Nice write ups. Especially enjoyed reading Schwarze's on League 9, where I am at as well . .. although in the AL Central. As the 22nd pick, I didn't have a choice as to which league, but I was hoping to be in the AL so I could avoid those 2002 BoSox teams. They have some great sp and I'm glad I'll only be facing them a combined 4 times in the regular season.

With my first pick (and the third of the AL Central) I took the pitching-rich 2007 Padres. They had two front-line starters in Jake Peavy and Chris Young (who actually ended up as my No. 4 sp) along with 4 relievers, including two elite ones: Hoffman and Bell. Add-in A. Gonzalez as my starting 1b and Mike Cameron as a fourth OF and I've got my 8.

With the second pick of the second round, I was fortunate enough to snag the offensive-heavy 2006 New York Yankees, who conveniently provided nearly my entire starting lineup, including Posada (C), Cano (2b), Jeter (SS), ARod (3b), Damon (RF), B. Abreu (LF) and Jason Giambi (DH). Players 8 and 9 were two pitchers, including a top season of Mariano Rivera. The other arm is an SP I originally thought would be in the rotation, Mike Mussina. Turns out though, he's headed to a LR/spot start role thanks to my third round pick ...

.... the 2008 Cleveland Indians. I was shocked 10 teams were selected and none of them were the Indians, who featured two really good SPs in C. Lee and CC Sabathia, along with a decent RP. As for the other 5 slots, G. Sizemore will slot in as my starting CF. The other 4 are reserves, but largely compliment what I have starting, including Johnny Peralta, a decent right-handed bat who's a great defensive upgrade at SS and even 3b; Kelly Shopbach, a backup catcher with right-handed pop who could spell Giambi at DH against lefties; A. Cabrera, a switch hitter with a bit of pop who can play gold-glove caliber 2b; and C. Blake, who can play across the infield (albeit poorly) and has a good bat.

All in all, I feel extremely confident I'm going to do well with this team. While I may not have a CY Young candidate, the depth of my sps ... and rps ... won't be bested and my offense, filled with all those high-rated Yankees, is going to score.

Side note: Had I been picking a few spots earlier, I would have gone with the 04-06 slot and paired the best of Barry Bonds' seasons (04) with an 06 A. Pujols. Shockingly, in the two divisions the 04 Bonds was available, he wasn't taken in one, despite having an outstanding SP on the roster in J. Schmidt, and a pretty good 2b in Ray Durham, along with other usable pieces. And in two leagues the 06 Cardinals, which also included a top SP in C. Carpenter, no one took them. Maybe I got lucky I didn't have a chance to use those 2 teams ... since it appears they aren't too much in demand.

League 9, Pick 21

2006 Mets & Yankees
I very much wanted the NL but it was not to be (picks before me and the last spot being saved for Chisock at 23). Stuck in the AL I took the last pick in the East. It looks like the other teams will have the better pitching no matter where I go here. These two teams give me a ton of offense, cover every position well and leave me with a rock star bench. Posada at catcher. Delgado, Cano, Jeter and Wright around the infield. Beltran, Abreau and Damon in the outfield. A-rod and Giambi platooning at DH. Reyes on the bench. Feels like an all-star offense and I still have a whole team to pick. I looked at some other teams for some pitching but in the end knowing I did not even have to look at bats for my last pick settled me. Now I will have 3 teams in the tournament and each of them heavy on the hitting side.

2004 Twins
I need pitching. This one has the most of it as far as I can see. Santana and Radke in the rotation. Crain, Nathan and Rincon in the bullpen. It's BAD that Radke is my #2 pitcher. Very bad. My relievers are better than my starters but it's not a high bar. Need a 6th so my second catcher will be the 122 PA Mauer. He will actually be a better bat AND glove when filling in for Posada.

Outlook:
My lowest starting OPS is Posada's .866 followed by Abreau's .886. We should get on base, hit for average and hit for power. We have two guys with more than 30 SB and a couple more in the 20's. We can play defense. Pitching wins championships but hitting can win divisions, right? Feel like I repeated the same outlook multiple times here.

