$80M – The Chain
’90 Pfeffer to ‘17 Jansen
The Astrodome
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I built this team last because I wanted to get all the other teams out of the way so I could focus 100% of my efforts on this team. I started about 3 weeks before the deadline and worked a couple of hours on it every day. My strategy was to grab some A++ defenders and other offensive players from the 1800’s and early 1900’s and build my pitching staff from the modern years. This way, I could help my bad defense with modern pitching while increasing the errors from the opponents' deadball pitching. At $80M, I knew I would need to save salary so I started with 1890 Fred Pfeffer and his .319 OBP. But he’s an A+++ defender at 2B and only cost $3.7 million. He led me to my starting catcher, 1891 Duke Farrell (“A” arm, .384 obp, switch hitter). He got me a reasonably priced 1897 Bill Joyce at 3B (A+++, .441 obp for only $4.7 million). So far, so good. The next step on the chain was 1902 George Davis. He’s only a B/C fielder but I added another switch hitter with a .387 obp. I was stuck on the next pick, so I pivoted to a pinch hitter, 1908 Sammy Strang (.385 obp for 239K). This led me to two short inning SP’s that I can use in the bullpen, 1915 Hooks Wiltse and 1917 Tom Seaton. I got stuck again and needed two more scrubs (1922 Max Flack $202K & 1940 Gabby Hartnett $447K) to get me to another favorite of mine, 1945 Augie Galan (.423 obp). His $6.2 million salary makes him my most expensive hitter, but he always does well for me.
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This is the point where I first targeted a specific hitter. I wanted to add Wally Moon’s 1956 A+++ at 1B season (.390 obp). I needed two more scrubs to get this done (1952 Eddie Stanky .373 obp at $434K and 1954 Peanuts Lowry at $200K). I got 1956 Moon, and now have 6 starting batters and 2 relievers but have already burned 5 scrub spots. This is where things got tough and where I spent most of my time trying to complete the roster. Moon got me to 1964 Stu Miller, a nice reliever (1.14 whip, 97 IPs for only $2.7M). But every time I pivoted to another Baltimore Orioles player, I got stuck. I had one chain (which took many hours) that I really liked (Stu Miller, Drabowsky, Buford, J.Palmer, D.Martinez, B.Smith, R.Johnson, B.Wagner, B.Abreu…) but I ran out of salary before I could complete it. Back to the drawing board. I finally had to get off the Orioles and went with 1965 Robin Roberts (his great 0.93 whip, 76-IP Astros season). This led me to my 7th starting batter, 1967 Rusty Staub (.333/.398/.473) at a decent $5.1M salary. I still don’t have any starting pitchers yet. I focused on getting four 220+ IP starters with whips in the 1.05 to 1.20 range that cost less than $6.5 million. I knew I would be playing in the Astrodome, so HR’s didn’t matter so much. I grabbed 1971 Don Wilson (242 IP, 1.15 whip). He led me to 1981 Jerry Reuss (220 IP, 1.08 whip). I forgot to mention, at one point around this time, I had a nice chain of Jose Cruz, Joaquin Andujar, Willie McGee, Bob Tewksbury, Bryn Smith but again, it stalled out.
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At this point, I focused on adding another specific player, 2006 Roy Halladay (220 IP, 1.10 whip for $6.1M). I spent at least 10 hours trying to figure out a link to get me there. I finally hit a breakthrough when I discovered the following chain. Jerry Reuss to 1990 Bob Welch (238 IP, 1.22 whip, $5.4M) to 1991 Felix Jose (.305/.360/.438 for $4.5M) to 1993 Bryn Smith (226K) to 2001 Lance Painter (201K) to Halladay. At this point, I had my entire offense and starting pitching rotation, but I needed a couple more relievers. 2012 Brandon League (27 IP, 1.15 whip, 960K) and 2017 Kenley Jansen (68 IP, 0.75 whip, $3.4M) and I am done with 53K to spare. I can’t ever remember feeling more relieved after building a roster.
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Hitting (excluding scrubs): 5212 PA, .301, .388, .437, $39.6 million
Pitching (excluding scrubs): 1337 IP, 1.10 whip, 0.59 hr/9, $38.4 million
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$90M – Best of the Rest
’02 Pirates & ‘69 Orioles
Exposition Park
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Using the salary spreadsheet, I removed the highest salaried hitter and pitcher from each team and summed up the various teams hitting and pitching salaries (only including the top players measured by OBP# and WHIP#). I then started researching those teams that were near the top in either hitting salary or pitching salary or both. Some of the teams I tried included 1894 Orioles, 1896 Orioles, 1897 Orioles, 1902 Pirates, 1905 White Sox, 1906 Cubs, 1907 Cubs, 1927 Yankees, 1930 Yankees, 1969 Orioles, 1981 Astros, 2016 Cubs. I finally submitted a team early using 1897 Orioles (great hitting + Al Maul) & the 1902 Pirates (great pitching + Beaumont & F.Clark). After I completed all six teams, I went back and changed my mind on this team. The defense of those 1890’s Orioles teams combined with my 1902 pitching staff was going to be a disaster. Plus, I only had 5 usable pitchers.
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So I tinkered some more. I built a 69 Orioles / 81 Astros team that seemed ok, but their hitting was not strong enough. I also tried an 1894 Orioles & 1906 Cubs team that I really liked a lot, but again, how bad will the defense be? I also toyed around with some 1905 White Sox combinations (great pitching + George Davis at SS) but couldn’t find a fit a liked. I finally determined that 1902 Pirates was a must own as they provide 1131 solid innings plus four hitters that I can live with (G.Beaumont, F.Clark, T.Leach, C.Ritchey). So now I needed to find a team with C, 1B, SS, OF plus about 200-300 good innings. So I went back to my spreadsheet and adjusted the search criteria. Wouldn’t you know it, but those 1969 Orioles were a good fit. I added Boog Powell, their catching platoon (Etchebarren/Hendricks), Mark Belanger and chose Don Buford over Frank Robinson (I expect HRs to get muted in this theme). But the real bonus is adding Jim Palmer, Dick Hall and Eddie Watt to an already strong pitching staff. I now have 7 usable pitchers and although the offense is downgraded a bit when compared to those 1897 Orioles, the defensive improvement is huge.
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Hitting (excluding scrubs): 5298 PA, .295, .374, .418, $44.7 million
Pitching (excluding scrubs): 1449 IP, 1.07 whip, 0.15 hr/9, $43.8 million
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$100M – Catchy Title Theme
Catfish, Gaylord & Carl
The Astrodome
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When I first started working on this theme, I quickly realized that I needed to use the lower $/IP ranges on my starting pitchers and save those high $/IP on short inning relievers or else I would not have enough innings (assuming I was going to spend roughly $50 million on pitching). I also made sure to gravitate toward the lower end of these ranges. Also, I knew I would play in the Astrodome, so I wasn’t worried about HR/9. So, I started things off by find the best valued 300+ inning pitchers I could find at the three lowest ranges... I grabbed 1933 Carl Hubbell, 1972 Gaylord Perry & 1974 Catfish Hunter. So that works out to 1004 innings at $33.9 million (or 33,784 $/IP). I wanted another 400 or so (non mop-up) innings. I essentially grabbed the best values I could find to get me up to 1400 IPs…1944 Joe Berry, 1994 Steve Howe, 1958 Hoyt Wilhelm, 1958 Barry Latman, 1943 Johnny Niggeling, plus three ok guys between $350K-$500K.
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In building my hitting, I started from the lowest $/IP range. I wanted decent OBP but not terrible defense. I ended up with 1910 Clyde Milan (OF, .379 obp, D/B+). The next two lowest ranges were filled with 1894 Bill Lange (OF, .405 obp, D/A-) and 1897 Bill Joyce (3B, .441 obp, D/A+). 1886 John Kerins is my catcher (.360 obp, A+ arm). My last four batters are 1887 Sam Wise (SS, .390 obp, D/A+), 1916 Joe Jackson (OF, .393 obp), 1903 Nap Lajoie (2B, .344/.379/.518, C/A+) and 1914 Tris Speaker (1B, .338/.423/.503, C-/A+). I know the fielding ratings aren't so good, but with no deadball pitchers, I'm hoping I don't commit too many errors.
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Hitting (excluding scrubs): 5243 PA, .318, .396, .453, $48.7 million
Pitching (excluding scrubs): 1410 IP, 0.97 whip, 0.44 hr/9, $49.7 million
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$110M – Stale Cookie Whitelist
The Extra 2%
The Astrodome
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Since a lot of the eligible players are way overpriced, I made an effort to grab as many players who’s salary has only gone up 2-3%, while still finding good sim players (i.e., high on-base switch hitters with some A+++ fielders). I also decided against using any scrubs so all 25 of my players will contribute. This starts with a 4-man platoon at catcher (’26 Schang, ’72 Sims, ’00 Ortiz and ’02 Pratt). That’s 712 PA at .333/.424/.497. The rest of the roster includes ’14 Speaker (.338/.423/.503, A++ range), ’96 Alomar (.328/.411/.527), ’13 F.Baker (.337/.413/.493, A+++ range), ’94 Dahlen (.357/.444/.566 A+++ range), ’44 Galan (.318/.426/.495), ’02 Ch.Jones (.327/.435/.536) and ’73 K.Singleton (.302/.425/.479). Since I spent big on the infielders, I saved money on the OFs by not paying for the great range. I grabbed two great pinch hitters with ’18 Bescher (.333/.487) and ’90 Griffey Sr. (.377/.443/.519). Overall, I spent $59 million on my hitting.
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On the pitching side, I figured most folks would not spend on power hitting, so I decided to grab a couple of guys who do give up the long ball but were reasonably priced. Bill Bernhard will be the most popular player taken, in my opinion as his price is still too cheap. He’s my only deadball SP. The other starters include ’05 J.Santana, ’03 T.Hudson and ’81 D.Sutton. I do have two deadball RPs (’16 Benz and ’15 Wolfgang). The rest of the bullpen includes ’87 P.Perez, ’64 B.Shantz, ’91 S.Howe, ’27 J.Miljus, ’73 D.McMahon and ’93 D.Boucher. I wonder if I drafted too many innings.

