Only 2 of my 8 position players from that league would quality for the 140M league here due to the season restriction, unfortunately. I would've loved to have this league without that restriction but then HR teams just would not have been viable at all. It's a different ballgame without the deadball years.

Might have been fun to run the 140M league with a rule that everyone who chooses 2B or 3B has to have all pitchers from post-strike, i.e., 1995-present. That might have made HR a little more enticing.

70m (Petco Park)
As others have noted, this was a very difficult and time-consuming theme. I’m all for that at higher caps but at 70 mil it just becomes a slog. Having to find teams with a bunch of good players but not “too” good is kind of an unending journey. Couple that with that thin range of salary to spend made for some headaches. I put together a handful of partial rosters from real life teams that could work within the restrictions and then tried to mix and match to piece together a sim team. The ’78 Brewers really stood out to me due to their plethora of reasonably priced hitters. With the bulk of the hitting out of the way I could focus on teams with a handful of above average pitchers. I ended up with the ’86 Mets for Gooden and Ojeda. They also brought along Dykstra and Mazzilli who almost get me 600 very solid OF PAs. 1971 Houston provided the rest of the core of the pitching staff and a 2B in Morgan who is quite expensive for this cap and actually not very good. But I wasn’t turning back at this point as I kind of wanted to get this team over with. Looking at this team now I am nearly certain we will finish .500 or a little below. It is quite bad – with not enough IP or PAs. Discodemo mentioned having issues at under 1325 IP…well I have 1262 so………


90m (Minute Maid Park)

The foundation for my search with this theme was basically - which SPs are worth cloning. My short list included Maddux, Kershaw, Pedro, Clemens, Hershiser and Brown. I forgot about Smoltz who actually seems one of the more obvious choices given he had many great SP and RP seasons. I discarded Kershaw fairly quickly as he doesn’t have enough reasonably priced options for this cap. I also didn’t bother pursuing Brown as there was no real fit given the theme restrictions. My final 4 contenders were 2005 Houston for Clemens, 2004 Red Sox for Pedro (not 2002 which I think may have been smarter), one of the mid-90s Indians team for Hershiser and a Dodgers team for Maddux. I really couldn’t find much difference with any of these teams – they all had glaring weaknesses. I ended up with the Astros – they had a good park fit for the homerun hitters in the lineup, 3 Berkmans (I couldn’t fit 4 in under the cap), another very good hitter in Ensberg and Clemens was a nice anchor for the staff given the cap as he has a bunch of reasonably priced seasons for what you’re getting. He also brings along ’05 Pettitte who should be decent and some non-horrible relievers. No one else in my league took this team which concerns me a little. Outlook is .500.


100m (Westside Grounds)

This theme is screaming for a deadball Cubs or Giants team. I actually didn’t bother looking at any other options besides the White Sox of the same era. The lack of 300k exception sure threw a wrench into my plans however and I may have made a mistake trying to force my trusty deadball Cubs to work. Hendrix seems to be quite a good value right now so I knew I would aim to make him the centerpiece of the team with the usual Cubs pitchers and hitters of this era. 100mil doesn’t get what it used to that’s for sure and I had to downgrade significantly with lesser Overall, Brown and Hofman. Ginger Beaumont makes an appearance as a fairly priced high avg+ hitter. I also have ’15 Dutch Zwilling playing first base where his 11.56 range will hopefully come in handy. This team will probably have problems scoring runs but hopefully we can win some low-scoring games. Normally I would give this team 100-win potential but I’m not as confident with the salary changes and 500k or so of dead money – so I’m guessing high 80s.




Variable (Municipal Stadium)


I only looked at A for this theme really. After building my A team I looked at what an extra 5 million could do for me and didn’t feel it warranted a change as I would have had to spend the bulk of that on upgrading pitching. I probably should have looked at what an extra 10 million could have done for me though as it looks like a lot of smart owners took the “C” tier. After reading many of the building strategies in this thread I am more than a little concerned I made a mistake. Anywho, my team is Anson, Frisch, Brett, Furcal, Speaker, Kauff and Ashburn. Hoping they will get a ton of + plays in Municipal to counter the better hitting I will face and help out my deadball pitchers. This is the only theme that I can’t really get a handle on how my team should perform – outlook: unknown.



120m (Municipal Stadium)

I built an alpha, a decade and a franchise team and then tried to figure out which of the two would pair best for the second round. I ended up figuring out that decade and franchise made the most sense….this took me much longer than most who it seems knew that intuitively. There are a lot of similarities between this team and my variable cap team – lots of A+ range and triples. Appling at short instead of Furcal because I needed Frisch, Connor for Anson and Baker for Brett (to save some money). ’08 Walsh and Mathewson will start every game which should put me in a good position every time out. I’m hoping 1493 IP is enough in this home stadium. If it is this team should win 100 games.