League 3, Pick 5
AL East, Pick 2
1934 Yankees, 1932 Reds, 1934 Cardinals

League 3 had the most teams selected in the top 20 draft, with four. The four include '27 Yankees (#1 overall by barracuda3), 1931 Athletics (#9 overall by calhoop), 1937 Yankees (#11 overall, by barracuda3) and 1933 Giants (#17 overall, by nocomm999). I had fifth pick, which means this was one of the first teams I selected after the division alignment was released. The teams I considered here besides the '34 Yankees were the '35 Pirates and '31 Yankees. My second pick in this league isn't until #16, so it's unlikely I can get two of these three choices, so I needed to choose wisely. The Pirates didn't have 8 players I liked although their top 3 (Blanton, Swift, Vaughan) are very strong. It came down to '34 or '31 Yankees and I thought the '34 pitching staff had a bigger gap over the '31 team as compared to '31's better offense. I honestly can't remember why I chose to play in the AL East (1932-34) over the AL Central (1934-36) but based on the other two teams I drafted, I'm glad I did. They give me Gehrig, Lazzeri, Crosetti, Dickey, Ruth, Chapman, Gomez, Murphy & J.Allen. Hard to complain with this group.

I was hoping the '34 Giants (Hubbell) would be around with my next pick, but they went to footballmm11 with the double on picks 4-5. When it finally got back to me, I initially was going to grab the offense with the '33 A's which included a stud Foxx, plus Cochrane and Simmons. But as I researched some more, I realized that the '34 Cardinals have a strong offense as well, and I would be happy with either team, so I went with the best pitching left. The 1932 Reds gave me a top 5 SP with Red Lucas, and a strong 100+ inning reliever in Eppa Rixey. There are only ten pitchers in the 1932-34 era with an ERC+ at 150+ and I have three of them (Gomez, Lucas, Rixey). The Reds also give me Babe Herman and Ernie Lombardi to platoon with Dickey.

I thought for sure that nocomm999 would take the A's team I was looking at but he didn't. As I was building out the rest of my roster with the '33 A's team, I realized that if I downgraded '33 Foxx to '34 Ripper Collins, I could add more pieces elsewhere, so I audibled off my original choice and instead grabbed the '34 Cardinals. That got me R.Collins, Frisch, Delancey (upgrade over Dickey), Dizzy and Daffy Dean.

Prediction: 88-74
Like most of my teams, I like the pitching better than the hitting. Sure, my roster has some really good hitters, but in this league, every team has really good hitters, so even though the offense looks good on paper, it's probably league average at best. My pitching should be top 5 in the league though. In fact, in the years 1932-38 (the AL), I have 3 of the top 18 starting pitchers (min 200+ innings) and that represents 910 of my team's innings. The mediocre defense is the one thing preventing this team from reaching 90+ wins.

League 7, Pick 5
NL Central, Pick 1
1976 Reds, 1977 Dodgers, 1977 Mets

This was a weird decision for me. I already had a team in league 7 with the '81 Astros (overall pick #6). The '75 Reds (overall pick #18 by glowguy) was also a Top 20 pick. Then when the regular draft started, BeAllEndAll wisely selected the '85 Cardinals, who I strongly considered in the Top 20 draft (but they didn't have enough useful players). I was all set to draft the '75 Dodgers pitching staff when barracuda3 grabbed them at pick 4. Crap. I really like a bunch of teams in the AL West (1984-86) but would rather pick 3rd or 4th in that division (not 2nd). Maybe I can get into that division with my third pick in this league. Since there is a decent amount of pitching in the 1970's, I went with the best offense available, the '76 Reds. Bench, Morgan, Rose, Concepcion, Geronimo, Foster, Griffey plus a couple of RPs. Now I wait and see which pitching-heavy teams are left.

