$100M

Box teams are not my strong suit, so I fully expect this to be my worst team (and early results are bearing that out). I knew I wanted Gehrig and Killebrew as I usually have good luck with those players. Decided on Gehrig's '32 season and paid up for it (he's significantly underperforming right now). Quickly identified Frisch, Bancroft and Hartnett at 2B, SS, and C. Bancroft comes with Virgil Barnes as a reliever and Killebrew gets Perranoski. The others get scrubs. Filled out the hitting lineup with '55 Kaline, '56 Williams' and '80 Smith (who comes with an ok SP in Reuss).

'65 Marichal anchors my staff. I originally paired Gehrig with Lefty Gomez and did not notice Gomez was in box 6. So that kinda blew up my pitching staff and I had to make some last minute changes. Swapped in '69 Cuellar (who stinks so far) as he comes with a nice reliever in Watt. Added '29 Alexander so that I could bring along '29 Grabowski. Needed to fill the LHP1 and still needed more innings, so I grabbed '75 McDowell and brought along '75 Candelaria as an innings eater.

If this team squeaks out a .500 season, I'll take it.

$110M - It Takes 2 to make a thing go right

I used the spreadsheets to create populations of players for every digit. I pretty quickly identified 2, 8 and 9 as the ones I was most interested in. I built these 3 teams and went with 2 because of '02 Bernhard, '72 Sutton, '62 Koufax and '22 Heilmann. My fielding sucks but I like the bats.

C: '12 Posey
1B: '82 Murray
2B: '52 Robinson
3B: '92 E Martinez
SS: '32 Cronin
OF: '22 Heilmann, '42 Ott, '62 T. Davis
SP: '72 Sutton, '02 Bernhard, '02 Lowe, '62 Koufax
RP: '12 Weilman, '22 Cooney, '32 Liska (mopup), '42 Leonard, '52 Fornieles, '82 Rozema, '92 Hernandez, '12 Valdes, '22 Strider

$70M – Tide! Whitening Sox since 2005 - Prediction: 84-78.
$80M – My Prediction: Pain - Prediction: 81-81.
$100M – What’s in the box??? - Prediction: 90-72.
$110M – A Walsh in the Park - Prediction: 86-76.
$120M – Number Five is ALIVE! - Prediction: 92-70.
$140M – The Final Countdown (and Up) - Prediction: 88-74

$70M - 74 wins. I was disappointed in this team. I thought they were built better for this cap. My mistake was using my FA hitter on Reyes, who provided good PAs and speed atop the order, but just wasn't a good enough hitter. He didn't set the table well at all.

$80M - this team won 78, 3 off my prediction. I did ok at home (Petco) but didn't draft enough slugging for the road. Also, I was shocked at how many more SB attempts some of the 100+ SB guys accumulated. I didn't draft enough SBs clearly.

$100M - 84 wins. Not as well as I'd hoped, but they did manage to snag a playoff spot, with a first round exit. They finished ~6 wins below their expected total, so they were probably on par with what I expected.

$110M - 89 wins, with an even higher expected total, so better than I thought they'd be. I went a bit too lefty-heavy with this lineup, but all in all, they were good. My only WS team this year.

$120M - 72 wins. My worst team and well off my prediction. I felt so good about this team, and still do. I've beaten this to death, but there's just no excuse for the team I put together only winning 72, especially in this theme, where I know others wasted salary. 11 wins below my expected total.

$140M - 89 wins, almost spot on. Lost in a WC playoff on the final day. A lot of things about this team surprised me, but I guess that's what happens when you have dominant pitchers vs dominant hitters. My biggest mistake was not drafting enough switch hitters. Between Kershaw and Maddux/Pedro, felt like only 3-4 of my hitters produced each game.

Posted by schwarze on 6/1/2024 4:55:00 PM (view original):
Normally, I like to start with the lower salary caps first, since those are usually the hardest teams (for me) to build. But this 70M theme looked like a lot of work so I left that for last. Somebody mentioned that the 100M would be time consuming so I started with that one. I will post these in the order I built them.

100M Theme
Team Name: The Boxer
Ballpark: Shea Stadium

My first thought was I needed to find players on teams with good bullpens since there are no pure RPs listed in the boxes. I started with Joe Horlen and those 1960's White Sox teams, but I quickly abandoned that option b/c I wanted to use Horlen in round 2. I actually built my round 2 team first. Anyway, my next step for my round 1 roster was to search on SPs with 100-200 IPs (not listed in the boxes) that I could use as long-relievers and/or part of a tandem. There were 2 players that popped up in my search... Howie Pollet (1.84 erc#) and Monty Stratton (2.13 erc#) So, I started there and grabbed '43 Harry Brecheen (Box 3, LHP1) and '37 Luke Appling (Box 4, SS). I then focused on which two RHPs I wanted. I just finished playing in a league where '28 Dazzy Vance (Box 1, RHP1) crushed it for me. His teammate is a backup catcher w/.316 average, Johnny Gooch. At this salary cap, many of the top RHP2 candidates had salaries a bit too high for this cap level. I finally settled on '64 Don Drysdale (Box 9, RHP2). I used a scrub teammate. So far, that's 5 pitchers and 1061 innings. I still need a LHP2 and a few more RPs.

