$70M – Schindler’s Whitelist
Olympic Stadium
Low cap leagues are always hit or miss for me. For this one, I decided to build a team around a ball park. Olympic Stadium suppresses homers and singles to help my pitching staff, and boosts doubles. I tried to stack my lineup with guys who were 5+ doubles/100AB – Polanco (5), Byrnes (6), Dimaggio (5), Kruk (6) and ’03 Griffey as my designated PH, at 6 as well. I also have 5 high % SB guys, with 70+ speed.

For pitching, I looked for guys with low walk totals and moderate OAVs that would be helped by my ball park. ’19 Douglas is my ace, followed by ’82 Sutton, ’10 Marcum and ’10 Lilly. Followed my trend in the bullpen with low BB guys and guys with decent K/9. Lots of good setup men with ’14 Soria closing games. I’m not too high or too low on this team. I’m curious to see how it works out.

$80M – Dodging 2015 Poorly Hit Balls
Dodger Stadium
This theme took the longest for me as I had a lot of good options, but none great. My goal was to find a team with a good offense, good bullpen and weak rotation that I could add two aces to. I considered recent years Orioles and Indians teams, and even the 2015 Cubs looked good, but there was always some hole (usually defensively) that I wasn’t comfortable with. I finally opted for the 2015 Dodgers because they already had two of the aces (Kershaw and Greinke) that I was trying to twist into other clubs. Add in ’15 Arrieta and this pitching staff will dominate. I may lose a lot of 1-0 or 2-1 games though. Yimi Garcia is my primary setup man, with Jensen closing, in a pen that has 4 relievers with 10+ K/9. I have no doubts at all about this pitching staff.

The offense is my biggest concern, especially in a pitchers park. LA had some options to choose from, so I tried to focus on guys with solid D and good singles numbers to maximize performance at Dodger Stadium. I brought in Manny for his bat and to improve infield defense. I originally had Bogaerts to improve my SS defense, but Bogaerts range (A/C-) wasn’t much better than Rollins (A/D) and the good defensive SS options from 2015 were poor hitters. My defense is solid, but my MIF range will be my biggest concern, with Rollins and Kendrick. If my offense can scrape together 3 runs a game, this team should do well.

$100M – LA State of Mound c. 2006-2008
Dodger Stadium
This team had so many good twistable options, and seeing that 6 other reputable owners used it, that makes me feel good. Getting Kershaw and Maddux on the same staff was too good to pass up, though given the cap, I had to “settle” for ’97 Maddux as opposed to ’94 or ’95. As with my previous theme, I focused on low-walk pitchers, with the pitchers park. Only two of my pitchers have a BB/9 over 2 and one (closer Kuo) has an OAV of .139 that easily offsets it.

I feel really good about my offense and defense (Kent’s B+/C- at 2B is the biggest question mark). Martin’s A+ arm will help offset opposing running games, and Furcal, Kemp, Lofton and Pierre should run wild on opposing teams with high steal totals and great success rates. I again focused on singles hitters, with 7 of my 8 starters boasting 1B/100# of 20 or higher – 3 at 25+. Saenz and Loney will provide a nice platoon at 1B and ’08 Manny will be a destructive PH. I like my chances with this team, though Dodger Stadium always seems to produce mixed results for me.

$110M – 1993-2010: A Millionaire Love Story
Pac Bell Park
I started by experimenting with the 90s-2000s Braves, but decided Franchise Soup was my best approach. In keeping with my trend this year, I decided to build my team around a ballpark. I chose Pac Bell and focused on singles and triples hitters, with speed and good OBP. Guys like Lofton, Butler, Biggio and Nixon have 1B/100# of 24+ and are high-rate-of-success base stealers. Helton will anchor the lineup with his walks and some pop for the road, and IRod will provide protection for him and control run games with his A+ arm. This team boasts a phenomenal defense that should really benefit a good pitching staff.

’95 Maddux and ’00 Pedro will anchor the rotation, followed by ’05 Peavy and ’03 Wood. I had to save money on the last two rotation slots, so hopefully Wood’s 4.27 BB/9 won’t burn me too much. His 11.36 K/9 should help offset it. My bullpen features high K pitchers with decent walk rates, with ’10 Peralta closing. I went with three 200Kish mopup guys and no long man, so hopefully I can keep my pitching staff rested.

$140M – KBBHR Radio
Robison Field
I try my Robison Field strategy every year, to mixed results. Here it is again. I built this team first and stuck with my first iteration as it felt like a bit of a crapshoot theme and I didn’t want to work myself in circles. With Robison (-1/+2 HR LF/HR RF), I focused on lefty power. Votto, Williams, Harper and Davis, along with switch-hitting Mantle should take plenty advantage of the short porch in RF. Bench and Machado will provide some righty pop on the road. I really like my defense in this league, with Phillips (A/A), Machado (B/A+), Fernandez (A+/A+) and Mantle (A-/A) providing good ratings at key positions. Bench should do wonders behind the plate as well (A-/A-/A+).

My focus for the pitching staff was high, high, high K/9 and low OAV. I tried to keep walks low but was willing to risk those more than XBH, so hopefully the strategy doesn’t hurt me too much. Other than my mop up guy and reserve spot starting stud Milacki, Jake Arrieta is my only pitcher with a K/9 below 10. Kershaw, Maddux, Unit and Arrieta make up my rotation, with ’15 Sale as a long/swingman (not too shabby). Miller, Chapman, Capps and Kimbrel all boast K/9 over 14 and OAV .168 or lower. ’04 Wagner rounds out the pen.

I tried to cover all my bases with this team offensively (power, contact, speed), and with my defense and all the K’s my staff should rack up, I feel cautiously optimistic about this team.

$255M - $255M and all I got was this crappy team
Sicks Stadium
I really hate high-cap themes as they always seem like a crapshoot – with me getting crapped on. As usual, I decided to pick a park and work my strategy around it. I picked a park that greatly suppresses singles and triples and drafted a lot of high-double mashers. 6 of my starting 8 have a 2B/100# of 5-8. I feel like my lineup has good offensive balance, with superb defense throughout. But that’s probably true of all the lineups in this theme, so hopefully I worked my ballpark strategy effectively so I can set myself apart.

Low OAV and WHIP were the primary focus for pitching, with Ks a bonus. ’03 Gagne is my closer (.133 OAV, 14.98 K/9) and ’99 Wagner is my primary setup man (.135 OAV, 15.01 K/9). Sutter, Meredith and Northrop round out my bullpen, with Cisco and Milacki saved for spot starts vs my toughest opponents. For the rotation, I went with a lot of low HR/9 guys to suppress my ballparks 2/2 homer ratings. ’15 Alexander will likely get 40% of my starts, with Arrieta, Gooden and Chamberlain rotating through the remaining slots. ’14 Hendrix is the long man and will supply much needed support innings throughout the season.

70 – Two hitters really stood out here. Gavvy Cravath and Buck Freeman. I would imagine I missed some others but their SLG+ compared to other players available is off the charts. I added some switch hitters with strong defense around them and hopefully that will be enough. With pitching, I looked for low BB pitchers that didn’t give up home runs.

80 – I could have spent years on this team but I decided to only build two teams. The ’85 Cards and the ’98 Braves. The Cardinals had horrible pitchers, and as great as the runners were on that team, I couldn’t get over the pitching. Every pitcher on the Braves had a strong ERA+. The team also had some decent hitting with Chipper, Javy Lopez and Andres Galarraga. I settled on the Braves and made sure I had enough IP and PA.

100M – Keeping with the theme of current teams vs. deadball teams, I looked seriously at the Braves and Yankees. I had the Braves team punched in when I just went to look what the Dodgers looked like with Maddux. I found Derek Lowe, Kershaw and Jason Schmidt and being a lifelong Dodger fan, I was sold. Great relief pitching made it an easier decision. Jim Thome and Manny anchor a suspect lineup. Add Mark Loretta’s great season, Nomar, Juan Pierre, Ethier, Luis Gonzalez, and Russell Martin. This team may really stink compared to some others but I don’t care. Think Blue.

110 – Normally, I would go with something like 1910 to 1928, trying to figure out how to combine deadball pitchers with live ball hitters. Last year, that was my overall strategy and it didn’t work out too well. I think it was the poor fielding associated with the early pitchers. I promised myself this year I would think more current. That immediately led me to the Clemens, Johnson, Jason Schmidt, Kevin Brown, Maddux, Martinez run. I worked in 5 of them and plugged in Mariano as my closer. That gave me 1200 IP and then I went to hitting. I guessed that many people would play the early years for the reasons above and so I wanted to do a running team. Rickey, Alomar, Raines. ’94 Gwynn to knock them in and then some switch hitters with high AVG to round out the hitting.

140 - I wanted to figure out what would make my team unique. I figured everyone would be going into HR parks and would sacrifice batting average. I plugged in an A catcher in case people really went off the deep end and put together a running team. Then I started building hitters with High BA while still abiding by the rules. I’d put them in a pitcher’s park and hope that a strong pitching staff and the minus BA and minus HR would minimize the other team’s offense. Maddux, Pedro, Russ Ford, Kershaw, and Bob Gibson are my starters with a strong bullpen. I spent more on pitching than on hitting as I usually do.

225 – Strong Pitching, Strong Pitching, Strong Pitching. With that, I still went with Babe Ruth since there was so much other good pitching available. Daily maintenance of your team is key here, based on pitching matchups, catcher matchups, and park matchups. I would imagine everyone has a strong BA lineup and a strong HR lineup. The winner here will need to work hard and watch his lineup everyday.

Great themes as usual. GL everyone.

Every year I do this I say I'm going to spend more time on these teams, between work and school though I never have the time. I usually make them Sunday on the deadline days. Year after year I read these awesome writeups from Whatif superstars and see things like: well I made 27 versions of this team or this team I created a quantum, nuclear nebula algorithm to decipher the 1917 Cleveland Spiders right handed pitchers molecular structures and say to myself, I bet people are interested in the no rhyme or reason, quickly crammed in, first thought in my head team building strategy.