The perfect two teams were left for me, the '77 Dodgers (Hooton, Sutton) and the '77 Mets (Seaver, Koosman) and we now have a starting pitching staff. Ironically, I don't have much of a bullpen (Sosa, Lockwood, Eastwick & Sarmiento) so I added a couple more starters who will pitch in long relief (T..John, Espinosa). But I was able to strengthen the offense. '77 Yeager & '77 Stearns replaces a light-hitting Bench at catcher. '77 Reggie Smith is one of my favorite sim cookies. '77 Dusty Baker starts at DH. '77 Lopes allows me to use '76 Morgan as a leadoff hitter vs RHP and rest him vs LHP.

Prediction: 81-81
Honestly, I have no idea how good this team is. They could win 71 or 91 so I split the difference. The 1970's decade mostly sucks for offense so I'm not sure if my offense is good, relative to other teams. Although my SPs are decent, my bullpen isn't very deep and not very good. I should have instead taken one of the 1985 teams I was drooling over. I could see this team having a positive run differential and a negative win differential due to poor 1-run game results.

3day .... as I researched for my pick ... I would have been VERY tempted to make my first two picks the same 2004 Twins you had paired with the 04 Giants.

On offense, I'd have Lew Ford and B. Bonds in the OF, JT Snow at 1b, Ray Durham at 2b and Mauer as a backup C. Probably Tori Hunter too as a fourth OF.

On the mound ... I'd have Johan and as my No. 2, Jason Schmidt ... as good a no. 2 in the league. RAdke actually would have been my No. 4 though, as my No. 3 would have c ome from my third pick, the 06 Cardinals.

That would leave you with this lineup:

C - Y. Molina (great glove/terrible bat)
1b - A. Pujols
2b - R. Durham
SS - D. Eckstein
3b - S. Rolen
OF - B. Bonds
OF - L. Ford
OF - J. Edmonds/T. Hunter
DH - JT Snow/C. Duncan

SP - Johan Santana, J. Schmidt, C. Carpenter, B. Radke

Not sure how good that team would be, but it would be a lot of fun to have a $23M Bonds in the lineup followed by an $11M Pujols. The other 7 around them vary from bad at the plate (Molina/Eckstein) to average to slightly above average (Rolen) in terms of production. Plus, the bullpen would be comparatively speaking, subpar.

Posted by schwarze on 3/28/2023 1:52:00 PM (view original):
League 3, Pick 5
AL East, Pick 2
1934 Yankees, 1932 Reds, 1934 Cardinals

League 3 had the most teams selected in the top 20 draft, with four. The four include '27 Yankees (#1 overall by barracuda3), 1931 Athletics (#9 overall by calhoop), 1937 Yankees (#11 overall, by barracuda3) and 1933 Giants (#17 overall, by nocomm999). I had fifth pick, which means this was one of the first teams I selected after the division alignment was released. The teams I considered here besides the '34 Yankees were the '35 Pirates and '31 Yankees. My second pick in this league isn't until #16, so it's unlikely I can get two of these three choices, so I needed to choose wisely. The Pirates didn't have 8 players I liked although their top 3 (Blanton, Swift, Vaughan) are very strong. It came down to '34 or '31 Yankees and I thought the '34 pitching staff had a bigger gap over the '31 team as compared to '31's better offense. I honestly can't remember why I chose to play in the AL East (1932-34) over the AL Central (1934-36) but based on the other two teams I drafted, I'm glad I did. They give me Gehrig, Lazzeri, Crosetti, Dickey, Ruth, Chapman, Gomez, Murphy & J.Allen. Hard to complain with this group.

I was hoping the '34 Giants (Hubbell) would be around with my next pick, but they went to footballmm11 with the double on picks 4-5. When it finally got back to me, I initially was going to grab the offense with the '32 A's which included a stud Foxx, plus Cochrane and Simmons. But as I researched some more, I realized that the '34 Cardinals have a strong offense as well, and I would be happy with either team, so I went with the best pitching left. The 1932 Reds gave me a top 5 SP with Red Lucas, and a strong 100+ inning reliever in Eppa Rixey. There are only ten pitchers in the 1932-34 era with an ERC+ at 150+ and I have three of them (Gomez, Lucas, Rixey). The Reds also give me Babe Herman and Ernie Lombardi to platoon with Dickey.

