$70M – Franchise Soup
2016 Ways to Die
Petco Park

I did the least amount of research for this theme. I don’t have the greatest feel for low caps and it felt like this would be a theme that was easy to get caught in the weeds researching without a ton of variance.

I drafted 3 teams, but one didn’t offer enough PAs and the other, I got tired of tinkering to find 25 different franchises, so that left 2016.

I knew I would go with Petco to conserve PAs and IP, so I targeted cheap pitchers with low walk totals. Enter David Price, Mashiro Tanaka, Ricky Nolasco and Bartolo Colon. Yu Darvish will be the long man, followed by a bullpen I like at this cap, featuring the likes of Fernando Rodney, Grant Dayton, Mark Melancon, Luke Gregorson, and Alec Asher for some longer appearances.

My lineup features a healthy balance of R, L and SH, with 400+ walks and high % SBs. The team is 149/194 as a whole in that category. This offense has some good bats, but is going to take a lot of micromanaging to avoid fatigue. It features a lot of guys I rarely use, including Mike Napoli, Yadier Molina, Nick Castellanos, Gregory Polanco, Dexter Fowler and Derek Dietrich.

All in all, I’m not wowed by this team. If I can stay on top of fatigue, it should be competitive, but I’m not super confident.

Prediction: 81-81

Offense: .278/.342/.440, 266 2B, 148 HR, 150/195 SB
Pitching: 1,225 IP, 1.11 WHIP

$80M – Twist on a Twist
2007 Fathers…and 7,891 Children
Petco Park

I love this team. I feel very confident that it will be my best one. I built a lot of teams, and found a few I liked, but several were in hitters’ parks and I wasn’t confident enough in the pitching. Then I found the 2008 Padres. IMO, this team is built perfectly for this ballpark. A staff of low-walk pitchers, and an offense loaded with walks, and several hitters with high % steals.

The offense is led by Adrian Gonzalez and Brian Giles, supported by Marcus Giles, Mike Cameron, Morgan Ensberg, and some useful role players with great defense. Not the most studly group, but they should serve well in Petco and play strong D.

The pitching staff features Greg Maddux, Jake Peavy, David Wells and Chris Young, backed by a studly bullpen including Trevor Hoffman, Cla Meredith, Heath Bell, Scott Linebrink and Clay Hensley.

I really hope I can get this team to Round 2, because the next iteration will be a force. I’m trying not to be overconfident, but I feel like this team will do well as long as I’m not stuck in a division of death.

Prediction: 90-72

Offense: .281/.379/.480, 273 2B, 194 HR, 700 BB, 83/115 SB
Pitching: 1,247 IP, 1.10 WHIP

$100M – Three Year Dynasty
2019-21 Dodger Dogs
Dodger Stadium

As I’m sure is the case with everyone, I exhausted myself with this team. I looked at so many options, but could only get one within $5M of the cap, without a ton of wasted salary. There were a few older teams I liked, but couldn’t live with the poor defense or dead spots at the back of the rotation. Ultimately I settled on a team with a lot of moving parts at the last minute, the 2019-2021 Dodgers. Seems like the Dodgers around this timeframe were a popular choice.

I like the options this pitching staff provides, though it will take heavy micromanaging. Walker Buehler, Julio Urias and Hyun-Jin Ryu are the only ones with full-time starter innings, but Clayton Kershaw, Kenta Maeda, Tony Gonsolin and Trevor Bauer will make some starts. The bullpen is VERY strong, with Victor Gonzalez, Blake Treinen, Brusdar Graterol, Pedro Baez and multi IP/game Max Scherzer.

The lineup is a bit homer-heavy, but they also draw walks and can swipe bags. I think it’s well-rounded enough to get the job done with this pitching staff. Mookie Betts, Corey Seager and Cody Bellinger will carry the load, with Justin Turner, and others piecing together the remaining slots.