At this point, I started on my offense. I really focused on getting players that had reasonably priced seasons that had good performance histories. I started with one of my favorite catchers, '80 Ted Simmons (Box 7, C) - he's only got 562 PA, so he fits well with Gooch. He brings along a useful teammate, in Andy Rincon (1.90 erc#). I strongly considered Frankie Frisch at 2B, but he's a bit too expensive for this cap, so I went with '74 Joe Morgan along with a scrub teammate. Two of my favorite players at this cap level are '36 Dolph Camilli (Box 8, 1B) and '41 Roy Cullenbine (Box 5, OF3). Camilli (and Morgan) are my most expensive hitters at $6.6M. Camilli gets me a decent pinch hitter, Mickey Haslin (.344 avg). Cullenbine's teammate is a scrub. My second OF is '64 Roberto Clemente (Box 12, OF2) who brings a much needed RP, Al McBean (2.39 erc#).

At this point, I have used boxes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 12. I have three boxes left (6 10, 11) and need 3B, OF1, LHP2. So my choices left are Santo, Hack, Boyer at 3B, Yastrzemski, Averill, Cobb at OF1 and McNally, R.Jones, Matlack at LHP2. And I have about $20M left to spend on these 3 players (plus teammates). I decided to try something different. I really like '73 Carl Yastrzemski (Box6, OF1) to play 3B with his A+ range (and sub $5M salary). That then leads me to take a $743K '33 Stan Hack (Box 10, 3B) who should be my best pinch hitter (.350/.451/.483). My last SP is then defaulted to '74 Jon Matlack (Box 11, LHP2). The teammates for these three players are all scrubs. But wait, I still need a third starting OF. Since I haven't used a second teammate from any of my box-players yet, I start looking through each player to see if I can find a starting OF. I have about $5.9 million to spend. I decided on a guy I've never used before. Since Clemente and Cullenbine aren't great on defense, I add '41 Wally Judnich (.284, .377, .456, B/A).

Outlook: Not super confident. I only drafted eight usable pitchers (1448 ips), so I will have to keep a close watch on usage. I do think my offense will be ranked near the top My defense isn't great but isn't terrible either. I picked Shea stadium to help the pitching staff. Feels like an 85-win team.

Stats (excluding scrubs, but including pinch hitters)
Hitting: 5538 PA, .309, .408, .480, $48.6 million
Pitching: 1448 IP, .218 oav, 1.04 whip, 0.33 hr/9, $49.5 million

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

110M Theme
Team Name: 1908 Ed Walsh & Friends
Ballpark: South Side Park

I spent very little time trying other digits. I knew I was using "8" in order to get the best valued big-inning deadball pitcher in the game. Besides 1908 Ed Walsh, I tried squeezing in '18 Hippo Vaughn, but I didn't like how that looked, so I went more traditional with 2018 Jacob deGrom and 1948 Harry Brecheen as Starter 2A and 2B. By taking a pitcher as my Warrior, that meant 13 pitchers. So I went with mostly cheap sub-$2M relievers, many who have better than 2 IP/G. I'm sure many others who went with "8" have a lot of the same guys... 1898 Sam Leever, 1918 Roy Mitchell, 1928 Hal Haid, 1938 Dizzy Dean, 1958 Barry Latman, 1968 Steve Hamilton, 1978 Gene Garber, 1988 Dave Leiper and 1998 Jeff Shaw, That's 9 pitchers and 459 relief innings. I have a 2008 scrub for mop-up duty.

I knew that most people would be drafting deadball pitchers so I wasn't going to spend a lot on HRs, although I do have guys with low double-digits HRs. I started with 1928 Frankie Frisch. He's not as good as the '21, '24 or '27 versions, but he's still a .300 hitter with A+++ range and only costs $6.1 million. For my other middle infielder, I went with another switch hitter, 2008 Jose Reyes. It's his 2nd best season. You got to love his 37-19-16 extra base hit totals. He's not an A+ range guy but his B fielding will help with errors when Walsh pitchers. Next up is another switch hitter, 1978 Ted Simmons. This is his 3rd most expensive season. 1968 Roberto Clemente is only $5.2M and should normalize well. Since Clemente only has 557 PA, 2018 Tommy Pham (.343 avg) will sub in for him and any other OFs who need a rest. 1948 Enos Slaughter has done well for me in the past and has a reasonable salary ($5.4M). I know 1938 Earl Averill won't normalize well, but a .330/.429/.535, C/A- season is too hard to pass up for only $6.0M. I wanted to get some more A+ range guys in the infield, so I sacrificed a little offense by selecting Bobby Bonilla to play 3B. Since I can't really afford a deep bench, I am happy to have his 690 PAs and this makes 4 switch hitters in my starting lineup. My most expensive hitter is 1918 George Sisler ($6.8M). He's not the best offensive player (relative to cost), but he's another A+ range guy. A DH in a salary-capped league is always fun to draft. Here's where I actively look for D- fielding guys for the value. 1898 Elmer Flick seems like a bargain. For only $4.5M, I get a .302/.430/.448 hitter.