I thought for sure that nocomm999 would take the A's team I was looking at but he didn't. As I was building out the rest of my roster with the '32 A's team, I realized that if I downgraded '32 Foxx to '34 Ripper Collins, I could add more pieces elsewhere, so I audibled off my original choice and instead grabbed the '34 Cardinals. That got me R.Collins, Frisch, Delancey (upgrade over Dickey), Dizzy and Daffy Dean.

Prediction: 88-74
Like most of my teams, I like the pitching better than the hitting. Sure, my roster has some really good hitters, but in this league, every team has really good hitters, so even though the offense looks good on paper, it's probably league average at best. My pitching should be top 5 in the league though. In fact, in the years 1932-38 (the AL), I have 3 of the top 18 starting pitchers (min 200+ innings) and that represents 910 of my team's innings. The mediocre defense is the one thing preventing this team from reaching 90+ wins.

Footballmm11 selected the '32 A's in the first round, so that team wasn't available to either of us in the second or third rounds.

Oops, I meant 1933 A's. Edited my original post.

League 1, Pick 6
AL Central, Pick 1
1912 Red Sox/1912 Pirates/1912 Giants

When my spot came up here, there were 5 owners in 5 different divisions. I only gave a little thought to being a second team anywhere, but I suppose maybe I should have. There are definitely deeper division groups than others, and I hope this works out well. The fact that all the teams I drafted were taken in the first 6 picks of the 1912-14 division feels pretty validating at least. There are some super dominant SP available in this division, but some of them (looking at you, 1910 Ed Walsh) have such abhorrent offenses attached to them that it's no surprise no one took them. But one thing I was pretty sure of is that every team would have a pretty strong pitching staff in this league and that I'd better have some offense to counter that.

I'm not sure if the 1912 Red Sox were a clearly great first pick, but they brought a strong Joe Wood (too bad pitchers don't hit here!) and a couple other rosterable pitchers in O'Brien, Collins, and Bedient. Most importantly, they brought a brilliant Tris Speaker in one of my favorite seasons for him, and a few other decent bats if not world-beaters. I still needed to fill 6-7 lineup spots and 2 rotation spots with the other picks, and that made it basically untenable to grab a superstud SP who had no help. The 1912 Pirates offered a handful of useful pitchers (Hank Robinson will make an unlikely 188-inning closer who will hopefully get 6-9 outs on a regular basis), a strong Honus with a great glove, and triples machine Chief Wilson, plus another A+ outfielder in Max Carey. The 1912 Giants filled the rest of the lineup out with Merkle, Meyers, and Doyle, and I got 2/3 of my rotation in an OK but not amazing Mathewson and a slightly walks-prone Jeff Tesreau.

All in all, it looks like a competitive team to me. I don't think the lineups will be good enough to make my slightly underpar pitching suffer too much. I've got outstanding range in the outfield and decent gloves except at 2B in the infield. Every hitter in the lineup was .300+ so there's some depth there. The ballpark choices didn't really suit my offense all that well, so I settled for a basically neutral Forbes over Fenway or Polo that favor things we aren't especially awesome at (doubles). I don't like to make predictions, but I see this as a team that should advance to R4 at least.

League 2, Pick 17
AL East, Pick 3
1922 Browns, 1920 Giants, 1921 Cardinals

The AL West was still sitting there with just toysboys in it, and I considered joining him. But I really didn't love the team choices in 24-26. I did think being on the plus side of 1920 would assure a strong offense but hopefully with enough pitching. There was only one NL division with spots in it, and I didn't really think being the 11th team over there was a great strategy for moving on. So to the AL East I went, after a lot of stressing over the choice.

The 1922 Browns appealed to me because Sisler and Williams are the start of a very strong offense, and for the era Shocker and Vangilder seemed like at least acceptable SP options. Jack Tobin, Marty McManus, and Hank Severeid also looked like solid starters to me. The key to this combination working, though, turned out to be the 1920 Giants falling to me at my second pick. For one thing, I'm getting my whole rotation from them (Barnes, Nehf, Toney). Add in a A++ range Dave Bancroft and a potent Ross Youngs to the lineup, and it was an easy call. That still left me with question marks at 3B and an OF/DH spot, and I decided to go all in on the offense with the 21 Cards. For one thing, there's a marvelous Hornsby who can play 3B and gives me three fabulous hitters atop the lineup. Add in two more .900+ OPS guys in Austin McHenry and Jack Fournier and suddenly Tobin finds himself out of the lineup.

