dropoff in talent was starting to look pretty steep. I’ve used Atlee in a couple theme leagues before and got good results. He’s a solid value and I think the right amount of innings at this spot based on what I’ll likely get out of SP1 (300+). This puts me at 672 from the other 3 starters with a 1.02 WHIP and .222 OAV, and I think all are reasonably priced, too.

Round 8, Pick 11
C, Thurman Munson, 1973
Well, I got a little cocky on the pitching side and decided yet again to skip SP1 and try to fill another spot that seemed more urgent. I still have 3 targets for SP1, but one went right after me and there are 5 more owners drafting before it comes back to me who need SP1 still. But the catcher market was really starting to dry up, and I wound up paying for a bit more arm than I’d like to just to avoid getting stuck with a really weak bat. The 75 Bench costs more than $1M more for only 36 points of OPS#, and I didn’t want to test Rico Carty’s defense.

There’s no one too expensive left at any of the 3 hitting spots I still need to fill, so I should wind up spending about $50M on my lineup and be able to grab some of the better relievers out there.

Round 9, Pick 10
SP1, Randy Jones, 1976
I had a nervous day waiting to see if any of my remaining SP1 targets would get to me. Ff09 grabbed Dean Chance right after my Munson pick, and then bigsteve grabbed Jim Palmer a few picks later. Four owners still had a shot at Jones or my backup choice Catfish Hunter, and I sweated it out when it got to schwarze’s pick and he looked to be adding a pitcher. He went SP4 instead, and I was able to jump in and grab Jones. With 316 innings, he’s got to perform for me to succeed now, and because he doesn’t K many at all I’ll need to prioritize the rest of my infield defense to help him out.

Round 10, Pick 18
SS, Ozzie Smith, 1989
I needed a strong defensive SS and narrowed this down to ‘64 Hansen (B+/A+), ‘69 Cardenas (B-/A+) and Ozzie (A-/B). It would have been an easier call if Ozzie’s range were higher, but I decided that his switch bat and speed and fewer errors made for a better combination. He’s my No. 8 hitter regardless, but he keeps my lineup from being too righty-heavy, too. Hansen and Cardenas both went before it got back to me, so I think I timed this pick well.

Round 11, Pick 20
3B, Mike Schmidt, 1982
At this point, I’m fairly stuck at the bottom of the draft even if I take a cheap player. Maybe I could have used a couple cheap players to get to the middle … but are there cheap impactful relievers more important to my team than one of my middle-of-the-order bats? I think not. I would have taken ‘65 Oliva here had BeAllEndAll not grabbed him early in the round, because he’s one of the last high-average hitters I had a shot at for my remaining two starting spots. With no other OF2 standing out instead, I decided that with 3 Schmidts left on the board I ought to just take my favorite one and lock down my 7th starting spot.

I would have loved the ‘67 Santo still on the board, but that season was blocked since I took Horlen in R1. The last two good lefty bats, Evans and Mathews, went off the board in the previous couple rounds, so it basically came down to which Schmidt I liked best: 79, 82, or 84 (the 76 was off the board for me). I went with 82 because he’s a higher average hitter with more walks and better speed. His .960 OPS# is now the 3rd-best in my lineup, and he projects to hit 4th behind Henderson-Parker-McCovey.

Round 12, Pick 21
RP1, Phil Regan, 1966
How about that? My first pick that isn’t from the starting rotation or lineup! The bullpen is going to be a tough build, and getting a good number of solid innings from the RP1 spot should give me some flexibility to take a lower-innings guy later and keep my total in line. There were some better pitchers on the board, but not with 100+ innings.

Round 13, Pick 18
RP6, Ray Searage, 1984
Hands down Searage was the best remaining RP in any category with a 1.29 ERC# (0.70 in RL), with a .155 OAV. He walks a few guys, but I’ve got him penciled in as my 1-inning closer with his 39 innings. And of course as I finally take someone cheap, I still don’t move up a single spot in the draft. Sigh.

Round 14, Pick 18
RP3, Joe Sambito, 1980
The good relievers poured off the board as I found myself scratching top choices in each group off all over the place. Brewer, Hall, McGraw, Minton, Rau … and on it went. Thankfully a couple guys I still wanted remained by the end of the day and I was able to take this solid 90 innings from Sambito to pair with Regan in setup duty. This gives me 1,234 innings with 4 relievers to go, so I should hit 1,400 easily enough and hopefully a bit more.

Round 15, Pick 18
RP7, Ken Sanders, 1975
This pick came down to either Sanders or 1974 Tom House in RP2. I decided there was more depth left in RP2 for the remaining owners that I could still get House or someone pretty decent. Of course House went a few picks later right after another option I liked, Moose Haas. So RP2 doesn’t look too good for me now, nor does RP5. Those will just be long men or mop ups, probably.

Sanders is a solid pickup as my 4th late-inning guy, though. His 43 innings are high for this group, and a 1.87 ERC# with reasonable HR/9 should prove useful enough.

Round 16, Pick 16
RP4, Jay Howell, 1988
This is my least favorite pick of the draft so far. You’d think as a Dodger fan it would be great to nab one of the unsung stars of the ‘88 championship team, but this Howell makes me a little nervous in key situations. His HR/9 rate is great and what made me pick him in a coin toss over Lindy McDaniel, but he walks a lot of guys and with his .188 OAV Sparky is going to stick him into games more often than I’d like in key situations over some of my better guys unless I am really careful with my settings. Can someone accuse him of putting too much pine tar on his glove so he can’t get used?

Round 17, Pick 15
C2, Ron Hodges, 1974
There’s only one good thing to say about this pick: he’s cheap. Not super cheap, but at 569K he was about 500K cheaper than any of the other 7 C2 available to me at this point. Plus, unlike several of the others, he didn’t come from a year I was hoping to save for R25. He can’t hit or throw anyone out, but Munson has 576 PA so I don’t really need a whole lot from this spot anyway. I don’t know if I’ll need all my available cap room or not, but saving the 500K now feels like a good investment in R25 options at the small expense of a few more CS or hits.

(Footnote: It didn’t matter in the least.)

Round 18, Pick 10
RP2, Andy Messersmith, 1968
Bonus of the cheap catcher pick was moving into the top half of the draft again, though it likely didn’t matter much as most people are grabbing cheaper players now. Messersmith wasn’t my first choice at this spot by a longshot because he walks 4 per 9 innings, and that’s usually a recipe for trouble. But on the plus side, he’s really hard to hit (.157 OAV) and might prove pretty useful. I expect to use him as a long reliever mostly because the walks could really cause damage in close games, but I won’t be shocked if he puts up great stats.

Mapping out a set of potential remaining picks puts me around $100M total with an expected cap between $108-109M. This would put me in range of a couple great outfield options and maybe even a quality SP addition. I might want to keep ‘69 free for a shot at Fritz Peterson, because I'm still haunted by fears Mussina is going to suck.

Round 19, Pick 13
B4, Sid Bream, 1985
Building the rest of my roster could work out really well if there’s not much competition for the few positions and years I’m targeting. It could also blow up. But right now I already know my final 2 picks at RP5 and OF2 can’t be taken by anyone else, so I have four bench spots and four seasons I want to use and I’m going to draft whichever retains the fewest options first each time.

Bream isn’t great at all, nowhere near as good as 1979 Rod Craig who is similarly priced but I’m passing on because I want to use 79 on one of my other bench spots instead. But he gives me plenty of PA to do a lot of pinch hitting and spell McCovey occasionally, and he’s a bit of a defensive upgrade in case Sparky wants to sub him late. One down, three to go.

Round 20, Pick 13
B1, Pumpsie Green, 1963
I’m now down to 1963, 1972, and 1979 on my preferred list, and there’s a player for each season still available at the B1, B2, and B3 positions as this round begins. The problem is almost every owner needs 2 or 3 of these spots, too. I had 1969 in my back pocket as a 4th choice season to use, but only B1 had a player left there and 3day took him at the start of the round. So, no backup plan remains for my backups plan!

Once Terry Crowley went as one of my B1 options, I decided to pick there first and chose Green over ‘72 Cepeda. The pick right after mine was thejuice6 grabbing one of my now two remaining B3 choices, Ike Brown. So now it’s time to sweat and see if ‘79 Eddie Miller makes it to my next pick or I have to go to a backup backup plan.

Round 21, Pick 8
Bench 3, Eddie Miller, 1979
Phew! Had to wait out a few hours of delay until the last owner who could take Miller made their pick, but I survived the round without having to change course. Miller isn’t a bad pickup for the bench, though that’s just gravy. He plays A+ defense and has 93 speed along with a .300+ AVG, so he makes a fine PR/defensive replacement who can also hit when called upon.

Now we come to the last piece of the puzzle, my B2 spot where I want to choose 1972 and only reddtrain (who jumped me in this round by about 300K) can take my guy. So another round of waiting for the person right before me to pick.

Round 22, Pick 10
Bench 2, Lute Barnes, 1972
I had to sweat out another round of waiting to see if the one owner who could take my guy would. Then the night ended with reddtrain up in the draft just ahead of me, and I went to bed not knowing how it would play out. I happily woke up to see he’d gone elsewhere and I could draft this useless scrub I’d never heard of before who fit my grid but will almost never play.

Round 23, Pick 8
RP5, Rawly Eastwick, 1977
Eastwick will probably be a long man whose 44 innings might be helpful to keep fatigue at bay should I choose a hitter in R25. He puts me at 1,469, which is plenty. If I take a pitcher in R25, Eastwick likely throws fewer than 10 innings all season.

Round 24, Pick 8
OF2, Billy Williams, 1971
Whether Williams winds up a regular or an overpriced PH will depend on how R25 unfolds. I’ll be picking around 8th, and there are a lot of possible ways I might go there. Williams was locked in for me as the only owner who could draft him many rounds back, though I could have shifted to 69 Buford if I wanted to. Williams has about 100 more points of OPS, but Buford runs better, has better defense, and a higher OBP. If I wind up upgrading in R25, then Buford would have been a better backup probably.

Round 25, Pick 9
RP, Tim Burke, 1987
This turned into the round of “what could have been” for me. I tried to map out the likely picks ahead of me and did a decent job of guessing (6 out of 8 at least), but there were some surprising turns that changed my trajectory. Let’s start, though, by talking about remaining salary and how we got there. … So my 1981 lineup that I nominated was less than beloved, and down the stretch it became clear that at least 2 of the players had no shot at being taken but there was still hope for 2 others. I got a couple boosts when SP4 Burt Hooton went late along with a bench player, but everyone passed on the remaining four hitters. Since you don’t really know what your final salary cap will be, you have to draft the last couple rounds with guesswork in trying to figure out which seasons to hang onto for R25.

As it happens, I wound up with $9.160M to spend, which gave me a chance at a few players I was hoping for but also way too much cash for many of the possibilities. I was sure alice would take ‘65 Mays with the 2nd pick so I didn’t even think to lament that I fell 170K short of affording him … until alice took Wade Boggs instead and I realized how close I’d come to Mays. If I’d thought it possible, I could have worked things to take ’85 Vince Coleman instead of Billy Williams and had Coleman as a super pinch runner with Mays in the lineup. Oh well.

By this point, I’d narrowed down my choices to ‘64 Mantle, ‘65 Wilhelm and ‘69 Peterson. I was almost certain mllama54 and bigsteve 12 would take McGee and Raines, respectively, which left Mantle as the best hitter I could still take. Mantle would represent a solid 100 OPS points of improvement over Williams, which was highly tempting. In fact, I had made up my mind to do it … until thejuice6 pulled out his magic defensive realignment strategy that would have killed Earl Weaver’s brain. And lo and behold, he snatched Mantle away and of course Raines didn’t make it past bigsteve12 either. The only hitters left for me were ‘87 Molitor, who would have had to play out of position and badly in LF and wasn’t a huge enough boost over Williams in productivity, and the PH Phil Plantier.

