Posted by rbow923 on 8/12/2019 12:51:00 PM (view original):
I'm not into complex formulas. I look at the basics and then just wing it based on mathematical instinct and past experience.

Second this.

Posted by milest on 8/12/2019 1:47:00 PM (view original):

Posted by discodemo on 8/12/2019 10:37:00 AM (view original):
I suspect brianjw is a former Baseball Prospectus writer who now works for the Oakland A's.

Is it possible to 'partial' quote a post like this? The write-ups are very long and I just want to quote 1 or 2 lines and respond. Can I do that and how?

Unfortunately not but don't worry too much about length -- this thread is expected to have really long posts

Simplest thing to do is just copy and paste the part you want to respond to.

That's what I do... Copy/paste, then maybe italicize to indicate it's a quote.

70 Mil First and Last Rodeos: The only time I play low cap themes is in this tournament. I basically put in the criteria of first/last years in the search engine and went from there.
I wanted a high SB speed guy to lead off and selected Vince Coleman. I then wanted a high average/good to fair defense guy. I found three to put in my lineup Bucky Harris at 2b, Andy High at 3b, and Arky Vaughn at SS. I needed some sort of thunder for the middle of the lineup. My number three hitter will be a shared player with Barry Bonds and Zach Wheat. My 4 and 5 hitters will be Hank Greenburg and Albert Bell. My catcher will be a platoon of Bob Swift and Bengie Molina. My other backups are Vic Power, and Wilson Betimit.

5,688 PA .281 BA/.361 OBP/.403 SLG

I am carrying 13 pitchers. I have a 5 man starting pitching staff none who I have ever used any version of before, Al Demaree and Doc Watson from the deadball era, Marv Breuer and Stubby Overmire from WWII era, and Duane Pillet from the 1950s. My bullpen is highlighted with Mariano’s last year. The other relievers are Eddie Matteson, Nick Carter, Allen Callemor, and Sailor Stroud from the deadball era. Ralph Judd from the 1920s. Jumbo Brown from 1941 and Steve Kealey from 1972.

1422 IP 2.64 ERA/1.15 WHIP/.243 OAV Only 54 HR Allowed

Playing in Angel Stadium.
I feel better about this team then I thought I would so I will guess I will be around .500 maybe better.

90 Mil Meisters Maddux and Collins. I minimized the amount spent on my superstar hitter and to a lesser extent my superstar pitcher.
1909 Eddie Collins gave me good on-base, a stolen base threat and good defense. But I am going to bat him third as I took Otis Nixon (good SB) to lead off and Luke Appling (high OBP) to bat 2^nd. 4, 5 , and 6 hitters will be Mel Ott, Harmon Killebrew, and Eddie Murray. I wanted to use my boyhood idol (Killebrew) sometime in one of these tournaments. Clemente and Freehan provide good bottom of the order guys. I probably have too many home runs in the lineup but again this is a low cap team so at least I wanted to have fun with it.

5653 AB .302 BA/.380 OBP/.448 SLG

My pitching is highlighted by 1998 Maddux. I added two of my favorites who should do well at this cap Tim Hudson and Ubaldo Jimenez. I also have two lefties in my 5 man rotation Butch Henry and John Tudor. My closer is JJ Putz. My other pitchers are Christy Mathewson, Boom Boom Beck, Rick Waits, Ellis Kinder, and Ramon Ramierez.

1419 IP 2.52 ERA/.223 OAV/1.06 WHIP

I am playing in Turner Field. I will guess between 83 – 88 wins.

110 Mil: Dusty Baker “ A Brave Giant”. This time I went for the team mix first. The Athletics, Giants, and the Braves. After searching and searching I only found two players who qualified. One was Felipe Alou and the other is Dusty Baker. Baker had one good year so I could
play him in CF. One other good partial season allows me to platoon the two. I am only spending 8.83 M on the three. This allowed me to spend money on the rest of my team for whom I grabbed my favorites.
Chipper Jones and Dave Bancroft on the left side of the infield. Eddie Collins and Jason Giambi on the right. Split catching duty between LHB Milt May and RHB Gabby Hartnett. My corner OF positions are Barry Bonds and Hank Aaron.

6,288 PA .314 BA/.402 OBP/.481 SLG

The strength of my team should be the pitching. My four starters are Greg Maddux, Warren Spahn, Tim Lincecum, and Tim Hudson. My closer is Smoltz with Hrbosky, Minton, Ziegler, Nelson, Remlinger, and Linzy.