70 million - hey, i heard of 2 of these guys!
I live and die by ERC# - I took guys that rated pretty highly there, saw i had 34 minutes to make my other deadline team as well and filled in accordingly with random jerk hitters. I've got 4 solid starters, a lousy bullpen and a 5th starter that can shuffle back and forth.

80 million - Goosin' the 85 Cardinals
This one took me about 11 seconds to determine, I took Saberhagen and Goose Gossage to help the less than stellar pitching corp, probably should have considered hersheiser, but oh well!

100 million 72-74 Oakland A's
I'm not really sure where I came up with this squad - I think I was goofing around with the Philadelphia A's of the Speaker Cobb fame and stumbled on this group. I liked that I could get Joe Horlen and Denny McLain and pair them with other 300 IP horses Vida Blue and Catfish...the bullpen is slop but I like some of the offense with a good Campy, Reggie, Orlando Cepeda and the always helpful Gene Tenace. I'm curious how this team fares as nobody else chose it.

110 million - Old Balls 1903-1920
I knew I wanted old timey dudes, I was going to look at guys like Cy Willams and Gavvy Cravath and maybe even TIlly Walker but I couldn't make the years work (I'll miss you Gavvy!) I ended up with a collection of OK's on offense and merged them with a Sisler, Speaker, and an expensive Cobb - should be fun! The pitching is the usual suspects, Big Train, Joss and Frank Smith with good relievers like Northrop, Maddox and Falkenberg.

140 million - Guess what doesn't work? This team!
I didn't want to spend any money on a bench and I accomplished that with 3 $200k players - this team is led by 26 Ruth and 33 Foxx. I tried a lot of different combos with the middle infield, guys like 99 Alomar and decent power Jeter but couldn't make the walks work. Ended up with an infield of Zobrist, Chipper, and 50 doubles Brian Roberts. The outfield has 58 Mantle and sim darling 04 Lance Berkman....DH Jimmy Wynn got me walks and strikeouts - thanks Toy Cannon! I went with Sutton, Scott, Maddux and Pedro with a short season Cliff Lee to help out. Chose Pac Bell park to limit some of the homers - sounds like a dumb idea!

255 - HIlltoppin at 255 = Dumb
Hey if youre going to roll with Cobb, Shoeless Joe and Wee WIllie in your outfield why not get nuts and give them a +3 park?! Couldnt pass up Babe Ruth either, I figured everyone would have him. Once again I paired him up with Foxx cause those 2 are the real legit home run threats in the sim in my experience. Kinda went siutational with the bench with Bagwell and Junior providing the thump and Ozzie Smith giving me glove and Rock Raines pinch running. I've got about 1950 IP which seems ridiculous but hey lets get nuts- rolling with Ed Walsh, DOn SUtton, MIke Scott and a tandem of BIg Unit and Doc Gooden just cause thats cool. bullpen the usual beast mode guys like Eck, Toney, Sutter, Wade Davis, Latman and Kuo....I have no idea whats going to happen with this team so that'll keep things interesting.

I'm always around the fringe of the cage, have made it twice in ummm 5 tries and the others like around 30 so I figure my casual style will fare about as well. Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed seeing what DOESN'T go into some guys teams (thought, forward-thinking, hope....) good luck all

$70 Million - Hitmen Rejects
My usual strategy is looking for WHIP+ and low HR/9 for pitching, and OBP+/OPS+ for hitting. Had no real plan other than to have balance in both the starting lineup and pitching staff. Looked into getting more SB's, but they seemed to be overpriced for this cap. Also relatively low in HR's. Lineup is pretty balanced 1-7, went with cheap HR and glove with '82 Smalley at the bottom of the lineup being the only exception. '90 Curt Welch will be my CF and speed guy, keeping catchers at least somewhat honest. Had my pitching staff built, then saw on the boards that a $/IP criteria exists. Found it, decided having 4 SP's with 200+ IP isn't really necessary, then revamped everything. '00 Deacon Phillippe is my horse in the rotation, got '13 Humphries '11 Steele '97 Cuppy and '24 Doak to figure out for the last 2-3 spots in the rotation. One long guy in '48 Gumpert, and plenty of short relievers to fill out the bullpen. The overall trend looked like around 120 for WHIP+ and 115-120 OBP+/OPS+.
5625 PA's, .269/.370/.370; 1417 IP, 1.15 WHIP, 52 HR's
$80 Million - 2004 Red Sox
Again, the challenge is finding the right strategy for this theme. I decided on searching teams with (2) SP's with WHIP+ over 120 in the same season. Was undecided between the '97 Braves (with 4 such guys) and 2004 Red Sox. Went with the Sox because I was more comfortable with their starting bullpen and their lineup balance. With lineup spots 1-7 covered and a decent bullpen, I needed the 2 extras to fill starting SS and SP. Went with stud SP Ben Sheets and cheap glove/no suck SS Eckstein to fill the #8 hole. Only problem is figuring out how to utilize 183 IP of horror in Derek Lowe ( I will need most of those innings) without blowing too many games. 90 games of mopup duty should just about do it.
1478 IP, 1.19 WHIP, 161 HRs; 6239 PA's, .284/.365/.465, 203 HR's
$100 Million - '07-'09 Cleveland Naps
Pretty sure at some point when using the new $/PA stat, found that '01 Cy Young was a great value pick for an ace SP. Always had good success with '02 Bernhard. Immediately said go deadball period anyways. Found a match with the '07-'09 Naps, and got Joss as a bonus stud SP. One stud in the lineup in Lajoie, a platoon at C, and generally balanced in the rest of the lineup, though not especially strong. Turner may be an albatross in the lineup, but B/A- at SS is tough to argue with. Bullpen found a couple good guys, but also 3 guys with less than 40 IP (I always want more than 50 except for my closer), and a few who will more or less just eat innings. I'm guessing I will hate micromanaging the bullpen on this team. I also need to remember to set most SB settings to low or don't even try.
6087 PA's, .314/.359/.434; 1545 IP, 1.00 WHIP, 25 HR's
$110 Million - 1898-1915
Higher cap and deadball players allowed means I get to use my newly found BFFs in '01 Young and '02 Bernhard. Next order of business was to find a third stud SP. Enter '14 Russ Ford. In filing out the starting lineup, went back to my usual OBP+/OPS+ plan, mostly balanced, and preventing iron gloves. I splurged on '12 Ty Cobb to be my #3 hitter. 1898 netted me my #2 hitter in Billy Hamilton. 1915 netted me a value OF in Benny Kauff. My $1M+ bench hitters: '04 Ducky Holmes will start some games in the OF to rest any of the starters, '03 Jacklitsch will start games to rest '06 Bresnahan or allow Bresnahan to move to the OF, '08 Unglaub will mostly start at 3B vs lefties to prevent burning out McGraw. 4 $1M+ bullpen guys: '11 Burns and '07 Bailey mostly to eat up some middle innings and spot start, McQuillan and Waddell to take up most of the late innings. Hoping cheap '12 Perritt is good enough to close most of the time when needed, even for 33 IP.
6103 PA's, .328/.424/.438; 1603 IP, 1.03 WHIP, 41 HR
$140 Million - Hitmen Take 3
I didn't have a major strategy for this one, mostly sorting pitching by WHIP+ and keeping HR/9 under 1, I think. Starting rotation of '86 Scott, '04 Unit, '15 Arrieta and '99 Pedro will certainly pile up the strikeouts and hopefully keep the walks low. Went mostly stud bullpen with '14 Betances/'64 Wilhelm setting up '08 Papelbon. '03 Rivera in LongA, may switch him around with Wilhelm depending on how things go. For the lineup, looking for OBP+/OPS+ again, this time with a minimum of 20 HR, while monitoring BBs and K's. Got mostly common names in '15 Votto, '15 Harper, '13 Miggy, '68 Yaz, '62 Mantle, '35 Foxx for the core. Got '00 ARod mostly because of his high HR's/BBs/K's and good fielding to cover the #7 spot. '87 Jsack Clark and '93 Rickey Henderson will be splitting time at DH, with Henderson also resting Mantle when needed. Once I saw I was more than covered on BB's/K's/HR's, upgraded whomever at 2B to '75 Joe Morgan and inserted him in the leadoff spot. He also qualifies as my primary SB guy.
6765 PA's, .318/.449/.565, 321 HRs, 177 SB's; 1489 IP, 0.92 WHIP, 80 HR
$255 Million - Hitmen High Capping
This will be the team that likely screws me. Not used to very high caps. Not sure how high HR players sim in the high cap leagues. Tried sticking with high OBP/OPS+, lower HR players early and got more power on my bench guys. Hornsby just seemed so much better than any other 2B, so took him from the A block. Snagged Alexander to be my horse in the B block. Really liked Arrieta's 150 WHIP+, so took him to be my #4 SP in the C block. Ty Cobb in the D block counts as a stud #3 hitter, with CF defense. Honus Wagner in the E block gives me the best pop (by alot) and tolerable defense at SS. F block gave me John McGraw, a guy I commonly use in the leadoff spot with his 159 OBP+. I think I just went with best impact at OBP+/OPS+ or WHIP+ with most of the remaining blocks. Biggest question marks: Roberto Alomar is mostly just a defensive replacement and pinch runner; Nomar's not even that useful; Fred Carroll or Joe Mauer at C? Not sure if I should prioritize the A+ defense or the higher OBP/OPS; Kuo or Jose Fernandez? Something about Kuo scared me off, not sure how may IP are needed in high cap leagues. Went with Fernandez.
9354 PA's, .360/.451/.576; 1743 IP, 0.86 WHIP, 69 HR's

I post this many years just so people can learn what kind of planning goes into making a bottom-half (and often bottom-third) team in the WISC. Because THERE IS a strategy that goes into each and every team... just not a very good one.

70M – Rethink Terrible – Part of my offensive strategy is based on the (probably) mistaken assumption that platooning was a good way to find the bargains among the rarely used players. After all, most of the more commonly used players are full-timers… right? So, there are probably tons of comparable players with 300-500 ABs that haven’t been used… right? Well, this could end up like many of my overthought and underexecuted strategies, at 75 wins.

