Posted by Jtpsops on 8/13/2019 2:33:00 PM (view original):

Posted by schwarze on 8/13/2019 1:54:00 PM (view original):
newarkwilder is the first person who posted here who has fewer HR/9 allowed than I do in the 130M theme. I'm at 0.19. He's at 0.18. Looking forward to seeing all the theme summaries.

You must have missed my writeup. I'm at 0.10 HR/9

I read them all, but missed that tidbit. Impressive.

Posted by BigScungil on 8/13/2019 2:45:00 PM (view original):
Fabulous write-up! I am digging it!
Give Peace a Shantz has to be my favorite tam name so far.
I fear facing a team with an .094 WHIP in the 110M league.

Agreed. Fantastic writeup calhoop!

Posted by ozomatli on 8/13/2019 1:26:00 PM (view original):
We did have one owner take 2003 Eric Gagne in the 90M league. That is something I did not expect to see.

(FWIW, Gagne ranks pretty low on Value Index)

I will savour every one of his 83 innings like a fine wine.

Posted by loyalcanuck on 8/13/2019 5:20:00 PM (view original):

Posted by ozomatli on 8/13/2019 1:26:00 PM (view original):
We did have one owner take 2003 Eric Gagne in the 90M league. That is something I did not expect to see.

(FWIW, Gagne ranks pretty low on Value Index)

I will savour every one of his 83 innings like a fine wine.

Staying true to your name at least....

Posted by schwarze on 8/13/2019 5:13:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Jtpsops on 8/13/2019 2:33:00 PM (view original):

Posted by schwarze on 8/13/2019 1:54:00 PM (view original):
newarkwilder is the first person who posted here who has fewer HR/9 allowed than I do in the 130M theme. I'm at 0.19. He's at 0.18. Looking forward to seeing all the theme summaries.

You must have missed my writeup. I'm at 0.10 HR/9

I read them all, but missed that tidbit. Impressive.

We'll see how impressive it is. I may have gone a little lower than needed at the expense of some worse SP. On the very outside chance I get to Round 2, I'll be in good shape for this team though.

First of all, a disclaimer – between when I signed up to participate in the WISC and when I started my teams, I experienced a significant reduction in my interest in SLB. If I hadn’t already been committed to the league I would not have entered. So while I won’t be mentioning this on every team, in virtually all cases I was trying to build a team that a) wouldn’t take an undue amount of time and research to design and b) wouldn’t require any micromanaging during the season. So yes, I overdrafted innings in all of the leagues. I don’t want to be closely monitoring the fatigue of my pitching staffs. My goal here is to basically set it and forget it.

$70 Million – Cinergistic

This may well be my worst team – and that’s really saying something. Looking at the team now, I’m really not sure what I was thinking. I went into it looking for some power and speed, since those have traditionally been underpriced. It didn’t really work out. There just aren’t any Tony Armas types, affordable power bats, in this player pool. The effective base thieves don’t get on base enough to be effective. So I reversed course and tried to put a few guys with decent OBP at the top of the lineup and a few guys with decent XBH potential at the bottom. In the middle I did invest in rookie Fred Lynn to lead my offense. These guys might hit for just enough average to work out offensively. I think the lineup is ok. The problem is that I then went out and spent money on an A+ arm at catcher (’66 Randy Hundley) and focused on a pitching staff that would keep the ball in the yard. What was I thinking? If the power and speed aren’t in the player pool, why did I design my pitching staff and defense to prevent power and speed? By the time I recognized this obvious mistake rosters were locked. Oh well.

I know I’m not competitive in the lower-cap leagues because they aren’t sufficiently restrictive. I haven’t played an OL in upwards of a decade (or maybe over a decade). I haven’t played a league without a draft or restrictive drafting rules in 4 or 5 years. Basically haven’t been in a league with this much draft flexibility since before dynamic pricing, so I have literally no idea who the current generation of cookies are and, more importantly, what makes a cookie. I can try to eyeball what looks overpriced and underpriced atm, but without a lot of work it’s mostly guesswork. Guys who play OLs are going to crush me here. Combine that with my poor pitching staff design and unnecessary investment in stolen base prevention, and I think this team will be lucky to win 68 games. I do think Fred Lynn should be solidly in the MVP race, however.

5057 PAs .287/.361/.443 + 5 scrubs to fill in the holes
1342 IP .240/1.08/.22 OAV/WHIP/HR/9 + 27 mop-up innings

I already predicted 68 wins for this team. Take the under.

