My draft recap:

I think it was very advantageous to have the 1st overall pick in this draft. I really wanted to convince myself not to take 1908, and was really thinking about 1915, just because I didn't think the Phillies would be very popular, and it would be an easy pickup of that great Pete Alexander year, and the 1915 Phillies have some other good hitting too. But... ultimately, 1908 has 5 franchises with great pitching: Red Sox, Cubs, Giants, Indians, and White sox, and maybe even a sixth with Washington (although not as dynamic). I felt if I could get two of those five franchises, I would have about 1100 innings of great pitching, just from 1908. That is a *huge* advantage, one that I just couldn't pass up, so 1908 was my first pick. I don't think any other option was nearly as good as this.

Well, then I had to wait... a looooong time... and I was getting nervous. The Red Sox and Giants went quickly (let alone Washington!). Then the Cubs were gone, leaving just the Indians and White Sox. I had to sweat out that the White Sox would make it to me (I figured the Indians were going to be safe), and although they had been chosen twice... I was able to get them with my 2nd round pick. That was a *huge* relief. I would have been very screwed otherwise.

Then, I had to wait... a looong time again to make sure I got the Indians. I was expecting most people to take a year in round 3, with a few franchise picks here and there, and that is what ending up happening. I had a pretty good feeling the Indians would make it to me for round 3, and thankfully, there were no problems.

So... excellent! My pitching was nearly set (although having 1100 innings from only 3 pitchers will make managing interesting). Now it was a matter of finding what years would work to fill out the hitting. Nap Lajoie in 1908 is good enough to start, but I needed to fill in everyone else. Turns out 1936 is a great White Sox/Indians combo year, with Luke Appling's best season as well as Earl Averill's best season, plus two very good 1B options, a good 3B option (with excellent defense), a good catching platoon, and one-third of a great DH. 1920 had more dynamic options, but they were too expensive. I couldn't fit a 10mil Tris Speaker, an 8mil Joe Jackson, and an 8mil Eddie Collins all on my team, and it would result in far more holes to fill. So, 1936 it was.

I had lots of options for the last two seasons. My only disappointment was not getting 2007. That was a great season for two Indians relievers and a White Sox reliever. But, one of the other Indians owners chose that year. I think that was the only year that was chosen that was a disappointment. When it finally came back to me, I still had lots of options. I assumed I would go with 1965, Hoyt Wilhelm's best season, but I couldn't make it work. As it turns out, 1958, with Barry Latman's great season, also had 3 200K pitchers to go along with it, and that turned out to be very necessary to round out my team. Hoyt Wilhelm also had a solid 1958 season. My entire pitching staff comes from two seasons: 1908 and 1958.

1958 also was Rocky Colavito's best season, so that was OF #2. After much mixing and matching, I went with 1920 as my 4th season to get Joe Jackson as OF #3, and fill in my DH with 2 players (and also 2 players from 1958. My DH spot is shared by 5 players!). Also, Steve O'Neill turned out to be a better catching option than my 1936 catching platoon, so I went with him.

I think this team will do well, although they will be a nightmare to manage. I have about 900 innings of excellent pitching, and 450 innings of really good pitching (and scrubs for the rest), and this is that special 1908 no-homers-allowed sort of pitching, so the modern teams will hopefully find things difficult against me. The hitting seems at least very good, maybe excellent too (certainly at some positions), and the infield defense is fantastic. In general, I think I lucked out with the #1 pick, and with how the draft went for me overall.

ok here's my recap

I tried to stay flexible, leaving myself multiple options and backup plans. In trying to cover every possibility I may have ended up with a shortage of true impact players. and I didn't expect the salary cap to sneak up on me so fast. This doesn't look like a $110m team, I think they would lose to a $100m open team.

I traded down from the #4 spot because I incorrectly thought lower positions were better. at #4 I probably would've taken schwarze's 1906, though I was nervous about the Cubs surviving until late 2nd round. at #10 I took the best year remaining for deadball pitchers, 1910. I was hoping to get the White Sox and either the A's or Senators. We know what happened to Walter Johnson. I was able to get the other two franchises.