Offense .272/.360/.409 with only 96 HRs, stuck them in AT&T
Pitching 1350 innings/.235 OAV/1.17 WHIP

80M – Raising the payroll of the ‘02 A’s – Like several others, I initially sought out a team with solid pitching with one or two rotation holes that could be filled by big-ticket free agents. After investigating several Braves teams, I stumbled on the 2002 A’s. With the big three of Hudson, Zito, and Mulder, and a passable #4 in Cory Lidle, they seemed perfect for an injection of 2002 Pedro. When his $/IP proved to be a little too high for this cap, Derek Lowe stepped in to fill the staff. A side benefit to the 02 A’s was the catching platoon of Hatteberg/Myers who BOTH have A+ arms to combat all the base-stealing teams. Since the offense wasn’t really a huge problem, I could get by with the sub-500AB Larry Walker as a high-leverage platoon ringer.

Offense .278/.358/.464 with 194 HRs, in the Mausoleum
Pitching 1438 innings/.237 OAV/1.17 WHIP

100M – Twists and Yanks in 97-99 – Again, I investigated the various Braves combinations, along with the Dodgers (for the Maddux/Lowe/etc. combos) before settling on the 97-99 Yankees who, like most Yankee teams, had a parade of veterans streaming in and out. This gave me an almost identical pitching rotation to buddhagamer (who picked the same team/years and is in my league), though I’m using the ’86 Clemens while he is using the ’97 Toronto version. Conversely, our only two offensive duplications are 95 Knoblaugh and 03 Posada while our Jeter, Boggs, and Raines are all different years. Hopefully, we’ll be meeting in the World Series to settle this once and for all…

Offense .307/.403/.520 with 229 HRs in Yankee Stadium
Pitching 1402 innings/.206 OAV/1.01 WHIP

110M – Wasted from 98-15 – I started like many others, leveraging deadball pitching and trying to stretch to reach the better hitting years for a couple of bombers in the 20’s. I could never get a team I liked, so I adjusted my plan. It was much easier to build a starting staff by “souping” the search, and finding a stretch of years with good starting pitching to build on. Since modern pitchers typically hover around 30-35 starts, I went to a 5-man staff with Kevin Brown, Lowe (again), Schmidt, Santana, and King Felix. After that, it became an exercise of slotting the offense around those arms, knowing the bullpen could auto-fill since closers abound in the modern era. The Braves showed up with fairly good sub-$1M talent, and I used them to fill some holes.

Offense .300/.405/.553 with 272 HRs at Citizens Bank
Pitching 1498 innings/.208 OAV/0.98 WHIP

140M – For Three Lousy Results – Well, with hitters that strikeout and walk a lot, it made sense to go with pitchers that strikeout a lot while limiting walks. If you add in the .25 HR/9+ stat, you end up with a LOT of steroid-era pitchers. So, my staff has a gaudy 11.33 K/9 stat (and thus far leads the league by a LOT in strikeouts). Unfortunately, they seem to enjoy giving up runs as well. On offense, I initially targeted some scrub players with excessive K’s and planned to just use them to reach the 1000K threshold, but I quickly realized that I couldn’t just **** away that many ABs, especially with a DH. I got to use two of my favorite power hitters (Reggie ’69 and Mitchell ‘89) for 25% of my K’s. This team will be in a lot of 10-8 games.

Offense .308/.425/.575 dropped them in 3Com, because I still haven’t learned how to pick ballparks to fit teams
Pitching 1594 innings (hopefully this pays off late in the year)/.196 OAV/0.96 WHIP

255M – And still not very good - I can’t remember whether I’ve ever played in a max-league before, so I have no strategies to pull from. Based on the analysis, I have the 4^th least cookiest team, which means that virtually NOBODY used the same strategy as I did… which is disheartening. I started with starting pitching, reasoning that there were enough great ballplayers and relievers to build a great team in other sections. That was probably dumb. My BigTrain/Alexander/Horlen/Kershaw 1/2/3a/3b staff looked good until I started reading everyone else’s strategies. For the most part, I avoided big homer guys, reasoning that everyone would stack their staffs to curtail the long-ball, and stuck them in Royals Stadium to boot.

Offense .357/.457/.590 with 275 homers (25% with Mark McGwire’s ’98 season), 8000 PAs because why not take everyone BEST year, regardless of wasted PAs?
Pitching 1718 innings/.184 OAV/0.86 WHIP

As one of the few owners who've entered every WISC, and perhaps the only one in that group who gets in solely due to the open format (if we had to qualify I'd probably never make it!), I have both years of experience at this and little to show for it other than, um, you're welcome to copy me, but you'd be better off with other teams!

70M - Black Cats
This was the fifth of the six teams I built, so by now I realized an error I'd made below. I looked mostly at OBP+, SLG+ and RC27 for my hitters, and ERC+, HR/9+ and WHIP+ for my pitchers. OK fielding was fine for most positions, but I did want an A-ish arm at C, and I made sure to get good range in the OF. I ended up with a bunch of dead-ball hitters and Tim Salmon, plus '06 Maddux and mostly current-era pitchers around him. I went for a 5-man rotation and cut my innings close, in part because I play almost exclusively progressives and don't have the feel for low-cap leagues I used to, so I decided a) quality over quantity and b) Petco, especially because I don't have HR power to speak of and I do have a number of guys who can run.
Results: Better than expected. Won 92 games and the division, lost in the LCS in 6.

80M - 1976 Philadelphia Phillies
This was the only team I didn't make detailed notes from, so I may not be remembering this correctly. When schwarze does a theme that is "improve X team", I typically look for teams that underperformed their pythag, and then depending on how improvements work, I tailor accordingly. For this one, because we're not twisting or anything, I basically looked for the Schmidt-Carlton era and tried to find a team that had no more than two obvious holes. I think I started with '77, but got to a point where there were too many players I wanted to replace. With the '76 team, I had enough IP with the standard staff (1487) that I could use both free-agent spots on offense. Dick Allen was an easy cut, because his 339 PA at 1B were decent, but they were just 339, and I'm not playing Tim McCarver there for the other 300+, so in comes Rod Carew. Jay Johnstone was the other cut, because from '76 I'm clearly going to take George Foster, and Johnstone had both the fewest PAs and the least power. I'm kind of on the fence about this team, but in general, as a Tigers fan I tend to take Tigers teams, so at least if I blow this it won't be because I chose with my heart.
Results: Underwhelming: 77 wins, although I got off to a really rough start. This prediction may have been the most accurate.

100M - 1987-89 Oakland A's
This is the team where I realized the error I'd been making in recent tournaments. Because I generally stick to progressives now, I'd been focusing heavily on WAR, which is fine when you're comparing players within a specific year or within similar years, but not so great when it comes to overall performance ... and unfortunately I realized this in the last week or so before the deadline, so I didn't think I'd get three teams built and entered in time. This era is generally good for twisting because you get guys like Andujar, Mike Moore and Reggie going backward and McGwire, Eck, and Rickey current and forward. I took extra IP (1556) partly because of the 100M cap and partly because once you get burned on low IP in a WISC, you never forget. I don't think this team is going to do very well, even though it's tied for first.
Results: Better than I expected. 85 wins, one game out of a wild-card tie.

110M - 1971-88 Split Pea with Bacon
For this team, I got maybe 20 players rostered before I realized that I needed to do alphabet soup (because I wasn't picking them from a single franchise). RTFM, z! However, this was also where I had my epiphany about team-building, so I quickly ditched my WAR columns and replaced them with + columns. I chose this era because it's one I know fairly well both as a fan and as a sim veteran, and because there would be enough franchises that I could skip ones I didn't need and then have a reasonable selection for my bench. I did what happens a lot with these teams: I started with a general plan (OBP+/SLG+/RC27, ERC+/HR9+/WHIP+) and then modified it somewhat when I didn't have many viable choices left. I went with a four-man rotation because I figured it'd be easier to pick an extra reliever, and that turned out to be true. SS was the one position where I compromised a bit: Yount doesn't have the numbers that the rest of the lineup does, but he fit both from a year and a franchise perspective, and at short I can kind of justify spending more on defense. Likewise, Richard wasn't a great pick in terms of ERC+ and WHIP+, but he has 276 above-average IP, and that meant I could focus more on strong relievers like Hrabosky and Dale Murray. Once I got down to the last couple of starters, I made a list of the remaining franchises, and then went through the list of players to figure out who had the most scrubs for cheap - California was the winner, with six positions under 220K. I feel pretty good about this team, which is unusual for WISC. Normally I expect to be crushed into tiny pieces. (Well, OK, I do have some division titles and even a WS appearance (with a Tigers team, no less), and somehow last year I had the best record among 90M teams, but I average 3rd in my divisions.)
Results: Slight underperformance. Won 79 games, finished 10 back. Probably should have done more homework.

140M - Out of True
For this one, I relied heavily on the search engine. I also drafted extra innings (1554) and played in Safeco. Again, past WISCs have taught me that DHs create problems, especially when you're playing against a host of talented owners, and those plus the 140M cap plus BB and SO mean a lot of problems if you aren't prepared. There's nothing like seeing a Christmas tree in your bullpen after 20 games.
Results: Excellent decision on the IP: I never had fatigue issues, won 100 games and finished 10 games up. Lost in the DS in four, though.

255M - Letterboxing
I set up another special worksheet for this one so I could keep track of duplicate boxes. I started off looking for OBP+ and RC27, ended up building a team with reasonable power, and put it in Ebbets Field to give HR and doubles a nudge. Again, I went high with IP (1571) because of the high cap, and with a four-man rotation, I used 7 RP to help with situations when Sparky wants to bring a nominal starter off the bench. I did rely more on platooning than I thought I might - not from a PA standpoint, but more like "here's a good bat, let's see if we can get one opposite him." For now, I'm platooning four positions (C, 1B, 3B, one OF), but I expect that'll change as I see which players underperform, like, say, the '61 Cash, who looks great to a Tigers fan but never never never gets his numbers.
Results: By far, the worst of the bunch. Lost 68, finished 36 games out. (I had 100-game division winners in 3 of my 6 leagues, including my 100-win team.) I did a terrible job of figuring out which boxes had must-have players,

As always, I had a great time building these teams, and when 4 or 5 of them don't pan out, I'll have myself to blame. It's fascinating looking back and seeing how many different themes schwarze has come up with over the years.

