League 12 (Pick 8): 2003-2004 Boston Red Sox/Milwaukee Brewers

This is another pick I can’t afford to mess up...

... A pretty loaded lineup helps, too, led by Manny, Ortiz, Sexson, Nixon, Nomar, and Mueller. The defense is unimpressive, unfortunately, and I had to pretend not to notice or I would have been frozen with indecision.

You're being kind. I have this defense ranked as the worst in the league, slightly worse than the #1 pick 2003-04 SF/Ariz.

Posted by toysboys on 1/17/2023 10:24:00 PM (view original):
Here is my writeup and predictions.

Second, thanks to schwarze for letting me see his spreadsheets. I just started a new job and had a ton of family over for the holidays so I had no time to do any research. Sorry, if I took any of your teams.

LG 2 1907-1908 Naps / Red Sox - pick 6
I like this team. I double Nap Lajoie'ed it in the first round and rode it to a WS championship. I have A+ range at 1B, 2B, 3B, SS and CF. The lower part of the lineup are not very good hitters though. SP is top notch with 08 Joss, 08 Cy Young, 07 Winter and 08 Steele. I even have a good bullpen. Prediction - 90 wins

The only team you grabbed that I really wanted was in league 2, the 1907-08 Naps/Americans team, but I had my chance at that team with pick #4 and figured somebody would take them before I picked again at #8.

I know this doesn't go under the theme for this thread but while verifying rosters, I noticed something odd under Ballpark Effects:

I'm pretty sure that Pacific Bell Park, SBC Park and AT&T Park are the one and the same stadium. They all have grass surfaces and every dimension listed is identical. However, under "Park Factor", Pacific Bell Park and SBC Park are 0.86 but AT&T Park is at 0.94. Is that a screw up or do they just base that on the offense generated during that time period?

Posted by schwarze on 1/18/2023 2:35:00 PM (view original):

League 6 (Pick 8): 1947-1948: Cleveland Indians – Chicago Cubs

This league might prove that I have no idea what I’m doing, because a handful of the teams I was looking at with the 8th pick never got taken. I can only hope the one I did choose was on people’s lists and was worthy.

Ones that I passed on included 57-58 Dodgers-Indians and 47-48 Braves-Phillies, which no one took; 55-56 Braves-Orioles, which glowguy took at #13 (schwarze had them rated 4th, so we’ll see how many of us wind up with regrets);

As you mentioned, I have 55-56 Braves/Orioles ranked 4th, but I did have your 47-48 Indians/Cubs ranked 5th.

I feel better now!

Posted by thejuice6 on 1/18/2023 3:09:00 PM (view original):
I know this doesn't go under the theme for this thread but while verifying rosters, I noticed something odd under Ballpark Effects:

I'm pretty sure that Pacific Bell Park, SBC Park and AT&T Park are the one and the same stadium. They all have grass surfaces and every dimension listed is identical. However, under "Park Factor", Pacific Bell Park and SBC Park are 0.86 but AT&T Park is at 0.94. Is that a screw up or do they just base that on the offense generated during that time period?

I don't know if this is the case here, but I believe there is some hidden information lurking beneath a number like "-1" because that might be an approximation or rounding and the "real" number could be something like "-1.3" or "-0.8" and both would appear as -1. I feel like I saw this in some breakdown of the sim that explains why parks can have the same +/- numbers but different Park Factors. I would be happy to be set straight by someone who knows this detail far better, of course.

Posted by schwarze on 1/18/2023 2:41:00 PM (view original):

League 12 (Pick 8): 2003-2004 Boston Red Sox/Milwaukee Brewers

This is another pick I can’t afford to mess up...

... A pretty loaded lineup helps, too, led by Manny, Ortiz, Sexson, Nixon, Nomar, and Mueller. The defense is unimpressive, unfortunately, and I had to pretend not to notice or I would have been frozen with indecision.

You're being kind. I have this defense ranked as the worst in the league, slightly worse than the #1 pick 2003-04 SF/Ariz.

I feel worse now!

Posted by redcped on 1/18/2023 3:54:00 PM (view original):

Posted by thejuice6 on 1/18/2023 3:09:00 PM (view original):
I know this doesn't go under the theme for this thread but while verifying rosters, I noticed something odd under Ballpark Effects:

I'm pretty sure that Pacific Bell Park, SBC Park and AT&T Park are the one and the same stadium. They all have grass surfaces and every dimension listed is identical. However, under "Park Factor", Pacific Bell Park and SBC Park are 0.86 but AT&T Park is at 0.94. Is that a screw up or do they just base that on the offense generated during that time period?