Hitting: 5754 PA, .330, .426, .510, $59.1 million
Pitching: 1475 IP, 0.99 whip, 0.38 hr/9, $50.9 million
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$120M – Choose Your Soup
Franchise & Decade Puzzle
Pacific Bell Park
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I built this team first and basically forgot about it. I don’t really remember what my strategy was. For some reason, I spent only $54M on offense and $65M on pitching. Why did I draft 1563 innings? I drafted a bunch of platoon players. Why? I don’t usually do that. I have two pitchers with 380+ innings and my next highest is 149 IPs. Why? This is going to be a nightmare to manage. Crap, this team is doomed.
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Roster: ’91 D.Farrell ( C), ’03 F.Chance (1B), ’29 Grantham/’56 Schoendienst (2B), ’42 Cullenbine/’88 Jefferies (3B), ’13 E.Cabrera/’97 Larkin (SS), ’15 Cobb (OF), ’86 Stovey (OF), ’62 Mantle/’31 Fonseca (OF). ’70 G.Thomas / ’01 Raines (PH).
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SP: ’08 Walsh, ’14 Hendrix, ’16 Kershaw
Long RP: ’44 Berry, ’50 Hearn, ’85 Ramsey
Short RP: ’81 Butcher, ’63 Tiefenauer, ’72 Busby, ’30 Braxton, ’96 Helling
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Hitting: 5552 PA, .315, .423, .469, $54.9 million
Pitching: 1563 IP, 0.88 whip, 0.22 hr/9, $65.1 million
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No Cap – D.E.A.L. Redux
Shuffle Up & Deal
Robison Field
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During the draft, it was all about position scarcity. There were a ton a great SP, so with the first overall pick, I grabbed Rogers Hornsby. I was hoping to get Mantle or Delahanty coming back, but both went right in front of me (along with Mathewson, Seward, M.Brown, E.Morris). I grabbed Sisler and Babe Adams (wanted at least one stud SP). Grabbed the top hitter remaining next (Norm Cash, who will play DH for me) along with super-stud RP – Ferdie Schupp. I was hoping Ed Reulbach would make it back, but alas, he didn’t so I went more offense. Mickey Cochrane and Carl Yastrzemski. OF was pretty deep so I gambled on H.Manush coming back, but he didn’t (it was always mildnhazy taking my guys – we’ll get even later in the draft). Grabbed my second SP with Jack Pfeister (I probably could have waited, but Horlen went right in front of me so I panicked a bit). Couldn’t pass up Edd Roush and his great defense (I know, I already have two 1B). With pick 10, I grabbed my third SP, Frank Smith (I told you SP was deep). And while others grabbed modern day RPs (like Burke, T.Gordon, B.Ryan, W.Davis), I was happy to select a favorite of mine, Johnny Niggeling. Unfortunately, Barry Latman went before I could grab him next (dammit mildnhazy). So I grabbed another OF, George Gore and my starting SS, Robin Yount. I should point out that SS was not very deep. Garciparra and E.Banks each went in the fourth round. The next best SS’s were Yount, Ripken and W.English and then a huge dropoff. I grabbed Yount because I didn’t want somebody to screw me later (this is an unlimited cap league remember). I thought for sure mildnhazy would grab Ripken with one of his next two picks. Nope, he grabbed two more RPs (his sixth straight – I only have two RPs). My next two picks are Ron Santo and Harry Brecheen. Surely, mildnhazy will take a SS now. Nope - he does not. So now it’s round 16-17 and I have everything I need, so I take both Ripken and English. Needless to say, this did not sit well with mildnhazy. He eventually settled on Mike Bordick and his A/A defense. My last few picks are pinch hitters / spot starters (Wally Schang / Baby Doll Jacobson / Daniel Murphy) and a bunch of starting pitchers who I like a lot at lower caps who might get some spot starts and/or long relief appearances (D.Vance, F.Owen, G.Peters, D.Luque, E.Rixey). Should be interesting.
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Hitting (Top 9 batters): 6133 PA, .353, .431, .580, $89.5 million
Pitching (Top 7 pitchers): 1747 IP, 0.94 whip, 0.08 hr/9, $68.4 million

What a long strange trip it's been. This will probably be my least illuminating edition of Roster Building Strategies, because of the time elapsed since building many of these teams. You see, I ended the regular season of Round 1 in 12th place, seemingly assured of a berth in round 2, so I immediately built a bunch of round 2 teams. Then all of my teams were unceremoniously ushered out of the playoffs, dropping me below the qualification threshold. Then, several weeks later, ozomatli contacted me to tell me that someone had gone A.W.O.L. during the D.E.A.L. draft; I was offered his spot so I was back in again. However, I didn't have a lot of time to re-work teams so I left several of them as-was (at least, until I was told that some were illegal). So your guess is as good as mine with some of these teams...


$80M - The Chain
Chain of Fools - 1888 to 2013
The Mistake by the Lake (Cleveland Stadium)

When the Round 2 themes were originally announced I was very excited about this one. I like thinking outside the box, and this one especially entails thinking outside the box. I spent the better part of a day creating what I thought was a perfect team for this theme. And then I didn't make the second round of the tourney. I was crestfallen. I sent a message to ozomatli expressing my disappointment that my wonderful team would never be utilized, even going so far as to send him the roster in case he wanted to use it, just so my efforts would not have been in vain. Then I was invited back into the tournament, so I revisited the team I'd created. It was then I realized that it wasn't all that good.

Don't get me wrong; it was interesting. It used the 1965 Cookie Rojas both at second base and catcher. It was versatile and fun, but far, far from perfect. If you added up the plate appearances at three positions (second base, catcher, and maybe first base?) they totaled only about 590 PAs per position. You can get away with that at one position, but not three. Back to the drawing board.

My strategy here was to make sure my pitching staff was optimized by calculating about how much I wanted to spend per IP and then targeting the best pitchers with the most IPs in that price range. I settled on Mickey Welch as my starting point and staff anchor, and created a short list of high IP pitchers that I wanted to target as his counterpart. As long as I got one more of those, I'd be content with filling out the rest of the chain with either useful players or low-priced filler. I spent the better part of another day creating a fine chain team using this method. Then, within the last 2 weeks when I was in the U.K. on vacay, ozomatli informed me that my chain was invalid because the New York Giants that George Gore played on in 1890 was a different New York Giants team than the New York Giants that Jack Sharrott played on in 1890. Go figure. Back to the drawing board.

At first I tried to fix my previous chain by just changing a few players. But that didn't work. So I again started with Mickey Welch and created a brand new chain. And that chain took me in strange directions. While I still linked to one of my other target pitchers, Vic Willis, this team is a weird conglomeration of power guys from the 50's, 60's and 70's. If you had told me I'd be using Hank Sauer, Felix Mantilla (who I'm 100% convinced I have never used in any way, shape, or form), Rico Petrocelli and Graig Nettles I'm fairly certain I wouldn't have believed you. But there you have it. I've always been a fan of the '86 Hassey though. My stadium perfectly fits this squad, perhaps in name as well as ballpark effects. I'm anxiously looking forward to seeing how this team does, in much the same way that you anxiously look forward to seeing whether that car that's skidding on the ice slams into another car and creates an eight-car pileup.

Hitting - 5572 PA, .291/.372/.482
Pitching - 1416 IP, 1.07 WHIP, 0.31 HR/9



$90M - Best of the Rest
1937 Yanks, 2016 Cubs minus JD LG AR JA
Wrigley Field

My initial submission for this league was an epic brain fart. Somehow I had forgotten that both the highest salaried hitter and highest salaried pitcher from each team was ineligible, rather than just the highest salaried player. I therefore submitted a team with the sure-to-be-popular 1906 Cubs and the 1921 Indians, including both Frank Chance and Tris Speaker. While I could've done without Chance, the inability to use Speaker was a deal-breaker. I looked at other teams to pair with the Cubbies, including the 1921 Giants and some 1890's units, but nothing fit well. With time running out and not a lot of time to do more research I got desperate and tried the strategy that schwarze mentioned above, namely manipulating the data in the salary spreadsheet to exclude the highest salaried hitter and pitcher from each team, then ranking the teams by OPS# and ERC#. On the pitching side the top teams were almost exclusively as you'd expect: deadball and 1880's teams, who generally have few if any useful hitters. But there was one glaring exception: the 2016 World Champion Chicago Cubs. Even without Arrieta they have over 900 very good innings (at least very good for a $90M less-than-open-league league), plus some very useful hitters to boot. As soon as I saw that, it was a no-brainer to use them. Something tells me that if I had searched more extensively I could've found a perfect team to pair with them, but time was running out so I used the first team I found that even remotely fit: the 1937 version of my beloved Yankees. There's no way I would've used a $9M+ Joe D anyway, and I was able to add potent Gehrig and Dickey seasons, plus excellent partial seasons from Selkirk and Henrich, to Bryant, Zobrist, Fowler, et al.

Then came time to choose a ballpark, and this is where I took a (probably unnecessary) risk. I only drafted 5373 PAs and 1399 IP. I could've played it safe and gone with 0.90 Yankee Stadium I. But that's -1 for HRs to both fields. Here I was with probably one of the few teams that could hit some dingers; I didn't want to stifle them in my own ballpark. I'm sure other people's ballparks will do plenty of that. So I went with 1.05 Wrigley. I'm OK if my hitters (other than Gehrig, who has plenty of PAs) go through the season at less than 100%, but I'm just hoping that my pitchers survive. The shame of it is, Yankee Stadium II would've been perfect for this team, but I missed that by about 40 years.

Hitting - 5373 PA, .297/.393/.512
Pitching - 1399 IP, 1.10 WHIP, 0.83 HR/9



$100M - Catchy Title Theme
Buckets of Rain
(Baltimore) Memorial Stadium

Now we're getting to the teams for which my memory is pretty hazy. It looks to me like my offensive strategy was to find the most useful offensive players below the lowest salary bucket, plan on using the full plate appearances of those players, and then skimp on plate appearances of my starting position players accordingly, with the thought that if I were to make the playoffs the extra inherent rest days would allow me to use my starters exclusively. I've employed this strategy before. I'm not sure if it ever works.

On the pitching side it looks like I decided to maximize the number of starting pitcher innings I received from two buckets, and then take advantage of the fact that, from a $/IP perspective, guys with <30 IP are undervalued relative to guys with >30 IP. Fascinating.

Again, will 1399 IP (a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds) be enough? At least this time they're 1399 better innings, in a pitcher's park.

Hitting - 5385 PA, .309/.424/.494
Pitching - 1399 IP, 0.96 WHIP, 0.23 HR/9



$110M - Stale Cookie Whitelist
Someone Left the Cookie Out in the Rain
Sicks Stadium

What did I just say about a foolish consistency? Once again I looked at $/IP (which I don't think I had ever really used before this iteration of the WiSC) and once again I ended up with a bullpen primarily comprised of <40 IP guys. Which means I'm going to need to get a lot of innings from my SPs. In this situation I'd normally use my patented (well, patent pending) two two-man tandems approach, but here I'm not sure if I'm doing that or using a 3-man rotation of Hendrix, Cicotte and Bernhard, with Hendrix starting more than 54 games and Bernhard fewer, and the '02 McGinnity (183 IP) in the spot-start / long relief role. We'll see.

Offensively it's my typical team: too short on defense, too long on home run power, and generally rounding up the usual suspects (Posada! Berkman! Drew!) A foolish...oh, never mind. I am proud of my Votto / Big Hurt platoon though. I used Sicks Stadium to stick it to all you triples-happy people.

Hitting - 5508 PA, .318/.437/.517
Pitching - 1442 IP, 0.92 WHIP, 0.12 HR/9



$120M - Choose Your Soup
FranchiseDecade Soup2: Electric Boogaloo
Dodger Stadium

Q: You down with OBP?
A: You know me!

As with most people, I went with Alphabet Soup in round 1 because I figured that Decade/Franchise would be the easiest combination to complete. And it was; I never really struggled to find appropriate players. So what was the result? Stop me if you've heard this one before: two two-man tandem SPs, a bullpen primarily comprised of <40IP guys, and a high-OBP, high HR, mediocre defensive lineup. And then I wonder why I never win this thing. But, at least this time, what I lack in originality I make up for in bullheaded single-mindedness. This is the OBPest OBP team I've ever assembled for $120M. Let's see how your A++++++++++++++... fielders stop my walks! Of course, innings that go BB/out/BB/out/BB/out don't tend to generate many runs.

Dodger Stadium. Because you know what you can do with your doubles and triples. I use this stadium a lot in these leagues. I've never analyzed whether it works for me, but I also don't remember the time that my home record was considerably better than my road record.

BTW, looking back on this, it seems like the obvious starting pitching play here was to use a 3-man rotation with one guy each from the 1880s, 1900s, and 1910s. But instead I also have the 1997 Pedro. Now, the last time I used the 1997 Pedro he did well. But that's a little like saying "the last time I flipped a coin it came up tails."

Hitting - 5478 PA, .330/.454/.512
Pitching - 1462 IP, 0.92 WHIP, 0.21 HR/9



$140M - D.E.A.L. Redux
Kim and Kelley D.E.A.L.
Bennett Park

The first three lines of the most famous song by The Breeders (Cannonball) pretty much sum up my approach to this game and this tournament:

Spitting in a wishing well
Blown to hell, crash
I'm the last splash

When ozomatli offered me a spot in this league I was up with the third selection in the draft. I didn't have a ton of time to research, and I didn't want to hold the draft up (especially since it had been held up for several days by whoever I replaced) so when I saw Maddux there I took him because he's really good. Sometimes it's that simple. In round two I took A-Rod, because he's much better than anyone else who was available at SS. However, he's also better than anyone who was available at 3B, and I now regret not having taken advantage of that. Well, maybe I regret it. Anyway, Bernhard was available in round three so I nabbed him, filling out at least half of a very good starting pitching staff.