So, pivot back to pitching. ‘69 Fritz Peterson with his 2.15 ERC# would be a little step up over Mussina in the rotation and would satisfyingly use up nearly every bit of my salary. He was definitely tempting. I didn’t trust ‘91 Nolan Ryan, who almost never performs well for me and winds up walking 6-7 guys every 9 innings. … That left me with a bullpen upgrade once again, and initially I was sold on ‘65 Wilhelm’s 144 innings. I wasn’t really looking at Burke’s 91 innings because it seemed like the difference in innings would favor Hoyt significantly.

But then a few things occurred to me … I’ve gotten mixed results from that Wilhelm before, and he’s a bit homer-prone. Burke has a way better performance history, too. And then, I started looking at possible division alignments and realized Burke would likely land me in the division with the lowest 4 cumulative salaries, and I definitely have my doubts about alice’s offense and juice’s defense in that group (don’t take it personally, folks!). Why not take the best available pitcher and if it happens to land me in a division I have a slightly better chance of winning, all the better, right?

Then, I just needed a sign from the heavens to tell me the right move. I added Burke to my roster to see how the numbers looked, and lo and behold the final salary broke down like this:

Position Salaries: $52,497,899
Pitcher Salaries: $52,497,872

Whoa! A $27 difference between hitting and pitching after all this? Truly, this was the sign I was looking for that I needed to take Tim Burke and achieve perfect balance on this team. This was meant to be, if anything ever was. So if it doesn’t work out, I’m blaming God.

I decided to stick the team in a park that favored pitching, since my guys put a lot of balls in play. Candlestick fit the bill with -1 for singles and triples, as we don’t hit many triples compared with 2B and HR anyway.

(Footnote: I did wind up in that last division, so now we find out if I’ll regret that notion. I think this team can win 90 games if the rotation does its part. But what do I know? I won the first version of this and spent V2 in the basement all season using basically the same strategy, so I shook things up a bit this time ... and then wound up leaving almost $5 million unspent after all my cost-cutting along the way. It's such a fine line between stupid and clever, you know.)

Rd 25: 1990 Mike Benjamin

Leave it to Chance
County Stadium

Pick 1.12: 1964 Dean Chance [SP1]
I struggle with salary cap leagues. In non-cap leagues, simply stacking up the most (usable) salary is usually a winning--or at least, competitive--strategy. Salary is truth. In cap leagues, the primary goal is finding players worth more than their salary. Salary is false.

Since I don't specialize in finding cookies and undervalued players, I instead focus on the other parts of optimizing a salary cap:
1) minimize wasted salary (e.g. don't waste PA/IP and don't spend on "inflated" salaries)
2) maximize total salary
3) maximize fit (e.g. players to ballpark)

For Round 25, I assumed I would take a pitcher. It's too hard to not waste PA in this theme since you have to draft a 600+ PA player at each position. That meant making sure I stayed low on IP.

Dean Chance is obviously a good pitcher, plus he's 13 innings less than the average SP1.

Pick 2.21: 1987 Dave Smith [RP6]
Dave Smith popped out as one of the best relievers relative to his bucket. He is +20 IP, but I hope to make all of that back up by drafting lower inning starters.

Pick 3.9: 1973 Rod Carew [2B]
Reasonably priced and right in-line with PAs. I want to be able to use my bench players, so while not as important for me as drafting low inning pitchers, I still don't want a lot of super high PA hitters.

Pick 4.15: 1971 Bobby Murcer [OF3]
Elite value and just 624 PA. There are lots of OF in the bench buckets. His B/B+ defense is good enough to play in center if needed, but not so good that it's wasted in a corner spot if that's where this team goes.

Pick 5.14: 1972 Carlton Fisk [C]
Really good hitting catcher and just 538 PA means my C2 bucket pick will be used.

Pick 6.11: 1965 Juan Marichal [SP2]
I violated one of my main rules but Marichal was by far the best pitcher still left for me. I still don't know where I'll play but with Marichal's higher HR numbers and my best hitters not relying on the long ball, trending towards a pitchers park.

Pick 7.20: 1970 Ken Sanders [RP1]
Elite quality and comes in 19 innings under the bucket average. Nice.

Pick 8.16: 1977 Mike Hargrove [1B]
Around this time, Schwarze starts pointing out that I'm trending way over cap projections. I guess I need to slow down a bit. Hargrove has an elite OBP#, below-average PA for his bucket, and doesn't rely on the HR. Plus he saves a few hundred thousand on the cap.

Pick 9.16: 1991 Todd Frohwirth [RP2]
The best RP2 available to me. Right in line with average IP for the bucket.

Pick 10.11: 1988 Dennis Eckersley [RP3]
I think similar to the pick above.

Pick 11.7: 1976 Dave Concepcion [SS]
Guess I need a SS. Most of these guys aren't good enough to hit anywhere near the top of the lineup, so definitely don't want one of these 700 PA guys. Concepcion has a decent OBP, decent glove, and just 636 PA. Bingo.

Pick 12.11: 1984 Mike Schmidt [3B]
Had been keeping an eye on the 3B bucket and it was starting to dwindle. Not Schmidt's best season by any stretch but still some good hitting, and he saves $600k (and almost 50 PA) relative to average.

Pick 13.11: 1985 Bob Woodward [RP7]
One of the remaining RP who is reasonably priced yet still good.

Pick 14.8: 1968 Pat Jarvis [SP3]
I think it's around this spot that I realize the cuts I'd have to make to get far enough below the salary cap such that I can draft a Rd 25 player will be extremely punitive. At a minimum, that means I need to get $3 to $5 million under the cap (which I don't know what it will be) to draft a Rd 25 player that I'm not even sure will be there for me! And along the way I have to keep open those extra seasons to make sure I can draft said Rd 25 player.

I also finally realize that if I punt on Rd 25, I don't even have to stay below my own salary cap! The rules state that I just can't go above $112m. Well, ****, in a capped league, who cares?! This is perfect. I get to spend to the max cap possible, gaining me likely a couple million over most teams. Plus, I can now get all my IP/PA in the main draft, and not have to worry about saving money or years or innings for the bonus round. Feels like a loophole (?) but I'll take it.

Anyway, back to my pick. There are no SP3s with short innings or low salary (there is a really bad SP4 Tom Seaver that can save innings/salary that I had been eyeing), but I had been holding off on taking Jarvis since the others saved some money. Now I feel free to lock him in.

It's also around this time that I was the only owner who could take 1992 Brett Butler (OF1) and 1979 Burt Hooton (SP4). This really helps with drafting and team building.

Pick 15.17: 1981 Tom Paciorek [OF2]
I was looking hard at 1992 Ken Griffey Jr. (OF2) as well as 1986 Puckett (OF1) among some other options. However, both Puckett (same bucket) and Griffey (same year) cut off my auto-option on 1992 Butler. I was also juggling trying to avoid certain years to keep my pitching options open.

Enter Paciorek whose 1981 season didn't cause me issues and allowed me to lock in 1992 Butler. He's a tad high with his 672 PA, but he's good enough he can hit near the top of the order. He also gives me some nice L/R balance throughout the lineup.

Pick 16.21: 1967 Hoyt Wilhelm [RP4]
After a few rounds of penny-pinching, I'm now feeling free. Screw it! Hoyt Wilhelm and your 89 innings (+19 vs bucket) and $3.2m salary (+$800k)...come on down!

Pick 17.21: 1978 Rick Auerbach [Bench2]
From this point on, I was balancing getting good bench at-bats that fit my team, but also staying under the cap and keeping my options open for my last couple pitching spots.

Around this time (maybe a bit earlier?) I became locked in on Nolan Ryan, another SP4 in addition to Hooton. I also still had the 1980 Seaver option. So I had the luxury of Ryan, the savings of Seaver, or the middle-ground of Hooton. At first, I dismissed the notion of Ryan, but after looking more at it, he was likely a better prize than anything I could get in Rd 25, so I started considering him more.

In any case, Auerbach has a very nice bat and he can play all 3 IF positions. He'll mostly spell Carew at 2B.

Pick 18.19: 1986 Kevin Seitzer [Bench1]
Seitzer is a terrible glove but Schmidt is one of my lowest PA hitters and will likely hit towards the top of the order. Seitzer gives me over 100 PA, most of which will be at the hot corner, where his bat will play fine but his glove will not.

Pick 19.17: 1969 Billy Cowan [Bench3]
Mostly just fitting puzzle pieces at this point. Cowan saves some money and gives some OF at-bats.

Pick 20.17: 1983 Biff Pocoroba [C2]
Pick 21.16: 1982 Jim Dwyer [Bench4]
Pick 22: 1992 Brett Butler [OF1]
Pick 23: 1966 Eddie Fisher [RP5]
Pick 24: 1989 Nolan Ryan [SP4]

I was very close to being able to do 1966 Duke Sims at C2 (an upgrade over Pocoroba) and 1980 John Henry Johnson at RP5 (an upgrade over Fisher). But I thought it was more important to get some extra PA, especially in the OF, so I opted to play it safe with Dwyer, who has 178 PA and can play 1B and OF.

My last decision came down to the SP4 spot:

1) Nolan Ryan meant having to take Pocoroba and Fisher, plus punt on the Rd25, but it got me the best SP4 of the group.

2) Burt Hooton could have upgraded my bench, but at the expense of my SP4.

3) Tom Seaver plus the cheapeast options at the other spots would have gotten me just enough to afford whatver the low-PA Mantle was in Rd25. But that would mean downgrading my SP4 significantly, so that I could get 250 PA of Mantle. Which means replacing some of Paciorek and some bench at-bats. And all of that is if Mantle made it to me. If not, there was no other bonus player that I could draft. It just didn't make any sense to got this route.

I was a bit bummed I couldn't quite fit a better C2 or RP5 with Ryan, but it doesn't matter much. Really, Nolan Ryan just became my "bonus" pick. Not bad.

Pick 25: 1990 Mike Benjamin
Benjamin gives a few more infield PAs and a bit of life in his bat.

BALLPARK: County Stadium (Brewers)
I originally decided to put the team in Fenway. Our biggest relative strenghts versus the league are in BA/OAV, so definitely wanted some plus 1B. We're average in SLG but with low HR so more 2B/3B are good. Plus the little power we do have is a bit more RH (Schmidt, Fisk, Paciorek), so the HR rating skewed in favor of LF is a positive.

Once my division was set, I saw I'm at a bit more of a SLG/HR deficit so went a bit more conservative into County Stadium. Much lower on the doubles and a bit lower on the HR as well.

Lineup
vs LHP vs RHP
1 2B Carew LF Butler
2 RF Paciorek 2B Carew
3 CF Murcer 3B Schmidt
4 3B Schmidt CF Murcer
5 1B Hargrove RF Paciorek
6 C Fisk 1B Hargrove
7 LF Butler C Fisk
8 SS Concepcion SS Concepcion

Butler and Paciorek essentially swap depending on the pitchers hand. Fisk hits lower to save at-bats while Hargrove drops below Paciorek to keep L/R balance.

Pitching Staff
SP1 Chance
SP2 Marichal
SP3 Jarvis
SP4 Ryan

CLA Woodward
SUA Smith
Eckersley
LRA Frohwirth
Sanders

LRB Wilhelm

MOP Fisher

Going into this draft, I knew that getting the best players in each "bucket" wasn't the ideal strategy due to the salary cap, so my focus was on getting the best "values" in each bucket. Furthermore, I wanted a team full of players that I liked and/or players that had performed well for me in the past. That means lots of switch hitters with high OBP%. In addition to drafting less expensive players than most, I knew I was going to draft a few 200K players to help me draft near the top of Round 25. As far as bonus players, I didn't have a specific target going in. I know I wanted a stud.