Micromanaging is definitely going to be the key for this team, but if I can stay on top of that, I think the results will be good enough for a WC spot.

Prediction: 86-76

Offense: .288/.369/.533, 297 2B, 303 HR, 610 BB, 94/114 SB
Pitching: 1,448 IP, 0.95 WHIP

$110M The Nineteenth Century
24 dudes and a Lady
Exposition Park

I knew good-hitting pitching would be a huge asset in this theme. Most of the good-hitting pitchers weren’t good enough to roster though, so I split the difference: 1890 Scott Stratton and his .300+ average, and 1888 Pete Conway make up the rotation, supported by 1885 Lady Baldwin. The bullpen features what are sure to be many cookies with the likes of Bill George, Sam Leever and Phenomenal Smith.

Obviously defense is going to be sketchy, so range is the name of the game. I have A- or better range across the infield, and in CF. Pretty much every key contributor has an OBP of .400+ as well. The lineup features the likes of Roger Connor, George Davis, Bob Caruthers, Billy Hamilton, Tuck Turner, Mike Griffin, Buck Ewing and Bill Joyce.

I don’t use players from this era often, and especially not full rosters, so I’m tempering my expectations. I think I’ve constructed a good roster on paper, but given the owners I’ll be playing against, I’m definitely nervous.

Prediction: 83-79

Offense: .334/.424/.469, 251 2B, 111 3B, 700 BB
Pitching: 1,561 IP, 1.03 WHIP

$120M Heavy Hitters
He’s not heavy…he’s my hitter!
Miller Park

Initially I wanted to roster Mantle, due to his switch hitting and mix of power/speed/ defense, but ultimately, I decided to save the extra cash. Looking at the options, it seemed intuitive to go with the 3 hitters closest to $15M. However, Brett didn’t have enough PA and Hamilton had too many for the cost. That left Ruth, Bonds and Hornsby, which seemed to be the popular three. I didn’t think Bonds would hold up without someone providing some backup PAs, so I opted to spend the money on someone I could plug into the lineup and leave there. Please, I imagine many will roster LH pitching to mitigate Ruth and Bonds. Ultimately, I went with Babe Ruth, Rogers Hornsby and King Kelly. Throw in 2006 Bobby Abreu, and the top 4 in my lineup are set for the season: 2 righties and two lefties. The bottom 4 slots are manned by switch hitters in Chipper Jones, Rogers Cedeno, Billy Rogell and Billy North, backed up by 3 more switch hitters in Neifi Perez, Tony Phillips and David Segui. The lineup will take a bit of micromanaging on the back end, but I feel relatively confident. I’ve got solid defense at key positions and good SB numbers from North, Cedeno and Abreu.

I wanted to roster Stratton again for his bat, but couldn’t comfortably fit him under the cap. Hal Newhouser anchors the rotation, along with Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee. Tom Zachary comes along for his bat to provide long relief and some spot starts.

My bullpen is the star of the show, as I drafted 5 relievers who allowed 0 HR in their respective seasons, including: Cisco Carlos, Lucas Erceg, Adam Wainwright, Al Hrabosky and Andy Rincon. Throw in Dave Rozema and Sean Doolittle, who always does well for me in the SIM, and this group should hold me in contention.

I opted for Miller Park to capitalize on the power of Ruth, Hornsby and Chipper. I’ll be shocked if I allow more HR than I hit. Here’s hoping the innings hold up.

This is going to be an interesting theme. Prediction: 86-76

Offense: .319/.420/.509, 262 2B, 174 HR, 814 BB
Pitching: 1,362 IP, 1.07 WHIP

$140M – I Played With That Guy, Too!
Kershawshank Redemption
Dodger Stadium

As many have done, I researched countless teams. I had rosters I liked from Pedro, Ruth and even Hoyt Wilhelm. I tried the likes of Speaker and Lajoie but wasn’t as comfortable with the pitching as I wanted to be, and felt there was some wasted salary.