$90 Million – The Fabulous Hendrix Brouthers

Like many owners, I decided pretty much right away that I wanted Claude Hendrix as my pitching albatross/ace. He’s not at the bottom end of the price range, but he is near the bottom of the range in $/IP, and he’s just a guy with whom I’ve always had fairly good results. My batter is going to be 1886 Dan Brouthers. I tried really hard to find somebody I liked more than Brouthers. It felt really dumb to use my high salary spot on a first baseman when there are so many reasonably-priced first basemen in the database who can hit in the middle of the lineup at this cap. In the end, though, I just couldn’t find anyone in the $9-$10 million range that I felt would make an equivalent anchor to my lineup. 1886 Brouthers flat-out rakes. He averages something close to 50 doubles and 20 HRs with a ridiculous average and OBP in his performance history. That’s just nuts. In the end, I don’t feel bad about the choice, even if he is playing in the easiest roster spot to fill.

Filling in the team was the real problem. This is where lack of OL experience really burns me. This team has 1967 Dick Allen manning third base. I mention this because Dick Allens are going to be a real theme of my WISC rosters. I seem to really love me some Dick Allen. It’s funny because he’s never a guy I’ve used very much, but maybe that was true for enough other people that dynamic pricing has really helped him. Most of his best seasons normalize very favorably, and he accumulates lots of XBH. I drafted another low-OBP, A+ arm catcher here to control my opponents run game and drive in some runs from the 8 hole in the person of 2016 Evan Gattis. Pitching-wise, I rounded out the starting staff with two total randos – 1919 Frank Miller and 1914 Jack Warhop. I’ve never even heard of these dudes, but I liked the stat lines relative to the price. This was a pretty simple process – divide remaining money for my pitching staff by 1000 target innings, round up, and find the best pitchers under that $/IP number. I also have a couple of mediocre long men in 1917 Eddie Plank and 1909 Deacon Phillippe, who should give me plenty of length in the bullpen. I do also have ’64 Bobby Shantz, so there’s a little bit of cookie power on this team.

5400 PAs .303/.393/.503 +1 scrub
1407 IP .219/.98/.26 +1 mopup

I’m not really sure how significantly I overdrafted PAs and IPs for Weegham, which is Wrigley. I know my lack of experience in roster-flexible leagues hurts me, but I do think this is better than my $70 million team. I’m predicting 74 wins.

$110 Million – Bostodelphia Phighting Foxxes

I started out this team with a pitching staff. I knew I wanted Bill Bernhard. I knew I wanted 1906 Tully Sparks. I fairly quickly decided I wanted the 3^rd guy to be 1908 Cy Young, though I can’t now recall why. I’m probably going to regret that one. In any case, I pulled up BBR’s multi-team player search tool and looked for relief pitchers who played for the Philles, Red Sox, and A’s or Indians (preferred A’s, they have so many fun offensive options from their early history). I couldn’t find anybody I really liked, but then I noticed that I could get that old standby of all sorts of clone leagues, Double X. Lots of seasons to choose from with the A’s and Red Sox, but I went with 1939 – reasonably affordable, hits some doubles – and 1928 – an excellent defender at both 3B and C. Foxx’s one qualifying Phillies season – 1945 – is basically a throw-away season, though he will be just good enough to back up the slightly low PAs of ’39 Foxx at first. I could have gone either way with my ’28 Foxx, and Cochrane was a very tempting catching option. In the end, though, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to get another Dick Allen on one of my teams, so I’ll be starting the Foxxy Gentleman ( I should have named this team Foxxy Gentlemen) at catcher, where he does have an A+ arm. I have 1912 Eddie Collins hitting leadoff and 2004 Bobby Abreu in an outfield spot. I’ve always felt this Abreu is a little underrated, he does everything pretty well – steals bases, has double and HR power, hit .300 IRL. I spent $10+ million on 1899 Ed Delahanty, and my last outfield spot is a platoon of 1955 Elmer Valo and 1919 Gavvy Cravath that should really tear it up in the 2-hole. I like this lineup. The team is going to score some runs.

I’ve got 1944 Joe Berry as the star of the bullpen for the Phighting Foxxes. I have a bunch of fairly mediocre (for the cap) short relievers and two 100+ inning Long B types in 1982 Tom Burgmeier and 2013 Clay Buchholz. I think the pitching staff will struggle about as much as the lineup will succeed. By an odd twist of historical fate, this 3-franchise team had only two stadium options. I’m not sure my pitching staff could ever have survived in Fenway Park, so we’re playing in Shibe. It’s not going to give us any kind of homefield advantage, but it’s fine.

After taking out 2 $200k bats and 25 mopup innings:

5760 PAs .329/.423/.517
1431 IP .212/.96/.21

Even without being in Fenway, this team is likely going to be near the top of the league in both runs scored and allowed. I’ll call it 79 wins, but that’s probably too optimistic.

$120 Million – 7,8 Lay Them Straight

Like most of the league, I took my pitching here on the 8s. Like most of the people who did this, I’m using ’08 Walsh and ’18 Johnson as my rotation. Nothing to see here. Move along.

I do have ’38 Dizzy Dean, 1888 Bill George, and 1988 Bob Milacki on this team. Lots of 2007 OL cookies on a 1.5x OL cap team. Not sure what to make of that.

