Feel free to post your approaches, strategies, and any insights you care to share about this year's Round 2 team building. Please direct all hate mail about the 110M league to me... lol

Will post my own thoughts later


70M: MH Logical Journey of the Giambinis
Hitters: 4,890 PA, .251 / .386 / .449
Pitchers: 1,327 IP, 1.05 WHIP, 1.07 HR/9

90M: MH Crap or Crap
Hitters: 5,148 PA, .315 / .397 / .475
Pitchers: 1,398 IP, 1.01 WHIP, 0.48 HR/9

110M: MH 2014 Phillies
Hitters 4,859 PA, .321 / .391 / .582
Pitchers: 1,405 IP, 0.91 WHIP, 0.69 HR/9

130M: MH My Tinder Date Said WIS Is Lame
Hitters: 5,310 PA, .340 / .420 / .555, 139 HRs
Pitchers: 1,444 IP, 0.87 WHIP, 0.49 HR/9

140M: MH Eddie Collins
Hitters: 5,702 PA, .335 / .422 / .492
Pitchers: 1,455 IP, 1.01 WHIP, 0.21 HR/9

180M: MH 180 Duh
Hitters: 5,712 PA, .380 / .453 / .547
Pitchers: 1,506 IP, 0.80 WHIP, 0.30 HR/9

Alonso in Petco ($70M - Modern Baseball)

No hitter having an average over 0.260 makes it very unattractive to draft a catcher for their offensive production, especially since the ones that hit homers are generally too expensive for this salary cap. Therefore, I expect all 24 catchers in this league to be A+ arms, and that makes base stealing relatively unattractive. I do have 2 guys who can sort of steal in case someone inexplicably rosters a bad arm catcher, but I'm pretty sure the normal go to strategy at low caps is going to be very nonviable here.

For my 2019 player above $4 million, I first looked at the pitchers but I found that I did not like any of the 2019 guys for a $70M cap. Then I took a look at the hitters and found 2019 Pete Alonso. I expect to see a lot of Pete Alonso in this league, since every pitcher has to have a HR/9 above 1.

On the pitching side, requiring every pitcher to have a HR/9 above 1 means that HR's are going to be fairly plentiful in this league. Therefore, I built my pitching staff with an eye to minimizing BB/9, particularly since all hitters having an average <= 0.260 means Pitcher OAV is less important here. If my pitchers are going to give up a HR, I prefer it to be a solo shot. Since I had some issues with IP in my low cap in Round 1, I drafted about 70 more innings this time around so I don't have the same issue.

Hitter Totals 5486 PA 0.250/0.362/0.433 188 HR 121 SB
Pitcher Totals 1296 IP 3.32 ERA 1.04 WHIP 0.233 OAV 880K 217BB

The Era of Foxx, Mantle & Waner ($90M - 30s + 50s)

On the hitting side, this one was pretty much an exercise in how many commonly used players that come from the 1930s and the 1950s could one roster. That meant Paul Waner, Wally Moon, Harry Heilmann, & Jimmie Foxx. While not quite as common, Mickey Mantle is a pretty good player too.

Pitching was a little trickier. I expect almost every roster to have Carl Hubbell, and mine is no exception. In order to make the math work regarding the franchise and decade rules, I picked up Robin Roberts (a big innings eater from the 1950s) and then have a tandem of Monty Stratton and the good value Jim Hearn. Bullpen was always going to be pretty tricky, but I do have one good reliever in Hoyt Wilhelm and the others should be serviceable. I have about the same number of innings as my $90M in Round 1 (which did have fatigue issues), but this time I have much better defense so I think I should be ok.

Hitter Totals 5544 PA 0.301/0.384/0.472 132 HR 45 SB
Pitcher Totals 1361 IP 2.40 ERA 1.02 WHIP 0.223 OAV 624K 274BB

Twisted Teammates of the 86 Reds ($110M - Two Degree Twist)

This one was the hardest theme that I've seen in the WISC - yes, harder than the $70M Chain theme that came out a couple of years ago. Before the changes, I was seriously considering not participating because the original rules were so restrictive that just trying to build a legal team would have been a major accomplishment, regardless of whether that team was anywhere close to being a $110M team.

Even after the changes, this one was an extremely challenging team to build. I tried building a team from the late 1920s/early 1930s, the 1940s, and the late 1990s/early 2000s but I could never get a team that I was happy with. In the end, I settled for a team from the 1980s - I'm sure it was possible to build a better roster from a different era, but this one is solid at everything (pitching, defense, stolen bases, power) and I wasn't willing to put even more hours into this thing trying to get a perfect team.

Hitting 5763 PA 0.292/0.378/0.467 168 HR 223 SB
Pitching 1412 IP 2.00 ERA 0.97 WHIP 881K 301 BB

Here Comes the Thunder ($130M - The Storm)

From Round 1, I had a HR minimum of 23 and a pitcher HR/9 minimum of >0.43 (since my max HR in R1 was 22 and max Pitcher HR/9 was 0.43). I had picked WIS park as my home park.

The only real interesting thing to write here is that I changed my pitching strategy slightly as a result of seeing Brianjw's high K low IP strat in the variable cap. This led me to go for a quality over quantity approach in the bullpen.

Hitter Totals 5932 PA 0.326/0.412/0.572 256 HR 133 SB
Pitcher Totals 1420 IP 1.92 ERA 0.87 WHIP 0.185 OAV 1465K 297 BB

The Addie Joss Party ($140M - Teammate Draft)

I think I've said this before, but I nominated Addie Joss after Schwarze nominated Nap Lajoie as a blacklist nomination. As a sidenote, the best way to discourage blacklist nominations is to somehow incentivize owners for nominating a player that others want to draft a teammate from early on in some manner.

I got to admit, I'm not a huge fan of 1 draft with 24 owners and 25 picks. These drafts take at least a month if not more to run, people have to be around every day to make their pick or send in a proxy, and the sheer number of picks that generally pass between your n and n+1th selection makes it harder to plan out the draft and more of a mad scramble.

I think I regret two things most. First, I made the Eddie Plank pick in a hurry (should have picked Dick Rudolph, who jfranco77 took) and I sort of panicked during the SP run by drafting too many mediocre IP - I could have prioritized hitters first and drafted fairly equivalent IP much later in the draft. As it stands, I think this team is around $123 million (at least that number doesn't include much wastage - I expect others will have higher salary numbers but more IP/PA will be wasted).

Hitter Totals 6015 PA 0.333/0.411/0.551 237 HR 97 SB
Pitcher Totals 1525 IP 2.14 ERA 1.00 WHIP 0.206 OAV 1024K 387 BB

$180M of Ruth/Williams/Hornsby (Variable Cap - Plus X & Y)

High Caps are all about getting top tier hitters with high batting average and OBP, and decent but not excessive HR power. I've got Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Roger Hornsby and Jack Clements for power (each hits better than 0.375) and Ty Cobb / Roger Connor for speed, defense, and great contact hitting.

Pitching wise, I've got Pete Alexander, Walter Johnson, and Greg Maddux at SPs with Clayton Kershaw, Chad Green, Joey Devine and Sean Doolittle anchoring the bullpen. Like with the $130m team, I've gone for quality over quantity in terms of IP.

Hitting 5837 PA 0.360/0.434/0.582 197 HR 224 SB
Pitching 1524 IP 1.45 ERA / 0.82 WHIP 0.189 OAV 1286K 219 BB

$70M - The Wrath of Kang
Dodger Stadium

The only time I ever play in low cap leagues (<80M) is in this tournament. I have learned a few things though. I do not waste any roster spots with 200K players. Every player has to contribute. As usual, I start with pitching. Although there is a minimum of 1.0 HR/9, I can still get better normalization by taking modern day pitchers. Eleven of my thirteen pitchers played in 1997 and later. My four starters (02 Moyer, 97 Mussina, 00 Schilling & 16 Sale) all have low walk totals to prevent multiple-run HRs. Eight of my nine relievers have between 25 and 50 innings. I drafted Dodger stadium to help me manage my 1279 innings.

Offensively, I tried to get as close to .260 as possible (every batter is between .250 and .260). In order to not waste roster spots, I am platooning at a couple of positions. I did not draft speed, but did roster a total of 242 HRs, including 2019 Pete Alonso, although I expect 63 Killebrew to lead my team in HRs. The batting lineup includes 'C: 73 Tenace (.259, 24 HRs), 1B: '19 Alonso (.260, 53), 2B: '89 Whitaker (.251, 28), 3B: '16 Kang (.255, 21) & '04 Youkals (.260, 7), SS: '76 Smalley (.259, 3), OF: '63 Killebrew (.258, 45), '89 V.Hayes (.259, 26), '65 Mantle (.255, 19) & '19 McCutcheon (.256, 10). The defense isn't great. Oh, the team name obviously references Star Trek, plus the fact before this theme, I never even head of Jung Ho Kang.

Hitting: 5379 PA, .257 avg, .366 obp, .467 slug, 242 HRs, $36.5 million
Pitching: 1279 IP, .236 oav, 1.11 whip, 1.10 hr/9, 6.9 k/9, 2.0 bb/9, $33.5 million


$90M - 1930s Pitches, 1950s Hitters
Yankee Stadium I

I always start with starting pitching and I wanted to maximize the normalization by loading up on the good 1930's pitchers, so I rostered '36 Hubbell, '31 Grove, '39 Lyons & '37 Stratton. That means Giants, A's & White Sox were locked in to the 1930's. Other than '38 Dizzy Dean, I didn't really like the 1930's relievers, so I did go 50's on the rest of my pitching ('58 Wilhelm, '57 Muffett, '55 Rogovin, '57 Lehman, '52 Fornieles).

Since we need to have at least $40 million from each decade, I knew I would be loading up on 1950;'s hitters. Not wanting to waste on home runs, I focused on AVG and/or OBP. The starting lineup includes C: '52 Burgess (.296 avg, .380 obp) / '54 W.Cooper (.301, .389), 1B: '56 W.Moon (.298, .390, A+++), 2B: '53 Gilliam (.278, .383), 3B: '51 Minoso (.326, .422), SS: '37 Cronin (.307, .402), OF: '52 Mantle (.311, .394), '52 Slaughter (.300, .386) & '39 A.Galan (.304, .392). I was able to get two 1930's hitters. I am weaker at defense than I normally like (except for Moon).

Hitting: 5641 PA, .302 avg, .393 obp, .461 slug, 242 HRs, $43.4 million
Pitching*: 1333 IP, .230 oav, 1.06 whip, 0.29 hr/9, 4.2 k/9, 1.9 bb/9, $46.1 million
* excluding two scrubs


$110M - Worst Theme Ever (05 NYY)
Yankee Stadium II

As I mentioned in the forum, this theme almost caused me to give up my spot in Round 2. I completed my team a week before the deadline but didn't learn until a week after the deadline I was illegal. I misinterpreted the rules and a quick fix was not possible. My base team is the 2005 Yankees and I didn't want to start from scratch. Prior to the notification of an illegal roster, I was heavy on players from Embree ('04 Red Sox) and Sheffield ('02 Braves), but those guys caused problems with a number of players. I was fortunate to pivot to Bellhorn ('04 Red Sox) and J.Wright ('04 Braves) and keep many of the same players. So it was a matter of putting the puzzle together while staying legal. Here is how it fits together (only important players listed)...

'04 Red Sox (Bellhorn) - 03 Pedro, 02 Lowe, 07 V.Martinez, 01 Foulke
'04 Braves (J.Wright) - 07 Chipper, 03 Furcal, 02 Smoltz
'04 Cardinals (Womack) - 05 Pujols, 01 Edmonds, 09 Carpenter, 09 Calero, '07 Sanders
'04 Astros (Redding) - '05 Clemens, '05 Pettitte, '03 Beltran, '01 Berkman, '05 Kent
'03 Indians (Lawton) - '10 C.Lee, '09 Betancourt, '06 Escobar, 05 Gerut

Hitting*: 5650 PA, .310 avg, .397 obp, .538 slug, 237 HRs, $56.6 million
Pitching*: 1387 IP, .214 oav, 1.01 whip, 0.44 hr/9, 7.6 k/9, 2.1 bb/9, $52.7 million
*excludes scrubs


$130M - Try Hitting HRs in the Astrodome
The Astrodome

I probably like this team the best. I went so low on HRs and HRs allowed in round, that I expect to lead the league in fewest HRs allowed in round 2. Anybody that drafted a lot of HRs will have a tough time scoring runs when playing me. With $130M to spend, I loaded up on on high-average offense while still getting low HR, low WHIP pitchers. The starting pitching staff includes '36 Hubbell (1.06 whip, 0.21 hr/9), '99 Pedro (0.92, 0.38), '15 Arrieta (0.86, 0.39) and '18 deGrom (0.93, 0.41). Overall, we allow only 0.32 hr/9 with a 0.93 whip.