140m (Comerica Park)

I only built a triples team. Triples players fit well with the great range and speed teams I (and a lot of other people) like. It didn’t bother me that the deadball era players were unavailable as their triples don’t generally normalize well anyway. I’m a little surprised at the amount of people who chose doubles over triples as I thought triples would dominate in choice. Unfortunately it looks like I got put into a division with 2 other triples owners and a bunch more in my league. So bringing back the theme of great range and speed, I went with a lot of obvious choices. Someone mentioned McGee as being overpriced – and wow I just realized he used to be 2 million less – that’s crazy! So maybe I dropped the ball including him but I like his guaranteed ability to hit .300 (he has never hit less than .300 for me – so I assume it’s a guarantee). I also brought back Furcal and Brett from the above team. I have 1920 Edd Roush playing 1B with his ridiculous 13.73 range. Snuffy at 2B and Dimaggio and Granderson filling out the OF. We have 300+ doubles and 175+ homers so we should fit well in any ballpark. On the pitching end, I get to use 1968 Bob Gibson for the first time – Guidry, ’15 Kershaw and ’02 Pedro fill out the rest of the starting staff. I have 1475 IP which should be enough? Outlook 90+ wins.

Thanks to ozomatli for taking the reigns from schwarze, this is a lot of fun every year.

I also wanted to publicly thank ozomatli for taking over this tournament. He's done a fantastic job. His themes were unique and challenging and he rarely needed my help with anything. I don't plan on "retiring" from WhatifSports anytime soon, but if that time ever comes, at least I know this tournament will be in good hands.

Geez, 1,207 innings for my $70M Astrodome team. Too much?

I will at times use the Grizzly_one managerial technique...

Posted by schwarze on 8/10/2017 5:39:00 PM (view original):
I also wanted to publicly thank ozomatli for taking over this tournament. He's done a fantastic job. His themes were unique and challenging and he rarely needed my help with anything. I don't plan on "retiring" from WhatifSports anytime soon, but if that time ever comes, at least I know this tournament will be in good hands.

Thanks schwarze. Definitely lots of learnings from my first time putting this together. Looking forward to getting started

Posted by brianjw on 8/10/2017 4:00:00 PM (view original):
Might have been fun to run the 140M league with a rule that everyone who chooses 2B or 3B has to have all pitchers from post-strike, i.e., 1995-present. That might have made HR a little more enticing.

I'm looking forward to reading your writeup brianjw.

so what i have learned from reading all this...

I better be REALLY lucky

70M: 76 Astros, 78 Brewers & 97 Angels

Two of the best pitchers at this cap (among expansion teams) are Larry Sorensen's and Mike Caldwell's 78 seasons. So that made it easy to take the Brewers '78. And the '97 Angels have four position players who look good at this cap - OF Salmon, 1B Erstad, 2B Alicea and 3B Hollins. Salmon is a bit pricier than I'd normally like, but he'll be a monster against the pitching we're going to see, so it's worth the extra cash. Then it was just a matter of looking for a team that could plug a couple of holes, and had a decent bullpen. The 76 Royals gave me two speedy, if overpriced, outfielders, and a bunch of decent priced arms at around 1.10 WHIP. Then it was open season on filling out relief pitchers from all the years available.

I had this team built before the pricing update, but was just under $18M with two of the teams. I thought I was cookie-centric enough that the prices would go up, but they just didn't. So I had to scramble a bit and add some back of the roster players just to conform to the rules. (And one of those players was a combined season so I had to edit again.) Still, I got a part time Rickey as a pinch runner, and a mop for when it all goes haywire.

Batting: 5398 PA, .278/.365/.413, 184 SB
Pitching: 1300 IP, 1.15 WHIP, 71 HR

90M: 89 Cards & Willie McGee

The basic plan was easy enough here. Find a team with a good infield and bullpen, and with under .550 winning percentage so you can clone an OF and a rotation. It didn't work so well in practice. The 2007 Atlanta team which was so popular looked not bad, some early 1920s teams (e.g., Pirates, Cleveland) looked playable, and I was really close to playing the 1943 Senators. But then I remembered that this although this is 90M, the salary updates, plus DH mean this is basically an 80M cap. And at that cap, my go to teams are the 80s Cards. And the 1989 Cards mostly fit the bill.