I picked the 7s for my bat. I don’t know why. I made that decision very quickly, and I honestly can’t remember why. Looking at the team now, there was probably a better option. With that said, I think it’s a fine lineup. I’ve got another Dick driving in runs. I’ve got 2007 Big Papi on first, 2017 Jose Ramirez on 2^nd, and 1927 Travis Jackson at SS. I’ve never used Jackson, but he looks like in many ways a Jose Ramirez-lite – will hit for an adequate average with some XBH, not a great OBP but should drive in some runs from the bottom third, and with pretty nice range in the field. My outfield is ’17 Speaker, ’47 Williams, and ’37 Bob Johnson, with ’97 Tony Gwynn at DH. Williams is a $10 million outfielder who hits under .350, probably not a good value in the modern sim. Bob Johnson is a $6 million outfielder who hit .306, normalizes terribly, and plays mediocre defense. But he does draw walks, if anybody drafted any pitchers who walk anybody. Hey, a guy can hope. Oh yeah, and ’77 Tenace will be doing the catching. Reaaallllyyyy hoping for those walks.

I’ve got 4 scrubs and 26 mopup innings to subtract, leaving me with:

5619 PAs .323/.421/.547
1396 IP .194/.89/.14

The hitting looks worse than my $110 million team. With that being said, the pitching staff is virtually identical to everyone else’s pitching staff, so how bad can they be? I’ll be optimistic and call it 80 wins.

$130 Million – Less Calm than Advertised

If my projections are anything near accurate, I don’t need to worry about the next round. I still drafted as if I should at least be thinking about it, since that seemed like the fair way to go.

I wasn’t all that worried about HR totals. I don’t think it’s hard at all to build a very good $130 million offense around guys with mid-teens or higher HR totals. Yeah, it rules out Honus Wagner. That’s ok. You can still use some Arky Vaughans or ’99 Derek Jeter. I’ll be ok. I ended up setting my cap at 14 for ’41 Pete Reiser, who I really wanted in CF for this team. I also have 2012 Joey Votto with 14, 2008 Mark Teixeira with 13, and 2006 Mauer with 13, but I could have found other guys for any of them with no discomfort at all. It was Reiser who set the bar. The rest of the lineup consists of 2014 Jose Altuve, ’88 Wade Boggs, ’25 Dave Bancroft, ’20 Speaker, and ’22 Cobb. I pretty much went super classic, lots of guys who hit for average, lots of doubles, and stick ‘em in a doubles park. Probably the same thing 75 other owners did…

My pitching staff is based on ’33 Carl Hubbell, ’96 Kevin Brown, and ’97 Roger Clemens in the rotation. I figure everybody’s going to try to hit for average, so took the guys who had the least unacceptable HR/9 totals that could actually minimize hits allowed at the price I wanted to pay. I probably spent way too much on the bullpen for this team, it’s solid top-to-bottom and I would probably have been better off with a couple of Long B types and a rotation upgrade. Oh well. My HR/9 caps at 0.32 (1944 Joe Berry again), which is really a higher number than I wanted. If by some random miracle or strange twist of fate I wind up in the 2^nd round, that’s going to be an obstacle for sure.

I’ve got 2 batting scrubs removed, although they’re both $400+K and not all that scrubby. No mop-ups here. All the innings are basically decent. Not a good design for a pitching staff, I know.

5529 PAs .356/.439/.518
1416 IP .208/.94/0.25

Ironic that this pitching staff actually gives up the 3^rd-highest HR/9 of any team that I entered. I think lack of knowledge of the current sim really hurt me on this team. I don’t like the design of my pitching staff, and I suspect guys who’ve been playing a lot lately had better ideas who would perform well on both sides of the ball. I think this team really struggles. 69 wins.

Variable Cap – Lowballed the Cap ($160 Million)

When I named this team, I really suspected that most people were going to be using a higher cap than I am. It looks like in reality most people found what I did; that is, there isn’t a great way to efficiently use a cap above the low $160Ms. I should also say that I put by far the most time into this team. It was a fun build.

Like a lot of people, I immediately thought about using Silver King. You get King and Chamberlain and you get 60% of the innings for a really nice high-cap pitching staff with 1 franchise-year combo, and it’s a franchise with decent general appeal. Unfortunately, I think dynamic pricing has really made the King into a niche player for $130-$140 million franchise leagues and uncapped or high-cap draft leagues. His pricetag is fair, but at fair prices you have to maximize his innings. It’s hard to consistently get 100+ pitches out of your starters at caps this high. I abandoned the idea.

