League #3, Pick #8
1983 Milwaukee Brewers
Ugh. What terrible runout for me. I already had my Padres team. So I had four Brewers teams I liked at the start of the draft, then a huge dropoff. 2019 and 2018 Milwaukee were two of my top choices, but they went early (picks 5, 6 in league 3). The other two teams I thought were worthy of early picks were 1982 and 1984. ronthegenius took 1982 with pick #4, the first Brewers season taken. So including those three Padres teams taken in the Top 8 (2008, 2007, 2022), that six picks. I have to wait for cstrohmier. He should take 2021 Padres, right? Nope - he grabs 1984 Brewers. F*ck! That's the second time, I missed what I thought was the top choice left by one pick (when the person picking in front of me could have chosen from either franchise).

So once again, I am going to take a season that will play in the same division of a season that is better than the one I'm taking. I am considering both 1983 and 1985 Brewers. All other things being equal, I'm supposed to take 1985 since there's a chance that they aren't in the same division as 1982/1984 where 1983 will certainly be in the same division with 1982 and/or 1984. The offenses are essentially the same, but 1983 has better SP with Sutton x2, Caldwell, Candiotti, while 1985 has Higuera, Darwin, Haas. Wegman. Meanwhile, 1985 has Rollie Fingers x2, Jim Kern & Ray Searage out of the pen while 1983 has Pete Ladd, Bob McClure and Jaime Cocanower. Ugh. But the starting pitcher is just too strong, so I went with 1983. (Note that 1985 was the very next Brewers season taken, so I think I was on the right track)

The offense is pretty solid, with Ted Simmons x2 (C/DH), Cecil Cooper, x 2 (1B/DH), Paul Molitor x2 (2B/3B), Rob Yount x2 (SS/OF) and Ben Oglivie x2 (OF/OF). Don Money, Dion James & Randy Ready gives me some depth as my total offensive slash line is: .318, .383, .503 with solid defense.

The starting pitching should allow my team to take leads into the late innings. '72 Sutton, '73 Sutton and '78 Caldwell are a very strong top 3. After that, it gets a bit ugly. Pete Ladd (0.93 whip) will close. '91 Candiotti has 107 ips, with a 1.07 whip. '86 Moose Haas has 73 ips, with a 1.06 whip. Bob McClure has 53 ips with a 1.03 whip. Rick Waits, Jaime Cocanower, Jaime Easterly all are over 1.10 whips.

Overall Outlook
Of course, 1985 ends up in the AL Central while my 1983 team is stuck in the AL East with both 1982 and 1984. Dumb pick by me. I should've taken 1985 (although they share a division with 2018). The AL East has 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023. Assuming two of those teams advance, plus 2018, plus 1982 and 1984, I think it comes down to 1983 or 1985 as the last advancer. I am not feeling optimistic. Prediction: 80-82, with a Exp Win% of .530, but fail to advance due to 14-21 record in 1-run games.

League #1, Pick #9
2016 Los Angeles Angels
After losing out on the 1982 Angels, I decided to pick a Mets team with pick #5, figuring that nobody else would take an Angels team before my turn at pick #9. I was right, so I basically was able to get my 2nd Mets choice with the 5th pick and my 4th Angels choice with the 9th pick.

As for the Angels teams, I considered 1986 (who still had Don Sutton), but without Rod Carew, it was just way too much of a downgrade from the 1982 & 1985 teams. I also had built a 1973 team (w/Frank Robinson and Vada Pinson) and a 1961 team (w/ Ted Kluszewski, Dean Chance), but 2016 was easily the best team available, IMHO.

Mike Trout x2 and Albert Pujols x2 (1B/3B) is a great start to the offense. Brendon Ryan (A/A+ at 2B) and Andrelton Simmons (A/A at SS) give me solid defense up the middle. Unfortunately, Ryan only has 429 PA, so I am using Yunel Escobar (B/A+ at SS) out of position as a backup 2B. The rest of the offense isn't great (C: Geovany Soto, OF: Kole Calhoun & DH: Daniel Nava). Hopefully, Trout and Pujols can do the heavy lifting. Total hitting stats: .300, .386, .505.

But the pitching is what make this roster so desirable. Tim Lincecum x 2, Jered Weaver x 2 & Garret Richards make up the starting rotation. But the bullpen rocks, with Richards' 28-ip stud season, plus Andrew Bailey x 2, Huston Street x2, Joe Smith x2 and M.Shoemaker. The defense is very good, which will only help the pitching. Total pitching: 1529 ips, .204 oav, 1.02 whip, 0.54 hr/9.

Overall Outlook
Every single pitcher on my roster is right-handed and most of my hitters are right-handed and I have great defense, so Hilltop Park seems to be the obvious choice for a home ballpark. Hopefully, I have enough innings for this extremely offensive park. But the -3 HRs for lefty bats should help vs the Fred Lynn and Reggie Jacksons. Sadly, I am stuck in the same division as the team I should have taken #1 overall, 2012, so my best hope is a wildcard. Hopefully, this team can win 86 games and advance to round 4.

League #2, Pick #9
2013 Texas Rangers
I mentioned earlier that I chose an Astros team at pick #4 in this league because I couldn't decided between 2013 and 1991 and figured one of these years would be available at pick 9. Well, both are still available as the only Rangers teams off the board are 1993, 2012 and 1989. Speaking of 2012, I have a blind spot when it comes to finding teams that are relatively weak at SP but very strong at RP. I hadn't even considered 2012 b/c they didn't have D.Lowe (where 2013 did). Instead, they have Roy Oswalt but they also have K.Uehara and M.Adams where 2013 had J.Soria. More importantly, 2012 has Josh Hamilton and Mike Napoli compared to L.Berkman and G.Soto. In any case, it seems obvious that 2012 is the better team. Just another instance where I have no better than the 2nd best team in the division.

