Finally getting around to finishing this. Really sorry everyone but hopefully there's still some value here.

70m - .270 is just totally average

I saw 2 basic approaches to this one. Build a low-AVG team with a bunch of walks, and maybe hit dingers. Or go the opposite way,: build a deadball team with high OAVs and low HR/9s, and surround them with A+++ range fielders. The 2 strategies are incompatible - nobody can hit HRs against a deadball team and a high-AVG team can't really hit pitchers with super low OAVs. So which is better? I opted for the latter. We're going to Target Field with a bunch of A+++ range infielders. And our number is .270, which is pretty close to the middle of the realistic range for this league. I added some lower AVG guys with good OBPs (Rickey, Sammy Strang, Votto, Frank Gore) so I could get some high AVG hitters into the fold (Will Clark, Everth Cabrera, Kerins). So even if this isn't the best strategy, I hope this team is about as good a team as you can build for this strategy.

Since it's 70m, I've got lots of platoons and speed. Since everyone will probably have speed, I've got John Kerins behind the plate. My pitching isn't quite as good at keeping the ball in the park as I'd like, because the A++ range guys I could afford were not good fielders, and I didn't want a ton of errors.

90m - The Roaring 1920s/2020s

I've always thought there were some underrated pieces in the 1920 season - most notably Babe Adams. So this team was my first stab at the theme. I really like a lot of the 2020 players but I had forgotten just how bad their RF/9 ratings are - it's all the strikeouts. I didn't want any awful range players so I was a bit limited. But the more I tried to fit the pieces together, the more I liked it.

1920 gives me a pair of A+ fielders in Roush (1B) and Bancroft (SS) plus Adams and Dolf Luque to lead the rotation. Then I've got one of my new favorite cookies in 2020 Mookie Betts, and the rotation is rounded out by Kyle Hendricks and then a Kershaw/Plesac tandem. The 2020 season has tons of good relievers and I went with KH Kim (109 innings) to provide a lot of bulk. The rest of the lineup is Rendon at 3B, Harry Hooper in RF, a platooon of Wally Schang and Cam Gallagher behind the dish, a platoon of Santander and Tim Locastro in LF and Luis Arraez and Ozzie Albies sharing 2B. Locastro seems like a guy who's going to be a short side platoon partner on a lot of my teams going forward.

There were definitely some good 1920 outfielders that I couldn't quite fit under the cap (most notably Ross Youngs) but this team ended up with some good balance. I definitely would have spent more on 2020 if I was allowed, but I was glad that both seasons had lots of options. I looked at an 1885/1985 team that I really liked, but the pitching just didn't work. And cramming Roger Connor into a 90m team probably isn't the best idea anyway. I probably should have looked at a 2019 team built around Ketel Marte, but my initial glance at their SPs didn't excite me.

110m - Deja Vu All Over Again

I feel a little guilty using this team name and not having Yogi, but it fits the theme anyway. Initially I thought... this is more or less just building a 110mil team I like and then building a 2nd one from the guys who are available. But I definitely did check the teammates of the guys I picked to make sure I wasn't really screwing myself over.

My first pick was the ubiquitous Roger Connor '85 and his great teammate Buck Ewing. Then I added Bill Bernhard '02 and Nap Lajoie, another pair of cookies. Then I added the '21 Giants middle infield, with Bancroft going to one team and Frisch to the other. Around this time I figured it was easier to just build both teams at once. Needing a 3B for both teams, I added '96 George Davis (and Mike Tiernan as a good teammate) and '91 Terry Pendleton (just a bench guy in Keith Mitchell for the other team) to give me a pair of good range switch hitters.

Then I grabbed Arky Vaughan ('38 version) for my other SS, and he came with A+++ 1B Gus Suhr for my other team. Then it was back to cookie-town, with deGrom '18 and teammate Jeff McNeil, and '19 Ketel Marte and teammate Stefan Crichton, a setup B and the first team that didn't really have a teammate I liked).

Rounded out the rotations with '20 Kershaw and '19 Alexander for the Bern/deGrom team, and then built a 5-man rotation for the other team consisting of Snell '18, Roger Nelson '72, deGrom '20, Bauer '20 and Maeda '20. So both teams were more or less the usual Target Field, mostly modern cookie pitchers and XBH hitters. Luckily I had the '20 Twins so I could actually use Target Field without shoehorning it in at the last minute. Both teams have a swingman (Gonsolin '20 and Plesac '20) and a host of modern relievers. For the last couple teams, I just picked players from teams that I knew had a lot of good options. I think it's funny that both teams ended up with a Buck Ewing and a deGrom.

Then I had to decide which team to enter. Last time we did a theme like this, I entered the "better" team into the first round, in hopes of advancing. And the "worse" team ended up doing better anyway. This time I saved the "better" team for round 2 - to the extent that I actually know which one is better, of course. Given how my teams have played the first week, that may have been a poor choice.

