Since I will be up before thehuseman I'm pretty sure I can take may last pick - Shad Barry.

Barry, Shad

1906 St. Louis Cardinals

1,329,659

72 Fuentes and 01 Stenifeldt

Final 2 picks:

71 Fuentes
63 Edwards

My last:

Barry, Shad

1899 Washington Senators

1,344,657

Final 2:

1976 Tito Fuentes - San Diego Padres - $3,199,141
1937 Guy Bush - Boston Bees - $3,895,165

1975 Tito Fuentes
2011 Joe Smith

Good luck everyone!

ROUND 10
Owner________	Prev. Salary___	Player________	Salary_______	New Salary____
barracuda3	24,034,838	04 Barry	592,614	24,627,452
contrarian23	24,570,334	93 Brouthers	4,009,499	28,579,833
joerat1	29,741,981	00 Barry	1,537,019	31,279,000
Chisock	29,902,998	34 Bush	5,283,961	35,186,959
thehuseman	30,950,644	31 Crowder	5,364,749	36,315,393
danidon	31,544,647	02 Steinfeldt	3,610,213	35,154,860
slainte	31,988,881	72 Fuentes	3,766,380	35,755,261
mpitt76	37,225,870	29 Bush	6,502,403	43,728,273
Landry19	37,946,485	71 Fuentes	4,347,656	42,294,141
mllama54	38,837,931	28 Crowder	5,851,190	44,689,121
pedrocerrano	41,523,901	76 Fuentes	3,199,141	44,723,042
cholatse	47,035,167	75 Fuentes	3,948,295	50,983,462
ROUND 11
Owner________	Prev. Salary___	Player________	Salary_______	New Salary____
barracuda3	24,627,452	14 F.Smith	4,173,236	28,800,688
contrarian23	28,579,833	35 Jackson	4,071,424	32,651,257
joerat1	31,279,000	29 Crowder	5,962,702	37,241,702
danidon	35,154,860	06 Barry	1,329,659	36,484,519
Chisock	35,186,959	55 Moon	4,375,845	39,562,804
slainte	35,755,261	01 Steinfeldt	2,393,638	38,148,899
thehuseman	36,315,393	99 Barry	1,344,657	37,660,050
Landry19	42,294,141	63 Edwards	4,224,975	46,519,116
mpitt76	43,728,273	57 Mossi	3,548,509	47,276,782
mllama54	44,689,121	11 F.Smith	4,705,772	49,394,893
pedrocerrano	44,723,042	37 Bush	3,895,165	48,618,207
cholatse	50,983,462	11 J.Smith	2,317,257	53,300,719

Hitting	Edwards	Brouthers	Fuentes	Steinfeldt	Jackson	Barry	Moon
---------------------	---------------	---------------	---------------	---------------	---------------	---------------	---------------
barracuda3	73 Hou	91 Bos	69 SF	10 ChC	36 NYG	04 Phi	62 LAD
contrarian23	61 Cin	93 BkB	66 SF	08 ChC	35 NYG	05 ChC	57 StL
joerat1	64 Cin	90 Bos	65 SF	09 ChC	24 NYG	00 Bos	65 LAD
Chisock	70 Hou	87 Det	67 SF	03 Cin	33 NYG	08 StL	55 StL
thehuseman	67 Cin	86 Det	70 SF	11 Bos	23 NYG	99 Was	59 LAD
danidon	68 StL	95 Bal	73 SF	02 Cin	32 NYG	06 StL	61 LAD
slainte	62 Cin	89 Bos	72 SF	01 Cin	26 NYG	08 NYG	54 StL
mpitt76	65 Cin	92 BkB	74 SF	06 ChC	31 NYG	07 StL	58 StL
Landry19	63 Cin	88 Det	71 SF	04 Cin	28 NYG	03 Phi	63 LAD
mllama54	71 Hou	94 Bal	77 Det	05 Cin	29 NYG	04 ChC	64 LAD
pedrocerrano	72 Hou	85 Buf	76 SD	07 ChC	27 NYG	01 Phi	56 StL
cholatse	69 Hou	96 Phi	75 SD	99 Cin	30 NYG	05 Cin	60 LAD
.
Pitching	F.Smith	Crowder	Bush	Mossi	J.Smith
---------------------	---------------	---------------	---------------	---------------	---------------
barracuda3	14 Bal	34 Det	36 Pit	61 Det	07 NYM
contrarian23	11 Bos	36 Det	35 Pit	63 Det	09 Cle
joerat1	15 Bal	29 StB	30 ChC	56 Cle	14 Ana
Chisock	10 Bos	30 StB	34 ChC	60 Det	19 Hou
thehuseman	15 BkF	31 Was	31 ChC	62 Det	17 Cle
danidon	10 ChW	35 Det	28 ChC	55 Cle	18 Hou
slainte	06 ChW	27 Was	26 ChC	64 ChW	15 Ana
mpitt76	04 ChW	34 Was	29 ChC	57 Cle	16 Ana
Landry19	05 ChW	27 StB	24 ChC	54 Cle	16 ChC
mllama54	11 Cin	28 StB	27 ChC	59 Det	08 NYM
pedrocerrano	08 ChW	26 Was	37 Bos	65 KCA	17 Tor
cholatse	09 ChW	30 Was	36 Bos	58 Cle	11 Cle