Willie McGee, even after the updates, is great to build around. Lots of 500-600 PA seasons that can substitute for each other across four positions and never lose platoon advantage (or hit into double plays). The pitching is not as elegant, but I was able to keep two starters from that year, and twist some Tewksbury seasons to get it to work. I wanted to twist Quisinberry and win with the bullpen, but I couldn't make it work with the budget.

The numbers look worse than they really are, because there are some scrubs that I won't be using much at all, and the fielding is going to be good.

Batting: 6293 PA, .297/.352/.405, 227 SB
Pitching: 1391 IP, 1.15 WHIP, 76 HR

100M: Amazin' 2000-2009

I really wanted to use a Giants team here, because I always play 1890-1920 Giants at this kind of cap, but I just couldn't get the years to work. I tried some 19th Century teams, some turn of the Century teams, and some later teams. I don't think I ever mocked up 1913-1922; maybe I should have looked at that. Whatever I did, I ended up having a lot of players that wouldn't be any use except in blowouts. (Irony alert coming.) So I wanted to try a modern team.

And the 2000s Mets seemed great. I could find someone I could live with at this cap at literally every position, and have very little wasted cash. I thought there would be lots of deadballers, so my focus was on doubles, speed and defence, and not worrying too much about giving up the odd HR. And, which will become crucial in a bit, I think modern pitchers have a super-power against deadfall teams: you don't need very many IP/162 from them. Because the pitches formula gives you credit for strikeouts (I think 1.95 extra pitches per K), but you don't spend those pitches when you aren't striking anyone out, you can really skimp on innings. Or at least you can when you aren't striking anyone out.

So naturally I ended up in the league where there are lots of modern teams, and I might be in trouble. I'm going to give up a lot of HR - though I will hit some too. And I'm very worried about fatigue, because I'm not well placed to handle hitters who strike out a ton. Hopefully I'll make up for some of the shortfall with fielding, especially in the OF. But I might have to lean on strategies for managing a fatigued staff a lot.

Batting: 5597 PA, .303/.383/.495, 180 SB
Pitching: 1337 IP, 1.00 WHIP, 120 HR

120M: Sipping the decades

I had one guiding thought here. I wanted to use a lot of deadball players, and a lot of defunct franchises, in round 2. And the decades restriction would have ruled that out. So this is my decades team. It still has a lot of deadball pitching - both starters are deadball era - but that was easy enough to pair with some more modern RPs. Otherwise, this is close to an open team, with bench guys and end of bullpen relievers from the bad decades.

Batting: 5576 PA, .316/.418/.459, 399 SB (though 195 CS)
Pitching: 1512 IP, 0.86 WHIP, 33 HR

Variable: Straight A's

This was interesting; I really like variable cap leagues. My first instinct was to go with C. There is a huge drop from A to B, and $5 million wasn't enough to make it worth it. And D is a really weak bunch - especially since they are mostly so slow. But $10 million to go to C was tempting. In the end, there just weren't enough players to make me do it. It's hard when, for example, you can't use someone because they are B-/D----- at a secondary position you will never use them for. Still, it was close; I think I worked out a $127 million C team that would be better than my $115 million A team. And maybe I should have tinkered with that just for some variety.

Because once I chose A, this was literally an open league team. It's slightly weaker than my $120 million decades team, but pretty similar on the whole. I didn't really go for the A++++ players, because I don't normally use them in open leagues, so I didn't see a reason to start now. Maybe that will backfire, especially since it looks like there will be a lot of balls in play in this league.

Batting: 5641 PA, .330/.420/.478, 395 SB (though 249 CS)
Pitching: 1487 IP, 0.90 WHIP, 17 HR

140M: Two B or not to be

Without the deadball hitters, this ended up being a fairly easy choice. None of the players I normally use from post-deadball have lots of 3B or HR, but they all have lots of 2B. My generic $140M OL team with DH wouldn't quite get 400 2B, but it would be really close - so this is close to no restriction at all for me.

But I misread the rules at first and thought it didn't have a DH. And then getting to 400 2B did look like a bit of a stretch, and I chose some really high 2B players that I wouldn't normally use. Then I realised I had a DH, and it was easy to get the numbers to work. Indeed, for some reason I ended up with 410 2B. I got rid of some of the really excessive 2B players, but I think I kept too many - I didn't need those other 10 doubles, and could have used a bit better defence. But the team still feels ok to me.

I thought more people would go for HR, so I took slightly more caution against HRs than was probably necessary. But it's still a pretty strong pitching staff, and I'm hoping (as with 100M) that you don't need as many IP with modern pitchers as deadball pitchers. If that assumption is wrong, this could be a difficult round one.