Outlook: After looking at this team now, I probably should have tried more combinations. I'm fairly certain I could have done better offensively, but I guess that's the price one pays for A+++ range. I built some better offensive teams using the digits 4 and 7, but I just can't pass up Walsh and deGrom for their insane value. I should be ranked near the top in pitching (assuming my RPs don't f*ck me). I'm hoping my offense can at least be league average. The upper ceiling for this team is 90 wins, but after seeing the random alignment, I'm stuck in a league with two other 1908 Ed Walsh teams, so maybe 80-85 wins is more likely. I guess we'll see who picked a better "8" team. "8" was by far the most commonly selected digit.

Stats (excluding scrubs, but including pinch hitters)
Hitting: 6015 PA, .305, .389, .480, $54.5 million (oh no... this is worse than my 100M team)
Pitching: 1417 IP, .208 oav, 0.94 whip, 0.17 hr/9, $54.8 million (yikes, did I draft enough innings?)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

80M Theme
Team Name: Last in SB, First in AVG
Ballpark: Astrodome

This type of theme requires very little research and so I figured I'd knock this one pretty quickly. Spent less than an hour on it, and never went back to tinker. My initial roster-building thoughts were (1) don't worry about pitchers who allow HRs as very few people will spend on power (2) draft the fewest allowable SBs since most of the SB-guys aren't the greatest hitters (3) get hitters with good batting averages. High on-base guys who walk will end up resulting in too many guys left on base.

I almost always try to balance my salary 50% offense, 50% pitching. I started the roster build with the pitching staff. I took 13 pitchers (1360 innings) with no scrubs. I honestly don't recall why I took these specific SPs, but my rotation is '75 Randy Jones, '78 Craig Swan, '83 LaMarr Hoyt & '44 Ed Heusser. That's 957 innings. My nine RPs total 403 innings with guys mostly in the 0.95 to 1.05 whip range. The aggregate HR/9 for my pitching staff is 0.59, but seriously, how many HRs is LaMarr Hoyt giving up to Vince Coleman, Maury Wills, Lou Brock, etc? In retrospect, I should have gone even more extreme on the HR pitchers, to get better value.

For my offense, I basically got to 300 SBs with just five players, '74 Brock (.306 avg, 118 SB), '90 McGee (.324, 31), '89 Alomar (.295, 42), '12 Reyes (.287, 40) and '80 Mumphrey (.298, 52). Nobody else on the team has more than 9 SBs. '65 Donn Clendenon (.301) can hit a little but is on the team mostly for his insane A+++ range. 3B Bill Mueller (.326) and C Victor Martinez (.330) are there to drive in the speedsters. I also added three .300+ pinch hitters since I expect to go through a lot of pitchers in most games.

Outlook: I don't know if going with the minimum SBs was the right strategy or not, but I've always felt SBs is vastly overrated, which is why in normal leagues, I generally set all my players' steal settings to zero. A caught stealing is way more harmful than a stolen base is helpful. 1360 innings seems a bit light for an 80M theme, but I always tend to draft more innings than I should, so maybe 1360 is ok. I'm playing in the Astrodome, but maybe I should have picked an even-more extreme pitcher's park. I don't think this is a 90-win team, but I don't think it's a 90-loss team either. Just like my other two teams, feels like a slightly above-average team. Are all my teams going to go 85-77?

Stats (excluding scrubs, but including pinch hitters)
Hitting: 5464 PA, .308, .364, .431, 306 SBs, $40.1 million
Pitching: 1360 IP, .227 oav, 1.04 whip, 0.59 hr/9, $39.6 million

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

120M Theme
Team Name: 94Phi, 21NYG, 41Brk, 81Hou, 21Mil
Ballpark: Astrodome

I started the roster build with the 1921 Giants because I really wanted Frankie Frisch and Dave Bancroft, two switch hitting middle infielders with A+++ range. I also considered George Kelly at 1B, but needed Earl Smith (.336) as part of my catching platoon. Of course, this eliminated the 1906 Cubs and other deadball teams from consideration. There isn't much pitching, but Red Shea has 34 useful innings, while Rube Benton is a $1.6M mop-up guy. Yep, wasting salary just to get those middle infielders.