In round four I goofed. With Lady Baldwin still on the board, I reached for Joe Wood. Why? As best as I can recall, I eschewed Baldwin because he's a lefty and most of the good hitters in this draft were right-handed. Of course, soon after I made the pick I realized that I wouldn't just be facing players in this draft, I'd be facing all the players in all the other drafts. So I wasted a fourth round pick on a guy who isn't much better than a guy I got in the 15th round, Howie Camnitz. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

What I kind of wish I had done, and what I was considering at the time, was to take Tulowitzki there and use his phenomenal 375 PA season, moving A-Rod to 3B. That Tulo combined with any available SS would give me a large advantage over the SS situation of anyone else in my division (especially because there were no good offensive shortstops remaining), and if I were to make the playoffs I could use Tulo in almost every game, which would give me a huge advantage there as well.

Anyway, Gehringer followed in round five. Solid. In the sixth I took Earl Averill, who I don't recall using but for whatever reason I have a bad feeling about him. Then in round seven I went off the rails on a crazy train. Mark McGwire? Really? In a league chock full of right-handed deadballers? I mean, OBP and stuff but still. And then, adding insult to stupidity, my beloved Posada was taken with the very next pick. Curses! So at this point I had committed to this extreme longball madness so I took it all the way. I filled out the rest of my lineup with Albert Belle, Hank Aaron, Justin Morneau, Mike Napoli, and Billy Williams. Only Denny Lyons rained on the homer parade.

My bullpen is par for the course for a league such as this with limited choices: Frohwirth, Ontiveros, Doug Jones, Bosman, Liriano, Devenski. Meh.

I ended up drafting 359 HRs so you darned well better believe I was taking a HR-conducive ballpark. Bennett Park (+3 to both fields, and -2 for triples!) was my first choice and I had little doubt that I'd get it.

These teams are tough to judge at a glance because everyone drafts so many extra PAs and IPs, but I don't have a good feeling about it.

Hitters - 6522 PA, .343/.434/.618 (including some extra PAs because Aaron and Billy Williams will more or less platoon, but still excluding a couple of backups)
Pitchers - 1762 IP, 0.95 WHIP, 0.20 HR/9 (including all pitchers, since they're all roughly the same WHIP-wise)

$80M It was so tedious I only built one chain. No alternate chains for comparison. Starting with a couple high inning oldtimers, high IP to preserve roster spots and oldtimers because they're still good value with low HR and they can hit. And because I want a big part of the team over and done with quickly so it's not a nightmare to finish. So I started with 1888 Buffinton who I used for the first time in the draft league, 1906 Tully Sparks and lower versions of McGinnity and Reulbach.
I hopped through the lean decades in large jumps, expecting less trouble in the modern age because there was so much player movement. Killer lineup includes Mel Ott, Bill Terry, and Chipper Jones. oh, I forgot to say they're sub $5M seasons. The mediocrity continues with Alfredo Griffin, Tommy Helms, and Alex Johnson, though the Stengel/Beniquez platoon isn't half bad. 3 catcher committee led by Deacon McGuire. My hitting budget was low so I compromised with weak backups, average glove, and slightly low stamina.If I had a second chance I'd pass on Buffinton's salary and buy better hitters. Now my tournament hinges on 1000 innings from a pitcher I've never used or even researched.


$90M 1906 Cubs & 1969 Orioles
There are only a handful of teams with enough suitable pitching and some hitting. I need to find two of them whose hitters meld. First two teams I thought of were 1907 Cubs and 1969 Orioles. Switched to 1906 Cubs for better hitting while the pitching was very nearly as good. Everything fell into place and with salary right on the money I didn't spend much time looking at other combinations. Most pitching came from the Cubs while Orioles provided over 2/3rds of the hitting. I like the part where I chose three <300k exemptions as my second catcher, they hit better than my real backups.


$100M First thing I notice is the brackets are too high for the salary cap. So we're meant to use some of the cheap players. I selected a group of catchers under the minimum and used the top bracket for a pinch hitter. And can't afford many innings from the upper pitching brackets.
As the top deadball pitchers rise in cost it's a constant search for the best pitcher left behind. Today the best value seems to be 1908 Ed Walsh and his 495 innings. At first I had a value rotation around him but didn't like it so I switched to Claude Hendrix, thinning my bullpen. Santos closing with help from Jack McDowell, Rich Hill, and Biscan . Ernie Shore and McGinnity(183ip) will alternate between long relied and SP. Long relief is awkward in this theme. Disch a bad long B RP.
Hitters in order of salary. Mike Davis pinch hitting. Cobb and Browning hitting the cover off the ball. Chipper Jones at SS, a moderate Lajoie at 2B. 1B Cap Anson with speed and defense. OF Doc Miller. 3B Tebeau. 4 catchers with half-decent bat and arm, and some speed since they are secondary positions.


$110M whitelist
The usual suspects. I went down the list and picked out the players I use or would consider using. Normal looking team. Several part timers but's that's often my style.


$120M Decadent Soup Franchise
Not hard if you know what you're looking for. I made a bunch of lists, then filled in the core of the roster rather quickly, then the last several spots were like solving a puzzle, too much time spent on unimportant spots. Only 3 deadball pitchers allowed so I made the most of them. Ed Walsh, Claude Hendrix, Lady Baldwin giving me 1142 innings and 2 defunct franchises. I'll fill my bullpen with a slew of low inning pitchers and there's plenty of them so I'll put it off until later.
Added prominent hitters '16 Ty Cobb reasonably priced, '21 Frankie Frisch for speed and defense, Wade Boggs at 3B getting on base. SS are overpriced so I chose a poacher, Chipper Jones from 3rd. C are also overpriced so I went with my lowcap special, Heinie Peitz and a backup. Used the savings for Big Ed Delahanty. I looked for ways to make the salary more balanced but none I like better than this arrangement. Mickey Vernon at 1B once I realized who was left and what salary range I could afford. Soriano and Ruffing in the pen. 3rd OF spot is split between 4 people who will also pinch hit. Bullpen has 9 arms, 7 of them in the 25-45 inning range.


$255M Glad there's only one draft this year. Drafts require different than normal WiS strategies, most notably the ability to predict what others will do next. And that's where I slipped here.
I was lucky to get the first pick and took Lajoie, far and away the best 2nd baseman. Our group has crappy SPs so it looks like another big bullpen strategy for me. I took Buffinton, perhaps the worst 2nd round pick ever, to bank 500 innings. Then the best SP available Elton Chamberlain with only 135 ip for spot starts against brianjw or whoever is winning. Then 2 moves I may have made too soon. After 4 rounds there hadn't been the usual SP run and it looks like compettion for the little pitchers so I played it safe and took Kevin Brown. then Jose Bautista is the best of a weak 3B crew. I need 5 big hitters but there are lots of them so I put it off until the next turn, taking Medwick and O'Doul. the next few rounds added RP Gossage Hoffman Soriano. Mize and Snider may have been premature because nobody took big hitters for awhile after.
Next I took Manship even tho 39 innings is nothing it looked like the 70-99 ip pitchers would be around for awhile. At the 14/15 turn I took Dave Smith and his zero HR, along with Javy Lopez even though everyone else has a catcher 2 of them are part-time. Looks like I'll be using a HR ballpark, wasn't my plan I just take whatever the draft gives me. John Shaffer to spot start against the lower walk teams. Teixiera for PH and some starts at 1B. Bullpen not shaping up as big as planned so Hershiser for innings. Kiner to matchup against select pitchers. Cronin a late SS choice. .411 hitting Haney at utility and occasional DH. Closed out with Otero Butcher Holdsworth, more pitching than I needed but it's always nice to have flexibility. Chose Memorial Coliseum for the wrong reason, most of my power is from Righties and I got dyslexic thinking (+2/+3) favored them.

**Chayne Mansfield (1887-2017)
$80 million

The first thing that became apparent to me in fully digesting the rules was that it was going to be difficult to find a workable chain that used consecutive player seasons from the same franchise, at least close-in seasons. Too many instances of Player A and Player C being on the same teams. That being consistently on my mind, my first goal was to make sure I locked in a dead ball SP staff as I progressed and figured that range would be 1885-88 and 1901-1919, which is the exact opposite of schwarze's strategy. Not an encouraging omen. I also targeted pitchers that cost about $30k/inning. I looked at the original example chain in the instructions which led off with 1887 John Kerins. I liked that idea and started there as well but I then had to limit my SP options to 1901-1919. I decided to target 1919 Jesse Barnes as my last chronological option and needed to fill in the blanks with 2 more high-inning SPs and any other useful parts along the way. Cy Young offered a lot of options so I started feasting on some of the high OBP 1890s hitters (if reasonably affordable and sometimes less than full seasons) to find a way there. Rostered 1893 Pete Browning, 1894 Hughie Jennings and 1900 John McGraw (and their collective dreadful fielding) to get to Cy Young. Decided on the 1907 season which allowed me to use 1909 Cy Morgan (A's combined season) and work through the 1918 second-rate Fred Anderson season to get to 1919 Jesse Barnes. From there I went to 1934 Frisch, 1938 Dizzy Dean, 1948 Augie Galan, 1954 Grady Hatton, 1960 Dick Gernert (RIP), 1962 Eddie Yost and 1977 Jim Fregosi. This led to a Miguel Dilone dilemma but with all of the salary increases his good year has become too expensive for this cap, for me at least. I went with the cheap 1979 A's season and took Rickey Henderson as his teammate. Choosing Rickey created a theme within a theme the rest of the way because I had to always check every subsequent team to make sure Rickey did not wind up on one of those rosters since he played with almost everyone. Decided to use the 1993 Toronto combined season which led to 1999 Tony Fernandez, 2000 David Segui to fill in necessary PAs (plenty of 3B PAs, not enough OF). At that point I had to figure out a bullpen and super cheap scrubs with 6 picks left and only 17 years available. Still felt pretty confident I could get this done with so many players changing teams these modern days. Settled on 2002 Steve Reed, 2003 Jason Kershner and 2009 Trever Miller for a mediocre bullpen. Then was able to add 2013 Brendan Ryan, 2015 Travis Ishikawa (and his AT&T Park) and 2017 Alejandro DeAza and spend only $625k total on all 3.

Oulook: A nice top-heavy batting order with appropriate Double D fielding. In short a colossal bust likely to get its collective head cut off against this level of competition

**1897 O's/1906 Cubs Whack-Amole
$90 million

Started looking at some usual suspects with deep SP to start, like 1902 Pirates and 1906 Cubs. Some decent hitters would come with either as well. Tried some other ideas but went back and decided that a pitching staff entirely from the 1906 Cubs could be a satisfactory answer for a $90mm team.. A couple of pitchers had both partial and combined seasons so by exploiting the rules I could have enough innings only using 06 Cubs. To complement them. I then looked around at some familiar hitting year teams from the late 1920s and 1930 as well as 1890s vintage teams. The highest price 1897 Oriole hitter was Willie Keeler so that left Kelley, Stenzel, Jennings, McGraw and .354 hitting 1b/Tight End Jack Doyle and overall pricing was reasonable. Adding Johnny Kling from the Cubs to the lineup was a must. Then I had to decide: do I use Harry Steinfeld at 3b and light-hitting good-glove Jimmy Slagle in CF at the expense of John McGraw? Something as logical as that is not my style. Kept Steinfeld and his solid bat but could not pass up McGraw so for the second team in a row (like on **Chayne Mansfield) the Little General will be hiding out in RF and hoping the baseballs don't find him. Also took advantage of the <300k exception to fill roster spots with A+/D outfielders just in case. Finally, I could not resist giving a pitching spot to 150 ERC+ (no HR allowed) Doc Amole and after further analysis assigned him the closer's role.

Question: Does Doc Amole rhyme more closely with (Whack a Mole) or guacamole? Will he get whacked or just chipped away at?