Note that this was written as the draft progressed. Anything added post-draft will say EDIT.

Pick 1.9
1978 Ted Simmons, C
Typically, I would take a SP here. Among my top choices that were available at pick 9 were '86 Clemens, '89 Saberhagen, '64 Chance, '80 Norris. But I decided that the top pitchers weren't going to fly of the board like they normally due. The salary cap has an interesting and unpredictable effect on the draft. I decided to draft some of my favorite hitters that are reasonably priced. I considered '74 Joe Morgan, but 1974 has five <300K players that will be useful late in the draft. I went with '78 Simmons over '77 Simmons to save $900K plus '78 has a better OPS+.
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Pick 2.5
1977 Reggie Smith, OF3
I want some version of Ken Singleton on my roster, but there are multiple Singletons available so I can wait a little bit. Getting the fifth best OF3 (measured by OPS+), who is a switch hitter and costs less than $6M, and who crushes for me seemed like the obvious choice here. By the way, I'm in a $120M theme league and thru 54 games, '77 Reggie Smith has the following slash line playing his home games in Robison Field… .322/.440/.678.
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Pick 3.4
1981 Don Sutton, SP3
Two of the three SPs I was looking at last round ('89 Saberhagen & '85 Hershiser) both got taken, but '80 Norris is still on the board. I should take him now, but there are a lot of decent SP2's still left. For some reason, over half the league has drafted their SP3 already and '81 Sutton was clearly the best one left, and is a good bargain at only $7.6 million. If Norris is still available in round 4, I may have to take him.
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Pick 4.6
1968 Carl Yastrzemski, 1B
Of course, '80 Norris went a few picks in front of me. I would have strongly considered '83 Boggs here had he not gone to calhoop one pick before me. I almost pulled the trigger on '73 Ken Singleton, but OF1 is also very deep. I briefly considered '82 Yount at shortstop - not b/c I love Yount's season (it's good, but expensive), but b/c 1982 has nothing else. On the pitching side of things, '68 Luis Tiant is by far the best SP still on the board, but with a $12M+ salary, he's $4M more expensive than the average SP2, and he doesn't normalize well, so he's a hard pass for me. Although 1B is deep, if I don't take '68 Yaz here, 1968 doesn't really provide me with anything else I want. I'm happy with this pick and feel really good about my offense so far.
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Pick 5.5
1971 Joe Torre, 3B
Well, '73 Singleton got selected. '82 Yount also got taken. And '68 Tiant finally went. I really want to take a stud 3B here. My three choices are '66 Dick Allen, '71 Torre and '82 Mike Schmidt. Schmidt is the worst hitter of the bunch, but 1982 is a wasteland for decent players and Schmidt is $1-2 million cheaper than the other two guys. His Open League performance numbers are pretty good but I'm skeptical he can produce those numbers in a higher capped theme. I was all set to take Dick Allen, but I just checked a $100M theme league that I have him in and his slash line through 60 games is an abysmal .229/.323/.355. Ugh. Torre it is.
EDIT: I should have waited on 3B. Dick Allen went two rounds later and 82 Schmidt went in round 11! Also, I would've taken '71 Billy Williams as my OF2 (he went at the end of the draft!)
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Round 6.10
1975 Ken Singleton, OF1
This may have been the toughest choice of the draft for me. Here are the players I was seriously contemplating… '75 Jim Palmer (SP1), '76 Randy Jones (SP1), '64 White Ford (SP2), '63 AL Downing (SP4), '83 Atlee Hammaker (SP4), '79 Gary Templeton (SS), '79 Ken Singleton (OF1). Had my pick come two hours earlier, I was 100% certain I was taking Jim Palmer. An hour later, I had Whitey Ford typed into my spreadsheet. 30 minutes after that, I was certain Gary Templeton was the pick. I came up with valid reasons on why not to take each those guys, and finally had settled on Singleton. But which one? If I take '75, then I lose out on Palmer. If I take '79, I lose out on Templeton. I could gamble and hope one (or both) make it back to me next round, but I know how this works. If one Singleton goes, the other will go soon after. My pitching is going to suck.
EDIT: 79 Singleton went 4 rounds later. I should've taken Ford.
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Round 7.11
1964 Whitey Ford, SP2
1979 Garry Templeton, SS
I've been way off on my analysis on when players would get taken. Two rounds ago, I thought I had a tough decision. Yet, both '72 Allen and '82 Schmidt are still on the board (I could passed on Torre and waited to take my stud 3B). Last round, I thought I had a tough decision yet every player I passed on is still on the board. I can't take '75 Palmer or '79 Singleton anymore. So, it comes down to '64 Ford, '63 Downing, '83 Hammaker and '79 Templeton. The salaries are so bunched up, that if I take a $2 million RP, I could move all the way up to pick #2 in round 8. But here's the thing… picking a cheap player to gain an advantage in future draft positions is an illusion. Sure, I am picking early in future rounds, but was that cheap player worth the opportunity cost? My goal is to get both Ford and Templeton. If I grab a $2M player here, sure I move up to #2 and skip a bunch of folks who could take Ford, so I would take Ford in round 8. Then I have to wait all the way to the middle of round 9 to take Templeton. Anyway, I was all set to take Ford here, but I've come to the conclusion that a bunch of shortstops will be going soon, and if I miss Ford, I will take '89 Jose DeLeon instead, which I can live with.
EDIT: No way was Whitey Ford going to make it another round. Dumb.
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My drafting strategy is starting to flip from taking guys I want, to figuring out which buckets I can wait to fill until the end to draft. This goes hand in hand with figuring out what Bonus player am I targeting. Currently, I have six starting lineup positions filled, needing just 2B and OF2. I think OF2 is very deep and I can live with 8-9 guys that are still on the board. I could add an outfielder like '85 Willie McGee or '86 Tim Raines as my bonus player. I could also move '68 Yaz to OF and grab a Bonus 1B. Hmmm, '85 Brett plays 1B, but he is too expensive. At 2B, '65 Rose is the best hitter left, but he's a C+/C- fielder and I need better defense. I can live with somebody like '84 Johnny Ray or '69 Horace Clarke so I can wait on 2B. I would also be fine adding '73 Joe Morgan or '74 Rod Carew as my bonus player. I am certainly going to wait on these two positions, which means it's time to start filling out the pitching rotation.
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Round 8.12
1974 Dale Murray, RP3
Well, that f*cking sucks! I somewhat expected '64 Whitey Ford to get selected. Once he went, I was all set to take '89 Jose DeLeon at SP2. Only one person could even legally take him, and sure enough, reddtrain grabbed DeLeon. The ONE TIME I 100% knew my pick before my turn came up and he gets sniped. Now I am telling myself… don't panic. I'm not going to make the same mistake I did in version 2 when I reached for a mediocre Cliff Lee way earlier than I should have (he sucked, by the way). Nope - I am going to pass on drafting my SP1, SP2 and SP4 (Hammaker got taken, and I'm now souring on '63 Downing now due to his very high walk rate). I will try to build a strong bullpen and hope my offense can bail me out of some early inning deficits. I'm going with a highly rated and reasonably priced RP that also fills a season without many good options left. Dale Murray fits the bill perfectly. And as an added bonus, that moves me way up the draft order. This pick kills '74 Carew from my Bonus player options. I'm going to leave open the possibility of getting a Bonus starting pitcher.
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Round 9.3
1991 Bret Saberhagan, SP4
Well, '63 Al Downing just got picked by 3dayrotation and I have to admit I was tempted to take him if he fell to me. Saberhagen is the best SP4 left that fits my team and he fills a season that has almost no other good options. I would have considered '89 Todd Burns here but pedrocerrano grabbed him a few picks earlier. I don't see any other RPs that are a must-draft at this point. I am still going to wait on SP2. I may have to bite the bullet and grab an SP1 next round… either '86 Mike Witt or '76 Randy Jones. '63 Tiefenauer would be very tempting as there isn't a lot left to like about 1963. As it stands now, I am still planning on taking '73 Morgan in round 25, although it's getting harder and harder to pass on '65 Pete Rose.
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Round 10.5
1963 Bobby Tiefenauer, RP5
I probably would have taken '65 Pete Rose here, but he went at the end of round 9. He was the last really good hitting 2B available, so now I feel like I am locked in to taking '73 Joe Morgan as my bonus player. There are still a number of OF2's that I like ('65 Oliva, '69 Buford) so I will wait on that position. I really should take my SP1 now that Randy Jones got taken (i.e,. I love Mike Witt) but there are only 3 other people left that need a SP1. I figured that if I go cheap here, I can jump ahead of two of them. '63 Bobby Tiefenauer is the perfect player. '63 doesn't have much left that I like and I've had success with Tiefenauer before - plus he's cheap. I'm now in the top 8 for lowest expected salary.
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Round 11.2
1966 Pat Jarvis, RP4
I've been targeting Mike Witt with this pick since last round, but after reviewing the other SP1's left, I've talked myself into '67 Bunning, '70 Jenkins or '80 Carlton if '86 Witt goes. The only downside on those guys is they are over $1 million more expensive than Witt (but they do have more innings). Witt's biggest positive is that he's one of the cheapest available SP1 that can also pitch somewhat well. '65 Oliva and '69 Buford are both still on the board so I'm waiting another round on either of those guys.
EDIT: '69 Buford never got taken
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Round 12.2
1988 Doug Jones, RP2
Before I made this pick, I spent a lot of time reviewing what others needed and I learned that I am the only person that can draft '67 Bunning, so now I can wait till the end of the draft to take my SP1…. As much as I like '86 Witt, the advantage of knowing I can wait is way too valuable to waste by taking Witt now. I also am coming to the realization that mllama54 might also be targeting '73 Joe Morgan (he's got his four SPs and his entire lineup except 2B). He's over $1 million ahead of me in lower projected salary. If I had to pick an available 2B to use, my top choice is '69 Horace Clarke and only one other person (Mr. All) needs that player, so I am going hold off on drafting any 1969 players (i.e., I also like Buford & Tatum). Since '65 Oliva went, my other OF2 choices are '83 Cruz, '92 Griffey Jr., '72 R.White and '73 B.North. But I can't take OF2 now, because I may not get '73 Morgan, I may need to target a good OF in round 25 ('85 McGee, '65 Mays, '90 Henderson and '86 Raines). Of course, I could always improve the pitching staff in round 25 as well. Since I am not taking 2B, OF2, SP1 or SP2, it's another RP. It came down to '88 Jones and '89 Montgomery, but '89 has other options so Jones it is.
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Round 13.2
1983 Dan Quisenberry, RP1
I was hoping BeAllEndAll would grab a '69 player (or a 2B) so I have some clarity with the 2B situation, but he is grabbing RPs. mllama54 did finally draft his 2B, but he took a very cheap '71 Carew who is a terrible fielder. I need to "pick a lane" and stick to it. I think I am giving up my hope of getting '73 Morgan, which means I need to draft '69 Horace Clarke. I think I can wait at least one round. 1966 Phil Regan just went - the top 2 RP1's left are Quisenberry and '69 Ken Tatum and there's a dropoff after them. I am taking Quisenberry, with the hope that Mr. All takes Tatum. If he doesn't, I have to take Clarke next round.
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Round 14.2
1989 Keith Moreland, C2
Still no clarity at 2B, although Mr. All grabbed his starting SS. He still needs 2B, 3B, OF1, OF3, so I am going to gamble another round on Horace Clark. I almost pulled the trigger on '92 Griffey Jr. He's easily the best OF2 that is available to me, but he's expensive and if I take him and Mr. All jumps me, I could be screwed at 2B. Also, only two others can even draft Griffey Jr. So maybe that will sort itself out. If I end up with Griffey Jr. and H.Clarke, then my Bonus player will have to be a pitcher. There is still a glimmer of hoping that mllama54 will go after somebody other than '73 Morgan, so I want to keep that option open as long as possible. I really hope Mr. All takes a somebody like Jorge Orta or maybe '69 Tatum. Or maybe mllama54 will grab a 1973 player. I'm running out of time on making a final decision.
EDIT: One of the reasons I grabbed '78 Ted Simmons early is b/c I wanted a catcher with 600+ PA so I could save salary on my C2. I built this 1989 roster with the hopes of getting the $245K Moreland. Simmons will bat 8th.
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Round 15.2
1969 Horace Clarke
So I researched the Bonus Player options for all those that have lower expected salaries than me. And what I learned is four people ahead of me still need their starting 2B and three of those still have 1973 open. So I've come to the conclusion that I won't be getting '73 Morgan… no more waiting for Clarke. Although for a brief second, I considered maybe taking a shot at '69 Petrocelli and playing him at 2B. Hardly anybody in front of me in lowest salary still has 1969 open. Since Clarke's $5.8 million salary drops me a bit, I need to start saving salary. My new Round 25 target is '85 McGee, or '86 Raines.
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Round 16.5
1964 Aurelio Monteagudo, RP6
I'm glad I grabbed Clarke when I did. It seems Mr. All was keeping a close on eye on him as well. After adding this $5.8 million player, we need to get our salary lowered again to have a shot at the big guns. When I drafted Quisenberry's 139 innings, I knew I would be going super-cheap at RP6 and/or RP7. This $200K pitcher saves me $800K in projected salary. Wait - I just realized that 3dayrotation grabbed a 1986 player (Yount). I thought for sure he was saving his salary for '86 Mike Scott. Of the 8 lowest projected salaries, I'm the only one who hasn't used 1986 yet (Ironically, I was keeping the spot open for Tim Raines in case '85 McGee got picked before my turn). I'm about $1 million ahead of bigsteve12 & njbigwig for the Mike Scott lottery but I don't think they can get their salary low enough to afford him. I would have to go really cheap on my remaining picks to get enough salary room to afford Scott. This means no '67 Bunning at SP1 or '92 Griffey at OF2. And most of my bench players need to be near $200K. It's a bit risky to try. I don't think I can commit to '86 Scott unless I get some clarity on my OF2 situation. I was taking '64 Monteagudo this round regardless.
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Round 17.2
1987 Bob Welch, SP2
An interesting development just occurred. Both midknight and reddtrain jumped ahead and grabbed their OF2. Now, I can wait till the end on '92 Ken Griffey Jr. (or '73 Billy North if I need the salary cap room for Scott). Since this $900K difference gives me flexibility at the end of the draft, I think I have to take a shot at Mike Scott. If I can't afford him, I could take Griffey Jr. and grab a pitcher like Eckersley or J.R. Richard in round 25. That being said, I had '82 Valenzuela originally targeted as my SP2, but Welch isn't that much worse statistically and he will save almost $1 million. I guess I will have zero lefties on my pitching staff.
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Round 18.3
1965 Jack Lamabe, RP7
Now that 3dayrotation picked his SP1, I have a choice of '90 Stewart, '84 Stieb and '67 Bunning as my SP1 ('86 Mike Witt is still available too). But I don't think I can get Scott if I choose Bunning, so he's out. '84 Stieb is better than '90 Stewart, but I can wait until the end to decide. So now that I got my other $200K pitcher this round, it's just a matter of filling out my bench. At this exact moment, the lowest my salary cap can be is $109.983 million. Assuming I roster '92 Griffey Jr., if I draft three $200K bench guys plus a $900K pinch hitter, that puts my salary at $97.527 million, giving me $12.456 million to spend in round 25. Mike Scott costs $12.354 million. It's going to be close. I could use some more players drafted from the years 1965, 1967, 1969, 1989. One of these seasons will end up being my median season.
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Round 19.3
1990 Broderick Perkins, Bench4
After much thought, I kind of like '72 Roy White better than '92 Ken Griffey Jr. Sure, Griffey has a higher slugging and OPS, but White has the better OBP, has way more PA and is cheaper. Oh, and he's a switch-hitter. By rostering Roy White instead of Griffey Jr., I can take some bench players that actually will contribute since I now have an extra $800K to play with. After Perkins, my goal is to get '70 Aurelio Rodriguez (B1), '67 Bob Heise (B2) and '85 Mel Hall (B3). I just need to figure out the right order to take them.
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Round 20.3
1982 Wayne Tolleson, Bench2
Damn, Bob Heise went to bigsteve12 - the first time in a while where somebody I wanted got picked. Now it's no longer a matter of who I want, but a matter of not getting stuck with a high-priced guy I don't want. I have to take the $200K Tolleson here or get stuck with some bum costing between $800K and $1.2 million. I should have taken Heise last round.
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Round 21.2
1985 Mel Hall, Bench3
bigsteve12 is making a move to pass me in the round 25 draft order and he has 1986 still open. I needed to do some quick math to see if he can afford Mike Scott. I add the cheapest eligible player at each position to his current roster and I realize he's for sure going to spend less than me if he goes that route. But what is his salary cap amount? Ironically, his season is 1986. Adding in '86 Mike Scott, he needs a $110,389,702 cap and is currently about $765K short of that. Scanning the available 1986 players undrafted, Kirby Puckett is $7.63 million, but nobody can take him. There's also a $7.1 million Mike Krukow, who also can not be drafted. The RPs and bench players don't have enough to get there… I think I'm safe. He'll probably go after '86 Tim Raines. Anyway, '85 Mel Hall gives me a nice cheap pinch hitter.
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EDIT:
At this point in the draft in the draft, I stopped updating my writeup. It was Friday night and I was going out to play poker. ff09 had given me his proxy, '81 Aurelio Rodrigiuez plus two locks ('75 Candelaria, '78 Templeton). Since he was the only person who could take '92 Reggie Jefferson, I could fill out the rest of my lineup (Jefferson + '72 White & '84 Stieb). All I needed was for pedrocerrano to not take '81 Rodriguez. I had to leave so I sent all of this to Jtpsops. As I'm driving to poker, I get a text from redcped that there's an issue with my proxy and I learn that '81 Rodriguez had been taken. I text ff09 for a replacement pick, and he says he wants '66 Lee May so I sitemail Jtpsops. (Obviously I didn't know njbigwig just took Lee May). Anyway, I didn't want to hold things up anymore, so...
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Round 22.2
1972 Roy White, OF2
See redcped can still take '72 White. If I take '92 Jefferson now, and redcped takes White, I am stuck taking '73 North (which was my last choice). If I take '92 Griffey Jr. instead, the maximum I can spend on my Bench1 is 300K (assuming my salary cap doesn't increase). Anyway, I later find out late that ff09 takes '92 Jefferson. The good news is that I won $400 at the poker game.
EDIT: I could have taken '70 Aurelio Rodriguez for 3B defense for '71 Torre. That would've left me the option of '92 Griffey or '72 White.
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Round 23.4
1973 Chis Arnold, Bench1
Holy crap... a bunch of Bench1 guys that I could legally take all get taken. I was starting to get worried I might get stuck. I had only two choices left, and Arnold isn't bad. He actually has catcher eligibility, so if I need to rest Simmons a bit, Arnold is way better than Moreland. The good news is that I am a lock to get '86 Mike Scott (I had '90 Eckersley as a fallback option had something gone wrong).
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Round 24.2
1984 Dave Stieb, SP1
One thing I learned in the last draft is that once about 17-18 starting pitchers get taken, there is no reason to reach... just wait till the end... I might end up getting the guy I was going to reach for anyway. FYI, '86 Mike Witt went very late to calhoop and I almost reached for him 12 rounds ago.
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Hitting Totals

