Posted by chargingryno on 6/6/2020 11:18:00 AM (view original):
I don't know why the thought of using Silver King in the variable cap. It makes sense, take one penalty, get 3 pitchers worth of IP.

I like my team of <200ip tandems, but Im wishing I'd taken a closer look at someone like King

I started with him and built a team, but then I remembered that I've never managed to get more than ~640-650 IP out of him because it's really a skill to manage those innings effectively with the right pitchers around him. So ultimately I figured I'd need to draft too many extra innings to make up for his value and thereby negate his value, if that makes any sense.

In previous WISC, I've struggled with trying to experiment and push boundaries too much and often have one team that tanks my chances of advancing to round two. I tried really hard to not do that here again, but as I write these recaps, I realize I definitely didn't succeed. I took big chances in strategy in the $80m

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$80M: I Drafted for My Ballpark
Stadium: South Side Grounds

I know many here consider this a low cap, this cap is already pushing the heights of comfort for me. $90m is about as high as I ever really play. Anything above that just feels like a random generator of luck with everyone having access to the greatest seasons. I'm still blown away by what kind of teams can be put together at $120m. But I digress...

I basically started by checking common OL guys and keeping who worked and finding similar players for the ones who didn't. My offense is similar, though with slightly less pop than a default OL lineup for me. My pitching, however, is nothing like I'd ever voluntarily run on a competitive team. Maybe on an experimental one, but not if I was trying to win. That said, the pitching selections I liked would've all put me in ballparks I would've been wholly uncomfortable with. So, I started looking for players from specific franchises and years to get a ballpark I would be comfortable in. That left me with only 1909 Frank Smith as an option. Then I had to build a complementary rotation without spending more $ on anyone else.So I paired him with 1902 Jack Taylor. Though I have decided on a 2-man, 3-man with a tandem in the 3rd slot, or 3-man with a A/B in the 3rd slot, yet... Guess I'm running out of time to make that call... The most interesting thing I did here was at 1B, where I've tanked the position and am running a 9 man platoon of sub $300k guys. The 9 combine for 592 PA at .274/.371/.353 and cost $2.39m, which was way better than I could find in a single player (closest comps I found were near $3.5m), let alone having to spend cash for all those bench spots. The 1B mess will take some hands-on management as Sparky seems limited to being able to manage a 5-man platoon on his own.

Hitting: 5,001 PA, .282 / .348 / .371, $38.8M
Pitching: 1,254 IP, 0.99 WHIP, 0.22 HR/9, $41.2M
Prediction: . 88 wins +/- 6

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$90M: 2000 Pitchers for the Gloves
Stadium: Safeco Field

I spent more time here than anywhere else. I knew right away I'd be avoiding the deadball pitchers. The error rate effect of that alone would be too costly. I assumed there would be little to no deadball pitching staffs here and came very, very, very, close to submitting this lineup:

Pos	Player	B	PA/162	AB/162	HR	RBI	SB-CS	SO-BB	AB/HR	AVG	OBP	SLG	F/R	Salary
		C	1885 John Kerins	R	695	660	3	51	31-18	40-20	152.0	.243	.281	.353	D-/B	$4,060,338
		1B	1900 Mike Donlin	L	344	320	10	48	14-13	26-14	27.6	.326	.361	.507	D/B	$2,587,509
		2B	1973 Davey Johnson	R	656	563	43	99	5-3	93-81	13.0	.270	.370	.546	D+/A-	$5,714,324
		3B	1931 Jimmie Foxx	R	633	549	30	120	4-3	84-73	17.2	.291	.380	.567	D/C-	$5,232,257
		SS	1991 Howard Johnson	S	663	568	38	117	30-16	120-78	14.8	.259	.342	.535	D/D-	$5,119,036
		OF	1979 Dave Kingman	R	589	532	48	115	4-2	131-45	11.1	.288	.343	.613	D/D-	$4,953,097
		OF	1915 Gavvy Cravath	R	662	557	24	115	11-9	77-86	21.8	.285	.393	.510	D/C	$5,616,204
		OF	1922 Tilly Walker	R	679	595	37	99	4-3	67-61	15.3	.283	.357	.549	D+/C+	$5,049,840

With the thought that with all modern pitchers HRs could play very well. Ultimately though, I went a very different route. On the off-chance that there were still teams with deadball pitchers, I worried this team would be DOA against them, and that I'd be banking on alignment luck. So, I decided to try to capitalize on the one thing I know about every team; they're going to make lots of errors. I wanted my lineupo to put as many balls in play as possible, so I drafted based on contact rates with all of my hitters being deadballers with 94% rate or better. I chose deadball hitters to exacerbate the error rates of my opponents defense, and figured if they also ran deadball pitchers, I'd get an even bigger bump due to both the era normalization and the lack of Ks. My pitchers all have decent to great K rates and low OAV & HR/9 just in case anyone else thought like I initially did.

Hitting: 5,292 PA, .304 / .364 / .427, $39.3M
Pitching: 1,314 IP, 0.97 WHIP, 0.45 HR/9, $50.7M
Prediction: Feel confident about the pitching, decent about the fielding, and the bats are more dependent on y'alls gloves so: 90 wins +/- 5

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$110M: 1
Stadium: Petco Park

I didn't think about this one too much. Took some favorites, looked for similar seasons from them in a year before or after, and moved on... filled in a couple slots with guys who go from stud to dud and vice versa, but ultimately, I didn't really put much into this one. Both of my teams are nearly identical in terms of quality of IP/PA, though the distribution in terms of quantity and salary into hitting/pitching changes slightly from one team to the next... so similar overall, though, that it was really a coin toss as to which team I put in for round one vs round 2. Only real choice I made was to find me a player I could use for Petco, even if that meant a scrub. Kirby Yates did the trick there. The crazy thing is how far your money goes at this cap... I mean Lajoie, Baker, Hornsby, Wagner, Speaker, Maddux, Alexander... who can you not afford when you get this high!? Basically I just plugged in a bunch of SIM MVPS and CYA...

