70M: Moonraker
Stadium: Exhibition Stadium
Probably ended up spending more time on this theme than any other. I knew the key going in was to find players that were good (but not too good in WIS) and had many of these type of seasons. Additionally, there were going to need to be some really cheap and mediocre to bad seasons sprinkled in. All at the same time trying to maximize efficiency. Great theme.
Explored several different ways to approach the roster, but what ended up making the most sense for what I wanted to do was three offensive players and two pitchers. Note that I did think using Johnny Cooney to both hit and pitch, but decided against it as I wanted my lineup to have more power.
On the pitching side of things, I went with Lefty Grove as my starter. Only used three of his seasons (1927, 1935, 1937), but they will go every third day and provide nearly 850 IP of solid pitching. He is not prone to the longball, and his OAV normalizes nicely (and will be helped even more so by Exhibition Stadium being -2 for singles). Wanted to match him up with a right hander, so I needed to find a (likely) reliever with the right combination of solid/mediocre/bad years along with the correct distribution of IPs per season. After seriously considering Sam Dyson and Larry Andersen, I ended up going with eight seasons of LaTroy Hawkins. Six of the seasons are solid to very good with manageable HR/9# (and nearly 400 IP), and the other two seasons are bargain basement mop up specials. Feel comfortable that I have the right amount of innings/pitches given the cap.
On the offensive side, I was certain going in that I wanted to use Wally Moon at OF/1B. Was able to grab four seasons (1955, 1956, 1957, 1959) all in the 4.3M-4.9M range that each give me 617-667 PA/162, a good combination of average, OBP, and power, plus decent speed. OF fielding isn’t great, but I do get his 1956 A+ range at 1B. Grabbed a fifth bench season for PH/mop up duty.
Needing an infielder to pair up, I liked Asdrubal Cabrera for his switch hitting, power, solid fielding, flexibility, and cheap price. Three full seasons (2011, 2017, 2019), plus nearly 200 PA from 2018 to fill in.
Then came the fun part – finding a catcher who had lots of low PA seasons that were dirt cheap but decent enough to use at this cap. Considered Moe Berg, Jamie Quirk, and several others, but I needed to go even cheaper. So I discovered Don Pavletich (never had used him before, or frankly, never had even thought about). Grabbed five of his seasons (and 700+ PA) for a cool 3.25M. He’s not a great hitter, but he has some power and for the large majority of the games, I can have an arm behind the plate that won’t be too damaging.
Hitting: 5,334 PA, .274 / .348 / .447, $34.4M
Pitching: 1,298 IP, 0.257 OAV, 1.25 WHIP, 0.38 HR/9, $35.6M
80M: Virtual Mediocrity
Stadium: Petco Park
This (or 90M) is usually my favorite cap to build at; however this was the last theme I completed and was arguably my least favorite of round 2. Much of that probably had to do with the limited choices, but made the best of it given the limitations. Going to have my two workhorses be 1934 Carl Hubbell and 1936 Lefty Grove with 1902 Joe McGinnity and 2005 Roy Halladay also making some starts. Not many low inning seasons available that work well at the 80M cap, so I grabbed (like many others I’m sure) several short inning seasons of workhorses (1915 Ed Walsh, 1941 Early Wynn, 1954 Hal Newhouser). Add 1982 Rollie Fingers and 1998 Mariano Rivera as my best relievers, 2005 Trevor Hoffman (to get Petco), 2008 John Smoltz (cheap), and two <300K mop up guys to complete the staff.
Didn’t want to pay for power and knew I’d be in Petco, so I aimed for guys with good speed, decent OBP, and the ability to hit some triples and take advantage of Petco. 1894 Roger Connor should be interesting; slightly lower average but good XBH potential. 1925 Frankie Frisch (2B) and 1909 Home Run Baker (3B) will provide good range, and 1998 Barry Larkin is an all-around solid pick at SS. The three outfielders (1930 Earle Combs, 1902 Fred Clarke, and 1907 Elmer Flick) all have good speed and do a nice job of getting on base. Looked to save money (as usual) at catcher, so 1902 Roger Bresnahan (and his secondary catcher position) will be expected to do little harm.