Bucket	Player	Bats	PA162	AVG#	OBP#	SLG#	OPS#	Defense	Salary	OPS+
C	1978 Ted Simmons	S	604	0.291	0.382	0.517	0.899	B/B+/A-	6,078,827	128
1B	1968 Carl Yastrzemski	L	664	0.319	0.444	0.518	0.962	A/C+	7,229,774	145
2B	1969 Horace Clarke	S	704	0.294	0.343	0.373	0.716	B/A	5,802,318	102
3B	1971 Joe Torre	R	707	0.369	0.428	0.564	0.991	C+/D	8,199,349	143
SS	1979 Garry Templeton	S	696	0.315	0.334	0.457	0.791	C/A+	6,288,937	111
OF1	1975 Ken Singleton	S	728	0.303	0.416	0.456	0.871	A-/D+	5,769,394	123
OF2	1972 Roy White	S	697	0.282	0.396	0.396	0.792	A/B-	5,787,063	117
OF3	1977 Reggie Smith	S	603	0.308	0.427	0.569	0.996	B-/D+	5,958,677	138
PH	1980 Broderick Perkins	L	111	0.372	0.437	0.524	0.961	C-/D-	1,104,847	137
PH	1985 Mel Hall	L	75	0.319	0.388	0.397	0.785	C/D-	399,162	109
PH	1973 Chris Arnold	R	63	0.301	0.385	0.392	0.777	C/D-/D-	300,893	110
	Weighted Total			0.312	0.396	0.478	0.874		52,919,241

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Pitching Totals

Bucket	Player	Throws	IP162	ERC#	OAV#	WHIP#	HR9#	BB9#	K9#	Salary	ERC+
Bonus	1986 Mike Scott	R	276	1.73	0.191	0.94	0.50	2.3	7.8	12,354,070	218
SP1	1984 Dave Stieb*	R	180	2.72	0.221	1.13	0.55	3.0	6.2	7,593,115	144
SP2	1987 Bob Welch*	R	180	2.72	0.222	1.15	0.62	3.0	5.8	7,313,215	142
SP3	1981 Don Sutton	R	234	2.20	0.233	1.04	0.37	1.7	5.7	7,671,239	167
SP4	1991 Bret Saberhagen	R	197	2.46	0.229	1.07	0.47	2.0	5.5	5,898,553	158
RP1	1983 Dan Quisenberry	R	139	1.76	0.228	0.93	0.34	0.7	3.1	5,065,903	220
RP2	1988 Doug Jones	R	84	1.88	0.219	1.03	0.09	1.7	6.8	3,321,419	202
RP3	1974 Dale Murray	R	71	1.67	0.191	0.99	0.13	2.8	3.9	2,960,886	226
RP4	1966 Pat Jarvis	R	63	1.69	0.209	0.97	0.12	1.9	5.2	2,495,577	221
RP5	1963 Bobby Tiefenauer	R	30	1.48	0.203	0.86	0.28	1.3	5.7	1,181,276	241
	Weighted Total		1454	2.15	0.217	1.03	0.42	2.1	5.9	55,855,253

* With Mike Scott added, Stieb & Welch will only pitch about 70% of their real-life innings.

Also, I've decided to play in Busch stadium. Although I have a bit of power offensively, it's not a ton and I'd prefer to keep the HRs down for my SPs.

Plantier’s Fasciitis- I drafted season 1980 as it is one of my favorite seasons from my childhood watching the Billy Ball A's play. I didn’t have a bonus player draft strategy, just trying to draft the best team I could from the players available. I regretted this decision around pick 17. After finishing mediocre seasons 1 & 2 with 81 & 85 wins respectively, it appears I may be headed for another mediocre team. At least I hope!

Round 1.5: SP4 Dwight Gooden (1984) - A stud SP for a reasonable price. 84 Gooden typically does better for me than 85 Gooden.

Round 2.13: RP5 Dennis Eckersley (1989) - It was late Saturday night, and I didn’t have a lot of time to research, so I thought I’d grab a low-priced stud closer to move up in round three. Simple pick with not a lot of thinking needed.