Round 1 Hitting: 5,059 PA, .343 / .423 / .502, $63.5M
Round 1 Pitching: 1,271 IP, 0.98 WHIP, 0.50 HR/9, $46.5M
Round 2 Hitting: 5,708 PA, .328 / .422 / .481, $57.2M
Round 2 Pitching: 1,336 IP, 0.97 WHIP, 0.47 HR/9, $52.6M
Prediction: We're getting more into crapshoot territory... 85 wins +/- 5

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$120M: Koji Berries
Stadium: Bennet Park

My choices:

• SP — Joss, because the aggregate salary to the others is comparable but the $/IP is not
• RP — Uehara, and even then, that was a tough pill to swallow for an RP.
• LRP — Kershaw, duh
• Hitter — Cobb, because Ruth was too expensive and A+ range
• Defender — Piersall, as it allowed me to draft better 3B/SS options than Furcal or Robinson would've at a substantial discount.

After plugging in my sunk costs, the remaining looked to be roughly equivalent to a $70m league. I feel good about this one overall. I drafted a bunch of favorites to supplement my albatrosses on offense, whereas, on pitching, I already had 40% of a staff built, so I looked to find pieces that would complement the existing overpriced core and ended up with 1902 Cy Young and small cadre of relievers in the pen. This one should be fun and I expect Cobb to slay. Slightly nervous about my defense in front of two deadball pitchers, as I normally shy away from that due to the huge increase in errors.

Hitting: 5,572 PA, .299 / .364 / .447, $58.4M
Pitching: 1,358 IP, 0.91 WHIP, 0.21 HR/9, $61.6M
Prediction: Defense could bite me, but confident in pitching/hitting... maybe 89 wins +/- 3

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$140M: Brave Indian Cubs
Stadium: Jacobs Field

I started by looking through players and logging teams to try to find 5-6 teams I felt I could work with before narrowing down. I ended up with 6 teams after my first pass, and then checked to see what boxes they fit in so I could start putting an actual team together. Whoops, 4 from box 2 (Cubs, A's, White Sox, Pirates), 2 from box 1 (Indians & Dodgers), and none from the third. So, I figured it would be easiest to figure out what team I liked from box 1 and start seeing what team from box 2 I liked complemented them best, and then I'd fill in with whatever was left form box 3 and make adjustments to fit rules from there.

I had to only make one adjustment after the first pass, as the Cubs were over $60m and the Braves below $40m, both by roughly $4m, so I swapped a Cubs pitcher for a Braves pitcher, had a few $ left over and created a roster error by upgrading Speaker to a better season without even looking at his team and added a Red Sox in the process.

It's hard not to like this team, but at this cap, every team is filled with studs across the board since there isn't really a limit to the player pool. Hopefully the defense plays up my pitching in conjunction with my ballpark, and my offense gets more errors from everyone else's...

Hitting: 5,667 PA, .318 / .400 / .533, $68.8M
Pitching: 1,561 IP, 0.86 WHIP, 0.20 HR/9, $70.4M
Prediction: Too many similar rosters will likely make this play tighter, but I really like this team, so... Let's say 93 wins +/- 4

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Variable Cap: 182 Million Regrets
Stadium: Target Field

I've played enough low caps to know salary in and of itself isn't important, especially with some of the prices dynamic pricing stuck some of the best players with (shoot, I still have a boxscore saved from when my $25m team beat a $255m team!). That said, players who weren't quite full time seem to have gotten some beneficial pricing, or at least not been as negatively affected, by the dynamic pricing, so there are already bargains to be had in the sub 500 PA hitters. I already build many lineups around platoons and maximizing that value, so this theme fit that well. Salary was no concern, I already knew I could afford the best across the board, So I never even really paid attention to it, and I'm pretty sure I left some money on the table because I don't know how I could even use it improve my team.

On the hitting side I am only running one full time player in the 1935 Arky Vaughan . SS, is a tough position to fill with a quality bat, especially with platoon players. These guys all hit and they all take their base. My goal here was to not make outs. They'll be going against some fo the toughest pitchers in history, so I wanted to try to make sure we didn't concede any ground. All favorable matchups and a ballpark that should complement.

Pitching-wise, I went with two full time arms in 1913 Walter Johnson and 1910 Ed Walsh and the polar philosophy. I've got 1500+ innings of "we don't allow baserunners, and if we do, it's not a HR or an XBH." It's funny though, the guys that two leagues ago were "over-priced" were the bargains here and Ive got both Kershaw and Uehara again, as well as Eckersley, and Kimbral.... funny what a difference $60m makes. And I still couldn't use all my $$$!!!

Hitting: 5,914 PA, .371 / .466 / .571, $81.7M
Pitching: 1,513 IP, 0.76 WHIP, 0.22 HR/9, $99.3M
Prediction: All these teams should be roughly the same given the limited pool of quality, so definitely feels like more of a crapshoot... 81 wins +/- 15

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My predictions put me at 526 wins with a full range of 488 to 564. So, everything goes right, round two is on the table... things don't quite go right, sitting on the outside looking in around the mid-40s, which seems about right. I didn't do anything too crazy like I have most years, that should keep me from having those 90-100 loss seasons that tank my ranking this time around. Good luck everyone.

***Edited to add: I read through my write-up, and it sounds kind of like I'm complaining about the higher caps. I'm not. I enjoy them still, but they're just not something I play frequently as I feel there is so much more variability and strategy in the low-mid caps ($25-70m and $80-120m, respectively). And historically I tend to do well in the $60-90m caps in the WISC and am all over the place in the $100m+... Thought the themes were fun and I enjoyed putting my teams together, especially the $90m and $180m.

I've been away from the tournament for several years, but after selling my employer earlier this year, I have more time than I've had in the past.

Overall, the biggest strategic shift that I made was to use a two-man rotation in every league season. It saved $ on pitching, but isn't something that I normally do. In general, I focus on pitching first and fit in the best bats and IF/C defense that I can within the theme. In most of the themes, I moved away from super OF range due to cost but generally have strong IF range and C arms.

The offensive numbers include all hitters and the pitching numbers include all pitchers.

No Bargains at $80M
Polo Grounds (IV)
Hitting: 5,418 PA .288/.363/.442
Pitching: 1,434.3 IP .235 OAVG, 1.16 WHIP, 0.29 HR/9

I haven't played in an $80M league in many years because I don't play in open leagues, which made this theme the hardest for me. Based on what I've read in the forums, 1886 Dan Casey was an easy choice for this team. Hopefully, he'll pan out. Selecting 1903 Joe McGinnity gave me another dead ball high-IP starter and the Polo Grounds, which has a negative singles factor. Generally, I put my teams in negative singles parks unless the theme rules compel me to do otherwise. I really wasn't a fan of most of the 100-199 IP pitchers that I could afford at this cap. So, I rolled the dice and chose 1944 Tommy de la Cruz with 200+ IP and solid normalized stats in his only big-league season. I rounded out the staff with three low-IP relievers with above-average control.