Anyway, I did finally decided on 2013 over 1991 even though it appears 1991 is pretty strong, with K.Brown, N.Ryan, J.Russell, R.Gossage, J.Poole, I-Rod, Palmeiro, Sierra, Ju.Gonzalaez, Ju.Frano. This is a very good team. I passed mainly because of the outfield defense. Who's playing CF, Juan Gonzalez (C/C-)? Also, I was worried being stuck with 1993 and 1989 (2 of the top 3 Rangers seasons selected).

Anyway, 2013's strongest attribute is their infield defense. 1B: Berkman (B/A-), 2B: Kinsler (C/A+), 3B: Beltre (A/A-), SS: Andrus (A-/A+). The offense is full of HR hitters, with 285 HRs from their starting nine. But the team is also full of .300 hitters, with an overall team batting of .311. The lineup is heavily right-handed with Berkman x2 and Mitch Moreland as the only non right-handed bats. Overall batting: .311, .374, 552.

The pitching staff (Lowe x2, Darvish x2, Garza x2, Nathan x2, Soria x2, Holland, Feliz) is mostly right handed but we are not playing at Hilltop since we don't want to mute Berkman's HRs. Also, some of my pitchers do give up the longball, so we went a little more conservative with Riverfront (+1 HRs). Overall pitching: 1533 ips, .216 oav, 1.03 whip, 0.62 hr/9.

Overall Outlook
Not feeling super confident about this team. I don't usually like to go with the high-HR, but lower OBP type of teams. Berkman is the only regular starting batter with OBP > .390. So, it's going to be tough to score runs if we aren't hitting HRs. We have no speed and all six starting batters have over 100 K's. We're in a division with 4 of the top 7 Rangers picks, so we could be over. 500 and still finish fourth. I don't think team will finish over .500. I should have taken 1991 (as they avoided 1993). In fact, pedrocerrano's 1993 somehow gets to be in the same division as 2002, 2007 and 2010, the last three Rangers teams taken. Unreal. Prediction: 77 wins.

League #4, Pick #10
1984 Montreal Expos
With pick #7, I grabbed a Royals team, hoping the my preferred Nationals/Expos season would make it to me. Both the #8 and #9 picks were Royals teams, so I didn't lose anything by picking KC first.

Now, it's decision time on which season to take. The four NL teams selected so far are 2018, 2016, 1989 and 1994. I think the obvious pick is one of the Scherzer late 2010's teams, but the problem is it would be another Division of Death situation. It seems like every one of my teams is in a division of death. Heck, my eight teams could average 88 wins and not win a single division. I kind of already made up my mind that I was taking 1984, unless they got taken, then I'd go with 2015 or 2017 Nationals. I'm tired of having the 2nd best team in a division.

1984 is similar to 1983, 1982, 1981, but the key difference is 1984 has Pete Rose. So now I get Raines and Rose giving me 4 everyday switch-hitters. Gary Carter will play C and 1B. Dawson and his A+ range covers CF and LF. Rose covers 3B and RF. Raines covers 2B and DH. SS Chris Speier is the weak spot on offense. Offensive numbers: .307, .378, .469.

My pitching isn't even close to those Scherzer/Strasburg teams. Steve Rogers, Bill Gullickson, Bryn Smith, backed up by RPs, Jeff Reardon, Bob James, Greg Harris, Charlie Lea, Joe Hesketh, Gary Lucas. Stats: .222 oav, 1.08 whip, 0.50 hr/9. But at least we're in the weaker NL East, with two of the last three Expos teams picked (1981, 1983).. calhoop's 1989 is the class of the division with Randy Johnson and Larry Walker leading the way.

Overall Outlook
It really ticks me off that 2015 Nationals ended up in the NL Central. Had I known that, I would've taken 2015 instead of 1984. I have been way off on projecting divisions during my various selections. Oh how things would be different had I taken 2012 Angels instead of 2008 Padres. Although in the grand scheme, only four of my eight teams can advance, so hopefully, it will work out ok. As far as this team goes, I think winning the division is a long shot, and with all Scherzer teams probably winning 82+ games this team is destined to finish below .500 --> prediction: 75 wins

Posted by schwarze on 3/3/2025 9:16:00 PM (view original):

Posted by redcped on 3/3/2025 3:32:00 PM (view original):
League 1, Pick 13: 1992 Mets
How did schwarze pass this team up? I have 10 switch hitters among 14 spots! It certainly makes for some lineup construction fun, and most likely I'll be starting 7 of them.

Great question. Why did I pass on this team. Looking at it now, this would be the perfect team for me. I think I saw the defense and must have gotten scared off. '84 Murray is great at 1B and Bonilla has A+ range at 3B with a couple of seasons. HoJo will make zero errors but add 25 minus plays at SS. ANd the OF defense is pretty spotty (Bass' C+ range at CF?). But the offense is very strong and the pitching is solid, albeit only one really good RP (Burke).... I had 1992 as a top 5 Mets team. Might be a mistake passing on them.

I think I'm going to try platooning Darryl Boston and Ryan Thompson in CF just for the defense, and they can hit 9th. Bass can hit for them late in games, potentially, but he's not that much better a hitter that I want to take a chance on his glove every day.

I haven’t done one of these in a while…

Round 2 of this tournament did not go well for me. While it’s true that all 7 teams of my teams advanced to Round 3, this was only because my bottom two teams got bumped up due to extenuating circumstances. Furthermore, only 2 of my 7 teams made the playoffs. A poor showing overall, exacerbated by the fact that I didn’t get a pick in the initial draft because my best team, with the second best expected winning percentage in the entire round, went 8-18 in 1-run games. If they had just gone .500 in those games I would’ve had the #4 pick, but instead they ended up ranked an appropriately unlucky #13.