**Furniture Rotation
$100 million

I saved this team for last because I thought it would be easiest to build. As usual, I worked on pitching first and as it was for other owners, it was clear to me that quality SPs could be found in the $/IP categories 7 and 8, especially of the high-inning dead-ball variety. Decided on 384 IP of 1902 Jack Taylor in category 8 and 443 IP of 1901 Cy Young in category 7 to serve as virtually a two-man rotation and maximize overall savings. These choices also pointed me in the direction of a low walks-allowed strategy to complement what would ideally be a small-ball offense of the Petco Park variety. I then splurged on 149 IP of 2016 Kershaw (category 2), 139 IP of 1909 Babe Adams (category 3) and 125 IP of 1908 Elmer Steele (category 4) to be middle-innings forces with the savings. Will also call on Adams and Steele to close at times. I definitely wanted a low-inning category 1 player and took 26 IP 2013 Sergio Santos there. That left me needing another low innings guy and a spot starter to find. I like 33 IP 2012 Aaron Loup and he fit into category 5. Mulling over my Taylor/Young rotation I found inspiration for a team theme in actress Leigh Taylor-Young best know for her role as Shirl the "Furniture Girl" in Soylent Green (how politically incorrect is that now!!), How could I not go with 2010 Cliff Lee partial season in category 4 to complete the rotation. Added under the radar $/IP Barney Wolfe for extra innings and total pitching cost was over $54mm (leaving only $45ish for hitting which is out of my comfort zone). Given limited available salary for hitting, I knew I was punting category 1 and eventually rostered 2004 Neifi Perez. This would mean I would have to get some significant help from the under $5,000/PA category and would get back to that later. Focusing on switch-hitting, fast, triples-hitting and base-stealing offensive players while trying to be a little defense minded (not really). I wound up with:
C - 1887 John Kerins - cheap A+ arm, lots of triples (cat 6)
1b - 1889 Tommy Tucker - a personal favorite (cat 3)
2b - 2004 Chone Figgins - 100 speed? (cat 7)
3b- 1894 George Davis - (cat 4)
SS - 1897 Hughie Jennings (cat 2)
OF - 1923 Max Carey - my tribute to defensive range (cat 5)
OF - 1997 Otis Nixon - 655 PA of under the radar (bonus points, Nixon was President in 1973, the year of Soylent Green's release)
OF - 1977 Billy North - 225 PA, (cat 8) Gerald Young 169 PA UTR and many more
Util - 2004 Nefi Perez (cat 1, $915 cheapo)

Outlook: Watching panoramic nature scenes and listening to Beethoven's 6th and Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite with Sol

**Dregs of the Cookie Jar
$110 Million

Tried to glean as much as I could from the Round 1 rosters of the top owners and ascertained the following:

1) Switch hitters are popular and perform well - a LOT on this cookie list to confirm this
2) Range, especially in the OF is a good thing
3) 1908 Ed Walsh and 1902 Bill Bernhard are good values, even still
4) Petco is a cookie in its own right

SP: 1) 1908 Ed Walsh, 2A) 1902 Bill Bernhard, 2B) 1919 Pete Alexander - all righties
Long Relief: 1916 Reb Russell (2016 Kershaw not yet available on this list) - lefty
Setup/Closers: 1912 Carl Weilman, 1964 Bobby Shantz, 1991 Steve Howe, 2012 Edward Mujica (these 4, Really??)

C): 1887 John Kerins - Petco Perfect
1b: 1984 Dave Collins, plus several fill-ins (some decent)
2b: 1921 Frankie Frisch
3b: 1894 George Davis
SS: 1921 Dave Bancroft
OF: 1985 Tim Raines, 1925 Max Carey, 1982 Willie Wilson

"Dregs of the Cookie Jar" - My only song lyric reference (paraphrased from "Brown Eyed Women") this time around.

Outlook: "Roof Caved In"

**Decade/Franchise
$120 Million

I took Alphabet in Round 1 because "In the unlikely event of a water landing, (or me making it back to Round 2")..... Decade/Franchise was a natural combo and one I have played before. Basic strategy of trying to find 1800's players from defunct franchises and post 1960 players from expansion ones. Pre-1919 SP and modern RP fit well.


C - 1887 John Kerins, 1960 Jim Pagliaroni
1b -1902 Ed Delahanty
2b- 1914 Eddie Collins
3b- 2008 Chipper Jones, 1996 Dave Hollins
SS - 1897 Hughie Jennings
OF - 1930 Earle Combs, 1985 Tim Raines, 1921 Ty Cobb
Bench OF/1b/PH - 1948 Augie Galan, 1977 Roger Freed, 2014 Kyle Banks (brings Petco)

SP - 1902 Jack Taylor, 1917 Eddie Cicotte, 1933 Carl Hubbell
Long Relief - 2016 Clayton Kershaw
Closer scramble - 8 guys with 43 or less IP

Outlook: Not all that inspiring hence the boring team name

**Deal or No Deal Briefcase Models
$255 million

Just like the main stage on "Deal or No Deal" the Group 2 player pool was absolutely LOADED with talent, I mean really stacked.. Our group of owners is certainly Polly Purebread's favorite, given that we had pre-tourney ranks of 48, 51,62 and 70.

My team, (with round taken, as well as briefcase number, in parentheses)

SP - Silver King (1), Carl Hubbell (3), Jason Schmidt (9), Jose Fernandez (20), Carl Lundgren (24)
RP - Reb Russell (11), Willie Hernandez (14), Ted Abernathy (19), Sergio Santos (22), Dave Righetti (25)
C - Bill Dickey (7), Paul Lo Duca (21)
1b - Willie McCovey (10), Carlos Delgado (15)
2b - Joe Morgan (4), Brendan Ryan (23) for his defense
3b - Wade Boggs (5), Heinie Zimmerman (17)
SS - Honus Wagner (2), Jose Reyes (16)
OF - Ken Griffey, Jr (6), Babe Herman (8), Bernie Williams (12), Lance Berkman (13), Sammy Sosa (18),

Playing at Baker Bowl

There were several players who I would like to have drafted not taken by anybody like Luis Gonzalez, Tim McCabe, Sam McDowell, Roy Mitchell, Reggie Smith and Hippo Vaughn.

My favorite thing about this team is the visual image of Lisa Gleave (playing the role of Carl Hubbell) leaning forward to take the sign from Sara Bronson (playing the role of Bill Dickey)

Outlook: Fun to watch!

$80M The Chain
1900 Alices in 2008 Chains
Astrodome

I started this one with a strategy in mind. I wanted to build a speed and defense team, the type that typically works at low caps. I also knew I wanted the Astrodome from the start to maximize innings, and hurt other teams’ homer hitters.

Ultimately, I wasn’t able to stick to my strategy as much as I’d like. I built three legal chains and went with the one I felt was strongest. The team starts with ’00 Delahanty and ends with ’08 Aaron Miles. This team has a lot of doubles, triples and speed and a decent number of walks, with the likes of Delahanty, Ott, Stephens and Collins. High % steals are severely lacking though. I love having a rotation anchored by ’02 Bernhard and ’09 Joss. ’65 Roberts should really be helped by the Astrodome and ’66 Ken Johnson rounds out the starting four. The pen includes 4 guys I don't think I've ever used, in Lyle, Kinder, Percival and Franklin.

I’m on the fence with this team, but given the struggle everyone seemed to have with this theme, it’s probably a crap shoot.

Offense: .298/.369/.410
Pitching: 1.05/.233/2.70

$90M Best of the Rest
2001 Mariners Driving 1981 Astros
Astrodome

My first inclination was the 2015 Dodgers. Getting a pitcher like Kershaw was a rarity in this theme. I liked their pen as well. But ultimately, their offense and defense had way too many holes for me to make it work with any combinations I tried.

I decided early on that I wanted the 1981 Astros, as they provided me with a strong ¾ of my rotation – Sutton, Knepper and Niekro. Smith and Sambito are strong pen options as well. The only things the Astros were missing were a 2B, a strong SS, an ace and a closer. I also wanted some walks due to the ballpark. That combination was shockingly hard to find. I looked at the ’49 Red Sox (tons of hitter walks, no pitching), ’28 Cards, ’11 Phillies and ’16 Cubs. The 2001 Mariners seemed to be the best fit.

Moyer rounds out the rotation, Boone is solid at 2B, Edgar comes in to play 1B and I’ll try Olerud in LF. Mike Cameron provides speed and good D in CF. I also get some good relief options in Rhodes and Sasaki. I’m cautiously optimistic about this team.

Offense: .282/.352/.437
Pitching: 1.10/.232/2.79

$100M Catchy Title Theme
Catchy Name
Polo Grounds (IV)

I didn’t spend much time on this team. I built two, and the second was one I was really pleased with, so I stuck with it. Walks are the name of the game on offense (902 of them to be exact). Also lots of speed, and high % steals from ’23 Carey and ’89 Raines. Bench, Gehrig and Reggie Smith provide some thump, and all 8 starters have 20+ doubles. Good defense up the middle and Bench’s arm will also be beneficial.

I looked for low walks on my staff and I felt comfortable taking ’02 Bernhard as my ace, with his low Ks, given my defensive range. ’81 Sutton, ’11 Kershaw and ’05 Pedro round out the rotation, supported by ’90 Zane Smith. Smoltz, Wagner and Milacki round out the pen. I think I’m going to be short on innings in this league, at 1,256, but we shall see.

Offense: .298/.408/.467
Pitching: 0.97/.217/2.43

$110 Stale Cookie Whitelist
A Lighter Shade of White
Target Field

I spent the least amount of time on this team. I’m sure I would’ve spent more on it if the whitelist was done in the search engine, but I’m pleased with the roster I ended up with.

Simply put – doubles, doubles, doubles. I focused on non-HR slugging and went with Target Field to suppress other teams’ homers. This team features 385 doubles and 50 triples, including the likes of Klein, Gehringer, Boggs, Carey, Webb, Edgar, Ozzie and ’79 Wynegar to control the run game. 660 walks should also help generate runs. I invested heavily in up-the-middle defense as well to help my deadball pitchers.

My staff consists of ’89 Baldwin, ’02 Bernhard, ’75 Sutton and ’05 Pedro. This team should allow very few homers, especially at home. The bullpen is stocked with good relievers and low inning starters, including Rivera, Jansen, Wagner, Adams and Hill.

I feel good about this team, so that’s probably not a good sign.

Offense: .337/.414/.510
Pitching: 0.97/.210/2.38

$120 Choose Your Soup
Decades Old Alphabet Soup
Robinson Field

Seems every year I try my Robison Field strategy. I resisted in Round 1 but decided to go for it here. This team is loaded with lefties and switch hitters, including massive lefty pop from ’28 Ruth, ’58 Mantle and ’15 Harper. A ton of high average hitters (6 over .300) and over 900 walks should make this an offensive powerhouse. But can the pitching sustain it?

I went with low-homer lefties in Baldwin, Grove and Kershaw, and dead ball Babe Adams from the right side. The pen is filled with what I could afford and hopefully is enough, with Eck, Niggeling, Taylor, Shantz and Todd Jones. Solid range should help them out, but I have a feeling this team will need to win a lot of 10-8 games. Should be fun to watch regardless.

Offense: .312/.426/.501
Pitching: 0.99/.220/2.28

No Cap – D.E.A.L. Redux
Wee Willie’s Dealer
Astrodome

I have a feeling my homer total is lower than most teams, but I have a ton of doubles and triples, and decent walks. I probably should’ve gone Target Field with this team, but I chose Astrodome to boost my pitching as I have a relatively low number of innings at 1,700.

Keeler and Heilman of the .400+ averages will be mainstays at the top of the lineup. I’ve got fantastic defense from Fox, Furcal and Bumbry/Davis up the middle, which should really help. Greenberg, Arenado and Berra will provide some thump on the road, and Freddy Sanchez, Trea Turner and Dwayne Hosey give me a strong, well-rounded bench to match up with when needed.

My rotation consists of ’00 Pedro, ’78 Guidry, ’02 Schilling and ’31 Grove. I debated using Falkenberg’s 400+ inning season for a cushion, but opted for his ’15 season in relief instead. Halladay provides innings as a long man, and Sutter, Wetteland, Foulke, Maddox, Reed and Gonzalez round out the pen. Lots of low-homer, low-walk, high-K guys, so that should help me survive any innings issues.