1,492 IP 2.14 ERA/1.06 WHIP/.216 OAV

I am playing in Candlestick Park. I am hoping for a 85 – 90 win team.

120 Mil: PX4-BX0 Techno Umpire. I started out with the X8 pitching staff and X6 Batters. After looking at it I decided that 08, 18, 68, 88, and 2008 were all pitching years and pitchers generally get downgraded. I:E: There ERC# is higher than there ERC. I didn’t like my defense with the X6 group. I also wanted both a Barry Bonds and a Chipper Jones on my team.

First on the batters beside Bonds and Jones, I wanted the 1980 Willie Wilson who is perhaps the best defender I have ever used. If I took the X0 group I could have a lineup of 1980 Wilson, 1910 Collins, 1990 Bonds, 1930 Foxx, 2000 Jones, 1950 Berra, 1960 Clemente, 1970 K. Henderson, and 1940 Eddie Miller. Miller has been a super defender for me before. So up the middle I have B+/A+ at short and CF, and B/A+ at second.

6,586 PA .310 BA/.380 OBP/.489 SLG

The X4 pitching group offered starters 1914 Leonard, 1904 M.Brown, 1964 Koufax, and 1984 Gooden. Still the same problem with the ERC# and ERC but not as bad as the X8. The benefit comes in the bullpen which has 2014 Kimbrel, 2004 Nathan, 1994 Mark Eichorn, 1974 Dale Murray, and 1954 Don Mossi.

1,442 IP 1.86 ERA/.197 OAV/.99 WHIP 40 HR Given Up

I expect 87 – 92 Wins from this team.

130 Mil: Fleet Afoot but No power: Not wanting to box myself in if I went to Round 2 I went with a 7 HR maximum and .31 HR Allowed. I really wanted to go with Kaufman stadium but decided to go with Nationals park in case I had to use it in Round 2.

Batting again I went for solid defense up the middle with Willie Wilson in CF, Dave Bancroft at SS, and Eddie Collins at 2B. Also solid defense at 3B with Boggs. For offense I added Paul Waner and the 1987 Tony Gwynn for OF corners. I rounded out the offense with Pete Rose at 1b and Jason Kendall at C.

6165 PA .345 BA/.416 OBP/.460 SLG 222 SB

Pitching I went with 4 starters who have been successful for me at a 120 million cap before. 1931 Lefty Grove, 1994 Maddux, 1997 Clemens, and 1948 Brecheen. My bullpen has Kimbrel, Mariano, Isringhaussen, Papelbohn, Avilan, Kilgus, and Otero.

1524 IP 1.90 ERA/.209 OAV/ .98 WHIP

This team could bring 85 – 90 wins.

180 Million: 168 M 6 x Phillies and Braves Actually I didn’t spend much time on this theme. I am actually using a team I wanted to try somewhere for some time. I usually shy away from using pre-1900 players as I not sure what type of defense I will get.

I decided to try the 1894 Phillies offense with one 1894 Beaneater:

(CF) Billy Hamilton .404 Avg/.523 OBP
(RF) Hugh Duffy .440 BA/.502 OBP
(LF) Sam Thompson .407 BA/.458 OBP
(1B) Ed Delahanty .407 BA/.478 OBP
(3B) Lav Cross .386 BA/.421 OBP

I added the 1928 to pick up (2B) Rogers Hornsby .387 BA/.498 OBP

I needed pitching so 1915 provided two starters Pete Alexander and Tom Hughes and reliever Art Nehf.

I added 1994 to get (C) Darren Dalton. Of course my third starter Greg Maddux. And reliever Doug Jones.

After exploring all other years I found 2005 and 2012 would provide the (SS) Rafael Furcal A/A+ rating, additional catcher Carlos Ruiz A/A/A+ and the bulk of my bullpen Craig Kimbrel, Billy Wagner, Aaron Fulz, Brandon Beachy, and Raul Valdez.

6,227 PA .373 BA/.447 OBP/.563 Slugging

1639 IP 1.83 ERA/.200 BA/.091 WHIP 51 HR Allowed

My hardest decisions were which stadium to use and whether I should have Fred Mcriff on the team to play first. I decided against McGriff and to use Turner Field. More a pitcher field than other options. I hope to again be greater than 85 wins.