The offense was fun to draft and I did spend for great defense as well. I didn't want to waste too much money on HRs (due to my home park) but wanted to be able to score when I play teams in HR parks. So, my eight regulars had between 9 and 15 HRs (and most normalize very well). C: '91 D.Farrell (.302, .384, .474), 1B: '90 R.Connor (.349, .450, .548), 2B: '20 Hornsby (.370, .431, .559), 3B: '13 F.Baker (.331, .413, .493), SS: '94 B.Dahlen (.357, .444, .566), OF: '22 Speaker (.378, .474, .606), OF: '15 Kauff (.342, .446, .509), OF: '25 Cobb (.378, .468, .598). I also added '63 Mantle (215 pa, .314, .441, .622) to spell some of my short-PA outfielders. '42 Cullenbine (.364, .484, .532), '18 Bescher (.333, .487, .400) and '46 J.Schultz (.386, .485, .456) will make great pinch hitters as well.

Hitting: 5614 PA, .350 avg, .440 obp, .542 slug, $65.8 million
Pitching: 1446 IP, .201 oav, 0.93 whip, 0.32 hr/9, 8.1 k/9, 1.9 bb/9, $64.2 million


$140M - It's Pronounced "Lazhoway"
Tiger Stadium

It feels like an eternity since this draft ended, so I can't really go into detail about why I picked every player when I did. However, I did originally consider going with two high-priced offensive studs in the first two rounds. But thinking it about some more... overspending for '27 Gehrig when so many good 1B are available just didn't make sense. With my first pick, Ed Reulbach, I would get a decently high second round pick and add 300 innings of low HR pitching. After adding Carl Mays, Noodles Hahn (super low HR pitchers), along with Alomar and Joost (middle infielders with some HR pop), I kind of knew what my strategy was going to be.... Draft high HR hitters and minimize HR pitchers at all costs. I wanted to make sure to get some walks on offense so any HRs I hit will be with men on base. So here is my roster:

SP: '05 Reulbach (0.96 whip, 0.03 hr/9), '18 Mays (1.06, 0.06), '04 Hahn (0.98, 0.09)
RP: '10 Kuo (0.78, 0.15), '81 Saucier (0.96, 0.18), '07 Berger (1.08, 0.00), '17 Seaton (1.11, 0.00), '17 Syndergaard (1.05, 0.00), '09 L.Wright (1.00, 0.00), '20 E.Myers (1.18, 0.09), '11 S.Downs (1.01, 0.50)

I also have '16 Kluber (1.06, 0.92) who I may pitch in pitchers parks.

My offense has lots of walks and power (except for catcher):
C: '22 S.O'Neill (.311, .423, .416) / '11 Lapp (.353, .435, .467)
1B: '02 Giambi (.314, .435, .598)
2B: '96 R.Alomar (.328, .411, ..527)
3B: '91 D.Lyons (.315, .445, ..455) / '99 M.Williams (.303, .344, .536)
SS: '49 Joost (.263, .429, .453)
OF: ''77 R.Smith (.307, .427, ..576) / S.Spencer (.373, .411, 910)
OF: '71 Stargell (.295 ,.398, .628) / '83 Mumphrey (.336, .425, .455)
OF: '43 B.Nicholson (.309, .386, .531) / Plantier (.331, .420, 615)

Hitting: 6514 PA, .309 avg, .411 obp, .532 slug, $65.0 million
Pitching*: 1526 IP, .216 oav, 1.02 whip, 0.08 hr/9, 4.2 k/9, 2.1 bb/9, $54.1 million
* Excluding Kluber

If you remove unnecessary innings and plate appearances, this is essentially a $105M team.


$180M - Why Wouldn't I use $180M?
The Astrodome

This theme wasn't all that exciting to build, but I was ok with an easy one, after that $110M headache. I essentially just built a standard 180M team, while keep an eye on franchises and seasons used to make sure I could add up X+Y= 30. We spent almost $100 million on offense so we should be able to score runs. Our ballpark should keep any opponents' HRs down (I'm sure there are a few Babe Ruths out there).

C: '86 King Kelly (.388, .483, .534)
1B: '85 Roger Connor (.371, .435, .495)
2B: '21 Rogers Hornsby (.397, .458, .639)
3B: '12 Frank Baker (.347, .404, ..541)
SS: '08 Honus Wagner (..354, .415, .542)
OF: '12 Tris Speaker (.383, .464, .567)
OF: '96 Ed Delahanty (.397, .472, .631)
OF: '12 Ty Cobb (.409, .456, .584)
Pinch hitters: Cedeno, Corkhill, Haney

I only drafted one deadball pitcher, since I would imagine most people have the typical batters that can beat deadball pitching.
SP: '08 M.Brown, '15 Arrieta, '15 Greinke, '99 Pedro, '16 Kershaw plus all the usual modern day relievers with whips below 0.85.

Hitting: 5158 PA, .383 avg, .448 obp, .572 slug, $98.2 million
Pitching: 1507 IP, .185 oav, 0.83 whip, 0.31 hr/9, 8.4 k/9, 1.6 bb/9, $81.4 million

$70M Franklin Street Floor Testers
I struggled all season long in R1 with hitting and pitching fatigue... And I built a R2 team with fewer IP & PA than R1..... I'm pretty sure I had the most total extra innings played in that R1 theme and I'm banking on having that not happen again.
I have no real Ace unless Kluber counts.
Shane Beiber is my mandatory 2019 player. He gives me decent IP/$
I think the strategy was probably the same for everyone: Maximize walks & HRs on offense, minimize walks & HR# on the pitching staff.
I'm giving Bip Roberts 330+ PAs, so I probably failed at utilizing that strategy, but I needed the cheap PAs & versatile defense, even if it's not very good defense.
Lots of walks in the 1st 2 spots in my lineup.
Several guys with 5 or 6 HR#, but some have limited PAs. I kinda like it. I kinda don't.


$90M Ocracoke Hammerheads (Griffith Stadium)
Not much to say here. I just put together the best team that I could. I'm guessing that Carl Hubbell will be the most rostered player in this league.
I will be struggling with lineup fatigue most likely.

$110M Worst! Theme! Ever!!! 14 Phillies
Well..... I think my team name says enough.
I like this team, but I'm concerned about pitching & stadium.
Strategy? Looked to roster Kershaw & Greinke. Also looked at rostering de Grom, Sale, & Arrieta.
Only ended up with the 1st 2 and not their optimal seasons.
Landing on the 14 LAD gave me Kershaw, Greinke, Haren, Jansen, & plenty of other good players for option #5.(Ended up being Kemp)
I figured Haren wasn't very good, but he was OK and cheap enough to be able to afford better options elsewhere... Come to find out, I couldn't afford 15 Kershaw or 15 Greinke even with Haren- so I rostered 11 Kershaw & '09 Greinke. Not dominate guys, but OK for this cap. 13 Scherzer rounds out the 4 man rotation with Strasburg giving me 175 decent bullpen innings.
My bullpen is pretty dang good.. My starters are iffy.
The 16 Nats & 14 LAD gave me a solid foundation (Scherzer, Strasburg, Treinen, Rendon, Murphy, Kershaw, Greinke, Haren, Jansen, Kemp)
13 LAA gave me Trout & bench players
15 Rockies gave me Tulo, Morneau & scrubs
09 NYY- Rivera, Melky, and a weakish starting catcher in Cervelli, Dave Robertson and versatile scrub Hairston

Defense is very good. I feel like the offense is pretty good but backups are weak. Bullpen is good. Starting pitchers are decent. I wish I had a ballpark that limited HRs more to help my pitching staff, but hopefully Kemp, Rendon, Trout, Tulo, & Murphy hit a few themselves.

More later

70 mil -- Modern Family (RFK).
For pitching, I tried to keep HR/9 as close to 1.0 as possible and then tried to get the best ERC# arms in the 25-28K$/IP range. That got me 02 Moyer, 56 Maglie, 59 Haddix, 19 Kershaw (as my 2019 guy) and 66 Merritt. The bullpen is shaky as I went with two 100+ IP guys instead of more lower inning guys. On offense, I really focused on OBP and didn't try to get too many HRs (and I'm in an HR dampening park). Not much useful speed here with cheap Giambi, Max Bishop, the good Weiss season and an early 70s Darrell Evans in the infield, Ferguson behind the plate in case anyone drafts steals (although I imagine everyone else will have Tenace) and Sheff, Roy Thomas and the immortal Jack Cust in my outfield. Please do not hit the ball to Jack Cust...I'm not even sure he owns a glove.

Hitters = 251/354/405, 129 HR
Pitchers = 1346 IP, 1.05 WHIP, .229 OAV, 173 HRs

90 Mil -- The Greatest Generation (Cleveland Stadium)
Started with pitching because it's harder to find in this era...focused on ERC# again. Contemplated Hubbell but I preferred getting Giants from the 50s (Dark and Irvin) so my one stud arm is 53 Spahn, and then I filled in around him with lower IP guys (Lyons, Hearn, Russo, Stratton, Joe Black). Going to require some hands-on managing. I'm sure I'm the only guy in the league without Latman (b/c I wanted Stratton and Lyons), but I do have the closer Dizzy Dean at least.
It's easier to find good hitting in these eras...ended up taking Cochrane over Campy behind the plate, Hal Trosky (who always hits well for me in progressive leagues), Bishop again, Dark, Mathews, Irvin, Joe D and the great Bob Nieman in my lineup.

Hitters = 309/397/503, 172 HR
Pitchers = 1339 IP, 1.08 WHIP, .222 OAV, 76 HR (yes, it's worse than my 70 mil staff)

110 mil -- Double Twisted 1946 Phillies (Shibe)
Good grief. Thank goodness the rules got more lenient, otherwise this would have been impossible. I kinda latched on to the 40s early on, thinking the war years might help mitigate teammates. Maybe not the best era but once I committed, there was no way I was switching. I approached this in reverse (as I guess many did)...finding my Tier 2 twist teams and then trying to work my way back. I started with the 47 Pirates, because I liked the options of Bonham, Wolff, Herman, Kiner and Greenberg, although I only ended up using Wolff and Kiner. I had the 42 Cubs to get Foxx, Hack and Joe Berry, a Yankees team to get Spud and Snuffy, an early 40 Dodgers team to grab Wyatt, and then I wanted a team to get Mort Cooper, but I couldn't make that work, so I got a late 40s Cardinals team and then tried to work them back to one spot, which turned out to be the 46 Phils (after quite a bit of trial and error). I had a good team built but then got short-circuited by the stupid '45 Blue Jays that had Foxx and Whit Wyatt along with one of my connector players. More scrambling ensued, but I ended up with a hopefully legal team that has a rotation of Brecheen, Wolff, Spud and the low IP Jim Hearn, with Ruffing, J.Allen, Pollet, and Berry in the pen.

Lineup is solid with Berra behind the plate, an infield of Kurowski, Reese, Snuffy and Cavarretta (a last minute replacement for the vetoed Foxx) and an outfield of Reiser, Kiner and Musial (with Keller as a pinch hitter). No idea if it'll be good but there was no way I was redoing it.

Hitters- 313/408/514, 174 HR
Pitchers = 1438 IP, 1.02 WHIP, .212 OAV, 50 HR

130 mil -- Chicks are Ambivalent (PNC)
I had a lot of flexibility here (round 1 highs were 6 and .252) so I decided to go for a doubles team (432 doubles) in a doubles park. Still decent pop with 170 HR but far less than most will have. Tried to minimize the HR/9 as much as possible given other teams' likely higher HR numbers, and I ended up with 42 Cooper, 97 Maddux, 15 Arrieta and 99 Pedro, who have only 37 HR between them.