I don't know if this is the case here, but I believe there is some hidden information lurking beneath a number like "-1" because that might be an approximation or rounding and the "real" number could be something like "-1.3" or "-0.8" and both would appear as -1. I feel like I saw this in some breakdown of the sim that explains why parks can have the same +/- numbers but different Park Factors. I would be happy to be set straight by someone who knows this detail far better, of course.

In 2019 they moved the bullpens from the first and third base side to behind the outfield walls for player safety. To do that, they had to move the outfield walls in making it a slightly less pitcher-friendly park. Left-center was changed from 404 to 399, right-center from 421 to 415 and dead-center from 399 to 391 feet.

My first point is to implore juice to reconsider his decision that this will be his final tournament. There are only a few competitions in WIS that I enjoy as much as his tournaments.


I am not sure what happened during the first round. While I had 8 qualifiers out of my 14 entries I only had one team make the playoffs. My earliest picks in Round 2 were the 8th pick and 11th pick. 5 out of my next 6 picks were from 20 to 24. In order to eliminate frustration in missing out on super teams I decided not to even start researching available teams until the drafts came within 4 to 6 slots from my pick.

In all I think I had pretty good drafts because what you don’t know you won’t be frustrated at what you missed.

League 1 I had the luxury of the 24th and final pick. I was able to snag the 1895-1896 Beaneaters and Senators. They had a lineup with Billy Hamilton, Herman Long, and Hugh Duffy among other sluggers. It also included two decent Kid Nichols pitchers. Defense stinks but if you want a good hitting team from that era you take bad defense.

League 3 I decided to go with the 1911-1912 Naps-Phillies. Two high average Joe Jackson’s and a pitching staff anchored.by Pete Alexander. Alexander on the team made me take this team over Ruth’s Yankee teams.

League 5 I took the 35-36 Giants-Phil’s. I chose this one over others because I had two Carl Hubbels, and a Hal Schumaker. An above average defense with A ratings range in center, short, and first. Like all teams in this era decent hitting.

League 6 I actually had time to build 18 remaining teams. By some of my remarkable voodoo math I came down to three teams. The 57-58 Dodgers-Indians, the 47-48 Cards-Reds, and my eventual choice the 1955-56 Red Sox-Cards. Going into the process my prior success with 48 Brecheen and Musial the Card-Red team was my intuitive choice. The Dodger-Indian team surprised me as slightly grading out better than my eventual choice. Having two high average Williams and One Musial made me go with the Red Sox-Card team

League 8 Joe Torre and his 1971 Cards have always delivered for me. Having them team with Roger Nelson’s And Amos Otis’s A/A+ fielding Royals was an easy choice over Rod Carew’s 75-76 Twins-Cards team.

League 11 I went with the 1997-1998 Indians-Marlins. At this point in the draft I went with a combination of two of my favorite teams. This is a power hitting, above average fielding, below average pitching teams. As long as I avoid the 1995-1996 Braves pitching I maybe competitive to accumulate enough wins to make the next round.

League 13 I chose the 2009-2010 Rangers-Athletic team. The Athletics provided three starters among others. The Rangers provided the .359 power hitting Josh Hamilton. The lineup except for Hamilton was definitely right hand hitting dominant. That’s why I looked for a division in a league with lots of Kershaws and Hamels, left hand pitching starters.

League 15 This is my most intriguing team. I am really curious if I can make this work. Normally I look at starting pitching first and hitting and defense second. I chose the 2017-2018 Rockies-Rangers. Of the thousands of teams I have built I can’t think of another team I had which had this defense B+/B overall especially combined with the solid hitting and overpowering bullpen. But the starting pitching stinks. Both Coors and Ameriquest field are hitting parks. I chose Ameriquest over Coors since Ameriquest is the better pitching park of the two. In all cases if you want pitchers to overperform you choose a better pitching park then they actually resided in. My hope is my two Rockie starters and two Rockie relievers perform better in the better Pitching Ameriquest Park and the good hitters will still perform well in a natural hitter parks. The defense should help.

Overall because of my draft positions my best choices were to get the best hitting and best fielding teams. Most of the deep pitching staffs were long gone. I tried to avoid the divisions with the top 30 draft picks and even the next picks after those. For the most part I did that.

My hope is that I get at least 4 teams to the next round and 2 teams make the playoffs.

Three things that have come to my mind:

(1) How different it would be to do the same exact theme but change the years to every other "odd" year - i.e., 1980-1981, 1906-1907, etc., etc. instead of the current every other "even" year?

Given the amount of research involved, I'd say I would have a large mutiny on my hands...lol.

(2) I think that the team selection is obviously the most important aspect of how a team performs in this round - but I wouldn't discount the "picking your division" factor. In some cases it may not make much difference but I believe in other cases, it could be huge.