Offensively, this team is a bit of a hodgepodge. Wynegar gave me a reasonable A+ arm. Infield range is solid with S. Evans, R. Odor, E. Lake, and Clete Boyer. OF range is average but consistent offensively. I focused on moderate HR power with some doubles to take advantage of the +1 park factor.

Overall, I'm most nervous about this team. If it does well, it will be because the pitching comes through and the offense does just enough to win.

Deadball Arms ($90M)
Polo Grounds (V)
Hitting: 5,909 PA .301/.373/.440
Pitching: 1,353 IP .220 OAVG, 0.98 WHIP, 0.09 HR/9

It was an easy decision for me to pick dead ball pitchers because of the way they shut down power. Modern pitchers also tend to have a premium associated with them due to higher K/9.Cy Young, Dave Davenport, and the partial season '02 McGinnity will do the bulk of the pitching. One advantage of the low-IP pitchers of this era is that they tend to have higher IP/game, which allows for the occasional spot start in key situations. The negative park factor for singles will help this staff. While I like the pitching here, having a league with a lot of high park factors for singles could cause issues on the road.

As with the $80M team, I focused more on C arm and IF range than on OF range, except for Douthit who was an obvious choice. Kerins was the choice at C, even though his offense is terrible. Buck Freeman, Billy Herman, and Bobby Bonilla give me strong to excellent range at 1B, 2B, and 3B with solid bats. I went against the grain a bit and picked 1923 Joe Sewell at SS. There really isn't that much difference in fielding percentage for the D+ fielders. Consequently, I'm hoping that Sewell's bat at this cap level (normalized .341/.444/.476) with strong doubles in a park with a +3 doubles factor will help. Douthit was an obvious choice in the OF for range. 1967 Staub is a strong offensive season that has normalized well in the past. 1932 Goslin was an inexpensive risk at $4.78M as he draws walks with moderate HR power.

Two Years Apart on the Ohio ($110M) - Season 1
Riverfront Stadium
Hitting: 5,981 PA .298/.389/.482
Pitching: 1,535 IP .221 OAVG, 1.03 WHIP, 0.25 HR/9

This team definitely has weaker pitching and better hitting than the other version. The difference in offense was bigger than the difference in pitching, so I wanted some bigger bats to hopefully make it to round 2.

1901 Young, 1903 Mathewson, 2014 Kershaw, and 1902 McGinnity will pitch the bulk the of the innings. I wanted some extra innings here because Young and Mathewson may need more help at the slightly higher cap. Kershaw's 0.41 HR/9 is usable in this environment. One advantage of most dead ball pitchers is not only do they shut off HR, but they also generally allow fewer XBH than do most modern pitchers. I've had success with them in parks like Riverfront and Sicks Stadium because of the reduction in singles. Andrew Miller, Mike Adams, Babe Adams, and Huston Street form the core of the bullpen. 1985 Roger Mason is tolerable as a Setup B type in addition to Gosling and Manship in Mop Up roles. Gosling is the one pitcher who I picked to be a scrub in both versions of the team. The 2015 Manship will be a strong part of the next team's bullpen if I make it to round 2.

As with the previous two teams, the team's C arm and most of the IF defense are strong. 1887 Kerins, 1890 Connor, 1974 Grich, and 1986 Ozzie all provide excellent defense. I went with '59 Eddie Mathews at 3B (B/C+) because I don't like the affordable Schmidt seasons at this cap and he brings normalized numbers of .308/.392/.583 and fits well with the park. For the OF, I went with average defense but two switch-hitters and one lefty who have power and draw walks in '77 Singleton, '54 Mantle, and '34 Ott. I've never used this Ott season before but I've had good results with Singleton and Mantle in this kind of park. One key seems to be having moderate HR power and good ISO, but maintain reasonable 1B/100# numbers. This is why Mike Schmidt tends to do poorly in the sim, IMHO.

Too Much for Joss ($120M)
Dodger Stadium
Hitting: 5,552 PA .290/.371/.456
Pitching: 1,396 IP .210 OAVG, 0.94 WHIP, 0.22 HR/9

For me, picking Joss, Kershaw, and Kimbrel as the stud pitchers were easy choices due to the cost per IP. Kershaw also let me Dodger Stadium, which will hopefully fit well with this team. I made a version of this team with a 3-man rotation but scrapped it. Instead, I went with 1907 Walsh as the other SP in a 2-man rotation with 1910 Frank Smith as a second long man / spot starter with Kershaw. To fill out the bullpen, I rolled the dice with two 1927 pitchers with whom I've had success in the past, Jing Johnson and Fred Frankhouse. Charlie Smith and 2012 Sean Doolittle round out the 'pen with 1955 Ben Wade hopefully being a bargain at $443K for some fill-in innings.

I ultimately chose Gehrig and Brooks Robinson for my two offensive studs. Ruth, Lajoie, and Bonds were too expensive and I haven't had much luck using the Cobb season so Gehrig was the default choice. I chose Brooks over Furcal because I like the stud defense at 3B and I could have a solid SS cheaper than I could have a comparable 3B. 1887 Kerins was an easy choice at C with switch-hitters 1988 Roberto Alomar (B-/A+) and 2011 Jimmy Rollins (A+/C+) rounding out a strong defensive infield. In Dodger Stadium, OF range is less important because of the negative park factors for doubles and triples. This allowed me to focus on solid normalized OBP with switch-hitters '70 Buford and '43 Cullenbine and the lefty hitting 1904 John Titus. Generally, I want to have offensive players with normalized ISO of at least .100 because it clearly helps the offense. This is a team has decent speed and will get singles and HR from playing in Dodger Stadium.

Giant White Braves ($140M)
Sun Trust Park
Hitting: 5,965 PA .352/.420/.539
Pitching: 1,467.7 IP .194 OAVG, 0.82WHIP, 0.10 HR/9

When I saw the distribution of the teams across the three groups, I knew that I would pick the Giants and the White Sox immediately to get both 1908 Walsh and Mathewson as my starting pitchers. For the third team, I looked at the Twins and the Braves. I selected the Braves because they helped more with both offense and the bullpen.