The offense will, I assume, be among the best in the league, although I've been wrong before. We've got pretty good range but will make a lot of errors, so that combined with iffy arms does seem a harbinger of a lot of 10-8 games. I feel like we can be on the plus side of enough of those to cause trouble, though.

League 4, Pick 17
NL West, Pick 3
1943 Cardinals/1942 Yankees/1942 Giants

I saw no great team to take to join schwarze's AL Central even though 3 spots remained at this pick. But I hopped into his other division instead. As it happens, my best teams in each round so far have featured the wartime Cardinals ... so why not start off with the 1943 Cards and see what I can surround them with.

The Cards have a lot of quality pitchers, though most lack the innings to be full-time rotation pieces. This isn't the best of Mort Cooper's seasons, but he did really well for me in R2 (23-8, 3.29) and I'll take that any day. I'll also be using Pollet, Brecheen, Gumbert, and Brazle -- the usual suspects. On the offensive side, well there's a lovely Mr. Musial to build around, and Walker Cooper is a solid catcher. Whitey Kurowski is usable at 3B if needed, too. I went with the 42 Yankees to get a very good Tiny Bonham for the rotation, plus a decent enough Red Ruffing to be a 3rd starter depending on how I configure those Cards guys. But the big plus is I'll get 5 lineup pieces from these Yankees: Gordon, Rizzuto, and Cullenbine in the infield, and DiMaggio and Keller in the outfield. It's not a great year for Joe D, alas, so he's batting 6th. The Giants filled the remaining lineup holes with Ott and Mize quite nicely, along with a couple of useful enough arms.

Overall, it's a team with a good but not great defense, almost no speed, a strong top 2 starters and back end of the bullpen, and a competitive lineup that gets on base well. For a late pick, I feel pretty good about how the pieces fit together. For the era, I think it's a solid team. We're playing in Yankee (I) because once again there were no great fits. I didn't pay attention to parks when I drafted at all, possibly a mistake, and just picked the best of the 3 later.

League 5, Pick 5
NL East, Pick 1
1951 Dodgers, 1950 Giants, 1952 Indians

My strategy as elsewhere was basically to take a team in an open division if I could, assuming one jumped out at me as the best choice. Sometimes, I just went for it anyway even without that feeling. I don't feel comfortable with pitching in this era at all, so I hope I got enough of it. And everyone will be able to hit, so it's hard to gauge. The fact that schwarze and pedro both took the '56 Yankees a couple picks after my pick suggests I should have thought longer and harder about them. But oh well ... it's nice to have some Dodgers on hand anyway.

The 51 Bums had two of the best players at their position in Campanella and Robinson and several other useful hitters. There's not a ton pitching-wise, alas, with just Newcombe and Labine making the cut. The Giants pick will likely only turn out as well as Jim Hearn fares. If I get a good season, I'll be in good shape. If I get a schwarze season, then I'm probably not making the playoffs. Larry Jansen qualifies as a strong arm for the era, so he boosts the rotation. The only hitters who made my lineup were the .460 OBP Stanky (redundant as a 2B, but one can DH) and SS Alvin Dark. The 52 Indians filled the remaining gaps pretty well, with Lemon moving atop my rotation and bringing a couple solid relief arms. Larry Doby and Al Rosen pop nicely into the lineup, along with Dale Mitchell (probably platooning with Andy Pafko).

This squad has a little bit of speed, a solid defense, some nice table-setters atop the lineup, and plenty of thump following. Ebbets Field boosts the power a bit, because why not? The pitching won't be so fantastic regardless. I'm pretty happy with the balance here and no big holes. Hopeful there's a playoff contender lurking in this bunch.