(Continued from Page 1)...


$110M – 1982-1999 Potpourri
Once again, being stubborn and not wanting to go with the logical choice (1901-1920’s), I wanted to build a team that had several of the recent great pitchers, along with some speed and power from the PED era. Not sure how it will work out but I’m looking forward to watching it play out. With a staff consisting of (1) 1996 Kevin Brown, (2) 1995 Greg Maddux, (3) 1997 Pedro Martinez and 1989 Bret Saberhagen, the starting pitching should be okay. Whether or not the bullpen holds up, I don’t know. The offense should be able to score with the best teams out there.


Overall Offense: Around $54.4+M / 5591 AB’s / 163 HR’s / 156-48 SB-CS / .319 AVG / .408 OBP / .504 SLG
Overall Pitching: Around $55.4+M – 1378 IP’s / 2.02 ERA / .206 OAV / 0.96 WHIP / .45 HR-9
Overall Defense: B/C-

Expectations: I’m holding out hope that this will be one of my better teams. I’ll predict 87 Wins and a “possible” playoff berth.



$140M – Strength In Numbers
I went totally against the grain for this one. I wanted to build an OBP/1B/2B/3B team and not a Home Run team. However, with the HR requirements, it was tough. I ended up drafting most of my HR’s and K’s for my bench (i.e., 2012 Adam Dunn, 2014 Chris Carter, 1991 Rob Deer, 1991 Mark McGwire and 1986 Dave Kingman). Just those five alone gave me 160 HR’s and 821 K’s. Once I had them in place, I could then concentrate on putting the team I wanted on the field. Of my Starting 9, the biggest HR threat is 1919 Babe Ruth. All the others are in there for their OBP and BA skills. Should be fun to watch. Like most folks, I just tried to find some decent pitching as close to the .25 HR/9 requirement as possible. Unlike most of the other owners, I’m not too high on my staff. Once SCHWARZE pointed out that I had fewer cookies than anyone else in the theme, I pretty much lost all hope. I guess we’ll see…

Overall Offense: Around $89.7+M / 8904 AB’s / 310 HR’s / 282-225 SB-CS / .298 AVG / .387 OBP / .516 SLG
Overall Pitching: Around $50.2+M – 1491 IP’s / 2.27 ERA / .211 OAV / 1.06 WHIP / .30 HR-9
Overall Defense: C+/B-

Expectations: Actually, after looking at the totals I just typed, I think I’m screwed. 75 Wins tops – if I’m lucky.



$255M – Brouthers In Arms
I had my team all worked out with Walter Johnson but I just couldn’t leave Babe off the roster – then went in and completely re-did everything. The only two pitchers I took within the first few boxes were 1908 Addie Joss and 1908 Mordecai Brown. I went after mostly hitting after that. Like most of you, I don’t have a clue what’s going to happen when everyone is playing with the best of the best on their teams. I have a feeling that this theme will have some close races all the way through the season.

Overall Offense: Around $149.6+M / 10,266 AB’s / 306 HR’s / 497-295 SB-CS / .360 AVG / .456 OBP / .570 SLG
Overall Pitching: Around $69.3+M – 1539 IP’s / 1.41 ERA / .186 OAV / 0.86 WHIP / .21 HR-9
Overall Defense: B/B

Expectations: I’ll shoot for the moon and predict this is my best team – 87 to 90 Wins.

$70M
Searched for value. Think of a way to stay under budget on pitching. Gambling on Sadie McMahon's 472 innings, and pair him with '11 Keefe and '14 Rankin Johnson as 2a/2b. Unspectacular bullpen. Offense is top heavy with Taffy Wright, Dixie Walker, an untested Jerry Denny and a fair season from Rafael Palmeiro. Hope this doesn't implode.

$80M
With the '71 Orioles I found a lineup that has good depth, decent defense, and some pop. My starting rotation of Cuellar/Dobson/Palmer all have 290 or more innings. I can move McNally to the pen. Added a good arm and bat with Ted Simmons. Grzenda gives us a decent lefty reliever. I can hope, can't I?

$100M
Lifelong Cardinal fan, big day when Larry Walker was acquired. TLR was gonna hit him ahead of Albert.
Results be damned. Will be ok if Carp, Waino, Haren and Mulder can keep us in the games long enough for us to score some runs. Bench not deep but has options. Bullpen not shabby. Can I get lucky here?

$110M
I like this team. I know modern pitching isn't lights out compared to early Cubs and Giants, but Vida Blue, Seaver and Guidry might be good enough. Deep enough pen. I hope. Joe Morgan hits behind Raines, Gwynn, McGee. Carew and Boggs take regular at bats too. Go run around the bases, guys...

$140M
****** away $1.6M on Adam Dunn, but that got me almost 20% of the required K's. Will that pay dividends?
Blue, Seaver and Guidry again. Maybe in over their heads here. But I have more dough for bats. Ruth, Mantle, Piazza, Musial, and Teddy Ballgame is my DH.

$255M
What the heck am I doing here? I have played 1 season at this cap in 2 years. '21 Ruth, Gehrig, Browning, McCovey, Schmidt, Mick, and a couple of kitchen sinks thrown in. Big Ed, Hendrix and Russ Ford, Blue and Righetti to help get us to the late innings. Matchups will be key. I think. No idea how this plays out...

Thanks to Schwarze for all he does here...

Man, I love reading these. Hopefully, guys like WaitNSee, discodemo, jbohrman, etc. will post as well.

$70M - "Why Don't You Like Me" It's taken me many years of this tournament to learn how to build a serviceable low cap team that can at least hold its own. Between the salary changes and the restrictions of this theme, I knew I would be back at sea with no map to shore. I built my staff with three 300 IP starters from the deadball era (Adams, Packard and Benz) and a bullpen of cheap $1-2M relievers. They don't strike many people out but they are stingy with walks and homeruns while sporting a fairly low WHIP. Since I'm playing in Colt Stadium, they should be good enough to at least be mediocre. In the past, my offense generally consisted of high OBA plus speed. These were the very players that were used often enough to cause their salaries to escalate. However, some of the short seasons of these players were on the whitelist. So I picked up Abreu, Beltran, DeShields, Henderson and Lopes to platoon. I got marginal seasons of Frank Robinson and Matt Holliday to anchor the middle of the order. Turns out I only rostered two of the most used players (Cullenbine and Babe Adams). The schwarze cookie factor metric for this team is 2.77 (where 2.56 is the median). So I am using a few players popular with the tournament field. Because I'm bad with low caps, I take a little comfort in that. Still, I don't see how this team can do much better than .500.
Hitting (including $300K): 5408 (PA) .264 /.379 /.402 / .781 (AVG/OBA/SLG/OPS) 122/163 (SB/SBA)
Pitching (including $300K): 1339 (IP) 2.81 (ERA) - .244 (OAV) - 1.13 (WHIP) - 3.81 (K/9) - 2.11 (BB/9) - 0.26 (HR/9)

$80M - "85 Dodgers - Pardon Our Dust" I worked on this team off and on from the time the themes were posted until the last deadline. I looked at a bunch of teams that I discarded quickly, either because they were too expensive or because they needed more help than 2 free agents could give them. Sounds like some of you were intensive and comprehensive in your research. Kudos to you. I was not. I sat and mentally thought my way through baseball history. When a likely candidate occurred to me, I'd load it into the draft center and check it out. Because of the great 2015 SPs, I first built teams based on the 2015 Dodgers and Cubs. The Cubs team had better hitting and the pitching was formidable when I added Kershaw. Still, it felt weird using a team that was used as an illustration in the theme description. I also built teams from the 2010-11 Phillies. Again, the pitching was the attraction. With 2 free agent hitters, the hitting was better than the Cubs but the pitching was quite a bit worse. It was only on the last weekend that I began to consider the 85 Dodgers. The pitching was good enough without any help. Because of the era, I was able to add R. Henderson and T. Raines. Both of these players are very good at this cap. The 1985 seasons of Guerrero, Marshall, Sax and Scioscia are also good to serviceable. The only weak link offensively is Duncan at shortstop but even he provides some stolen bases. Overall, I think the 2015 Cubs were the most talented team I built but I much preferred playing in Dodger Stadium than Wrigley Field. I don't know that it means a lot but in schwarze's analysis, it appears that the 85 Dodgers were more popular (3 times) than the 2015 Cubs (only once).
Hitting (excluding $300K): 4934 (PA) .288 /.370 /.444 / .814 (AVG/OBA/SLG/OPS) 241/299 (SB/SBA)
Pitching (excluding $300K): 1309 (IP) 2.65 (ERA) - .228 (OAV) - 1.14 (WHIP) - 6.01 (K/9) - 2.67 (BB/9) - 0.56 (HR/9)


$100M - "Twisting the 1910-12 Cubbies" This was the team I tackled last. After some preliminary scouting, I decided I wanted to build a dead ball team, but which one? I built versions of the Athletics (1907-09), Red Sox (1912-14), Pirates (1913-15), NYG (1916-18) and White Sox (1923-25). I thought for sure that the Athletics were going to be the better team, but by my analysis, they were the next to last (the White Sox had the worst hitting and pitching). Turns out that the A's pitching wasn't as good as I expected. I had settled on the Pirates as the best choice of this lot when I decided to build a Cubs team. I chose the 1910-12 period to get the use of Fred Toney. Altogether, the Cubs had very good pitching and the hitting was solid from top to bottom. I still liked the Pirates team a lot but decided that the hitting was a bit top heavy, with some automatic outs at the bottom of the order. Turns out it was a popular choice -- the Cubs from 1906-12 were picked 12 times over. So if this was a stupid choice, at least I have company. Surprisingly, the Pirate teams were taken only twice. Maybe that means something, maybe not. The great thing about this tourney is that all such questions are about to be answered.

