I'd say it's pretty clear D was the wrong way to go.

My B team is really struggling. I think it's because I built a C team, then later cut $5M to get a bit more defense, instead of just building a B team from scratch.

Posted by brianjw on 8/25/2017 11:28:00 AM (view original):
Update on PAs and pitch counts through 40 games. The 90M DH league is coming back down to earth, but the 140M DH league is still a little off the charts.

League	PA	PA/G	NP	NP/G
------------	------------	------------	------------	------------
70M	1552	38.8	5160	129
90M	1575	39.3	5437	135.9
100M	1554	38.8	5278	131.9
120M	1568	39.2	5297	132.4
Variable	1570	39.2	5338	133.4
140M	1606	40.1	5740	143.5

My B team had some extraordinarily bad luck in the first 30 games with extra innings and such. At the max I was at 163 NP/G and all of my pitchers were under 90% leading to a 12 game losing streak. I've had to employ some unorthodox methods to get down to 150, still way above the league average.

One success for me this year was managing pitcher fatigue. This time last season I slumped badly due to fatigue, and never fully recovered. This year has been better, and it had to be better because I'm very low on IP. My pitch counts are

70M 129.8
90M 131.3
100M 129.9
120M 132.2
Variable 131.4
140M 141.5

My record sans one run games is good enough to be in the top ten, but I have taken a beating in one run games. My win expectation right now is 201, and I am 15 games below that, which is entirely due to those one run games.

Just picked up a schwarze in the last cycle, winning all six games by one run, including each of a 16 inning game, 14 inning game, 10 inning game, ninth inning walk-off, and the ever-elusive one-run victory over brianjw. Sadly, prior to that my teams had been 41-56 in one-run games despite being 190-164 overall. I hope that the return to reality isn't too painful.

The combination of focusing all of my attention on my progressive teams and not really paying attention to the dynamic salary inflation rates -- and too few IPs across the board -- have doomed my teams to collective oblivion. Down the drain we go now that the death spiral has kicked in. Back to school for me if I'm going to do this again next summer.

In second place in all 6 leagues, consistently mediocre?

Posted by schwarze on 8/31/2017 2:16:00 PM (view original):
Can't believe I'm still in second. Five straight series with 3 wins or fewer.

Now seven straight... (almost all 2-4's). Dropped to 4th.

I was looking at my win splits (for each 162-game period) from last year.... 94, 96, 88, 90, 83, 97.. That 83 win period dropped me from 4th to 13th. At the current pace for this period, I'll be lucky to get to 83 wins.

Nice 5-1 to start the day, followed by an 0-6. I'm getting so damn sick and tired of the streakiness of this game.

Clawed my way, just barely, into second place. Then followed it with four straight losing sessions.

So far, my teams have basically done as expected, with the exception that the 120M team is having horrible luck in close games and is playing at .500 despite a > .600 Exp. Win%. If they get it into gear and no one else falls off a cliff, I'll feel pretty good about this round.

My first schwarze! I'm not sure if it's my first one ever, since the historical records of this tournament aren't sortable by cycle...

Just a suggestion.

Sometimes refreshing your browser to see the results of a session can be SOOOOO painful. In the a.m. games I went 0-6 with five one-run losses.

As Fred Flinstone would say, rattle frattle schmattle schmicken… :(

I love my $100mm team. I thought it would be my best team from the start (as stated in the poll and strategy write-ups). At 46-26 they have not disappointed. The are also the only Phillies (1897-1906) team of the 96 teams entered at this salary cap in the entire tourney

With no gimme cheap player exceptions allowed, I was only able to fit this team under the cap using 5 pitchers under $620,000 salary because of few position player options; This "bullpen" collection consists of:

1898 Bill Duggleby $618k RL whip = 1.63 RL OBP = .313 RL ERC+ = 62
1902 Warren McLaughlin $586k 1.38 .267 83
1898 Chick Fraser $586k 1.45 .290 76
1906 Harry Kane $517k 1.64 .255 61
1899 Al Maul $250k 1.58 .321 75

In order to keep my regular pitchers fresh this "special teams unit" is occasionally called on to collectively Take One For The Team.

However:

In the 9/2 pm2 game, to rest the regulars, the special teamers were the only "active" pitchers and combined to throw a 4 hit shutout:
McLaughlin gave up 2 hits in 5 innings, Fraser gave up 2 hits in 3 innings and Maul pitched the last inning allowing 0 hits.

In the 9/4 pm2 game, the regular pitchers needed some more rest and the manager tried to catch lightning in a bottle a second time.
The result: a 2 hit shutout this time!!
Duggleby pitched 5 innings and gave up 2 hits (and hit a grand slam), Fraser pitched the last 4 innings allowing 0 hits.

I have no doubt that this experience will be my absolute WISC highlight in 2017 but am happy to have had at least one.

Great story, calhoop. I hope your $100M team keeps it up.