Enter Clayton Kershaw. I think I lucked out with alignment, as there appear to be relatively few Lajoie teams in my league. Kershaw should help vs the Speaker and Ruth teams.

Kershaw takes care of the lefty side of things, with Zack Greinke, Kenley Jansen and Max Scherzer providing support from the right side. This pitching staff was head and shoulders above any other I put together in terms of raw numbers.

The lineup will be interesting. They are heavy on the homers, but they also draw walks and do a great job of swiping bags (186/215). Freddie Freeman, Shohei Ohtani, Matt Kemp and Cody Bellinger will anchor the order, with some moving parts behind them including Mookie Betts, Corey Seager, Justin Turner, Hanley Ramirez, and Manny Ramirez.

Deadball pitching could be a bit of a challenge, but this team can do it all, with 300+ homers, 375 doubles, 700+ walks and a ton of speed. The defense is good as well, and the lineup should be able to provide more than enough for Kershaw, et al.

I feel reasonably confident about this team and think it will be one of my better ones.

Prediction: 89-73

Offense: .304/.384/.557, 375 3B, 337 HR, 708 BB, 186/215 SB
Pitching: 1,610 IP, 0.88 WHIP

WISC 2025 Write-Up:

70M: ’90 Day Fiance

Analysis: This was one of my favorite builds, personally. It felt like a number of years had potential and multiple directions within one year were possible. I started by looking at a combo of hitting and pitching and seeing which years offered the most value. After some sim-intensive research, I narrowed down my choices to 1990 and 2016 (A highly selected year). Ultimately, I liked the top-end pitching options from 1990 more as they provided the length that 2016 just couldn’t provide. Erik Hanson, Dennis Martinez, and Dave Stieb will lead the rotation with Erik King and Bob Tewksbury providing a cost-effective #4 tandem to give the bullpen a regular day off. A handful of usable bullpen arms emerged on my leftover teams in Dave Smith, Neidlinger, Boever, and Fraser and I was left with a pitching staff that I felt solid about, though the last minute cut of John Tudor was hard. 1990 was also attractive, as there were a number of high-value offensive pieces. A top 6 of Willie McGee, Bip Roberts, George Brett, Bobby Bonilla, Andre Dawson, and Howard Johnson should put up plenty of runs at this salary cap. A strong arm catcher, a contact second baseman, and a handful of bench players rounded out what I think should be a competitive roster.

This Team Will Be Competitive If: I drafted enough competitive innings. I am banking on getting by 1,293 innings, with 67 of them being throwaway innings. I know at lower caps you don’t need as many innings, but is this enough? My experience beyond $80M open leagues is literally just this tournament the last 2 years…

Confidence Level: B+

80M: Roger Dodger, 2021

Analysis: It’s funny, I actually made a mental note a few years back that I thought the real-life 2021 Dodgers had the greatest collection of talent I had ever seen on one time, though I’ll admit I’m not that old. This made them a logical starting point in what looked like a possible harrowing exercise. Looking at the Baseball Reference roster and looking at usable seasons from the players, I immediately knew I had the bones to make a competitive roster. It took some serious manipulation, but I knew I wanted '20 Trea Turner, '23 Mookie Betts, '19 Cody Bellinger, and '02 Albert Pujols on the same team, and I didn’t stop moving pieces around until I made it happen. They should be an electric top four of the lineup. Seasons from Justin Turner, Max Muncy, Gavin Lux, and Keibert Ruiz round out what I think should be an overall passable lineup. I had plenty of options on the pitching staff, allowing me to create tandem starting units with seasons from ’21 Max Scherzer, ’18 Clayton Kershaw, ’21 Walker Buehler, ’18 Trevor Bauer, ’22 Julio Urias, and ’15 David Price, though not all from seasons I would have preferred. The bullpen options were stupid good, but most were out of my price range, so I settled for quality seasons from ’24 Treinen, ’22 Graterol, ’21 Knebel, ’24 Santana, and ’24 Uceta. This team seemed to be the most popular pick amongst others, giving me some confidence in my roster as a whole.