Hitting (excluding $300K): 4555 (PA) .333 /.402 /.472 / .874 (AVG/OBA/SLG/OPS)
Pitching (excluding $300K): 1375 (IP) 1.58 (ERA) - .201 (OAV) - 0.94 (WHIP) - 4.02 (K/9) - 2.10 (BB/9) - 0.08 (HR/9)

$110M - "1902-19 - $232 Under the cap!!!" You can tell by the team name what I found most impressive about this team. From the time I read the description of this cap, I knew I wanted to straddle the dead ball and modern eras. As I tinkered, I found myself pushing back in time all the way back to 1902 to get Delahanty (one of my favorites). As someone else mentioned, 2B was a problem (unless you chose use Evers, Collins or Lajoie. Since I wanted to use Brown, Frank Baker and Joss, I wasn't able to use any of them. I ended up with Cree, Cobb and Delahanty in the outfield. Left to right, the infield is Ruth, Louden, Hornsby and Baker. Art Wilson handles the catching. My starting staff is Joss, Russell, Brown and McQuillan. The bullpen is Babe Adams, Bill Bailey and Fred Toney. I don't think I have enough quality innings so I may have to use my mop up guys more often than I'd like. My original intention was to build a couple more teams and then compare one against the other before settling on a final choice. However, working this puzzle out once was more than enough for me. I built this team and tinkered with in a little bit and called it done. Usually when I do that in this tourney I end up with a team that is one of the worst for that theme. Hope that doesn't happen here. I think this is a solid team but I've been wrong about things like this too many times to count on it being correct now. My stock prediction for all my teams is ... "we'll see." That's especially true with this squad.
Hitting (excluding $300K): 5447 (PA) .327 /.409 /.499 / .908 (AVG/OBA/SLG/OPS)
Pitching (excluding $300K): 1311 (IP) 1.69 (ERA) - .204 (OAV) - 0.91 (WHIP) - 3.66 (K/9) - 1.60 (BB/9) - 0.05 (HR/9)


$140M - "Third Times the Charm" I thought this was one of the easiest teams to build. The pitching staff was defined by the HR/9 restriction. My SP are Pedro, Arrieta, Greinke, RJ and Kershaw. I didn't go with Maddux because his price seemed too high for the performance differential. The pen consists of Bonham, Burke, McGraw, Wade Davis, BJ Ryan and Hoyt Wilhelm. According to schwarze analysis, my bullpen is a bit off the beaten path. My outfield is Ruth, Harper and Berkman. Edgar Martinez is the DH, and the infield (left to right) is a platoon of short seasons of Votto/Thomas, then Zobrist, Peralta and Chipper. Except for Ruth who didn't strike out enough for this theme, I was surprised that so few of these guys showed up on the most popular list. I liked the idea of switch hitters for this theme and Edgar seems like an underrated choice for DH. I liked this team when I was done but then I generally like teams with powerful offenses. Of course when this team comes in 20 games under .500 I'll probably be singing a different tune about my choices.
Hitting (excluding $300K): 6209 (PA) .322 /.443 /.595 / 1.038 (AVG/OBA/SLG/OPS)
Pitching (excluding $300K): 1611 (IP) 1.88 (ERA) - .192 (OAV) - 0.88 (WHIP) - 9.58 (K/9) - 1.76 (BB/9) - 0.47 (HR/9)

$255M - "No Thinking in the Box Please" I built this team first. I really enjoyed doing it but it was relatively difficult. Here are my thoughts on the choices:
A - an easy choice. Since I think Ruth is the most valuable, consistent player in the sim, Ruth was my choice and an overwhelming favorite for the field as a whole.
B - This was tougher. First chose Kelly, then Joss before settling on Alexander for 400 quality innings.
C - Mordecai Brown, all the way. Never considered anyone else because I wanted to get another rotation piece. Seemed to me that the other lower rated boxes offered comparable hitting.
D - First I briefly took Gibson, then I picked Cobb but ultimately chose Speaker for his better defense. There are a couple of low PA Speakers that are exceptional. Since PAs aren't going to be a problem with this theme, I went with Speaker. I was surprised to see how unpopular this choice was.
E - This was an easy "no-doubter" Elton Chamberlain. Got to have a guy named Elton right?
F - Considered Hendrix, Leonard and Toney before deciding on Delahanty (still a favorite of mine, if not the remainder of the field).
G - Had Boggs for a while until I decided I couldn't do without Ferdie Schupp. I never even considered any of the other guys. I don't like any of them at this cap.
H - Briefly considered the relievers before going back and forth between Collins and Vaughn. Ultimately went with Vaughn figuring I'd cover second base later. I was very surprised at how little love Eddie Collins got. He almost always performs well, regardless of the cap.
I - After flirting with Joe Jackson, I decided I needed 1909 Babe Adams for my three headed third SP (Adams, Schupp and Chamberlain).
J - At one time or another, I had each one of these guys on the team. Finally I settled on Gehringer since the roster requires a 2B. I wasn't expecting him to be the favorite of this bunch.
K - I wasn't crazy about any of these guys. Finally I picked Cisco to be the closer. I wonder how many of the other participants picked him for a similar reason.
L - I considered Heilmann for about ten seconds. Given my other choices, I felt like Chipper was the best choice for me since I knew that I was taking Joyce later and would need some additional PAs at third base. I never would have guessed that Blue and Sisler were the big choices here. I never considered either of them.
M - Here I felt like I needed a bullpen arm. So I took Kimbrel, who I think is statistically the best of this group. I'm not really surprised that Rivera and Adams were more popular. I am really surprised that the short inning relievers were so popular throughout this exercise. I guess it proves I know even less than I thought I did.
N - I saw this box as a chance to get a right-handed power bat so I added Frank Thomas. Everybody else saw quality lefty relievers. At least Frank can hit better than either one of them.
O - This box was my catcher, Mickey Cochrane. I really didn't have a strong need for any of the other guys.
P - Since I had my position players covered by this time, I knew I'd get a bullpen arm. I took the best lefty, Chapman.
Q - All these guys were relatively high IP bullpen coverage. Wilhelm seemed the best choice to me, once again proving I know nothing about this game.
R - At one point or another, I had each of these fellows on a version of my team. Eventually I settled on Nomar because I needed a backup shortstop while the rest of the field continued their love affair with short inning pitchers.
S - This was another bullpen choice for me. Betancourt looked good to me mostly because he offered 10 addition innings over Davis and Papelbon. That and Papelbon is kind of a dick.
T - This one was an easy pick. I love Tim Burke at just about any cap. None of the hitters looked that good to me.
U - I went back and forth between Henderson and Raines for speed off the bench. 1990 Rickey was the final pick although my man crush on Raines remains undiminished.
V - This was one of the easiest picks. Bill Joyce can hit all day long and half the night. I was a bit surprised that only 8 other guys agreed with me.
W - This one was for bench coverage. Although he's far from the best player I needed a back up 2B so I went with Frisch. Imagine my surprise when he was the overwhelming favorite of this group.
X - This box gave me my backup catcher, Posey.
Y - I went back and forth between Walker and Manny as the outfield backup/pinch hitter. Finally settled on Walker for the lefty bat. It appears like a lot of other guys did the same.
Hitting (excluding $300K): 8961 (PA) .362 /.463 /.604 / 1.067 (AVG/OBA/SLG/OPS)
Pitching (excluding $300K): 1645 (IP) 1.32 (ERA) - .180 (OAV) - 0.82 (WHIP) - 6.23 (K/9) - 1.75 (BB/9) - 0.18 (HR/9)

70Mil (The Hateful 25)

I like this kind of restricted but open league as I can’t make myself too crazy obsessing over different choices. I started at pitching and tried to determine my SP rotation number. When I sorted by whip# it seemed a lot of high IP pitchers were in the top 100 or so. Due to this, I decided a 2 man rotation would be best and I tried to find the most cost-efficient choices while maintaining good numbers. I ended up with 2 teammates – ’03 McGinnity and ’03 Mathewson. Their raw numbers for a 70 mil league aren’t too shabby and normalization should help them given the strong hitting year. They also do not give up homeruns and I shouldn’t have to worry too much about a fatigue spiral given their ability to recover quickly. I rounded out the rest of my staff with a bunch of low IP relievers that met the criteria I look for in pitching at this cap.

On the hitting side I quickly realized that putting together a high stolen base team would be difficult as most of the good speed guys didn’t make the whitelist. Nevertheless, I have some stolen bases with ’95 Coleman, ’35 Werber and ’15 Saier (a sneaky good value pick at 1B). ’16 Bancroft is a cheap SS who will make a bunch of errors but mitigate that negative with a bunch of plus plays as well – he can also walk a fair bit. I have a part time catcher with an A+ arm as is my standard in case I play a speed team. Not much else to say. I have been struggling in low caps the past couple of years in the WISC (after generally doing quite well in them)…as long as McGinnity and Mathewson hold up I feel this team has a chance to reverse that trend.


80Mil (2015 Chicago Cubs)

Not a unique strategy here but my first thought was teams with 2 or more very good pitchers on it. I didn’t do much looking at the best teams and downgrading through free agents – my free agents were going to be for upgrading only. Not sure if that was the best strategy or not. Unfortunately I forget the various teams I looked at – I know I looked at the ’75 Dodgers but their hitting wasn’t good enough. I do remember that it was very difficult to find a team I was comfortable with. In the end, I wasn’t even comfortable with my final choice and given that no one else took them, I’m no more positive at this point. My core hitting consists of Harper, Rizzo and Bryant – which I figure will be among the best top 3 in the league. The rest of the lineup leaves something to be desired however. The strength of my team should lie in my pitching staff with Arrieta and Keuchel leading the way. Lester, Hendricks and Hammel all have very respectable numbers for the back end of a rotation in a theme like this and the bullpen gives 3 solid options in Grimm, Rondon and Stropp. The only issue with the pitching is the high hr/9 – that coupled with Wrigley is likely going to be a recipe for disaster. I am least confident about this team and it seems there were some better choices out here – I like that ’28 A’s team. I have to hope every team has holes and perhaps I have less than most. Sad to say that I would be satisfied with .500 with this squad.