Hitters = 348/427/554
Pitchers = 1406 IP, 0.92 WHIP, .202 OAV, 62 HR

140 mil -- Morris's Morons (Camden)

I had the 22nd pick so I missed all the studs. I knew I wanted to get a good arm, but thought I could double down by taking a Unit teammate early and then getting a top 2nd round pick. So, I took 95 Edgar, who is great...but also the kind of guy I probably could have gotten in Round 10. I did get Bernhard in Round 2 so at least I accomplished that part, but I did a poor job of targeting guys with few useful teammates, which meant my last few picks were universally crappy.
I ended up with a solid rotation for this league (I think)...with all four starters (Bernhard, Nehf, Tanana and Horlen) having WHIPs at 1.01 or less. That said, I've never had good experiences with Tanana. Jansen and the long IP John Denny in the pen.
Lineup is OK..Lance Parrish behind the plate (I waited too long to take a catcher), the aforementioned Edgar at 1b, a crappy OBP Baerga at 2b, Cronin at SS, Robin Ventura--who will normalize into oblivion at 3b, and an OF of 27 Cobb, 07 Magglio, 99 Shawn Green (see Ventura), and 98 Eric Davis in the outfield.
I have a feeling this will be my worst team, but I did enjoy the strategy of the draft theme (once we got the kinks worked out), even if I implemented it poorly.
Hitters - 325/401/516, 267 HR
Pitchers - 1707 IP, 0.99 WHIP, .214 OAV, 76 HR

180 Mil -- X+Y=30 (Camden)
I thought this was a pretty easy theme...try to build the best 180 mil team you can, with just enough season/franchise overlap to make it legal. I ended up with what I thought was 17 seasons and 13 franchises, but I forgot the old Browns were the same as the new Cardinals so I had to add an 18th season. Looks damn good on paper, but so does everyone's, I'm sure.

Hitters = 363/464/619, 262 HR
Pitchers = 1486 IP, 0.81 WHIP, .188 OAV, 60 HR

For the second consecutive time that I have participated in the WISC, I qualified for the second round solely because a few others chose not to participate. This go-around I decided to engage in some experimentation, especially in regard to some extreme ballparks that I would normally not use. We’ll see how that goes.

Slash lines shown are normalized and do not include $200K-type players.

$70M: Modern Baseball
You down with OBP? You know me!
5130 PA, .248/.401/.422
1291 IP, 2.78 ERC#, 0.84 HR/9+
Petco Park

I wanted to call this team “Maeda, Manaea, let’s call the whole thing off” but the name was too long.

A goodly portion of my WISC strategy posts are spent decrying the fact that home runs are too hard to come by in the WISC. So along comes a theme where, unless every owner chooses the Astrodome or Petco, a ton of homers will be hit. So what do I do? Choose Petco and refuse to focus on homers. Can you tell that I was raised Catholic?

My thought here is that the lower the cap, the more advantageous it is to draft as few IPs and PAs as possible. The most effective way to do that is to take the most extreme pitcher’s park. And if you’re in the most extreme pitcher’s park, it would stand to reason that you want to maximize your positive offensive outcomes that are not affected by the ballpark. Namely walks. This is so simple that I assume dozens of owners (if not hundreds) have tried it in the past, and the fact that it’s not done universally in low caps tells me that it flat out doesn’t work, probably because without a hit it takes at least 4 walks in an inning to score someone. But (and you’ll hear this a lot in this writeup) I’m probably not going to do well in this round regardless so I figured I might as well give it a shot.

As for my team? A standard (for me) 3-man tandem rotation with several low-IP high-value relievers, and a nice (I hope) closer in 2019 Shane Greene. The lineup has several 2018-2019 guys, along with my favorite Weiss, who is actually cap-appropriate here, and the 1974 McCovey who I’ve never used but will constantly remind me of that baseball card they made of him that year when they thought the Padres were moving to Washington, D.C. Good times.


$90M: 30s + 50s
49.96% 1930s, 50.04% 1950s
5321 PA, .309/.401/.493
1346 IP, 2.15 ERC#, 0.32 HR/9+
Memorial Stadium

I originally called this team “11 Yankees WS wins, 1 Yankee on my team” but that was an even stupider name than this one. Although I think it’s pretty cool that the one Yankee on my squad, Marius Russo, used to go to my grandparents’ church when I was a little kid and I got his autograph there after mass one day. I settled on my current team name because I thought it was interesting how even the salaries ended up even though I wasn’t trying to do any more than guarantee that I had the minimum for each decade.

This is probably a bit worse of a team than I’d usually make for this cap, but I’ll chalk that up to the decades available. I am using some guys I never have before, such as Cecil Travis and Vic Wertz (who I’d heard of) and Buzz Arlett (not so much). My bullpen is exclusively from the 1950s. My catchers are a bunch of high-OBP leftovers who can’t throw, but I’m not anticipating that being a problem here. The number of IP I drafted is a little low, but I’m probably not going to do well in this round regardless so I figured I might as well give it a shot.

$110M: Two Degree Twist
Expo ‘70
5507 PA, .308/.406/.570
1479 IP, 2.11 ERC#, 0.43 HR/9+
Jarry Park

If I ever find myself having several days with absolutely nothing to do, I may attempt to create a team using the original rules for this theme. My guess is that it’s theoretically possible to create a competitive $110M team with those constraints, but it would take at least 20-30 hours to do so.

My original attempt centered around expansion teams in their first few years of existence, figuring that at least you know that for whatever player you choose they weren’t on the same team a few years before. I used the same strategy even when the theme rules were relaxed. I had been looking at the 1969 Royals, and fairly quickly created a representative $110M team using them as a base. They were high on home run power, but solid. I then set them aside and concentrated on creating my other teams. Only when it came time to submit my team did I realize that the 1969 Royals would have to use Municipal Stadium, which would be just about the worst possible park for that team. Back to the drawing board…

I wanted to stay with a base team in roughly that era, meaning that a good portion of their offensive production probably would be via home runs. Looking at the home parks of expansion teams of that era, I quickly settled on the Expos and Jarry Park. The 1970 Expos had some likely candidates and I was off to the races. I built a team that was better than my original, and more suited to its stadium. I submitted that team, only then to realize that I had ignored the rule about the second twist being mandatory. I think I had ignored it because to me it makes no sense. The only purpose of such a ruling is to make life more difficult. But a rule is a rule. Back to the drawing board…

At this point I didn’t have enough time in my life to create an entirely new team from scratch, so I had to tinker with what I already had. Some of the issues (replacing 1967 Brabender, for example) were minor, and easily rectified. But my Dodgers were more difficult. I wanted to use the 1966 Koufax and the 1971 Sutton. With Koufax I was limited to 1965 and 1966. I couldn’t afford the 1965 Koufax. So I either had to not use a Koufax, or choose the 1965 Dodgers who did not have Sutton on their roster. I went the latter direction, replacing Sutton with a far (far, far) inferior 1975 Palmer. With the money saved I upgraded from Levebvre to Davey Johnson at second base, along with moving from the ‘73 to the ‘71 Aaron, yielding a team with a whopping 320 RL HRs but only $51M spent on pitching. I’m hoping that the restrictiveness of this league means that offenses will be closer to those of $100M teams than $110M, or else, especially with a 1.07 ballpark, my pitching staff may be in trouble, but I’m probably not going to do well in this round regardless so I figured I might as well give it a shot. At the very least I think this league will be interesting.

$130M: The Storm
Savages in the Storm
5505 PA, .330/.441/.578
1443 IP, 1.62 ERC#, 0.40 HR/9+
Bennett Park

My Round 1 $130M team, Savages in the Box, did not initially live up to my expectations or its lofty title, finishing around .500 and only making the playoffs due to the fortune of being in a weak division. But then they advanced to the World Series, and later advanced to the semifinals of the T.O.C. before bowing out to a far inferior team. Of course.

My lower limits for HR and HR/9 were 24 and 0.41 respectively. My plan all along for dealing with the former was to use home run hitters at every position except shortstop, and then to use four ~500 PA guys to man the three outfield spots (and fill in at 1B if needed). I had created a round 2 team during round 1 and just tinkered with it a bit when I revisited it. The only late change I remember was switching out Joe Morgan for Rogers Hornsby.

Starting pitching consists of Sutton, along with tandems of Sale/Horlen and Kershaw/Schilling. The ’92 Schilling’s ERC# is high for this cap, but his IP/G is perfect for a 3-man tandem and I’ve usually had pretty good results with him. Because I created this team during Round 1 I don’t think I ever looked at the 2019 SPs, which is a shame because in hindsight 2019 Cole would’ve made a whole lot more sense than Schilling. Oh well. My bullpen is solid. I think I may be walking a razor’s edge in terms of the overall quality of the pitching staff and number of innings, but if Woody had gone right to the police this would never have happened. Wait, no. It’s “I’m probably not going to do well in this round regardless so I figured I might as well give it a shot.”

[Continued]

$140M: Teammate Draft
Cousin Oliver
6601 PA, .322/.407/.524 (including everyone but defensive sub R. Tejada)
1776 IP, 2.25 ERC#, 0.20 HR/9+
Coors Field

I’ve been looking forward to doing this writeup for quite a while. Given the way that my spreadsheet is set up I can easily re-run the draft and see how I’d make different choices in hindsight. Toward the end of the draft I noted in the forum that I believe that if we re-did the entire draft, with the same first round draft order, everyone’s team would end up around 80% different. I’m about to find out whether, for me at least, that’s true, but I think it is because it took me 7 or 8 rounds to develop anything even closely resembling a coherent strategy.

Before beginning the round-by-round recap I’ll just point out the one thing I got right about this draft going in. Early on someone mentioned that they thought the resulting teams would be roughly equivalent to $135M teams in terms of quality. Looking at the available players I knew that this would not be the case. I did a quick experiment where I looked at the 8^th best available player at every position, and that team looked like a $115M team at best, so I was thinking this would play more like a $110M league. Which I hope it will or else I’m in big, big trouble.

I made the following assumptions for the re-do draft: I had the same draft spot each round as I did in the real draft (I could’ve adjusted for this, but didn’t feel like doing the extra work), any player who I drafted in the real draft but didn’t draft in the re-do would’ve been drafted before my next re-do pick, and no looking ahead to see when players I’m interested in were actually drafted.

Nomination: Al Oliver

I was originally planning on nominating Sixto Lezcano, because he was one of my favorite players growing up (in part because I think his name is totally awesome) and I would’ve loved to see people type it 24 times. But I didn’t like his teammates much. So instead I went with Oliver, who I always felt was a little underrated, and who has a bunch of sneaky-good teammate seasons that I really like such as the ’85 Pedro Guerrero, the ’85 Scioscia, the ’79 Kern, the ’77 Parker, not to mention Stargell and Clemente. And I like the late 70s to early 80s era, because that’s when I started watching baseball. I’m happy with my selection.

Round 1: Pete Alexander (Vaughn)
Re-do pick: Bill Bernhard (Joss)

I’m splitting hairs here. Alexander was probably the best SP available, but there were so few good Joss teammates (and they all were shared by Lajoie) that Bernhard would probably the right pick. Using Lajoie instead of Joss as Bernhard’s teammate would’ve moved me up just far enough in round 2 to nab Ted Williams, which I probably would’ve done, but that’s an exercise for another day.

Round 2: Tom L. Hughes (Evers)
Re-do pick: same

Again, best available SP. The low IP/G doesn’t concern me because I tend to use tandems. The Evers teammate moved me from 18^th to 8^th in the next round. All good.

Round 3: Ken Griffey Jr. (Johnson)
Re-do pick: Elton Chamberlain (Boyle)

This was my second-worst pick of the draft, but it doesn’t bother me too much because I at least understand my rationale at the time. People are often hesitant to draft outfielders early in a draft because OFs don’t satisfy a position scarcity need. My philosophy is that they can help to satisfy a position scarcity need. Third outfielder is a position, and most people’s third outfielders aren’t all that great. If you were to end up with, let’s say, Lance Berkman as your 3^rd OF, you’d have a big advantage over your competitors at that position. The only issue is that in order to draft your third outfielder you have to draft your first two OFs first. But as long as you don’t reach for those first two then I don’t see that as a problem. And that was my thought when I made this pick.