If I’m fortunate enough to make it to Round 2, this is where I think my roster choice will really payoff. A rotation of 2015 Kershaw, 2020 Bauer, 2017 Scherzer, 2018 Buehler, and 2020 Gonsolin should carry a ton of value, and the bullpen should help pick up any slack. The offense would have the same Bellinger and Turner seasons as above, but better seasons from Betts and Pujols, with other quality players being brought into the fold.

This Team Will Be Competitive If: I can score enough runs at Dodger Stadium. Scoring runs could be at a premium here and I have middling confidence that I’ll be able to score enough runs to keep up with the juggernauts of the league.

Confidence: B

Confidence in the Round 2 120M team: A

100M: The Pandemic Dodgers, 2020-2022

Analysis: I hadn’t yet started building this team yet when I was reading in the forums that this would be my hardest build and it would be very difficult to find a team that properly utilizes the full 100M budget. My gut instinct was to go back to the 2021 Dodgers team I had just built and work around that since I knew there was pitching to be had. That part, I was right about. The starters are solid, with 2020 providing Gonsolin and Kershaw, 2021 providing Buehler and Bauer, and 2022 providing Urias and Anderson. I was devastated when I realized that 2021 Max Scherzer was a combined season and I could only use the Dodger portion of his season (Same with Trea Turner, more on that later). The real golden ticket of this team is the bullpen. '20 Kolarek, '21 Treinen, '22 Phillips, '20 McGee, '21 Scherzer, '20 Victor Gonzalez and '22 Almonte provides a unit that should hold leads, should the offense be able to provide any. The problem with this team though… The offense isn’t any good. Freddie Freeman and Corey Seager provided respectable options, but not having '21 Treat Turner’s full season and just missing '19 Bellinger was crushing. This offense would struggle in an 80M league. A cast of middling characters makes up a lineup that has to overcome Dodger stadium and its own mediocrity. I looked at countless other options as I’m sure everyone else did, but no team could outweigh the pitching that this Dodgers team provided. If anyone else found good pitching with some offense, I’m toast.

Adding on now that I’ve seen the selections of others, this 3-year stretch of the Dodgers was the most popular pick, making me a little more confident. The other team I considered was a Cardinals team from the ‘40s that had some pretty good offense and respectable pitching, which was selected a handful of times as well. I’m hoping I don’t end up regretting my decision.

This Team Will Be Competitive If: It scores enough runs. The pitching will be good, maybe great. The hitting won’t be. Can the pitching overcome the hitting? Let’s find out

Confidence: B

110M: We’re Gonna Party Like it’s 1899!

Analysis: Admittedly, I didn’t spend a bunch of time building this team. It felt clear to me that I had to start with pitching, and selected the same “RP” as everyone else has they were clear standouts amongst the group. For my starters, I considered King, but settled for ’88 Ed Seward as he wasn’t too far off and provided savings that I preferred to use on the offense. A #2 Tandem of ’85 Baldwin and ’88 Titcomb provided stability to the pitching staff that gave me an amount of innings I was comfortable with (1566, a couple scrubs)

The clear problem with the offensive players in this era is that errors were going to be a big problem, as pointed out by others on this thread. I decided to just embrace that my team was going to make errors, knowing many others would search for diamond in the rough fielders, at the risk of offense. I figured I’d let the boys eat at the plate and see what happened, while trying to avoid truly horrendous fielding. My lineup consists of ’89 Roger Connor, ’99 Delahanty, ’93 George Davis, ’87 Sam Wise, ’95 Mike Tiernan, ’94 Tom Daly, ’96 Tom McCreery, and ’90 King Kelly. I chose Kelly for his offense knowing that hitters in the era had brutal SB%s and that catcher arms may not be as highly valued, though I could be wrong here.