I usually end up just within or outside the bracket. The difference is if one or two of my teams really stink. I normally get two teams in the playoffs. If I get zero or 1 I am out. 4 or 5 I am onto the second round. 2 or 3 will depend on the other teams. I am not a statistician, mathematician, actuary, or use algoritims. I just enjoy Baseball and have fallen in love with certain players playing WIS over the years. My choices are a combination of that experience, the need for good if not great fielding (I learned early on from schwarze), and sharing the same philosophies as Brian (especially using ERC#).

Good Luck all.

One of the most interesting parts of reading this thread is seeing the wide range of IP's and PA's at each salary cap. Ozo taking 4700 PA's at the 70 mil. Talking about walking the line of fatigue. But that is probably why he will be successful at that cap. With the First/Last parameter, the PA's may be really low for even a 70 mil league.

There is no doubt I should have risked walking that fatigue line in both my pitching and my hitting more than I did.

I do think I used way too many mop-ups and roster fillers than I normally do. I'm sure that will also come back and bite me in the arse also.

Good Luck all

mllama, our variable cap teams are going to be quite similar. At least 6 of the same starting hitters and top two SP.

Was expecting to see the 1894 Phillies in action on a few rosters.

Hitter fatigue is not really a risk, since you pretty much know approximately how much performance you're giving up, so you can make a reasoned tradeoff for quality elsewhere. Low caps are great for this because $1 is more valuable than it is at high caps. I am normally in the 4800-4900 range though, so this is a bit lower than usual.

Going low on IP, on the other hand, is a huge risk. If things go wrong, and you get into a couple extra inning games early in the season, you could end up in real trouble and possibly miss Round 2 as a result. That is what makes Brian's gamble in the variable cap league -- without having tested the strategy outside the WISC first -- as risky as it is. Maybe he feels he could potentially make Round 2 even if that team goes into the death spiral, but it would definitely end his chances of reclaiming the title.

Posted by redcped on 8/12/2019 4:00:00 PM (view original):
mllama, our variable cap teams are going to be quite similar. At least 6 of the same starting hitters and top two SP.

Was expecting to see the 1894 Phillies in action on a few rosters.

So was I.

I’d never played the WISC before this year because the styles of themes never interested me. I don’t use spreadsheets, or optimization, or run statistical analyses of my teams’ results. I don’t want to do a ton of research or spend hours on Baseball Reference finding the perfect guy from whom to twist teammates. I like simple builds and then watching the season unfold. This is why I have no interest in the type of research/optimization leagues that are typically staples of the WISC smorgasbord. I barely even look at individual or team stats once a season begins. I use mathematical instinct rather than insight. It’s important to have a solid understanding of how the SIM arrives at its results, based on the decision tree and, most importantly, the surprisingly few stats that are actually used in determining the outcome of a PA. That’s why my preferred style of play is to have few or no restrictions.

Mike is persistent though, and after several years of asking me to play the WISC, this year’s crop of themes seemed tolerable enough to finally get a yes from me. Unfortunately, this year’s tourney also coincided with a particularly busy time of the year for work and a very good crop of regular fantasy baseball teams that has captured most of my attention lately. I found I didn’t have a lot of motivation to work on WISC teams so what I ended up with were mostly rosters cobbled together without a lot of time or thought put into them. Even as an optimistic person, I’m not that optimistic about having success this year. That scenario doesn’t lend itself to great team-building insights, but here goes…

$70M First and Last

I rarely play caps below $100M but I’ve had some moderate success when doing so. My comfort level for what works well at these cap levels has always been lower than my teams’ eventual performance, but that’s probably more luck in a small sample size than anything else. In ozo’s Bare Bones tournament I put together a strong team at $60M based on raw SB ability and a pitching staff ozo himself described as “weird”, so I tried to incorporate some more of that this time, ha. I like AVG at these low caps at the expense of defense, and in turn relatively low OAV from the pitchers with a tolerance for BB/9 to get into the upper 2’s. Cheap HR hitters can be effective here so I limited HR/9 as well.

The offense features our stud ’77 Mitchell Page who does a little bit of everything at this level. SB threats are Page, ’97 Womack, and ’77 Gene Richards. High AVG with solid OBP from ’09 Chris Coghlan and ’32 Arky Vaughan will back up ’98 Elmer Flick at the top of the order. ’71 Earl Williams will likely do little else besides hit HR and strike out. Our only A+ range comes from 3B ’55 Hector Lopez.