One contributing factor to my poor performance was the fact that the Round 2 draft happened over the holidays, and I had not completed my research before that time, and I received a high pick for the Cubs, which was the one franchise for which I’d done no research at all, which led to a wasted pick and my worst team. Determined not to let that happen again, I completed my research for this round a good month before this draft. Did it help, or did my poor performance in Round 2 doom me to perpetual failure for the rest of the tourney?

Pick #3, League 4 – 2016 Washington Nationals
My highest pick left me with an immediate conundrum: whether to take the best available team or try to choose a team that would face lesser competition. I didn’t see a clear #1 choice on either front in the entire Royals franchise history, so I decided on Expos/Nats. To me the 2016 Nats were the best available team, but I also considered the 1989 Expos, who would be guaranteed to avoid the late-teen Nationals juggernauts such as the class of the division, the already selected 2018. However, would the ’89 Expos be able to avoid the Pedro Martinez teams? Had I known the answer would be yes I would’ve taken them, but I instead chose what I considered a surer thing. I had the best two last-pace teams in Round 2, and they each would’ve advanced on their own merits, so I considered that a worst-case scenario and dove into what promised to be the division of death. Not exactly ideal for a #3 pick, but oh well. I also considered 2015 in the chance that they avoided the division of death (which they did), but I went with 2016 because, in case they both ended up in the same division, I liked 2016 a bit better.

I like this team more than the others surrounding it (except for 2018) because of the presence of Daniel Murphy, who was not on the ’15 Nats, and Lucas Giolito and Mark Melancon, who were not on any other Nats squads. Other than that it’s the same Harper/Turner/Rendon/Scherzer team as everyone else will have. A dogfight to be sure.

Pick #6, League 2 – 1989 Texas Rangers
Astros or Rangers? To me, any logical Astros pick was facing a similar division of death scenario as my 2016 Nationals, and I didn’t want two such teams as my first two picks. I thought the three best Rangers teams available were 2013, 1991, and 1989. Of those three, I considered 1989 to be most likely to avoid at least one among the already selected 1993 and 2012, which were clearly the two best Rangers squads. I was fortunate enough to avoid both.

What elevates this team to contender status? The one Rangers season of a man (along with some performance-enhancing substances) known to Ted Kennedy and his three-martini lunches as Sammy Sooser. I’m also a big fan of Buddy Bell and Mike Stanley although I probably shouldn’t be because they never do as well as I think they will. Like some other similar Rangers teams, the rotation is comprised of Kevin Brown and Nolan Ryan, which is solid. The only Achilles heel for this team is its bullpen. If this bullpen went to college it would graduate Magna Cum Lousy. Only the ’89 Russell has an ERC# under 2. Will that be enough? Hopefully, in the congenial confines of The Launching Pad, Messrs Sosa, Palmeiro and Juan-Gone will hit enough dingers to make it enough.

Pick #8, League 1 – 1986 New York “Stinky” Mets
Giddy with (probably) unwarranted delight at seemingly hopefully avoiding a brutal division with my previous pick, I approached this selection similarly. The only Angels team in their entire franchise history that interested me at all was 2012, and they were gone, so I was taking a Mets team. All I knew was that I wanted no part of opposing the Pedro Martinez ’06-’07-’08 Mets. I thought that, with those off the board, the best team available was the hated 1986. Looking at the other Mets squads available, I thought that there would be enough teams drafted in between to cushion me from Pedro (Martinez, if not Cerrano). And I was right (about Martinez, not Cerrano).

Why do I love the twisted WhatIf Sports version of this team that I so despise in real life? Much like with my Rangers team, because of the presence of one man who, ironically, is likely most famous for once having made a barehanded catch on the warning track down the leftfield line on the dead run: Kevin Mitchell. That dude has two seasons that ALWAYS RAKE for me. I mean, unless I did something stupid like try to use him in a league full of deadball pitchers, he has never let me down. Famous last words, I know, but with those two seasons on my team I like my chances, even if one of them will be starting at 3B (D/D-). Maybe I’ll employ an early hook for defensive replacements, utilizing the unlikeliest of substitutes: the rangeless wonder, Dave Magadan. Who knew he had a B+/B+ season? I myself did not.

Pick #12, League 3 – 2021 San Diego Padres
This is the only league in which I had only one team. Seven Brewers teams were off the board, including all of the good ones. Only four Padres teams had been chosen: the Maddux era 2007-2008, and 2022. There were good Padres teams still available, most notably 2021 and 2023. The latter has the superior offense (Soto), but the former has almost ridiculously good pitching, with Arrieta, Lamet, Darvish, Snell, and a really good bullpen. Against typecasting I chose 2021, giving me 1,466 innings of which the worst are 104 IP of 2024 Snell’s 2.00 ERC#. The only question is whether my offense will score enough to win me my share of games; a weighted average team OBP# of .378 is admittedly mediocre. I honestly don’t know the answer, but to me it was worth the gamble. I put this team in the geographically, albeit not temporally, appropriate Jack Murphy Stadium to try to bring everyone else’s offense down to my team’s relatively impotent level.

Pick #16, League #4 – 1991 Kansas City Royals
Remember when I said that I didn’t feel like the Royals had a clear #1 choice in their entire franchise history? Probably not. Why would you? It wasn’t really all that memorable. Regardless, while I felt that all their best seasons were equal, I also felt some were a little more equal than others. Had I been forced to pick a Royals team at #3 I would’ve taken 1990. Well lo and behold (as an aside: what the heck does “lo” mean? Other than in the context of lo mein, that is. Mmmmm…lo mein…) the 1990 Royals dropped all the way to pick #15. As in, one pick before mine. Typical.