100Mil (1911-1913 Cubbies)

I pretty much knew I would take a Cubs or a Giants team from the deadball era in this theme. I have had a lot of success with both in the past. I looked at a bunch of options for these two franchises around this time period as well as the White Sox. In the end, I felt that the Cubs had better pitching than the Giants and better hitting than the White Sox. It came down to 1911-1913 or 1916-1918. The latter gave me a great Hendrix, Alexander, Brown starting staff but in the end, I went with the former due to their hitting being a hare better in my opinion. It was a coin flip for me really but it is interesting to note that no one took that latter time period for the Cubs. Also, only one other person took the 1911-13 Cubs although it is WaitNSee so that’s nice to “see”. It seems a lot of people chose earlier Cubs years so I may have missed something. I opted for getting Bresnahan and Cy Williams over Kling and Schulte (as options for the earlier years most people chose). Fred Toney did not fit on my team as his value has come down a bit at this cap with dynamic pricing and to use him meant likely downgrading my Pfiester. I may have made a mistake however on my choice of years for Williams – I probably shouldn’t have taken his high homerun year as there are plenty of deadball teams who will nullify his power. Nevertheless, I expect this team to do quite well and be among my best.

110Mil (1972-1989 All-Stars)

I tried desperately to get a deadball/liveball crossover team to work as I figured those teams would be most successful. I couldn’t make a team I was satisfied with in terms of balance and fielding. Probably because I was trying to jam Walter Johnson on the team for the Senators player (forgetting about ’16 Dumont). I put that strategy on hold and tried to come up with some modern players who would work well at this cap. I thought a stolen base strategy might work so I wanted to access the 80’s and focused on if the pitching would be strong enough with that move. ’72 Sutton, ’78 Guidry and ’85 Tudor should all be fine at this cap (although not quite as good as a deadball team). Those pitchers coupled with a bunch of high average hitters with speed and good gloves should be enough to overcome the deadball teams I know we will have to face. I knew Raines and Gwynn would be musts. I chose Carew over Morgan due to the high average of Carew and underperformance of Morgan in the sim. Willie Wilson ended up being a fine 3^rd OF – I have used him sparingly in the past but he always seems to hit .300 with lots of steals and great D. From there it was just filling out my lineup and the bullpen under the constraints of the theme rules. I put them in Busch to increase the triples and help my staff keep the ball in the park. I like this team a lot and would be incredibly surprised if they did not make the playoffs.

140Mil (We Will Walk You)

Like most, I put a focus on low hr/9 and low bb/9 pitchers. I also wanted high k guys if possible as I wasn’t going to worry much about my fielding. I quickly subbed ’99 Pedro in for my first choice of ’00 Pedro as the money savings and hr/9 reduction was an easy move. I complimented him with ’95 Maddux, ’15 Kershaw and ’96 Kevin Brown. We also have a very deep and strong bullpen accounting for 1525 non-mop IP which should be enough. Just to be safe I picked Briggs stadium to reduce the non-homerun hits and increase the homers as I was putting a premium on low hr/9 with my pitchers and wasn’t going to shy away from homeruns on the hitting side. My pitching should not be an issue for me. Any underperformance will be random and out of my hands anyway.

On the hitting end I found it tougher than I thought it would be to meet the minimums. I definitely wanted to add some high OBP, low homerun guys where possible but it was a very difficult task. I was only able to manage one in ’93 Tony Phillips who will leadoff and provide a good glove at 2^nd. I realized that I shouldn’t worry too much about trying to squeeze some non-homerun hitters in as given the pitcher restrictions there should be a decent amount hit. I focused on hr/100ab# to try to get the most out of my homerun hitters. I also wanted to try as best as I could to get high average homerun hitters as most people would focus on reducing walks at the expense of oavg. That part was difficult but I did end up with ’15 Harper who seems like a no brainer for this theme. ’28 Ruth who I have never used should fare well. ’10 Josh Hamilton is my high average hitter at the bottom of my order. I filled out with a lot of the usual suspects – Foxx at catcher, Greenberg at 1^st, Schmidt at 3^rd and Mantle in the OF. Much to my chagrin I chose Arod for SS but his ’00 glove was too good and important to pass up. I like this team a lot although it will be interesting to see what sets teams apart.

255Mil (The Unboxables)

I learned from last year’s second round high cap league that high range in a good hitter’s park (non-homers) was a good strategy to get an edge. I also have come to realize (perhaps incorrectly) that the performance of great pitchers is vary random at the high caps and there is not much of a need (in certain circumstances) to spend extra $/ip on say a Pete Alexander over an Eddie Cicotte or Russ Ford. Since I didn’t have to worry about money at this cap, what I could do instead was target hitters over pitchers early on. My high range hitters would help any sub-par pitching anyway. I kept these things in mind when I built my team and only built one other variation before quickly discarding that second one.

I picked Lajoie in the first box due to the range and how much better a hitter he is than any other second baseman with that kind of range. I didn’t mind passing on Ruth due to the amount of deadballers we would see. With the second box I went for King Kelly again given how much better a hitter he is than other catchers. There were no high range hitters in this box and I didn’t feel a need to grab a pitcher yet. 3^rd box was Hugh Duffy by a mile. An unreal hitter with strong range. Ty Cobb with A+ range in box D and Hughie Jennings with A+ range in box E. I still didn’t have a pitcher yet but Claude Hendrix was waiting in box F to anchor my staff. I don’t see much of a difference between him and the guys in anyone other than box A. After that it was Schupp, Ford and Cicotte. From there it was cherry picking the best relievers (another reason why I didn’t get too caught up in SPs – there were so many excellent RPs and plenty of innings that I could keep a short leash on my SPs if need be). Frank Baker gives me A+ range at 3b. Bill Terry gives me A+ range at 1B (and he hits .400 to boot!). I ended up with a small issue for my 3^rd OF spot and ended up with Richie Ashburn. He has an excellent glove and +++ range but his hitting is a little out of place at this cap. He actually may end up being fine though and I can always sub in Gwynn or Henderson if I need to. Henderson was the choice for pinch running and Yadier Molina in case I need a catcher with a good arm or for late game defensive replacements for Kelly.

I like this team a lot and am very confident. However, the high cap leagues can be very fickle so I’m very prepared for disappointment.

These themes were all a lot of fun as usual and my hat’s off to schwarze for putting together another great championship.

70 mil - Cory Hart's Sunglasses at Night

Havent played in a low cap before. They make nervous. Like Mort from The Family Guy kinda nervous. Anyways, for some wacky reason, decided that HR's were the way to go. Wouldnt you know it, '99 John Jaha was sitting right there. For a long time, I had his "best" season in the performance histories, so it looked like a sign to me. So, I grabbed some other guys who looked like they could homer without killing me with their glove. Grabbed 3 deadball starters that can "hit" a little to help out the order. Stuck 'em in Sicks, for its HR friendly fences and anti-single ways. I was worried about this team So far, they got my best record, 8-4. Hmmm

80 mil - 1987 Improved Detroit Tigers

I like 1987 for some reason. I think it's when I really started to follow baseball, and not just the BoSox. Plus, the stats were off the charts, and RBI baseball for the NES was a blast. Tengen cart and all. Try it sometime. You can play it on your PC....or, so I've heard......Anyways, Team build was pretty straight forward, even though I really wanted to add 87 Boggs to the mix, but just couldnt make it all work and still have enough pitching to go around. It is 1987 after all. So, we added Bob Welch and Mike Scott to give the pitching a chance. 5-7 so far. Meh.

100 mil - Jimmy Mac's and Joe Morgan's 86-88 Redsox

I'm a sucker for Redsox teams. I've been running this team in dn3524's progressive franchise twist league (cheap plug) since the 1970 season, so I felt I had a good feel for this team. Wanted 78 Rice on the team as well, just couldn't make it work. His cap is 108 mil. Damn, there's my problem.

They should hit a crap ton of 2b's in Fenway, with Boggs, Barrett, Burks, Greenwell, Brady, & Reed all hitting 37+. Having 77 Seaver helps out the rotation a ton. Bullpen looks great on paper, with Sambito, Lee Smith, Dennis Lamp, Calvin Schrialdi in it. WE are 3-9 so far.......

110 mil - Above Average Redsox, 87-03

Took 18 consecutive years from one team, (the redsox, of course, told you Im a sucka). Something only 9 of us chose to do....hmmmm.....roster came together pretty easily, as I picked the few players I had to have, then worked off of that rather than looking at everyone as a whole. Must haves were '87 Boggs, '95 valentin, '86 clemens, and '98 gordon. 4 of my favorites growing up. I knew Nomar and Pedro would still be there, so '00 Nomar and '99 Petey showed up (his 17k game vs the NyY in Sept '99 HAS to be one of the most awe inspiring pitching performances of all time. It was the Hogan-Andre of its time, just awesome) '97 Jeff Frye fill's in all over the field quite well for this team, as his 442 pa's should get used all at each inf position. Nomar get's moved to 2b with Valentin at short. Clemens, Danny Dr Death Darwin, Derek No No Lowe and Pedro make up a starting 4 that should be as good as any in the league. The key additions here though, were 3 cheap bullpen arms, Chad Fox, Mike Birbeck, & Barry Jones. All 3 added about 100 ip, with an erc# just under 2.00. Right now, 6-6


$140 mil - Walk, K, HR, Whats the difference?

This was the most fun to build. It's a great cap, as you can get whomever you want, but still have to make sacrifices and choices.

I do well with Navin Stadium a lot, and it fit the theme, so I grabbed it. (+hr's, and - to 1b/2bs) Tried to grab some quality gloves to go with the obp and hr hitting monsters. Pujols, Mays, and Bautista could all get GG's with their + plays. Robbie Alomar was my only "non-hr" hitter, with 24. But his glove, obp, speed, and switch hitting, we made an exception. Grabbed a bunch of high octane, high K, high adrenaline, big balls type starting pitchers for this one. We may give up the long ball, and there will be a lotta broken bats and bruised egos and hips at Navin as well. Koufax, Marichal, Gibson. Go ahead, dig into the batters box. Get comfortable. These guys will let you, right? right now, 5-7

Fun Fact: '91 Jeff Gray is the closer on this and my 18 millionaires team.


255 mil - Thinking inside the box -

Team name stinks, I know. Seem to fair well in the type of theme. And when in doubt to which stadium to choose, I pick Coors. I'd rather see offence in the sim. Pick from the greatest collection of hitters of all time, put them in the greatest run scoring field of all time and watch the results. Yep, watch the hits go flying, and the runs score. Right now, the 8th least runs scored. Not good. I'm gonna assume small sample size so far.