This Team Will Be Competitive If: Sacrificing fielding and catcher arm for extra offense turns out to be the right move. I’m pretty confident that the pitching should be at least average (famous last words…) and the offense should put up runs, but if the defense kills me and opposing teams are able to run all over the basepaths, it could make for a long season. This feels like a league where the years of expertise others have exposes me.

Confidence: C-

120M: Tater Trot Casserole
Analysis: This was unfortunately my least favorite build, in contrast to what most others are saying. The options over 15M were so limited that it felt like I was handcuffed before my build even started. I figured minimizing the cost of my studs was critical, but with Brett unable to play a full season and Hamilton overpriced due to volume I would never use, it felt like ’27 Ruth, ’22 Hornsby and ’02 Bonds were the only options that made sense. From the looks of the breakdown, it looks like a lot of folks agreed with me. From here, the priority became building a pitching staff that suppressed home runs and walks. Because of who I selected, I knew I wanted a somewhat home run friendly ballpark, meaning I had to do all I can and spend whatever money necessary to shutdown the home run hitters of other teams. This led me to a rare five-man rotation of ’48 Harry Brecheen, ’97 Maddux, ’96 Kevin Brown, ’44 Tex Hughson and ’20 Elmer Ponder. Aside from a couple scrubs, the bullpen has some good home run suppressors as well in ’29 Grabowski, ’64 Schultz, ’28 Haid, ’43 Hallett, and ’23 Miller.

On the offensive side, I figure my big three will carry the load and I just needed to protect them with high-value options who could help pick up the offensive slack in the back half of the line up. With the leftover budget I had left, this led me to ’19 Marte, ’87 Howard Johnson, ’95 Tettleton, ’17 Gonzalez, and fan favorite ’17 Mike Zunino. I was worried while building this team that many others would choose to pivot away from home runs and use players like Hamilton, Brett and maybe Tip O’Neill and I’d play most of my road games at Target Field or The Astrodome. I’m glad that doesn’t really seem to be the case. My cost split was roughly 69M on offense and 51M on pitching.

This Team Will Be Competitive If: The pitchers I drafted can properly suppress the home runs of some of the best home run hitters ever in a homerun friendly ballpark. I’m actually scared thinking about how this one could turn out, however, I think the ceiling could be high here if I did this right.

Confidence: C

140M: The Kersh of the Playoff Choke
Analysis: I tried countless builds of players who had 20+ seasons and couldn’t find anything that worked for me, with most not having enough pitching to support this cap level. I realized after a while my best bet was to find a modern pitcher with 15-20 seasons and just roster a bunch of him and figure out the offense. I built three teams I liked using Kershaw, Pedro, and Maddux. It was really close between the Pedro and Kershaw team, but I ultimately decided to role with Kersh. I had to roster eight of him, but with seven totally usable to elite seasons and a scrub 400K season, I was well on my way to a dynamic pitching staff. Add in ’15 Greinke and we were cooking with fire. I am tandem starting Greinke and my seven Kershaws that should make up almost all the innings I’ll need. Between those tandems and excellent seasons from ’16 Rich Hill and ’10 Hong-Chih Kuo, the pitching staff passed with flying colors.

The offense too seemed to come together pretty naturally. I’m rolling with a lineup of ’24 Ohtani, ’11 Kemp, ’08 Manny, ’19 Bellinger, ’23 Betts, ’22 Freeman, ’21 Seager/’13 Hanley, ’18 Muncy/’12 Hairston, and ’20 Smith/’17 Barnes. Not sure if that will end up being the best offense in the league, but should end up being more than serviceable. Hopefully they can do enough at Dodger stadium.