With 1990 off the board I quickly opted for a similar team: 1991. “But barracuda3”, you say, “how can they be similar? 1990 has Willie Wilson, and 1991 doesn’t.” Presumptuous of me, I know. But, admit it, you thought it, especially because it’s true. However, the 1991 Royals have Kirk Gibson. I like Kirk Gibson, and not just because I attended Game 4 of the 1988 NLCS, when he hit a go-ahead home run in the top of the 12^th inning to give the Dodgers the lead over the stinky Mets in a game that would end with Orel Hershiser coming in with the bases loaded to get the last out after having pitched 7 innings THE DAY BEFORE. The 1991 Royals also have Mike Boddicker, who has always done well for me. And while I would’ve taken ’90 given the chance, Wilson has never done well for me. Although “not doing well” is relative, and the smooth stylings of Brian McRae will almost certainly be even worse. We shall see.

Pick #22, League 2 – 2018 Houston Astros
As in, the final Astros selection. You’d think I’d want to avoid the division containing the 2019 ‘stros, but I couldn’t find any other team that I thought wouldn’t be either the 3^rd or 4^th best team in its division. And while the 2017 and 2020 are both formidable, I feel like 2018 is essentially equivalent. At the very least, they are all so close that whoever finishes in second place is more likely to be determined by luck than it is by any inherent superiority of any of the other teams. So, given my overall poor luck in round 2, I hoped that fortunes will turn and threw my hat into this admittedly brutal ring and will let the chips fall where they may; wherever that ends up being I’m sure there will be some equally hackneyed idiom there to describe it.

Pick #24, League 1 – 1974 California Angels
Obviously the final Angels selection. It’s all about mitigating damage at this point. I don’t harbor any illusions that this team can compete for the division. I like their bullpen (Ken Sanders, Skip Lockwood) and I like Rudy May and I like the fact that I’ll be starting Mickey Rivers and his baton-twirling bat in CF. Mike “don’t call me Juan” Epstein will play 1B and DH, and of course there’s Frank Robinson and Nolan Ryan. I dunno. Maybe I get lucky.

Epilog



I’m not going to try to predict how any of these teams will do. All I’ll say is that I think I did about as well as I could have given the circumstances, which I think is more than I can say about last round. Thanks again to schwarze for running this. Good luck everyone.

League 2, pick 2- 2019 Astros

Lots of pressure having an early pick! I wasn't really sure which way I wanted to go with this one. I'm' hoping for a good mix of pitching and hitting, knowing I won't have deadballers to face but that some teams might still opt for minus HR parks. The 2019 Astros had the combination of Grienke, Verlander and Cole to front their rotation. Does 2019 Cole (1.86 ERC#) work as a #4 starter? I hope so! Can I get by with 4 starters or do I need a 5th? Likely I'll have Cole23 in the rotation about half the time.

The whole thing about this team is that the offense kind of complicates the pitching because they need a lot of hitters. Correa is great at shortstop but requires 2 of him to cover all the PAs. The only 1B on the team is Yuli Gurriel and I think his 2019 season would get normalized into oblivion, so I'm playing Michael Brantley and Bregman as a platoon at 1B. The best seasons from Tucker and Yordan are partial seasons (341 and 369 PAs) so they need platoon partners. The best catchers are half seasons from Chirinos (309pa) and Stassi (284pa) which I hope is enough for them to hit 9th. So I ended up with 14 hitters and 11 pitchers, and one of those pitchers is Aaron Sanchez' 33ip. Overall I have 1584 IP and I hope that's enough.

With my only good team in round 2 (the 07 Yankees), I was able to mix and match to get better matchups (put Melky in against deadball pitchers, Giambi in against more HR prone guys, play Abreu against weak-armed catcher, etc). Hopefully this team has enough lineup flexibility to do similar things. Given the HR prone nature of some of my pitchers I'm rolling the dice and playing my team in PNC Park. That won't help my potential innings shortage but most of my SPs have strong OAVs. More or less the lineup and pitching looks like this:

LF KTucker24 341pa A+/D+ 301/419/579 and Yordan22 561pa C/D 318/417/608
DH Yordan19 369pa C/D- 318/415/628 and Altuve17 662pa B/D- 350/413/523
3B Bregman19 690pa B+/C+ 301/427/563
SS Correa17 481pa A-/C- 319/393/526 and Correa24 367pa A/D+ 323/399/511
CF KTucker23 679pa B+/C+ 292/375/502
RF Springer19 556pa A-/C+ 297/386/562
1B Brantley 676pa A/D+ OF 333/392/502 and Bregman18 705pa B/B- 3B 293/400/515 C/D- SS D/D+ OF
2B Altuve14 707pa B+/B+ 346/384/449
C Chirinos 309pa B-/A/D+ 258/363/481 and Stassi 284pa A/A+/D- 288/358/517


SP1 Greinke15 223ip 0.84whip 0.57/173hr .192oav# 1.70bb# 6.96ip/g 1.57erc#
Sp2 Verlander22 175ip 0.83whip 0.62/174hr .196oav# 1.55bb# 6.25ip/g 1.61erc#
Sp3 Verlander19 223ip 0.80whip 1.45/100hr .176oav# 1.68bb# 6.56ip/g 1.66erc#
Sp4 Cole19 212ip 0.89whip 1/23/118hr .190oav# 2.02bb# 6.43ip/g 1.86erc#
Sp5 Cole23 209ip 0.98whip 0.86/142hr .215oav# 2.06bb# 6.33ip/g 2.23erc#

LRA Greinke19 146 0.98whip 0.91/160hr .232oav# 1.28bb# 6.14ip/g 2.20erc#
CLA Aaron Sanchez 33ip 0.70whip 0.27/326hr .133oav# 2.60bb# 1.38ip/g 0.99erc#
SUA Devenski 108ip 0.91whip 0.33/368hr .209oav# 1.72bb# 2.26ip/g 1.68erc#
SUA Pressly19 54ip 0.90whip 0.99/146hr 191oav# 1.97bb# 0.99ip/g 1.70erc#
SUA JSmith14 75ip 0.80whip 0.48/184hr .177oav# 1.92bb# 0.98ip/g 1.52erc#
SUA Osuna17 64ip 0.86whip 0.42/310hr .200oav# 1.27bb# 0.97ip/g 1.52erc#

Thanks for all those who have shared. Will we here from anybody else? Pedrocerrrano has 8 teams. Would be cool to hear from him.