In addition to Walsh and Mathewson, I went with Nehf and Toney in their stud partial seasons as Long A / spot starters. These three teams let me pick a deep bullpen of Northrop, Romo, Carlos, Tiefenauer, and Kimbrel. Jack Quinn and Jack McDowell round out a deep staff. These two could come in handy for a critical late or post-season start. Kimbrel isn't cheap but I could pick him without having to give up anything elsewhere on the roster, so I did.

On offense, the mix of average, ISO, and defense made for a solid lineup with only two pure right-handed hitters. Torre gives me an A+ arm at C with good normalized offensive numbers. 1930 Terry and 1991 Pendleton give A+ range at the corners. 1920 Collins and 1936 Appling give strong offense and reasonable defense up the middle. Appling can be error-prone but he has strong A range with normalized numbers of .372/.454/.487. In the OF, 1920 Jackson and 1945 Tommy Holmes have strong doubles power with only 25 K combined. I took a bit of a risk with 2002 Chipper Jones (normalized .329/.434/.522 with 22 1B/100#).

Given the offensive makeup of this team and the strong pitching, I went with Sun Trust Park because of positive factors for singles and doubles and an overall park factor of 0.98. I can't remember using Tommy Holmes before and hope that he will perform.

Was $182 million enough? (Variable Cap)
Cleveland Stadium
Hitting: 6,164 PA .349/.440/.577
Pitching: 1,604.7 IP .182 OAVG, 0.81 WHIP, 0.12 HR/9

I made an initial version of this team based on a lot of 100-200 IP pitchers, entered it but didn't really like it. Then, I tried a 2-man rotation with Silver King and 1915 Alexander and liked the pitching a lot better so I went with that version. I chose Alexander over Walsh and Mathewson because he has a slightly better performance history and King's innings would let me use more of the bullpen in the games that Alex starts. Chamberlain and Toney are the Long A / spot starters. I was able to generate an extra $2M of salary cap by filling out the rest of the staff with six studs with under 100 IP each: 2003 Gagne, 2018 Doolittle, 2009 Adams, 2014 Sanchez, 2015 Hill, and 2013 Santos. King's performance in higher cap leagues can be mixed, IMHO, so I'll keep a tighter rein on him than I would in other leagues. Also, having some extra IP in a higher-cap league with a DH in this tournament doesn't hurt. I tried making a team by swapping out King for '08 Walsh and replacing one of the low-IP relievers with '16 Kershaw, but couldn't improve the lineup enough to make it worthwhile.

Once I had the chance to research platoons at each position and understand the salaries, I realized that I could have only two full-time players and fill out the rest of the team with seven 400-500 PA players and five players with less than 200 PA each. This allowed me to keep the cap at $182 million. I went with strong defense at the expense of offense at SS with Ozzie and Dave Bancroft. Hopefully, their range offsets the miserable offense that they will likely produce. 1961 Elston Howard was an easy choice at C, although he has lower OBP# than I usually use at this cap. '54 Walker Cooper is a good backup. '46 Mize has A+ range at 1B and normalized .341/.437/.589. Will Clark is weaker defensively but has .343/.419/.631 normalized. His 18 1B/100# is a bit low. 1902 Lajoie and 1997 Counsell bring A+ range and solid bats to 2B. I've never used 1890 Denny Lyons before and the defense worries me despite normalized .360/.460/.558. But, his fielding percentage in his performance history was reasonable. However, I added 2011 Brett Lawrie to fill in and be a defensive replacement due to B/A+ defensive ratings with a 4.65 range factor at 3B.

In the OF, I have my two full-time players in 1894 Duffy and 1924 Ruth. Ruth's 19 1B/100# is one of the highest marks of his career and should help him to hold up against strong pitching. For the remaining OF spot and DH, I drafted '55 Williams, '46 Cullenbine, and 2006 Chipper Jones. I'll try to minimize Cullenbine's time in the OF due to poor defense.

I rarely choose a park with positive factors for HR and singles, but I did here with Cleveland Stadium. Some of the hitters could use help generating singles and there's enough HR power to justify the +1 factors to both LF and RF. Additionally, only two pitchers (Doolittle and Hill) have HR/9 higher than 0.40. And, the overall park factor of 0.94 seems to help.

I like this team because I was able to get some strong defense while building the strong staff that I like to have. I spent $92.3 million on pitching and $89.67 million on offense. I'll be interested to see what the lower cap teams look like in comparison.

Did anybody go below $161M in the Variable Cap league? I'm feeling less and less hopeful as these keep getting posted, although my triple-slash and pitcher numbers do appear comparable to most.

just4me — "The most interesting thing I did here was at 1B, where I've tanked the position and am running a 9 man platoon of sub $300k guys. The 9 combine for 592 PA at .274/.371/.353 and cost $2.39m"

That's nuts! And amazing!

Posted by skunk206 on 6/6/2020 2:58:00 PM (view original):
Did anybody go below $161M in the Variable Cap league? I'm feeling less and less hopeful as these keep getting posted, although my triple-slash and pitcher numbers do appear comparable to most.

10 lowest caps:

Owner	Cap
steelerfan19	116
happyhours	148
spoonfed	152
teamhydro	157
thebubbaq	160
midknight	160
tridentric	160
skunk206	161
pfan	162
Jdh34	162

$116M, wow

When I first read ozo’s writeup I thought he went with $100M. That was a brief moment of shock.

Posted by ozomatli on 6/6/2020 3:01:00 PM (view original):
just4me — "The most interesting thing I did here was at 1B, where I've tanked the position and am running a 9 man platoon of sub $300k guys. The 9 combine for 592 PA at .274/.371/.353 and cost $2.39m"

That's nuts! And amazing!

We'll see how it goes... as of right now it feels kind of genius. We'll have a better idea about 60 games in.

Posted by ozomatli on 6/6/2020 3:03:00 PM (view original):

Posted by skunk206 on 6/6/2020 2:58:00 PM (view original):
Did anybody go below $161M in the Variable Cap league? I'm feeling less and less hopeful as these keep getting posted, although my triple-slash and pitcher numbers do appear comparable to most.

10 lowest caps:

Owner	Cap
steelerfan19	116
happyhours	148
spoonfed	152
teamhydro	157
thebubbaq	160
midknight	160
tridentric	160
skunk206	161
pfan	162
Jdh34	162

So what are the highest?