My next choice was between 1941 Dodgers and 1943 Cardinals. The Cardinals offered a solid Stan Musial season, a decent Walker Cooper at catcher, plus pitchers Harry Brecheen and Howie Pollet can start or relieve. But I really wanted the two A+ range guys the 41 Dodgers had to offer, Dolph Camilli and Pete Reiser. SP Whit Wyatt is good, but might be in a bit over his head at this cap level. RP Johnny Allen has a 0.87 whip is HR prone, which is why we are playing in the Astrodome. The fifth player is a 200K scrub.

Since I knew I would be playing in a low-HR park, I wanted some high-average low-HR guys. Where else to look than the 1894-96 seasons. The 1894 Phillies was the absolute perfect fit. Lave Cross gives me another A+++ range to complete the infield. Oh, and he hit .386. Ed Delahanty hit .407 and is my most expensive hitter at $9.5M. Despite his poor range, I just couldn't pass up Sam Thompson and his 1.144 OPS. Holy crap, I love this team's offense. The other key to this pick was that the 94 Phillies had two cheap scrub pitchers.

Well, that covers 7.25 of my 8 batters. I guess I need some pitching and still have two teams to select. I considered the 2002 Red Sox (for Pedro & Lowe) but I didn't like their bullpen options. I looked at those 2020's Dodgers teams, but then remember that I already have the
'41 Dodgers. That made me rethink the 41 Dodgers vs 43 Cardinals debate. Had I taken the '43 Cardinals, '43 Musial replaces '41 Reiser, '41 Cooper replaces '21 Earl Smith, '21 George Kelly replaces '41 Camilli. Plus, I get Brecheen and Pollet. Hmmm... maybe I should have gone that direction. But wait, if I take 2002 Red Sox, I can't take a 2020 team. Never mind.

Since I also need a catcher with 400+ PA, I finally settled on the '81 Astros. We all know about their great pitching but Andy Ashby was the perfect fit. He's not a great hitter (.356 obp), but he's a switch hitter and his A+ arm will keep everybody at 1B so my infielders can turn lots of DPs. I wish I could take more than 3 pitchers, but settled on Nolan Ryan, Don Sutton & Bob Knepper. I didn't have enough salary left to add Jeff Leonard, so the fifth player was a scrub.

At this point, I don't need any more hitters. The 2021 Brewers have some great pitching options. The three guys I settled on include Corbin Burnes, Freddy Peralta and Josh Hader. Both hitters selected are scrubs.

Outlook: I sort of like this team even though the pitching doesn't look very strong for a 120M roster. Well, that's because I only spent $53.6M on the usable pitchers. But the offense looks awesome and the defense can only help the pitching. The one downside on the offense is that I have no bench. My only pinch hitter worth anything is whichever catcher isn't starting. The rest of my bench hitters are scrubs. Since I only have one batter with more than 14 HRs (Camilli), I am playing my home games in the Astrodome. I would be disappointed if this team can't get to 90 wins.

Stats (excluding scrubs, but including pinch hitters)
Hitting: 5510 PA, .347, .414, .530, $63.0 million
Pitching: 1454 IP, .202 oav, 1.01 whip, 0.41 hr/9, $53.6 million

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

140M Theme
Team Name: Babe Ruth x 5
Ballpark: Target Field

From the very start, I planned on drafting very few HRs and putting my team in a negative HR park. I started with Maddux & Rivera as two of my bigger clones to go with just 2 Ruth clones (including his 1935 cheap season), but then decided to pivot off that since I felt most would want to use many of the good hitting Ruth seasons. I started thinking about which LH SP to take. I figured Kershaw would be a popular choice, but he does allow HR. Even though I am playing in Target Field, I still wanted SPs that didn't allow HRs since I do have to play 81 road games. That's when I decided to use Ruth as a SP. I went with both 1916 and 1917 Ruth (but not 1915). He's not a prototypical 140M pitcher, but he's going to face a bunch of HR-hitting Ruths, so maybe he won't be terrible. That covers nearly 700 IPs.

My third SP is 2018 Jacob deGrom. He's got enough good seasons where I also rostered his 2020, 2021 & 2023 seasons. His 2020 season (the worst of the four) will get some spot starts and pitch in long relief. I like having enough SP innings where I have the option of using LH or RH to start against certain teams and Ruth/deGrom gives me that flexibility. That's over 1200 innings between the two Ruths and four deGroms. I needed two more RPs to finish the pitching staff (one LH, one RH). I chose Zach (Zack?) Britton (x3) over Billy Wagner due to lower HRs while Mike Adams (x2) provides me with a Closer A / Closer B combo (both have under 50 IPs. I hope 1492 innings is enough.