On the pitching side, 1888 Lee Viau will headline a 1/2A/2B rotation with ’44 Tommy Dela Cruz and ’14 Doc Watson. ’10 Deacon Phillipe will serve as the innings eater in relief and love his 0.67 BB/9. If ’01 Mike O’Neill keeps the ball in the yard he should be an effective bullpen piece. The rest of the pitching staff is mostly guys with the lowest OAV I could find who didn’t walk too many or give up too many HR.

Hitters: .295/.366/.435, 158 SB/24 CS from the speed guys.
Pitchers: 1353 IP, .227 OAV, 1.10 WHIP, 2.28 BB/9, 0.30 HR/9

$90M Double Eagle

From the discussion of others it sounds like I didn’t optimize very well here. I went with ’58 Willie Mays as my hitter and ’06 Doc White as my pitcher. I like the Mays season as a great all-around contributor. Terrific OF range, efficient SB, fast on the bases, and sneaky-good in AVG and XBH in a hitter’s park. Of course, he gave me Seals Stadium which isn’t exactly a hitter’s park. Oh well. I chose White because he fit the requirement of $40,000/IP and I like my stronger SP to be a lefty when possible. White’s effectiveness is underrated frequently.

With so much salary devoted to a few guys it means using OL cookie types to round out the roster and still get some value. Welcome ’87 John Kerins and ’97 Bill Joyce. I use ’08 Jimmy Rollins across a wide range of caps, and he fit well here. ’21 Eddie Collins brings A+ range to 2B, and ’87 Fred Carroll to 1B. I’ve never used ’95 George Davis before and he’ll hide in the OF along with ’24 Tris Speaker.

White will anchor a four-man rotation with ’17 Ferdie Schupp, ’88 Henry Gruber, and ’07 George Winter. The bullpen is very thin on IP, with my next highest guy ’01 Mike O’Neill at 48. We only have 1338 IP here and that could cause a big problem with fatigue if the SP don’t regularly pitch deep into games. Some bad luck in the DAMP period could spell disaster.

Hitters: .317/.392/.472
Pitchers: 1338 IP, .214 OAV, 0.99 WHIP, 0.31 HR/9

$110M 3x Franchise

Since each version of the chosen player had to come from a different franchise and cost more than $1M it made the only logical choice in my eyes a modern relief pitcher. I looked for a guy with three strong seasons with three “old” franchises. The way I play my bullpens I like to have at least three LHP so I arrived at Andrew Miller ’14-’16 for this theme, bringing the Red Sox, Yankees, and Indians into the mix.

’20 Steve O’Neill will do the catching, as apparently I need someone named O’Neill on every team. ’29 Lew Fonseca brings a high AVG, solid range, and good baserunning speed to 1B. ’04 Nap Lajoie will help anchor the offense from 2B. ’51 Minnie Minoso mans 3B, and ’98 Vizquel will help the infield D at SS. ’30 Ed Morgan brings big SLG as a guy I’ve never used before in a corner OF spot, alongside ’30 Earle Combs and ’21 Tris Speaker, as I somehow attempt to use every Speaker season except his best ones.

Miller’s franchise combo lent me ’10 Russ Ford as an ace, with ’17 Stan Coveleski, ’14 Ray Caldwell for value, and ’18 Chris Sale. ’98 Graeme Lloyd joins the Miller trio as the bullpen lefties, with ’08 Elmer Steele handling longer outings and ’18 Ryan Brasier, ’03 Martin Glendon, ’08 Jack Ryan tackling opposing RHB.

Hitters: .337/.407/.497
Pitchers: 1447 IP, .193 OAV, 0.91 WHIP, 2.12 BB/9, 0.32 HR/9

$120M Lucky Numbers
Easiest choice of this entire round was using 8 for pitchers. ’08 Walsh and ’18 DeGrom are two of the better values in the game right now. Nothing complicated about that.