Round 3.2: SP2 Gary Peters (1967) I was ready to draft some offense and had 1990 Sandberg in my top hitters I wanted. Decided I needed a solid lefty pitcher that wasn’t terribly expensive. Sandberg got selected 10 picks later. The pick jettisoned me from 2^nd pick to 9^th for the next round. Hope it was the right move.

Round 4.9: 3B Wade Boggs (1985) I needed to start on my offense. A great batter, despite the salary.

Round 5.13: C Carlton Fisk (1990) When Schwarze texted me for my next pick, I selected the reasonably priced Fisk. I had been holding off drafting any of the 2 available versions of my all-time fav Rickey Henderson, thinking one of them would have made it to round 6. (82 was already gone). When I got home to look at the draft status, I realized 80 Rickey went in the previous round, and 81 Rickey went shortly before my Fisk pick. I also screwed myself out of 1990 Bonus Rickey with this pick. Bummer! The silver lining is that Rickey is a notorious underperformer in WIS.

Round 6.6: OF Reggie Jackson (1969) Needed to start collecting some power, and had 1970 Howard and 69 Reggie on my short list. Since I grew up a Reggie fan, I decided to overlook his defense and grab one of my favs. I realized when I got home that Howard had just been selected before me anyway.

Round 7.10: 1B Cecil Cooper (1980) I finally draft from the 1980 team I selected. I fully expected to get Rickey or Mike Norris, but they both went way early. 1980 Cooper, the 2^nd most expensive 1B in the draft, always does pretty good for me.

Round 8.13: SP1 Dean Chance (1968) I debated drafting an leadoff hitter, a cheap reliever, or a SP. I figured to bite the high salary bullet and take a “Chance”. Haven’t used him much. Hope he is a stud.

Round 9.18: 2B Joe Morgan (1970) – I was planning on taking Mazzilli to be my leadoff hitter, but he was snatched, and 2B was getting thin. Ideally, my leadoff hitter would have a higher batting average, but Morgan was the man.

Round 10.17: Bench3 Jerry Mumphrey (1983) - I needed a solid fielding OF to backup Reggie’s bad Defense. Mumphrey helps here and is also a solid PH.

Round 11.11: RP4 Bobby Shantz (1963) – A solid left-handed set-up guy.

Round 12.9: OF3 George Foster (1976) - The remaining OF3 that were available to me were thin and Foster is solid all around.

Round 13.12: OF2 Danny Tartabull (1987) – A modest salary because of his poor defense, but needed power.

Round 14:15: RP7 Dave Guisti (1964) – Wanted a cheap player who doesn’t totally suck.

Round 15.11: SP3 Wayne Twitchell (1973) – Rounding out my rotation with this mediocre stiff.

Round 16.17: RP3- Bill Caudill (1982) – I’ve had decent luck with this version of Caudill. Another set-up guy.

Round 17.17: Bench4 – Buddy Bradford (1974) – Good average and decent power for this PH. It was about this round that I realized I was going to end up with a crappy SS and I didn't set myself up for an available bonus round SS. Ugh.

Round 18.13: Bench2 – Ted Martinez (1971) Eh

Round 19.11: RP1 Mark Davis (1988) - Too many walks, but good OAV and I needed a lefty.

Round 20.14: C2 Dwight Lowry (1986) - When schwarze texted me it was my pick, I couldn’t remember if I had selected a 1986 player, because I had different 1986 guys penciled every round. I realized I was good to go and was happy to get Lowry.

Round 21.15: RP6 Manny Sarmiento (1977) – Good OAV but bad homers.

Round 22: Bench1 Reggie Jefferson (1992) - My 3^rd option after 1981 Rodriguez and 1966 May were selected ahead of me.

Round 23: RP2 John Candelaria (1975) - I had Stu Miller penciled in for many rounds but he was taken earlier this round. Candy Man was a great 2^nd choice.

Round 24: SS Gary Templeton (1978) – Looks like Gary will be my starting SS.

Round 25.12: PH Phil Plantier (1991) - My salary didn’t allow too many good choices, but I’m thrilled to have this solid pinch hitter!
Years not drafted: 1965, 1966, 1972, 1979, 1981

Team RL Totals:
Hitters totals: .309avg .385opb .487slg .872ops 193homers
Pitchers totals: .204oav 1.05whip 2.43era 90homers allowed

I’m imagining playing poker against schwarze…

Posted by pmars2001 on 8/8/2022 10:04:00 AM (view original):
I’m imagining playing poker against schwarze…

He's usually ahead all round and then on the river his bullpen inevitably comes in and allows the other player to complete his inside straight draw for the bad beat.

LOL. Heck, an inside straight draw is a 4-outer. I don't even react to those anymore.

I've seen lots of 1 and 2-outers hit on the river against me. I'm pretty sure the people I regularly play against chase those *just* to see my reaction when they hit.

Reminds me of a cash-game hand I once played vs my buddies.. my KK vs opponent's AK, all-in preflop. We decided to run it twice (b/c I know when I'm way ahead like that, it's unlikely I will lose both, even if I am giving my opponent the better opportunity to chop). The opponent hit his ace on both boards.

No use for a name
Yankee Stadium I

My apologies for the length of this narrative but I wrote it while we were drafting. It was only intended to be a few pages but ended at 11. If you have that kind of time, enjoy. This draft was a lot of fun and the lessons learned here will be applied in v4, which I am very much looking forward to.