My team name is Babe Ruth x 5, so you probably have already figured out that I have three hitting versions of Babe Ruth. But why would I load up on two more HR hitters if I'm playing my home games in Target Field? Well, one Ruth is the cheap 1935 version. The other two are both pre-1920 versions. 1919 Ruth *only* has 29 HRs but he normalizes very well. 1918 Ruth only has 11 HRs and will platoon at DH, so I didn't really waste a ton of salary on HRs. The next hitter I locked in on was Stan Musial. Don't worry, I am using his three seasons ('43, '44, '46) where he has lots of doubles & triples but not many HRs. He will play 1B, CF, LF. So I have 1B, OF, DH covered. I still need C, 2B, 3B, SS and have a 4-clone, 2-clone and two 1-clones left. The obvious choice for my 4-clone is Rogers Hornsby. No, I am not taking his mid-20's power hitting seasons... I grabbed his 1920 season (.370/.431/.559, 9 HRs), plus three cheap seasons. His 1933 season (.926 ops) can be used as part time DH. Now, it's easy to fill in the last three positions. My catcher is '75 Ted Simmons (his best hitting season, who cares about D+ arm). My shortstop is '20 Dave Bancroft (.299 avg w/A+++ range). I still needed a 3B and some extra PAs in the OF/DH since '19 Ruth only has 641 PA. When you think of guys who played 3B and OF, who comes to mind? My 2-clone and final player in this puzzle is Bobby Bonilla. Using his '89 season (A+ range) for 3B. His '95 season (296 pa, .333/.394/.544) fits my needs perfectly.

Outlook: My defense isn't as strong as some of my other teams, so I'm not sure if my two Ruth pitchers will be ok in this theme. My ballpark will help me out when I face teams with lots of Ruth hitters. In fact, I should lead the league in fewest HRs allowed, but that doesn't guarantee success. My offense should ill be good, but not great. Feels like another 85-win team. Can somebody with six 85-win teams advance? Probably not, if these teams don't make the playoffs.

Stats (excluding scrubs, but including pinch hitters)
Hitting: 6447 PA, .332, .409, .532, $73.0 million
Pitching: 1492 IP, .189 oav, 0.95 whip, 0.24 hr/9, $65.8 million

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

70M Theme
Team Name: 1914 Chicago Whales
Ballpark: WhatifSports Park

First of all, I will preface this by saying that I hate low cap leagues. The most important thing about drafting at low caps (<80M) is getting the right number of innings to draft. If you draft too few or too many innings, it really doesn't matter what the roster looks like - you will fail. You can almost guarantee some people will not draft enough innings, and their team will go into fatigue hell and they will lose 110+ games and give other teams in that same league inflated win totals.

I did some initial prep work using the salaries spread sheet. I calculated every single-season's team's weighted OPS#, ERC#, a numerical score for defense, the number of switch hitters on the team, the number of eligible players (full/partial only), the number of hitters with at least 500 PA, the team's total salary and the actual winning% of the team. I also calculated the number of <300K players for each season as this helped me eliminate many of the early seasons due to lack of scrubs available.

I then started sorting the teams by different categories to see what popped up. I looked at the best defensive teams, the teams with a lot of switch hitters, teams with great hitting, or great pitching, teams with very strong W-L percentages. After each sort, I would look at the teams with salaries $75 or less to see if I could strip out the deadweight and make a decent roster. Way too often, I would get a team I really liked, but the salary would be $71-72 million and I couldn't strip it down anymore (I should have made this theme's salary cap $75 million).

If I listed every team I tried building, this thread would be way too long. I can tell you that I did try building some of those 1980's Cardinals teams with all those switch hitters. Apparently, a number of folks managed to make those Cardinals teams work - making me second guess my decision. The 1989 Cardinals actually made it among my final 4 teams. I determined that there would be very few deadball teams selected so others wouldn't be afraid to draft HRs - so I decided to find a deadball team that would work. So besides the 89 Cardinals, the other three finalists were the 1899 Beaneaters, the 1919 White Sox and the team I settled on, the 1914 Chicago Wales.

The Beaneaters and White Sox were very similar teams. Both had good offenses, and a couple of big-inning solid SPs. The problem with both teams is that they each had only 5 usable pitchers and the other pitchers were all scrubs. I was able to get 1150-1180 really good innings from those 5 pitchers, and could fill in the last 100 innings with crap. If my team could squeak into the playoffs, they could go far with a couple of stud SPs pitching every other game. But my biggest concern is whether or not 1250 innings is enough at this cap level (especially considering 100 of those innings were going to get smashed pretty quickly upon using them). Is it worth risking fatigue hell? I had entered 1919 White Sox on Monday night, then at the last minute, changed my mind and went with a safer selection, the 1914 Whales.

