Round 2 Strategy Writeups Topic

60m - 60 wins or bust!

There's a lot of owners here who are way better at 60m caps than I am. Do I really want to come up with some wild strategy (home runs?) or just go with the tried and true formula and try to win 70 games? I decided to just go with what most people use - switch hitters, speed, platoons, A+ arm behind the plate to prevent other people from stealing, A+ range if I can afford it. I took one big chance and squeezed 2019 Ketel Marte under the cap, but stuck him in RF since his defense at 2B is so-so. Other than that I've got mostly post-2016 hitters with high SB success rates (Merrifield at 2B, Edman at SS, J-Ram at 3B, Josh Lowe and Mallex Smith in LF/CF) and Wally Schang behind the plate in his OF season so he's cheaper but still has the A+ range. Mike Hargrove with his high OBP is a non-traditional leadoff hitter. I'm a little short on PAs but I've got some platoon partners and some position flexibility and some guys will just have to play a little tired.

After I had built the core of my offense I didn't have a ton of money left for pitching - I was already at 31mil+ without the platoon partners. I really wanted at least a couple of good pitchers so I've got '22 Jeffrey Springs and Ross Stripling in a tandem as my aces. After that I kept having to lessen my other pitchers to get under the cap. I ended up with 2 other L/R tandems (John O'Donoghue - O'Dono-who? and Bryce Miller, and Sandy Consuegra and Rudy May) and a very no-name bullpen without anyone with a sub 3.00 ERC#.

I'm very worried about the pitching on this team - all 3 of my tandems only have 280-300 inning each. I put them in Griffith Park to minimize the HRs that we don't hit anyway. Given how much I paid for him, Marte needs to carry the offense and contend for MVP.

90m - Five Year Plan 2019-23

It's entirely possible that the teams from 1915-25 will be better than the uber-modern teams. I built this team first, and forgot to enter it, even getting some penalty points in the process, because I thought I'd have time to build an old team too. At any rate, the modern team is built around Corbin Carroll and Ketel Marte (there's that man again!), plus the A++ range from D'Angelo Jimenez at 2B. When I went to set this team's lineup I couldn't help notice they were really not much better on offense than the 60m team. That's likely going to be a problem. They actually look similar - tons of steals, hiugh success rate, really good defense. Wander Franco is playing SS and Jose Ramirez 3B, and Elly De La Cruz is filling in the missing ABs for both of them. JT Realmuto is playing 1B with his A++ glove. We'll see how that goes.

I guess the money went is into the pitching? I've got a 6-ish man rotation, with Brad Keller (148ip), Dallas Keuchel (171), Grienke (146), Tyler Anderson (179), Woodruff (179) and Kershaw 2021 (122), plus Wade Miley (120) in long relief. To make sure I've got enough innings I've got KH Kim and his 109ip as one of my setup guys too. It's a very 2024 looking pitching staff.

100m - Grimace's McGRIDdles 2.0

In this price range I figured I'd be starting with A++ range switch hitters and good pitching. So I started with Frisch (SF/STL) and Bancroft as his teammate. Then I thought about who I'd like to anchor my pitching and I went with '18 deGrom, so that gives me NYM and TEX (his only other team so far). Then look at that, Verlander also played for NYM and I love his '22 season, so I'm adding HOU. That left one side of my grid to pair with STL, TEX and HOU. Well, Roger Clemens has a great HOU season, so let's do that. Plus he brings along Gedman as a really good catcher. And then I was all set - just had to fill in the gaps.

Is it smart to build the team like this? Probably not, but it was expedient. Carlos Beltran has played for almost all of these teams but he ended up being the STL/NYM guy, and Koji Uehara was a relatively easy BOS/TX guy. Reggie Smith fills the BOS/STL box. Then I needed another good RP and SP, so I grabbed Randy Johnson and stuck him in the SF/HOU box and used Tim Lincecum as his teammate. Jeff Francouer was the easiest guy to shove into the SF/TEX box, and didn't even bring an interesting teammate - just a backup catcher.

If you saw the names on this team you'd think they were amazing, but they're not all in their best forms. The rotation is deGrom/217, Clemens/212, Lincecum/225 and JV/175, with 4 guys around 100 innings in the bullpen (JV/94, Clemens/99, Unit/96, Scherzer/108) as long-ish relievers, and then the good Houston Randy, deGrom's Texas season and 2 Koji's as the good part of the bullpen. This offense is also not really notably better than the 90m team, but at least I actually like the pitching. In theory.