WISC #1 - Career Year Free Agents

Hitting: 5459 PA 0.311/0.368/0.475 $42.6 million
Pitching: 1280 IP 2.31 ERA 1.06 WHIP 0.34 HR/9
Ballpark: Comiskey (I)

This could be my best team - if fatigue doesn't make inning management extremely challenging. I really like the hitting - this offense would work in a $90 million theme with its seven bargain switch hitters. The Pitching staff too has plenty of bargains on it, but only having 1280 IP and playing in Comiskey (I) rather than Petco could be biting off more than I can chew with respect to fatigue.

WISC #2 - Defenseless Deadballers

Hitting: 5856 PA 0.303/0.373/0.433 $44.3 million
Pitching: 1332 IP 2.09 ERA 0.96 WHIP 0.11 HR/9 $45.7 million
Ballpark: Shibe

Put me on the deadballer side of the debate between deadball and liveball pitchers... at least at this cap, and assuming I can roster certain deadballers that are known to be bargains (1914 Claude Hendrix, 1902 Bill Bernhard). There just aren't enough liveball pitchers that are affordable at this cap that can compare with those pitchers. I'm pretty sure my pitching staff will have similar ERA and WHIP numbers to those of modern day pitching staffs... with 1/5 or less of the HRs allowed.

I also don't buy the argument that the fielding restriction makes deadballers useless here... because there is no restriction on range. A low fielding high range guy turns out to be an average defender overall in many cases, once the + plays are netted out from the errors.

Overall, this team should be playoff caliber - but the offense will determine whether this team is good or great, as it is not as flashy as the offenses many other owners will field in this theme.

WISC #3 - Ball Four For Teddy Ballgame

Hitting: 5616 PA 0.310/0.394/0.482 $56.6 million
Pitching: 1414 IP 1.84 ERA 0.96 WHIP 0.27 HR/9 $53.3 million
Ballpark: Astrodome

I could have made it easy for myself by picking +/- 1 like a lot of other owners likely did. There's a lot more bullpen options and bench player options for +/- 1 then there is for +/- 4, which is what I winded up doing because I wanted to use more of the players I'm familiar with using. Since it is pretty much a requirement to build both teams at the same time (or risk the round 2 team being total crap), my choice of +/- 4 made this theme a research nightmare. On the plus side, I did get to pick a decent ballpark because I lucked out and one of my bench players (who didn't cost an arm and a leg) happened to play in a good ballpark.

I went into this theme thinking that I'd try to make the two teams as similar as possible, but in the end one team is more pitching heavy and the other is more offense friendly. I decided I'd save the better pitching team for round 2 and roll with the more offense friendly version in round 1. This team is well rounded with few glaring weaknesses so I'm pretty confident this one will make the playoffs.

WISC #4 - Ruth is Intentionally Walked

Hitting: 5651 PA 0.297/0.389/0.457 $60.8 million
Pitching: 1404 IP 2.06 ERA 0.96 WHIP 0.26 HR/9 $59.2 million
Ballpark: Dodger Stadium

Variance is going to have a major impact on this theme, as the performance of a handful of super expensive players is going to wind up determining how good the team is. I winded up rostering a whole bunch of players that I would pick on a $70 million team on a $120 million team. Dodger stadium made sense as the ballpark given how many slap stick hitters there are going to be.

I picked Babe Ruth as my $20 million plus albatross hitter because he was the "most efficient" of the team killing position players (and he probably has to drive himself in, so home runs are good here) Seriously, these $20 million plus position players are just going to be intentionally walked a whole bunch of times. 1908 Addie Joss seems like the only choice here, since 1995 Greg Maddux and 2000 Pedro Martinez cost way too much for the few innings that they provide. I also expect to see a lot of 2012 Craig Kimbrel, because he's the least overpriced of the super overpriced closers available. 2016 Clayton Kershaw also seems like a no brainer because the other long inning relievers are so overpriced relative to what they bring to the table.

I'm not making a prediction as to how this team will do, because it is too subject to the performance of a couple of overpriced dudes.

WISC #5 - Giants, Red Sox & Twins

Hitting: 5934 PA 0.335/0.423/0.547 $71.1 million
Pitching: 1445 IP 1.59 ERA 0.89 WHIP 0.17 HR/9 $68.9 million
Ballpark: 3Com

I picked the team from each box that gave me the most options I liked, and that was the Giants from Box A, the Red Sox from Box B, and the Twins from Box C. Getting the pick from Box C was the most critical because the team from Box C is the hardest team to reach the $40 million threshold in salary rostered from that team. Luckily, the Twins have Walter Johnson and Ed Delahanty, so that made things much easier.

I like this team for the most part, but I am a little concerned that two of the hitters are a little more dependent on HR power than I would like. I've never been like the owners who seem to be petrified of rostering HRs, but guys who don't provide much outside of HR power and don't normalize great seem to become liabilities. Then again, it might prove quite useful if a lot of owners roster modern day pitchers.

WISC #6 - Pay to Not Play

Hitting: 6296 PA 0.356/0.450/0.603 $97.4 million
Pitching: 1497 IP 1.55 ERA 0.80 WHIP 0.19 HR/9 $84.5 million
Ballpark: Polo Grounds (V)

My strategy regarding this theme is simple: don't pay the $5 million surcharge for rostering a player with too many PA/IP unless the player is absolutely worth it. I can't think of very many players that would qualify, but I know Silver King and Babe Ruth qualify (Babe Ruth more because I was going to have trouble spending all the money otherwise). That means I'm less familiar with some of the players I'm using, but the reward is a much higher salary cap (actually over $180 million) and I did it without wasting money on excess PA or IP.

I'm pretty confident this should be a very good playoff team.

Posted by redcped on 6/6/2020 4:35:00 PM (view original):

Posted by ozomatli on 6/6/2020 3:03:00 PM (view original):

Posted by skunk206 on 6/6/2020 2:58:00 PM (view original):
Did anybody go below $161M in the Variable Cap league? I'm feeling less and less hopeful as these keep getting posted, although my triple-slash and pitcher numbers do appear comparable to most.

10 lowest caps:

Owner	Cap
steelerfan19	116
happyhours	148
spoonfed	152
teamhydro	157
thebubbaq	160
midknight	160
tridentric	160
skunk206	161
pfan	162
Jdh34	162

So what are the highest?