This team isn't nearly as good offensively as the Beaneaters and White Sox, but the defense is very solid and I have 4 lefties and one switch hitter (I refuse to take a team with a bunch of righty hitters). The Wales offense had 7 hitters with 545+ PA) so Buck Herzog (.281, .348, .347, A+ range) filled the shortstop gap. Every bench player is a sub 300K guy. My original build kept the stud Claude Hendrix on the roster, but I still had the innings problem, only about 1150 good innings and 100 of mopup. I realized that I had cut Erv Lange (200 ip, 2.48 erc#). If I added him back to the roster and cut Hendrix, I could afford a $9M pitcher, so I added Carl Weilman (2.90 erc#). So now, I have 1269 good innings plus 100 innings of mopup and feel much more comfortable. Also, instead of having 5 usable pitchers, I have 7 usable, including a guy I can use as my main setup/closer in Rankin Johnson (127 ip, 2.10 erc#).

Outlook: If I was wrong on my innings guestimate, and 1150 good innings (+100 mop-up) is sufficient, then I made a mistake by abandoning the 1919 White Sox b/c that offense (+ Ed Cicotte Lefty Williams) would have been awesome. But I determined that I'd rather have this Whales team safely go 82-80 then worry about losing 110 games due to fatigue hell. Did I mention that I hate low cap leagues?

Stats (excluding scrubs, but including pinch hitters)
Hitting: 4941 PA, .275, .350, .378, $33.4 million
Pitching: 1269 IP, .235 oav, 1.14 whip, 0.22 hr/9, $34.1 million

I guess I should've posted each theme's writeup in a separate thread. So I will re-post each team's Outlook and then comment below.

Quote post by schwarze on 7/30/2024 2:04:00 PM:

100M Theme
Team Name: The Boxer
Ballpark: Shea Stadium

Outlook: Not super confident. I only drafted eight usable pitchers (1448 ips), so I will have to keep a close watch on usage. I do think my offense will be ranked near the top My defense isn't great but isn't terrible either. I picked Shea stadium to help the pitching staff. Feels like an 85-win team.

My team was 3rd overall in runs scored, so I was right about that. The team was also ranked 8th in fewest runs allowed despite committing the league's most errors. My three main SPs were great:
'64 Drysdale 21-14, 3.04
'28 Vance 21-20, 3.36
'74 Matlack 19-13, 3.11
'43 Brecheen was 16/19 in saves with a 2.24 era
I drafted too many innings. Stratton and McBean only used 133 of their 264 innings.

Anyway, my team finished with a .586 expected winning% which was the 3rd best in the NL and 5th best in the entire league. What did that get me? A respectable 88 wins but no playoffs due to bad luck on division alignment. A team with 85 wins (.502 exp win%) and a team with 78 wins (.465 exp win%) each won a division. There was also a 90-win team and a 91-win team that did not make the playoffs, in the AL.

Quote post by schwarze on 7/30/2024 2:04:00 PM:

110M Theme
Team Name: 1908 Ed Walsh & Friends
Ballpark: South Side Park

Outlook: After looking at this team now, I probably should have tried more combinations. I'm fairly certain I could have done better offensively, but I guess that's the price one pays for A+++ range. I built some better offensive teams using the digits 4 and 7, but I just can't pass up Walsh and deGrom for their insane value. I should be ranked near the top in pitching (assuming my RPs don't f*ck me). I'm hoping my offense can at least be league average. The upper ceiling for this team is 90 wins, but after seeing the random alignment, I'm stuck in a league with two other 1908 Ed Walsh teams, so maybe 80-85 wins is more likely. I guess we'll see who picked a better "8" team. "8" was by far the most commonly selected digit.

The team finished 9th in runs scored and 2nd in fewest runs allowed, thanks to the 5th ranked fielding percentage to go along with 124 + plays (2nd best in the league) . This team had a .610 expected winning% (best in AL, 2nd best n league) and went 94-68, one game behind mkjrunner's 1908 Ed Walsh team. My 1908 Ed Walsh won the AL Cy Young Award (35-22, 3.08). The bullpen was surprisingly good as 7 of my 8 RPs had ERAs below 4. Barry Latman was 35/42 in saves with a 2.87 ERA.

By the way, Big Ed Walsh is crushing it (so far) in the playoffs, as we just made it to the World Series. (Note that the 101-win team with a .637 exp win% lost to the 78-win team in the NL divisional round - what else is new).

Quote post by schwarze on 7/30/2024 2:04:00 PM:

80M Theme
Team Name: Last in SB, First in AVG
Ballpark: Astrodome

Outlook: I don't know if going with the minimum SBs was the right strategy or not, but I've always felt SBs is vastly overrated, which is why in normal leagues, I generally set all my players' steal settings to zero. A caught stealing is way more harmful than a stolen base is helpful. 1360 innings seems a bit light for an 80M theme, but I always tend to draft more innings than I should, so maybe 1360 is ok. I'm playing in the Astrodome, but maybe I should have picked an even-more extreme pitcher's park. I don't think this is a 90-win team, but I don't think it's a 90-loss team either. Just like my other two teams, feels like a slightly above-average team. Are all my teams going to go 85-77?