Redistribution Draft v3
Round 1, pick 2 - I didn’t have time to do much research and didn’t have a plan to start beyond trying to build a solid pitching staff. And then I pulled the 2^nd pick, a blessing and a curse! After a quick scan of all the available players I found one player who seemed to standout in his bucket more than any others. After a quick clarification from schwarze on how SP’s were assigned to their respective buckets I at least knew who my 1^st pick would be, staff ace from SP3 bucket, 1978 Ron Guidry.
Round 2, pick 46 – The downfall to picking Guidry early is he is one of the most expensive players and that meant I would most likely have a very long wait, and wait we did, to the 22^nd pick of round 2. This gave me time to research and build my draft book. By the time it got to my pick I had researched all starting fielders, back-up catcher, all 4 SP’s and RP’s 1-4. There were still a lot of targets on the board just from these positions and I’ve decided I need to improve my draft position to have a better chance to get some of them down the road. One thing I noticed that scares me were how expensive RP’s were, especially 1-3. It seemed possible to get in trouble salary wise if I wasn’t careful when selecting my more expensive SP’s. So, I went proactive and targeted a cheap RP4, 1992 Derek Lilliquist at $2.3M, significantly improving my 3^rd round draft position while filling 1 of 3 LHRP positions.
Round 3, pick 61 – Moved up 9 picks in round 3 to pick 13. ‘66 Koufax is still on the table and I like Koufax a lot. But too early for another 12M hit. Managed to only research RP5 before my next pick. Still want to have a better draft position in the later rounds as well as some money to spend. Targeted our RP3, another LHRP in 1964 Bill Henry with a $2.4M salary. Movin on up…
Round 4, pick 75 – Moved up 10 spots to the 3^rd pick in round 4. Damn it, catcher I wanted (’67 McCarver) just went right before my pick. Oh well, probably wouldn’t have gotten him as late as I was hoping anyway. Now I want to pull the trigger on another SP. At this point, SP1 will be the last SP I draft (long target is ’87 Jimmy Key) so I looked at SP2 ’68 Luis Tiant or SP4 ’72 Roger Nelson. Nelson was significantly cheaper and would help me maintain draft position so we added his $6.6M salary to our roster. Drafting Nelson also means I need to get at least 500 IP’s from my SP1 & 2. Shouldn’t be a problem with the buckets sorted as they are and having spent slightly under $20M on an ace and a #4 starter.
Round 5, pick 99 – Kept the 3^rd pick in the round. Really want to grab ’68 Tiant now. But the $12M hit… not yet. C’s and 3B are getting scarce. Bench or Munson, Torre or Lansford? Better grab my catcher, 1970 Thurman Munson and his bullet arm. *** Immediately after I picked Munson, next 3 picks: 68 Tiant, 71 Torre, 69 Bench. Should have grabbed Tiant or Torre. *** HA! Two picks later and there goes ’87 Key!
Round 6, pick 123 – Still got 3^rd pick. It has been nice but won’t last. Going to go SP2 and grab one of the Marichal years. Prefer ’66 over ’65. Could also go SP1 and grab ’77 Seaver…3 more picks til ours… on further review, only 3day can grab ’66 Marichal and he doesn’t have a pitcher yet… Got ’66 Juan Marichal. Seaver went right before him making my choice easy.
1^st Quarter Completion Analysis – Got 3 SP’s for 765 IP’s @ 2.02 / .197 / 0.89 and 0.69 HR/9. Pretty happy with that and going to need it with schwarze’s initial offensive slash of .313 / .414 / .518. Picked up 2 LHRP’s for 114 IP’s @ 1.35 / .179 / 0.88 and 0.55 HR/9. Pretty happy with the pitching staff so far. Offensively we have none. Munson provides a great arm and we won’t allow many stolen bases BUT, offensively, he won’t perform well in a pitchers park, which is most likely what I will choose. He came cheap but I will need to draft a decent back-up catcher. Need to get into draft position for that. Going to continue to focus on pitching, 2 more RP’s then my last SP. I’ll stick with defensive picks for 2B, SS, and CF in the 2^nd half of the draft. Hopefully I can find enough offense at the other positions with picks 10-12 to score enough runs to compete.
2^nd Quarter Targets: RHRP (RP5 ’63 Tiefenauer, RP5 ’85 Henke, RP5 ’73 McMahon), LHRP (RP2 ’81 Saucier, RP6 ’84 Searage, RP2 ’74 House), SP (SP1 ’83 Stieb, SP1 ’81 McCatty, ’86 Witt), 3B (’81 Lansford, ’75 Rose, ’67 Santo), OF2 (’65 Oliva, ’76 Griffey Sr., ’89 Gwynn), 1B (’85 Mattingly, ’84 Mattingly, ’80 Cooper)
Should probably grab Saucier 1^st, Then Stieb. If I’m lucky Tief will be available in the 9th. That should set us up well in draft position for the remainder of the draft… or at least until the 21^st round. Now that we have a plan it should be interesting to watch this Godzilla of a draft come destroy it like it was Tokyo…
Round 7, pick 156 – Dropped to 12^th pick following the Marichal hit. A lot of players have been picked and still have 8 more to go… I think it’s less stressful when you don’t have a plan… Picked up ’81 Kevin Saucier. That’s 3 LHRP for 187 quality IP’s. Should be easier to fill the rest with RH’s. ’80 Cooper got drafted 2 picks earlier plus ’81 Lansford and ’81 McCatty are no longer options. Hopefully the others hold up… the good news is we should move up quite a bit for the next round so we’ll pick again soon.
Round 8, pick 172 – Moved up to the 4^th spot. 11 more picks…still targeting ’83 Stieb and his sub $8M salary. Seems like a bargain at this point in the draft. Only Bigsteve, 3day, and calhoop have an SP1 spot available before I pick. Calhoop already has an ’83 player. 3day has been picking position players in order and if he continues, he’ll pick an OF2 next. Bigsteve is up in two picks. Needs an SP2 and SP1…and we’re safe. He took Boog Powell. Now to see if 3day continues his trend…got ’83 Dave Stieb. Rotation is complete. Unfortunately, ’84 Mattingly got picked up 2 picks earlier…
I’ve hit 2 of 6 targets so far this quarter. Was planning on ’63 Tiefenauer but am starting to think I should grab one more LHRP, maybe ’84 Searage now that Mattingly is off the table. Speaking of which, 2 of 3 1B targets are gone. After ’85 Mattingly are ’73 Perez, ’75 Garvey, and ’90 Palmeiro. Still have 2 3B and OF2 targets… not sure they will make it to me… 6 picks til ours, starting to think I should draft Mattingly next. Two owners can draft him in front of me: njbigwig and reddtrain… I might not get him…
Round 9, pick 199 – Dropped to the 7^th spot. Not too bad. Mattingly, Tief, and Searage are all available. Taking ’85 Don Mattingly now and will reposition next round. At least we have someone to drive in runs. Now if we can find someone who can score…
Looks like that pick only cost me 1 spot in draft position, to 8 in the 10^th round. 16 more picks... Ideally I would draft another RP and gain some draft position however, I’m losing long targets fast. Just lost ’84 Ray and he was one of 2 good targets left at 2B. All that is left is ’65 Rose. Better start looking into other options, maybe ’69 Clarke. ’67 Santo and ’75 Rose are still available at 3B Will have to go Santo if I grab Rose at 2B. All this assumes they will be available. OF2 took a hit also. Lost ’76 Griffey Sr and ’89 Gwynn since my last pick. That leaves ’65 Oliva… will need to find some alternates. Still a long time before I pick… don’t know what to do… 4 more picks to go now. I REALLY want to draft a low cost RP, RP5 or 6. But after reviewing all of my position targets, I’m worried about SS. There really isn’t much left. I’ve targeted ’68 Campaneris and there are currently 10 other owners who could draft him, most of all my targets. It may be wise to pick him up now…
Round 10, pick 224 – Damn, Tiefenauer is gone now. What to do… At best I can move up only 2 draft positions by picking ’84 Searage now. But that takes Winfield off the target list. Really, I should just stick to the plan and draft a cheap RHRP… ’73 McMahon is still available as is ’85 Henke but I already have ’85. Looks like we’re picking ’73 Don McMahon and moving up 3 spots.
Team pitching: 1261 IP, 2.16 ERA, .199 OAV, 0.95 WHIP, 0.65 HR/9 @ $48.4M… Still feel like I need one more LHRP. Maybe I can grab Searage later, assuming I can get ’65 Clemente or ’67 Staub at OF3… Looking into the offense and round 11, looks like we will get the 5^th spot. 19 more picks… Thinking 3B: ’75 Rose or ’67 Santo. Rose knocks out ’75 Orta as a possibility at 2B, leaving only ’69 Clarke before a drop in talent. Santo knocks out ’67 Staub. I could try OF3 ’65 Clemente, RP6 ’84 Searage, then 3B ’67 Santo. Followed by who knows… ideally 2B ’69 Clarke, SS ’68 Campaneris, OF2 ’71 Williams, OF1 ’88 Puckett…glad I’m not picking until tomorrow… still so many picks left… I’m having a drink…
One more pick then I’m up. Could go now IF I wanted to draft a 3B, 2B, OF1, or SS… kind of want to grab ’82 Deleon who is a great value in the RP1 spot. That would fill most innings we’ll use this season… What sucks about waiting is the time I have to change my mind. This pick may very well be determined by timing. Right now I want to go RP1 but we’ll see…
Round 11, pick 245 – Well, I waited long enough to change my mind. In looking at ’82 Deleon, I think I can wait on him. His HR/9+ is an awful 76 which should deter most owners from picking him this early…we’ll see. So now going back to the plan and grabbing my OF2. ‘65 Tony Oliva was my 2^nd ranked OF2 (based on performance and cost) so I’m pretty happy picking him up this late. We now have our #2, #3 and #7 hitters. We don’t walk much but we don’t K much either.
Looks like I’m keeping the 5^th spot next round. 13 more picks… lost a few targets: ’69 Cardenas, ’86 Candelaria, ’80 Bystrom. None were my 1^st choice at their respective positions (I have 3 for each) but they hurt none the less. The good news is ’69 Clarke, my 1^st target for 2B, has only one other possible owner…schwarze. Clarke is the best of the remaining 2B IMO. 1969 still has a few draftable players so maybe schwarze will go pick someone else…sure would be nice to know soon that I didn’t have to draft him until the 24^th round…
I’m probably going to spend around $50M on position players and $55M on pitching, pretty normal for me. I still need 3 RP’s, 1, 6, & 7. I’m at $48M now so another $7M sounds about right. I’m assuming $3M for bench players, that leaves $47M for starters. I’ve drafted 3 and need 5. I’ve spent $17M leaving $30M, or 5 $6M/players. That would rule out ’67 Santo and ‘86/’88 Puckett. ’63 Pinson would be on the cusp. I don’t plan on my 25^th man being a contributor much. Originally wanted to go with a RP but I have no need for innings. We’ll be targeting the cheapest available. That being said, I might be able to get two of those guys… Ideally I would get ’69 Clarke at 2B and ’77 Templeton at SS. Picking Santo rules out Staub, leaving only ’84 Winfield. But then there is Searage… I need more OF3 targets… Almost seems like Templeton should be the next pick. The plan is for a 3B. ‘67 Santo, ’75 Rose, and ’90 Boggs are all available. I actually have Rose ranked higher but barely. I like Santo’s defense better… leaning towards Rose for the money… hmmm, schwarze isn’t picking ahead yet. If he can’t pick that would limit him to: OF2, RP1, RP2, RP6, RP7, and his bench. He’s not taking 2B yet… The only way to gain draft position on him is to go RP6 or RP7, and that only gains if he goes OF2 or RP 1 or 2. Going to be hard to get Clarke late if he’s going for him too…
with redcped’s hint I’m going with George Jetson…
Round 12, pick 269 – And we’re up. The plan is to go with a 3^rd basemen. I like Rose. But if I draft him I’ll drop spots and I’m not ready for that yet. I’m going cheap. RP7 or RP6. Going RP6 ’89 Jim Corsi. This rules out Searage and most likely any LHRP now. We’ll see. Could grab Lefferts later. BUT for now we are finished with pitching. All focus should be on position players until they’re filled or I am left as the only remaining possible owner.
1^st Half Analysis – Well if we don’t win games it shouldn’t be due to a lack of pitching. Although SP1 Stieb is nothing to write home about, he won’t lose all of his games. But he’ll need us to score some runs when he pitches. The bullpen looks pretty good so far. We’ve filled 5 of 7 spots and will add 3 more pitchers most likely, including the bonus round. We’ve got 3 LHRP’s and I could add one more. I do need one more solid RP and hopefully I can get a solid RP1 late. Overall pitching stats: 1300 IP, 2.15 ERA, .199 OAV, 0.95 WHIP, 0.64 HR/9 @ $49.7M. On paper we look solid.
Offensively we added only two players, a deviation from the original plan. We added RBI machine ’85 Don Mattingly at 1B and picked up our RF, OF2 ’65 Tony Oliva. We now have our #2 and #3 hitters in the line-up. Mattingly lacks range but plays mostly errorless ball. Oliva has plenty of range but may make some critical costly errors in RF. Hopefully our pitchers can keep hits to a minimum. I like these picks but we need a lead-off hitter and I don’t see much I like. Not sure how we are going to address that yet…
3^rd Quarter Targets – Well it’s tough to say in what order I try to get these guys. As the draft moves along, some choices are made for us. Ideally I get ’69 Clarke at 2B, ’77 Templeton at SS, ’75 Rose at 3B, either ’88 or ’86 Puckett in CF (OF1) and either ’67 Staub or ’84 Winfield from the OF3 bucket filling LF. Only schwarze can draft Clarke. Templeton can be picked up by juice, Jtp, and ff09. Rose has 5 possible owners besides myself. ’88 Puckett by calhoop and pmars while ’86 Puckett by calhoop and footballmm11. Winfield and Staub, like Rose, have 5 other possible owners. Our 6^th pick will go to a RP. Hard to say what will be left. Most targets have between 7 and 15 other possible suitors so we’ll wait and see how everything narrows down. Deleon or Rozema would be a good fit from ’82… ’84 Lefferts as mentioned earlier… and ’69 Tatum if Schwarze drafts Clarke before I do…
Looks like we’re going to pick 3^rd next round. Thinking Rose… We’re at RTG’s pick now. If I go 3B, he is the only person who can draft any of my 3 targets (Rose, Santo, Boggs) before I pick next round. The safer pick might be Templeton now but there are two owners who can grab him who pick before me, juice and Jtp. Still going to play chicken with Clarke. Competing with calhoop for both Pucketts and fbmm11 for one of them. If I miss both of them I’m in trouble. The last 4 in my ranking are all that remain eligible for me. I have options at OF3 for the moment… well RTG takes Santo. That leaves Boggs all to me if I want him. Rose is still my first choice. But I really think I need to take Templeton next. Chisock can get Rose. He’s the only other person other than me…. After Jtp picks, I’m clear on Templeton until I pick… Rose or Templeton…
Round 13, pick 291 – Indecision kills… woke up this morning thinking RP7 but then reviewed my options and have decided to grab our SS. Hopefully, Chisock will pick Lansford which will leave me Rose. If not, I still have Boggs. This pick doesn’t help me in draft position but it shouldn’t hurt too bad. Drafting ’77 Garry Templeton…
Jeez. Took a nap and woke up to it being my turn again already. Need to update the book real quick… Damn did I take some hits from my last pick. Lost: 3B ’75 Rose, OF3 ’67 Staub, OF3 ’74 Stargell, ‘RP1 ’84 Lefferts, and ’80 Bystrom. The stress!!!! Would like to go OF3 and grab Winfield but I don’t want to lose draft position… Maybe RP… ’82 Rozema or ’82 Deleon…
Round 14, pick 319 – Drafting for position is going to be the death of us. But we’re going with ’82 Dave Rozema. We’re just going to have to keep teams off base and minimize their scoring to try to be competitive. That changes our RP1 target…
Decided to go out last night and didn’t check in until this morning and, lo and behold, schwarze buckled and drafted ’69 Clarke. Son of a… That’s really going to screw me up. I was hoping he would hold out as long as I was going to so I could draft my OF1 and OF3. 2B drops quite a bit and now I have to choose offense or defense there… Orta is a decent LH bat and Andrew has decent OBP but both are sub-average defensively. Not horrible but certainly won’t lead in any defensive categories. Cash and Alomar play good defense, Alomar the better of the two. Cash hits better but their OBP is pretty much the same. None of the available players are going to decide games in a positive way so…
Updated the book and added ’88 Alomar as my 3^rd option at 2B to go along with ’75 Orta and ’68 Andrews. Orta and Andrews each have 3 other possible owners, Alomar has 4. I really wasn’t planning on drafting a 2B now… 3 more picks… calhoop can kill me and picks shortly before I do… we’re competing for the same players at OF1 (’86 & ’88 Puckett, ’87 Coleman), OF3 (’86 Yount), and RP1 (’69 Tatum, ’63 Woodeshick). ’88 Puckett and ’69 Tatum are top targets… Would be nice if he’d draft his SP1 or SP4 now so I could jump ahead of him next round…
…still waiting for bigsteve. Calhoop went cheap reliever… I would have to. Could move up a position or two IF I go cheap bench player but I’d rather not. Still haven’t decided on 3B yet. Could stick with Boggs or grab Seitzer or Schmidt. Nocomm can get both of them. Would like to draft ’84 Winfield or ’75 Parker at OF3 and put him in LF. Going to hold off on ’88 Puckett…probably until I lose him to calhoop… I like Tatum at RP1 but I could just as easily go to Woodeshick… I should start looking at my bench options…
Bigsteve picked a RP BUT it was an illegal pick. Damn. Still gotta wait…
Round 15, pick 343 – Still have 7^th pick. After going back and forth between OF3 and 2B… I’ve decided that I had more options at the OF3 position so I had better take ’75 Jorge Orta now rather than Alomar later. Hopefully, this will push 3day towards ’75 Parker and away from ’84 Winfield since he is the only owner who can draft that iteration of Parker now. Winfield still has two suitors, HH and pedro…
Added ’88 Bonds to the target list along with Winfield and Yount for the OF3 position. I would like to draft ’68 Pavletich now at C2 but I don’t want to lose Winfield… especially after committing to Orta…
Round 16, pick 367 – First thought was to try to move up in front of calhoop by drafting ’68 Pavletich at C2 but there was no way for me to get there. Not only did calhoop take another RP, he took my top target in ’69 Tatum. Crap. We also lost RP1 ’91 Ward and OF3 ’86 Yount last round so I need to find more targets. Since taking a RP or bench couldn’t help me move up more than 1 draft spot, I’m opting to grab one of my remaining starters. 3B will be my last pick. OF1 or OF3. Better grab ’84 Dave Winfield now. Hopefully Puckett makes it back to me…
In looking at calhoop’s OF1 options, he also has ’66 Clemente and ’64 Brock as options along with all 3 of my targets: ’86 & ’88 Puckett and ’87 Coleman. He has lot’s of options and probably isn’t in a hurry to fill it just yet. Probably isn’t going to spend $9M on Puckett either but might spend $7M. FBMM11 has sole rights to ’92 Butler and can also get Clemente and ’86 Puckett. Butler and Clemente are the cheapest available for him and he is in salary trouble so… I think I’m safe waiting on one of the Pucketts.
That leaves RP1 and our bench. At RP1 we’re targeting ’63 Woodeshick. Only RTG and NJB can draft him… behind him is ’90 Tudor, ’80 Gossage, and ’88 Davis. Only RTG can grab Tudor. Only reddtrain can grab Gossage. Both of them and ff09 can draft Davis. At back-ups, mostly we need a C2. Top target is ’68 Pavletich who is a good value and price. After him is ’79 Gulden, ’86 Lowry, and ’90 Cerone. They all have between 7 and 10 suitors… The latter 3 are twice the salary Pavletich is. Assuming both are available, we will need to choose between Woodeshick and Pavletich… ooops, made a mistake in my book. Still have njbigwig listed as a possible owner for Woodeshick however, NJB already has his RP1. Looks like I will get either Woodeshick or Tudor for sure. Looks like we’re drafting Pavletich… gotta make it through 5 potential owners before I can draft him…yikes.