(3) ...and to think - when I first thought of this theme, I wasn't going to use clones. Also, I was originally thinking of only allowing 8 players from the better team instead of 10. Good Lord, I had trouble on every one of my teams narrowing it down to 10...cutting it down to 8 would be horribly painful.

Wow, it wasn’t enough to have to have spent more than a month on research for this stupid draft, now I need to compose a writeup about it.

(What’s past is) Prologue

Round 1 went as well as it possibly could have for me. I entered 13 teams, all in the American League, and all 13 made the playoffs. Four of them won World Series, but I’m most proud of the fact that only one team chosen after mine in a given league finished better than my team in that league. Well, that and the fact that Mr. Irrelevant (’44-’66 Browns/Orioles) finished with 95 wins. This put me in excellent drafting position for the second round of the tournament.

When juice announced the format for round 2 it was immediately apparent that research would be a herculean task. Creating 24x16=360 teams was just not feasible. Or was it? My first step was to decide: if I were to try, how would I go about it? I downloaded the most recent Excel salary doc, arranged it to mirror my customary team-building spreadsheet, sorted pitchers by ERC# and hitters by OPS#, and then added filters across the top so as to easily select years and franchises. I then drafted a few teams from leagues 1 and 15, and timed how long it took. Obviously the modern teams take longer because the pitching staffs are much more difficult to assemble (pre-1920 it’s pretty much just a matter of copying and pasting the first x number of pitchers to get to ~1400 IP). I found that, working quickly, I could on average draft a team in about 7 minutes. 7x360/60=42 hours. Basically, a workweek. [EDIT] 700 teams, so more like two workweeks. Such teams wouldn’t be perfect; working so quickly I was bound to make a few mistakes and overlook some nuances, but I would at least be 100% sure that I didn’t miss any diamonds in the rough. And given that the week before Christmas was pretty much dead at work, and I had the week off between Christmas and New Year’s at my parents’ house with little to do, I decided to go for it. And I succeeded.

Next up: how to compare all of these teams. This too would take a lot of manual work except for the fact that Excel and Google are pretty amazing tools. A simple Google search yielded a way to create a formula that would pull all of the tab names from the workbook into one sheet, and then using the indirect function it’s easy to pull the summary stats from each tab into a table. Use the rank function to rank the teams in each league based on pitching and hitting, sum the ranks, and sort on the rank sum, and you’ve immediately got a very simple power ranking of teams. These rankings are not perfect for several reasons: they completely ignore defense, they don’t account for the absolute value of each measure (in other words, beating a team by 50 OPS points is the same as beating it by 1), and they assume that hitting and pitching are equally valuable. But they are a very good way to separate the wheat from the chaff and to create a short list of potential picks to be investigated further.

So did all of this work help me? I kind of doubt it. I think I could’ve gotten 90% of the way to where I ended up with 10% of the effort. But I had nothing better to do, and the fact that everyone was saying that it couldn’t be done made me want to do it even more. The other advantage to having done this is the ability to look at other teams, in aid of my division placement choices and sizing up division foes.

I’ll present each of my picks below in the order of the top 30 draft, and then in numerical order by league. Commentary made at the time of each pick is included. Stats shown are the same as those used in my Excel workbooks: normalized, OPS & ERC rank among teams in that league that were eligible to be drafted, assuming 1400 IP and 6000 PA per team.


Top 30 Draft:

Pick #6: League 12: 2003-2004 San Francisco Giants/Arizona Diamondbacks (N.L. East)
.307/.402/.530 (3), 2.34 (1)

This would’ve been my choice if I had the first overall pick. I understand the arguments against this team: the lineup is extremely top heavy, neither of the two Bonds can play every game, and the defense is mediocre. But here’s the thing: you’re not drafting this team for its lineup or defense. You’re drafting it because it has the best pitching in the league. Having two of the greatest offensive seasons in baseball history in the lineup is just a bonus. And, once the playoffs roll around, both Bonds are going to be playing every game, most of which will be started by either Randy Johnson or Jason Schmidt. Yes please.

In terms of divisional opponents the best of the bunch is likely schwarze’s ’03-’04 Twins/Rockies, whose southpaw Santana clones might neutralize my Bonds pair a bit. But I like my chances here.


Pick # 10: League 13: 2007-2008 Los Angeles Dodgers/Atlanta Braves (N.L. East)
.310/.392/.505 (1), 2.55 (5)

“Of my 13 teams in round 1, my favorite team to manage was the 2003-2012 Braves. They were anchored by a pair of Chipper Jones clones: 2007 and 2008. Let's try to make that magic happen again. While the starting pitching is not stellar, the bullpen is phenomenal (Saito, Soriano, Wade, Broxton, Moylan), and in my estimation the lineup is the best in League 13.”