I think this entire theme will be a crapshoot. We shall see.

Offense: .338/.406/.536
Pitching: 0.93/.203/.2.09

80m - Chain of Pain, 1885-2016
AT&T Park

I don't know why, but my brain just couldn't grasp this theme. I built about 5 teams, wasn't thrilled with any of them but decided to enter the best one anyway just to get it over with. I started with one of my favorite really old dudes (Harry Stovey 1886) and went from there. I also built a couple of teams backwards to see if I could- starting with Jose Ramirez '17. It turned out I could do it, but I didn't love them. Then I started in the middle - why not? But when I submitted the team, it turned out I had the whole thing backwards - I was using then twisting, not twisting then using. Ugh!! I rebuilt a brand new team (starting with Stovey again) but it ended up too expensive, so I tweaked and resubmitted. I didn't hear anything for a week and thought maybe I was good, but alas, Ozo was just busy. I wasn't sticking to the rules closely enough and had twisted players on their previous team (you can't use 88 Lyons if he also played on the 86 team where you got him!)

So I started all over again, abandoned Stovey, and tried to build from 1887 John Kerins. But I kept getting stuck, so I scrapped it. I think we're up to team 12 at this point. I started with 1885 Buck Ewing and things started falling into place. Ewing took a 1-year hiatus from the Giants in 93, so I grabbed Roger Connor. Connor and Ewing were both gone by 1895 so I got George Davis to play 3rd. Joett Meekin 1899 on the Boston Braves - sure! That led to Billy Hamilton 1901, and then Bill Dinneen 08. Since Dinneen had 178 innings I decided to go with a 5-man rotation. Barney Pelty in the bullpen, Duke Kenworthy at 2B, Nick Cullop and Ray Caldwell in the rotation, and we're not even out of the deadball era yet! Things kind of slowed down from there, but I did get a couple solid OF platoons, jumped a long way with Freddie Fitzsimmons, another big jump with Al Downing and finally got to the 80s. Don Sutton's 195ip 1982 season fronts the rotation, and would have given me the Astrodome if I needed it. I even fit in a Tim Raines season (1992) to play CF and steal bases. (I should note - I wasn't particularly worried about base stealers in this theme, since I didn't think anyone would be able to concentrate a good chunk of their lineup in the 70s and beyond). Then I was down to 4 spots and still needed a shortstop. I ended up shoving Brandon Crawford in there to get AT&T park. So this team has a bunch of players I like, a good amount of speed, and some filler that I hope won't kill me.

I've really only got one player who's just filler and that's '84 Tony Scott, who is a switch hitter who can run and gives me 80 PAs of 254/316/310. I've got platoons in both corner outfield spots and Orlando Cabrera filling in all over the infield. O-Cab is a little pricey but gets me to Crawford and I had the money to spare, so I paid 691 K for 133pa 227/245/266 ... B/B+ 2B, B-/C 3B, B-/D+ SS

90m - 1906 Cubs and ... 1993 Blue Jays?
West Side Grounds

I planned to spend most of my time on this theme. I looked at the teams that would be great even without their best players, and made a long list of those. Like most everyone else, I ended up with the 06-07-09 Cubs, the 1892 Phillies, and the 1894/96 Orioles. I really thought the 2016 Cubs should work but I could never get them to the cap. I think it was the lack of an ace and only having one really good bat in Bryant. I missed the 02 Pirates, but also looked at the 2000 Indians, 36 Yankees, 53 Dodgers, 02 Naps (mmm, Bernhard), 1897 Beaneaters, 1909 Pirates, 2017 Indians and Astros... the list goes on and on.

I was close with the 1894 Os and 07 Cubs. Tried the 96 Os and the 2014 Nats, and the Nats had the same issue as the Cubs - not enough elite players. Tried the 07 Cubs and 50 Red Sox but didn't love them. Tried the 17 Astros and the 1916 White Sox, no dice. Tried the 53 Dodgers and 07 Cubs but not quite there. Then I remembered the rule about combined seasons and thought of the 93 Jays with their combined Rickey and Tony Fernandez years. Put them with the 06 Cubs and it looked good. The Jays lose Olerud (too expensive anyway) and Juan Guzman (kinda bad so no big loss). They've got Molitor at 1B, Alomar and Fernandez up the middle, and they can borrow Harry Steinfeldt from the Cubs. The outfield is Rickey, Devo and Frank Schulte. The Jays have a few relievers which is good because the Cubs don't have many. I may regret picking a modern team, but the Jays have 3 switch hitters and they can run, plus they're not super dependent on power. I'm not 100% convinced - and I built a 94 Os/06 Cubs team I also really liked before committing - but I felt like they were worth the roll of the dice.

100m - Catchy Title but Can't Catchy Ball
Petco Park

I don't put many teams in Petco. I like offense, as a general rule. But I didn't want to draft that many innings, so I thought I had to. If I wanted 1450 innings and my usual $46mil on pitching, that would be $31,724 per inning. Notice that SIX of the ranges are above that. So I'd have to spend more per inning, and didn't want to spend 60mil on pitching, which meant using less innings. So slots 6 (Gus Weyhing) and 7 (Charlie Buffinton) are a 2-man rotation. Slot 8 is LR Harry Brecheen. Slot 2 is my closer Chad Green 2017 (69ip, not yet price inflated). And the other 4 spots are David Robertson (35ip), Rich Hill (34ip), Doug Rau (35ip) and Bill Harris (33ip). I've also got 3 guys under slot 8 as a buffer - Chad Jenkins, Brandon Kintzler, and Wade LeBlanc. So we'll be using whichever pitchers aren't tired on any given day as our bullpen.

On offense, I thought about using the top 4 spots on 3 positions (4 guys ~500 PA each) but the position players below slot 8 were SO bad, I didn't think I could. So I've got Ty Cobb '21 as my top guy, with only 616 PA. Then King Kelly (575), old friend Tommy Tucker batting leadoff (732pa), Angel Pagan (4th most expensive hitter? Ouch!), and then my infield is the next 4 - Jason Bartlett, Joe Morgan, Denny Lyons and Jack Fournier. I've probably got too much AVG and not enough walks in Petco, but we do have triples. I also don't have much range in the infield, and everyone is kind of error prone.

110m - C is for Clueless
AT&T Park

I grabbed my trusty spreadsheet with all the player increases and went to town. My goal was to get as close to 2% guys as possible, but not be really strict about it. And to build a standard SBC/Target Field/A+++ team while doing so. I splurged on the 21 Frankie Frisch to play 2B, and also splurged on 79 George Brett for 3rd. I've got '14 Speaker to play 1B and '80 Garry Templeton at SS. I don't think Gary will hit much in this league. The outfield is a bit less common... 16 Cobb, 24 Ross Youngs and a B.Ham (98) and Eddie Moore platoon. Behind the plate I've got a Kendall/Slaught platoon. I think catcher was the hardest to fill.

The rotation starts with '02 Bernhard - the WIS is going to drive up his price quite a bit. Then Addie Joss (no, not that one! The undervalued 09 version) and to make a 4-man rotation, Jerry Reuss 80 and Zack Greinke (sadly, '09 and not '15). I couldn't quite fit Ed Walsh 09 into the mix, though I also love him. The bullpen is a lot of guys but Andy Rincon 81 is the reliable closer. Given my crappy outfield range I went with AT&T over Kauffman Stadium.

120m - A Decadent Franchise Soup
AT&T Park

This is where I realize 3 of my teams are in AT&T and get a little worried. In round 1 I went Alphabet so I had to deal with franchise and decade. I wanted to get the core of the team done first - rotation, infield - and then fill in with whatever I had left. I grabbed Bernhard (A's version) for the rotation, as well as 2017 Kluber and then 18 Walter Johnson to make a 1/2a/2b rotation. Grabbed Hughie Jennings 97 at SS. Then I started running into problems at 1B/2B. Picking the A+++ Roush would box me out of Frisch. Picking Bernhard had boxed me out of Eddie Collins. Finally I decided to play '14 Speaker at 1B and Frisch at 2B. Picking '79 Brett at 3B didn't interfere with anything. I grabbed Pete Browning for the 1880s, Cobb09 for the aughts, and a Rieser/Cangelosi platoon for my 3rd spot. Then I grabbed Smokey Burgess and Michael McKenry behind the plate. Nobody's running in this league, right? I hope? A little surprised not to end up with a 30s hitter or a 70s pitcher. Not at all surprised to end up without a 50s pitcher. This team has 9 relievers totalling 553 innings.

255m - Deal with Big Six and Big Unit
Kauffman Stadium

Had the 2nd pick in group 5. Schwarze took Hornsby #1 - probably the right move. I couldn't pass up 411 innings of Matty in round 1. In rounds 2 and 3 I took monster OBP outfielders - Mantle and Joe Kelley. In round 4 I probably made a mistake by going position scarcity and taking Nomar. I always take Nomar too early. In round 5 I took Frank Thomas. You down with OBP?

In round 6 I took Randy Johnson - going to go 1/2a/2b again. In round 7, more position scarcity with Jack Clements. In round 8, paired Unit with Joe Horlen. Maybe a tandem instead of starter 2a/2b? We'll see. Then I went RP/RP with Andrew Miller and Joaquin Benoit in rounds 9/11, with Dick Allen to play 3B in between. His HRs will be wasted, but 3B wasn't good anyway and maybe he'll get on base. Worried about innings, I took Juan Marichal in round 12. He may get some spot starts. Then Elmer Flick and Phil Cavaretta to fill my top 8 hitters. I waited on 2B since there were a bunch of similar ones, and ended up with Lazzeri '29. Luckily schwarze didn't nail me at 2B like he nailed mildnhazy at SS - he definitely could have. This team has a great top 3 hitters and then falls off a lot. I'm very worried. Hopefully everyone else has similar issues. I should note, I did take Sam Wise in round 19 to help create the shortstop shortage (worried about Nomar's only 599 PA) and then ended up taking Bret Barberie in round 23 to back up Nomar. I might try to set my entire bullpen as RHS or LHS and see if it works - I've seen people mention it, but I've never tried it.

$80M – MH 1888 - 2013 Chain
Busch Stadium

Sorry, guys. I know you hate me for this one. I spoke a bit about my motivation for this theme in the Themes thread, so I won't go into that here, but I am definitely impressed by how good the teams people made are. After seeing all the confusion, I was worried this would be a haves vs have-nots league, but I don't think that will be the case at all now. Anyway, how to unpack this? I don't know if this was the best strategy (or if I implemented it the best), but this is what I used.

The hardest thing about this theme is that every single player has to connect. So, to give myself the most flexibility, I aimed to hit my goals (aka PA and IP amounts) in the least amount of players possible. That way, I was able to use the max amount of 200ish-K guys and get the players I really wanted in my lineup and rotation with as little compromise as possible (and, as I quickly was happy to notice, there are a LOT of 200K guys out there who played for a long time and changed teams at least once). Personally, I removed C and RP from this process since there are tons of serviceable 200-400 PA catchers, and RPs, out there.

The low cap makes this strategy hard, though, since there aren't as many familiar faces (anyone want to quickly try to name all the teams Deacon McGuire or Peanuts Lowrey played on?). Regardless, my first step was to set up quick spreadsheet with my target players. Dynamic pricing has made quality bargain hitters more scarce than quality bargain pitchers (especially with the deadball years in play), so my first focus was on hitting. My list was separated by position (since I didn't want to be locked into any one guy at any position in case I hit a wall) and included guys like 1956 Wally Moon, 1893 Roger Connor, 2004 Brandon Inge, 1887 John Kerins, 1897 Bill Joyce, 1914 Hal Chase, 1990 Willie McGee (who gives me 2 teams), 1989 Tim Raines, 1995 Walt Weiss, 1967 Maury Wills 1925 Frankie Frisch, 1936 Ben Chapman (2 teams)... you get the idea. Then, repeat for pitchers, with a max $/IP of 33,000 (though, an average target of ~29k).