Ed Walsh is my Ace followed by Chief Bender with Frank Smith helping out and Eddie Collins at 2B. Jack Coombs was available in case I needed lots of innings. after much agitation I went with Coombs rather than a coalition of relievers. Next I took 2001 with a big Giambi year, Eric Chavez at a troublesome 3b slot, Foulke in the pen, and there were quite a few borderline players I could use if needed. In the end I needed Magglio Ordonez and 5 bench players. Actually 2001 wasn't my first choice, I took it now because I thought it was less likely to be available next round. This plan backfired when 1935 and 37 were claimed. I considered 1933 but it broke the bank. So I took 1990 with Rickey Henderson, Fisk the best available C outside of the 30s, a part time Frank Thomas sharing DH with my entire bench, McGee a cheapish OF, and several RP I could use. No urgent need remained so I used the last pick to improve the team wherever I could. I chose several years and drafted mock rosters. while I was agonizing over which was best most of them got claimed, making my choice easier. 1951 Eddie Joost was a nice improvement at SS.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I picked 1906 over 1909 because I figured I could get the St. Louis Browns / Baltimore Orioles late as my second franchise to go along with the Cubs.  1906 Barney Pelty (0.95 whip) fit real nicely with Brown, Pfiester and Reulbach.    While scouting for various seasons, I stumbled upon 2014 as a fantastic year for Orioles & Cubs relievers so that was going to be my third round pick. 

Then, I completely changed strategies as my third round pick approached.  I realized that I was going to get stuck with too many right-handed hitting power hitters if I didn't jump in and take one of those years from the 1920's.   I soon realized that 1922 was a perfect fit.  I could get my starting SS (Hollocher .340 avg, B/B), my catcher (O'Farrell .429 OBP A+ arm), a stud K.Williams (.332, .402, .620) and even G,Sisler (.420) if I had the salary cap room.  Alas, 1922 went 2 picks in front me by ybjsports (Cubs/Pirates).  I decided to take 1923 (over 2014).  Hollocher was only a half-season player, O'Farrell was still good at C, Ken Williams was still a stud, but 1923 also had some really good Indians hitters (Speaker .380, Sewell .353, Jamieson .345) and the Indians had only been taken once. 

If 2014 had come back to me in round 4, I'd probably take them and stick with the Browns/Orioles strategy.  But dougpalm unexpectedly took 2014 (for the Phillies relievers he tells me later).  I knew bardin would take Cleveland, but I was pretty certain nobody else in front me would and I was right.   Realizing I could use 1906 Joss (replacing Pelty) and also add a really strong 1906 Nap Lajoie, I knew the Indians would be a good selection.

I didn't realize how hard it would be to fill in a bullpen and find enough cheap players, making me regret not taking 2014.  I also discovered that I was spending too much salary and needed to cut corners somewhere.  2007 was the perfect remedy for that.  There were lots of 200K scrubs available, plus Rafael Betancourt's stud RP year.  Also R.Perez (0.92 whip) and C.Marmol if needed.  WaitNSee (Indians/Tigers) snatched 2007 early in round 5 and I was scrambling again.  2008 was an o.k. alternative.  No stud RPs but some acceptable ones plus I found the other half of my DH platoon (Shin-Soo Choo .309, .397, .549).  I'm using Sewell at SS and DH with Hollocher at SS.

In order to get enough IPs and enough PAs at catcher, I had to dump O'Farrell and the stud '06 Lajoie.  Now I have a platoon at C with J.Kling (.312) and N.Clarke (.359).  I had to downgrade Lajoie to 1984 MVP Ryne Sandberg at 2B - the only reason I selected that season with my last pick.