I briefly toyed with using 1908, but I haven’t had great luck with those guys at $160 million (except Joss, who is just a boss). I decided to base my staff around 1910 Walsh and 1915 Alexander. These guys normalize a little bit better than the 1908 guys. I initially thought I might go with a 3x3 or 3x4, but I quickly found that I wasn’t able to spend $170 million efficiently in any 3x4 block I could design. I pulled in the 1895 Phillies, as some others have. Took the entire starting outfield as well as Jack Clements at catcher. I added 1994 just for Frank Thomas, who was a huge upgrade over my first base options. To round things out, I added a new year and franchise to get the 2015 Dodgers on board. I get a couple of adequate bullpen pieces from them, as well as Koufax and Greinke. Greinke is filling out the rotation and Kershaw is going into the pen since I like using a left-handed long man behind right-handed starters. I rounded things out by grabbing the pre-1900 Orioles so I could add Hughie Jennings and John McGraw to round out my infield (I’ve got 1915 Eddie Collins on 2^nd).

Overall, I’ve got 4 franchises (Phillies, White Sox, Dodgers, Orioles) and 5 seasons (1895, 1910, 1915, 1994, 2015). That 79-year gap between seasons is interesting, just a fun tidbit in my drafting footnotes.

Take out 2 scrubs and 29 mopup innings, leaving:

6443 PAs .362/.450/.549
1554 IP .192/.86/.36

Tough to get a read on this league, but I’m cautiously optimistic about this team. The bullpen is kinda janky, but the starters are solid, and I like the lineup. I don’t know how much it will hurt that I’m carrying 4 starting bats who don’t accumulate XBH (Hamilton, Collins, Jennings, McGraw). They should get on base a lot. It should be enough to score some runs. I’m going to say 88 wins.

In the $70M league, my WHIP is 1.05 (not normalized) and I have one of the highest BAV in my league and the theme, according to write-ups (.309- not normalized) I have no defense, speed, or power to speak of.... But if I can manage my pitching staff, on paper, it is one of the best in my league (and entire themed- again, according to write-ups).. I'm feeling like this theme could be a positive for me, even though I truly had no clue what I was doing when building the roster. I probably just jinxed myself....

$70M - Lowered Expectations - Petco Park
5270 PA's, .276 BA, .746 OPS
1389 IP's, .248 AVG, 1.14 WHIP, 0.17 HR/9

I went with a different approach and avoided lots of SB's figuring most owners would line up A+ catchers. I also sacrificed some D in order to get a decent OPS, hoping that it would offset the range/fielding bases I expect to give up. Platoons at COF, 3B, and C seemed fairly standard. Because these games tend to be low-scoring, I really tried to find that edge on offence to avoid lots of extra-inning games. Garret Anderson is my real difference maker and I hope he can hit well enough to win some all games. This is the one team where I spent much more on position players versus pitching. I chose Petco Park to help my pitchers out while hoping the offence can utilize the gap power to their advantage.

Decided to ride some deadball pitchers, even though the opp avg is a little higher than desired. Home runs should be a rarity against my team, again hoping the added offence will be enough to sneak in some wins. My biggest issue is always deciding on IP's for my staff. Through the years, I notice the best owners are able to sneak by with just enough innings that allow them to allocate max money to position players. I may have too many IP's, but if there are a lot of extra-inning games early, I will be thankful for them.

I feel my decision to avoid an all-defence and speed team will go one of two ways: brilliant or plain stupid. I doubt this team will linger around .500. I imagine either 90+ wins or fewer than 70.

$90M - Eagle-Eyed Mays and Walsh - Candlestick Park
5763 PA's, .267 BA, .778 OPS
1503 IP's, .225 AVG, 1.01 WHIP, 0.12 HR/9

Seeing as how 2 players had to be over $9M, I wanted my #3 hitter and #1 starter to be those guys. The other thing I wanted was flexibility, so my chosen eagles had to be as little above the $9M mark as possible. With those parameters, I settled on Willie Mays. He has power, speed, and plays solid defence. This is what I want from my #3 hitter. I gave him a couple low-average, high HR running mates in Ed Sprague and Tom Brunansky. They will not impress on defence, but I spent extra on pitching and picked a slight pitcher's park in Candlestick to offset that deficiency. Max Carey leads off and should score plenty of runs. Only platoons at C and 2B and the bench is pretty unspectacular.

I see a lot of deGrom's out there, but '09 Walsh was the only one who really fit my plan and the $40K rule. Kept the other 3 starters in the low $8M range and chose all deadball guys again. On the plus side, these deadballers have a much better opp avg than the $70M team. Only recent reliever is '14 Soria, as I always prefer a high K closer to finish teams off. Contact late in close games scares me, especially with average-at-best defence. Spent more on pitching than positions, which is my norm.

I liked my pitching, and I love Mays with Carey leading off. If Sprague and Brunansky can hit a few dingers, this should be an 85-87 win team. If not, could be a long season...

