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.