I'll throw in a draft strategy post here though to be honest I didn't have much of one. Looking at the players we had to choose from, other than Brouthers and a couple of seasons of Frank Smith, none of them had any value at 130M, or 120M, or even 110M (which is what I expect the cap to play like). So it looked like this league was going to be all about maximizing teammate value while minimizing deadweight salary. Beyond that, I mostly wanted to build around a good rotation (I think the bullpens are going to be awful) and then strength up the middle.

My nominated player was Alvin "General" Crowder. I chose him for a few reasons. Only 1 sub-$1M season (1936, which I selected). Besides giving me a high draft pick in round 1, this meant everyone else would be wasting money as Crowder has no usable seasons at all. Nor does he have any good pitching teammates, so he won't help anyone there. With a couple of exceptions, his only good teammates are decent hitting outfielders, and there is no shortage of them in this draft. So my hope was most owners would have to waste an early or mid-round draft pick to take one of his lower cost seasons and avoid getting saddled with a $5m-$7m hit. At least 5 owners would end up having to waste $5M or more on him.

Crowder gave me half of my double play combination, 2B Charlie Gehringer (no way was I going to use Tito Fuentes), with the option to add Goslin or Walker or Al Simmons if I ended up needing an OF/DH, or a useful backup C in Mickey Cochrane. Turned out I ended up needing an outfielder, though I didn't expect that at the time.

Round 1: 1905 Shad Barry (Ed Reulbach). This was a relatively easy selection. Moved me up from 4th to 2nd in the draft order. Got me the cheapest remaining version of the useless Barry, and brought 309 excellent innings in Reulbach, with the option to add 264 more (Brown) if needed.

Round 2: 1908 Harry Steinfeldt (Mordecai Brown). Turned out I did use Brown, but the 1908 version instead of 1905. I really wanted 1909 or 1910 Frank Smith (and therefore Ed Walsh) here, but they were taken in round 1. Steinfeldt is a waste of $3M, but he brought me the best remaining SP on the board. With Reulbach and Brown I had 640 innings of the pitching staff down. Time to start looking at the lineup.

At this point I made the decision to leave Brouthers for last, figuring that no matter what happened I would end up with - at worst - a 430PA platoon player who could hit well enough to start. Yes, there were better-hitting versions of Brouthers but given the teammates available I figured I could put together a good enough solution at first base. None of his teammates excited me except for 1896 Delahanty, but that version of Brouthers was already gone. The rest of his teammates have some decent bats but come with poor normalization and terrible defense. Given that half my pitching staff (at least) is going to be deadball era, that looked like a lot of errors to me. Taking one player effectively off the board at this stage made every round just a little bit easier.

Round 3: 1935 Guy Bush (Arky Vaughan). I love me the 1935 Pirates. Vaughan is a beast, Paul Waner normalized well at this cap (love his XBH although I ended up not using him), and Cy Blanton is a passable SP. Heck I was even willing to use Bill Swift if pitching became a real problem or if I couldn't make Vaughan's salary work. Rostering Vaughan meant I would either end up wasting salary on a Travis Jackson SS season or using a subpar Jackson 3B season, but I felt at this point that I would have by far the best keystone combination in the league, with a much bigger advantage in offense than I would be giving up at 1B or in the OF.

Round 4: 2009 Joe Smith (Victor Martinez). Had a few decisions to make here. Grabbed Smith to get one of his cheapest remaining seasons, he may throw a few Long B innings. Betancourt is there for the taking if end up some needing some short relief IP. But mostly I wanted Martinez here. With the good Hartnett seasons no longer available to me, I wasn't happy with the overall catching choices. Martinez is not great (though much better than Johnny Edwards), is a switch hitter, 672PA so I don't need to worry about a backup, and his D- arm doesn't bother me at all given the relative dearth of SB threats in this league. C, 2B, SS and half the pitching staff done. Time to fill in the gaps. Picking Smith here moved me back to the top of the draft order, and I would have a top 2 pick the rest of the way.