Batting: 6095 PA, .347/.430/.518, 168 SB, all A+ range OF
Pitching: 1470 IP, 0.86 WHIP, 45 HR

I've never understood how people make predictions for their teams. Every time I finish a team, I think it will go 95-67 and win the LCS. That's what I think for all these teams too. My main worry is the 90M team, where others do have better raw stats than I do - though I might make up for it in fielding and speed. And the 100M team could have the bottom fall out if I don't have enough IP. So lots of variance ahead.

Posted by ejstockman on 8/10/2017 2:32:00 AM (view original):
Love to read these posts. Fascinating stuff. For what its worth, here are the strategies that typically put me just on the cusp of the second round, but usually not in it.

70 Million -- 69 Royals, 88 Stros, 98 D'Backs. The Astros gave me 3/4 of my starters and good relievers in Juan Agosto and Dave Anderson. Nolan Ryan and his high k's, which always seem to translate into better stamina at low caps, should help with innings fatigue. The D'backs team gave me solid performers in Jay Bell and Travis Lee. Foy and Roger Nelson are the main cogs from the Royals. Don't love the team. 80 wins at most. Probably 78-84

90 Million -- 94 Expos and Pedro. Built a good team with the 84 Expos using Pete Rose and Bryn Smith. But I didnt love Smith and started looking for a better starter. Since the 94 Spos usually give me good offensive pieces at these cap levels, I just plugged the entire offfense in, and it worked, though i will mix and match at DH. They steal bases efficiently as well, always helpful at 90 million. Pedro cloned means that, even with the roster fillers at the end, still leaves me with a .222 OAV and a 1.07 WHIP. Prediction, 86-76

100 million -- 1940-49 Cards -- Saw that Schwarze and Mllama used the 39-48 Cards. Felt good about that. They worked in Mize, whereas I used Musial at 1B. My mistake may have been trying to work in the 49 Schoendeist, who may be too pricey for the value. But Cooper, Brecheen, Pollet et al usually perform well, so I feel its a good but not great team. Prediction 83-79.

120 Million -- Decades -- Unlike some of the other owners, I dont stand a chance in the 2nd Round. I just need to get there. So I went with Decades and plugged in my usual suspects -- 86 Brouthers, 13 Baker, 36 Medwick, 28 Frisch, 77 Simmons, even a Cobb. High OBP+ and AVG+ guys, which is the sweet spot for me at 120. My starting staff of 09 Walsh, 73 Sutton, 64 Horlen and 02 Lowe, and a bullpen built around Wade Davis, Rob Murphy, should be successful. Prediction 87-75.

140 Million -- Thought long about this. Love putting together triples teams but they dont normalize well. I thought everyone and their brother would put together doubles teams, and no one would use HRs. So I went hybrid. I barely made the triples requirement and kept them just under the doubles threshold. 159 trips, 355 doubles. Looking for the best of all worlds. Swapped out Ed Walsh for Guidry (no dead ballers in this theme), plugged in the usual core of lefty relievers, made sure I had the inning necessary (1584). Optimistic about this team. 92-70.

Variable -- Apparently I missed the boat on this one. Worked a team at A but wanted deadball pitching, which is pricey. The C team was offense laden but I found that very C team I built was more like a D+ team. At B, I found a roster of good performers who wont kill me in the field and allowed me to add 5 million more in pitching. Performance histories show good fielding histories for what that's worth. 85 Boggs, 87 Raines, 15 Eddie Collins (and I even used the C+/C+ Berkman). Using the extra 5 million, I added the 500 inning Ed Walsh as my #1 and Horlen and Chris Carpenter as 2A and 2b. That combo has worked really well for me. Then slammed it on the low ratio modern relievers, Meredith, Soriano, Britton. 1451 innings at .91 WHIP, .200 OAV, may be a little low but I think i can scrape by. I'd like to think this is a good team, but if everyone is correct that A or C were the only options, I guess I'm under .500. Prediction, 80-82.


Good luck all!