I went with Griffey specifically for a few reasons. One is that he’s pretty good defensively (I used the ’93, for better or worse), and I often neglect defense in the OF and wanted to lock someone in who can both hit and field. But also, I had gotten hooked on being in the top half of the draft and didn’t want to give that up. And that’s where my thinking was wrong. In hindsight, I think that teammates that yielded high picks were most valuable to move from the end of a round to the beginning. And there were so many good Randy Johnson teammates that drafting one so early without being a slam-dunk best available player at his position was a mistake. I think that if I wanted to implement the 3 good outfielder strategy then either Sam Thompson (Boyle) or Albert Belle / Kenny Lofton (Morris) were the way to go.

Looking at what’s available in the re-do, Chamberlain is super-dominant and probably provides the best marginal value here.

Round 4: Kiki Cuyler (McInnis)
Re-do pick: same

Apparently at some point between round 3 and round 4 I figured out that there were a whole bunch of nominated players for whom there would not be enough useful teammates left for later rounds, so I’d better start taking teammates of some of those guys now. By this point there were maybe 2 or 3 good McInnis teammates left in the entire pool. In that respect this was a good pick. The only questions remaining are whether Cuyler would’ve lasted another round, and how productive he’ll be in this league. I don’t know the answer to either question, but my guess is no for the former and (obviously) yes for the latter. All the cool kids use hitters with a lot of speed and extra base hits, and Cuyler has both. And as I mentioned earlier, I went into this draft knowing that we’d have excess salary cap space, which to me sounds a lot like a good place to use a hitter’s park. So the fact that Cuyler puts the ball in play for extra bases seemed especially valuable to me, even if I hadn’t yet considered exactly which hitter’s park I’d target. I’ll keep Cuyler in my re-do for the same reasons.

Round 5: Joe Sewell (Speaker)
Re-do pick: same

Did I say “puts the ball in play for extra bases”? 41 doubles, 10 triples, and a total of 12 strikeouts. That’ll do. Of course, he’ll probably make 60+ errors for me. That’ll do…me in…but defense, schmefense. Let’s move near the top of the next round and see what happens.

Round 6: Max Bishop (Foxx)
Re-do pick: Jocko Milligan (Boyle – 2^nd)

Not a good pick. My OBP/walks obsession rears its ugly head here, despite heavily leaning toward using a strong hitter’s park. Yeah, Pesky and Whitaker had gone in the previous 5 picks, but there were plenty of equally valuable second basemen left.

Instead, in the re-do, let’s take a chance here. Let’s go with Jocko Milligan. Only 351 PAs, but so dominant offensively that no matter who you pair him with you’ll probably have one of the top few catching situations in the league. I probably wouldn’t have had the guts to double up so early, but let’s see what happens.

Round 7: Amos Rusie (Boyle)
Re-do pick: Mike Donlin (Seymour)

This was my most interesting pick of the entire draft. I’ll bet a bunch of people mocked it. They might’ve been right to do so. At this point in the draft there were a whopping 30 pitcher-seasons available with 200+ IP and a lower ERC# than Rusie’s 2.62. There were an additional 20 with ERC# between 2.62 and 2.70. Some of those were surely from duplicate pitchers, but still. But this was the point where visions of Coors Field started dancing through my head. I don’t remember any league where I ever used Coors Field, so I have no idea what I’m doing. But it seems to me that, in addition to strikeout pitchers (which Rusie is not really, although his 5.99 K/9# is about 10% higher than the average among remaining starters with lower ERC#) you’d want pitchers with low OAV# and low HR/9+. Rusie’s are .206 and 0.18, both lower than both of the pitchers I drafted in the first two rounds. Sure, his BB/9# is north of 4, but walks can’t be turned into extra-base hits by the ballpark. Plus his 571 IP meant that I wouldn’t have to draft another SP, at least until the very end if I felt I needed low-leverage innings. I could instead fill some roster spots with low IP, low ERC# or low PA, high OPS# guys, who might be especially useful if I chicken out and decide not to use Coors.

Now, did I need to take Rusie here, or would he have still been around in round 10 or 12? No clue. Was it worth the opportunity cost of using such a high pick? Perhaps not. But to quote Tom Cruise’s character in Risky Business, sometimes you just gotta say WTF.

In my re-do draft I’ve maxed out on Boyle teammates, so I’ll go with Mike Donlin, because there’s no obvious choice and I’m seeing a bunch of guys left on my board who have very few usable teammates. My gut feeling is that Bishop would’ve still been here, in which case I would’ve taken him, but the rules I made nix that.

Round 8: Bill Dickey (Ruth)
Re-do pick: Red Faber (Collins)

This is where my whole “take teammates of guys who don’t have a lot of useful teammates left so you don’t get stuck with a lot of useless players at the end of the draft” strategy jumped the shark. Bill Dickey sounds like a good player, but his best available season in this league is just OK. And if we've learned anything from those AT&T commercials, it's that "just OK" is not OK. Sure, he’s got an A arm, but there aren’t all that many basestealers in this league so who cares? This pick was just “meh”.

In the re-do let’s go with Red Faber. 348 solid innings puts me over 1,000 for the staff and allows me to fill up on relievers the rest of the way.

Round 9: Barry Latman (Fox)
Re-do pick: Bobby Doerr (Foxx)

Nellie was also running low on useful teammates, and given that I’d already drafted 1142 innings in just 3 roster spots and Latman was one of the very best available relievers, this pick made a lot of sense.

In the re-do I’m starting to get nervous about the remaining second basemen (even though I think I have Bishop…grrrrrr…) so I reach for Doerr, teammate of the other Fox(x).

Round 10: Dave Smith (Ryan)
Re-do pick: Jim Thome (Pena)

Offensively all I needed was a 1B, an OF, and a 3B, so I continued to bolster my bullpen with the best available reliever, who, like Latman before him, is a low OAV, low HR guy who I think will do relatively well in a good hitter’s park.

In the re-do I’m not loving the third basemen left so I’ll grab the best available full-time offensive 3B. I’m starting to like my real draft team better than the re-do.

Round 11: Pablo Sandoval (Uribe)
Re-do pick: Tug McGraw (Ryan)

I had been looking at third basemen for a couple of rounds, but there were enough good ones (especially better ones defensively) still around so I waited. I wanted Sandoval or Thome all along, and both were sitting here. I went with Sandoval because he’s a switch-hitter and he puts more balls in play than Thome does. So, the Coors thing. Sometimes I think I need to remember that half of one’s games are played on the road.

In the re-do McGraw is clearly the best high-IP reliever available and clinches the fact that I will have a very good pitching staff.

Round 12: Manny Ramirez (Wells)
Re-do pick: same

The outfielder I’d been wanting, and who I’d been watching drop, dropped here and I grabbed him in the nick of time. Maybe my third OF position scarcity strategy worked after all. Love this pick. I need an OF in the re-do too so this makes sense here.

Round 13: Martin Glendon (Joss)
Re-do pick: Martin Glendon (Lajoie)

This was the day I left on a long weekend mini-vacation to Europe. Fortunately I had set up my roster so that all I needed was a starting 1B, which I was in no rush to draft because there were so many good ones still available, and relievers and backups. Because I had used so few roster spots on so many innings, I could concentrate on low-IP relievers while on vacay, greatly decreasing the amount of time I needed for research. The useful Joss guys were few and far between by this point so I was glad to grab one.

The same logic that applies to Joss applies to Lajoie, although a bit less so, but Glendon still makes sense here for the re-do, demonstrating that I should’ve linked Bernhard to Lajoie to get the better 2^nd round pick. Of course none of that matters because this is all pretend.

Round 14: Jim Kern (Oliver)
Re-do pick: Mike Scioscia (Oliver)

While not a low-IP guy, this is one of the guys I’ve been targeting all along, especially since I decided to try to build my idea of a Coors Field team. If you want high K, low OAV, low HR pitchers without caring too much about walks then Kern is your guy. It’s tough to get a reliever with only 2 real-life IP/G the 143 effective innings he pitched in RL, let alone 10% more than that, but since the cap isn’t going to be an issue in this league I don’t really care. 120 IP will be just fine. I feel like Kern has been effective for me in the past and I’m looking forward to seeing what he does for me here.

In my intro I mentioned that the ’85 Scioscia is one of my favorite Oliver teammates, and I am thrilled to pair him with Jocko Milligan. Looking ahead I could’ve grabbed him a round later, but I said I wasn’t going to cheat so there’s no reason to start now. I’m feeling better about my re-do team.

Round 15: Mark Teixeira (Dotel)
Re-do pick: Champ Summers (Morris)

While not a reliever (it’s funny how your memory plays tricks on you), Teixeira is a great defensive 1B with 240 PA of dominant offense. In terms of marginal value I think he was a good pick here, because combining him with one of the many decent 1B still available yields an overall 1B situation that would be as good as if you’d taken one a few rounds ago. This would be especially true if he were paired with the one dominant 550 PA 1B still available. Will I be smart enough to do that?

In the re-do there aren’t a lot of 1.000+ OPS guys still left, and here’s a lefty to spell my 550 PA Manny, plus he can play some first base in case I don’t get a great full-time first baseman.

Round 16: Oscar Gamble (John)
Re-do pick: Bob Locker (John)

So much for concentrating on relievers while on vacay. Still, this is a nice pick here. Not a lot of PAs, but amazing production for whatever PAs you get. He’ll spell Manny as detailed in the re-do pick above. So why didn’t I take Summers here in the real draft? I guess I was looking at a few Morris teammates for later on. For one, I considered Molitor as a starting 1B, thinking he was a Coors type of guy. In hindsight I kind of wish I’d taken Summers here, for reasons I’ll explain later.

As for the re-do, with apologies to Pete Seeger…

Where have all the closers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the closers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the closers gone?
Owners have picked them, every one
When will I ever learn?
When will I ever learn?

It looks like I waited too long in the re-do to pick a closer, so I’ll pick a lot of good innings over a few great innings. For now.

Round 17: Ed Walsh (Collins)
Re-do pick: Josh Edgin (deGrom)

There’s another low-IP pitcher! I knew they were around here somewhere. This is probably the latest that Ed Walsh has ever been selected in any WhatIf Sports draft. The Collins pool was drying up so this was a good pick.

There wasn’t much useful remaining in the deGrom pool either. Low IP and ERC RP FTW.

Round 18: Sean Manaea (Rodney)
Re-do pick: Erubiel Durazo (Johnson)

Here it is! The absolute stupidest pick of my draft! OK, to be fair, I had to leave for the airport this morning and I didn’t have a lot of time to think. But I had drafted Teixeira a few rounds ago in large part because he would pair so well with the 558 PA, 1.045 OPS Jack Clark. I also went with Sandoval over Thome in part because I wanted to use my Pena teammate pick on Clark. So what do I do? Use this pick, a teammate of someone with a lot of useful teammates, on a 30 IP guy who gives up homers. The worst part of it is, I considered Clark here, but one of the reasons I didn’t take him was that I didn’t want to move to the end of the next round and go almost 2 days without a pick. Another reason was that I didn’t think Clark was a “Coors” player (he walks and strikes out a ton). Keep in mind that at this point I had yet to draft a Rockies player, and had not completely decided whether I could even pull off the Coors thing. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

Clark would’ve been a nice pick here for the re-do, but I already used my Pena pick and my double-up, so I’ll draft 185 PA of excellent offensive production at 1B.

I’ll just take this opportunity to point out that the fact that Moises Alou is still available at this point makes me feel far less proud of my Manny Ramirez picks in the 12^th round.

Round 19: Buck Herzog (Seymour)
Re-do pick: J.B. Wendelken (Rodney)

There weren’t many good Seymour teammates left here, so I was happy to get one who backs up every position except C and 1B with a .465 OBP#, even if he can’t field at any of them. Fine.

Wait? What? You mean that practically the same pitcher who I wasted a pick on last round instead of drafting Jack Clark in the real draft is still available here? Wait, he was still available in the 22^nd round too? You don’t say. What a dumbass I am.

Round 20: Ruben Tejada (deGrom)
Re-do pick: Corey Seager (Uribe)

As I wrote when I drafted him, “because when your starting shortstop is Joe Sewell, you’ll need a defensive replacement.”

True, but in the re-do there’s an available player with A+ range at SS who also has a normalized slash line of .342/.432/.554 and who can also back up Thome at 3B. How is he still available here? Wait, HOW WAS HE NOT DRAFTED AT ALL?????