Owner	Cap
sjh0825	188
jfranco77	184
dougpalm	184
tracyr	184
elvisgump	184
justinlee_24	182
PennQuaker	182
pkearns	182
mpitt76	182
wetwillytwo	181

Overall median 174
Top 24 average 175.6

Posted by ozomatli on 6/6/2020 3:01:00 PM (view original):
just4me — "The most interesting thing I did here was at 1B, where I've tanked the position and am running a 9 man platoon of sub $300k guys. The 9 combine for 592 PA at .274/.371/.353 and cost $2.39m"

That's nuts! And amazing!

That's something I might do. Though roster spots have value and I couldn't spare 9 of them here.

It’s my 4th year in the WISC, and so far the trajectory has been very encouraging, from 46th to 15th to 7th last year. But this field looks very deep, and there are only 24 spots to claim. I’ve tried to apply lessons from past years and other themes to maximize my odds, but I can’t feel much more than marginally confident at this point.

Confession 1: It took me longer than it should have to realize that spending on innings you don’t need hurts you doubly. Not only are you not using the money you spent, but also you aren’t putting that money into better pitchers for the innings you do use.

Confession 2: I’m still scared of going too low on innings and I really prefer SP at 100 nearly all the time. So I’m still not as low as many people probably will go, but I probably average over 100 fewer innings than I was drafting a couple years ago. If you see anything under 1400, you know I struggled with it mightily. Someday I’ll look back and laugh at my 2020 self, as I do now at 2017 self who took over 1600 IP in many of these themes.

Confession 3: I see people under 1300 IP and I still think you’re nuts, but I aspire to be one of you someday.


80M: Top Dollar
Hi, I’m Larry.

The first thing to figure out here is the most expensive player and therefore the stadium. It’s going to be a SP unless you do something really unusual with your roster, so I looked for someone who could land me a strong pitchers park. I landed on 1969 Larry Dierker, who brings the Astrodome and had a really good season for me in DoctorKs’ $100M Fixer Upper theme recently. I couldn’t find two Darryls, though, so I brought along his co-ace of that $100M team instead: 1976 Randy Jones. They carried me to a TOC final as well, so I’m hoping that’s really good juju. This cap is $20M lower, so I have pretty high expectations.

I can get a strong 700 IP out of that pair, and they aren’t even going to take up half my pitching salary. The three-man rotation will be capped by 1917 Ferdie Schupp, who barely costs more than his more celebrated 1916 season and has twice the innings.

The bullpen is entirely guys I’ve never used before, headed by Jeff Shaw, who has the trivia-lover’s distinction of representing a team in the All-Star Game before he ever pitched for them (Dodgers, 1998). I feel like that’s a sign somehow. I never heard of half the other guys in my pen. I toyed with going under 1350 IP before chickening out and adding a few more to end up at 1372. Amateur move. I’m sure some people will be under 1300 and manage it just fine, of course.

On offense, I aimed for .300+ averages, .360+ OBP, with speed and no money wasted on power I can’t use. We want to win 2-1 games in this league. Maybe a few 1-0, too.

C 1902 Heinie Peitz (.315/.369/.406)
1B 1896 Jack Doyle (.339/.400/.421)
2B 1914 Miller Huggins (.263/.396/.318)
3B 1914 Ed Lennox (.312/.414/.493)
SS 1971 Mark Belanger (.266/.365/.320)
OF 1922 Jack Smith (.310/.375/.449)
OF 1901 Danny Green (.313/.364/.421)
OF 1948 Al Zarilla (.329/.389/.482)

5414 PA, .299/.379/.406, $38,326,363
1,372 IP, 2.44 ERA, .220 OAV, 1.02 WHIP, 0.48 HR/9, $41,658,910

90M: Pitching & (no) Defense
2000, Zero, Zero, Party Over

The first decision I made was the pitching era and went modern. There are a lot of good value SP in the past decade, the bullpen options are numerous, and strikeouts should reduce balls in play somewhat in a league filled with iron gloves. I didn’t go out of my way to get super strikeout guys, though, figuring I’d be overpaying for them relative to what I’d actually get out of them against lineups with likely lots of deadball hitters. More important was minimizing walks to avoid the big innings the errors can cause.

I knew I could spend a little more on pitching since I wouldn’t have to pay for defense much and could field a slightly deeper lineup at this cap. I picked a target range for $/IP and wound up with a 5-man rotation of ‘09 Carpenter, ‘18 Nola, ‘10 Lee, ‘19 Ryu, and ‘16 Hendricks. That’s about 1000 IP for $33M. I added a couple SP for spot starts/long relief and still built a decent bullpen. I wanted a safe amount of innings in case the errors really start to add up. I have to get over this “safe” thing, seriously.

1,448 IP, 2.58 ERA, .219 OAV, 0.99 WHIP, 0.69 HR/9, $48,744,602

I wanted infielders with at least A- range to mitigate some of the errors with plus plays and the higher end of FPCT# possible within these limitations. I’m using a few guys I’ve never tried before since I don’t usually play with rock-handed dudes out there. On the flip side, I aimed for guys who put the ball in play themselves with good AVG and hopefully some speed. Playing in Target and not trying for HR at all, but I did end up with one guy with some pop in ‘85 Kirk Gibson (I must have been reading some ‘88 retrospective and gotten misty-eyed because I took Kirk in one of schwarze’s roster rebuild themes around the same time, too). I hope I have enough PA to avoid the fatigue we might run into with the extra errors.

C 1887 Buck Ewing (.305/.370/.497)
1B 1914 Steve Evans (.348/.416/.556)
2B 1899 Tom Daly (.313/.409/.428)
3B 1895 John McGraw (.369/.459/.448)
SS 1901 Kid Elberfeld (.308/.397/.428)
OF 1990 Willie McGee (.335/.382/.437)
OF 1887 Yank Robinson (.305/.445/.405)
OF 1985 Kirk Gibson (.287/.364/.518)

5352 PA, .312/.395/.452, $41,251,622

$110M: Progressive / Regressive
Cut Loose Like a Deuce

I saved this one for last, mostly because time was tighter than expected and I wanted to make sure I had the rest done early enough to avoid penalties. I also realized that I had completely misread the theme at first and thought the whole first roster had to be from the same season. It sure seemed easier once relieved of that misconception…. Correct that. Nothing was easy.

Did anyone figure out a fast way to fill a single roster spot? You have to go back and forth between two teams. If you try to find a player with two seasons in a similar salary range, you have to sort through countless screens. And even worse, if you try to find a guy who is a good fit in one season and then check his career for an X season that also works somewhere, that’s even more time-consuming. I never scrolled through lists of 500 players for unicorns for any league as much as this. I swear Evelyn Wood designed this theme, and half of you have no clue what that means..