I should have thought longer and harder about the offensive side of things, but like I said in the opening I didn’t spend much time on these teams. Not sure why 5 came to mind as a hitter’s year, but it did so I went with it. I put together an easy OF of ’15 Benny Kauff, ’25 Max Carey, and ’35 Joe Medwick, but was a little disappointed by the IF selections. Ended up with ’75 Rod Carew at 1B, ’05 Brian Roberts at 2B, ’95 Barry Larkin at SS, and ’95 George Davis at 3B. Then I realized this was a DH league. 1885 Henry Larkin fit that mold but it left very little to spend on a C and few years to choose from. ’05 Roger Bresnahan has a solid offensive profile but only 423 PA. He’ll be backed up by OOP pinch hitters and prayers to the gods of passed balls. Yay.

At least the pitching should be good, as the 8’s added ’18 Fred Toney, ’88 Milacki, ’58 Wilhelm, ’08 Billy Wagner, and 1888 Bill George to the bullpen. The 2B in the 1/2A/2B rotation will be ’48 Harry Brecheen, another underrated performer at this cap level.

Hitters: .334/.405/.501
Pitchers: 1433 IP, .201 OAV, 0.90 WHIP, 1.54 BB/9, 0.22 HR/9

$130M Calm Before the Storm

This theme started to get much closer to the kind of team I would usually like to build. Which probably means it will not be that successful in this tourney, but at least I could put it together quickly. With ’08 Jimmy Rollins as my fallback SS, that put 11 HR as my limit for hitters. I wondered what I could do with two overpriced SP and went with ’68 Bob Gibson along with ’94 Maddux. Gibson set the HR/9 limit at 0.32

I’ve seen some write-ups espousing the virtue of ’36 Paul Waner, but I chose the ’30 Waner instead. He’s joined by ’25 Max Carey and ’87 Tony Gwynn in the OF. ’29 Lew Fonseca is back at 1B and one of my favorite 2B was finally allowed to make an appearance; ’20 Rogers Hornsby. Next to Rollins at 3B is another favorite; ’76 George Brett. C is a three-headed Cerberus of ’39 Padgett, ’24 Earl Smith, and ’38 Earle Brucker.

Maddux and Gibson are flanked by ’33 Carl Hubbell and ’42 Mort Cooper in the rotation since they are better values and underrated performers. There’s only five guys in the bullpen, lead by ’44 Joe Berry’s 118 IP, and then some effective short-IP pieces.

Hitters: .345/.406/.498
Pitchers: 1473 IP, .201 OAV, 0.92 WHIP, 1.75 BB/9, 0.24 HR/9

Variable Cap Minus XY
$156M, 3 franchises, 8 seasons

An interesting theme that I’m sure I could have optimized better with thought and effort, but alas…

1908 was again an obvious and easy choice to start building the roster with, and it brings ’08 Walsh, ’08 Mathewson, and ’08 Mordecai Brown on board. I expanded the season pool to fold in ’18 Toney and ’16 Schupp for lots of extra IP without stretching the season range too much further. ’58 Latman is here too, but only as an accompaniment to the ’58 Willie Mays. This is another really thin bullpen as the rest are just filler mop-up guys. The SP will definitely be available in relief for this team.

Offensively we borrowed heavily from 1930 to add Bill Terry, Freddy Lindstrom, Hack Wilson, and Mel Ott to the team. 1886 King Kelly, ’58 Mays, ’36 Luke Appling, and ’29 Rogers Hornsby are the other one-offs. I’m sure we have too many HR to work well against what sounds like a heavily deadball league, so hopes aren’t high for this squad. I can already see obvious mistakes I could have avoided with more careful consideration.

Hitters: .357/.434/.570
Pitchers: 1654 IP, .203 OAV, 0.89 WHIP, 1.45 BB/9, 0.17 HR/9

Theme 1: Tried to squeeze as many innings & counting stats into the theme constraints. Ended up with . . . meh.
Theme 2: Went with Walsh & Thompson after trying a few others then did a standard OL team.
Theme 3: Maddux gave me access to the Cubs/Braves/Dodgers so I went with him. Added Pete Alexander & Jack Pfiester to the rotation and Kershaw/Smoltz/Chapman et al to the pen.
Theme 4: Thought of 5 for pitching using Baldwin/Tudor/Young/Plank for the rotation. Added Mariano/Charlton/Wade Davis et al to the pen. Went with 7 for the hitters after trying several others using Musial/Yaz/Gwynn/Kaline/Trammell/Posey etc for the lineup.
Theme 5: Built this like one like a normal team for this cap only loosely considering Round 2. Boggs/Gehringer/Gwynn/Gehrig/Heilmann/Speaker/Dickey/Nomar. Chance/Hershiser/Koufax/DeGrom plus Kershaw/Chapman/Britton/Giles/Adams/Romo. Max hr/9 of .52 and hr's of 37.
Theme 6: Immediately thought of and went with the Cubs then added Ruth & Gehrig. Using 9 seasons and 2 teams for a $162m roster.