Almost up. Waiting on bigsteve…he’s the only one in front of me who can draft Pavletich… calhoop and alice are both waiting. Could indicate they need to for their picks… the only buckets where this would be the case are back-up buckets… or they just don’t want to give away any strategy advantages… if we lose Pavletich then we draft Gulden for his A+ arm… Options at C2 get more expensive or totally useless really quick on my remaining options… Going to have to send a proxy… I hate doing that… maybe not…
Round 17, pick 392 – No proxy. Drafted ’68 Don Pavletich. He’ll cover enough PA’s at C to keep Munson fresh and not totally kill us. Still need our OF1, 3B, and RP1. ’90 Boggs is a guarantee as is ’90 Tudor. I only get one…
Draft strategy is always a beast and drafting from buckets is even more complex, IMO. I tried to keep my focus small so I rarely look ahead past 3 or 4 rounds, except at the beginning of each qtr. We’re coming up on the end of the 3^rd qtr and I have an idea but it could also come crashing down if I’m wrong in my assessments. Last 7 positions are: 3B, OF1, RP1, B1, B2, B3, B4.
3B – I have ’90 Boggs guaranteed but in the back of my mind I am considering ’76 Schmidt. I like Schmidt’s defense and although his AVG# of .266 is 2^nd lowest of all available 3B, he does have 40 HR potential and his OBP# is a decent .381. He’s a little more expensive but I am thinking of targeting ’87 Burke in the 25^th round so I don’t need a lot of cap room when the dust settles. Nocomm is the only other owner who needs a 3B. Although he can’t draft Boggs he can draft Schmidt. He does have other options: ’88 Seitzer, ’64 Ward, and ’91 Williams. I’d be looking at Schmidt or Seitzer… Not a priority to draft now. Can wait until round 21 to decide…
OF1 – I have been holding off on this position because my top target is over $9M. ‘88 Puckett would be great on our team. However, calhoop is the other owner who can pick him up AND he has the capitol and draft position to do so… I could live with that and take ’86 Puckett while saving $1.6M in cash. The twist in all this is fbmm11. He’s the only other owner who needs OF1. And he can also get ’86 Puckett. IF that happens and calhoop takes ’88 Puckett then I am screwed. That leaves me ’87 Coleman or ’74 Cedeno. Coleman is the better option but it rules out Burke in the 25^th round. If all goes my way however, fbmm11 will draft ’92 Butler who is available only to him or ’66 Clemente who is available to both him and calhoop. Would like to wait at least one more round before drafting this position.
RP1 – So here I have one semi-guarantee in ’90 Tudor. Semi because Boggs is also a semi-guarantee. My first choice is ’63 Woodeshick. He has only RTG as a possible suitor. The good news is RTG has other options, including ’85 Hernandez ’78 Reed, ’82 Deleon, and ’73 Rogers. He is exclusive on Hernandez and Deleon. I think I am safe waiting here.
B1 CIF – All I really need here is a defensive 3B with a few decent PA’s…easy, right? Oh, and cheap, too. Currently looking at ’63 Green, ’87 Coles, and ’67 Chavarria. Picking up Woodeshick would rule out Green. There may be another option for 3B at the B4 PH bucket so we’ll see how that plays out.
B2 MIF – Here all I really need is a defensive 2B with a few PA’s, cheap also. Currently targeting ’86 Foley, ’67 Heise, and ’69 Cash. ’67 Heise is 1^st choice but again, we’ll wait a round or two to see how this next pick plays out.
B3 OF – Again, don’t need much here. Probably least important position. Looking at ’69 Cowan, ’71 Jeter, and ’87 Collins. I like Jeter…
B4 PH – This is where I want to go with my next pick. Ideally I pick up ’86 Asadoor who can also play 3B. If this works out then B1 is not an issue. Just waiting on HH to pick…
Round 18, pick 415 – This pick may lead to disaster but I’m going to make it anyways. Hopefully calhoop is NOT targeting ’88 Puckett. We’re drafting ’86 Randy Asadoor from the B4 pinch hitter bucket. Asadoor allows me to have a defensive back-up for Boggs (assuming I am still drafting him) that can also pinch hit. The stress over the next few rounds is going to kill me as I sit on Puckett and Woodeshick…
3^rd Quarter Analysis – Interesting quarter. We’re playing with fire right now by drafting bench players ahead of 2 starting positions and our RP1. I had planned on drafting 5 position players to complete our starting line-up and a RP. I had no plans to start drafting the bench. That changed after the 13^th round when RTG drafted Santo and Chisock drafted ’75 Rose, leaving Boggs solely to me. This allowed me to switch 3B out this quarter with C2. Further analysis revealed I could sit on both Puckett’s as well at the OF1 bucket. Ultimately we ended up drafting 3 position players: ’77 Templeton, ’75 Orta, and ‘84 Winfield; 1 relief pitcher: ’82 Rozema; and 2 bench players.
Our current offensive line: .320 / .371 / .483, 97 HR, 77-57 SB/CS, B/C+ defense. We won’t be stealing much which will be different for me. Orta and Templeton won’t turn many DP’s either. Not exactly thrilled but… I wonder how I would feel about losing Puckett and adding Coleman at leadoff…
Our current pitching line: 2.14 / .199 / 0.95 / 0.64, 1328 IP, 931 K, 307 BB. Although we don’t allow a lot of hits, we will need some defensive help as these aren’t the typical strikeout pitchers I am used to playing with. It makes me wonder if I have enough pitches, something I haven’t checked yet (but will after this). Adding Woodeshick and his 114 innings will help and most likely be enough.
4^th Quarter targets – In a perfect world, I would get: ’88 Puckett, ’90 Boggs, ’63 Woodeshick, ’69 Johnson, ’67 Heise, and ’71 Jeter. That would put our salary at $104,457,105. Our current expected salary cap is $110,367,867. That would leave us $5,910,762 for the bonus round. We would have the following years available: 1974, 1976, 1979, 1980, 1987, 1991. This limits our potential targets to: ’76 McBride, ’76 Sutter, ’79 Fulgham, ’87 Molitor, ’87 Burke, and ’91 Plantier. I would select ’87 Burke and complete what should be a formidable pitching staff.
Worst case scenario, I lose Puckett and Woodeshick. They would hopefully be replaced by ’87 Coleman and ’80 Gossage. This would be my lowest salary ($100,334,222) and allow me to draft a more expensive player, up to $10.033M. I could grab an ’88 Boggs or ’79 Brett. I wonder if I could get ’90 Rickey…what would that take? Oh no, the spinning is starting again… What if I grab ’76 Schmidt???
I have no idea who to take next but I don’t pick for a while. It’s really dependant on who gets picked ahead of me… hmmm… fbmm11 picked up ’86 Seitzer. That leaves ’86 Puckett to calhoop. I’m assuming FBmm11 is going ’92 Butler since he already has him locked up. Hopefully this keeps calhoop from drafting his OF1 until the end…I wonder if he knows he could screw me??? I had better start working on a back-up plan…
Round 19, pick 438 – I’m debating how important draft position is now. I really should take Puckett now, just to be safe but, I really want to draft ’69 Cash, especially after Heise got taken a few picks earlier. In looking at calhoop’s remaining picks: OF1 – he has 6 options, including sole priority over ’86 Puckett; OF3 – only 4 options. Best is ’88 Bonds by quite a bit. Bigsteve can also take Bonds; SP1 – 3 options, competing with schwarze for the two best ones, ’70 Jenkins and ’86 Witt; SP4 – 5 options. Only fbmm11 is competing and he can only compete for the worst of the 5; RP4 – 5 options, 3 competitors but he’s got sole priority over ’73 Jackson. ’70 Hall might be best pick…cheaper, better value. It seems the best pick for him next round would be his OF3 before bigsteve grabs him. That means I could wait one more round on Puckett. We’re drafting ’69 Dave Cash. That gives me a defensive replacement for Orta late in games and hopefully, some double play opportunities for our RP’s.
So far this round hasn’t been too bad. We did lose ’67 Heise but Cash is an ok replacement for the same money. ’78 Reed got drafted, adding $322K to our cap. Jtp took him as anticipated. And ff09 took ’88 Davis as anticipated. Then reddtrain took ’73 Rogers…as anticipated. The only unanticipated move involving the RP1’s was RTG’s 18^th round pick, ’85 Lombardozzi. That pick eliminated ’85 Hernandez as a LH RP1 option, leaving ’82 Deleon and ’63 Woodeshick. He has sole priority over Deleon and only I can get Woodeshick from him. The Rogers pick does leave me with sole priority over ’80 Gossage. Not ideal but he would work.
Round 20, pick 462 – calhoop picked his SP1 which means I could draft a bench player and slide in front of him next round to take Puckett. The only worry I have is Woodeshick. I think that would be the safe move. Really don’t need a CIF to play in the field so taking a pinch hitter would be ideal. ’79 Terry Crowley comes in under $600K, just enough to get me ahead in draft position. Hopefully he’ll never have to play the field…
Although I am set up to take Boggs at 3B, I keep toying with the idea of picking up Schmidt instead. I really don’t have a good lead-off hitter so I am planning on Templeton taking the role. That sets our line-up as: 1-Templeton, 2-Oliva, 3-Puckett, 4-Mattingly, 5-Winfield, 6-Orta, 7-Munson, 8-Boggs But switching Boggs out for Schmidt looks a lot better with Schmidt in the #6 spot and Orta moving to 7 and Munson to 8. And Schmidt’s defense is much better… It would cost me another $2.3M in salary but it might be enough to still get Burke in the bonus round… maybe I should start looking a my stadium options…
Well, woke up this morning and found that, as feared, we lost Woodeshick. That opens up ’63 for a cheap bench player in Bob Chance. So, to RP1, I am the only owner left to pick this bucket and I only have 3 available options: ’80 Gossage, ’90 Tudor, and ’87 Robinson. I have Gossage and Boggs penned but I keep toying with the idea of grabbing Tudor and Schmidt instead. One concern driving me to this thought is round 25. I’m currently targeting ’87 Burke. But there is going to be a lot of competition for him as there are still 12 owners who have not drafted an ’87 player…
Our current expected salary with Boggs, Puckett, Gossage, and Chance is $103,139,902. Our current salary cap is $110,829,256, 2^nd highest in the league so far. That leaves us $7,689,355 from the following years: ’67, ’71, ’74, ’76, ’87, and ’91. Choices in my range are: ’67 Freehan @ $6.0M, ’67 Carlos @ $3.1M, ’71 Oliva @ $4.5M, ’71 McGraw @ $4.1M, ’74 Carew @ $6.9M, ’76 McBride @ $3.2M, ’76 Sutter @ $2.6M, ’87 Molitor @ $5.6M, ’87 Burke @ $4.4M, ’91 Plantier @ $1.9M, and ’91 Ryan @ $6.8M. 11 of 12 possible options would be in my range. This would definitely be a safe way to go but, besides Burke, my only interests are Carlos, McGraw, and Sutter, with Burke being the most expensive. I would be leaving at least $3.2M on the table. Seems like a lot… I could also consider Ryan, Carew, and Molitor… ’87 Molitor does play 3B and 2B… just not that well…
I have two other options I am seriously considering: Option 1 – Draft Puckett, Schmidt, Gossage, Chance; Option 2 – Draft Puckett, Schmidt, Tudor, Chance. Option 1 increases salary by $2,272,556, leaving us with only $5,416,799. That removes McBride and Sutter as options and does not add any additional options as they exceed our available salary. Better use of salary but less targets to focus on. Option 2 increases salary by $3,291,180 over our current plan. That would leave us $4,398,175. We would have far fewer available for the bonus round: ’67 Carlos, ’71 McGraw, and ’91 Plantier.
Both options make better use of our salary cap but at the same time, we limit our options while simultaneously losing draft position, all a horrible combination. If you want to get a useful player in round 25 you almost have to position yourself to draft earlier which also means you have more capital. But I like the idea of having Tudor as a #5 starting pitcher. The downside is I would be short on RHRP innings and my only option would be ’67 Carlos and trying to land him with horrible draft position. Seems too risky.
I could also grab ’87 Coleman and ’88 Seitzer so I could position myself to get ’90 Henderson. That would relegate Coleman as a very expensive PR, PH, OF4. Kind of a waste of money but I have a feeling that the bonus pick will be a waste or it will make some other pick a waste. Probably should have given a little more weight in my draft outlook to the round 25 players…
The more I think about it the more I like the idea of grabbing ’87 Molitor in the bonus. He would start and Boggs would be a back-up, 100-150 PA’s, and a PH/defensive replacement. Not as wasteful on his $4M… I think I should stick to the plan. Draft Puckett, then Chance, Gossage, and Boggs in 22-24…
Round 21-24, picks 485, 507, TBD, TBD – Well how about that. It’s my turn and while I was updating my draft book, calhoop picked ahead, and went OF3. How fortunate for me. I can get all 4 planned players now since I can draft my B3 and keep draft position over calhoop to draft Puckett in the next round. Gossage and Boggs are mine anytime I want to pull the trigger so, let’s do it, in this order: ’63 Bob Chance, ’88 Kirby Puckett, ‘80 Rich Gossage, ’90 Wade Boggs.
Salary after 24 (round 21) rounds: $103,139,902 ; Expected salary cap: $110,829,257 ; Salary remaining: $7,689,355.
Bonus round 25 available options: ’67 Freehan @ $6.0M, ’67 Carlos @ $3.1M, ’71 McGraw @ $4.1M, ’74 Carew @ $6.9M, ’76 McBride @ $3.2M, ’76 Sutter @ $2.6M, ’87 Molitor @ $5.6M, ’87 Burke @ $4.4M, ’91 Plantier @ $1.9M, and ’91 Ryan @ $6.8M. ***Only players who are not an option are ’74 Perry and ’71 Oliva. Perry exceeds my cap and I already have ’65 Oliva. 10 out of 12 possible options.
Actual Batting Totals
5563 5027 130 779 85-65 588-429 38.6 .321 .374 .481 B-/C+
Actual Pitching Totals
103-38-68 1,427 2.15 .199 0.96 6.69 2.23 0.63 1034-344
Ballparks: Memorial Stadium, Fenway Park, Comiskey Park (I), Crosley Field, Cleveland Stadium, Tiger Stadium, Municipal Stadium, Humphrey Metrodome, Metropolitan Stadium, Yankee Stadium (I), Yankee Stadium (II), Oakland Coliseum, Forbes Field, Jack Murphy Stadium, Candlestick Park, Busch Stadium, Exhibition Stadium – Not sure what to do here…
In looking at this team there really isn’t any specific need. So the 25^th round pick will try to be some kind of improvement. Where I see weaknesses are: base stealing, infield defense, double play risk on offense, hitter/pitcher matchup on offense, homerun power and lead-off batter. That is A LOT of weaknesses. We’ll hit some doubles and triples. We’ll hit a lot of singles. Our team contact rate is .883 and strikeout rate is only 11.72/100AB. But we have low OBP and Munson, Mattingly, and Boggs are double play magnets. We may want to consider a +1 or +2 singles stadium to help with that…then again, our infield range is horrendous, especially at the corners, doubles territory. I’d hate to see our defense allow singles to become doubles. We’ll have to think about that one…
Pitching wise I think we’re fine. We are at the threshold for innings at this salary cap although I have yet to calculate out total pitch count…should probably do that today. Our team OAV of .199 should be one of if not the best in the league. We’ll give up a few homers but hopefully, they’ll be mostly solo shots. Munson will keep baserunners honest. We’ll be tough to hit and run off of. But that infield range… I really don’t like it. It’s going to hurt our pitching.
There are no defensive options to help us where we need it. ’74 Carew would be a slight improvement over Orta defensively. Offensively he would be a huge upgrade and he could bat lead-off. ’87 Molitor would be a defensive downgrade at both 3B and 2B, slight but worse none-the-less. The other 3 options are OF’s and a C. We don’t need defensive help at either of those positions.
For pitching, I could use 10-15 games from a starting pitcher but could live with 60+ solid RP innings. I like Burke and Carlos but can live with McGraw or Sutter too. Ryan would give me another SP. I like my choices here.
Right now it looks like I’ll draft 15^th. There are still a lot of competitors for 1987. Good thing we have some flexibility… We’re almost through round 22 and I currently have the highest salary cap. 20 of 24 1978 players have been drafted. Gaining more salary cap doesn’t help me. We don’t have enough left to get to $10M for ’74 Perry. Any of our players taken at this point only lessen someone else’s salary cap. But we have little impact here now.
Salary after 24 (round 24) rounds: $103,139,902 ; Expected salary cap: $111,486,850; Salary remaining: $8,346,948.
We made a little more unneeded cap space. We finished with the highest salary cap amongst all teams (schwarze’s ’89 team would have had it had that been his only team) but only the 13^th highest in cap space available. Targets: 1) ’87 Burke, and then I don’t know
Round 25, pick 591 – And I’m up. Burke is gone. Kind of expected that. But everyone else is still available. ’67 Carlos stands out but I leave $5.3M on the table. No wasted positions though. Mcgraw looks ok…walks are high. Sutter is a pass. ’91 Ryan is interesting. It would allow me to let Nelson pitch in relief and be a 5^th starter. It would give me 1600 innings as well. 100 or so would be a waste… maybe $3M in value and we would leave ~$1.6M on the table. We could go offense. Freehan is a no. McBride is a no. Plantier is a no. Carew and Molitor however are interesting. If I go with a pitchers park I will need more offense. Carew plays 2B only. That would relegate Orta, who also only plays 2B, to a PH/PR role, wasting most of his $4M salary and leaving $1.4M on the table. Molitor plays 2B and 3B, but not better than Boggs or Orta. Boggs and Orta are both a little shy on PA’s plus they are both lefties. Molitor start at both, making use of his paltry 542 PA’s. Boggs and Orta will lose close to 300 PA’s each, a $4.6M value and we would leave $2.8M on the table. Our team value will end up somewhere between $104M and $107M. Turns out I am using bot ’91 Ryan and ’87 Molitor in leagues right now. Ryan in a league where the OAV for the entire league is .218 and he has a 3.71 ERA. Not real good although not a good marker either as this league is the build your own rules league. Molitor on the other hand is playing in the KOH league at $105M, which plays more like a $112M league. We’re in Safeco and Molitor hates it. But the quality of pitching in that league will far exceed this league, IMO. We’re not going to pich a hitters park either. We don’t have the infield defense for it. We’ll go pitching-neutral. So with that decision, we should go hitting and flexibility. I think we go ’87 Paul Molitor and regret it as soon as I post it…
Draft is over. We ended up with:
Actual Batting Totals
6105 5492 146 854 130-75 655-498 37.5 .324 .379 .488 C+/C
Actual Pitching Totals
103-38-68 1,427 2.15 .199 0.96 6.69 2.23 0.63 1034-344
Our infield defense sucks. We have almost no HR power. We won’t steal many bases. We’ll hit into some double plays. And we’re a little short on starting pitcher innings (already regretting not picking Ryan in 25). But we do make good contact, hit some doubles and triples, have decent OF defense, and one of the better pitching staffs in the league. Looks like we’re going to put us in Yankee Stadium (I). We’ll see how Mattingly does in the House That Ruth Built.
In hind sight, I think I would have been better served targeting a round 25 player from the beginning and then building my team and draft plan around drafting that player. This draft I tried to stay flexible since I didn’t have a real plan. That helped me in the end with options that could help my team in the bonus round but I HATE wasting money on innings or PA’s, even if they’re for mop-up duty. And we essentially left $7M on the table between those wasted PA’s and the unspent cap dollars. If I did it all over again I would plan on a 5 man rotation, trying to pick up ’86 Scott or ’85 Gooden. Not sure how we would have gotten there but a bit more focus would have avoided the wasted dollars. Oh well, we’ll try again next time…