I knew the majority of my pitchers would come from the deadball era, so I moved from value to value and ended up with over 1,100 deadball innings (including stud 1918 Pete Alexander). I also knew I wanted the majority of my hitters from the modern era, so I started with 1990 Willie McGee and worked backwards.

Working backwards is worth noting here, because I think it really allowed me to make changes quickly and easily. The benefit of working backwards is that you know the salary of the player you are adding to your roster right away (i.e. if I have 1990 Willie McGee, I can search for 200k players on the Cardinals during the previous years McGee played for them (it's unlikely a 200k pitcher will be with the team as long as McGee). This got confusing at times but ultimately was helpful.

Anyway, I worked to connect the two chains and hit some of my targets (Wills, Moon) to make the middle decades not a total waste. Plus, it was less tedious to make changes pre-expansion era since there were less players to check for connections.

Hitting: 4,754 PA, .302, .367, .419, $36.7M
Pitching: 1,354 IP, 1.02 whip, 0.20 hr/9, $39.7 million
Prediction: In the end, I didn't get everyone I wanted (Cannonball Titcomb, Walt Weiss) and we are a bit short on catcher PAs but very happy with this team overall. 91-71


$90M – MH 05 CWS 27 NYY
South Side Park (III)

Originally, I wanted to include a restriction that no more than 50M of salary could be spent on either of the two teams you chose for this theme, and include a DH. However, after The Chain, I figured that would be too mean.

For my team, it was all about making the 1927 Yankees work. The two main concerns with them are A) no pitching outside of Hoyt (and Moore, who's ineligible) and B) cost. At 90M, 15M+ is a lot to spend on a single player but, without Ruth, there are certainly better choices. So I explored a lot of avenues to make it work.

Played around with many of the usual suspects already mentioned and found that the 1902 Pirates are the best individual team for this theme. They have tons of top quality (deadball) pitching and enough hitting where losing their top dog is alright. I was determined to make them work for quite a while.

The only team I found that really meshed well with them, though, was the 1969 Orioles and I am not a huge fan of 60's teams against good competition like this. The pitching doesn't normalize well (and gives up HRs, which is basically a handicap in the WISC - though there is definitely a trend in some leagues this year where not paying for good HR/9 is actually ok because so few people are rostering HR hitters), and the $/PA cost of the hitters is weighted by fielding ratings that also don't normalize well, which lends them to being overpriced (just look at Brooks Robinson or Paul Blair - sheesh).

So, since the 1905 White Sox are more cost effective than the 1906 Cubs, and better than the 1907 Cubs, they win by default.

Hitting: 5,061 PA, .313, .387, .476, $49.6 million
Pitching: 1,382 IP, 1.06 whip, 0.15 hr/9, $38.4 million
Prediction: The surprising amount of modern teams chosen should help Ruth get his dingers and this team do alright. Cautiously optimistic. 86-76


$100M – Catchy-ish
Comerica Park

I have run this theme before, outside of the WISC, and wanted to turn the difficulty up a bit for this version. I use $/IP and $/PA as my main criteria for almost all themes and love having it as the focus here.

There were two tricks to this theme. It looks as though most people quickly saw the first, which was that the pitcher ranges were too high for the cap and, if you didn't want to spend 60M on pitching, you'd need to get your SPs from the lower half of the ranges (hello 1913 Christy Mathewson and your 327 IP for 28K/IP). The second realization that I baked into this was that, while the hitters under the lowest salary range are basically unusable (GL to those who are trying), the pitchers under the 20K range ARE usable at this cap. Mainly as long relievers in games that you are either blowing the opponent out or being blown out, but still, in a league where every dollar counts, that's extremely valuable.

In total, I have 137 innings that cost me 2.74M. Doing this allowed me to boost my pitching staff with 1908 Ed Walsh while still remaining at ~48M total for pitching.

For the hitting ranges, it was key to stay near the bottom of each range where possible. 1912 Burt Shotton (D/A OF, walks a ton) fills in the bottom range nicely, then it's my usual suspects up the ladder. Cullenbine --> Kerins --> Vizquel --> Reilly --> Frisch --> Kauff --> Speaker. I am a little worried that I don't have enough SLG, but they're in Comerica which should boost their XBH / A++ range advantage a bit over other teams.

In retrospect, I probably should’ve gone with a top range hitter who had fewer PAs than Speaker, but don’t think that will hurt me too badly.

Hitting: 5,280 PA, .312, .396, .446, $50.2 million
Pitching: 1,400 IP, 0.94 whip, 0.18 hr/9, $48.2 million
Prediction: Walsh is worth 10+ extra wins alone. I'm thinking borderline playoffs here. 92-70


$110M – Sugar Rush
Kauffman Stadium

Ah, The Bill Bernhard League! While I appreciate the structured approach that schwarze and jfranco77 took here, I found that too restrictive and abandoned the spreadsheet (and the whitelist, believe it or not) soon after takeoff here.

Most of my OL-style teams at this cap level have done very (110+ wins) well since dynamic pricing began since I use $/IP and $/PA heavily, so I simply took my most recent team at this cap, removed/replaced clones with comparable players (i.e. a Speaker clone out, Cy Seymour in), optimized a bit to reallocate salary (i.e. Tony Fernandez + George Brett + Drew Smyly > Ozzie Smith + Bill Joyce + Doug Fister) and called it a day.

'08 Walsh would be right at home on this team, too, but Frank Smith + Bernhard are even better bargains and they have too many IP to do a 2A/2B alternation (can you imagine Frank Smith pitching every 4th day? His target pitch count would need to be like 130!), so I settled on Hendrix as my lead.

Hitting: 5,369 PA, .335, .387, .492, $56.8 million
Pitching: 1,400 IP, 0.93 whip, 0.22 hr/9, $52.1 million
Prediction: This one was pretty cut and dry. A little concerned about innings but lots of XBH in the lineup and lots of A+++ out in the field. Expecting big things here. 96-66


$120M – Twoup (D/F)
Palace of the Fans

I stand by Alphabet as the best choice for Round 1, because Decade / Franchise was easy and, while I couldn't load up entirely on deadball pitching, SP is really where you want deadballers anyway, with modern short-inning SPs in the pen (check). Optimizing for $/IP and $/PA let me fit '16 Kershaw and (the newly minted switch hitter) 1890 Roger Connor in there, too.

Hendrix and Baldwin were really no brainers here since they come from defunct teams. Strategy was largely to avoid the big franchises (Giants, Cardinals, Indians, A's) until absolutely necessary, and avoid the 50's at all costs.

Stuck 'em in the Palace because we're gonna have a lot of + plays.

Hitting: 5,370 PA, .328, .419, .501, $60.6 million
Pitching: 1,425 IP, 0.91 whip, 0.21 hr/9, $58.3 million
Prediction: Again, a little concerned about innings (I generally like to be about 25 higher at this cap) but, against competition this good I'd rather be sure I get to the playoffs and THEN figure out how to make it through them. Got stuck in a tough division here too, so... 87-75


No Cap – What a D.E.A.L.
Municipal Stadium

What happened to ballantine? Him dropping out made my group something of a unique draft since we had one guy who had 0 time to research, and 3 others who had been paying attention to the way 5, essentially identical, drafts progressed already. Big thanks to barracuda3 for stepping up with confidence.

Anyway, my group was short on a lot of positions. Namely catcher, OF, 1B, SS, and 3B. We had a TON of 2B (Frisch, Stirnweiss, Gehringer, Phillips, LeMathieu), and a decent selection of SP (though few were "great").

So, I prioritized positions as they became scarce. I got some good luck along the way. First, King Kelly fell to me at #2. Then, I get Tulowitzki after gambling on him for a few rounds (Dellin Betances two rounds prior, really? What was I thinking?), and Lady Baldwin (who I essentially had to take after Ferguson and Wood went right before me) gave me flexibility at SP since he has a usable season with a ton of IP and a slightly better one with normal SP IP.

Since others had taken their 2B and SPs early, I gambled that I'd be able to get Phillips at 2B and a few of the many ok-tier SPs in the late teens rounds. So, I began to load up on partial-season guys with great stats. Tulo, Cullenbine, Winn, Cravath, Shumpert, and some RP make for a lot of platoon work for me but a superior lineup overall. I will have to supplement them with slightly weaker players like Sewell and Hack but they won't see a lot of time and are comparable to their position-holders on other teams anyway.

My gamble on Phillips and the SPs paid off (got Spud Chandler, Ed Siever, and Barney Pelty), so I'll be using 1885 Baldwin.

Hitting: 5.022 PA, .356, .438, .556, $77.9 million
Pitching: 1,546 IP, 0.94 whip, 0.17 hr/9, $61.1 million
Prediction: I have been terrible at draft leagues for the last two years but I think I at least have the best team from my group, as long as my SPs hold up. That said, I think we have a weak division. 89-73

I didn't keep enough notes when I was building these teams to write out anything, but here's the little I can remember.

80M

The plan was to load up on 19th Century hitters, then deadball pitchers, then jump as quickly as possible to the modern era for a few relievers and middle infielders. It didn't work, because I kept messing up the rules. So I have a few too many scrubs who were there to link players I wanted in key roles. I also have a weird left field situation with something like a 4 way platoon. I know rbow gets those platoons to work, but I've never managed it. My raw stats don't look as good as the rest of my division, but maybe the fielding will make up for it.

Hitting: 5678, .285/.358/.404
Pitching: 1386, 34 HR, 1.08 WHIP

90M

I think I looked at a lot of the teams that ended up being used here: especially early Pirates and Cubs, Weaver-era Orioles. But I couldn't get any pair of those to work. And I wanted to use Safeco to avoid a fatigue spiral, and the 44 Cards had players to fill most of the 01 Mariners gaps. But again, I have a weird multi-way platoon in left field, and I never get those to work.

Hitting: 5550, .292/.360/.453
Pitching: 1424, 75 HR, 1.10 WHIP

100M

The big thing here was to figure out whether I cared more about paying more than I like, or less than I like. It turned out I couldn't find any hitters below the price range that I could live with giving serious roles, but $19.9K/IP is perfectly good for a long reliever in a $100M league. So I went towards the top of the ranges with hitters, and the lower end of the range with pitchers. It's a weird unbalanced team, but mostly full of players I would use at some cap or other.

Hitting: 5705, .314/.398/.457
Pitching: 1447, 19 HR, 0.98 WHIP

110M

This was almost an open league for me. Most of my preferred players from the static pricing era were ones who were popular enough to rise in price, but not so popular as to have been priced out of usability. My bullpen is full of low IP starters, but that will give me lots of flexibility if I run into fatigue problems.

Hitting: 5535, .331/.403/.480
Pitching: 1477, 12 HR, 0.90 WHIP

120M

I used decades in Round 1 so I could stack up on 19th Century hitters and deadball/modern day pitchers. But it turned out I had way more variety of decades than I expected. And the overall numbers here are actually not great; I think my $110M league pitchers are better. So I'm a bit worried about how this will work.

Hitting: 5681, .320/.411/.488
Pitching: 1512, 29 HR, 0.91 WHIP

Draft

I've been doing drafts all wrong. Here was how I used to do them. Find replacement level for each position, i.e., the kind of player you think will be available in rounds 21-25. Find the value of each player above that replacement. At each round, draft the one with the highest value. This really doesn't work. It doesn't even work in theory, because it ignores which positions will have a deep pool to draw from in the middle rounds. And it doesn't work in practice because I can never figure out replacement level correctly.

Still, I did that a bit here, and it only failed a little bit. But I also tried to make lots of picks that would give me flexibility later on. So I took Bob Carruthers not knowing if he would be a starter, a mop up, or a DH. Honestly, at the end of the draft I still wasn't sure which I'd do. (It ended being a starter.) And I took Jose Altuve knowing that he could cover 2B in a pinch, but hoping he would be my right-handed DH. That worked, and he is primarily DH'ing for me.

The starting pitching in our division is really terrible, and I'm hoping to mostly pull the starter after 40 pitchers and let a deep bullpen carry the game. And with 2000 IP, I shouldn't have to use Setup A in mop up situation, or vice versa.