Round 21: Jesse Stovall (Lajoie)
Re-do pick: Myril Hoag (Ruth)

Long reliever who is the least bad of all of the horrible Lajoie teammate options left. Wow, would Bernhard have been the correct pick in round 1.

In the re-do, there’s not much left in the Ruth pool; at least this guy is a good pinch-hitter.

Round 22: Rafael Palmeiro (Ripken)
Re-do pick: Prince Fielder (Dotel)

22^nd round; I suppose it’s time to take a starting first baseman. Palmeiro, both Fielders (Cecil and Prince) and Molitor were all still sitting here. None are as good as Jack Clark, but there you go. The decision on who to take was mostly a matter of looking at how the endgame would play out. I was considering Wockenfuss (Morris teammate) to back up Dickey so Molitor and Cecil were out. And, stop me if you’ve heard this before, but I thought that Palmeiro was more of a “Coors player” than Prince. I love basing an entire draft philosophy on something that I know absolutely nothing about.

In the re-do I’ll take Prince because I think he generally looks better and I still have no idea which stadium I’d use so who cares? Although his performance history is a bit of a cause for concern.

Round 23: Ubaldo Jimenez (Dotel – 2^nd)
Re-do pick: Larry Doby (Fox)

And now the die is cast. I use my duplicate pick in the 23^rd round just so I can get a Rockies player and therefore use Coors Field. If I had taken Summers back in the 16^th round I would have had enough PAs in the OF to have taken Jay Payton here, who I would’ve preferred, but in the grand scheme of things it wouldn’t have mattered much. Jimenez puts me at a very patriotic 1776 IP, which I’ll need, (have I mentioned I’ll be playing in Coors?) and he actually might be able to get people out. In all seriousness, look at the season that Ubaldo Jimenez had in real life, in Coors Field, in 2010. That’s a damn good season anywhere, and to have done it at elevation is remarkable.

In the re-do I need and outfielder who can field, a backup second baseman in case Doerr gets hurt, and a long reliever. Here I’ll take Doby, who can go get ‘em in the outfield and can hit a little.

Round 24: John Wockenfuss (Morris)
Re-do pick: Jimmy Lavender (Vaughn)

Here I grab my backup catcher, who can hit and who had the second-best name of any catcher of his era behind only Biff Pocaroba.

Lavender is a nice color, a nice scent, and a nice long reliever.

Round 25: Lee Lacy (Pena)
Re-do pick: Billy Ripken (Ripken)

Good thing I saved my Pena pick for the immortal Lee Lacy rather than using it on Jack Clark! Moron. Although, to be fair, Lacy is somewhat useful; he hits for average, fields, runs, and reminds me of Lacey Underall:


So I got that going for me, which is nice.

In the re-do, if Cal can’t be in the league, his brother might as well be.

So how did my re-do team end up?
6208 PA, .324/.417/.534 (including everyone except Doby and Ripken)
1340 IP, 2.00 ERC#, 0.26 HR/9 (1575 IP, 2.13 ERC# including Lavender)
Stadium: I dunno. Fenway? Who cares? Fancy that.

If I learned anything from this exercise it’s that saving my double-up for the end of the draft, along with concentrating early on players from teammates who I was afraid wouldn’t have anyone good available in the endgame, were both inefficient strategies. The former was just dumb, and the latter should’ve been a tiebreaker rather than a primary consideration. Kudos to all of you who, unlike me, figured that out. Or perhaps even lucked into it, because at the end of the day it doesn’t matter which.

So yeah, I like my re-do team better. Admittedly, though, that’s as one would expect. The better question is how much I like my real team. And the answer is that I’m not really sure, which is probably why I’m resorting to the parlor trick that is Coors Field. My hope is that, while I expect that everyone drafted plenty of innings, with the number of players who didn’t have useful teammates available late in drafts some teams will be limited in the sheer number of good relief pitchers on their rosters, and this will be a factor late in games at Coors. Now that I put it that way, that’s a flimsy concept on which to pin one’s hopes. But, all together now, “I’m probably not going to do well in this round regardless so I figured I might as well give it a shot!”
ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qNtyfZP8bE

Also, I’ll note here that my re-do roster had 5 of the same players as my real roster. So it was exactly 80% different than my original. I swear that I did not fix the re-do draft for this to be the case.

Variable Cap: Plus X & Y
The lettervores were hungry. One ate E.
5811 PA, .364/.484/.621
1539 IP, 1.42 ERC#, 0.20 HR/9+ (1474 IP, 1.34 ERC# without Long B)
Great American Ball Park

It’s hard to come up with a creative way to say “180”, especially when almost everyone will be trying to say the same number.

This was an easy build. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, although this is probably disadvantageous to me because I never play at this high of a cap so I don’t know what my team is supposed to look like. I like that I was able to use Felipe Lopez; I always see him but can never afford him. I don’t know how many errors Cap Anson is going to make at catcher, but his bat seems like it’ll be worth it. I have no idea how many innings I’ll need. I decided to go low because I’m probably not going to do well in this round regardless so I figured I might as well give it a shot.

Epilogue

I’d say that this round will be a learning experience, but I never seem to learn anything so the chances of that seem slim. If I finish above 20^th place I’ll take that as a victory. Hopefully it will be fun. I think it will be. Thanks again to ozomatli for running this tournament.

70m - I'm a Belieber

How do you zig when everyone else has already zigged because they knew everyone else would zag? Traditionally, any 60/70m league in the WISC would feature a bunch of SB teams in Petco. Does this league fit that mold? That's really the question. My initial goal was to build a team like that, and then a dingerz!!! team, play them against each other in sim matchup a few hundred times, and see which looked better. Well, life gets in the way and I only got to play them about 10 times - not really enough of a sample.

So then I was going to build my usual A+++ range team and hope for the best. I was thinking I'd get a bunch of hitters really close to .260 and take advantage of the higher OAVs that everyone else would draft. Writing that now, I'm wondering why I didn't just do that. Instead, I thought some more and decided (probably unwisely) that if there was ever going to be a league to punt defense, this was it. So I decided to forge ahead with dingerz!!! and defense be damned. I'm playing in the Kingdome and my pitchers have really low BB/9 rates. So do everyone eles's pitchers, I'm sure. I've got a lot of hitters who draw a lot of walks. Just like everyone else. I've got Shane Bieber as my 4mil+ 2019 guy and also added Joe Musgrove. I didn't want any 2019 hitters becase I thought their HRs would get normalized into oblivion, but I couldn't resist Max Muncy. We've got Adam Dunn (naturally), HoJo, and Bo Jackson in CF because why not. My hitters have 300 HRs. Hopefully we can win some 3-2 and 4-3 games where every run is a solo HR. My goal isn't really to win the league, but to avoid an outright disaster and win 80ish games if I can. I figured that having a team that just hits dingerz!! should hopefully be safe enough.

5628 PA, 246/327/484, 300 HR... 1333 IP, 1.12 WHIP, 168 HR, 268 BB, .241 OAV

90m - Decades of Decadence

I had to re-do my team because I totally missed the franchise rule. Amazingly, I didn't have to make that many changes. It just sucked because there were really only two players I cared about on this whole team, Ted Williams and Billy Werber. And of course I couldn't have both. In the end I decided to throw away Teddy, though it killed me to do it. I've got a Wally Moon/Billy Herman/Werber trio of A+++ guys in the infield. Couldn't find a reasonable A++ shortstop so just picked an A-Range Appling. Put the team in Comiskey and drafted 4 pitchers who will keep the ball in the yard and keep the walks to a minimum, allowing the rangey infielders to do their work. Platoons in LF/CF/C to minimize the wasted money. Jackie Robinson's 53 season randomly in right field. Pitching is anchored by Red Lucas and Mike Garcia.

I don't have anything against 30s players - I tend to use them a decent amount, especially the pitchers in this salary range. Lucas and Bill Swift are regulars on my teams. Building a bullpen was tricky but I have Bill Harris so at least I've got a closer. Biggest concern with this team is that we really don't hit many HRs at all after we lost Teddy, and we also don't steal that much so we're relying on stringing hits together.

5694 PA, 315/398/464, 93 HR, 311 2B, 74 3B ... 1407 IP, 1.11 WHIP, .239 OAV, 52 HR, 301 BB

110m - Weird Flex for the 1925 Dodgers

The first version of this theme scared me so much that I almost didn't want to play round 2. But I didn't find the revised version all that bad. The only real trick was finding guys who didn't overlap and get in the way. I started by looking at teams that I wanted to twist, and guys who played on those teams, and what other players played on those teams. I started with a modern team - one that someone actually picked, the 2014 Pirates (Morton/MiniMart/Shark/Liriano/Martin). I got the Astros and Dodgers and Nats and Twins to get a rotation of Verlander, Kershaw, Kluber, Scherzer and a lineup that included Mauer, Harper, Lindor, Altuve and Bregman. I liked it but I didn't love it. I probably should have stuck with it.

But I wanted to look at the 1920s instead. I built a team starting from the 25 Red Sox, built around the core infield of Frisch/Traynor/Bancroft and Baby Doll Jacobson to have four A+++ guys. I realized at this point that I really liked having a 1925 or 26 team because it got me all of the 20s guys. But Jack Quinn kept getting in the way and I didn't love the pitching.

So I just started looking at the best pitchers of the 20s (SP and RP) and figuring out how I could get those teams. I didn't end up exactly where I wanted, but the '25 Dodgers had guys that were on the '29 Sens (Braxton, Cronin, Burke), 30 Cards (Frisch, RPs), '23 Braves (fill-in guys), '27 A's (BDJ, Speaker, Cochrane, Grove, Cobb) and '23 Pirates (Adams, Traynor, Carey). I couldn't get the '27 Sens, so no Walter, but I've got 4 decent SPs, a bullpen that's really good for the 20s, and a Cronin/Frisch/Traynor/Jacobson infield with Cobb/Speaker/Carey as a killer outfield. This team can hit and field. The only bummer is that I had to give up Bancroft and the early 20's Giants in order to take Frisch from the 30 Cards and get their RPs. At least I think so. I'm not 100% sure I understand this team.

5908 PA, 349/408/500, 83 HR, 335 2B, 100 3B ... 1444 IP, 1.08 WHIP, .235 OAV, 39 HR, 298 BB

130m - Delayed Taterrification 2.0

My numbers were 0.42 HR/9 and 13 HRs. There wasn't much drama to this team as I had planned most of it when I built my round 1 team - noting that Greinke, Unit, Kershaw were all available plus any 2019 guys I might want. I decided to really roll the dice in this league, probably unwisely, and added Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander from 2019. I'm playing in Jeff Street (-2 for HRs), so even though I know that lots of teams will hit HRs, I felt like I needed the OAV help given my park. My infield is Heilmann (D/A++), Biggio (B-/A++), Andrus (A-/A++) and Brett (C/A++).. Andrus is the only one I am scared of. Even when I built my round 1 team, I knew SS was going to be a problem in round 2 - I just don't like that many shortstops. Speaker/Mays/Ted Williams in the outfield (finally - Teddy made it to a team!) and Cochrane behind the plate. I don't have a lot of innings in my rotation (223, 223, 223, 212) but my bullpen is deep - I'm hoping they can carry the load without wearing down.

If I was smart I would have checked everyone's parks ahead of time. Then I could have known just how risky I was being. Oops.

5877 PA, 332/417/550, 199 HR, 361 2B, 71 3B ... 1438 IP, 0.87 WHIP, 127 HR, .193 OAV, 261 BB

140m - the deGrom A-Rod Debacle

I drew the first nomination. And without seeing who anyone else had nominated, I didn't really know what my strategy should be. But, given that anyone who picked a nominee of my teammate would get to move to the top of the next round, I figured there was no point in nominating someone with a lot of great teammates. Why let someone have Babe Ruth and the first pick in the next round? Hence, Degrom. In hindsight, maybe it wasn't necessary, and probably made the draft less fun. For that I apologize.