Despite 18 years of experience on this site, this is my first venture into this amazing tournament....and despite 18 years of experience on this site, this tournament has already been the biggest learning experience I've had here. Especially this forum. I've been able to put together fairly competitive teams in the past, but you magnificent b*statrds are f*cking next level. I love it and respect you all so much!

For all of my teams, I used the same strategy I've used for as long as I could remember... Have a few cocktails, smoke a little more weed than usual, then have fun drafting a team that I hope will be competitive. I look for pitchers based mainly on ERC, WHIP, BB/9, HR/9. I look for hitters based mainly on OBP, sometimes more AVG, low HRs, usually good defensive range, but never enough actual good defense...then I blame all of my unearned runs on the fake players I drafted, and not the fact that I drafted them.

I honestly don't have much insight into any of my individual teams that I haven't seen mentioned here, but I'll do my best...

$70M: If You A'int First, You're Last.
Strategy: Have a few cocktails, smoke a little more weed than usual, then have fun drafting a team that I hope will be competitive within the rules of the theme.
Hitters: 4,863 PA (yikes), .291/.345/.377
Pitchers: 1,509 IP, 1.12 WHIP, .243 OAV, 4.76 K/9, 1.73 BB/9, .34 HR/9
Yearbook Award: Most Likely to Be the First Team I've Ever Drafted Under $80M.

$90M: My Speaker is a Johnson.
Strategy: Have a few cocktails, smoke a little more weed than usual, then have fun drafting a team that I hope will be competitive within the rules of the theme. I used Tris Speaker because I like him (and also almost used him for the $110M theme). I used Walter Johnson because I like him, too....although I almost definitely invested too much in the wrong one for this league.
Hitters: 4,990 PA (yikes, again), .299/.377/.410
Pitchers: 1,439 IP (kinda light in the bullpen), 1.01 WHIP, .221 OAV, 5.33 K/9, 1.88 BB/9, .49 HR/9
Yearbook Award: Most Likely to Have the Wrong Roger Conner for This League.

$110M: It's Rickey's Team.
Strategy: Have a few cocktails, smoke a little more weed than usual, then have fun drafting a team that I hope will be competitive within the rules of the theme. This is the fisrt team I thought about drafting, and the last team I finalized. Mainly because I thought of Rickey as soon as I read the theme, but then considered many others based on their franchise and/or position (OF or RP). Ultimately I went with one of my childhood idols. Using seasons from the A's and Yanks was a no-brainer, and my original idea was to use his '93 Jays tenure as my third version. I swapped that out for his $1.09M 2002 season with the Red Sox, because my research showed the Red Sox' rich history would provide a much bigger and better player pool to choose from than the Blue Jays.
Hitters: 5,718 PA, .298/.403/.426
Pitchers: 1,453 IP, 0.93 WHIP, .209 OAV, 7.18 K/9, 1.58 BB/9, .25 HR/9
Yearbook Award: Least Likely to Have a Positive "Tinkering/Effectiveness" Ratio.

$120M: My Numbers Are Three and Five.
Strategy: Have a few cocktails, smoke a little more weed than usual, then have fun drafting a team that I hope will be competitive within the rules of the theme. I probably didn't do enough research for this one. I just trusted that any combination of numbers would work within this cap. Looking at my team, it looks like I was in a K/BB mood. Not just for my pitchers (hey, there's that 1915 Walter Johnson I overpayed for earlier...I'm sure he'll be exactly the same in this league....), but all of my nine regular hitters have at least a 2/1 BB/K ratio. It's a bold strategy. Let's see how it plays out.
Hitters: 6,126 PA, .312/.417/.439
Pitchers: 1,574 IP, 0.96 WHIP, .212 OAV, 7.48 K/9, 1.74 BB/9, .43 HR/9
Yearbook Award: Most Likely to Almost Sniff a .500 Record.