I made three decisions pretty early on and stuck with them: X=2, playing in Target Field, and saving the better roster of the two for Round 2. I found some SP I liked who had good seasons 2 years apart so I could build good 4-man rotations with them in each version. I tracked down one player with two cheap seasons two years apart who played in Target: Pedro Florimon. And from there, it was off to the slow, plodding long march to filling this thing out.

First, let’s talk about Florimon. Building your roster by starting with a backup infielder turns out to be less than brilliant. Especially when one version costs $800K and you’re going to need some of that cash later. Truth is I was stubborn, it took forever to find a guy with two Target seasons that fit at all, and I wasn’t in the mood to start the process over with Petco. So I have a good defensive backup for Ozzie Smith, pretty much the definition of superfluous.

But don’t worry. It’s far from my last forced maneuver on this roster. There were times when I definitely would have benefitted from finding two players with complementary seasons, but I just plowed ahead like a mule. Square pegs were fitting in round holes at a certain point, because I wasn’t going backwards and it was too darn hard to research all the permutations.

I couldn’t solve third base for a long time. I kept filling other positions and trying to generate some savings to get someone better than the group I was considering, but it didn’t work. I toyed with about 10 guys and talked myself out of all of them, and then somehow I talked myself back into Bill Madlock. It’s a mystifying choice, because he doesn’t have a lot of PA, his best AVG seasons don’t fit my X, and his glove is pitiful. But round holes are round holes, and square Madlock combined with some backups gets me enough contact and speed without relying on homers to be the value I needed. If he stinks and boots the ball to St. Paul half the time, I’ll be cringing. … Did I even mention I stuck myself platooning him in Round 2 (should I be fortunate enough to get there) with another righty hitter?

C 1919 Wally Schang (.306/.436/.373)
1B 1937 Johnny Mize (.364/.427/.595)
2B 1975 Rod Carew (.359/.421/.497)
3B 1981 Bill Madlock (.341/.413/.495)
SS 1986 Ozzie Smith (.280/.376/.333)
OF 1894 Joe Kelley (.393/.502/.602)
OF 1901 Jimmy Sheckard (.354/.407/.534)
OF 1924 Harry Heilmann (.346/.428/.533)

5698 PA, .335/.415/.485, $56,465,811

Having the full player universe made it easy enough, relatively, to settle on a four-man rotation that works both times. For this version, I have ‘13 Kershaw, ‘96 Maddux, ‘73 Seaver, and ‘06 Santana. I was able to set the same group up with +/- 2 versions but slightly better for Round 2. In the bullpen I’ve got Rivera, Melancon, Street, Wetteland, Guardado, and Wiltse. I kept tinkering to try to find pairs that made me a little better, and I squeezed on innings to add quality. I saved the slightly better, lower IP staff for Round 2, being foolishly optimistic and all.

Special shoutout to Brad Penny for having two seasons under 201K two years apart. I had him locked in to keep that spot minimally cheap. At the very end after all my tinkering, however, I had just enough leftover cash on both rosters to use a slightly better mopup in Jeremy Powell. Sorry, Brad!

1,428 IP, 2.46 ERA, .214 OAV, 0.98 WHIP, 0.61 HR/9, $53,519,572

120M: Overpriced Studs
What the Furcal Was I Thinking?

I decided to draft my studs based on value primarily, and so far that looks like the popular choice. Joss ($66K/IP), Kershaw ($52K/IP) and Uehara ($91K/IP) all cost the least per inning of the guys available, and since I have to fill out the rest of this team with a low budget I wanted to spend as efficiently as I could. I thought about just going with the cheapest guy, but I get over 100 more innings with Joss for about $3M more, and only Schupp was in Kershaw’s value range. The defender was the most annoying. I didn’t need a CF so Piersall strikes out. Brooks Robinson is slow and unlikely to do enough offensively, and Schoendienst has a lot of unneeded PA I don’t want to pay for. That left Furcal, who at least brings speed and a park I might want to use.

Those purchases rang up for about $65.6M, leaving me $54M and change for the other 20 spots. Suddenly this is playing like a $90M league or less. I need about 900 more IP with about $23-24M to spend, and I have to average under $5M at all my remaining lineup spots. In fact, I found a lot of the same players I considered in the $80M and $90M leagues showing up as options, with Buck Ewing and Yank Robinson making the cut in the $90M and this one. So we ended up building three lower cap teams after all.

With Cobb and Furcal and the limited remaining cash, building around speed and forgoing the long ball made a lot of sense. We’ll play in Turner Field, which slightly favors pitching. Homers might play decently in this league since there aren’t any extreme pitcher parks available, but my staff won’t be allowing many. Furcal has the most HR on the roster with 12.

C 1887 Buck Ewing (.305/.370/.497)
1B 1894 Roger Connor (.316/.400/.552)
2B 1942 Lonny Frey (.266/.373/.344)
3B 1912 Larry Gardner (.315/.383/.449)
SS 2005 Rafael Furcal (.284/.348/.429)
OF 1911 Ty Cobb (.420/.467/.621)
OF 1927 Bob Meusel (.337/.393/.510)
OF 1887 Yank Robinson (.305/.445/.405)

5490 PA, .316/.392/.467, $58,691,460

Behind Joss in the rotation will be 1920 Babe Adams and 1915 Joe Benz, with Kershaw moving between spot starts and making up for a shallow bullpen. Using a couple SP as relievers to improve options to fill starts here and there or maybe tandem with Kershaw. The aim was to minimize walks and homers, but the OAV runs a little high with some of these guys. In retrospect I have no idea why I went with an all-deadball rotation. Eh, too late now.

1,433 IP, 1.88 ERA, .218 OAV, 0.92 WHIP, 0.25 HR/9, $61,278,029

$140M: Think Inside the (Franchise) Box
Superba American Senators, Once

I built two rosters for this, both with Dodgers and Red Sox and then first with the Braves and then with the Twins. Probably should have tried a few more combinations, but I had a lot of players I was comfortable with at this point. The Dodgers were appealing for all the pitching options, and I particularly wanted the BoSox for Speaker, Williams and Pedro. The Braves roster was a little more homer-dependent and a bit faster, but the Twins filled more spots efficiently.