Anyway, for my team, I drew the 7th pick. Can I just say, I can't BELIEVE that Silver King wasn't the #1 overall pick. The first 6 picks were pitchers and even though I literally wrote in my notes "I always get so screwed by weighting position scarcity too highly " I decided to go with position scarcity anyway and take A-Rod. So yup, I left Gehrig and Tip and Sliding Billy on the board. Then Tip, Teddy and Billy were still on the board in round 2 and I passed on them again to take Reb Russell. Then in round 3 I failed to notice the ridiculous abundance of 1Bs and took John Olerud. Who I'll ultimately be playing in the outfield after picking Jack Clark (basically the same guy) in round 18. I managed to recover with a couple good SPs in rounds 4/5 (Wilcy Moore and Dick Rudolph) and grabbed an A++ 3B (Lave Cross) in round 6. Wilbur Wood rounds out my rotation and the rest of the team is Carlos Gonzalez in LF, Kip Selbach in CF, a glorious Rennie Stennett/Cass Michaels platoon at 2B and Nig Clarke/Buster Posey duo at C. This team would dominate a 100mil league! As it is, they are at 122mil with some excess ABs.

6541 PA, 333/408/522, 194 HR, 355 2B, 72 3B ... 1649 IP, 1.00 WHIP, .219 OAV, 64 HR, 347 BB

180m - Doing a Complete 180

So at first I thought this was multiplication. I think I liked that league better. (Meaning, 5 franchises x 6 seasons gets you to 180). But then I scrapped that team and followed the rules. Basically, I listed 30 lines on my spreadsheet, and filled each one of them with either a season or a franchise. When I added 1885 Roger Connor, I filled out 2 lines (one with 1885, one with Giants). Then I added Hughie Jennings/1895 and 2 moer lines. Then I added 3-Finger Brown and Cubs/1908, then Matty 09 and only one line, 1909 (since the Giants were already on there).

And on down the line I went, a pretty typical A+++ infield of Connor/Lajoie/Jennings/Baker), Brown/Matty and then Kershaw/Arrietta as 3a/3B for the rotation. I didn't make too many concessions to the rule of 30, just keeping in the back of my mind to draft some franchises and seasons to get to 30. At the end I had about 7mil left over and decided to splurge on a catcher and upgrade to King Kelly. I knew I'd have to overpay a bit somewhere and that was easier than fitting in a Ruth or Gehrig sized salary. The outfield is B.Ham/Cobb/Speaker. I had to save my last couple spots for a modern season and the Twins so I could put them in Target Field- hello Oswaldo Arcia!

6100 PA, 371/441/518, 58 HR, 366 2B, 123 3B ... 1891 IP, 0.86 WHIP, .194 OAV, 62 HR, 317 BB

What I love about this thread is seeing jfranco's A+++++ strategies on one side and barracuda's defense, schmefense strategy on the other.

$70M: Modern Baseball
More Walks Than Singles

This was a clever design, because you inevitably give up a lot of HR but opposing pitchers are going to give them to you, too. Building a useful offense that isn’t homer-reliant and playing successfully in a park that kills homers felt like swimming against the tide. They’re going to give me homers, not walks. Close your eyes and think of England. … In other words, plow into it. My pitching minimizes walks but is more generous with OAV because no great hitters are lurking anyway. I assume others did that, so batters whose value largely stems from walking a lot won’t be super successful either. I did take a couple big walks guys, and in retrospect maybe I should have tried to get even more slugging and not bothered. The key is probably scoring more with homers than you allow.

My defensive strategy was to minimize infield errors, since range feels less valuable with so many free swingers and low-contact hitters. I just don’t want to give up big innings with errors. I settled for good but not great range in CF in order to get more offense. I was happy to work a couple platoons in there to maximize that advantage. Decided to play in Miller Park (-2 1B, +1 HR) to further blunt the singles and keep the scoring down a bit. A couple of my guys can run if any soft-armed catchers are lurking.

For my biggest bat and the 2019 $4M+ salary I went with 1B Pete Alonso, who surprisingly wound up on just 4 rosters. Around the infield are ‘30 Max Bishop (B/C at 2B, .426 OBP, 11 HR), ‘78 Toby Harrah (A+/C+ at SS, 31 SB, 12 HR), and ‘19 Asdrubal Cabrera (A/C at 3B, 18 HR) spelled by ‘67 Eddie Mathews. ‘78 Gene Tenace is behind the plate (.395 OBP, 16 HR, A- arm). LF is a platoon of ‘00 Ray Lankford (26 HR) and ‘09 Kyle Blanks (10 HR). In CF is ‘67 Jimmy Wynn (37 HR, 16 SB). In RF is ‘91 HoJo (38 HR, 30 SB).

.247/.357/.468 slash, with 226 doubles, 28 triples, 235 homers, 99/43 SB/CS, 5338 PA.

For pitching, I aimed for normalized HR rates under .90 and low walks and accepted higher OAV. It was brutal getting under the cap, and I went lower on innings than I wanted to. Many people went much lower even, and I’ll feel silly for worrying. Only 249 walks in 1,384 innings for the whole staff, so bring on the solo shots.

Rotation is ‘51 Ken Raffensberger (.246 OAV, 1.09 WHIP), ‘18 Corey Kluber (.223, 0.99), ‘77 Dave Rozema (.265, 1.17), ‘12 Mark Buehrle (.258, 1.17), and ‘94 David Wells (.260, 1.23). Key relievers will be ‘16 Roberto Osuna (.206, 0.93), ‘99 Rick Aguilera (.221, 0.98), ‘95 Rick Honeycutt (.231, 1.03), and ‘79 Dan Quisenberry (.278, 1.23). Dave Rozema, huh? Probably the only time I'll ever use him ...

1,384 innings (3.29 ERA, .249 OAV, 1.12 WHIP, 1.07 HR/9, 825/249 K/BB).

$90M: 30s + 50s
Doubling the Decades

I thought it would be tricky to figure out which decade to use for the Yankees, since they were sure to have several players I’d want. Turned out the only suspense would be whether I’d roster any Yankees at all. I couldn’t afford any of the big names.

These decades certainly have their share of sluggers, but I could see it wouldn’t be too hard for owners to build pitching staffs and use parks that greatly minimize homers. So I decided to build a doubles-heavy team and play in the Polo Grounds. I have three monster 2B hitters: ‘31 Earl Webb (67), ‘34 Hank Greenberg (63), and ‘36 Ben Chapman (50), plus a couple platoons with about 40 per spot. With speed lacking and only a mediocre batting average, the doubles will have to drive the train.

The infield has Greenberg (.339/.404/.600), ‘58 Bill Mazeroski (.275/.308/.439), ‘51 Minnie Minoso (.324/.419/.498), and slick-fielding ‘51 Chico Carrasquel (.264/.325/.331). The outfield has Webb (.333/.404/.528), Chapman (.315/.408/.472) and a platoon of ‘35 Babe Herman (.335/.396/.516) and ‘30 Dave Harris (.317/.399/.546). Platooning ‘59 Smoky Burgess (.297/.349/.485) and ‘37 Frankie Hayes (.261/.359/.489) behind the plate. Just a tad over $1M for 4 bench guys to back up elsewhere and pinch hit. Snuck just one Yankee in there after all (66 PA Eddie Robinson … who?).

.306/.375/.485 slash, with 366 doubles, 65 triples, 121 homers, 89/41 SB/CS, 5562 PA.

There are a handful of solid but unspectacular guys to build a rotation around, and after a few trials and errors I wound up with ‘36 Carl Hubbell, ‘30 Dazzy Vance and ‘52 Bob Lemon, with ‘39 Whit Wyatt to pick up spot starts. It’s nice that most of the guys in the pen are actually starters and can deliver some length, too. Key ones: ‘58 Barry Latman (a fave, and doubtless on many rosters), ‘52 Stu Miller (you’ve probably got him too), and ‘50 Joe Ostrowski (you needed a lefty, too, right?). I went low on innings to try to maximize value, but again I’m sure many will go even lower. I have to get over the innings fears someday.

1,414 innings (2.40 ERA, .229 OAV, 1.11 WHIP, 0.39 HR/9, 653/345 K/BB).

$110M: Two Degree Twist
Nary a ‘43 Brown to be Found

I assumed that modern teams would be more challenging because of increased player movement, but it seems I was just plain wrong about that because lots of you did it. I looked for time periods with enough pitching quality to build a solid team around and settled on the mid-40s and late-60s as good windows. I worked backwards to find a base team that had a park I’d be OK with and seemed to have a few connections for people I’d likely want to use. … And then the rules questions came up, I got completely confused, and I gave up for over a month. When I went back, I couldn’t even remember what I was trying to do. My 1969 Seattle Pilots team (basically chosen because of Ball Four, which is as good a reason as any, right?) was further along, so I just tried to finish it somehow, sticking with the same five player links and pushing on until I had a legal roster. That was so much work I decided not to bother figuring the 40s team out at all. … Until I had a few extra days after getting my 180M team finished early and decided to see which would be better. Glad I did, because the new team was significantly stronger offensively (far less HR reliant) and almost as good pitching-wise.

My base team is the 1943 Browns. I wanted some mid-40s Cardinals pitching, good Yankees and Red Sox hitters, and a group of about 6-8 SP I could be happy with. The biggest surprise ended up being no Dodgers season I wanted to use.

With Sportsman’s Park a +3 for doubles, I had to rework the lineup a couple times to make the offense suitable. I still only have four big doubles hitters, but it’s a deep lineup with power, though minimal speed. The studs are in the outfield: ‘41 Joe DiMaggio (.357/.440/.643) flanked by ‘47 Ted Williams (.343/.499/.634) and ‘47 Harry Walker (.363/.436/.487). The infield is ‘39 Hank Greenberg (.312/.420/.622), ‘48 Bobby Doerr (.285/.386/.505), ‘38 Joe Cronin (.325/.428/.536) and ‘48 Luke Appling (.314/.423/.354), with ‘38 Bill Dickey (.313/.412/.568) catching. A little righty-heavy and slow, but I improved my slash line from .288/.380/.509 with my ‘69 team to .321/.423/.529 with this one. So I’m pretty happy I took the time to do it.

.321/.423/.529 slash, with 315 doubles, 65 triples, 168 homers, 48/29 SB/CS, 5650 PA.

I had a lot of SP in the mix before settling on ‘46 Hal Newhouser, ‘42 Mort Cooper and ‘43 Spud Chandler as the big horses. ‘43 Harry Brecheen and ‘40 Tiny Bonham are also on hand and might be a tandem at times. The hardest thing for this era was assembling a decent bullpen, which I think I barely managed. A lot of those surplus SP innings will be used in short relief, and they’ll be joined by ‘46 Red Ruffing, ‘42 Johnny Rigney, ‘45 Max Lanier, and ‘43 Jack Hallett.

1,435 innings (2.07 ERA, .212 OAV, 1.04 WHIP, 0.32 HR/9, 787/361 K/BB).

$130M: The Storm
More Like a Light Drizzle

I set myself up for this round with lower limits of 15 HR and 0.32 HR/9, playing again in Shibe Park (+2 singles, rest 0s). My R1 team was something of a disaster, so I have no confidence that I’ve got a decent strategy for this one either. My goal was to use hitters who didn’t have to hit tons of HR to be productive, since I expect most teams still to have pitchers who don’t give too many up. I’m going to want to hit a lot of 2B and 3B, but I failed to take a park that really helped in that respect, alas.

While 15 HR was my floor, I wanted to stay under 30 because I don’t expect the big sluggers to shine here. Both AVG and OBP are lower than my R1 team, so that’s a tad concerning, but I think there’s enough hitting here to cause trouble.

The outfield is a trio of studs: ‘25 Al Simmons (.387/.419/.599, 81 speed), ‘29 Babe Herman (.381/.436/.612), and ‘23 Ken Williams (.357/.439/.623, 84 speed). Around the infield we’ve got ‘79 George Brett (.329/.376/.563, 80 speed), ‘16 Francisco Lindor (.301/.358/.435), ‘07 Chase Utley (.332/.410/.566), and ‘37 Johnny Mize (.364/.427/.595). Behind the plate is ‘12 Buster Posey (.336/.408/.549). There’s HR ability if we face anyone who gives many up (all between 20-30 except Lindor), and we should rack up a good number of 2B and 3B.

.345/.404/.556 slash, with 348 doubles, 78 triples, 185 homers, 98/70 SB/CS, 5694 PA.