I love this team. Love love love love love. I just hate the pick. The correct pick here was the 1927-1928 New York Yankees/Philadelphia Phillies team that schwarze took right after this. I was all set to make the correct pick, but if memory serves I was a bit rushed when my pick came up because I was about to go out for the evening, I accidentally looked at the draft board wrong and thought that the picks between this one and my next one were one by juice and two by schwarze (which were instead the picks immediately preceding mine), and schwarze already had a League 4 team and I didn’t think he’d take a second one so soon.

I think this was the wrong pick for two reasons: the ’27-’28 Yankees will be so dominant in League 4 that other teams will have little chance of making the World Series, and these Dodgers/Braves would’ve probably lasted at least until my next pick because their starting pitching is just OK. Fortunately for me, though, League 4 is one of the two that I was not chosen to participate in, so that takes a bit of the sting out of my incorrect choice. That and the fact that I truly adore my team. The two Chippers raked in Round 1, and the pitching staffs in Round 2 will be worse. Manny, Tex, McCann, a phenomenal offensive SS pairing of Furcal and Renteria…I’m salivating. Only a weak Andruw Jones spoils the hitting party, but I need his defense in CF. And as long as my SPs and lineup can keep it close through 5 or 6 innings the bullpen should be able to close things out the great majority of the time. And if not, well, that’s why God created Jair Jurrjens. Which is probably news to him. Jurrjens, I mean. Although probably God too.

Within my division kstober’s ’05-’06 Indians/D’backs look solid. This is the rare format where one can use that Travis Hafner effectively, so that’ll be interesting. But anything less than a World Series berth would be a disappointment for my squad.


Pick #15: League 2: 1901-1902 Philadelphia Athletics/Baltimore Orioles (A.L. West)
.334/.401/.499 (1), 2.62 (28)

Here’s where it starts to get interesting. The obvious draw here is the $23.7M 1901 Lajoie. .417/.461/.649, A+ at 2B and SS goes a long way. However, even if you remove him from the roster this team’s OPS# is still .872, which would rank second in this league. So yeah, my lineup is far and away the league’s best when everyone plays. But that won’t be all the time, as the ’02 Lajoie (.370/.418/.552) only has 459 PA and ’01 McGraw (.506 OBP) only has 376. And my pitching staff ranks only 16^th among teams that were drafted. On the plus side, my defense is pretty good. All of this to say, I’m not completely sold on this team. On paper, in theory, they’re pretty good. But I don’t know how it will play out. This was likely a reach. I wanted them so I could avoid having to be involved in the League 2 draft, but that was a high price to pay if I don’t make the postseason.

I think deadball teams are especially difficult to compare using overall stats. Clearly, I have the best offense and worst pitching in my division. I’m showing my primary contender as chisock’s ’07-’08 Pirates/Senators, who I have at .804/2.37 compared to my .900/2.62. But what does that mean? Is a point of OPS as valuable as a point of ERC? Probably not. But what’s the ratio? My gut feeling is that a point of ERC is worth twice as much as a point of OPS, which would suggest that all else being equal my team should still be better. But that’s a complete guess. If it’s worth 4 times as much then my team is worse. Anyway, I won’t be shocked if this team fails to make the playoffs.

I just thought of a way to attempt to quantify the value of a point of OPS vs. ERC. I wish I had thought of this before the draft. Now I’m afraid to do it because it probably turns out that most of my teams suck.


Pick #23: League 15: 2019-2020 Cleveland Indians/Los Angeles Angels (A.L. East)
.288/.378/.512 (4), 2.25 (5)

At least this team should be pretty good though. It’s not perfect; the lineup is a bit too righthanded and the defense is average. But I’m happy that I get to clone Trout, who I hardly ever get to use, and the pitching staff is top-heavy in a good way. The best 1087 IP have a stellar 1.95 ERC#, and if I make the postseason those guys will likely pitch 80-90% of the innings. I think this was a solid late Top 30 selection.

My primary divisional goal was to be in the opposite league from schwarze’s ’19-’20 Astros/Royals, who are the only team other than my Bonds clone Giants I would’ve considered if I had the first overall pick. Within my division I anticipate the primary competition coming from emanes10’s ’19-’20 Dodgers/Tigers. I think he got a steal at #16. Gonsolin is formidable and this is a perfect league in which to deploy Willi Castro, and as I like to say it’s always good to deploy your Willi.