Here is my lineup
C: 1906 Johnny Kling (.312, .357, .420, B/A/A-, 400 PA)
C: 1906 Nig Clarke (.358, .404, 486, 207 PA)
1B: 1906 Frank Chance (.319, .419, .430, A/B)
2B: 1984 Ryne Sandberg (.314, .367, .520, A/B+)
3B: 1906 Harry Steinfeldt (.327, .395, .430, B/D+)
SS: 1923 Joe Sewell (.353, .456, .479, D+/C+) --> will play DH 50%
SS: 1923 Charlie Hollocher (.342, .410, 423, B/B, 315 PA)
OF: 1923 Tris Speaker (.380, .469, .610, B/C+)
OF: 1906 Jimmy Sheckard (.262, .349, .353, A-/B)
OF: 1906 Elmer Flick (.311, .372, .441, B/C+)
DH: 2008 Shin-Soo Choo (.309, .397, .549, 370 PA)

Pitching
1906 Addie Joss (299 IP, 1.72 ERA, .218 OAV, 0.93 WHIP, 0.10 HR/9)
1906 Mordecai Brown (296 IP, 1.04 ERA, .202 OAV, 0.93 WHIP, 0.03 HR/9)
1906 Jack Pfiester (268 IP, 1.51 ERA, .194 OAV, 0.94 WHIP, 0.11 HR/9)
1906 Ed Reulbach  (233 IP, 1.65 ERA, .175 OAV, 1.01 WHIP, 0.08 HR/9)
1906 Jack Taylor  (158 IP, 1.83 ERA, .223 OAV, 1.05 WHIP, 0.06 HR/9)
2008 Rich Harden (71 IP, 1.77 ERA, .157 OAV, 0.97 WHIP, 0.76 HR/9)
2008 Craig Breslow  (47 IP, 1.91 ERA, .202 OAV, 1.13 WHIP, 0.19 HR/9)
2008 Kerry Wood  (66 IP, 3.26 ERA, .219 OAV, 1.09 WHIP 0.41 HR/9)

Overall, I spent $61M on hitting and $49M on pitching.  1906 was the key pick for me, as over $70M of my total salary comes from that season.

As I tend to do, I started by targeting top end pitching, preferably deadballers to start, and fitting the rest of the team around it. Of course most of the viable deadball years had flown off the board, but 1905 provided three good-to-great starters in Mathewson, Cy Young and Reulbach, and I would be guaranteed at least one of their franchises on the wraparound. The Giants had the bonus of having a number of useful bats, including one of my favorite sim players in any format (Mike Donlin), so they were my top choice and thankfully I didn't get blocked.

From there, because of the third round order flip, I just tried to single out as many useful years that provided good Giants players and had several other useful teams, so that I could take another year with my fourth pick if the opportunity presented itself, instead of taking a second team early and risking missing out on the most useful years. 1969 was in my sights from the get-go; a Mathewson/Marichal top 2 would cover a lot of starter innings, and '69 McCovey would bring an impact bat. '69 also had a lot of second-team flexibility, but most desirable was the fact that the 1969 Orioles can pretty much field a competitive 100m-ish cap team by themselves, so if they remained undesirable by the rest of the field I could just stick them in my back pocket and be able to put *something* together for my team if the draft really went south.  Once I landed '69 I wanted to nab 2003, so that I could have another top end starter in Jason Schmidt if the cap would allow (it ultimately wouldn't), Swole Barry, and a handful of useful-if-not-optimal guys to fill out the fringe depending on my last team selection.

With those three years and the Giants, I was basically able to build a team without another selection, so the goal was to find one last year that could add some impact talent and remain flexible if I somehow didn't land Baltimore. I actually flirted briefly with 1996 and grabbing the Marlins as my last team to add Kevin Brown and Gary Sheffield, but I just didn't like how things fit together. I similarly took a long look at 1997 for Pedro and the Expos but didn't like the non-Pedro pieces that were available. Ultimately I grabbed 1991 which gave me three team options that all had useful pieces in both 1991 and 1969: the Rangers, Angels and naturally the O's. Baltimore remained the top pick since '91 gave some key bullpen pieces, especially Frohwirth, and the best SS option of any build I was able to mock in Ripken. Rangers/Senators would have been the nuclear option if Baltimore got snagged but that ended up being a non issue. '91 also had a boatload of mid-tier Giants position players that would give me flexibility no matter what my final team was.