Having seen the teams, here is my assessment now:

70 Million - Meh. I put together a middling team. Gonna be under .500 without a doubt. Just hope it doesn't crash and burn. One disaster team can keep you out of the 2nd round. I hope I eke out 75 wins. Could be less.
90 million - Wish I stayed with Rose and Smith. At least that team had a good Gary Carter and a very good Tim Raines. My current team is going to get smoked by the SB heavy teams, and the defense is suspect, which will hurt the starting pitching. Prediction is 78-80 wins at best, because I will get good starts out of the '02 and '05 Pedros and good relief from the 01 Pedro and the Wetteland/Henry duo. Over-tinkering may have done me in on this one.
100 Million -- Now that I have seen the deadball teams, should have worked harder at it. The deadball Cubs might be a little pricey at this level, but the Giants with Frisch would have worked. I think they roll through these leagues. I was probably correct about the prospects for my team though. Good team, not great. 85 wins.
120 Million/Decades -- Lots of really good teams in this one. I think the alphabet soup teams look the strongest. These leagues may be marked by a lot of parity. Prediction: 82 wins.
120 million/ B fielding -- I like my B fielding choice and having reviewed the other teams in my league, think it does a little better than I had expected. Call it 85 wins.
140 Million -- Still like my trips team. Must admit I was impressed at the sheer offensive strength of the HR teams. Could affect the performance of a few teams on the road with big HRs in their divisions. I don't have any in mine thankfully, so I am still hopeful that this is my best team at 90ish wins.

Overall prediction, optimistically, I finish 24th and make the second round by a whisker. Realistically, I am looking at 30th or worse.

Brian's point about modern pitchers having a "super-power" against deadball teams is a really great callout.

Posted by daddyzander on 8/11/2017 11:29:00 AM (view original):
so what i have learned from reading all this...

I better be REALLY lucky

Exactly. . . .the only thing I get from these threads (besides great ideas for my future teams) is that I don't put NEARLY enough time and effort into building great teams. I wonder if there is any correlation between that and me not having any championships???? Nah, couldn't be.

Well crap. Now brianjw has me convinced that I should have gone decades in round 1.

I don't know. I like the idea, but I think a decade / franchise team will do well since there are unique franchises in the deadball era, another set of unique franchises in the modern era, and then a cohort of franchises that have remained throughout. Seems like a lot of options / flexibility to me. But then again, I haven't won this tournament twice.

This is a bit of a sanity check on how my teams look. I compare the PA, slash line, IP, WHIP and HR/162 allowed of my team with the teams in their division. This obviously isn't a comprehensive test. It leaves out fielding, speed, SBs, starter/scrub balance, normalisation and a bunch more things. But it's a check. And my teams look mostly ok. At 90M I look much worse than Chisock, though I suspect the fielding will make up for some of it. (Though he found some clever secondary positions, and his hitting advantage is huge.) It will be interesting to look back at these at the end of the season to see how predictive they were.

70 M

Owner	Hitting	Pitching
brianjw	5398, .278/.365/.413	1300, 1.15, 71
sford	5368, .289/.359/.443	1354, 1.18, 97
rmdriskill	5509, .276/.361/.423	1289, 1.17, 93
bigmc	5089, .276/.349/.391	1334, 1.09, 104

90 M

Owner - Team	Hitting	Pitching
kyleb63 - 85 Angels	6423, .254/.335/.389	1577, 1.04, 101
brianjw - 89 Cards	6293, .297/.352/.405	1391, 1.15, 76
ledfoot - 03 Dodgers	5892, .267/.345/.403	1523, 1.13, 79
Chisock - 01 Braves	6094, .291/.379/.490	1465, 1.12, 116

100M

Owner - Team	Hitting	Pitching
brianjw - Mets	5597, .303/.383/.495	1337, 1.00, 120
brucel - Orioles	6193, .281/.363/.442	1511, 1.02, 96
crystalao - Red Sox	5250, .312/.390/.523	1425, 1.00, 111
bighooze - Dodgers	5863, .293/.368/.459	1359, 0.96, 94

120M

Owner - Type	Hitting	Pitching
trd3 - Alpha	6029, .326/.417/.495	1618, 0.93, 48
brianjw - Decades	5576, .316/.418/.459	1512, 0.86, 33
paulives - Franchise	6018, .336/.418/.500	1554, 0.91, 83
glowguy - Decades	5775, .326/.424/.519	1359, 0.97, 50

Variable

Owner - Fielding	Hitting	Pitching
rmdriskll - A	5855, .292/.367/.414	1497, 0.88, 42
Fusion27s - B	5583, .337/.412/.541	1467, 0.92, 40
nordawg - C	6107, .341/.438/.570	1569, 0.90, 35
brianjw - A	5641, .330/.420/.478	1487, 0.90, 17

140 M

Owner	Hitting	Pitching
garmansouth - 2B	7060, .349/.407/.522	1818, 0.99, 98
gigrant - 3B	6571, .298/.358/.476	1567, 0.83, 96
cubbies84 - 2B	6496, .339/.418/.558	1525, 0.89, 105
brianjw - 2B	6095, .347/.430/.518	1470, 0.86, 45

Overall, looking at those numbers I feel pretty good about the high caps, and pretty nervous about the low caps.

Good luck everyone!