Round 5: 1966 Tito Fuentes (Juan Marichal). Went back and forth between Fuentes and the 1934 or 1936 Jackson here. Ultimately decided I liked Marichal more than Hubbell. There were some other potential teammates here, but really that was it. The rotation of Brown-Reulbach-Marichal should be pretty damn good at this cap, even given that there are some good Ed Walsh seasons and plenty of those deadball era Cubs floating around.

Round 6: 1961 Johnny Edwards (Frank Robinson). I had 7 different picks in mind for this slot. 5 of them went off the board before my turn. Came down to one of two Edwards seasons. Basically here I just wanted Edwards off the board. I didn't need his PAs. I had no use for most of his teammates (the 68 Gibson was long gone and neither Dierker nor Don Wilson would have improved my rotation.) Ultimately the choice was either the 1962 Robinson or the 1961. '62 was a little better, but not enough to justify the $2.5M of extra wasted salary on Edwards. In retrospect, I think this was my worst pick of the draft. I could have used this for a bullpen pick and still gotten a decent OF later (maybe using a Mel Ott season.)

Round 7: 1911 Frank Smith (Tris Speaker). My first, and really only, self-defense pick. The good Smiths were gone so I was going to be left with either the $8M 1907 one of the remaining $4M seasons. Love Tris Speaker at this cap, so went with 1911.

Round 8: 1957 Wally Moon (Billy Muffett). My bullpen is going to suck. Muffett makes it suck a little less. Moon ain't great but his cheap options were gone. This one at least brings a .508 slugging percentage and a really good late-career Musial if I end up needing to get creative with the roster at the last minute.

Round 9: 1963 Don Mossi (Fred Gladding). Cheapest remaining Mossi season. A few not terrible innings from Gladding. Thought I might end up using Kaline as my final OF here, but then went back to the 1936 Tigers and realized I could do better than Kaline. Welcome Al Simmons to the final OF slot.

Round 10: 1893 Dan Brouthers (Willie Keeler). Who knew that Al Simmons was solid defensively at both OF and 1B in 1936? He'll be the backup 1B for Brouthers, with Moon moving to the OF and Keeler slotting his .377 OBP in as the DH when Brouthers has to rest.

Round 11: 1935 Travis Jackson (Hal Schumacher). Wanted to take the 1934 Jackson so I could have '34 Hubbell, but couldn't make the salary work, and wasn't willing to trade down Vaughan's bat at SS for Jackson's. So Jackson will play 3B - he's the worst bat in the lineup by far - and Schumacher will be the long reliever.

~$17.5M of wasted salary, about what I expected going in.
C: Martinez (.861 OPS)
1B: Brouthers (.961)
2B: Gehringer (.986)
3B: Jackson (.780)
SS: Vaughan (1.098)
LF: Speaker (.920)
CF: Robinson (1.015)
RF: Simmons (.867)
DH: Moon (.875)
Sub: Keeler (.819)

Rotation:
Brown (329IP, .195 OAV, 0.84 WHIP)
Marichal (310 IP, .202, 0.86)
Reulbach (309, .201, 0.96)

Bullpen:
Schumacher (278, .238, 1.17)
Mossi (123, .236, 1.04)
Gladding (28, .198, 1.22)
Muffett (47, .222, 1.09)

If the bullpen doesn't completely kill us, we could do OK.

Nomination - 1886 Dan Brouthers - Gives me the best starting 1B + 642IP of Lady Baldwin. I knew my draft position would be low, but thought it would be worth it for the quality/quantity I am starting with. I felt like it would allow me to look for teammates on offense first.

1st Round - 1915 Frank Smith - I had to go cheap, and wanted a cheap Smith before they were all gone. Smith at least can take up a few innings as a SetupB. Also an excellent teammate in Benny Kauff who fits in CF and instantly goes into the top third of my lineup. There were also a couple $2M RP possibilities if necessary.

2nd Round - 1923 Travis Jackson - Again, wanted to go lower salary, and did not want to get stuck with an expensive SS who I would not use. He gave me a few options for teammates in Frisch/Bancroft/Youngs. For now, Frisch is my starting 2B/3B, see if future teammates and salary allows me to keep him.

3rd Round - 2017 Joe Smith - He did 3 things for me: 1) He's relatively cheap at less than $2 million, 2) He is useful as a bullpen arm, which has been completely abandoned to this point, and 3) My 2nd starter in Kluber. I also had options in Jose Ramirez at 3B, or Andrew Miller at RP. My hope was to save the second teammate slot for Miller, depending on cash at the end. I was also concerned I might need Bancroft as my second teammate to play SS.