In the end, the pitching is just a little less stout than I was hoping (I really wanted to fit Schmidt in but I basically had to choose between him and Barry in the end), but my defense is strong at every position outside of B+/D Edgardo Alfonzo at third base, which helps. I'm also a little worried about the back end of my lineup, but Donlin, McCovey and Bonds should do some work.

Also, I hate DH leagues. Boy do I hate DH leagues. My pieces fit so much better on the whole without it.

I considered trading up from my #13 spot until I realized that staying in this position I could avoid the huge rush of elite dead-ball pitchers that would end up in the NL side of the league.  I wanted to target Chesbro and the Yankees and decided that picking 1904 and not getting the Yankees wouldn't be ideal but getting 1927 if 1904 went off the board was a viable option.  I could of ended spending almost 70+ million on just 6 players just from the 1927 Yankees (Gehrig, Ruth, Lazzerri, Combes, Wilcy Moore, and Hoyt).

However, this left me without a true staff ace until Maddux's 94 and 95 seasons came available in the 3rd round.  I surmized that taking the year over the Braves would likely scare others from taking the Braves so I took the cheaper of the two.

During the 4th round, I was eyeing either 1943 for Spud Chandler/Tiny Bonham or 1975 to get Catfish Hunter to round out my staff and what do you know, both years get picked right in front of me.  In the end had to settle for 1937 which gave me Lefty Gomez, a cheaper Gehrig and Joe Dimaggio's best season.

Now, to fit under the cap, I had to find a fair number of cheap seasons and surprisingly I only saw one that would satifsfy how my roster was built without having to sacrifice more and that was 1973 so it was nerve wracking waiting to be able to pick up that final season in round #6.

I'm hoping the lack of a lot of the dead ball pitching with 27 Ruth, 37 Gehrig/Dimaggio who hopefully will still hit HRs versus some of the remaining good dead-ballers in the AL will be enough.  Had to get mediocre SS and the cookie Boggs to help save some $$$$ to fit under the cap:

Here is my lineup:

Hitting ($62.4m):

Earle Combs '27 (L)           RF*       762         682         6              64           15           .356        .414        .511

Tony Lazzeri '27 (R)           2B*       695         600         18           102         22           .309        .383        .482

Lou Gehrig '37 (L)              1B*        737         599         37           159         4              .351        .473        .643

Babe Ruth '27 (L)              LF*         728         569         60           164         7              .356        .487        .772

Joe Dimaggio '37 (R)       CF*        728         654         46           167         3              .346        .412        .673

Bob Meusel '27 (R)           DH*       615         543         8              103         24           .337        .393        .510

Wade Boggs '95 (L)          3B*        609         518         5              63           1              .324        .412        .422

Mark Koenig '27 (S)         SS*         598         554         3              62           3              .285        .320        .382

Mike Stanley '95 (R)       C *       529         449         18         83          1             .268      .360        .481


Pitching ($47.5m)

Lefty Gomez '37 (L)                         34           21-11     0              293.0     2.33        .223        1.17        6.28        3.01

Waite Hoyt '27 (R)                           36           22-7       1              270.0     2.63        .251        1.16        3.02        1.90

Red Ruffing '37 (R)                         31           20-7       0              270.0     2.98        .247        1.21        4.61        2.39

Greg Maddux '95 (R)                      28           19-2       0              236.0     1.63        .197        0.81        7.78        0.99

Ben Cardoni '43 (R)                        11           0-0          1              30.0        6.43        .336        1.86        1.61        4.50

Wilcy Moore '27 (R)                         50           19-7       13           225.0     2.28        .234        1.15        3.17        2.49