$110M - Simmons Cubed - Navin Stadium
5874 PA's, .306 BA, .881 OPS
1604 IP's, .211 AVG, 0.97 WHIP, 0.15 HR/9

I was shocked to see nobody else in my league with Al Simmons. He hits for average, power, and plays strong D. I see plenty of Speaker teams and knew that this would be a thing. This is the team I worked on the longest, so I feel good about it. I tried about 7 teams revolving around SP's or RP's. I have always wanted a Pete Rose themed team, but couldn't get him to work. I had a decent Beltran team built but my Speaker team was much better statistically. I was expecting to go with it until I tried Simmons and was blown away by the available talent when using him. There may be statistically stronger Speaker teams out there, but I personally could not build one better than my Simmons team. My next goal was to defend against the multiple Speaker teams I knew would be coming. I chose Navin Stadium to boost my HR's as I chose a potent power lineup all the way through. Navin also has a slight disadvantage for doubles, hoping this would help a bit with the doubles onslaught expected by the Speaker teams. The team is strong defensively with no platoons. It is a heavy right-handed hitting lineup which could cause some problems versus tough righties but I should tee-off on lefties.

A third straight 4-man rotation for my teams is also loaded with deadball with low opp avg. .92 Eck will close and everyone else in the pen other than mopup is from an earlier generation. White, Walsh, Bender, and Morgan should do a decent job keeping the runs down.

Because I actually worked harder on this team than any other, and because I specifically looked to mitigate the Speaker teams, I feel really good about this team. If they can hold their own versus righties, this could be a 90 win team. I expect at least a wild card from these cats.

$120M - 3 plus 8 = mediocrity - Metropolitan Stadium
6594 PA's, .297 BA, .831 OPS
1659 IP's, .216 AVG, 0.96 WHIP, 0.40 HR/9

Smaller OPS than my Simmons team with a bigger budget. I focused more on defence here and picked a hitter-friendly park. Lots of HR power with some great speed at the top of the lineup. I did not use the 3's for any particular reason. I wanted to get Joe Morgan on one of my teams and McCarver is one of my favourite platoon catchers. They both had quality seasons that fell on a 3, so I went with it.

The 8's were an obvious choice, but other than RP Dizzy Dean, the others I chose my be a bit of a surprise. Denny McLain is the wild card as his HR/9 is pretty high for a higher-cap league. He strikes out a lot of batters and his opp avg is low so maybe that will help... It better, as this is the only 3-man rotation I have so he will be up often. Filthy Edwin Diaz closes, and the RP core is very solid.

Spent little time on this one so not a lot of expectations. Playing .500 and not letting this team single-handedly keep me from competing overall would be a good goal. They are off to a hot start, so hopefully they can maintain some of that momentum moving forward.

$130M - Just Enough Power? - Royals Stadium
5608 PA's, .323 BA, .895 OPS
1710 IP's, .205 AVG, 0.96 WHIP, 0.35 HR/9

My first issue was to decide how many HR's I wanted to max out at in the off chance I sneak into the cage. I always play with the thought I can win, even if history proves that to be futile. I settled on 14, but with one caveat. I was going to platoon the hell out of this team so they can produce at a better clip than the raw HR number. I did select a stadium that slows the HR roll, just in case I ran into a bunch of teams who decided "the hell with round 2" and trot out 40+ HR guys everywhere. The added boost to singles, doubles, and triples was an attempt to maximize the doubles hitters and high average guys I had. In hindsight, that choice probably helps the low HR teams even more so this would be my big do-over if I could turn back time. Probably would have settled on on pitcher's park to be safe. Defence is very strong on this team as well. Speaker, Cronin, and Cirillo are my only 3 everday players and should set the tone near the top of the lineup. Because of the platoon situation, there is never a slouch on the bench. My only fatigue fear is if I see an abnormal amount of lefties, as I usually lean on the side of seeing more righties when selecting PA's for positional platooning.

On the pitching side, I felt comfortable with a little higher HR/9, hoping most teams went with low HR's to keep all options on the table for round 2. That being said, I also went with a lot of high K RP's like Putz, Betances, and Soriano. My rotation avoided deadballers and their K rate is also respectable. The theory was that if you had low power, high OPS, the defence would kick in to keep it close. High HR teams just letting it fly often come with high K rate players and I wanted them to whiff a ton instead of parking it over the fence. I honestly have no clue if this strategy holds any weight, but it just seemed reasonable inside my head.

The platoons should give me decent lineup balance versus righties and lefties and with a solid defence and good overall pitching, I feel pretty good about this team. A different park in hindsight may have scored me a few extra wins but I feel this should be an 81-85 win team.