4th Round - 1970 Tito Fuentes - I know part of my thinking was the C I wanted was the 1970 Dietz. He gives me great hitting, with no arm. It allows me to go after a low PA Edwards later. Fuentes himself is still relatively cheap in the $2 million range, and defensive flexibility means I may be able to use him. My fear was I would be stuck with him as a semiregular in the IF somewhere.

5th Round - 1911 Harry Steinfeldt - I didn't need any more crappy PA's in the IF, so I took the dirt cheap Steinfeldt. For teammates, I saw a good partial season of Herzog that I could use at SS or 3B. There was also an iron glove 2B in Sweeney if necessary. Pretty sure I was concerned about SS/3B at this point.

6th Round - 1967 Johnny Edwards - Now was the time to get my low PA Edwards before they all went away. I could have had a cheaper version with fewer PA's, but this one has excellent defense to complement Dietz, plus a good RP teammate in Abernathy. I knew before this pick I needed someone in the bullpen other than Joe Smith. Later on, I saw Mel Queen as a possibility if I needed an extra SP. Abernathy/Smith/maybe Miller means I don't need to worry too much about RP's after this point.

7th Round - 1959 Wally Moon - Before this pick, I realized I needed to draft at least 1 quality player before the draft was over. 1959 Moon was the best available player left that I could use every day, with a .302/.394/.495 split. He also brought along a very productive 452 PA's of Duke Snider. My intent was to use him mostly at DH. More on that later.

8th Round - 1931 Guy Bush - I knew at this point, I would be wasting alot of $$$ on drafted pitchers for the remainder of the draft. What's worse, I still need one more SP, with no good draftable seasons left. Enter 1931 Bush. None of his seasons left were any good. This one came down to getting 440 productive PA's of Rogers Hornsby. Ideally he plays mostly DH, but can provide an iron glove at 2B or 3B if needed. My hope is Bush is nothing more than a long reliever.

9th Round - 1962 Don Mossi - I started looking at total cost of drafted player with teammate. I can't say this was a reach. I can say I really was looking forward to a 230IP of very useable 1963 Mossi/Lary for $5.3 million. Contrarian killed that dream a few picks before mine came up. So, my next option was 1962. 218 good IP of Aguirre, with a ton of LR IP from Mossi, for $11.4 million. I desperately wanted a useable 4th SP. I'm pretty sure this was the cheapest Mossi available at this point, and best teammate available for my needs. Contrarian's pick also removed the last possible relievers I had any interest in.

10th Round - 1931 Alvin Crowder - At this point, I still wanted a starting OF and IF. I saw 3 OF possibilities with Barry, and only 2 of us who needed a Barry. 2 of the 3 possibilities allows me to use Miller as my last teammate. So, I jumped on Crowder in order to take teammate Joe Cronin at SS. Herzog moves to 3B. No need for Bancroft either. Andrew Miller will be my last teammate. I know I will need to use scrub PA's in the IF, but it is now limited.

11th Round - 1899 Shad Barry - The remaining 1901 version would give me 500 PA's of Billy Hamilton in the OF. Good OBP, good D, no slugging. The 1899 version gives me a no D, hard hitting Buck Freeman who I can DH and use in RF when necessary. I went for the Freeman version. He hit 25 HR's in 1899 when nobody else had more than 12. I am interested to see how that works. The bad news: With Freeman at DH, that means iron gloves Snider and Hornsby will be playing the field much more than I wanted.

Main issues: I expect my D to be terrible. I will need to rotate some scrub PA's between 3B, RF, and DH. Not enough quality IP, I will need to use Mossi/Bush/Crowder for a few hundred LR and spot start innings.

Useful players:
6056 PA's, .324/.407/.519
1287 IP, 0.96 WHIP, 0.43 HR/9
Salary on quality players: $107.4 Million

Nomination - 1964 Wally Moon. He brought along 545 IP of SP in Drysdale and Koufax.