Hitting: 7980, .344/.431/.551
Pitching: 2078, 41 HR, 0.95 WHIP

80 MIL – In Chains – 1902-2017
At this cap this theme was a heck of a task as pretty much everyone has noted. I didn’t really know where to begin and after building some teams pretty much blind and being unable to complete them I decided to target specific shortstops that I would be happy to roster at this cap. I usually find SS to be the hardest position for me to fill so I thought that was as good a starting point as any. I quickly ended up with 1923 Dave Bancroft as my desired SS – seems to be a good value for the money and I could bat him last and not really worry about his fatigue. The next step was getting to him and I tried to start the chain by identifying some value at $/ip in the deadball era. 1902 Cy Young stood out and brought with him 1907 Tully Sparks who was also good value. I was then off to the races – I used George McQuillan as my chain from Sparks to Bancroft and then chose Terry to give me A+ range at 1B. From there I tried to skip most of the 50s and 60s and went with a lot of trial and error to build a team with no real core concept except strong OBP and grabbing some quality relievers for the cap where I could. I would have liked more speed but at a certain point I was just happy to make the chains work with players that were of decent value. I believe others have mentioned how tricky it is to close the roster out, especially if you had a need of certain positions or IP. And it was for me too as I needed a 3B and another SP. I finally finished my team and was pretty happy with it – only to find out from ozomatli that it was illegal – much to my surprise (I was pretty diligent with my checking). My problem ended up being that Jeff Conine left the Marlins only to return years later which was something off my radar as I was grabbing most guys towards the end of their tenure with a team to make things easy. I had to reshuffle and ended up with 2012 Bartolo Colon as a significant contributor to my staff. I’m not very comfortable with it but if he can survive this team will be fine.

90 MIL – ’02 Pirates and ’69 Orioles

For this theme I simply checked for teams that had great depth at hitting or pitching. Then tried to see what teams fit best together. I quickly realized that the ’69 Orioles were too good to pass up given they fielded basically an entire starting lineup with the bats and also added over 300 quality IP. I have never used them before and I always shy away from the 50s and 60s, however I have seen them perform well at this cap in the past so I went with it. It was just a matter of matching them up with the right staff. I looked at the deadball Cubs and was going to go in that direction until I came across the ’02 Pirates. They fit nicely, giving me over 900IP that should perform well at this cap while also providing me another OF in Beaumont – one that the Cubs teams did not provide. I see that schwarze picked the exact same teams as me although his roster construction is slightly different. His choice of Clarke over Robinson was a good one and it will be interesting to see whose team performs better.

100 MIL – The Pony Remark

I built my pitching staff first and quickly realized I had to use the upper tiers on RPs given the cap. High IP SPs seems to where most of the value is these days and instead of grabbing 1908 Ed Walsh as I usually do I went with 1904 Jack Chesbro and 1888 Pete Conway to save some money. They will log most of my innings and manage most of my fatigue issues due to their insulation from the fatigue death spiral. Hitting was trickier. I wanted speed and range where possible. Due to the theme restrictions this was harder than I had originally thought. I’m using a lot of players I haven’t used before but have seen on other successful teams including ’87 Fernandez and ’97 Joyce. Not much else here of note – tried to maximize triples and stuck the team in Petco. Should end up being one of my better teams.

110 MIL – Trust The Process
Not having WIS populate a draft centre with the available players made this more difficult for me than it should have been. I must have missed the memo on the “spreadsheet” some have talked about working off of. Anyway, I saw that ’08 Walsh was available so I grabbed him. I then complimented him with ’18 Johnson who I have never used before. I usually would use ’08 Mathewson in this spot but Johnson saves me money and should perform similarly. I filled in usual suspects behind them in the bullpen. On the hitting side of things it was a focus on range and speed where possible given the available players and a bunch of triples. This cap level is my sweet spot so I expect this team to be one of my better ones.

120 MIL Franchises Across The Decades

I used alphabet for the first round as most other did. I grabbed ‘08 Walsh again and ’14 Hendrix to compliment him. My bullpen is much less desirable than usual given the theme restrictions and if this team goes south it will be the reason why. I am hoping most have the same issue. The hardest decision I had to make was Roger Connor or Frankie Frisch. Went with Connor and used Stirnweiss at 2B. Range, speed and 3Bs is again the theme.

255 MIL – DEALing with Bordick At Short.

I think that the success of this team will depend on the performance of Ed Seward. I have never used him before but his performance history looked good and given his high IP it was too much to pass up in a draft situation that would allow me to focus on other areas of need. Once I got him I went in on the hitting and was happy to get Delahanty, McGraw and Lange with my next three picks. I generally take a 1B with good range but our group didn’t really have any so I was fine with my next pick of Olerud. Not long after that I noticed that once 3 infield positions were taken the remaining owner could sit on that position and focus elsewhere for his picks – I believe it was dougpalm at catcher specifically. This observation was wrong as I neglected to remember the unlimited cap part of the draft. Still, no owner would be devious enough to actually concern himself with wasting a pick or picks to screw over another owner would he? Once schwarze took Robin Yount it made my decision at SS easy – I would take Ripken but since everyone else had a starting SS I could wait on taking him. As has been noted, schwarze was getting annoyed at me not concerning myself with that position and decided to grab Ripken and likely the next best option in English. After throwing a hissy-fit I reassessed and realized that I was lucky I had selected Molitor with a pick earlier. He was to be my DH but now I could consider him at SS (in a lesser hitting year with C/B fielding – not ideal). My best alternative was Mike Bordick in my opinion. Yes he wouldn’t hit much but he was A+/A+ fielding - a real factor at SS. Instead of panicking and making a decision I decided to let the group assume I was using Molitor and decided to draft great pinch hitters (to use in a platoon at DH should someone actually take Bordick and I be forced to use Molitor) and more of the top relievers (just to **** off schwarze). I decided on Bordick eventually and took him with my second last pick. Despite the drama I do really like my team and I think it will come down to the performance of Seward as mentioned above.

$80M – The Chain

Ouvre Le Chien

Angel Stadium

I didn’t hate this theme as much as some–participating in Round 2 of the WISC should be a challenge, right? But agree that this took more hours than any theme I’ve ever bothered participating in. Were it not part of a tournament no way I’d rebuild a team this many times.

The heart of my team goes like this

1901 Len Swormstedt

1904 Noodles Hahn

1905 Cozy Dolan (?)

1907 Vic Willis

1914 Babe Adams

1917 George Gibson (?)

1919 Art Fletcher

The question marks were drifters I’d never heard of that allowed this chain to work. This sequence gave me three great affordable starters, a hot bullpen arm, and an A+++ shortstop.

I built a superior version of this team that turned out to be illegal, since I didn’t notice that Ross Youngs was a teammate of both Gibson and Fletcher on baseball reference. I was too frustrated at that point to keep experimenting, so this is the first passable team I made afterwards.

I’m happy with my pitchers although I only managed to draft ten, with two workhorses in the pen in Tommy John and Harry Gumbert. I usually carry twelve pitchers. Hitters are ok but they definitely walk less than I’d like.

$90M – Best of the Rest

07 Cubs 95 Indians

Jacobs Field

Unlike the $80M I hardly tried any variations here. Deadball Cubs and their low WHIP looked great to me–I see many teams used the 1906 version, but 1907 let you keep Mordecai Brown, as Orval Overall was more expensive and not as good.

To find hitters I tried out teams from this chart

https://www.baseball-reference.com/blog/archives/8086.html

and found only two teams I really liked: the 1926 Cardinals (with A+++ Thevenow at SS) and the 1995 Indians. As I recall the Tribe filled more gaps left by the 07 Cubs than the Cards did.

I built my $90 million team in Round 1 equally quickly, the 64 Reds plus a bunch of Pete Rose clones, and that team won 96 games and the WS. Hopefully I can repeat that success.

$100, $110, $120

I don’t play WIS that often anymore and when I do I’ve grown pretty complacent about sticking the same underpriced cookies in the Astrodome when I can: Tommy Tucker, Bill Bernhardt, Aaron Sanchez, 1909 Ty Cobb. These three themes weren’t restrictive enough to prevent me from doing that. This is not a complaint, just a summary of my draft strategy.

I think maybe Ozo already spelled out that the hard part of the $100m theme was selecting pitchers. The secret was using the most expensive $IP on relievers, so I started with Neftali Felix and worked my way down. I was more worried about pitching in this theme so I ended up using Busch II rather than the Astrodome.

$255M – D.E.A.L. Redux

Wot’s…Uh The Deal?

PNC Park

This is my third draft league ever, the others occurring in Round 2 of last year’s WISC. I don’t typically have the patience for them.

The draft itself feels like a long time ago, although I recall making the first two picks on my phone at something like 1:30 am at a karaoke bar while waiting for my friends to come back in from smoking. Which explains why I took Tris Speaker with my first pick instead of Hughie Jennings, even though there were tons of good OF available. D’oh.

I focused on decent SP since there weren’t many in our group. I realized mid-draft that brianjw was grabbing the best RP and ignoring starters, but by then it was too late to do anything about it. At some point I grabbed Dave Davenport in the hope that someone else in my group would be left short on SP innings but I doubt it worked.

My best hope for Round 2 would be five playoff teams and for this team to hit .500.

Posted by calhoop on 12/17/2017 1:36:00 AM (view original):
**Chayne Mansfield (1887-2017)
$80 million

The first thing that became apparent to me in fully digesting the rules was that it was going to be difficult to find a workable chain that used consecutive player seasons from the same franchise, at least close-in seasons. Too many instances of Player A and Player C being on the same teams. That being consistently on my mind, my first goal was to make sure I locked in a dead ball SP staff as I progressed and figured that range would be 1885-88 and 1901-1919, which is the exact opposite of schwarze's strategy. Not an encouraging omen. I also targeted pitchers that cost about $30k/inning. I looked at the original example chain in the instructions which led off with 1887 John Kerins. I liked that idea and started there as well but I then had to limit my SP options to 1901-1919. I decided to target 1919 Jesse Barnes as my last chronological option and needed to fill in the blanks with 2 more high-inning SPs and any other useful parts along the way. Cy Young offered a lot of options so I started feasting on some of the high OBP 1890s hitters (if reasonably affordable and sometimes less than full seasons) to find a way there. Rostered 1893 Pete Browning, 1894 Hughie Jennings and 1900 John McGraw (and their collective dreadful fielding) to get to Cy Young. Decided on the 1907 season which allowed me to use 1909 Cy Morgan (A's combined season) and work through the 1918 second-rate Fred Anderson season to get to 1919 Jesse Barnes. From there I went to 1934 Frisch, 1938 Dizzy Dean, 1948 Augie Galan, 1954 Grady Hatton, 1960 Dick Gernert (RIP), 1962 Eddie Yost and 1977 Jim Fregosi. This led to a Miguel Dilone dilemma but with all of the salary increases his good year has become too expensive for this cap, for me at least. I went with the cheap 1979 A's season and took Rickey Henderson as his teammate. Choosing Rickey created a theme within a theme the rest of the way because I had to always check every subsequent team to make sure Rickey did not wind up on one of those rosters since he played with almost everyone. Decided to use the 1993 Toronto combined season which led to 1999 Tony Fernandez, 2000 David Segui to fill in necessary PAs (plenty of 3B PAs, not enough OF). At that point I had to figure out a bullpen and super cheap scrubs with 6 picks left and only 17 years available. Still felt pretty confident I could get this done with so many players changing teams these modern days. Settled on 2002 Steve Reed, 2003 Jason Kershner and 2009 Trever Miller for a mediocre bullpen. Then was able to add 2013 Brendan Ryan, 2015 Travis Ishikawa (and his AT&T Park) and 2017 Alejandro DeAza and spend only $625k total on all 3.