Team 1 Team 2
1885 Giants Connor Ewing
1902 Blues Bern Nap
1921 Giants Frisch Bancroft
1896 Giants Davis Tiernan
1991 Braves K Mitchell Pendleton
1938 Pirates Arky Suhr
2018 NYM degrom McNeil
2020 Twins Jeffers Maeda
2020 Reds Iglesias Bauer
2018 Rays Pham Snell
1972 Royals Busby R Nelson
2020 Dodgers Kershaw Kolarek
2020 Dodgers Mcgee Gonsolin
2020 Mets Nido degrom
1919 Cubs Alex Tyler
2019 D-Backs Crichton Marte
1990 Cards Gilkey McGee
2017 Nats Madson Eaton
2003 Phils Abreu Pratt
1887 Alleghenies Carroll Bill Bishop
2020 Indians Plesac Mike Freeman
1992 A's Rickey Eck
1892 Giants Ewing Keeler
2001 Ms Charlton Pineiro
2014 Nats Storen Clippard

120m - Chicks Dig the Long Ball

If you can only have one kind of hit, you probably want the one that's worth the most, right? At least that was my logic. I made one big mistake when I started building this team, which was thinking it was the 140m league. So I started by going through, position-by-position, and writing down the guys I liked for each hit type. So for singles, doubles, triples, and homers, I had a list of the top 3-5 players (that I'd actually want)... so while my initial hypothesis was homers, I wanted to see if any of them had a collection of players I loved, or no players I loved, or any glaring positional gaps.

Of course, I did that with a 140m cap in mind. So I built a great triples offense - turned out triples had a lot of my usual cookies - but it cost about $75mil. And yes, I did seriously think about building a really cheap staff and just entering them anyway. Maybe I should have. (Speaker/Pham, Cuyler, Waner, Baker, Wagner, Snuffy, Connor and Ewing was the team).

But in the end, I went back to my lists, added in some cheaper guys and revisited, and I did like the homer team. Part of that is my obsession with 2019 Christian Yelich. He just looks like such a bargain! I've got a relatively modern team, with Yelich, Ted Williams, Trout, Arozarena and JD Martinez in the outfield. Jose Ramirez is at 3B, Machado and Tatis are sharing SS, BObby Grich is playing 2B and Berkman is at 1B. I went a lot lighter on range than usual, perhaps a mistake with all these XBH teams in the league. The only real weak spot on this team was 2B, but Grich is fine, just short on PAs. I'm not sure why Tilly Walker isn't on this team -he must have missed one of the cutoffs. I tried to draft hitters who could still hit some doubles and triples, so we wouldn't be hopeless against those teams, but that doesn't mean I'd feel great about going into Petco or Target with this team.

Pitching staff is just the usual, as few HRs as possible while still having pretty good OAV numbers. Carl Hubbell, Dave Righetti, Corbin Burnes, Harry Brecheen and Cy Blanton handle the rotation work with a bunch of modern relievers in the 'pen. Stuck the whole thing in Bennett Park.

140m - Old Dudes in Bell Bottoms 1910/1880/1970

I decided early on that I wasn't going to be able to make 2020 work. There are some nice SPs, but I don't really love any of the hitters, and outside of the top 3 pitchers (Maeda, Bauer, Lamet), I wasn't sold on any of the others. I probably could have gone with Gonsolin and a bunch of RPs, but I didn't love having all of my hitters from boxes 2 and 3.

So then I worked backwards. I didn't love any of the box 3 decades but I figured I could make the 70s work with some infielders and some pitching. With that in mind I grabbed the 1880s from box 2, giving me a core that I use a lot (Roger Connor and 3 outfielders, in this case, Browning/Gore/Caruthers) and then Dan Brouthers as my DH. Then I had my choice of deadball decades from box 1 and I went with the 1910s for 2 of my favorite undervalued SPs (Hendrix14 and Russ Ford 1910) plus Honus to play shortstop and some deadball RPs. Then I just went back to the 70s and grabbed George Brett, Joe Morgan, Ted Simmons and Guidry for my SP3, threw in some more RPs and stuck the whole thing in Busch Stadium since Target wasn't available to me.

I do always worry about Morgan and his habit of underperforming, but I can use his glove and his speed and his OBP, even if his AVG and SLG aren't great.

Variable - the 174m Teheran Gambit

The very first thing I did was grab a random team in the draft center and add 2020 Steven Matz to the team to see how much their HR/9 went up. It was a lot. So then I knew what I was doing - building an actual 8 or 9 man staff, adding in some guys with massive HR/9 numbers, and letting them sit on the bench. A lot of other owners figured this out too - I'm not sure if this was expected or not.

My actual pitching staff was Ed Walsh, Hendrix, Arrieta, Maddux, Gonsolin, Kershaw and some low HR/9 guys from the post salary adjustment era. The question was really what I would do on offense. Did I assume that other owners would use the same strategy and build a team that hits deadballers? Or did I assume that some owners would use Bauer and Cole and Verlander and count on their low OAVs to protect them? I kind of split the difference. I couldn't build a great deadball hitting, A++ range team because the A++ guys really don't hit for power.

So I kind of split the diffference and drafted some high range infielders and just let my corner outfielders do the slugging. Boudreau was a big gamble given his salary, Frisch a big risk given his low power and Caminiti a risk given his poor normalization. But I wanted to give it a shot. I put the team in Yankee III which would help my bad outfield range, and neutralize any triples teams that snuck in.

RF Ruth 718pa C+/D+ 313/453/703 .. 12hr100#
LF TW 554pa B/D+ 348/512/639 ...7hr100# and Arozarena 205pa C/D- 292/387/625 ... 7hr100#
SS Boudreau 707pa A-/A 353/441/534 .. 3hr100#
CF Mantle 646pa B/A 321/448/681 ... 8hr100#
C Clements 440pa B-/D/C- 374/428/603 ... 5hr100# and Sanchez 229pa B/A+/A+ 301/380/637 ... 7hr100#
1B Connor 709pa B/A+ 343/438/550 ... 4hr100#
3B Caminiti 638pa B-/A+ 326/407/608 ... 5hr100#
2B Frisch 734pa B/A+ 326/382/470 ... 2hr100#