Variable Cap - $166 Million Cleveland Cardinals - Jacobs Field
6433 PA's, .327 BA, .921 OPS
1814 IP's, .191 AVG, 0.90 WHIP, 0.34 HR/9

My first instinct was going with a single franchise and I built two pretty good ones with Cleveland and the Chicago White Sox. Afterall, 1 X anything is just the anything. Adding a 2nd franchise automatically halves your available years if you are trying to reach a certain cap goal. Then something magical happened. During some of my searches for top players by year, I was noticing that there was often Cardinals and Indians in the top 10 in same years. So I started making pairs that put top guys in each position: '48 Boudreau and Musial, '53 Rosen and Schoendienst, '07 Pujols and Victor Martinez. This was the start I was looking for. They were not necessarily the best players of that year, but they were very near to the top. Only Musial is not an A range defensively but with a 1.152 OPS, I decided I could live with him. Curt Flood was the only "filler" starter, mostly because his consistency allowed me to build everything else and I was able to find a Flood with a corresponding payroll to plug in. The only thing that will keep this team from scoring a lot of runs is the fact that at this cap, everyone has strong D and killer pitching. There is enough AVG and OPS to hit dingers on high HR/9 opponents and reach base against deadballers. I felt fortunate to find this combo on the position side.

As for the pitching, my second 3-man rotation is full of surprises. With the stud Joss every third game, we should be ok. Gibson starting every third game also gives me some hope. '08 Raymond is the wild card. At this cap, any opp avg above .200 can get dicey and his .207 opp avg definitely scares me a bit. Really hoping his run support is strong and he can manage to pitch a bit above his head. He is the difference between a +.500 team or a -.500 team in my opinion. I was able to score my entire BP in three seasons: 1968, 2007, and 2014. Higher HR/9 rate with high K/9 rate will make it quite the late inning tightrope act. I chose Jacobs Field to mitigate some of the power by opponents. The opp avg of the BP is solid though, so really hoping Tiant and Carrasco don't give up too much as they will be leaned on heavily for long relief innings.

The fact that I was able to use $166 million gives me hope. I see plenty of teams with a smaller payroll. I feel the added money that I could spend on my roster overall should show up in the final tally. Whether this translates into wins or not remains to be seen but I feel this should be a .500 team at worst with a decent shot at 88+ wins.

Conclusion

I have tried to integrate new lessons each year to tweak and improve my teams. The first year, I never paid attention to HR/9 (shocking but true). I then learned that opp avg really matters in high cap leagues. I also found out that drafting too many IP's left your offence with not enough pop to score runs. Still don't have a steady formula for how many to draft, but getting better at it. My biggest change this year was to scrap my obsession with the Jays and Expos. I am a proud Canadian, but being a "homer" will not give me much success. Perhaps a contemporary theme down the road will give me a chance to honour them once again, but no more Canadian picks for the sake of patriotism. Math dictates that at some point, I will get into the cage. Hoping this is the year, and I honestly feel better about these teams than ever before. I am still surprised how often I see in write-ups people talking about "obvious" choices for players for a particular theme or cap. Often, I have never even heard of these players. This will always be the difference. I don't know any "way" to win, just go with my gut and use some of the lessons I have learned from many great owners. I only play in one progressive league and the WISC (with occasional themes sprinkled in if I have lots of extra money!). Looking forward to how this year plays out and I wish everyone good luck and hope to see some underdogs (maybe even me) find their way to the cage!

Since I know I have no chance at the cage, I have officially jumped on the npg32433 bandwagon. Go on and give'er my fellow Canadian !!

Posted by loyalcanuck on 8/17/2019 5:43:00 PM (view original):
Since I know I have no chance at the cage, I have officially jumped on the npg32433 bandwagon. Go on and give'er my fellow Canadian !!

Thanks, eh!

From Vancouver here.Good luck to all of us Canadians out there.

This is my fourth WISC. My best finish was two years ago, when I finished 29^th. In 2018, I tried to build an algorithm to find the best players, and it was a big failure, as I slipped back into the bottom half of the field. Now I realize that I made eight major errors in building my teams. They were

1. Too many RHB and RHP. I was done in by RHP and LHB by my opponents.
2. Too much reliance on HRs. I ended up with a lot of 5 and 6 hitters and no leadoff types. Opponents can stop you from hitting HRs with the right pitchers and park. They cannot stop 2Bs and 3Bs as easily. Worse, I selected pitcher parks which neutered my offense.
3. Too many IPs and especially too many PAs. I had a vague idea of the correct number of innings, but I was clueless about PAs. Usually I would select too many. I did well in 2018’s Coors Field theme although I selected too few PAs. At least I had the right number of IP. I led the league with an ERA around 6.50.
4. Too much focus on errors and not enough on offense and range. Range is far more important.
5. Not enough attention paid to batting order in finding PAs. My leadoff hitters were prone to fatigue, while my 8 hitters had too many PAs.
6. Neglect of my bench. I focused too much on 600-650 PA players, which greatly reduced my ability to get value for my picks. By looking at the 450-600 PA players like 1925 Ty Cobb, and knowing how many PAs I needed to supplement him, I was able to spend the money I saved on him on OFs like 1968 Merv Rettenmund.
7. Low leverage pitchers. I had Tom Tellman last year, and he was a pleasant surprise. However, I spent more than $1M on him, which is too much. I focused on the 400K-600K level for my low leverage pitchers. You want low leverage pitchers for situations in lopsided games where you don’t want to use a premium reliever.
8. Ignoring IP/G. I was totally ignorant of this stat. One time I put 1908 Ed Walsh in a 3-man rotation thinking he could average almost 9 IP per start. He blew up by the end of the season. He can only go about 6 IP/G. I’ve had more success since I put him on 81 starts a season.

