I'll make this brief. I missed the DH thing. That would have altered my strategy from the 2nd round on. I looked at the list of disgusting pitchers (seems to be an advantage to getting in early and selecting a dead weight pitcher for everyone to carry - maybe randomize position assignments once everyone has signed up next time?) and decided I needed a big innings pitcher for my original teammate and a low salary assignment to get an early pick in round 1. Shad Barry fit the bill and also had lots of usable teammates in various years which should have made him a popular choice early on, thereby drawing picks away from other players that I might want.
When I looked at the field, I pretty much completely ignored all the hitters as I was terrified of the pitchers. I didn't even begin looking at teammates of hitters until several rounds in (this would have been much different had I realized there was a DH). Since I had first pick, the 1964 Mossi jumped out at me with his low salary (I didn't at this point consider the fact that it was ok to saddle some big pitcher salaries), and his Joe Horlen teammate.
Next up, a completely wasted pick in Alvin Crowder. Didn't really need to save salary here (20/20) and the teammate I pegged was am unthrilling $4M catcher in Muddy Ruehl. I wound up not rostering Ruehl as of an hour ago - once I realized there was no DH.
My next 2 picks were gonna be Bush and F. Smith I really wanted that top Bush season, thinking I needed to grab usable versions of some players since I only had 13 teammates available to me. But Franks started coming off the board earlier than I had thought. I was originally pegging the big 1909 Frank for round 4 after taking Bush in round 3, but after poking around at teammates, I decided the 1906 Smith, with Doc White and Ed Walsh as teammates, would pretty much complete my pitching staff (screw relievers). Also that 1906 Frank has low innings that are actually usable in spotty relief or mop-up.
My staff at that point was 1908 Christy, 1964 Horlen, 1906 Doc White, and 1906 Ed Walsh which gave me 1150 IP of 0.91 whip and 0.16 HR/9.
At this point I started to look at hitters and and teammates (I know, maybe it would have been a good idea to do this before the draft began). I realized that the hitting field was also dreck, and I was gonna need to roster at least 2 of them as starters. That brought me to my next wasted pick: 1954 Wally Moon. I figured I was going to need to use a couple of these guys as actual hitters, and all the other Moons were liability in the field. (Never considered I could use him at DH). Moon brought me Schoendienst at 2B which I suppose was still a good thing.
Nothing really matters from here on out - those picks at 2 and 4 were duds and never would have been made if I had considered DH.
Next I grabbed the Bush I had coveted - thinking usable players and at least he brought one of my favorite low cap pitchers in Pete Alexander.
A deeper look into teammates of hitters remaining showed me there wasn't much left, and so i decided to focus on fielding. I grabbed the best fielding Brouthers next. (no teammate considered).
My offense was looking dreadful so I grabbed Frank Robinson on the next pick (62 Edwards) and started to realize how much wasted hitter salary I was gonna eat.
Joe Smith got me ridiculous fielding Mike Trout next.
And then just trying to staunch the bleeding with the next 3 picks. (nothing notable here).
So my strategy of avoiding wasting money on pitching came to fruition - only about $5M of wasted salary here. But my hitting sucks and I didn't draft a DH - which meant my last 2 picks of Tito Fuentes or Harry Steinfeldt would be DH.
PS - I did pull my roster and tweak a little bit to grab a King Kelly to use as DH and spot starter at catcher, but that meant letting Johnny edwards actually do the majority of the catching.
Each time I do these drafts I say the same thing: "Next time I'm going to do my research before the draft. Next time I'll actually put in the time."
Some things never change...see you in the basement.