League 6, Pick 13
NL West, Pick 2
1967 White Sox/1966 Pirates/1967 Cardinals

Not to belabor the obvious, but there's a lot of great pitching in this era though it's not as easy to find a team with two great SP. It was sorely tempting to grab a Dodgers team just to have Koufax, and I'm sure I was dissuaded by the lousy offenses on those teams. But then again, I wound up using only one hitter from my first pick anyway and might have been happier if I'd gone that way after all.

The 67 White Sox are not quite as strong a pitching staff as the 64 version that went high twice, but it's tough to argue with 3 strong SP and 3 strong RP with your first team. I knew there was enough offense out there to supplement them, so I had to grab them first. Then with my second pick, I was hoping for the 66 Braves but settled for the 66 Pirates instead. In a flip from the first pick, I only used hitters from this team. I'm pulling 6 starters from these Bucs, and the other two guys will platoon and play a lot, too. That left finding a team to fill the few holes I did have or try to upgrade somewhere. Of course I looked hard at the 68 Cardinals to get Gibson, but the 67 squad offered so much more of what I needed. Dick Hughes fills out the rotation nicely, Curt Flood and Tim McCarver meet big needs up the middle, and Orlando Cepeda adds another huge stick to the mix.

There are a handful of sub-600 PA guys to manage here, and one rather frustrating hole I couldn't fill was with a good 3B. Bob Bailey can hit a bit but needs a platoon mate and can't field all that well. I'm forced to plug in a subpar Don Buford for about 1/3 of the games unless I want to stick Manny Mota's D/D- glove out there instead. Yikes! For some reason, I didn't roster backups in the middle infield where my worst bats are, though likely because I ran out of roster spots trying to plug in for the guys who can't play every day. We've got some amazing pinch running available with Brock and Buford, though, so there's that. We're playing in Forbes, a basically neutral park, because there wasn't a better fit once again. Bottom line: Can we score off the aces of the era? I hope so.

League 7, Pick 12
NL West, Pick 2
1978 Brewers/1980 Phillies/1979 Cardinals

It took tremendous willpower not to take a Dodgers team in this era, since it was my formative time as a young fan and has an outsized influence on my love of baseball. But the 75, 82, and 85 squads were off the table early, and I couldn't see taking any other as a 12th pick. If it worked out to take a secondary team, sure. Toysboys surprised me a bit with his 82 selection and I'll be quite interested to see how he does. I have written this elsewhere, but I spent many years replaying the entire 1982 NL season on Statis-Pro Baseball. My playoff teams were the Dodgers and the Expos, and I have an excessive affection for any team from that season despite the fact it's not at all a great sim season generally in this game. Anyway, I hope he's rostering Fernando, Reuss, and Welch with Pedro delivering some thunder and Steve Sax swiping some bags. But I digress ...

I really couldn't make a decision on my first pick here, also in part due to recent seasons in the Cooperstown Historical Replay league that's in the late 70s and provided me some chances to see what really worked there. The 79 Royals were great for me and a team I actually considered taking here. Amazed they never went to anyone, really, though admittedly it's not a super pitching staff. But I also had great success with the 78 Brewers, with their deep collection of solid hitters, a very nice Mike Caldwell to be my ace, and a solid No. 2 behind him in Lary Sorensen. I could have used quite a number of different hitters from the Brew Crew based on needs filled elsewhere, too, so they made an appealing top pick to me. I'll wind up with 4/5 of them in my lineup every day.

For the second pick, I liked these Phillies because they gave me a strong Carlton to fill out the rotation, a pair of RP I needed in McGraw and Bystrom, a good glove at 2B in Trillo, and then as a bonus a 48-HR season from Schmidt. I didn't really need a 3B as the Brewers had two fine ones in Bando and Money, but you can't complain about dropping Schmidt into the lineup. Bake McBride and Lonnie Smith will be useful platoon OF, too. The real key to my final pick was securing a good catcher as neither of my first two teams had much there. Enter Mr. Ted Simmons to solve that problem, and meet his friend Mr. Keith Hernandez with a .344 AVG, not to mention Garry Templeton unseating Robin Yount as my SS. There's a fine swingman season from John Fulgham, too.