We advanced all three of our teams from the first round into the third round.

League 4, Pick 1 - 2018 Nationals
We had the #4 pick overall due to the success of our 1919 Cleveland Guardians. Our favorite teams were Mets, Angels, and Astros squads, but the strength of competition was very high at the top for all of those three franchises. So we decided to go with an Expos/Nationals team. I loved Tim Raines as a kid and had two 80s Montreal squads I liked, but this team - our Canadian Imports team seemed like the best available franchise. Two Bryce Harpers and two Juan Sotos anchor an offense with a pretty talented infield and catching crew as well. .304/.395/.528 team offense, including a couple reserves and platoon players. The pitching is better - 1560 team innings with an average of a .199 OAV and 0.97 WHIP. The 2017 and 2018 Max Scherzer duo is a pretty great #1/#2 at the top of the rotation.

We are stuck in a division with four National teams from four years in a row, with a lot of player overlap. I still think this is the best of the squads but a division win is far from guaranteed. Still, we'll hope for 90+ wins and to punch our ticket to the next round.

League 3, Pick 17 - 1990 Padres
Picking late in this draft, our favorite Brewers and Padres teams were mostly gone of course. We liked a Brewers squad that nobody took - bad judgement on our end or a hidden gem for the next round. We'll see. But we thought we'd have some fun and maybe some success with the 1990 Padres squad, which we've named Pump up the Padres, in honor of the classic 1990 Euro-hit by Technotronic. The no-name nonpitching is so-so for a league of this quality: 1700 IP with .228 OAV and 1.10 WHIP and good HR allowance. The offense and fielding is a gem, though. Two Tony Gwynns, two Roberto Alomars, two Fred Lynns, and more give us great team speed and solid defense, for a line of .323/.399/.518. For this Red Sox fan, the Boston connections from my youth - Fred Lynn, Jack Clark, Bruce Hurst and Calvin Schiraldi - are pretty fun too!

The big wild card for us was whether we'd land in the Central division with the Greg Maddux clubs, where we wouldn't have a prayer, or with the 70s/80s clubs, where we're pretty sure we'll be the best. It went down to the very final pick of the draft to find out things swung the right way for us. We think we'll win 85 or so but will win our division and advance.

League 1, Pick 14 - 2018 New York Mets
More Mets than Angels teams had been taken, but we thought that the top Mets squads were closer in quality, while the remaining Angels squads had lass chance of competing. We were drawn to this club for what could be the best infield of all the Mets squads - the excellent offense and 3B defense Jose Bautista season, Jose Reyes, an out of position second base platoon of great David Wright and David Reyes, and Adrain Gonzales. The catching and OF are just fine, but together they have a .310/.393/.537 (including backups) that should be competitive. Pitching has 1555 IP of .202 OAV and 0.97 WHIP with very good HR control. The starting rotation of DeGrom x 2, Harvey, and Wheeler is actually much better in quality than our relief core, unusual for 21st century teams. I hope this helps.

Our division is horribly tough, with the two Mets teams taken (2007 and 2008) with us. So we'll be lucky if we can win 85, place third in the division, and advance.

I was very happy to have 7 out of 9 teams advance. The problem is that the 7 teams played well enough to advance but not well enough to have high draft picks. With this in mind I had two strategies, pick teams with a chance to win 83 games and advance, and try to avoid being in a division with either schwarze, footballmm11 and pedrocerrano. Not an easy task. I did end up totally avoiding schwarze teams, mostly avoiding footbalmm11 teams (2 teams), and a poor job of avoiding pedrocerrano's teams (5 teams). I was very happy to have 4 teams advance to the next round.

League 1, pick 17 (7th pick for the Angels) 1977 Angels
Reasons for hope - (2) Bonds, (2) Baylor's, (2) Grich's (2) Ryan's (2) Cuellar's (1) Tanana. The other division teams picked 8th, 11th and 12th.
Reality - no real SS, weak Catchers, 3 out of 4 division teams have Ryan and Tanana, the other has Chance
Finished with 73 wins but only 2 games behind in a very weak division, Of the Angels teams they had the 9th most wins. Pitching was very good but their hitting was terrible. Hitting outweighed pitching.

League 1, pick 19 (11th pick for the Mets) 1985 Mets
Reasons for hope - (2) Gooden's, (2) Fernandez's (2) Dyskstra's (2) Foster's (2) Carters (2) Hojo's
Reality - Darling as my 5th Starter, Fernandez never delivers for me, everyone in the division has either Gooden or Seaver in addition to pitchers like Cone, Ojeda and Matlack
Finished with 87 wins and they advanced to the next round. Of the Mets teams they had the 5th most wins.

League 2, pick 18 (10th pick for the Astros) 1971 Astros
Reasons for hope - (2) Morgan's (2) Wynn's (2) Cedeno's (1) Mayberry (2) Wilson's (2) JR Richard's
Reality - Everyone has Morgan and Wynn, weak SS and Catchers, Morgan and Wynn never deliver for me, Teams are pretty similar so it might come down to ballparks used and team management, not usually strong points for me.
Finished with 87 wins and they made the play-offs. Of the Astros teams they had the 3rd most wins.

League 3, pick 9 (6th pick for the Padres) 2006 Padres
Reasons for hope - (2) Giles (2) Piazza's (2) A. Gonzalez's (2) Peavy's
Reality - I thought I was safe picking 2006 as 2008, 2007, 2022 (3 of the top 8 picks), and 2021 were all picked before me, surely no one after me would pick into that division. JTPSOP's picks next and picks 2023 pushing 2007 with two Maddux's into our division. So much for the best laid plans. pedro's 2007 is clearly the best of the division, two of my starters are weak (Park and Wells), I really liked this team when I picked it, now not so much.
Finished with 82 wins and barely squeaked into the next round. Of the Padres teams they had the 6th most wins.