I decided to build a team for Fenway Park, so everyone had to be doubles-friendly and I emphasized average as much as possible. Most of my teams are in pitchers’ parks, but I gotta let the fellas hit sometime, right? I really wanted to find a way to use ‘77 Carew at 1B or the ‘73 at 2B, but balancing the lineup proved difficult and I already had 5 LH in there. Big Ed rarely disappoints, but Jackie sometimes does. Hope I don’t regret using him.

C 1937 Babe Phelps (.313/.357/.469)
1B 1902 Ed Delahanty (.376/.453/.590)
2B 1951 Jackie Robinson (.338/.429/.527)
3B 1986 Wade Boggs (.357/.453/.486)
SS 1930 Joe Cronin (.346/.422/.513)
OF 1912 Tris Speaker (.383/.464/.567)
OF 1948 Ted Williams (.369/.497/.615)
OF 1924 Zack Wheat (.375/.428/.549)

5708 PA, .351/.433/.526, $68,102,118

My initial rotation was all modern, with Maddux, Pedro, Greinke and Kershaw. But as I started fitting the pieces together, only ‘99 Pedro stuck around. The Twins brought the option of 1912 Walter Johnson, so why not use 394 innings of that? Getting the rest of the rotation on target was tricky and I ended up with ‘72 Sutton and 2018 Chris Sale to round it out. I am going to regret not keeping Zack and Kersh, I know.

Lots of superior bullpen arms on tap: Jansen, Nathan, Kuo, Saito, and Hill. Spent almost $72M on pitching, which will come in handy in Fenway. I hope I didn’t waste money on the good Kuo, but going a little cheaper there didn’t buy me anyone else I wanted badly enough. Probably still too many innings, but I like everyone on the staff.

1,460 IP, 1.88 ERA, .189 OAV, 0.89 WHIP, 0.34 HR/9, $71,896,124


Variable/180M
This 180 Was a Full Circle

This theme is a math problem. More precisely, it turns out to be several math problems. You don’t get any points for showing your work, but it’s a good idea to do it anyway.

First off, if you start with $180M, you’d better calculate it’s actually worth fielding a cheaper team that’s better if you aren’t going to find a way back to 180. Or if you are sacrificing something to get over $182M, that’s also a calculation. There’s also some tricky addition in terms of getting enough PA and IP that sends you back to the slide rule.

Initially I hoped to minimize the -5M hits, but it turned out to be very hard to get enough +2M back if you don’t have enough PA/IP elsewhere. If you want one of your position platoon players under 200 PA, then you need the other half to be pretty close to 500 PA without going over … and there aren’t near as many complementary pairs in those ranges that are really good as I’d hoped. And if too many of your hitters are below 200 and you need a DH too … well, if you can do that without 15 or 16 hitters, I tip my cap, because I quickly realized I’d likely have to make do with 9 or 10 pitchers to field the hitting combinations I wanted.

So roster math + salary math = difficult decisions. If I am going over 200 IP, I need to go big because I have to get a lot of innings out of those guys so almost everyone else can be under 100. I figured I’d need at least 900 innings from the big arms. So that basically rules out modern pitchers unfortunately, because you can’t get the innings out of them. I started off with Silver King as my only 200+ guy, but I’ve used King a couple times and never come close to getting all the innings out of him and have a lot of fatigue on a current team with him. He’s price-efficient but not at the cost of all the extra innings I’d need to make up for what I can’t get out of him. And if he’s really a 600-inning pitcher + a couple 150-199 guys, maybe I’d be better off with two 400-inning guys so I can actually use all their innings?

Thus I wound up with 1910 Ed Walsh and 1908 Mathewson for 800 combined IP, plus 2018 Chris Sale, and then seven guys under 100 IP (2018 Treinen, 1999 Wagner, 2006 Nathan, 2014 Betances, 2016 Jansen, 2001 Pineiro, mop). That puts me at +4M for my pitching staff that comes in at about $73.3M and 1,446 innings with none wasted. I can now afford to be -4M on hitting and still hit the target.

I have to fill 9 lineup spots with 15 players and no more than 2 can exceed 500 PA and likely no more than 3 under 200 PA … and everyone has to be useful and hopefully a little versatile, too. True platoons turn out to be very hard to pull off in this setup because of the PA ranges involved and the talent level you need at this cap, but most of the super dominant SP likely to be prevalent are righties so I wanted LH bats wherever feasible.

There are a few outlier talents in the PA range I felt I had to take and fit other pieces around: 1902 Lajoie (475 PA) at 2B, 2014 Tulowitzki (375) at SS, 1890 Denny Lyons (499) at 3B, 1955 Williams (439) and 1927 Al Simmons (482) in the OF, and 1901 John McGraw (376) at DH.

The best place to use my high-PA spots wound up being the OF because I had my infield well set and at least most of DH covered. I did need a CF, and 1911 Ty Cobb fit the bill at $21M (meaning I’ll be using him twice in this round, surprisingly, after never doing it before). The other OF spot came down to Duffy, O’Neill, or Ruth. I wanted one of the .400 hitters but my lineup was skewing RH-heavy, so welcome aboard 1920 Babe. I do worry his homers will be neutralized some, but it’s not all he does and there will be enough opportunities for him to get his cuts and have a big impact.

C 1895 Jack Clements (440 PA, .394/.446/.612) & 1954 Walker Cooper (191, .310/.398/.532)
1B 2012 Joey Votto (475, .337/.474/.567) & 1946 Roy Cullenbine (441, .335/.477/.537)
2B 1902 Nap Lajoie (454, .379/.421/.569) & 1919 Possum Whitted (167, .389/.420/.550)
3B 1890 Denny Lyons (499, .354/.461/.531) & 1991 Bret Barberie (164, .353/.435/.515)
SS 2014 Troy Tulowitzki (375, .340/.432/.603) & 1989 Barry Larkin (357, .342/.375/.446)
OF 1920 Babe Ruth (646, .376/.530/.847)
OF 1911 Ty Cobb (688, .420/.467/.621)
OF 1927 Al Simmons (482, .392/.436/.645) & 1955 Ted Williams (439, .356/.496/.703)
DH 1901 John McGraw (376, .349/.508/.487) & whoever has PA available

6194 PA, .367/ .460/.602, $106,611,308
1,446 IP, 1.53 ERA, .182 OAV, 0.83 WHIP, 0.28 HR/9, $73,382,330

I'm not making any predictions. Confidence always is lowest when you're reading how smart other people were about all this.