Pick #29: League 7: 1963-1964 Los Angeles Dodgers/Boston Red Sox (A.L. East)
.297/.362/.474 (22), 2.17 (2)

This pick makes me feel a bit uneasy. It’s just not in my nature to draft an all-pitch, no-hit team, but I couldn’t come up with a better option. Actually I did consider a better option: the ’95-’96 Orioles/Marlins team that I was hoping no one else was considering but was taken by schwarze with the first pick in the League 11 draft and was apparently being considered by almost everybody. But the other teams I was considering here (League 4 ’25-’26 Yankees/Cubs, League 8 ’71-’72 WhiteSox/Giants and ’71-’72 Mets/Braves, League 10 ’89-’90 Reds/Astros) all went relatively late in their respective drafts which calls into question my ability to judge teams. So I just don’t know. The ‘Cude can’t abide having just the 16^th best drafted offense in the league, no matter how good the pitching is. And the pitching, while good, is far from perfect. Unlike my previous team, this staff is top-heavy in a bad way. There isn’t really an efficient way to deploy the two Koufaxes, Drysdale, and Radatz. And the rest of the bullpen is just OK, especially if I end up having to use Jack “Call Me” Lamabe in anything but low-leverage situations, which I may have to do not because of innings limitations but usage (IP/G) limitations. On the plus side, though, I do have two sweet Koufaxes, Don Drysdale was on The Brady Bunch once, and I once shook hands with Dick “The Monster” Radatz, which looked exactly like the “Do you mind if we dance with your dates” scene from Animal House when the girl put her hand in that guy’s hand. The Monster had some big-*** hands, let me tell you.

Remember when I said that I hope a point of ERC isn’t worth 4 points of OPS? I suppose I didn’t say that, but I implied it. Well, if the relationship is one-to-one then this team might struggle with kstober’s ’65-’66 Indians/Reds team, which can actually hit and has a solid pitching staff. I don’t trust my team at all. I have a bad feeling about this.


League drafts:

League 1, pick 11: 1887-1888 Chicago White Stockings/Louisville Colonels (N.L. Central)
.323/.387/.482 (13), 2.51 (14)

This was my second-worst draft slot, and yet I’m very happy with this team. For the league it’s very well balanced. The lineup has some pop, with a killer Pete Browning and a solid Jimmy Ryan joining a pair of Caps (Anson, that is) and perennial cookie John Kerins to form a solid unit. Six of my nine primary hitters have speed ratings of 90+, and my defense is acceptable for the period. The pitching staff has a legitimate closer (Frank Dwyer, 51 IP, 2.02 ERC#) and more than 1700 IP worth of SPs with ERC# of 2.72 or less. And best of all, this team definitely has the best names. Does anyone have a top three that can beat Chicken Wolf, Farmer Brown, and Skyrocket Smith?

I placed this team as the final one in the NL Central. I see my primary competition as kstober’s (beginning to notice a trend?) ’87-’88 Wolverines/Orioles, which have similar overall numbers to my team. I think my squad’s better defense and pitching balance might win the day, but it should be close.


League 3, pick 4: 1919-1920 New York Giants/St. Louis Cardinals (N.L. East)
.312/.384/.453 (16), 2.50 (18)

Those rankings may not seem great, but in terms of rankings sum I had this as the fourth best, which just goes to show how even I think this league is. As such, I don’t have a good feel for how well this team will do. The offense, featuring double-barreled Hornsby action, is good but not great. The pitching is good but not great, especially if I can figure out how most effectively to utilize Art Nehf and his 119 IP of 1.74 ERC#. The defense is average.

Toysboys ’11-’12 Giants/Braves is the team I’m most looking out for here, as his lineup projects as being a little better than mine while his pitching is probably a tick below. But like I said, all of the teams in this league are very similar. I could see my team winning it all or finishing below .500.


League 5, pick 4: 1943-1944: New York Yankees/New York Giants (N.L. Central)
.301/.383/.483 (17), 2.72 (14)

”This was a very difficult decision, and my second pick in this draft that largely took into account team defense. I don't know what is wrong with me today. I must be coming down with something.”

Another evenly ranked league; this team was also ranked fourth in rankings sum. The best rankings sum in this league was the ’45-’46 Red Sox/Indians. I really wanted to take them and that excellent Ted Williams, but I couldn’t pull the trigger. I kept coming back to this team, because of their defense. I felt a bit uneasy about this selection (as evidenced by my quote) but I was happy to read that schwarze, who took that Red Sox team a few picks later, wanted them. But this was a departure for me. I’ve never used Snuffy Stirnweiss, but I know that all the cool kids do so I figured I’d give him a shot. I never knew he stole so many bases at such a high percentage, but to me he has too many extra PA’s which make his salary too high to use in all but leagues such as this one with no cap. He can flash the leather, though, along with most of the rest of this team. The pitching is decent and they have two useful relievers, which is more than some teams have. This team, though, might feature my most inconsequential clone: 1943 Buddy Kerr, all of 117 PAs for a salary of about $777k.