Hitting: 5,349 PA, .307 / .379 / .458, $40.4M
Pitching: 1,324 IP, 0.234 OAV, 1.08 WHIP, 0.48 HR/9, $39.6M
100M: 1998: This Should Be Fun…
Stadium: Astrodome
At first glance, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the 1998 year selection - particularly the lack of starting pitching depth. Realized after a while that no one year selected had that many top line starters, so needed to make the most of the opportunity. Took Greg Maddux with the first pick of the draft (best available starter), and then filled in the rest of the rotation with Pedro Martinez, Kenny Rogers, and David Cone. The bullpen is headed up by Robb Nen, Mike Jackson, and Doug Brocail. Note that if Pedro avoids the long ball, he can be effective. Normalized homers for 1998 reduce the raw rate by nearly 25%, so that and playing in the Astrodome will hopefully keep the opposing sluggers from too many dingers.
Speaking of the long ball, I drafted a team that is not reliant on the homerun but can go deep (the team combined to hit nearly 200 during the actual season). The lineup should be led by Larry Walker and Mike Piazza (hoping the stolen base isn’t too big a weapon for most teams). The remainder of my outfield will be Bobby Abreu, Carl Everett, and Rondell White (he of the A/A+); basically I drafted enough PAs for the four outfields to split the effort. On the infield, went with strong defense/range at SS (Omar Vizquel) and 3B (Scott Rolen). Craig Biggio (2B) should get on base a lot (and steal some bases), while Todd Helton is decent enough at 1B. Jeff Reed will get a decent amount of time at catcher backing up Piazza (and his D+ arm / 446 PAs).
Hitting: 5,882 PA, .310 / .388 / .506, $55.4M
Pitching: 1,363 IP, 0.224 OAV, 1.08 WHIP, 0.67 HR/9, $44.6M
110M: 25 Friends (team 2)…
Stadium: Royals Stadium
The round 1 team of mine did not play up to expectations (damn you Manny Machado & Jacob deGrom!!!), finishing a frustrating 81-81. The round 2 team was designed to be the better of the two, so hopefully they can be successful even with the increased opponent quality. The pitching staff is heavy on 2020 (Bieber, Lamet, Kolarek, and Tyler Duffey) and the 2010s in general (2018 Sale, 2016 Kershaw, 2017 Chad Green, 2014 Carlos Carrasco, 2015 Mark Melancon). Only Troy Percival and Arthur Rhodes (both 2001) and two back end relievers are from other eras. This and playing in Royals Stadium should keep down the homeruns we give up.
On the offensive side, the infield has 1990 George Brett (1B) and 1912 Honus Wagner (SS). 2017 Jose Ramirez will split time between (2B/3B), and the remainder of the infield PAs should go to 2020 Justin Turner and 2018 Jeff McNeil. The outfield will be manned by 1943 Stan Musial, 1924 Goose Goslin, and 1927 Bob Fothergill. Three headed monster at catcher of 1898 Farmer Vaughn/1912 Rip Williams/2001 Jason Varitek (for just over 5M) will complete the usual lineup.