1st Round - 1904 Shad Barry. He brought along 225 IP of my 3rd SP Mordeci Brown.
2nd Round - 1894 Dan Brouthers. By my calculations I would need 9 position players 4 SP, 1 Closer, and at least a couple of usable relief pitchers to be competitive. That is at least 16 players meaning I would need to use at least 3 or 4 of the nominated players. I needed the 756 AB of Brouthers plus the 796 AB of a .393 hitting Joe Kelly.
3rd Round- 1929 Travis Jackson. While his .367 OBP is very usable but I really wanted his A-/A+ fielding for 684 AB. He also brought along Mel Ott and his 42 HR and his .327 and .410 OBP for 724 AB.
4th Round- 1905 Harry Seinfeldt. This is my worst hittter at .271 but he is to be platooned at 3rd base for 455 AB but has A+ range. His teammate is a .377 BA for 681 AB. Cy Seymour for my DH.
5th Round- 1959 Don Mossi. I will be using him as my 4th SP. The real reason I picked this version was to get my 3rd OF in Al Kaline. Another A-/A+ fielder with a .327/.410 for 626 AB. I will be using Moon for his 132 AB (to qualify for the playoffs) as a platoon.
6th Round- 1927 Guy Bush. Maybe a long reliever but I got 539 AB of Gabby Hartnett as my primary catcher. He hit .294/.361. Other Hartnetts hit better but I wanted a reasonable cost Bush for the salary cap.
7th Round- 2008 Joe Smith. Could be used as a Long Reliever but also picked up my closer as Billy Wagner. 49 IP 2.30 ERA .185 OAV with 27 saves.
8th Round- 1977 Tito Fuentes. Best season of Fuentes a .309 hitter with an A range fielding for 673 AB. He also brought another usable RP in Steve Foucalt.
9th Round- 1971 Johnny Edwards. A poor hitting catcher as my backup with an A+ arm. He brought another usable reliever in Ray Boyd.
10th Round- 1928 Alvin Crowder- Mop up man but brought the other part of my thirdbase platoon in Larry Bentencourt. A .283 hitter.
11th Round- 1911 Frank Smith. Mopup man but surprisingly brought a RP Ray Boyd.

My total salary is 129.8 million with only 10.5 of Crowder and Smith not being used.

Lineup
Kelly RF ..393/.502
Brouthers 1B .347/.425
Seymour DH .377/.429
Ott LF .328/.429 42 HR
Kaline CF .327/.410 27 HR A-/A+
Jackson SS .294/.367 A-/A+
Fuentes 2b .309/.348 C/A
Hartnett/C .294/.361 C/C/A
Steinfeldt 3B .271/.329 C-/A

SP
Drysdale 322 IP 2.18/.207/.97
Koufax 223 IP 1.74/1.91/.93
Brown 225 IP 1.87/.199/.97
Mossi 240 IP 3.36/,243/1.14

Bullpen
Wagner CL 47 IP 2.30/.185/.89
Foucalt 75 IP 3.15/.226/1.09
Boyd 47 IP 2.66/.206/1.20
Ray 98 IP 2.12/.211/1.06
Smith 63 IP 3.55/.220/1.30
Bush 205 IP 3.03/.250/1.33

Since I emphasized pitching and fielding I chose Dodger Stadium (specifically for Drysdale and Koufax in their home park.)

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”
- Attributed (probably falsely) to Albert Einstein

“Pitching? What’s pitching? Offense is fun! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee……….”
- barracuda3

Many of you are aware that this league came on the heels of a similar 16x16 draft league, also run by schwarze. In that draft my strategy was to use the expensive sub-par pitchers that I had to roster rather than wasting their salary, thereby freeing up enough money to assemble a potent offense which would more than compensate for my mediocre pitching staff by simply outscoring everyone.

My team in that league is currently 15-27.

Oh well, on to the 12x12 league. There’s plenty of pitching available in this league. Maybe I’ll even draft some.

Maybe…

(as always, quoted stats are normalized)

Nomination: Guy Bush
By the time I chose my player a bunch of early-era nominations had been made, with a lot of good pitchers as teammates. My idea, of course, was to try to assemble as good an offense as possible, so I wanted to choose someone with a good-hitting teammate at a non-offensive position while saddling others with a lot of useless salary. 1936 Guy Bush ($336K), and his colleague Arky Vaughan (.326/.449/.472) fit the bill nicely. He also has a very nice second teammate, Paul Waner (.363/.442/.518), who throughout much of the draft I was planning on rostering. It’s true that Bush had a lot of useful offensive teammates (including the best offensive shortstop in the sim, the ’35 Vaughan, plus Hack Wilson’s amazing 1930, a great Hornsby season, and a bunch of very good Gabby Hartnetts) but most of these came with very expensive poison pills so I didn’t mind that so much. And my version of Bush came with a low enough salary to net me the third pick in the first round, although my strategy was so different than everyone else’s that I’m not sure how much that mattered.