I knew when I used Gibson’s 0.32 as my HR ratio I was leaving a handful of superior SP available just over that. The best modern pitchers also get an advantage on normalization. After failing to use ‘18 Jacob DeGrom a couple times in R1, I’m not missing out this time. He’s joined by a pair of 2015 aces in Jake Arrieta and Clayton Kershaw and 1999 Pedro Martinez, for 893 innings from the elite SP. ‘61 Dick Donovan will fill the SP5 role as often as needed and pitch long relief otherwise.

I could afford a strong deep bullpen, which I tinkered with endlessly. Finally stopped the wheel with ‘81 Goose Gossage, ‘09 Neftali Feliz, ‘17 Chad Green, ‘17 Andrew Miller, and ‘14 Zack Britton in the key roles.

1,442 innings (1.98 ERA, .193 OAV, 0.90 WHIP, 0.46 HR/9, 1572/313 K/BB).

Variable Cap: Plus X & Y
Doolittle or Be Devine

Goal No. 1 was to use the full $180M. There was no Goal No. 2. It only took a few hours to put a roster together I really liked, and using 15 of each worked out really easily. For some reason, different ways of adding up to 30 never occurred to me.

I went for high AVG with loads of 2B and 3B and good speed. I struggled with whether or not to put a Ruth on there just to be a huge power threat, but I think we can produce well with what I took.

I’m using two players I’ve seen plenty but never rostered: 1921 Rogers Hornsby (.397/.458/.639) and 1887 Tip O’Neill (.435/.490/.691), the former largely because of defense and the latter because his salary rarely fits. There aren’t likely to be too many LH starting pitchers seeing significant innings in this league, so I have 5 LH and a SH filling it out. C ‘06 Joe Mauer (.347/.429/.507), 1B ‘30 Lou Gehrig (.379/.473/.721), SS ‘87 Tony Fernandez (.322/.379/.426), CF ‘12 Tris Speaker (.383/.464/.567), RF ‘12 Ty Cobb (.409/.456/.584). Probably the hardest choice was at 1B where several options were very appealing, and eventually I decided having one big homer threat isn’t a terrible thing considering everything else Gehrig brings.

It’s a weak glove year for Gehrig, so I have a good defensive replacement. In fact, I wonder if I found a unicorn in 2004 David Segui. His RF is an absurd 38.23, which is almost 3 times higher than anyone else in the sim. He only has 65 PA, so he won’t be playing a ton, but I’m hoping for a lot of late-inning plus plays.

.371/.439/.571 slash, with 360 doubles, 135 triples, 124 homers, 255/166 SB/CS, 5808 PA.

So many ways to go with the pitching staff with this budget and no restrictions, and I wound up with a five-man modern rotation of all things. I’m using the huge salaries of ‘95 Greg Maddux and ‘00 Pedro Martinez, ‘18 Jacob DeGrom, ‘15 Jake Arrieta, and ‘16 Clayton Kershaw. I considered Silver King or some of the usual deadballers, but I think there’s more value in the modern guys who don’t walk many and give up fairly low HR totals. If I get to a playoff series, Maddux-Pedro-Kershaw is a pretty nice trio.

I could still afford a healthy deep bullpen of pretty much anyone, though I avoided the super-high salary guys who aren’t much better performers. I’ve got ‘08 Joey Devine, ‘06 Joe Nathan, ‘18 Sean Doolittle, ‘06 BJ Ryan, and ‘18 Blake Treinen. Long man is 1918 Jack Quinn.

1,454 innings (1.67 ERA, .183 OAV, 0.83 WHIP, 0.42 HR/9, 1563/256 K/BB).

I needed a plus park for 2B and 3B, but my franchises and seasons didn’t match up well for a couple of the best options. Had to settle for the Metrodome, with +2 on 2B and 3B and 0s elsewhere. I would have preferred a plus singles park and a minus HR park, but no combo really worked out better.

(140M draft in another post because I did a round by round that's not nearly as entertaining as barracuda's, alas, so I need to make it more worth reading)

$140M: Teammate Draft
The Ruth of All Evil

The experience of this draft is a lot like being in line at Popeye’s to try their new chicken sandwich and having the person in front of you get the last one. You’d already waited a long time and so you ordered something just to be full, but you don’t leave satisfied. Then repeat that 25 times. (It’s a cheerier analogy than the Bataan Death March, though perhaps not as apt.)

Round 1, Pick 15: P Stan Coveleski (Speaker)
Watching this round unfold was slow and painful. No clock, and all the best SP disappearing one by one. Only one of the 14 picks in front of me was a hitter, and so I felt like I had to take a pitcher to avoid having nothing close to an ace. I wanted to have an early pick in R2 possibly to grab a second SP from the shrinking quality pool. Coveleski is solid enough, but he feels like a stretch for a R1 pick. As a Speaker teammate, he got me into the 2nd spot in R2 pending the remaining selections. But three teams late in the round jumped me in draft position for R2.
Retrospect: Best I could do. He’d better not suck.

Round 2, Pick 5: 3B Frank Baker (Collins)
I wanted one from the group of Scott-Bernhard-Kershaw, but they went with the first 3 picks. That was the lone advantage drafting late in R1, the ability to set up a very high R2 pick, and then it meant nothing. Damn you, Popeye’s! The remaining SP didn’t feel worthy of taking so high. I was torn between Roberto Alomar, one of a few select 2B and a Ripken teammate to boot, and a pair of 3B; Baker and Heinie Zimmerman. I figured a Collins teammate still lands me high enough in R3, and Baker has a high AVG, tons of 2B and 3B, solid speed, and great range.
Retrospect: Later on the decent remaining 3B looked a lot better than the 2B I had to pick from, so this looks iffy.

Round 3, Pick 11: C Mickey Cochrane (Foxx)
Dropping to the middle of the round, I had a few targets I hoped would fall to me. 2B Lazzeri was one, and he went to ozo just before me. I really wanted to nab John Olerud or Todd Helton, but I figured I could still do well enough at 1B without either of them. So I decided to secure one of the elite catchers, which is a shallow pool here. It was tough leaving some stud hitters on the board, but I think this will give me a deeper, productive lineup. No one I wanted badly enough would give me a big draft spot boost, so I just let that go …
Retrospect: Holds up.

Round 4, Pick 14: P Lefty Gomez (Ruth)
By now the quality SP pool really shriveled, and my top 3 targets all went off the board in the 5 picks ahead of me. Once again, draft position really killed me. I hadn’t prioritized it in R3, and now I paid the price.
Retrospect: Let’s see if he keeps his ERA under 5.

Round 5, Pick 8: OF Elmer Flick (Lajoie)
I wanted the best bat offering a decent chance of a high pick in the next round. I’ll accept lousy defense in a corner OF spot. Flick can really hit, but that’s about it. Also, he gives me three LH bats so far and no RH. I know there’s depth at OF and scarcity in the middle infield, but I just didn’t see an infielder I wanted badly enough here.
Retrospect: Glad I got some lumber.

Round 6, Pick 4: 1B Jeff Bagwell (Johnson)
I panicked. My lineup was all lefties so far. Big RH bat with a very desirable teammate was more than I could resist.
Retrospect: A big reach. Should have resisted. I don’t get Bags’ best season because of teammate limitations, and similar enough 1B were still on the board much, much later.

Round 7, Pick 5: RP Jonathan Papelbon (Wells)
I had decided after the previous pick that I was taking an elite RP here regardless, because it was the only position left where truly top talent was still on the board. Schwarze nabbed Kuo late in R6, and I could only hope he didn’t start a run.
Retrospect: Still happy, unless he winds up sucking.

Round 8, Pick 20: RP Alex Torres (Rodney)
Relievers continue to be the position with the best remaining quality. Happy to nab a lefty and a second RP under 1.50 ERC#. If I didn’t already have a Wells teammate, I could have grabbed Cla Meredith, but I didn’t want to use that 2nd spot so early.
Retrospect: See Papelbon.

Round 9, Pick 8: OF Rickey Henderson (John)
Someone has to play CF on this team, and the options were really starting to dwindle. Also, I needed some speed atop the lineup. Alas, the best Rickey option only has 440 PA and sub-90 speed but does have great range. His .420 OBP# should hopefully be enough to catalyze the offense for the two-thirds of the games I can use him.
Retrospect: Maybe I just took him because of his name. Hope he performs.

Round 10, Pick 15: Ben McDonald (Ripken)
Without a great option to complete a 3-man rotation, I started looking at the best talent under 200 innings to see if I could form a tandem or find 2-3 pitchers to fill out the remaining ~400 innings I’ll need from the rotation. McDonald only has 120 innings, but they should be solid. And he brought me to the top of the next round so I could complete his tandem quickly before a pitching run killed the options.
Retrospect: Low SP innings look like a reach this early.

Round 11, Pick 1: Pat Ragan (Evers)
Though I still had hitters I really wanted, the quality arms under 2.50 ERC# were going to be gone soon. I could have flipped a coin between Bob Wicker and Ragan, with nearly identical stats and both Evers teammates. Should keep me near the top of the next round as well, and I haven’t doubled up a teammate yet.
Retrospect: This idea of drafting a tandem back to back works much better if they’re not both RHP. But SP scarcity was a real thing at this point so it might work out.

Round 12, Pick 8: Roberto Clemente (Oliver)
I thought about taking another SP here (either Koosman or Knepper, both of whom went shortly thereafter), but I do already have 900+ SP innings and will be able to get better relievers who can spot start, if needed. So I finally pulled the trigger on Clemente after considering him for three rounds (along with Manny Ramirez and Moises Alou) to punch up my lineup from the right side. His .352 AVG# will be very valuable. This gives me 6 very solid bats, though I am low on PA in the OF and will need at least one more semi-regular who can play CF on occasion.
Retrospect: Glad I didn’t miss out on him.

Round 13, Pick 21: RP Rick Aguilera (Morris)
I had my eye on Martin Glendon to get one of the few usable remaining Joss teammates or Buddy Carlyle to vault up with a DeGrom guy, but apparently I wasn’t the only one targeting them this round. I still needed to fill my Morris spot, and that would also keep me near the top next round. Aguilera’s walks are a little high, but he’s still a solid 69 innings with a sub-2 ERC# and those guys are nearly extinct. I will target one more next round, since the middle infielders I’m looking at aren’t going anywhere just yet.
Retrospect: A deep bullpen is a good thing.

Round 14, Pick 7: RP Andrew Miller (Uribe)
I had targeted LH reliever Frank DiPino in this spot, but mensu grabbed him two spots above me. I still felt RP had more value on the table than any other spot I needed (aside from pinch hitters), and Miller has been sitting there at the very top of the spreadsheet for 14 rounds now. Sure, he’s only 29 innings, but they are a mighty good 29 innings. I think I can slot him at closer and get 30-35 saves out of him perhaps.
Retrospect: If he pitches like he should, it’s a steal.

Round 15, Pick 14: 2B Asdrubal Cabrera (DeGrom)
At this point the 2B pool really had diminished, as had decent DeGrom teammates. Cabrera is only OK offensively, but he’s A+ in fielding at 2B (with C+ range, so at least some + plays possible) and a switch hitter at least. I like the idea of avoiding the errors. And I was low enough in this round to make it a good time to jump to the top next round with my DeGrom pick.
Retrospect: I still like my logic. Unless he can’t hit. Which is a very real possibility.

Round 16, Pick 2: OF Carlos Beltran (Dotel)
I got the 4th outfielder I really needed here, a switch-hitter with pop and enough range to replace Henderson for about 50 games and back up Clemente as well. Plus he’s got 94 speed (28 for 28 in SB) and can sub for Flick or Clemente defensively. I’m happy he was still on the board.
Retrospect: Fills a lot of needs with one pick. Wish he wasn’t a .258 hitter, but he would have gone several rounds earlier if he was.

Round 17, Pick 14: SS Terry Turner (Joss)
By this point, there were no great all-around shortstops. I gave a lot of thought to Glenn Wright, with C/A defense and a bit more offense as well as being a McInnis teammate, but I worried about his errors. At B/A- with a .300 AVG#, Turner won’t set the world on fire but he should avoid hurting me anywhere.
Retrospect: When you wait this long for one of your key positions, you can’t really complain.

Round 18, Pick 13: P Sandy Consuegra (Fox)
Turned down a couple repeat teammate options to preserve that and grabbed these fairly solid 133 innings of relief with a 1.07 WHIP and 0.26 HR/9. For this round in this draft, I’m happy to get someone who can eat some useful middle innings.
Retrospect: Fills a need well.