This Team Will Be Competitive If: My team can play spoiler to all the Tris Speaker teams out there. With Speaker being the heavy favorite in overall selections, I’m hoping the Kershaw will provide the left-handed kryptonite needed to slow those teams down. On top of that, I wouldn’t say my offense is too homer-happy, but squaring up against deadball era pitching on a regular basis could prove to be a challenge. Overall, I feel like this is a well-rounded roster with few holes and little wasted salary that should compete quite nicely.

Confidence: A-

Overall Prediction: I'll finish 25th and make Round 2 as an alternate after someone backs out due to time constraints.

Excited to get started and cheers to a great tournament!

Ok here is the guaranteed blueprint for finishing last. Read it and weep folks. The guided tour through an old person's addled brain.


70 mil league: 2010: A Space Oddity
Have I mentioned that I hate low cap leagues? I just don't get the same thrill out of watching my teams lose 2-1 as I do 13-12. Don't play them except here and always do poorly. Wanted a team with some speed and pop for when I am not at home. I am low on IP @ 1269 but hoping that playing in Petco will buy me a little bit of slack. Not worried about ABs @ 4966. Won't be on base that much to make a difference. I have 5 solid SP with Cahill, Latos, Hanson, Lilly and Carpenter. They had better show up because my bullpen is thin. Thinking 70 wins for this team

80 mil league: 28 A's = 1F
Really enjoyed making this team. Surprised I am the only one who went here. The lure of having a six pack of studs in Cobb, Foxx, Simmons, Speaker, Collins and Cochrane was just too tempting. I thought about some of the 2020's Dodgers but went here. Decent starting staff with Earnshaw, Quinn, Grove, Rommel and Ehmke should keep me in games playing in a neutral park. Hoping my IP @1423 is enough and the same with 5329 ABs as my bench is non-existent. We do have a nice L/R balance at the plate and whatever happens, this team will be fun. 84 wins

100 mil league: Running Redbirds 85-87
Name kinda says it all. I plan on giving catchers fits. With 5 switch hitters and over 300 sb in my starting lineup, we are not going to bash our way to the top. Over 5700 Abs should be plenty and 1547 IP will hopefully be enough. I went through several other options including 20-22 Dodgers, 94-98 Braves and the early 08-11 Cubs teams but I settled on the Cards. Don't feel too confident with this squad but I'll have fun. 76 wins

110 mil league: Old & In The Way
Just like many others, I had the realization that fielding in this era is going to suck. I also went with the best range (and fielding) players that I could afford. Almost everyone is B+ or better range, most A+. For my hitters, I went with high ab/contact guys who hopefully will have enough wheels to leg out some hits and then, let the hit and run begin. Add in my choice of the 86 Caruthers as the staff anchor and solid bat in the lineup, I should be able to manufacture some runs. Rounding out the staff is the three headed monster/tandem combo of 00 Griffith, 00 Waddell (needed a lefty somewhere) and the 89 Stivetts. Bullpen is solid with 88 Chamberlain as a solid long man/setup/spot starter and closers are the usual cookies Leever and Taylor. I am thinking 1489 IP might be a bit low but hoping that playing in a basically neutral park like West Side Grounds will temper the carnage. Think that 5721 ABs should be plenty.
87 wins

120 mil league: 3 Popeyes and A Bunch of Spinach
Didn't have to do too much thinking about this one. Knew that I wanted some switch/leftie good contact/ high OBP hitters to surround my big 3. Ergo 95 Boggs, 13 Daubert, 75 Singleton and 95 Weiss. Don't have much power but playing in Petco should suppress the homeruns anyway. I took Hamilton because of his D. I needed someone who could man the outfield between Ruth and Singleton. I wanted Mantle but couldn't afford him. a 125 or 130 mil cap would have changed everything.
For pitching, I knew I wanted SP with low bb/9 rates. Bonds, Ruth etc are going to get theirs but moonshots with noone on base are more tolerable. 93 Maddux, 2022 Nola, 2019 DeGrom, 2020 Darvish and even the weak link, 85 La Marr Hoyt, fit that bit. Darvish, Nola and DeGrom are also good K pitchers which should help. Bullpen is decent with 2024 Francis, 39 Dean, 2011 Uehara and 2017 Morrow. 1470 IP should be enough in Petco.
88 wins