My new principles to correct my errors are:

1. Left is right. Not just LHB, but also a LHP who can occasionally start (watch the IP/G on these guys)
2. Huck the Fomers.
3. To err is human, to range divine.
4. Pay attention to your bench.
5. Have at least two low leverage pitchers. You can put them on Mopup or (my favorite) specialist.
6. Make sure to give your pitchers enough appearances so they can pitch their full number of innings without blowing up.

On to the teams. In addition to the slash stats, I will include RC, which is AB*OBP*SLG and RA, which is ERA/9*IP. RC and RA are inexact, but I at least wanted to see improvement as the cap got higher.
WISC 70M – First and Last – My only strategy here was to go with more rookies, as the last season tended to be poor for most players. I also picked LHB OFs with 526, 523 and 456 PAs, so I needed a cheap backup with a lot of PAs. Enter RHB Jim Lillie, who has 572 PAs for 1.47M. Yes he will suck, but he’s my insurance policy. Gus Krock, 1932 Bill Swift and Doc Ayers make a 1/2A/2B totation, with Win Kellum providing an additional LHP when needed.
.281/.356/.413/5415 PA. 703 RC
2.92/1.05/.243/1366 IP. 443 RA
WISC 90M Double Eagle - I wanted 9M players who didn’t take up too much salary, so I chose Degrom and Cy Seymour. Perhaps I should have considered Tris Speaker. Or perhaps a deadball pitcher. But I wanted to keep payroll down. The rest of the team was basically like building an OL team. I’m not good at that, but I tried.
.312/.409/.457/5382 PA. 851 RC
2.28/0.96/.221/1393 IP. 354 RA
WISC 110M 3 Franchises. I took the approach of choosing my franchises then my player. I think people who took Speaker did things backwards. It’s not about finding the best clone. It’s about leveraging your clone into the best teammates. I wanted the White Sox (08 Walsh, 17 Cicotte, 66 Wilhelm, 15 Collins) and the Pirates (04 Wagner, 28 Waner, 1896 Elmer Smith). My third franchise was going to be the Dodgers, as I originally wanted the cheapest clone seasons, and I found that Bobby Bonilla was the player for these three franchises that fit the best. I really wanted Billy Sullivan with three backup C seasons for under 1.5M. Ozomatli’s 1M/season requirement put the kibosh on that. No pitcher really fit, so I picked Bobby Bonilla. 1986 got me the White Sox for little money, 1988 was a good 3B season for Pittsburgh, especially with the glove. Bonilla’s Dodger season was another salary dump like the White Sox, but I noticed that the Dodgers only provided 1B, OF and RP, so I started looking around for a different franchise. Then a stroke of luck. I noticed that Bonilla had an Oriole season in 1995. It was a good partial season, so it didn’t cost much, and I knew the Orioles would fill the role better than the Dodgers. I got 64 Dick Hall, and Harry Rice of the St. Louis Browns (the 20^th century AL team, not the 19^th century AA team), who I moved from the OF to 1B. This is my strongest team.
.315/.404/.463/5794 PA. 920 RC
1.60/0.89/.200/1437 IP. 257 RA
WISC 120 Lucky Numbers
I started with 8 for the pitchers, getting Ed Walsh and pairing him up with 1918 Walter Johnson. Then 1998 Randy Johnson became my LH SP. 38 Dean and 88 Eckersley anchored the bullpen, along with 1888 Bill George, 1968 Vicente Romo and 2008 Sergio Romo. 58 Wilhelm and 78 John Hiller were added. I should have looked harder for a good 2018 RP. For the hitters I went with 5, with 1905 Donlin, 1915 Kauff and 1925 Cobb in the OF, 1985 Wade Boggs and 1975 Rod Carew at the top of the order, Phil Cavarretta’s 1945 was really good, 1895 Mike Tiernan made a good DH/OF, and 2005 Omar Vizquel and 1965 Earl Battey at the bottom, the latter with an A+ arm.
.334/.415/.477/6201 PA. 1058 RC
1.66/0.92/.199/1498 IP. 276 RA
WISC 1930 Calm
I went pretty high with my pitchers. I wanted to stay under .50 HR/9 for my round two team, and that meant I could go with .35 HR/9 in round 1. I got the type of pitcher Justin lee didn’t like (Chance, Clemens, Brown, Wolff). When 97 Maddux was my highest HR/9 on the team, I replaced him with Wolff so he would be available in round two. 1943 Pollet is my LH SP. The bullpen contains some big names like Rivera and Britton, so I hope they’re decent value. For my hitters I wanted round two to stay well below twenty, so I maxed out at 5 homers. This had the added bonus of giving me good defenders who weren’t very expensive. I was also able to choose SBC as a park, since I am not chasing homers. I almost picked Target, but I worried that my pitchers might need more protection than Target provides.
.358/.436/.497/5638 PA. 1053 RC
1.78/0.97/.202/1540 IP. 304 RA
WISC 168M
At least I found a way to maximize payroll with this team. I went with a single franchise, because a single season offered fewer teams to choose from. The question of which franchise was settled with the Cardinals, who are usually the best franchise. I passed on 1985 Tudor and McGee, because I wanted Silver King, Bob Gibson and Elton Chamberlain in the rotation, and I couldn’t see a place for Tudor’s innings, so I went with 1943 Howie Pollet again. Without Tudor, Mcgee looked like an expensive CF with good range but a high error rate, and not a great hitter. I got some decent RP, and I lineup that includes McGraw, O’Neill, Hornsby, Musial, Mize Ozzie and Yadier Molina. I think this team will score many runs. But then I made two blunders. I needed to max out my team to protect my 30M pitcher Silver King, but I did not pick good defenders, e.g. Musial is in CF. I could go on, but you get the idea that this team is vulnerable defensively. Then I put them in Sportsman’s Park because I had extra IP and PA, but again this weakened King considerably. I should have paid heed to the notion dahsdebater said that the extra 8M in payroll could not be spent efficiently, and I definitely proved that. I think this is my worst team.
.352/.434/.550/6049 PA. 1243 RC
1.64/0.89/.189/1584 IP. 289 RA
Strengths: Pitching, improved offense, better contact and OBP hitters. Marinerrott (Dad) gave me great advice on building my teams. Two heads are better than one.
Weaknesses: Defense is barely adequate but I do have C with A+ arms, not much speed, fatigue will be a major issue unless I get lucky, but since I’ve missed round two three times, I decided to gamble.