Jimmy Key '95 (L)                            5              1-2          0              35.0        5.64        .323        1.53        4.20        1.80

John Wetteland '95 (R)                  60           1-5          31           69.0        2.93        .185        0.89        9.74        2.07

An observation on contrarian's disasterous first round was why pick 1912 if not to get the Senators/Twins (higher risk of getting taken than the other way around). Since sford had already taken the Senators/Twins franchise prior, it would of been smarter to of taken the Senators/Twins instead as it was very unlikely that both 1912 and 1913 would of gotten taken without that franchise (someone before his 2nd round pick would of likely taken the last Senator/Twins franchise with one of those years but likely he would of gotten the other).

When dealing with an elite player with multiple elite/good years (like Walter Johnson), it is far safer selecting that franchise than to zero in on any particular year (especially a year which lack other elite/good players on other franchises).

You may well be right, and certainly the way things turned out it is hard to argue.

At the time, I was much more concerned that the picks after me in round 1 (and before me in round 2) would grab 1912-Boston and 1913-Senators.  Then I would have been left with the Sens/Twins, and neither of the seasons that I wanted.

The other years that I think one could make this argument for were 1910 (obviously an Ed Walsh play) and 1915 (Alexander).  Yes, there were backup choices in each case, but just as obviously the real goal there was to get those 2 stud pitchers.  In both cases, is worked for the owners in question.  In both cases they drafted the year first.  And in both cases the year was off the table well before I made my pick.

I just did not expect 2 other Walter Johnson years to get taken off the board in the space between my two picks.  I had done a lot of scenarios...that was not remotely close to anything I had considered.

Live and learn.

I got screwed by my draft position (like many others).  I would have grabbed 1902,06,08,09,10 with my first pick before settling on 1907 as the best option available in my view.  My priority (along with everyone else it seems) was to get 6-700 IP of top-tier deadball pitching with one year and one team knowing that there would likely be another 2-300 of IP available with my second team in that year.  The 1907 Cubs would give me a lot of good to very good but not great pitching.  1907 also wasn’t a great year for non-Cubs pitching at this cap other than perhaps Mathewson.  The other years I was looking at (1904, 05, 17, 19) only had 1 real top quality pitcher per team, better than anyone on the 1907 Cubs, but I wasn’t comfortable going in that direction.  I took the gamble knowing the Giants could be long gone by my 3^rd pick (and they were gone before my 2^nd).  I took the Cubs with my second pick as a no brainer for me.

Knowing the 1907 Cubs would provide for 1100+ IP (using Lundgren and Reulbach if necessary) I decided to try to grab most of my lineup with my next year.  Since I wouldn’t be spending much money on my pitching I got concerned that I would have trouble reaching the 110 mil cap and immediately looked at the best hitting that the Cubs could offer.  1930 would have been my chosen year but 1929 was a nice fall back providing Hornsby, Wilson, Cuyler and Stephenson – all with pretty incredible, albeit poorly normalized stats.  1929 would also give me plenty of hitting options for my second team.  The focus of my second team, however, was on how to fill out the rest of my pitching staff.  There weren’t a lot of great franchises left to choose from in the 4^th round and I would have taken the Pirates if they had gotten to me.  Instead I went with the Cardinals hoping that I could get 1943 for 2 good RP options in Pollet and Brecheen and also an expensive Musial to help me reach the cap.  The Cards also provided a good RP in 1929 Grabowski. 

Once I got 1943 I focused on getting Ozzie Smith to give me a top level defender at SS.  I was all set to take 1987 which would have also given me Jack Clark to play 1B as well.  Rickysdad took 1987 though so I went with 1993 as a last resort to provide an average hitting but very good fielding Smith and Gregg Jefferies at 1B. 

This team is pretty good I suppose. I don’t really know how my team looks compared to others.  I think I am going to be hurt by not having the A+ deadball pitching that some teams will have.  I also don’t like the structure of my lineup – too top heavy, too much money spent on Abs, poor defence.  Probably an 85 win team or so depending on how the pitching holds up.