League 3, pick 19 (10th pick for the Brewers) 2011 Brewers
Reasons for hope - (2) Fielder's (2) Braun's (2) Greinke's (1) Lucroy, good BP
Reality - Weak starting pitchers after Greinke. 2018 has great pitching with footballmm11 managing that staff, pedro, football and EJ are the other owners
Finished with 69 wins. Of the Brewers teams they had the 10th most wins. Grienke and their BP were not enough to compensate for a weak starting staff. They had a 1-15 stretch that doomed them.

League 4, pick 9 (5th pick for the Royals) 1983 Royals
Reasons for hope (2) Brett's (2) Wilson's (2) Otis's (2) McRae's (2) Blue's (2) G. Perry's (2) Gura's
Reality - everyone has 2 Brett's and 2 Wilson's 3 teams have Saberhagens and one team also has Appier
Finished with 92 wins and they made the play-offs. Of the Royals teams they had the best record. They had good hitting and great starting pitching.

League 4, 18th pick (9th pick for the Expos) 1995 Expos
Reasons for hope - (2) Pedro's (2) Alou's (2) DeLeon's (2) Berry's (1) Segui
Reality - 3 Teams have 2 Pedro's and the other has Scherzer and Strasburg, Other teams in the division have L.Walker, Harper, Guerrero, etc.
Finished with 73 wins. They finished 2nd in a very weak division. Of the Expo teams they had the 9th most wins. Pedro was a bit of a disappointment and not enough to compensate for everything else.

Bottom line hope is for at least 2 of my teams to get to 83+ wins. Anything more than that will be a bonus.

1991 Astros - #7 pick overall, 4th Astros team picked, Jefferson Street Grounds

I had done some research before, but this team was not originally on my radar. It's because Mike Scott was not listed on the Astros in 1991 in WIS, I had to look at BBR (sloppy on my end, I know). So I also didn't realize that both Lofton and Schilling had short stints with this team in 1991 as well. Add Biggio, Bagwell, and Luis Gonzalez and this may be the best offense in the league. Here is my lineup:

CF 94 Kenny Lofton
LF 01 Luis Gonzalez
DH 99 Jeff Bagwell
1B 94 Jeff Bagwell
3B 96 Ken Caminiti
RF 99 Luis Gonzalez
2B 97 Craig Biggio
C 95 Tony Eusebio / 95 Scott Servais
SS 82 Rafael Ramirez

I decided NOT to have Biggio at C because Eusebio is almost the same and 95 Servais is superior. 99 Biggio is on my bench because all my OFs are left-handed and I wanted a RH OF bat. This is also why Steve Finley didn't even make the team. Lofton pushed him off the roster and I only have one of him. SS is admittedly a weak spot, but Ramirez does have A+ range. I have 01 Mark McLemore waiting in the wings with his .384 OPS, but he does have D- range at short.

On the pitching side, I have 2x Mike Scott and 2x Curt Schilling for my 4 man rotation. Bullpen is the weakest link on this team. 2x Xavier Hernandez is my strongest relief pitcher, and he's not great. 89 Corsi and his 39 innings as my closer, and 95 Corsi as a setup B. 91 Jim Clancy makes the mix and I have two starters, Darryl Kile and Jim Deshaies as my Long As. They have RL ERC# of almost 3 each. I tell myself that at least they won't have IP/G issues.

I was feeling pretty good about this team until I realized I'm in the division of death with football11 (#1 overall), schwarze (#4 overall) and redcped (#13 overall). All are savvy owners with two of them having higher picks than me. This team is better than any Rangers team I could have picked, but had I known I'd be thrown into this lot, I would have chosen a Rangers squad. Prediction: 80 wins

Ok, season's not over yet, but I'll do the post-mortem now since not much is going to change between now and then. As of this write-up we are at the 155 game mark.

1991 Astros
Wins: 91 (on pace for 95 wins)
Exp Win: .590
Runs scored: 2nd
Runs allowed: 6th

Ok, I was way off on my 80 win prediction. I was correct that this was a a tough division, as all teams in the division are currently over .500. I knew I had a good offense so being placed 2nd overall was not a surprise even though I was in a neutral ballpark. Lofton went crazy with 93 stolen bases despite a .326 OBP. Caminiti was the best hitter with his .325/.392/.592 line, even outhitting 2x Luis Gonzalez and 2x Jeff Bagwells. Rafael Ramirez was a an all-star, gold glove and hit a better than expected .248/.273/.358. But it was really hard to not platoon Mark McLemore into the lineup with his .332/.420/.477 bat.

On the pitching side, the 2X Scotts had ERAs of 4.54 and 5.47 - about what was to be expected. 2X Schilling produced 5.20 and 3.74 ERA. The latter really stood out with a 21-7 record. My bullpen was my biggest worry, but they pitched mostly fresh and minus two outliers, had ERAs from 4.66 to 5.03. Shout out to Jim Deshaies, who pitched 150 IP in long relief with a 5.03 ERA. I actually expected much worse from him. He had a lower ERA than two of my starters. So maybe there was something to having a high IP/G in the bullpen.

Very happy with this team. I didn't expect them to do this well.