The other three teams in my division are from 1935-36. Not surprisingly, they all have better offenses and worse pitching than my team. I’m hoping that my pitching, and defense, win the day.


League 6, pick 4: 1953-1954 Cleveland Indians/Pittsburgh Pirates (A.L. Central)
.303/.387/.493 (7), 2.86 (16)

“I knew that there would be a ton of research involved in this theme, but once that was done I figured there would be a pretty well-defined hierarchy of quality, making draft choices relatively easy. Nothing could be further from the truth. This draft is invoking 16x16 draft levels of maddening vacillation.”

I like my team fine, but I’m really scratching my head about why the 1949-50 Cardinals/Pirates didn’t get drafted. There were only two teams drafted that have better offenses, but there were ten teams drafted that have worse pitching staffs. Decent defense, OK pitching balance, and five guys in the starting lineup with OBPs of .400+. I have them as a top ten team, and strongly considered them with this pick, hence the aforementioned vacillation. I just don’t get it. Do people have something against Ralph Kiner? Dude has always raked for me.

My team includes a Kiner, but an aging one. Obviously my best player is the ’53 Rosen, who I suspect would grossly underachieve in any capped league that you can afford to use him in but should do well here. He’d better. His clone is one of those guys who at first glance looks better than he is because his AVG/OBP/SLG are all just barely above .300/.400/.500. If he was .297/.394/.491 he’d look way worse than his actual .303/.402/.511, but he should still be useful.

My team has two good starting pitchers and one OK one, who will be used as the second parts of tandems with three lesser guys who will hopefully surrender just few enough runs that I’ll still be in the game when they depart. My bullpen has one great pitcher, and it’s easy to see the secret to his success. If you were in the batter’s box looking at this mug would you want to spend any more time there than absolutely necessary?



Based on the lineups that I put together my team has better pitching and better hitting than any other team in my division, but my team doesn’t have Willie Mays, Hank Aaron or Stan Musial as my opponents do so who knows?


League 8, pick 13: 1969-1970 Detroit Tigers/Atlanta Braves (A.L. East)
.293/.371/.490 (8), 2.74 (24)

This was my lowest pick of this round, and yet for a while there I thought I was going to get my third-favorite team in this league, the ’71-’72 Mets/Braves which went to footballmm11 with the 10^th pick. Instead I got a second tier team that will definitely struggle to make the postseason. Which I suppose is all you can reasonably ask for with the 13^th pick in a league. There are some nice pieces here: two good A-A-Rons, the dominant Rico Carty, some guys who can play D, two good relievers and four starting pitchers of varying quality who collectively have enough IP to be deployed in two tandems without needing much maintenance. But it’s tough to imagine a team contending for the postseason while utilizing Elliot Maddox, Clete Boyer and Tom Tresh in significant roles.


League 9, pick 2: 1981-1982 California Angels/Cincinnati Reds (A.L. West)
.300/.376/.471 (7), 2.71 (15)

“Those of you who have competed with me in leagues (such as many of those run by schwarze) which include the opportunity to provide post-draft writeups might remember that I tend to utilize an offense first, defense optional method of team building. Well folks, hell hath frozen over. In the absence of, at least to me, an obvious alternative, I've decided to beta test this whole "defense" thing, and have <<gulp>> chosen a team based primarily on the extent to which they can flash the leather. I feel sort of...gross...but we'll see how it goes.”

Those are not rankings commiserate with the second pick in a league, although in fact I had this team ranked fourth in rank sum. But my comment explains the primary reason for the pick. This might be the best defensive team I’ve ever assembled. For others this sort of roster might be de rigueur, but for me it’s Lewis and Clark level uncharted territory:

1B – Carew – B-/A+
2B – Grich – B/A
SS – Burleson – A/A+
3B – DeCinces – B/A+
LF – Lynn – A-/B
CF – Griffey Sr. – B+/A
RF – Foster – A/C

OK, I left out catcher. Downing is A/D+/B+, but I’m going to try to sneak Nolan’s bat in the lineup once in awhile against teams who don’t run much because he hits better but is an A/B/couldn’t-throw-out-lava-flowing-uphill.

All that, and of the drafted teams I have them as the 10^th best pitching staff and the 6^th best offense. And what’s the thanks I get for this masterful stroke of drafting? My division fills up first. Seriously? This aggression…will not stand, man. I mean, it has the potential to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? Perception is reality and all that. It doesn’t matter how good team is; if they’re perceived as being the weakest then their division is going to be filled with the best other teams, which means that the team’s record will suffer as a result. But rest assured, I will not let that happen. I will be watching this team like a hawk. I am the good mother****ing shepherd, and I will forsake all twelve of my other teams if necessary to make sure this one wins its division.