My recap.

The two best dead ball pitching teams are the Cubs and Giants.  Being in the sixth draft position meant I was also in 19th draft position for both rounds 2 and 3 behind both schwarze and discodemo.  I thought it was too big a gamble to grab 1906 and have the Cubs or Giants there.  Picking the Cubs without a dead ball year was not worth it.  I almost picked the Giants but I opted for the Yankees because of the greater flexibility.  Round 2 came and the run on dead ball pitchers and dead ball pitching teams left a lot of Yankee teams available.  1931 seemed the best because the Ruth\Gehrig years were only 9+ million not 10+.  It also was one of the best Athletic years including Grove's pitching.  I really sweated out Round  3 before grabbing the last Athletic team available.  Round 4, I switched gears because a true number one was still available in 1978 Guidry.  It also had a high IP Gossage for relief.   

I had hoped Round 5 would be 2008 too pick up a starting pitcher combination of Harden and Duroscher beside 3 additional pitchers for my bullpen.  I would have taken them in Round 4 if Guidry had not been available.  Because 2008 was gone I took 1989 which landed me an Eckersley led bullpen to go with my 1978 Gossage.  In Round 6 I was seriously looking at 1974 Catfish Hunter but my luck with Hunter in general has not been good.  I also was looking at going with the 2010 Yankee Stadium to offset the deadball pitching I was going to be facing but that disappeared right before me.  Instead I went with Spud Chandler's 1/2 season in 1947 with an A+ range shortstop in Phil Rizzutto.  This meant I went with the 1931 Lefty Gomez for the other half year of starts.  Hopefully not terrible against the deadball hitters.

My salary cap casualty was Mickey Cochrane.  He was replaced by a .336 hitting Carney Lansford.

My starting lineup is:

CF     1931 Ben Chapman     727     17 Hr     .315/.396/.483     $5.77     C-\C+
2B      1931 Max Bishop          655     5  Hr     .294/.426/.400      $5.72     A-/B
RF      1931 Babe Ruth          701      46 HR     .373/.494/.700   $9.81     C/D-
1B       1931 Lou Gehrig         782      46 HR     .341/.446/.662    $9.10    B/D-
LF       1931 Al Simmons        601      22 HR     .390/.444/.641    $8.82    B+/B-
3B       1931 Jimmie Foxx       633      30 HR     .291/.380/.567    $5.17    D/A+
DH      1989 Carney Lansford 616       2 HR     .336/.398/.405    $4.45    NA
SS       1947 Phil Rizzuto         656       2 HR     .273/.350/.364    $5.35    B/A+
C         1931 Bill Dickey            554       6 HR    .327/.378/.442     $4.60    A/A-/B+
C         1931 Art Jorgens         118        0HR     .270/.330/.320    448K     D/D/D-

My Pitchers
SP     1931 Lefty Grove          308       2.06   .229 OAV   1.08 WHIP    $10.42
SP     1978 Ron Guidry           272      1.74    .193 OAV   0.95 WHIP   $10.62
SP     1931 Lefty Gomez         258       2.67   .226 OAV   1.20 WHIP    $7.98
SP     1947 Spud Chandler     135       2.46   .214 OAV   1.10 WHIP    $4.85

RP     1978 Rich Gossage       134       2.01    .187 OAV   1.09  WHIP  $4.87
RP     1989 Jim Corsi                39        1.88    .194 OAV   0.95  WHIP $1.26
RP     1989 Rick Honeycutt       77        2.35    ..207 OAV  1.07 WHIP  $2.30
RP     1989 Todd Burns            97        2.24    .196 OAV    .98  WHIP  $3.61
RP     1989  Erik Plunk              29        2.20    .172 OAV    1.01 WHIP 963K
Cl       1989 Dennis Eckersley   58        1.56     .162 OAV     .61 WHIP  $2.93   

I am going with Yankee Stadium.  My hitter totals are .321./.406/.506 with 6,314 PA.  I have 2 base stealers Chapman with 65 and Lansford with 37.  My pitchers 1,443 IP 2.21 /era  .212 OAV and 1.06 WHIP.  We will see.  