120m - Boxed in by our Mediocre GM

This was a weird build. Partly because I misunderstood round 1 and thought I could use guys listed in boxes as teammates (like Koufax). I don't know why I thought that. But the original version of this team that I built during round 1 (that I couldn't use) was a high AVG, A+++ range, Kaufman Stadium kind of team. So I figured I would see if I could salvage that team.

The easy part of the build was the top half - give me '79 Brett any day, and Mays '57, even though he's a righty, for his high triples and SBs. Then I added Brecheen and his teammate Howie Pollett, and then rounded out the pitching with Horlen, Chandler and McNally. Then I just had to sort out the rest. I grabbed Bill Terry and Billy Herman for 1B/2B to give me 3/4 of a good infield, and Ted Simmons makes a fine catcher who brings along another Kaufman staple in Garry Templeton. His awful OBP will hurt at this cap, but he'll play defense and run when he gets on. Then the best outfielder I could find was Earl Averill, and since I hated the remaining options, I grabbed Billy North in box 12 to give me his teammate Mitchell Page.

The bullpen is definitely not a strength - outside of Pollett, the best ERC# guys are Drabowsky (2.05) and Eddie Fisher (2.10) so I hope that the defense helps them out.

Then I built a v2 version with the goal of making a better pitching staff, and when I was done, I thought I liked it a lot better (Guidry, Chance, Hubbell, Cy Blanton in the rotation). Then I waited a few days, and I liked the first team a lot better. Overall the pitching somehow came out similar, and the offense was better on the first team, so I went with that one. Now I look at them again and I actually like the 2nd team a lot better again. So I don't know what I was doing with this team.

160m - The Claude Hendrix Experience

I wasn't excited about using my 12mil+ spot on a pitcher, just because it meant I'd have 13 pitchers. But after doing some quick scouting I really didn't like the quality of pitchers I'd have to use to get enough innings with nobody over 11mil. Of course, then I ended up with the opposite problem - taking a pitcher over 11mil meant I would probably have too many innings. So I decided to lean into the skid. I've got the aforementioned Hendrix and his 381 IP and plan to start him about every other game, and then Pedro (214ip) and Lamet (186ip) in a tandem in my other rotation spot. And then I've got '16 Kershaw and '88 Chamberlain and '03 Gagne, '21 deGrom and even Helling's cookie season providing just ridiculous quality innings in the bullpen, plus a host of other guys in the B squad (Gonsolin, Wiltse, Pineda, Figueroa) to soak up the lower leverage innings. I'm paying at the top of the $/IP and price inflation scale for a lot of these guys, but assuming that even the inflated prices at the very top of the scale are still worth it. I had started this project with Ed Walsh and his 495ip as my SP1 but I couldn't quite make it work from a cap perspective, so Hendrix may actually be the weak link. I also expect that Kershaw or Elton may have to make an occasional spot start if Hendrix isn't 100%.

Compared to my slightly gimmicky setup on the pitching side, the offense is pretty vanilla. I decided that I didn't want to put my high dollar slots into defense, given how much I'd already invested in pitching. So my top slots are Larry Walker at DH, Ted Williams and Harry Heilmann in the corner OF slots, and Freddie Freeman at 1B. Then I've got Billy Hamilton and his high OBP in CF, and then a pair of lower-PA MI guys (Barry Larkin and D'Angelo Jimenez). After that I was out of full-time slots so I'm platooning Panda and Randy Ready at 3B, and Schang and Bresnahan at C. So I've used all of the top 11 slots on guys in my lineup and poor Dick Schofield is the only "bench" player. We're playing in Weegham Park (Wrigley) where Hendrix played, which is probably OK since my offense could use the help and the pitchers should survive.

255m - 25 Ways to Leave Your Sanity

Already covered in the 255m thread. I screwed this one up.



9/12/2024 9:20 AM
So I just realized that the Noah's Ark League didn't actually specify 1 pitcher and 1 hitter for each level. Whoa. That would have been so much easier.
9/12/2024 1:26 PM
Posted by jfranco77 on 9/12/2024 1:26:00 PM (view original):
So I just realized that the Noah's Ark League didn't actually specify 1 pitcher and 1 hitter for each level. Whoa. That would have been so much easier.
I think you had the R1 theme 13th Warrior stuck in your memory, because that one had a rule like that.
9/12/2024 1:33 PM
Congrats to Justinlee_24. What an exciting end to the WISC!