2022 Brewers, #23 pick overall, 12th Brewers team picked, Colt Stadium

Picking last amongst the Brewers has the advantage of choosing your division. I wanted no part of the Don Sutton 82-84 squads. I did consider 2012 to get Greinke and be a part of the Central division. But without Prince Fielder, its just a worse version of 2011. And like 2011 there is no viable 3rd or 4th starter. So I pivoted to 2022 where I'll be competing versus 2019, 2021 and 2023. These rosters will look very similar: 2x Burnes, 2x Woodruff, 2x Yelich, 2x Cain, 2x Hader and 2x Devin Williams. The main difference is that I have 2X Andrew McCutcheon. I do have 2 main issues: I don't have a viable 1B and my main strength is a lot of low-inning, high quality relief pitchers. McCutcheon can play out of position at 1B, I don't think that'll hurt me too badly. And I'll need all 13 spots for pitchers. Here is my lineup:

1B 14 Andrew McCutcheon
RF 12 Andrew McCutcheon
CF 17 Lorenzo Cain
LF 19 Christian Yelich
DH 18 Christian Yelich
SS 24 Willy Adames
C 19 Omar Narvaez / 20 Victor Caratini
2B 19 Kolten Wong
3B 21 Luis Urias / 22 Luis Urias

The only position player not listed above is 18 Lorenzo Cain to bat against lefties for 19 Yelich and play all OF positions. 3B is an issue as Urias straight up sucks but at least he can play 2B, 3B and SS. I could have rostered an extra Adames and Wong to get better but lower PA seasons out of them, but I needed the roster spots for my pitchers.

Rotation consists of 2x Corbin Burnes, 2x Brandon Woodruff and 21 Freddy Peralta will be a swingman. Bullpen is 2x Josh Hader, 2x Devin Williams, 14 Jake McGee (needed this high IP version of him and I don't like the 0.80 IP/G versions of him), 16 Matt Bush, 18 Taylor Rogers, with 21 Eric Lauer in the Long relief role. This gives me 1441 innings. Wanted a pitching friendly stadium but since I do have a lot of HR, didn't want to dampen that too much so I settled on Colt Stadium (0.87, -1/-1 LF/RF).

I don't think this team is better than the other teams in my division, but they are pretty similar. With luck, I could win the division. In any case I think we'll all have a tight race. Prediction: 77 wins

2022 Brewers
Wins: 94 (on pace for 98 wins)
Exp Win %: .575
Runs scored: 18th
Runs allowed: 1st

This has to be the surprise team of the round. Last Brewers team picked and 2nd-to-last team picked in the league. I did say that this team was fairly similar to the other teams in the division as the others were 2019, 2021 and 2023. I do think I got lucky with certain players and then there were some players like Andrew McCutcheon who played well that no one else had. First of all 2012 McCutcheon is currently leading the MVP race. So that's a big deal. My 2018 Yelich is currently 3rd place in the MVP race. My Freddy Peralta has a 3.00 ERA, whereas the others are at 4.06, 4.21, 4.82 and 5.54. Strangely, the one with the 4.82 ERA is 3rd in the Cy Young race whereas mine is not even top 5. Also my 21 Corbin Burnes is 3rd place in the Cy Young voting. The rest of my hitting outside of McCutcheon and Yelich is fairly anemic as I was only ranked 18th in runs scored.

The real star of the show is my pitching. As I stated before, I maximized pitching roster spots as to leverage what I knew was my main strength, relief pitching. And almost everyone came through. The exceptions were 23 Devin Williams ended up with a disappointing 4.62 ERA and Eric Lauer had a 5.25 ERA in mostly low-leverage situations. There are four 2020 Devin Williams in the league. Mine has 85 IP with a 2.21 ERA which leads in both categories. Mine also has the least amount of saves, as he pitched in setup A all season, so perhaps that is why his number are different than the others. But I figured it was more important to give him maximum usage as I knew he wouldn't be able to hit my innings target if I had him in the closer role. My closer was Josh Hader, who did hit his innings target and performed well. And lastly, I have to laugh because I used a 5 man rotation which is very old school when a lot of coaches are using 3 or 4 man rotations. I thought Peralta would be a swingman, but he was pitching way too well to take him out of the rotation. And if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Two weeks ago I had 3 teams moving on, but due to an absurd collapse from my 2023 Rangers team, looks like it'll only be one.

2014 Angels (Pick #10)
Prediction: 86-76 - Actual: 91-71 - This team outperformed expectations. Glad I didn't bomb my best pick.

2023 Texas Rangers (Pick 12)
Prediction: 83-79 - Actual: 79-83 - This team was on pace to match/exceed my predictions but has absolutely collapsed over the past 20 games. Still not far off. Disappointing though, especially with the pitching staff I have.

2023 Padres (Pick 15)
Prediction: 84-78 - Actual: 77-85 - Overshot with this team. Very disappointed to not have been a bit better. Having 2020 Darvish with a 1.50 WHIP in a pitchers park is baffling.

Posted by crazyamos on 3/7/2025 1:26:00 PM (view original):
We advanced all three of our teams from the first round into the third round.

League 4, Pick 1 - 2018 Nationals
We had the #4 pick overall due to the success of our 1919 Cleveland Guardians. Our favorite teams were Mets, Angels, and Astros squads, but the strength of competition was very high at the top for all of those three franchises. So we decided to go with an Expos/Nationals team. I loved Tim Raines as a kid and had two 80s Montreal squads I liked, but this team - our Canadian Imports team seemed like the best available franchise. Two Bryce Harpers and two Juan Sotos anchor an offense with a pretty talented infield and catching crew as well. .304/.395/.528 team offense, including a couple reserves and platoon players. The pitching is better - 1560 team innings with an average of a .199 OAV and 0.97 WHIP. The 2017 and 2018 Max Scherzer duo is a pretty great #1/#2 at the top of the rotation.

We are stuck in a division with four National teams from four years in a row, with a lot of player overlap. I still think this is the best of the squads but a division win is far from guaranteed. Still, we'll hope for 90+ wins and to punch our ticket to the next round.