While Ruth is a god, I feel Silver King is the only player in the sim that could be argued to be drafted ahead of the Babe, in a single season league. I said could. 703ip (so, 770ish) spread out over at least 81 games He doenst allow many HR's or BB's Has one of the lowest erc#'s in the game (compared to sp's you would use in your rotation) And can give you a CG every time out as well. He not only helps you win the game he's pitching in, cuz he's so darn good, but by not using any bullpen arms, they are all rested for the next starter. Should be renamed the Platinum King. Anyways, he was our 1st pick

With SP more or less taken care of, King Kelly stood out to me in box b. A catcher who can hit like that. And have an A arm. Yes please. Mantle/s glove, bat, and switching in box c stood out as well. Musial was built for coors (or coors with musial in mind?) , Boudreau was the best ss left, Hamilton is a good, no, great, no, awesome perfect leadoff hitter(metric crap ton of PA's, speed, avg, obp), and then The Eck for closer. He has always done better for me than gagne for some reason. Plus, he was great for the Bosox, twice, while gagne was awful.

Box K was my first tough choice, as I love using Al Simmons. But, I think I wanted a LH P, who could start, if needed. I don't quite remember, but that must be it. Simmons in Coors is usually mint. So, I took The Unit. From there on out, I just filled in roles and positions. All of the starters are good-excellent fielders, to help out in Coors. The bench has 3 monsters sitting on it, Pete Browning, Bill Terry, and Larry Walker. All 3 can rake when needed. The pen has the 3 of the greatest closers of all time, with Eck, Goose, and Mo. Nathan's not too shabby. JR Richard and The Unit can give us long rp help when needed. Also grabbed Vida Blue and Bob Milacki. Pretty much for a playoff run. At least that was the thought at the time......... Did I mention, this was the team I had most confidence in? 4-8 so far.

Been a round for a bunch of years, It's my first go round in this tourney, I'm under .500 total, and outta "the cage" as you guys say. But I';m loving it. Things like this, is the reason WIS keeps getting my money.

Nice job Schwatze and all

For most of my teams there was either 0, 1 or 2 key strategies -- and the rest was simply filling out the team given that strategy. And so briefly:

$70M. In low cap leagues catchers with A+ arms use up a lot of your salary cap, and so I figure not too many teams would have one. And so I usually take some good SB guys in these low cap leagues. That was my only strategy, everything else was just drafting the right amount of PAs and IPs (at $70M you generally only need about 1250 or so IPs/162) with the right mix of hitting and defense, and right mix of starters, good short relievers, and OK to bad long relievers.

$80M. I simply looked for a team that had the right mix of pitching -- at least 3 good starters, one or two good short relievers, and a good closer. I landed on the '67 White Sox. I like my pitching, but my hitting will be weak.

$100M. At this salary cap (and higher) its now good to go for deadball era starting pitchers. And so I spent most of my time looking for the 3 year deadball era span to maximize my starters balancing cost with ERC#. Once I landed on 1913-1915 to get Walsh '08, Cicotte '17 and White '06 the rest of the pitching with the appropriate mix of good, OK and bad pitchers. And then filling in the position players with my normal $100M tactics of good range on the infield corners, good fielding at SS, and hitting that favored AVG# over HRs. Filling in the right mix of position players was not a factor in choosing my three year range, I felt any three year range would allow that.

$110M. Same strategy and tactics as I used on my $100M team.

$140M. What strategy? The theme pretty much forces your hand. Choose pitchers as close to the .25 HR/9 as possible, and don't spend money on a catcher with a good throwing arm were about it as far as my strategy/tactics go.

$255M. Choosing Silver King was my number 1 strategy, and I find it quite interesting that I was the only team to choose him. His 703 IPs of 1.58 ERC# gave me a lot of flexibility to go for very good position players for most of the other choices. Although I also went with Pete Alexander to give me 1105 IPs of excellent starting pitching, which I think is critical in very high cap leagues. When it came to choosing the late rounds players, who would get very little usage, I went with some late inning defensive replacements (Bautista, Tulo and Campanella) and a pinch runner (Raines).

Posted by thejuice6 on 8/1/2016 7:53:00 PM (view original):
$70M - Big Papi & His Little Sisters
Pitching and Defense was the way I decided to go for this one. Low ERA’s and WHIP’s while making sure the Performance History on each pitcher looked pretty good. In order to help them even more, I put the team in Safeco Field which suppresses every kind of offense imaginable. Couple that with some good up-the-middle infield defense that has a lot of “+” plays and I’m hoping to keep the other team from scoring too many runs. My only two issues will be: (1) whether this rag-tag offense of mine can score any for me; and (2) hoping that the other team doesn’t hit the ball to any of my outfielders. I kind of get the feeling that they’ll be out there picking and blowing dandelions during the game so it could get ugly.

Overall Offense: Around $32.9+M / 4899 AB’s / 112 HR’s / 73-65 SB-CS / .268 AVG / .333 OBP / .416 SLG
Overall Pitching: Around $37.0+M – 1401 IP’s / 2.45 ERA / .236 OAV / 1.16 WHIP / .30 HR-9
Overall Defense: C/C-

Expectations: Another example of why I shouldn’t even waste my time playing with the big boys. At most, maybe 70 Wins.


$80M - 1971 Baltimore Orioles
I had a feeling that the ’85 Cardinals were the way to go – and I figured that half of the teams in this theme would be those guys. I just wanted something different (hence, why my Winning Percentage is what it is). I wanted a team that was either stacked on hitting that had two decent pitchers or vice-versa – a team with stacked pitching and a few decent bats. After looking at several, I settled on the Orioles. They had four 20-game winners that totaled over 1100 innings of quality Starting Pitching (highest ERA of the four is 3.08 and the highest OAV of the four was .235). The bullpen might be a bit shaky but I’m hoping they don’t see too many innings. If there was a lower number than “1” for the Starting Pitchers “Call Bullpen” level, I’d probably use it. The offense was already fairly solid but I was able to add Hank Aaron’s monster ’71 season. I went against the Baltimore grain and benched Brooks Robinson for the upgraded Bill Melton.

Overall Offense: Around $45.4+M / 4464 AB’s / 182 HR’s / 53-32 SB-CS / .281 AVG / .372 OBP / .456 SLG
Overall Pitching: Around $34.3+M – 1411 IP’s / 2.97 ERA / .236 OAV / 1.16 WHIP / .79 HR-9
Overall Defense: B-/C

Expectations: I’ll give this team a fighting chance – should finish somewhere around .500 or a tad bit better.


$100M – 2008-2010 Los Angeles Dodgers
Spent a lot of time working on this one. I knew from past experiences that the Dodgers were one of the teams that at one time had several of the top arms on their roster so, after looking through many of their rosters, I settled on this three-year period. Playing in Dodger Stadium, I obviously wanted to go with a strong pitching unit and I believe a rotation of ’96 Maddux, ’11 Kershaw, ’03 Schmidt and ’02 Lowe will do fine – especially with a strong bullpen to back them up. On offense, things look really good with over 200 HR’s and 119 SB’s – considering that most of my money went towards pitching. The only things that scare me are (1) these guys probably won’t normalize well against all of the deadball pitchers in the league, and (2) while Maddux and Kershaw are “normally” alright, you never know which 2003 Schmidt and 2002 Lowe you’re going to get. If they can hold their own, I may be alright. If not, this could be another disaster waiting to happen.

Overall Offense: Around $46.1+M / 4846 AB’s / 205 HR’s / 119-39 SB-CS / .297 AVG / .373 OBP / .495 SLG
Overall Pitching: Around $53.4+M – 1509 IP’s / 2.57 ERA / .212 OAV / 0.99 WHIP / .57 HR-9
Overall Defense: B/C

Expectations: Flip a coin – we’ll either finish with a .550, .500 or .450 Winning Percentage. With my luck, my money would be on .450.


THE OTHER THREE WILL HAVE TO COME LATER...

This is my first WIS Championship and I have been involved in WIS for less than one year so I was (am) ignorant about many things. I have never played in a league that permits injuries so I am unsure how that factor affects the game. In normal theme leagues, I try to have 1300 IPs and about 5200 PAs which I already conclude are too few for these leagues. I believe that some of these leagues are a true test of knowledge and ability while others should be very competitive as there are few ways to differentiate your teams.

$70 M— $70 Mil Scrubs

I think this is a true test because entrants must go beyond their existing knowledge and not rely on selections that have clearly become conventional wisdom. My strategy is to prioritize a strong pitching staff and build my offense around Dodger Stadium, which means selecting singles hitters with high OBP. I spent close to $38 Mil on pitching including the best high volume pitcher that I could find—’90 Billy Rhines for $16 million. With this workhorse, I will be competitive in the games that he starts which should be between 70-80 games. I think very few people selected Rhines which surprised me. For offense, I looked for hitters who have at least 25 singles per 100 ABs. I literally have no power but, in this league, I assume that few do. I also looked for “Howard Johnson” type guys whose secondary positions may be overlooked. This led me to Hal Smith at Catcher, Kid Eberfield at 3B and Wilson Betemit at SS. I am platooning at several positions and looked for players with strong platoon splits. My team’s fortunes, however, are tied to the performance of Billy Rhines.

$80 M—1998 Atlanta Braves

I spent the most time on this league because the options are numerous. dlcunc31 runs a similar league that I recently entered with the 2015 Dodgers. This team has great pitching but its hitting is porous and it was hard to get enough innings/PAs. I looked for a team with strong starting pitching and high OPS. I considered the White Sox teams in the early 1960s, the Dodger teams with Koufax, Drysdale and Horlen (as an addition), the 2015 Blue Jays, the Expos of the early 1990s and the 1990s Braves teams. I ended up picking the 1998 Braves and adding Larry Walker and Kevin Brown. The team's OPS is over .800 and the starting rotation of Brown, Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz should make the team competitive in almost every game. Galaragga, Lopez, Chipper, Klesko and Walt Weiss are a solid offensive nucleus. I like this team's chances.