I like this team. Can you tell? The offense is versatile with some L/R choices, a few guys can bring some wheels to the table, and the defense is pretty strong, too. Then again, I kind of like the other teams in my division, too, and I think we're looking at a tough fight. I'm not thrilled with my stadium as I've got a few sluggers playing in a -2 HR park (Busch), so I'm reminded yet again it wasn't a brilliant idea not to think about it when choosing teams. I'd like to give an optimistic outlook here, so I'll say we should at least advance this squad to R4.

League 4, Pick 6
NL West, Pick 1
1944 Cardinals, 1944 Red Sox, 1944 Indians

Since my other League 4 team (48 Indians) was in the AL, I needed an NL team, so I was thrilled when toysboys switched divisions (to the AL East) with his '44 Cardinals pick. I quickly selected the other '44 Cardinals team... my #1 ranked option in the NL West. The 1940's Cardinals were a juggernaut... I probably would have taken the '42 or '43 Cardinals if toysboys stayed in the NL. That would've been fine too, since I maybe could've added the '42 Yankees coming back. Anyway, the '44 Cardinals are loaded, with 4 starting batters (Musial, Hopp, W.Cooper, Sanders) and 1049 usable innings (Cooper, Wilks, Munger, Lanier, Brecheen).

Having nearly half my starting lineup and 2/3 of my pitching staff locked up, I could cherry-pick two teams with the most impactful players. The '44 Indians give me two great infielders with Keltner (3B) & Boudreau (SS) plus a quality SP, Steve Gromek. The '44 Red Sox fill in the remaining holes in the lineup with 2B Bobby Doerr and OF Bob Johnson. Oh, and Tex Hughson is a top 3 SP from 1942-44.

Prediction: 92-70
I am probably a little overconfident with this team, but my starting lineup has eight players with an OPS+ of 120 or great (my worst hitter is at 118). I have three of the top nine and five of the top nineteen starting pitchers from this era. The defense is strong. The only weakness is RP depth, but there just aren't a lot of stud relievers in this era anyway. I'll use Munger plus one of my starters as my two main relievers.

League 5, Pick 7
NL West, Pick 2
1956 Yankees, 1956 White Sox, 1955 Braves

This is my second team in this league and I am forced to take a team in the NL (1950-54). Each division had one team selected including both '54 Indians teams (both top 20 picks). I was avoiding barracuda in the NL Central. I strongly considered joining the NL East with redcped's '51 Dodgers, but there wasn't a single team that jumped out and my rankings had more *good* team options in the NL East, so I went with the '56 Yanks. Besides a stud Mantle season, I get to fill two tougher positions with Berra (C) and McDougald (SS). The team also provided one good SP (Ford) and two medicore SPs (Sturdivant, Larsen).

When it got back to me, I really struggled to decide on my next team. I really needed pitching depth and the '56 White Sox had it (three SPs between 135-140 ERC+ and six other pitchers between 118-125 ERC+). But no real studs on the team. After posting, I almost switched to 1955 White Sox who had fewer usable pitchers, but they were better quality (Pierce, Donovan, Consuegra) , plus '55 had a good Nellie Fox. But '56 had better OFs (Minoso, Nieman, Doby) plus a usable catcher (Lollar). In retrospect, I made the wrong choice.

With my third pick, I mostly needed to fill two starting positions (2B, 3B) and also needed to help fill some ABs at 1B, SS and I'd take whatever pitching help was available. The '55 Braves had a stud Eddie Mathews and Hank Aaron's good season at 2B. Johnny Logan and Joe Adocck fills the needed SS & 1B ABs. Ray Crone adds 148 innings of 1.13 whip (which is decent for this era).

Prediction: 78-84
Without any stud pitchers and an average defense, this team is most likely a bubble team in terms of advancing to round 4. We will lose all games vs the league's best pitchers and maybe have a shot at winning against teams that have a weak #3 and/or #4 starting pitcher. I think we'll score some runs with Berra, Minoso, Mathews, Mantle, Aaron, Nieman. And Mantle should have a shot at the MVP, but even with a top 10 offense, I am not expecting a playoff run or even a .500 season.