Post-WISC reflections:

$255M

In Round 12 when I saw modern era teams casually drafting $87K/IP P (Hong-Chih Kuo) while I was scrambling to figure out who the best $32K/IP P I could possibly get (apparently, Moe Drabowsky) was, I realized that I probably should have taken Bonds over Mantle in round 1.


End result: 69-93, 29 games out of first. Yep, should have taken Bonds.

$160M

I figured a lot of people would use a big IP deadball SP for their 25th player, so I thought relying on HR for offence wasn't a great idea. Since deadball SPs biggest weakness is OAV and extra induced errors from deadball hitters, I went with a high AVG, 95% deadball offence.

Pitchers are all modern so I don't increase the errors the fielders will inevitably make and we're playing the Astrodome to help mitigate the high HR9. Probably a little light on PA.


Hitting: 6117 PA .376/.440/.537 $87.5M
Pitching: 1514 IP .187 OAV/0.86 WHIP/1.71 BB9/0.45 HR9 $72.5M


End result: 93-69, won division, won LDS, lost LCS in 6 games. Disappointing playoff performance, expected more. .298 team average in the regular season (3rd) but .200 team average in the playoffs (last).

$120M

Not much strategy here. Just took the best options of what was left to take. Really nice range, but that's about it. Too many PA and not enough quality IP but there wasn't much I could do with this. I took Crosley Field, but I can't remember why. Knowing the sim, this will probably be my best team.

Hitting: 5825 PA .322/.405/.472 $61.6M
Pitching: 1546 IP .202 OAV/1.01 WHIP/2.62 BB9/0.42 HR9 $58.2M


End result: 88-74, won division, won LDS, lost LCS in 6 games. Did much better than I thought they would.

$100M

Like many, as soon as I found a team that finally fit the cap, I was done with it. Of course, as I found out, it wasn't actually within the rules, but I managed to fix that without dismantling the team too much. Also, like many I'm sure, I picked older teams (Phillies/Pirates/Dodgers across and Phillies/Cubs/Red Sox down) for the grid to have a bigger player pool to work with. I like Dave Bancroft and Billy Herman in MI at this cap. Herman has a nice 3B season too, so that took care of a couple of clones. Kiki Cuyler and Lefty O'Doul have great OF hitting seasons so they were an easy choice for 2 more. Smokey Burgess with a great 468 PA season and an OK 253 PA season takes care of the catching. Great Pedro and Jason Schmidt seasons for my rotation and their lesser seasons for Long A/B. Derek Lowe with one good and one passable season for the rest of the rotation. One great Mark Melancon as a closer and one OK one for long B.

I really like the lineup with with four .350+ hitters, two .330 hitters and two .300 hitters. My pitching staff doesn't walk too many batters but the OAV is a little higher than I like. I have a few good doubles hitters, so I went with Polo Grounds (V) which will also help out a bit with the OAV.

Hitting: 5606 PA .334/.398/.472 $51.3M
Pitching: 1,363 IP .217 OAV/1.03 WHIP/2.06 BB9/0.65 HR9 $48.6M


End result: 96-66, won division, won LDS, won LCS, won World Series. Was the team I was most happy with going in. Glad they did well.

$90M

Looks like a bunch of people made a modern team and a deadball team and then picked one. So did I. Went with deadball so I could use Bill Bernhard who I really like at this cap. I'm in a division where everyone else went modern. This is either very good or very bad for me.

Hitting: 5321 PA .319/.381/.430 $44.5M
Pitching: 1,370 IP .215 OAV/1.01 WHIP/2.00 BB9/0.07 HR9 $45.5M


End result: 85-78, just barely won division with a play-in game, got swept in the LDS. Bill Bernhard was very disappointing, going 17-17 with a 1.33 WHIP. About the worst I've seen him perform at this cap.

$60M

I really like low cap leagues. With these rules, I figured there would be some platoon teams, so I went with a couple of L/R tandems and two SP with good value for money, Rankin Johnson and Jack Warhop. Offence leans on SB in the hope that people didn't spring for an A+ arm, but shouldn't get completely shut down if we can't run wild. Petco to help with fatigue.

Hitting: 5133 PA .274/.335/.375 $30.5M
Pitching: 1,251 IP .238 OAV/1.06 WHIP/2.66 BB9/0.30 HR9 $29.5M


End result: 99-63, won division, won LDS, lost the LCS in 5 games. 1250 IP is usually good for this cap in Petco, but not this time. My staff was in the blue for pretty much every playoff game and was lucky to make it as far as they did.
11/14/2024 9:15 AM
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