Round 1: 1934 Alvin Crowder ($1.25M)
Despite being almost identical in concept to the 16x16 draft, to me the strategy in a 12x12 draft is fundamentally different. This is because in a 12x12 you get 13 teammates, while in a 16x16 you only get 9. This means that in a 16x16 you need to use several nominated players, whereas in a 12x12 you can get away with using few, if any, especially in a DH league where pitchers are not pinch-hit for. My plan was simply to waste as little salary as possible while assembling a dominant offense, and to fill in my pitching staff with second-tier pitchers as needed in later rounds. It seemed to me that there was enough decent pitching to go around that this was feasible. As such, this Crowder would’ve been my pick even if I chose first overall. He’s the cheapest available version of a player with many useless and high-priced seasons, who comes with a dominant offensive player (Charlie Gehringer, .347/.437/.509) at a position where the only other dominant hitter available to me (’27 Hornsby) would come with a $5M Jackson at a position that I already had filled. With Bush and Crowder out of the way I could rest easy about not wasting too much salary the rest of the way, even deferring the choice of the other elephant in the room, Frank Smith, until the end of the draft.

Round 2: 1969 Tito Fuentes ($1.1M)
Having the third overall pick, I mapped out my top 3 selections for the first round. First was the ’34 Crowder. Second was the ’65 Moon, who went second overall. Third was the ’69 Fuentes. I wanted no part of Tito Fuentes, and I was convinced that his cheap seasons would all go early, because his cheap seasons had useful teammates while his expensive, mostly horrendous seasons generally didn’t. Needless to say, I was pleased to get this one in the 2^nd round. Cheapest available Fuentes, who brings along a very usable Juan Marichal (2.17 ERC) and a potential second teammate in a very powerful Willie McCovey. Ooh, look! I have a pitcher! I have a pitcher!

Round 3: 1962 Wally Moon ($1.2M)
Just as I expected an early Fuentes run that never really materialized, I also expected the same for Moon. I was a little less sure of this, since Moon has several seasons who are usable for most people who don’t fetishize offense the way that I do (which is roughly the way that Russ Meyer fetishizes boobs), but as with Fuentes most of Moon’s cheaper seasons came with good teammates. I was surprised to have my choice of the cheaper ’62 with a lesser Koufax, or the more expensive ’63 with a better, more expensive Sandy. Still in penny-pinching mode, I went with the lesser, yet still useful Sandy Koufax (2.10 ERC). Things are going smoothly.

Round 4: 1891 Dan Brouthers ($7.6M, .354/.466/.533)
I agonized about this pick a bit. On one hand, I’d worked my way up to first pick in the round and taking a Brouthers would wreck that, and there were plenty of excellent versions still available. But I really liked this one because he had several attractive teammates who would allow me to maintain flexibility later into the draft. There were plenty of great offensive 1B/DH/OFs still around, but the pickings were extremely slim at catcher and third base. Other than perhaps the 1965 Edwards/Pavletich platoon, which I expected to be drafted soon (possibly by me), the 1891 Duke Farrell (.306/.380/.494) seemed to be the best available option at catcher. He wasn’t on my radar pre-draft, but based on his performance history he seems to be (or have been) a cookie of sorts, and his historical production seems to back that up. The 1891 Brouthers would also avail me of 374 PAs of Bill Joyce, whose .313/.455/.527 could platoon with anyone decent to form one of the better third base situations in the league. Finally, I wasn’t planning on using Charlie Buffinton (437 IP, 2.40 ERC) but it was nice to have all those innings in reserve if needed. Which they would be.

Round 5: 1936 Travis Jackson ($2.1M)
The Brouthers pick dropped me 3 spots in round 5. Not bad. At this point I still needed (at least) 2 OF and a DH, and I started to notice that the dominant OF choices were disappearing. Not at an alarming rate, but quickly enough that I started to need to address the situation. I had been hesitating on taking my Jackson teammate because I thought that enough people would be starting him as their SS that the cheap ones would be around for a bit, but I decided to take mine here to lock in one of the best available versions of Mel Ott (.319/.444/.586) and also add the possibility of an excellent Carl Hubbell (320 IP, 2.19 ERC) if I ended up not using Waner as my “extra” teammate.

Round 6: 2007 Joe Smith ($0.75M)
The flexibility of my Brouthers pick could only carry me for so long. At some point I needed to address my third base situation. I had targeted 2007 David Wright (.323/.414/.525) from the beginning, but using a lousy Joe Smith on a non-RP teammate would mean forfeiting the chance of having anything resembling a decent bullpen, so I hesitated and held out hope of a Joyce platoon. But my desired platoon partner for Joyce, the 1911 Buck Herzog who was attached to the super-cheap Steinfeldt, was taken in the previous round, and I probably couldn’t spare 2 roster spots on my third base position anyway. So I pulled the trigger on what was clearly the best available third baseman. Given that I needed only 2 OF/DH to fulfill my dream of a lineup consisting of 9 dominant offensive players, I thought I was there. And on some level I was. Until I wasn’t.