Great job BeAll.... Your process during the draft is very similar to mine, although I didn't write *all* my thoughts down like you did. But I was re-living all of the fun (and stress) of the drafting experience just by reading you commentary. I would imagine our spreadsheets are very similar, with a giant grid of every player and who can draft each of those players. I will note that I was the very first person who had a player that couldn't be taken by anybody else ('67 Bunning). Ironically, that changed how I drafted from that point on, even though I ultimately didn't take Bunning.

What I love about this draft, is if we re-drafted tomorrow, using the same player pool and the same draft order, we would each end up with drastically different rosters. All it would take is one person to pick somebody different.

Posted by schwarze on 8/8/2022 7:36:00 PM (view original):
Great job BeAll.... Your process during the draft is very similar to mine, although I didn't write *all* my thoughts down like you did. But I was re-living all of the fun (and stress) of the drafting experience just by reading you commentary. I would imagine our spreadsheets are very similar, with a giant grid of every player and who can draft each of those players. I will note that I was the very first person who had a player that couldn't be taken by anybody else ('67 Bunning). Ironically, that changed how I drafted from that point on, even though I ultimately didn't take Bunning.

What I love about this draft, is if we re-drafted tomorrow, using the same player pool and the same draft order, we would each end up with drastically different rosters. All it would take is one person to pick somebody different.

i vote for the redraft tomorrow....