$100 M—2006-2008 Dodgers

This was an entertaining and thought provoking draft. I ended up with the 2006-2008 Dodgers because of its pitching potential (Maddux, Kershaw, Lowe, Schmidt all have ERCs over 200). Others have commented that the hitting is weak but I respectfully disagree. JD Drew, Furcal, Cody Ross and several other below the radar players have great numbers in their career years (RC27s over 10). Nomar, Martin, Manny and Lofton are a solid offensive nucleus.

$110 M—1997-2014 Twist

This was the most fun team to draft and it came together quickly. I determined that the most advantageous period is the period after the advent of free agency and expansion. I built my team around a strong starting rotation of Maddux, Kershaw, RJ and Pedro who all have high ERCs. For offense, I looked for extra base hitters who would do well in the stadium that I selected, Kaufmann Stadium. I also prioritized switch hitters who could play every day (Berkman, Bernie Williams, Alomar, Reyes, Figgins). This is a strong team that should do well.

$140 M—Targeting 300 HRs

I felt that most people would go for HR hitters in this draft given the 300 HR requirement so I went against convention and selected hitters with high OBP and extra base hits. I prioritized career years from the top modern pitchers (’95 Maddux, ’04 RJ, ’00 Pedro) and put them in Target Field to neutralize the home run hitting teams. I made enough room for Tim Raines who should excel in Kaufman Stadium. This league did not require the knowledge or skill of other leagues and should be very competitive.

$255 M—Boxer Rebellion

This is my least favorite league as it feels like a free for all. This is definitely the league requiring the least amount of skill as anyone can field a competitive team. The selection of the right ballpark that fits one’s team is essential. I went with a HR hitting team so I chose a park that I have never used before, South Side Park which has negative ratings for extra base hits but is neutral for HRs. I prioritized high OBP players who would seem to do well regardless of the pitching that they faced. That led me to the career years of Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds and Mickey Mantle who have historically high OBPs. I looked for high ERC pitchers even if their innings were limited (Elton Chamberlain, JR Richard, Vida Blue, etc.). I have never used ’68 Bob Gibson before but due to process of elimination, he is my workhorse which concerns me. He was a tough selection over Koufax and Kershaw but I prioritized 2004 RJ and 1914 Dutch Leonard who are both lefthanded. I’ve subsequently read that AROD and Joe Morgan perform poorly in these leagues and regret their selections. This league is a free for all and anything can happen.

I'll start by saying that the overwhelming majority of my WhatIf experience over the last few years has been with progressives. I am woefully, and have been heretofore blissfully, ignorant of the current state of conventional strategic wisdom and cookies. The recent salary updates therefore had absolutely no effect on my strategy, such as it is. Whether this is a help or a hindrance remains to be seen.

I started writing this before the season began, but when it became apparent that I would not finish it by opening day I decided to wait until game 16 when all of the dampening is complete and we're about 10% through the season.


$70M - Titus and the Detritus

This one will probably not end well. In the absence of direction provided by the theme rules I tend to go with platoons, figuring that I'll take the 5% advantage where I can get it. The looseness of this theme enabled me to amass enough (I hope) innings with relatively few pitchers, opening up 16 roster spots for a platoon at every offensive position.

My pitchers also "platoon" in a way, as I used my preferred 3-man Tandem approach. The three "A" pitchers are of different handedness than their counterpart "B" pitchers, hopefully taking advantage of any platooning done by my opponents.

This is all well and good; the problem is that I decided to go with far, far fewer plate appearances than I'll need. This was the first team I put together so it's tough to fully remember my thought process, but it was probably something along the lines of "in order to be successful I need to not leave any PAs on the table" but I way undershot here. I chose a pitcher's park (Southside Park, suppressing hits far more than HRs) to somewhat mitigate this, and I'm guessing that the majority of teams will do similarly, but I'd feel a lot better about this team if I'd drafted 300 more PAs.

Normally I wouldn't be too worried about being at .500 after 16 games, but my hitters are probably going to average 90-95% effectiveness the rest of the way, and the fact that we couldn't score runs when dampening allowed everyone to be at 100% is cause for concern, and perhaps alarm.

Record: 8-8
Hitting: 4675 PAs, .275/.377/.450, 136 HRs
Pitching: 1341.7 IP, 1.10 WHIP, 39 HRs


$80M - 2015 Dodgers and a duo of Bear Cubs

I didn't do a whole lot of research for this one. When I saw how good Kershaw and Greinke were, and realized that I could add Arrieta and still get in under the cap with a not-too-horrible lineup, I was sold. The big problem with this team is my 4th starter: Brett Anderson. His 4.09 ERC# is not good enough to get hitters out at this cap level (or $10M lower, frankly). I knew that going in; I just hoped that the Big 3 would be good enough that I could sneak into the playoffs where Anderson would no longer be a factor. I figured if I could win 15 of the 40 games Anderson starts I'd be OK. Will I? Still remains to be seen. I'm 1-3 in games started by Anderson, and 8-4 in the others.

My other addition to the roster was Kris Bryant, who I valued for his defensive versatility in addition to his bat. He's reasonably priced, too.

My team name paraphrases the immortal words of Franklin Pierce Adams; I just wish I had figured out how to sneak the word "gonfalon" in there.

Record: 9-7
Hitting: 5249 PAs, .260/.342/.435, 176 HRs
Pitching: 1310.3 IP, 1.10 WHIP, 103 HRs


$100M - Cleveland Indians 1996-1998

It's becoming increasingly apparent that deadball was the way to go here. This was already apparent to many of the good players in this tournament. I never even considered it, for two reasons: in my limited experience I'm not very good at building deadball teams, and I don't enjoy managing them. This is obviously to my detriment towards trying to win this tournament; regardless of your philosophy, if you want to win you should play the game the way it's programmed rather than the way you wish it was programmed. I didn't do that, and needless to say it's nobody's fault but my own.

Even taking into account that my deadball aversion eliminated the need to research a large chunk of possibilities, this team still took me the longest to assemble. I had submitted all five other rosters before I'd even settled on a team for this one. I probably built 7 or 8 teams before finding these guys. There's not much to say about them that you don't already know: they mash the stuffing out of the ball (provided that said stuffing isn't too soft ), their bullpen is good, and their starting pitching is possibly just good enough to see them through. The clincher for me was the presence of El Presidente, Dennis Martinez. I wasn't sure whether he'd be good enough to hang at this cap, but if I squinted enough I could see it, plus dagnabbit if he wasn't one of my favorite guys ever to watch pitch. I loved that guy, and I hadn't thought about him in a while. One of the nice things about playing this game is that you're sometimes reminded of guys like that.

Record: 8-8 (2-5 vs deadball, 6-3 vs liveball)
Hitting: 5603 PAs, .316/.410/.529, 222 HRs
Pitching: 1362 IP, 1.02 WHIP, 68 HRs


$110M - 1998 - 2015 Dodgers

This was one of the first rosters I developed, and I was surprised how easy it was to put together a competitive team using just Dodgers. Conventional wisdom would suggest that you'd be far better off using the franchise soup method. But after I put this together I tried the soup a few times and it just wasn't as tasty. Sorry, that was awful...

One of the keys to using a single franchise was the ability to choose your sub-$1M guys from all the other franchises. This was vital for this team because I'm using the really good Hanley Ramirez at SS, but he only has 336 PAs. I was able to mix-and-match a few sub-$1M guys to fill in when Hanley can't go. Sub-optimal to be sure ($900k doesn't buy a whole lot of shortstop range) but they don't make many errors and can hit a tiny bit. I hope.

Other than that, and the fact that the offense is a bit too HR-centric for my taste (I like my team OBP to be well north of .400 at this cap level), I think these guys can compete. The pitching is obviously there.

Record: 8-8
Hitting: 5420 PAs, .313/.392/.563, 294 HRs
Pitching: 1349.7 IP, 0.91 WHIP, 96 HRs



$140M - We Don't Need No Stinking Fielders

I was very disappointed that I couldn't fit "Fielders?" into the beginning of this team name.

My contrarian nature came to the fore in building this team. I don't tend to rely on speed as much as most owners, but I figured "hey, this is the one theme where most people won't use speed, and since most people won't use speed maybe they'll skimp on catcher throwing, so I'll use speed here." I'm the only person in my league, and I may be the only person in this theme, using Billy Hamilton the elder. How could I do this? In part by using the immortal Mark Reynolds and his 223 Ks. I know he's a little below the usual quality threshold of this cap, but with the minimum 0.25HR/9 for pitchers I figured that at the very least his power would play here. Plus he can steal.

Other than that I'm guessing my team looks a lot like everyone else's. Clemens/Arrieta/Maddux/Pedro, lots of good relievers. However, and other people are reporting similarly, I'm pretty surprised that I'm having a bit of trouble with my relief innings. I thought that 1,483 good innings would be enough, but my bullpen is looking like a bit of a Christmas tree. Hopefully I can mitigate this a bit, but it's a concern.

Record: 8-8 (I'm beginning to detect a pattern)
Hitting: .320/.430/.577, 321 HRs, 301 SBs
Pitching: 1483.7 IP, 0.91 WHIP, 58 HRs


$255M - Lady Blue the Big Unit

I really enjoyed putting this team together. I had no idea what I was doing since I don't ever remember playing at a cap above $160M, but it was fun.

The first thing I did was try to assemble a good balanced team. After I gave it a good initial shot, I decided to make a team where I maximized pitching, and then I made a team that maximized hitting. When I compared the three teams I didn't think it was particularly close: the offense-oriented team was far superior. I tried to assemble a few more teams but couldn't improve it.

I briefly entertained using the 642 IP Lady Baldwin, but I wasn't convinced that he could get anyone out at this level. I'd be interested in seeing if anyone else tried him. I'm using a 2-man tandem rotation, alternating handedness within the tandem as usual.

My biggest regret with this team is that I had no idea how many innings I'd need, so I used the 1971 Vida Blue instead of the lights-out 39 IP 1970 version. In hindsight I think the 1690 IP I would've had with the 1970 Blue would've been enough but I didn't know. I would've loved to have had him to start some key games down the stretch.

Record: 9-7
Hitting: 8435 PA, .360/.476/.635, 407 HRs
Pitching: 1970 IP, 0.90 WHIP, 58 HRs