Round 7: 1910 Harry Steinfeldt ($2.6M)
Another “flexibility” pick, and one whose flexibility would be utilized every bit as much as my earlier Brouthers pick. The original plan here was to use Jack Pfiester (106 IP, 2.05 ERC) as my primary reliever. But this Steinfeldt provided other options as well. If I needed an OF, Solly Hofman (.329/.406/.485, B/A+) would be a very viable choice, and if I needed more innings Orval Overall (153 IP, 2.42 ERC) or Mordecai Brown (311 IP, 2.43 ERC) were available. One of my favorite aspects of 12x12 drafts is the “jigsaw puzzle” phenomenon, where you have a large number of possibilities with which to fill your roster, but being allowed to use only one teammate per draftee yields many difficult decisions. In my experience the 16x16 tends to be a lot more linear, with less wiggle room. Well, having all of my puzzle pieces in place, I was about to get jiggy wit’ it.

Round 8: 1961 Don Mossi ($5.7M)
I suspect that a large number of owners in this draft breathed a huge sigh of relief when I made this pick. There were only 12 Mossi versions available, and this one, despite carrying an almost acceptable if you squint really really hard ERC# of 3.26, clearly will not be able to get hitters out in this league (.261 OAV, 0.9 HR/9+), and his extreme salary carried the potential of putting a sizeable dent in anyone’s cap. So why did I draft this albatross? Because he came with the only dominant offensive player left in the draft, Norm Cash (.365/.486/.656). Did my lineup need him? Do you need to chug that eighth beer at 1:45AM so that you can order that ninth beer when the bartender hollers “last call”? I won’t ask you to answer that question, but I will point out that my roster was also in a situation where there weren’t enough good pitchers left for my team salary to approach $130M if I skimped on my Mossi, so I might as well use that money to enhance my already formidable lineup. But drafting this Mossi and his bloated salary meant needing to use his innings, in addition to the weak Frank Smith innings yet to be drafted. My 12x12 team was suddenly threatening to go the way of my 16x16. And that’s not a good way.

Round 9: 1973 Johnny Edwards ($1.4M)
Given that I had a 644 PA Duke Farrell at catcher I wasn’t going to use my Edwards, so here I took the cheapest available version who happened to come along with a very interesting Cesar Cedeno (.325/.379/.541) who can field well and run like the wind. Win win.

Round 10: 1904 Shad Barry ($0.6M)
Up to this point, my plan was to use my “extra” teammate on Paul Waner. I could still afford to do this, but in doing so my pitching staff would be pretty bad, even by my standards. As in using all of Mossi’s innings, in addition to using a bunch of the 1907 Frank Smith’s 333 IP of 3.47 ERC just to get Ed Walsh’s 454 IP of 2.39 ERC into the rotation. This was untenable. I had to plan to draft a cheaper Frank Smith and play around with the jigsaw pieces. I moved my extra teammate from Waner to Buffinton, and changed Pfiester to Mordecai Brown. This gave me 1229 IP of combined 2.31 ERC#. Not bad. The rest of my innings are pretty bad, but you can’t have everything. The cost of all of this is downgrading Waner to Barry’s teammate Roy Thomas (.297/.429/.375, B/A). Not sure how well those walks will play in a league full of deadball pitchers but I don’t think I’ve ever fielded a team with two B/A rated outfielders. Usually my CF is something like B-/D+. But as my 4^th grade teacher Mrs. O’Connell used to say. “variety is the spice of life.” She also used to say that New Jersey was shaped like a beautiful lady; broad on the top, narrow in the middle, then broad a little lower down and then thin in the leg(s). Take her advice, as well as mine given that my last team drafted in a league like this is 15-27, with a grain of salt. Or not. It’s your life.

Round 11: 1914 Frank Smith (184 IP, 3.45 ERC, $4.2M)
You’ll notice that I listed Frank Smith’s stats. Yes, that means I’ll be using him. Even though his ERC is worse that Mossi’s I think he’ll get more people out. You’ll notice that “more” is a relative term. As in “I have more of a chance to win 1 million dollars in the lottery than I do to win 10 million dollars in the lottery.” You’ll also (perhaps) notice that I have pretty much zero relief pitchers on my roster. The good news is that in a DH league pitchers will not be removed for a pinch hitter. My current plan is to use a 2-man tandem rotation, with Marichal and Mordecai Brown forming one tandem and 40 cross-my-fingers-and-pray-really-really-hard pitches per game of Frank Smith giving way to Charlie Buffinton for the other, with Koufax left in reserve to finish games and make a spot start here and there. I hope my lineup will be good enough to compensate for any pitching shortcomings. You’ll notice how well that has worked for me recently, and that “hope” rhymes with “dope”. And “nope”.