As an aside, you may have noticed that when presenting my team above I listed the shortstop between the second baseman and the third baseman. Most people, and the WhatIf draft center, list the shortstop after the third baseman. I suppose this is because when keeping score the position numbers 4-5-6 are 2B-3B-SS. But I’ve never understood this. To me, the shortstop stands between the second baseman and the third baseman and should be listed as such. I will die on this hill. Probably of dysentery.


League 10 - 1987-1988 Los Angeles Dodgers/Pittsburgh Pirates (A.L. Central)
.295/.371/.458 (27), 2.51 (8)

I have no recollection as to what I was thinking here. I don’t know why I though this was one of the five best teams in this league. Maybe I was right, but I’m currently clueless. I do remember agonizing between this team and the mid-80’s Expos with the two awesome Raines running seasons. Why I chose this one I haven’t the foggiest idea. And of course, this division filled fifth out of the six. But maybe that’s because people feared ribbentrop’s ’89-’90 A’s/Braves, who are likely the best team in the division. The very best explanation that I can come up with is that I attended Game 4 of the 1988 NLCS, which was the greatest baseball game I’ve ever seen in person. Oh well. I didn’t need 13 teams in the next round anyway.


League 11, Pick 5 - 1995-1996 Seattle Mariners/New York Mets (N.L. Central)
.316/.395/.547 (1), 2.82 (17)

“Pitching? We don't need no STINKING pitching!!!!!
(...I hope...)”

Now THIS is my kind of team. Pitching, smitching. Defense, schmefense. Sanity, schmanity. Look at this lineup:

1 LF Lance Johnson - .333/.361/.466 (50/62 SBs)
2 DH Edgar Martinez - .352/.470/.606
3 3B Bobby Bonilla - .328/.386/.553
4 SS Alex Rodriguez - .349/.403/.600
5 CF Ken Griffey Jr.- .295/.381/.597
6 1B Edgar Martinez - .318/.452/.563
7 RF Bernard Gilkey - .317/.393/.549
8 C Todd Hundley - .259/.355/.537
9 2B Jeff Kent - .277/.326/.451

Look. At. It. I don’t care that they can’t field. And actually, some of them can. Griffey is great, the other two OFs are fine, and A-Rod and Kent are average, so it’s only at 1B, 3B and to some extent catcher that there’s a problem. I don’t care that they can’t pitch. Although they aren’t that bad; I have them as the 15^th best pitching staff that was drafted, with a dominant Big Unit, a lights-out closer in Charlton and a pretty good bullpen overall. But none of that matters much. This team is going to flat-out mash.

Now, this division also filled first. At least I understand this one, because people don’t look at how good a team is, they just look at starting pitching. That having been said, I think that gworear’s ’93-’94 Royals/Mariners will be a formidable divisional opponent with their excellent pitching including that Appier who always punches above his weight. But I love my team. They might not win, but they will be fun, and that’s what it’s all about. I mean, that and winning.


Epilogue

So how did this all turn out? We’ll see. After my first round I have nowhere to go but down, but how far down is the question. I guess I feel about this draft like that old commercial when they put a piece of American Tourister luggage in the gorilla cage and the gorilla tried to destroy it but couldn't because it was American Tourister luggage. I think I did my best to mess this up, but my draft slots were good enough to fully prevent that. I don't know. All I know is that it will be a blast finding out. Thanks to thejuice6 for running such an awesome tournament. Good luck, everyone (other than my division foes in League 9)

Just woke up, grabbed my tablet, saw bareacuda's post... totally made my morning! Will comment later. Still need to get out of bed, shower, eat and get ready for work. Running late after spendng time reading this masterpiece. This is the reason I love this game...

Posted by barracuda3 on 1/19/2023 7:09:00 AM (view original):

When juice announced the format for round 2 it was immediately apparent that research would be a herculean task. Creating 24x16=360 teams was just not feasible. Or was it?

Trying to figure out how you came to only 360 teams? I counted 700 possible teams. Did you build all 700?

Posted by barracuda3 on 1/19/2023 7:09:00 AM (view original):
If you were in the batter’s box looking at this mug would you want to spend any more time there than absolutely necessary?