Hitting: 5,497 PA, .329 / .394 / .508, $52.6M
Pitching: 1,345 IP, 0.184 OAV, 0.90 WHIP, 0.61 HR/9, $57.4M
120M: Cubs/Dodgers/Giants by 1929/2015/2020
Stadium: AT&T Park
When I saw this theme, I knew right away I wanted to grab the 2020 Dodgers and their stellar relief pitching and go from there. This also allowed me to get the 2015 combo of Greinke & Kershaw, which gave me half of a starting rotation. To get most of my desired bats, I started looking at teams from the late 1920’s / early 1930’s. 1930 almost fit, but the combination of teams/positions always left me short somewhere. So I moved onto 1929, and in grabbing the Cubs and Giants (considered the A’s), it allowed me to get a pretty solid lineup and fill in the remainder of the staff with 2015 Arrieta and 2020 Darvish and some sneaky good relievers. See the lineup below:
Lineup:
C: Buster Posey (2015 Giants)
1B: Bill Terry (1929 Giants)
2B: Joe Panik (2015 Giants) / **** Hernandez (2015 Dodgers) [nice little platoon]
SS: Travis Jackson (1929 Giants) [giving up a little BA for the A-/A+ in the field]
3B: Freddy Lindstrom (1929 Giants) [sacrificed here, would have preferred his 1930 season]
LF: Riggs Stephenson (1929 Cubs)
CF: Johnny Frederick (1929 Robins/Dodgers)
RF: Kiki Cuyler (1929 Cubs)
DH: Babe Herman (1929 Robins/Dodgers)
Starting rotation: Arrieta (2015 Cubs), Greinke (2015 Dodgers), Kershaw (2015 Dodgers), Darvish (2020 Cubs)
Relievers: Tony Gonsolin / Victor Gonzalez / Adam Kolarek (2020 Dodgers), Hunter Strickland (2015 Giants), Hector Rondon (2015 Cubs), Jarlin Garcia (2020 Giants)
Given all the pitchers are from 2015 and 2020, tried to mitigate the longball by playing in AT&T Park (-3/-3 for homeruns), and could also give the lineup an average boost (+1 for singles). With the exception of Darvish (who is still much better than Dazzy Vance, who was under consideration in earlier iterations of the team!), the starters are particularly low OAV, so I thought they could absorb this ok.
Hitting (w/DH): 6,315 PA, .331 / .391 / .501, $60.2M
Pitching: 1,364 IP, 0.198 OAV, 0.91 WHIP, 0.60 HR/9, $59.8M
Variable Cap (160M): Fahrenheit 449
Stadium: Municipal Stadium
Learning from Round 1, thought this would be pretty straightforward. Homeruns would be too costly here, so wanted to maximize high average hitters who would get a lot of doubles and triples. Then to amplify all of this, play in Municipal Stadium. My goal was to get to under 0.450 (raw) slugging, so I knew I’d be adding cheap, high PA/162 scrubs to deflate the overall slugging number. Enter 1886 Jim Lillie, 1890 Dan Long, and 1902 Pete Childs with a combined 1,545 PA/162 with sub 0.200 SLG, all for under 5M. This got me most of the way there, as did taking on 1987 Ozzie Smith with his awesome A+/B+ glove at SS. Then I maximized my remaining two pinch hitters and backup catcher to hit for high average but limited power and voila, a 0.449 (raw) slugging percentage. Lineup is below; everyone can bash and there is no worse range than Ozzie’s (and Musial’s at 1B) B+:
1B: 1946 Stan Musial
2B: 1920 Rogers Hornsby
SS: 1987 Ozzie Smith
3B: 1983 Wade Boggs
LF: 1885 Pete Browning
CF: 1913 Tris Speaker (will make a ton of + plays)
RF: 1917 Ty Cobb
C: 2006 Joe Mauer
Subs: 1991 Bret Barberie, 2008 Felipe Lopez, 1950 Joe Astroth
Hitting (all): 7,534 PA, .319 / .389 / .449, $82.1M
Hitting (sans scrubs): 5,989 PA, .357 / .426 / .519, $77.4M
Pitching: 1,492 IP, 0.183 OAV, 0.82 WHIP, 0.19 HR/9, $77.9M
Feel better about my teams here than in Round 1, and I look at all of this as gravy. I needed my 90M team (which limped home at 84-78) to ride the arm of 1908 Big Ed Walsh and pull off the WS title in an all or nothing G7. Without that win, I was on the outside of the cage looking in. So given that, my current 20th place standing doesn’t seem too bad…
10/8/2021 12:46 PM (edited)