Frank Smith’s teammate will be Johnny Bates (252 PA, .305/.429/.398). I won’t use all of his PAs but he will spell Cedeno once in a while, as Cedeno doesn’t quite have enough PA even to hit 9^th.

For the record, my lineup is:

1. Arky Vaughan (.326/.449/.472)
2. Charlie Gehringer (.347/.437/.509)
3. Dan Brouthers (.354/.466/.533)
4. Norm Cash (.365/.486/.656)
5. Mel Ott (.319/.444/.586)
6. David Wright (.323/.414/.525)
7. Duke Farrell (.306/.380/.494)
8. Roy Thomas (.297/.429/.375)
9. Cesar Cedeno (.325/.379/.541 – hitting 9^th because of having only 576 PA)

And, in the interest of full disclosure, my pitching staff is (IP, ERC#)

Tandem 1A: Juan Marichal (300, 2.17)
Tandem 1B: Mordecai Brown (311, 2.43)

Tandem 2A: Frank Smith (184, 3.45, pray he can get at least 6 outs per game)
Tandem 2B: Charlie Buffinton (437 IP, 2.40)

Long A / Spot starter: Sandy Koufax (181, 2.10)

Long B: Don Mossi (an already elaborated upon really bad 241, 3.26), and everyone else whose stats are too terrible to mention.

Mop up: Bush's (37, 5.94) that I have to find a way of using.

Marichal, Brown, Buffinton, Koufax and Frank Smith combine for 1413 IP of 2.46 ERC#. Will this be enough to win some games? We shall see.

Not including Mossi and the 7 nominated non-pitchers I used $111.5M, but since I'll be using some of Bates's PAs and some Mossi innings (don't rub it in) that's probably more like $113M.

Thanks again to schwarze for running the draft and the league. The draft was fun. We'll see how the league goes.

Outstanding writeup, barracuda.

Thanks. I'm hoping some others will do writeups also.

Love reading these and love the league - after every pick you always have to readjust your strategy

I've done probably 10 of these and even won one a few years ago. Generally I go for the cheapest salary up front so I can pick early. I started under "there are different ways to win in this game" strategy and just concentrated on picking a starter who could deliver two stud pitchers. That led to Cubs pitching and Harry Steinfeldt.

Round 1 - get pitching early, wanted the 09 Frank Smith but settled for 04 and 332 IP .97 Frank Owen teammate

Round 2 - completely dumped salary with the 04 Alvin Crowder but it gave me a decent 2B so not so bad.

Round 3 - noticed there weren't a lot of good SS teammates so picked up a decent Travis Jackson at A-/A-. That gave me my entire infield (with a Brothers coming later) and 1100 good IP after the third round so I was pretty happy. The rest of the draft was finding one more SP and a killer outfield. I generally avoid a bullpen and work with 5 or 6 starters. I find that being willing to use 200K teammates suppresses useless salary.

Round 4 - got my 5th starter with Ed Karger. Landed at 1442 quality IP with 8 hr given up among the 5 starters.

Round 5 - salary dump with Wally Moon

Round 6 - slim pickings at C teammates at this point so going into battle with a Johnny Edwards that had + numbers for AVG and SLG. Had to wait on my stud OF for later in the draft.

Round 7 - 16 Joe Smith gave me a Mike Trout. Stud 1.

Round 8 - 92 Brouthers - wasn't much time left to get one of the better ones

Round 9 - Now looking at which Guy Bush to take. Will I get Kiki Cuyler, Hack Wilson or the ultimate prize, Rogers Hornsby. Needed to clear salary for Bush at 6M and then Hornsby at 10M. Picked 74 Fuentes in a salary dump. No one take '29 Bush!

Round 10 - a stressful 24 hours but my guy landed to me. '29 Hornsby Stud 2.

Round 11 - picked up the pieces with a crappy Mossi who will never see the light of day. Stud 3 never came but let's see how the '58 Musial does at .337/.423/.528

We'll lose 100 games with

1443IP / .98 WHIP / .05 HR/9 plus a ridiculously bad SetUp B '29 Bush
$60M of usable hitting at .321/.408/.502 with good defense.

Not to get personal but thank you to those who have organized all these great leagues recently. I have seen good friends lose their parents and grandparents these last weeks and this has been a welcome distraction. Stay safe everyone.