League 3, Pick 17 - 1990 Padres
Picking late in this draft, our favorite Brewers and Padres teams were mostly gone of course. We liked a Brewers squad that nobody took - bad judgement on our end or a hidden gem for the next round. We'll see. But we thought we'd have some fun and maybe some success with the 1990 Padres squad, which we've named Pump up the Padres, in honor of the classic 1990 Euro-hit by Technotronic. The no-name nonpitching is so-so for a league of this quality: 1700 IP with .228 OAV and 1.10 WHIP and good HR allowance. The offense and fielding is a gem, though. Two Tony Gwynns, two Roberto Alomars, two Fred Lynns, and more give us great team speed and solid defense, for a line of .323/.399/.518. For this Red Sox fan, the Boston connections from my youth - Fred Lynn, Jack Clark, Bruce Hurst and Calvin Schiraldi - are pretty fun too!

The big wild card for us was whether we'd land in the Central division with the Greg Maddux clubs, where we wouldn't have a prayer, or with the 70s/80s clubs, where we're pretty sure we'll be the best. It went down to the very final pick of the draft to find out things swung the right way for us. We think we'll win 85 or so but will win our division and advance.

League 1, Pick 14 - 2018 New York Mets
More Mets than Angels teams had been taken, but we thought that the top Mets squads were closer in quality, while the remaining Angels squads had lass chance of competing. We were drawn to this club for what could be the best infield of all the Mets squads - the excellent offense and 3B defense Jose Bautista season, Jose Reyes, an out of position second base platoon of great David Wright and David Reyes, and Adrain Gonzales. The catching and OF are just fine, but together they have a .310/.393/.537 (including backups) that should be competitive. Pitching has 1555 IP of .202 OAV and 0.97 WHIP with very good HR control. The starting rotation of DeGrom x 2, Harvey, and Wheeler is actually much better in quality than our relief core, unusual for 21st century teams. I hope this helps.

Our division is horribly tough, with the two Mets teams taken (2007 and 2008) with us. So we'll be lucky if we can win 85, place third in the division, and advance.

Predictions mostly on point. We advanced all three of our teams once again but declined the option to play with three teams anymore at this point, giving our Mets slot to someone else.

1) 2018 Nationals - predicted at least 90 wins. The Nationals won exactly 90 games and a high pick in Round 4. While we were the 3rd winningest Nats/Expos team in the league, competition in our 2016-2019 division was rough, so we were also the third winningest in our own division, behind 2016 and 2019. I didn't bother taking time to figure out if the other owners made more strategic picks or just managed their squads more effectively. Our offense didn't disappoint - 4th in the league, but our pitching did - it was just below league average. Team defense - 22 + plays to 56 - plays - may have been a factor.

2) 1990 Padres - predicted 85 wins and confident in a division win. We won 84 and our division with the most doubles, most hits, most runs in the league.

3) 2018 Mets - hopes for 85 but said we'd be lucky to get there. Won 80 games, eligible for the next league on a technicality. Pitching was solid but offense was anemic.

Posted by schwarze on 3/3/2025 1:30:00 PM (view original):
League #2, Pick #4
2000 Houston Astros
This was my highest pick (after #1 overall). I would have preferred the 4th pick in the Angels league, but the algorithm placed me into League 2. The first three picks were 2004 Angels (footballmm11 w/ #3 overall), 1993 Rangers (pedrocerrano) and 2019 (jfranco77). I actually had 2004 and 2019 Astros as my top 2 choices and 1993 Rangers and my highest Rangers choice. It's almost like everybody is using my rankings. So when my turn came up, I was debating between 2000 Astros and either 1991 or 2013 Rangers. Since only 4 people picked between my first and second pick in this league, I decided it was more likely that people would take Astros teams plus I hadn't even decided which of 1991 or 2013 Rangers teams I liked better, so I went with the Astros.

Although I am happy with this 2000 team, the Astros are so deep that there are teams that I liked that didn't even get drafted. I won't mention them here since I may want to take one of these teams in round 4. Anyway, the offense for the 2000 Astros really crushes. Bagwell, Biggio, Berkman, Caminiti, Hidalgo, Alou. I can't even start all the guys I want to start. The two weakest offensive players are SS Julio Lugo (.295, .362, .403) and C Mitch Meluskey (.300, .401, .487). The overall totals: .318, .411, .562. That's an insane offense.

The pitching is going to be interesting. My original build had Dwight Gooden x 2, Shane Reynolds and Jose Lima as my 4-man rotation. But after some tinkering and the fact that the bullpen is so deep (Wagner x2, Dotel x2, M.Maddux x2, Powell, Meachem, D.Henry, Linebrink), I cut Lima and am going with only 3 SPs (734 IPs) and 10 RPs. This results in the following total pitching stats: 1518 ips, .206 oav, 1.01 whip, 0.52 hr/9. Paired with this offense, this seems like a pretty good team.

Overall Outlook:
Unfortunately, this team is in the same division as 2004 (1st pick by footballmm11) and 1991 (4th pick by toysboys), so three of the top four Astros teams selected are in the same division. I think my bullpen is better than the other two teams but their starting pitching is vastly superior. So once again, and I hate to say it, but it may come down to 1-run game luck. We'll go conservative with 89 wins.

This team was very frustrating. The "3 SP, 10 RP" strategy is really not very fun to play. My bullpen's real life stats were vastly superior to my SPs yet my "strong" bullpen sucked all season, with most of my guys having ERAs over 5. We had a lead high 22 blown saves and finished the season 12-21 in 1-run games. We ranked 1st in runs scored, as expected. '94 Jeff Bagwell won the NL MVP (.321, .391, .622, 51 HRs, 156 RBIs). My worst real life SP, Shane Reynolds, overachieved going 20-17, but my best real life SP, '85 Dwight Gooden, was a huge disappointment, ending up with a 4.80 ERA. If it weren't for a late season surge (4-1 in last 10 games), he would've finished below .500. The team ended up 85-77 but had an expected winning% of .548 which is basically matches my projected win total of 89.