When I built this roster, I expected to the lead the league in batting average, which I would hope would lead to runs. I was 100% right on that part of the equation. My team batted .292, which was a whopping 12 points ahead of the second best team. I finished 2nd in runs scored. What I didn't expect was to finish so high in stolen bases. I barely drafted 300 SBs, yet I finished sixth in the league in steals (64 more than the league average) despite only having five SB guys in my lineup (Brock 212, Alomar 100, Reyes 84, Mumphrey 79, McGee 52). I did set my stealing preference and base running aggressiveness to 5. Maybe others did not do that? Maybe just getting more hits meant more stolen bases.

My pitching finished a surprising 2nd in the league, with a 3.54 ERA. Rostering SPs with high HR rates did not hurt me. Randy Jones (24-18, 4.00) and Ed Heusser (24-7, 3.84) were both in the top 5 in Cy Young race. LaMarr Hoyt (3.65 era) only allowed 19 HRs in 291 innings. Most of my short-inning RPs (30-50 ips) had ERAs below 3.50.

This team finished 100-62 (with an even better .631 exp win%). This was the best record (tied) among all 80M teams. Clearly, they performed better than I could ever have expected. They are currently playing in the LCS. (The other 100-win team lost in the first round).

120M Theme
Team Name: 94Phi, 21NYG, 41Brk, 81Hou, 21Mil
Ballpark: Astrodome


Outlook: I sort of like this team even though the pitching doesn't look very strong for a 120M roster. Well, that's because I only spent $53.6M on the usable pitchers. But the offense looks awesome and the defense can only help the pitching. The one downside on the offense is that I have no bench. My only pinch hitter worth anything is whichever catcher isn't starting. The rest of my bench hitters are scrubs. Since I only have one batter with more than 14 HRs (Camilli), I am playing my home games in the Astrodome. I would be disappointed if this team can't get to 90 wins.

What a disappointment. The "awesome" offense finished below average (16th). Although Cross (.312), Delahanty (.309) and S.Thompson (.310) all hit .300, the normalization really brought them down from their real life averages (.386, .407, .407). The biggest flop was Dolph Camilli, who finished .225, .344, .366. The pitching was good (ranked 5th) and was surely helped by a great defense (7th in fielding%, 1st in range). Playing their home games in the Astrodome was certainly a major factor to suppressing the offense and boosting the pitching.

This team's .540 expected winning% should have meant 87-88 wins, but we finished just 82-80. Note that the four playoff teams in the AL had 88, 87, 87 & 86 wins, so I should've been right in the mix. In retrospect, I drafted too many innings. '81 Sutton (11-17, 5.20) sucked while '21 Burnes (21/25 in saves, 3.49 era) and Peralta (4/4 in saves, 3.74) were great yet I only used 234 out of 311 of their innings. Bad managing by me. I should have benched Sutton way earlier than I did.

Quote post by schwarze on 7/30/2024 2:04:00 PM:

140M Theme
Team Name: Babe Ruth x 5
Ballpark: Target Field

Outlook: My defense isn't as strong as some of my other teams, so I'm not sure if my two Ruth pitchers will be ok in this theme. My ballpark will help me out when I face teams with lots of Ruth hitters. In fact, I should lead the league in fewest HRs allowed, but that doesn't guarantee success. My offense should ill be good, but not great. Feels like another 85-win team. Can somebody with six 85-win teams advance? Probably not, if these teams don't make the playoffs.

This might be my worst round 1 roster-building effort in my WISC history. I clearly didn't think this through very well. This team finished the season 22nd in offense and 3rd in pitching. Playing games at Target field, I needed to draft more high-average hitters. Why am I rostering guys like Bancroft, Bonilla, '19 Ruth and '18 Ruth? These four players hit .239, .208, .210 & .239, respectively. I thought that the 130 triples I drafted with my starting lineup would equate to runs, but sadly, they didn't hit triples. My two Babe Ruths combined to hit 28 real life triples (in 910 ABs), but hit only 3 combined triples (in 1007 ABs). '20 Hornsby hit 21 in real life - but just 6 in the sim.

Using '16 Ruth (25-19, 4.15) as one of my SPs worked out ok, but '17 Ruth (17-26, 5.10) was a disaster. '18 deGrom (12-15, 3.53) finished 8th in ERA but was the victim of poor run support. '21 deGrom (6-0, 8/10 in saves, 1.91) was great, but '20 deGrom (5-11, 5.45) isn't cut out for this cap. '09 Mike Adams (22/23, 2.30) was better than I could have expected.

Anyway, after a horrendous start, we got this team all the way back to .500 before a late swoon. Finished 79-83, but with a .502 expected win%.