Oulook: A nice top-heavy batting order with appropriate Double D fielding. In short a colossal bust likely to get its collective head cut off against this level of competition

**1897 O's/1906 Cubs Whack-Amole
$90 million

Started looking at some usual suspects with deep SP to start, like 1902 Pirates and 1906 Cubs. Some decent hitters would come with either as well. Tried some other ideas but went back and decided that a pitching staff entirely from the 1906 Cubs could be a satisfactory answer for a $90mm team.. A couple of pitchers had both partial and combined seasons so by exploiting the rules I could have enough innings only using 06 Cubs. To complement them. I then looked around at some familiar hitting year teams from the late 1920s and 1930 as well as 1890s vintage teams. The highest price 1897 Oriole hitter was Willie Keeler so that left Kelley, Stenzel, Jennings, McGraw and .354 hitting 1b/Tight End Jack Doyle and overall pricing was reasonable. Adding Johnny Kling from the Cubs to the lineup was a must. Then I had to decide: do I use Harry Steinfeld at 3b and light-hitting good-glove Jimmy Slagle in CF at the expense of John McGraw? Something as logical as that is not my style. Kept Steinfeld and his solid bat but could not pass up McGraw so for the second team in a row (like on **Chayne Mansfield) the Little General will be hiding out in RF and hoping the baseballs don't find him. Also took advantage of the <300k exception to fill roster spots with A+/D outfielders just in case. Finally, I could not resist giving a pitching spot to 150 ERC+ (no HR allowed) Doc Amole and after further analysis assigned him the closer's role.

Question: Does Doc Amole rhyme more closely with (Whack a Mole) or guacamole? Will he get whacked or just chipped away at?

**Furniture Rotation
$100 million

I saved this team for last because I thought it would be easiest to build. As usual, I worked on pitching first and as it was for other owners, it was clear to me that quality SPs could be found in the $/IP categories 7 and 8, especially of the high-inning dead-ball variety. Decided on 384 IP of 1902 Jack Taylor in category 8 and 443 IP of 1901 Cy Young in category 7 to serve as virtually a two-man rotation and maximize overall savings. These choices also pointed me in the direction of a low walks-allowed strategy to complement what would ideally be a small-ball offense of the Petco Park variety. I then splurged on 149 IP of 2016 Kershaw (category 2), 139 IP of 1909 Babe Adams (category 3) and 125 IP of 1908 Elmer Steele (category 4) to be middle-innings forces with the savings. Will also call on Adams and Steele to close at times. I definitely wanted a low-inning category 1 player and took 26 IP 2013 Sergio Santos there. That left me needing another low innings guy and a spot starter to find. I like 33 IP 2012 Aaron Loup and he fit into category 5. Mulling over my Taylor/Young rotation I found inspiration for a team theme in actress Leigh Taylor-Young best know for her role as Shirl the "Furniture Girl" in Soylent Green (how politically incorrect is that now!!), How could I not go with 2010 Cliff Lee partial season in category 4 to complete the rotation. Added under the radar $/IP Barney Wolfe for extra innings and total pitching cost was over $54mm (leaving only $45ish for hitting which is out of my comfort zone). Given limited available salary for hitting, I knew I was punting category 1 and eventually rostered 2004 Neifi Perez. This would mean I would have to get some significant help from the under $5,000/PA category and would get back to that later. Focusing on switch-hitting, fast, triples-hitting and base-stealing offensive players while trying to be a little defense minded (not really). I wound up with:
C - 1887 John Kerins - cheap A+ arm, lots of triples (cat 6)
1b - 1889 Tommy Tucker - a personal favorite (cat 3)
2b - 2004 Chone Figgins - 100 speed? (cat 7)
3b- 1894 George Davis - (cat 4)
SS - 1897 Hughie Jennings (cat 2)
OF - 1923 Max Carey - my tribute to defensive range (cat 5)
OF - 1997 Otis Nixon - 655 PA of under the radar (bonus points, Nixon was President in 1973, the year of Soylent Green's release)
OF - 1977 Billy North - 225 PA, (cat 8) Gerald Young 169 PA UTR and many more
Util - 2004 Nefi Perez (cat 1, $915 cheapo)

Outlook: Watching panoramic nature scenes and listening to Beethoven's 6th and Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite with Sol

**Dregs of the Cookie Jar
$110 Million

Tried to glean as much as I could from the Round 1 rosters of the top owners and ascertained the following:

1) Switch hitters are popular and perform well - a LOT on this cookie list to confirm this
2) Range, especially in the OF is a good thing
3) 1908 Ed Walsh and 1902 Bill Bernhard are good values, even still
4) Petco is a cookie in its own right

SP: 1) 1908 Ed Walsh, 2A) 1902 Bill Bernhard, 2B) 1919 Pete Alexander - all righties
Long Relief: 1916 Reb Russell (2016 Kershaw not yet available on this list) - lefty
Setup/Closers: 1912 Carl Weilman, 1964 Bobby Shantz, 1991 Steve Howe, 2012 Edward Mujica (these 4, Really??)

C): 1887 John Kerins - Petco Perfect
1b: 1984 Dave Collins, plus several fill-ins (some decent)
2b: 1921 Frankie Frisch
3b: 1894 George Davis
SS: 1921 Dave Bancroft
OF: 1985 Tim Raines, 1925 Max Carey, 1982 Willie Wilson

"Dregs of the Cookie Jar" - My only song lyric reference (paraphrased from "Brown Eyed Women") this time around.

Outlook: "Roof Caved In"

**Decade/Franchise
$120 Million

I took Alphabet in Round 1 because "In the unlikely event of a water landing, (or me making it back to Round 2")..... Decade/Franchise was a natural combo and one I have played before. Basic strategy of trying to find 1800's players from defunct franchises and post 1960 players from expansion ones. Pre-1919 SP and modern RP fit well.


C - 1887 John Kerins, 1960 Jim Pagliaroni
1b -1902 Ed Delahanty
2b- 1914 Eddie Collins
3b- 2008 Chipper Jones, 1996 Dave Hollins
SS - 1897 Hughie Jennings
OF - 1930 Earle Combs, 1985 Tim Raines, 1921 Ty Cobb
Bench OF/1b/PH - 1948 Augie Galan, 1977 Roger Freed, 2014 Kyle Banks (brings Petco)

SP - 1902 Jack Taylor, 1917 Eddie Cicotte, 1933 Carl Hubbell
Long Relief - 2016 Clayton Kershaw
Closer scramble - 8 guys with 43 or less IP

Outlook: Not all that inspiring hence the boring team name

**Deal or No Deal Briefcase Models
$255 million

Just like the main stage on "Deal or No Deal" the Group 2 player pool was absolutely LOADED with talent, I mean really stacked.. Our group of owners is certainly Polly Purebread's favorite, given that we had pre-tourney ranks of 48, 51,62 and 70.

My team, (with round taken, as well as briefcase number, in parentheses)

SP - Silver King (1), Carl Hubbell (3), Jason Schmidt (9), Jose Fernandez (20), Carl Lundgren (24)
RP - Reb Russell (11), Willie Hernandez (14), Ted Abernathy (19), Sergio Santos (22), Dave Righetti (25)
C - Bill Dickey (7), Paul Lo Duca (21)
1b - Willie McCovey (10), Carlos Delgado (15)
2b - Joe Morgan (4), Brendan Ryan (23) for his defense
3b - Wade Boggs (5), Heinie Zimmerman (17)
SS - Honus Wagner (2), Jose Reyes (16)
OF - Ken Griffey, Jr (6), Babe Herman (8), Bernie Williams (12), Lance Berkman (13), Sammy Sosa (18),

Playing at Baker Bowl

There were several players who I would like to have drafted not taken by anybody like Luis Gonzalez, Tim McCabe, Sam McDowell, Roy Mitchell, Reggie Smith and Hippo Vaughn.

My favorite thing about this team is the visual image of Lisa Gleave (playing the role of Carl Hubbell) leaning forward to take the sign from Sara Bronson (playing the role of Bill Dickey)

Outlook: Fun to watch!

Interesting coincidence that John McGraw played in the OF (unrated at the position) all year on both the 80mm and 90mm teams, ranked #144 and #1 by STDEV in Round 2. Joe Satriani's "The Extremist" playing in my mind.

Although we lost in the Round 2 World Series, my $100M team just won the TOC (fairly easily, going 3-0, 3-1, 3-1, 4-1, 4-1)...
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$100M – Catchy Title Theme
Catfish, Gaylord & Carl
The Astrodome
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When I first started working on this theme, I quickly realized that I needed to use the lower $/IP ranges on my starting pitchers and save those high $/IP on short inning relievers or else I would not have enough innings (assuming I was going to spend roughly $50 million on pitching). I also made sure to gravitate toward the lower end of these ranges. Also, I knew I would play in the Astrodome, so I wasn’t worried about HR/9. So, I started things off by find the best valued 300+ inning pitchers I could find at the three lowest ranges... I grabbed 1933 Carl Hubbell, 1972 Gaylord Perry & 1974 Catfish Hunter. So that works out to 1004 innings at $33.9 million (or 33,784 $/IP). I wanted another 400 or so (non mop-up) innings. I essentially grabbed the best values I could find to get me up to 1400 IPs…1944 Joe Berry, 1994 Steve Howe, 1958 Hoyt Wilhelm, 1958 Barry Latman, 1943 Johnny Niggeling, plus three ok guys between $350K-$500K.
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In building my hitting, I started from the lowest $/IP range. I wanted decent OBP but not terrible defense. I ended up with 1910 Clyde Milan (OF, .379 obp, D/B+). The next two lowest ranges were filled with 1894 Bill Lange (OF, .405 obp, D/A-) and 1897 Bill Joyce (3B, .441 obp, D/A+). 1886 John Kerins is my catcher (.360 obp, A+ arm). My last four batters are 1887 Sam Wise (SS, .390 obp, D/A+), 1916 Joe Jackson (OF, .393 obp), 1903 Nap Lajoie (2B, .344/.379/.518, C/A+) and 1914 Tris Speaker (1B, .338/.423/.503, C-/A+). I know the fielding ratings aren't so good, but with no deadball pitchers, I'm hoping I don't commit too many errors.
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Hitting (excluding scrubs): 5243 PA, .318, .396, .453, $48.7 million
Pitching (excluding scrubs): 1410 IP, 0.97 whip, 0.44 hr/9, $49.7 million

*1897 O's/1906 Cubs Whack-Amole
$90 million

Started looking at some usual suspects with deep SP to start, like 1902 Pirates and 1906 Cubs. Some decent hitters would come with either as well. Tried some other ideas but went back and decided that a pitching staff entirely from the 1906 Cubs could be a satisfactory answer for a $90mm team.. A couple of pitchers had both partial and combined seasons so by exploiting the rules I could have enough innings only using 06 Cubs. To complement them. I then looked around at some familiar hitting year teams from the late 1920s and 1930 as well as 1890s vintage teams. The highest price 1897 Oriole hitter was Willie Keeler so that left Kelley, Stenzel, Jennings, McGraw and .354 hitting 1b/Tight End Jack Doyle and overall pricing was reasonable. Adding Johnny Kling from the Cubs to the lineup was a must. Then I had to decide: do I use Harry Steinfeld at 3b and light-hitting good-glove Jimmy Slagle in CF at the expense of John McGraw? Something as logical as that is not my style. Kept Steinfeld and his solid bat but could not pass up McGraw so for the second team in a row (like on **Chayne Mansfield) the Little General will be hiding out in RF and hoping the baseballs don't find him. Also took advantage of the <300k exception to fill roster spots with A+/D outfielders just in case. Finally, I could not resist giving a pitching spot to 150 ERC+ (no HR allowed) Doc Amole and after further analysis assigned him the closer's role.

Question: Does Doc Amole rhyme more closely with (Whack a Mole) or guacamole? Will he get whacked or just chipped away at?

This highly improbable #1 rated team (by STDEV) in Round 2 continues to amaze as it wins TOC in a 7 game showdown

McGraw-in-RF factor: 25 games. 7 errors. 3 minus plays. .382 batting average. .462 OBP. 20 runs scored

Very impressive. Congrats!

My Chain team defeated discodemo's Chain team, in a rematch of the league WS, in the TOC Finals. Pretty incredible that both teams made the final, considering how restrictive that theme was.