$130M: [expletive deleted]
Strategy: Have a few cocktails, smoke a little more weed than usual, then have fun drafting hitters for a team that I hope will score loads of runs. I very rarely draft hitting before pitching, but I did for this league. I settled on a 6 HR max and sorted by SLG. As a result, my pitching suffered, and I'm especially unhappy about my 0.56 HR/9 max (in the unlikely scenario of advancing to Round 2....good thing I play at the Palace of the Phans)
Hitters: 5,672 PA, .365/.438/.511
Pitchers: 1,377 IP (CRAP!), 0.95 WHIP, .187 OAV, 9.52 K/9, 2.60 BB/9, .46 HR/9
Yearbook Award: Most Likely to Look Kinda Okayish at the All Star Break, Then Fall Into a Tailspin of Pitcher's Fatigue.

$1XXM: 1:56 Silver Streak.
Strategy: Have a few cocktails, smoke a little more weed than usual, then make many mistakes drafting a team that will not be competitive within the rules of the theme. Oh how I wish I'd used only one franchise. Unfortunately, my jumping off point was to a specific team/season, then see how few changes I needed to make to have a competitive team. My jumping off point was the 1888 St. Louis Browns. Cool. Silver King and Elton Chamberlain. But I also kept the rest of their pitchers. All I did was add 1913 Walter Johnson. Then I ended up saving only two hitters from the 1888 Browns. Tip O'Neill (but not THE Tip O'Neill) and Chippy McGarr (because Chippy McGarr). I figured $150-160M was the sweet spot for this league, which looks about right, so there's that. I filled out a lineup I thought might work, then filled my bench with low $ players that fit within those years/seasons. I ended up with players from four teams and six seasons.
19 Hitters: 6,588 PA, .336/408/.489
6 Pitchers: 1,809 IP, 0.92 WHIP, .199 OAV, 4.41 K/9, 1.49 BB/9, .16 HR/9
Yearbook Award: Most Likely to Have At Least 23 Players Finish at 100% Health.


I pay to play on this site because I have fun with it. The most fun I have is drafting a team from scratch. Having six fun themes to draft was incredibly fun. Thanks very much to ozomatli for the great themes, and for putting this all together. When I signed up for this tournament, I assumed I'd be a punching bag. On paper, it looks like that's true. If any of my teams finish .500, it'll be a bonus. I seriously respect and admire all of you lunatics so much. I look forward to my first trip into this madness! Thank you to all the commissioners, and good luck to everyone!!

Posted by mllama54 on 8/12/2019 4:02:00 PM (view original):

Posted by redcped on 8/12/2019 4:00:00 PM (view original):
mllama, our variable cap teams are going to be quite similar. At least 6 of the same starting hitters and top two SP.

Was expecting to see the 1894 Phillies in action on a few rosters.

So was I.

Well, that makes me (and my #75 ranking) feel a little better.... I'm actually seeing some of my own thought processes mirrored in several of these write-ups... maybe I'll put one up so everyone can see how a 66th place manager thinks...

Posted by hurst47 on 8/12/2019 9:21:00 PM (view original):
Theme 1: Tried to squeeze as many innings & counting stats into the theme constraints. Ended up with . . . meh.
Theme 2: Went with Walsh & Thompson after trying a few others then did a standard OL team.
Theme 3: Maddux gave me access to the Cubs/Braves/Dodgers so I went with him. Added Pete Alexander & Jack Pfiester to the rotation and Kershaw/Smoltz/Chapman et al to the pen.
Theme 4: Thought of 5 for pitching using Baldwin/Tudor/Young/Plank for the rotation. Added Mariano/Charlton/Wade Davis et al to the pen. Went with 7 for the hitters after trying several others using Musial/Yaz/Gwynn/Kaline/Trammell/Posey etc for the lineup.
Theme 5: Built this like one like a normal team for this cap only loosely considering Round 2. Boggs/Gehringer/Gwynn/Gehrig/Heilmann/Speaker/Dickey/Nomar. Chance/Hershiser/Koufax/DeGrom plus Kershaw/Chapman/Britton/Giles/Adams/Romo. Max hr/9 of .52 and hr's of 37.
Theme 6: Immediately thought of and went with the Cubs then added Ruth & Gehrig. Using 9 seasons and 2 teams for a $162m roster.

Wait, did you say your Theme 5 team has a HR high of 37? So if you advance you need an entire lineup above that? That will be fun!

Garmansouth's team has a high of 49. I'm rooting for him to make Round 2 because of it.