Quote post by schwarze on 7/30/2024 2:04:00 PM:

70M Theme
Team Name: 1914 Chicago Whales
Ballpark: WhatifSports Park

First of all, I will preface this by saying that I hate low cap leagues. The most important thing about drafting at low caps (<80M) is getting the right number of innings to draft. If you draft too few or too many innings, it really doesn't matter what the roster looks like - you will fail. You can almost guarantee some people will not draft enough innings, and their team will go into fatigue hell and they will lose 110+ games and give other teams in that same league inflated win totals.

I did some initial prep work using the salaries spread sheet. I calculated every single-season's team's weighted OPS#, ERC#, a numerical score for defense, the number of switch hitters on the team, the number of eligible players (full/partial only), the number of hitters with at least 500 PA, the team's total salary and the actual winning% of the team. I also calculated the number of <300K players for each season as this helped me eliminate many of the early seasons due to lack of scrubs available.

I then started sorting the teams by different categories to see what popped up. I looked at the best defensive teams, the teams with a lot of switch hitters, teams with great hitting, or great pitching, teams with very strong W-L percentages. After each sort, I would look at the teams with salaries $75M or less to see if I could strip out the deadweight and make a decent roster. Way too often, I would get a team I really liked, but the salary would be $71-72 million and I couldn't strip it down anymore (I should have made this theme's salary cap $75 million).

If I listed every team I tried building, this thread would be way too long. I can tell you that I did try building some of those 1980's Cardinals teams with all those switch hitters. Apparently, a number of folks managed to make those Cardinals teams work - making me second guess my decision. The 1989 Cardinals actually made it among my final 4 teams. I determined that there would be very few deadball teams selected so others wouldn't be afraid to draft HRs - so I decided to find a deadball team that would work. So besides the 89 Cardinals, the other three finalists were the 1899 Beaneaters, the 1919 White Sox and the team I settled on, the 1914 Chicago Wales.

The Beaneaters and White Sox were very similar teams. Both had good offenses, and a couple of big-inning solid SPs. The problem with both teams is that they each had only 5 usable pitchers and the other pitchers were all scrubs. I was able to get 1150-1180 really good innings from those 5 pitchers, and could fill in the last 100 innings with crap. If my team could squeak into the playoffs, they could go far with a couple of stud SPs pitching every other game. But my biggest concern is whether or not 1250 innings is enough at this cap level (especially considering 100 of those innings were going to get smashed pretty quickly upon using them). Is it worth risking fatigue hell? I had entered 1919 White Sox on Monday night, then at the last minute, changed my mind and went with a safer selection, the 1914 Whales.

This team isn't nearly as good offensively as the Beaneaters and White Sox, but the defense is very solid and I have 4 lefties and one switch hitter (I refuse to take a team with a bunch of righty hitters). The Wales offense had 7 hitters with 545+ PA) so Buck Herzog (.281, .348, .347, A+ range) filled the shortstop gap. Every bench player is a sub 300K guy. My original build kept the stud Claude Hendrix on the roster, but I still had the innings problem, only about 1150 good innings and 100 of mopup. I realized that I had cut Erv Lange (200 ip, 2.48 erc#). If I added him back to the roster and cut Hendrix, I could afford a $9M pitcher, so I added Carl Weilman (2.90 erc#). So now, I have 1269 good innings plus 100 innings of mopup and feel much more comfortable. Also, instead of having 5 usable pitchers, I have 7 usable, including a guy I can use as my main setup/closer in Rankin Johnson (127 ip, 2.10 erc#).

Outlook: If I was wrong on my innings guestimate, and 1150 good innings (+100 mop-up) is sufficient, then I made a mistake by abandoning the 1919 White Sox b/c that offense (+ Ed Cicotte Lefty Williams) would have been awesome. But I determined that I'd rather have this Whales team safely go 82-80 then worry about losing 110 games due to fatigue hell. Did I mention that I hate low cap leagues?

Stats (excluding scrubs, but including pinch hitters)
Hitting: 4941 PA, .275, .350, .378, $33.4 million
Pitching: 1269 IP, .235 oav, 1.14 whip, 0.22 hr/9, $34.1 million

Well, I guess all the prep work I did paid off. This team won 102 games (tied for the best among all 70M teams), which was only slightly better than their .615 expected win% would imdicate. The offense was roughly league average, but the pitching was the best in the league. Their 95 + plays ranked second in the league. My free agent pitcher, Carl Weilman (24-13, 2.65) won the NL Cy Young award. My best hitter, Dutch Zwilling (.328, .378, .519) led the league with 134 RBIs and was third in MVP.

In the playoffs, we managed to get by the 82-80 team (whew) in the first round, but we were eliminated in 5 games in the NL LCS. Considering I was just hoping this team wouldn't kill my round 2 chances, I was very happy with the results.