Lets see how this unfolded...

Rnd 1: Wanted to select a year that would give me two things; good pitching and multiple team options = 1909 (CHC, PIT, PHA, NYG, CHW)

Rnd 2: Wanted to lock up one of those teams and my first choice was still available = CHC

Rnd 3: Wanted a season that gave me some good CHC batters and other options = 1922 (CHC and either PIT or SLB/BAL)

Rnd 4: Wanted the Pirates; I'm a Pittsburgh guy = PIT (1909 Adams, Camnitz, Wagner and 1922 Carey, Bigbee, DH)

Rnd 5: Wanted at least one LH Reliever and a good mix of hitting/defense = 1992 (Rasmussen, Sandberg, Bonds, Van Slyke, Slaught)

Rnd 6: Wanted defense, took offense = 1997 (found I couldn't afford Sandberg and Van Slyke so I thought I'd take Mazeroski and Clemente but took Womack for SB and Randa for ? I don't know why it just fit better under the salary cap than 1963 with Santo, Maz and Roberto)

Outcome: Should have good starting pitching and an ace reliever in 1909 Babe Adams. The rest of the pitching is marginal. Need 1922 hitters to hit. Defense is not what I want but the cap kept me out of Sandberg and Van Slyke. I do have A+ Catcher arm, A range shortstop and A+ range CF.

This is great reading.  I hope others will post their strategies here too.

I find it interesting that many of us thought we'd have trouble getting enough high-priced guys to reach the cap, then ultimately had to downgrade because our salaries were too high.

It's easy to do that in a DH league. Building an offense of ~5400 good PAs at 110m and ~6000 good PAs at 110m are very different beasts. To speak nothing about the extra innings you need to carry since your pitcher doesn't get to face an opposing pitcher some 650 times per year.

I made the same mistake - thinking I would need to find the best players to reach the cap, then having to budget. 

I find it easiest in DH leagues to just think like it is a lower salary cap. So a $110M DH league gives you a little more money than a $100M normal league, but not a lot. So I just think of it like a $100M league.

Like rbow923, my plan at every stage was to keep as many options open as possible. And this led to some less than great choices. I was hoping to get 1905, but it went one pick before me. So I took just about the last remaining year with good deadball pitching, namely 1918. I had this hope I could get Giants and Twins, thinking I would take Giants in Round 2, and Twins in Round 3, because Twins never go early in these drafts. But I was obviously wrong, and then had to find a way to work with Twins.

Then I thought I'd get Twins + Cardinals, who have lots of nice years in common. But the Cardinals disappeared a few picks before me, and it sounds like there were more people who would have taken them before me anyway.

At this stage the fact that I was stockpiling fallback plans became useful. I knew the Orioles would last at least until Round 5, so I could take another good Twins + Orioles year, namely 1928, at Round 4. Admittedly, I did this in part to get Heinie Manusch, but then I couldn't fit him under the cap.

The big mistake I made was in Round 5. I was pretty confident the Orioles would make it all the way back to me at the end of Round 6, but I really was out of other plans, so I took the Orioles in 5, and hoped I'd have a few good years to choose from in Round 6. Well, a few years I wanted (esp 1937 and 1970) came off the board. But I was able to get an OK 1953 which filled in some gaps.

After all that, the team I have isn't terrible, though I'm glad I'm not in the other league. The big weakness is defence, especially outfield defence. I usually have A's and B's everywhere, so it will be odd to see all these - plays and errors piling up. I drafted Goose Gossage to be a DH, but I think I'll have to run him out in LF because the other defenders I have are worse.

Still, I think 85 wins is possible, and that is all I was hoping for out of this league. Last year I only got 80 wins in the high cap draft league, and anything above that would be a bonus.