Love that Don Mossi photo

Posted by barracuda3 on 1/19/2023 7:09:00 AM (view original):

Pick #15: League 2: 1901-1902 Philadelphia Athletics/Baltimore Orioles (A.L. West)
.334/.401/.499 (1), 2.62 (28)

Here’s where it starts to get interesting. The obvious draw here is the $23.7M 1901 Lajoie. .417/.461/.649, A+ at 2B and SS goes a long way. However, even if you remove him from the roster this team’s OPS# is still .872, which would rank second in this league. So yeah, my lineup is far and away the league’s best when everyone plays. But that won’t be all the time, as the ’02 Lajoie (.370/.418/.552) only has 459 PA and ’01 McGraw (.506 OBP) only has 376. And my pitching staff ranks only 16^th among teams that were drafted. On the plus side, my defense is pretty good. All of this to say, I’m not completely sold on this team. On paper, in theory, they’re pretty good. But I don’t know how it will play out. This was likely a reach. I wanted them so I could avoid having to be involved in the League 2 draft, but that was a high price to pay if I don’t make the postseason.

I think deadball teams are especially difficult to compare using overall stats. Clearly, I have the best offense and worst pitching in my division. I’m showing my primary contender as chisock’s ’07-’08 Pirates/Senators, who I have at .804/2.37 compared to my .900/2.62. But what does that mean? Is a point of OPS as valuable as a point of ERC? Probably not. But what’s the ratio? My gut feeling is that a point of ERC is worth twice as much as a point of OPS, which would suggest that all else being equal my team should still be better. But that’s a complete guess. If it’s worth 4 times as much then my team is worse. Anyway, I won’t be shocked if this team fails to make the playoffs.

I just thought of a way to attempt to quantify the value of a point of OPS vs. ERC. I wish I had thought of this before the draft. Now I’m afraid to do it because it probably turns out that most of my teams suck.

This is why I use standard deviations. By calculating the league average and standard deviation for ERC# and OPS#, you can see exactly how an unbalanced team fares. Also, each league is different. In a tightly packed league, the standard deviation is smaller, so an outlier offensive or pitching unit will be more valuable.

One of the things I noticed is that most of *my* high-ranking teams that dropped to me in the second half of the draft were unbalanced teams. One extreme example was the 1975-76 Dodgers/Padres (I took at pick #20). Based on the rosters I built, this team was a whopping +2.4 standard deviations better than league average in pitching (ERC#) but a horrific -1.9 standard deviations in offense (OPS#). Just summing up those two standard deviations rates this team as above average, and then after factoring in that they are +1.9 standard deviations better in fielding, this team jumped up pretty high in my rankings.

Posted by barracuda3 on 1/19/2023 7:09:00 AM (view original):

League 9, pick 2: 1981-1982 California Angels/Cincinnati Reds (A.L. West)
.300/.376/.471 (7), 2.71 (15)

“Those of you who have competed with me in leagues (such as many of those run by schwarze) which include the opportunity to provide post-draft writeups might remember that I tend to utilize an offense first, defense optional method of team building. Well folks, hell hath frozen over. In the absence of, at least to me, an obvious alternative, I've decided to beta test this whole "defense" thing, and have <<gulp>> chosen a team based primarily on the extent to which they can flash the leather. I feel sort of...gross...but we'll see how it goes.”

Those are not rankings commiserate with the second pick in a league, although in fact I had this team ranked fourth in rank sum. But my comment explains the primary reason for the pick. This might be the best defensive team I’ve ever assembled. For others this sort of roster might be de rigueur, but for me it’s Lewis and Clark level uncharted territory:

1B – Carew – B-/A+
2B – Grich – B/A
SS – Burleson – A/A+
3B – DeCinces – B/A+
LF – Lynn – A-/B
CF – Griffey Sr. – B+/A
RF – Foster – A/C

Regarding defense, I give numerical scores for every fielder, based on fielding and range rating. It's mostly linear, but A+ range gets extra weight and D- gets extra negative weight. Catchers get rated on arm as well. Different positions get different weights, but in general, the average defensive score of the teams I built across all the leagues is 44. This obviously varies by era (i.e., League 1, the average is 37).

Teams that are 52 and above I consider good defenses. Your Angels/Reds team scores out at a 62. Of the 243 rosters I built, only 4 other teams scored in the 60's. Your 1943-44 Yankees/Giants (60), my 1967-68 Orioles/White Sox (63), the 2009-10 Cardinals/Mariners (64) and the top team overall, also in your league... the 1979-80 Royals/A's... this is who I had as their starting lineup...

'79 Porter C/C+/A+
'80 Brett B/A+
'80 White A-/A-
'80 Washington C/C+
'79 Brett C/A+
'80 Henderson B/A+
'80 Wilson B+/A+
'80 Murphy A-/A+
(If you want to bicker on the third OF, you can start '79 Otis A/A)

The shortstop is weak, but all those A+ ranges and the A+ catcher's arm moved this team to the top.