I write only to memorialize what I thought and did, not to claim any expertise or insight into this game. Others do it far better, and with less effort. And with more yucks -- see jbohrman's rant... Plus I hate math.

70 million. Hate this cap. no idea what I am doing except cutting my usual 140 million cap expectations and hoping for the best. I cant seem to get comfortable with drafting these whip and obp numbers. So I usually draft less innings and PAs than I should. I cant even say I have a real strategy except try to draft players with good + figures relative to their real life numbers. Looks like a bunch of other guys drafted Pol Perritt. Since he has a 6.89 ERA for me, I am guessing that others found him similarly ineffective.

Hoping for 75 wins.

90 million. Caruthers Brouthers. Love Dan Brouthers. Other than O'Connor, most reliable 9-10 million performer. Since he saved me 700k, I went with him. Then I looked at pitchers. I love the 08 Walsh (like to think I helped start the 1 -2a-2b Walsh trend, but I am sure I didn't) but at 90 million, no way. So I looked at Caruthers. Mediocre pitching stats. But I could draft better hitters with less ABs and bat him third half of the season. Sold!

85 wins.

110 million. Surround Sound Speakers. Love Tris Speaker. Best overall value in WIS. And from the other teams, looks like that cat is out of the bag. (Between the maxim "the cat is out of the bag" and "lot of ways to skin a cat" I feel like cats are a sorry bunch....) So I went with 13, 17 and 27. Not enough ABs but I got Cleveland, Red Sox, and Senators. Still, rather than use WJ or AJ, I went with Babe Ruth, to hit some and save ABs for the other players. Tried to go a little contrarian this year, and maybe avoid some of the cookies, so I could get into the Cage. Must confess, still used Bill Bernhard,

90 wins.

120 Million. 8s and Aughts. Thought I rocked this theme. 8s were a no brainer with Walsh and DeGrom. Built a great 5s hitting team with O'Connor, Cobb, Cuyler and McGee, but ran out of money. 0's gave me some depth. the 1890 O'Connor usually delivers.

So far, the team is not performing well, but I still think this is a good team.

92 wins.

130 Million -- Stormy Weather. Ignored the HR requirements for pitchers. Built my usual 130-140 mil team. I think it should be my best. A 20 Speaker, 22 Cobb, 85 McGee, even the 21 Frisch. Don't love my starters. Dean Chance sucks frankly. I didn't draft a Maddux and should have. But still, 93 wins.

162 Million -- Love this team's depth. Built on seasons, not on one team. 1906, 1920, 2017. Got so much pitching and hitting depth that I think it may be too much. 2000 innings. Not good planning in that regard. But I learned from amerk's DEAL draft that sometimes more salary doesn't mean more success. Anything above 160 m is just excess, and Babe and Barry don't actually live up to their salaries. If the 1906 Reulbach can be my swing starter/long guy, and the 2017 relievers do their job, can at least hit .500.

82 wins.

Predicting another 25th place or so finish. With luck, I make the Cage, otherwise....