Round 19, Pick 18: P Eddie Fisher (John)
One more reliever to get me over 1400 solid innings. With a 2.11 ERC# and 166 innings, I’m surprised he lasted this long. It was worth using my second John pick here to get him, because there was no other pitcher with 100+ innings anywhere close in ERC#.
Retrospect: See Consuegra.

Round 20, Pick 14: OF Gary Woods (Ryan)
Schwarze grabbed Phil Plantier 5 spots ahead of me, taking a better bat with more PA who also filled a teammate spot I needed. Woods only has 55 PA, but he hits .379 with a .994 OPS# so he makes for a very fine PH and that’s it. Still, even that group was shrinking rapidly among my teammate options, so I am glad I got him.
Retrospect: I drafted bad hitting pitchers, so his 60 or so PA will be useful.

Round 21, Pick 19: P Joe Magrane (Pena)
I realized I still need some potential starts from someone and Pena had a few teammate options I could be happy with. Magrane was at the top of the list, and I’m grateful someone else who needed Pena didn’t take him. Alas, 5 hitters I had targeted for my other teammate spots got snatched up this round ahead of me, and I will be drafting last next round. So it might get tricky to fill the holes I have with the pool remaining.
Retrospect: He always seems to do well when I see him used, so maybe I caught a little lightning here.

Round 22, Pick 24: C/3B Arlie Latham (Boyle)
My target this round was 2B Charlie Pick, one of a few useful Vaughn teammates left who would fill a need to back up Cabrera. But he went 10 slots before me. Latham is an odd combination of a backup C with B- arm and a decent bat and also 96 speed and 813 PA. The PA would have made him undraftable if I were anywhere close to the salary cap. So he will mostly be a very expensive pinch runner, and since I have a slow C it might work out.
Retrospect: Doesn’t your backup catcher have over 800 PA and 129 SB?

Round 23, Pick 20: OF Clyde Milan (Vaughn)
With my potential Vaughn picks dwindling and plenty of options left for my other two remaining players, I nabbed Milan for his 94 speed and A- range. I have two bad fielding starting OF, so he might come in handy. Not the worst lefty bat off the bench either.
Retrospect: Salary is not a worry, so why not?

Round 24, Pick 9: 2B Jimmy Williams (Seymour)
Considering I almost took him in R15 over Cabrera, this is a solid pickup now. He can start against some LHP to spell Cabrera, and he’s a good enough hitter to be a valuable bench contributor.
Retrospect: I have a sneaking suspicion I’ll end up using him a lot more than I thought, especially if Cabrera can’t hit a lick.

Round 25, Pick 20: P Rube Bressler (McInnis)
With over 7500 PA drafted, another bench guy wasn’t likely to be of much use. So I grabbed another pitcher instead to push close to 1800 innings. Bressler is better than your typical mopup, so he’ll get some long relief work here and there.
Retrospect: No worries about fatigue, at least.

Nominee: This was easy. I didn’t want anyone to luck into Ruth by drawing the first pick, end of story. I didn’t look that carefully at all his teammates, but I knew there were enough good ones.

Stadium: Humphrey Metrodome. Enough of my hitters are strong 2B/3B guys, so the +2 there plays to strengths. I think my pitching depth is good enough to handle a hitters’ park, and I’ve got no fatigue to worry about either.

Summary: As the draft progressed, I constantly regretted choices I made. By the end, you get hamstrung by having used up a teammate and see a great player sit on the board that you can’t take. I doubt anyone feels they did as well as they wanted to, so maybe it all evens out. This team has speed, good enough OBP and power, and solid defense up the middle. It’s lower in AVG than I’d like at this cap, and it’s a stretch to call it even a $120M team. More than $10M was spent on bench guys who will barely play, and I barely spent $130M total.

.316/.395/.482 slash, with 360 doubles, 125 triples, 163 homers, 493/274 SB/CS, 7571 PA.

Coveleski isn’t the ace I’d like, and Gomez worries me as a No. 2, too. The combination of Ragan, McDonald and Magrane will be solid at the back of the rotation, I think. I might put the first two in a tandem, though it’s a shame both are RHP. The back end of the bullpen is excellent with Papelbon, Miller, Torres and Aguilera. And I have big inning eaters to fill up the long man roles, too. I think that’s a strength of the team if I can just hand some leads over to them.

1,772 innings (2.09 ERA, .208 OAV, 1.04 WHIP, 0.31 HR/9, 1044/523 K/BB).

70M - Modern Baseball

"And the Fans Wore Hard Hats"

Stadium: Astrodome

After reading other owners' strategies, mine isn't a great deal different. Low walk pitchers with HR/9 close to 1.0 and hitters with decent OBP (for the cap). The defense won't hurt too much but collectively just very average.

The Ace of the staff is '64 Jim Bouton...boy, does that sound strange when said out loud. The other SP are '79 Eckersley, '08 Shields, and '10 Guthrie. The bullpen consists of 7 pitchers with IP ranging from 50-91. I just couldn't make myself go too low on innings and ended with a little over 1400.

The lineup will probably struggle (especially in the Dome) Rickey will lead things off with his .410 OBP. Other familiar names include Eddie Mathews, Kevin Mitchell, Mark McGwire, and Ralph Kiner.

Pitching Line: .239 OAV, 1.11 WHIP, 167 HRA
Hitting Line: .250/.351/.428

If this bunch comes in with 75+ wins, I'll be happy. My only hope is some of the low IP teams run into fatigue problems.


$90M: 30s + 50s

"90M - 30's/50's Mashup"

Griffith Stadium

Going with a 3 man rotation of Robin Roberts, Carl Hubbell, and Dazzy Vance, while the BP is led by Dizzy Dean and Don Mossi. Again, kept my IP up with around 1450 (counting mopup).

Lineup includes Mantle, Al Rosen, Big Klu, Mel Ott, and Frankie Frisch. SS is manned by Chico Carrasquel with A-/A+ defense, but a light stick. The overall defense is average.

Pitching Line; .231 OAV, 1.07 WHIP, 67 HRA
Hitting Line: .300/.375/.450

I have no idea how this team will finish...maybe 75-85 wins.


$110M: Two Degree Twist

"71 Cardinals - A Sad Double Twist"

Busch Stadium

This was the build from hell for me. I originally built a modern team with Maddux and the usual suspects and was reasonably happy with it. But....as the deadline drew near, I just had to try different eras. Somehow, I managed to erase the modern team and lost it forever...

Everything I tried looked ok, but would always fail with the last few players. The deadline was 1 day away and I spent way too many hours trying to find a team that could win 90+ games. Finally on Sunday, I just threw my hands in the air and went with the era most familiar....mid 60's - mid 70's. I wanted to find a group with the Astros because of the stadium, but that wound up failing. Finally found something that worked with the '71 Redbirds. It's not great, but it fits the parameters.

The Rotation consists of Don Sutton, Larry Dierker, Joe Horlen, and Gary Peters. The BP is led by Hoyt Wilhelm. None of these guys are spectacular, but solid closers during this era weren't plentiful.

After deciding on the era, I knew the base of my lineup would start with The Big Red Machine. Julian Javier's only season other than a Cardinal set this up. Bench, Morgan, Rose, and Concepcion gave me half of the lineup. Throw in Steve Garvey and the infield defense is solid.

The OF has Frank Robinson, Cesar Cedeno's best season, and a very nice $5.5m value in Merv Rettenmund.

I like this team, but the BP may not be strong enough. Maybe I like it because it is from my favorite era in baseball.

Pitching Line: .204 OAV, 0.97 WHIP, 75 HRA
Hitting Line: .300/.377/.455 (The period normalizes well)


$130M: The Storm

"Storm Chasers"

Astrodome

My 1st round maximums made this team a little tricky to build (18 HR, 0.53 HR/9). That team had my 2nd fewest wins (88) and I hope to match that total again. Total IP of 1460 may be a little lower than some, but don't expect any problems.

The SP are Kershaw, Greinke, Pedro, Kluber, and Sale. Kluber's HR/9 worries me, but I will try to get most of his starts at home. The BP is solid as far as OAV and WHIP.

The lineup is probably a little weak compared to most but notables include: R Alomar, J Mize, Ken Williams, The Mick, Tulowitzki, Joltin' Joe D, and IMHO a solid '71 Bobby Murcer (for the $).

Pitching Line: .186 OAV, 0.85 WHIP, 104 HRA (ouch)
Hitting Line: .333/.418/.555


$140M: Teammate Draft

"Speaker's Lament"

Astrodome

Not a lot to say except I'm disappointed in my draft...starting with my 1st pick of Dutch Leonard. I could have gotten someone similar in ability with more IP to help the entire staff. Others I drafted too early include Buck Weaver, Johnny Kling, Lou Whitaker (but solid as a Jack Morris matchup), Jered Weaver, and probably Tony Fernandez. Oh yeah...the Bob Nieman debacle.

Pitching Line: 1498 IP, .213 OAV, 1.02 WHIP, 73 HRA
Hitting Line: .325/.390/.455


Variable Cap: Plus X & Y

"178M and Some Change"

AT&T Park

The decision to go mainly with a modern pitching staff may rear it's ugly head, but it is what it is. The rotation is made up of 1913 Big Train, Maddux, and Pedro, with spot starts by 2016 Kershaw. The BP is low OAV and WHIP just like most. 1483 IP but again don't expect many fatigue problems.

The lineup includes Gehrig, Lajoie, Delahanty, Speaker, Cobb, Joe D, Chipper Jones, and Tulowitzski /Scutaro splitting time at SS. The defense is pretty solid, although the dead ball hitters may hurt my infield.

Pitching Line: .183 OAV, 0.80 WHIP, 53 HRA
Hitting Line: .373/.450/565


Overall, this could be a rough 2nd half. Never failing to make this round out of 7 tries and only twice finishing below 10th, my personal worst of 19th may be in jeopardy. Good luck everyone!

I'll post a full strategy later, but just wanted to post stats for now in case people like comparing.

70M: 2019-style
Hitters: 5601PA, .249/.349/.418
Pitchers: 1319IP, 1.04WHIP, 170HR

90M: 30s hitters and 50s pitchers
Hitters: 5697PA, .308/.402/.451
Pitchers: 1375IP, 1.02WHIP, 84HR

110M: Canadian Baseball, 2012
Hitters 5666PA, .305/.384/.510
Pitchers: 1370IP, 0.90WHIP, 105HR

130M: Corey, Clayton, Chris, Carlos and Chipper
Hitters: 5687PA, .322/.428/.549
Pitchers: 1406IP, 0.84WHIP, 96HR

140M: Walter Please
Hitters: 6855PA, .329/.415/.468
Pitchers: 1475IP, 0.99WHIP, 97HR

180M: Will I Give Up 180 Home Runs?
Hitters: 5851PA, .353/.447/.547
Pitchers: 1451IP, 0.78WHIP, 76HR

Good idea ^

Added mine to the top post as well

I can do this and will see if I can come up with a couple words about building these later on...

70M - Modern Problems (Braves Field)
Offense: .247/.360/.422, 4,898PA
On the bump: .213 OAV, 0.96 WHIP, 30 HBP, 5 SV, 1,267 IP

90M - Ok Boomer (Griffith)
Offense: .324/.406/.462, 4,971PA
Meat: .219, 1.03, 2.32 ERA, 1,127 H, 4 Balks, 1,402 IP

110M - Rooted in Oaktown (2014) (Net. ***. Coliseum)
Offense: .305/.379/.496, 5,223
Cheese: .194, 0.89, 1,474 IP, 1,744 Ks, 0 Balks, 1,474.3 IP

130M - Storm after the Storm (Target)
Offense: .356/.438/.593, 5,364
Gopher ballers: .185, 0.85, 1,476 IP, 130 HRa, 42 HBP - don't go getting comfy in there

140M - OOOO - Reebay (Columbia)
Offense: .317/.394/.508, 8,102 <<it's complicated, lotta D and roleplayers when you only roster 8 pitchers
Toeing the rubber: .208, 0.93, 1,610 IP, 162 games started

Var Cap - Perfect Strangers (180) (League II)
Offense: .364/.458/.567, 5,693
Aces: .189, 0.79, 1,561 IP, 1.39 ERC#