140 mil league: Speakers Corner
Knew right away where I was going here. Just like in the 80 mil league, the lure of stacking my lineup from top to bottom with studs is just too captivating for me. Probably not a winning idea but I see that many others had the same idea as me. Filled out the 4 Speaker roster with the usual suspects Sewell, Burns, Gardner, O'Neill and a Stephenson/Bucky Harris combo. Very Left oriented but I'll live with it. D is more than acceptable for this era. Over 7000 ABs should ensure fatigue is not an issue
I figured there would be many Speaker teams, though I didn't plan on 10 in my league, so I knew I needed a couple of LH SP/ Ergo Lefty Grove and 1915 Babe Ruth, who has the added benefit of being a very scary pinch hitter. Rest of the staff are more of the usual suspects: 12 Joe Wood, 09 Cy Morgan and 08 Cy Young. Bullpen consists of 14 Ernie Shore as setup with O'Brien and Caldwell closing. Praying that 1766 IP is enough.
With so many Speakers in this league and so many fantastic owners, I feel the fate of my team, which I like btw, is going to be somewhat tethered to the vagaries of the SIM. Best guess:
83 wins

Prognosis: nowhere near good enough to make round 2 but hopefully good enough not to finish last.

$70M – The Awesome 1980’s
My methodology in dealing with caps with which I am unaccustomed, such as this one, is to estimate how much I want to spend on pitching, divide by the number of innings I want to draft, and then find a year with a bunch of starting pitchers in that $/IP band near the top of the quality range within the available years. I then take some pitchers who are a little worse than that to be long relievers, a few that are better to be short relievers, and then completely downgrade my entire pitching staff when I realize that I can’t draft the offense that I want and end up spending a couple of million less on pitching than I’d originally planned.

Step 1 of this exercise yielded a few likely candidates, mostly in the early-to-mid 80’s. When I saw that one of them was 1980 I stopped my search and started building my team. This was for several reasons:

1. Reggie Jackson. For my money, 1980 Reggie is the best value hitter of his era. I use him routinely in caps up to $110M, and he always produces. At $100M or $110M, even if he doesn’t hit for average or get on base (and sometimes he does), he always hits 30+ bombs and drives in 100+ runs. I’m looking forward to seeing what he’ll do @ $70M with no deadballers.
2. Johnny Wockenfuss. I seem to remember using him a few times in the early days of my participation on this site, which was, what, 20 years ago? I think he was decent. But that’s beside the point. The point is, his name is Johnny Wockenfuss. This is clearly the second-best catcher’s name of my childhood, trailing only the immortal Biff Pocaroba.
3. Vern “Ven” Ruhle. Several years when I was growing up, my family would take a 5 or 6 week trip to Portugal during the summer to visit my grandparents. They lived in a small village and, other than going to the beach once in a while (only “once in a while” because we weren’t really a big beach family) there was little to do. So one year I brought Strat-O-Matic baseball on the trip. I had no one to play with but my little sister, who at the time knew next to nothing about baseball, but we were so bored that she acquiesced. At one point we were choosing players and she said “I’ll take this guy…Ven Ruhle…” Of course, I LMAO and pointed out that his name was Vern, not Ven, but ever since then he has been Ven to me.
4. You don’t become a fan of a sports team when the team wins. You truly become a fan when they lose and you realize how much it hurts. I started watching baseball regularly in 1977. The Yankees won the World Series that year. The following year they won it again. In 1979, they were already having a lousy year when Thurman Munson died, after which the season hardly seemed to matter. But 1980... The 1980 Yankees were almost certainly the best Yankees team of my youth, winning 103 games in the regular season. Then they got to the ALCS and got steamrolled by George Brett and the Royals, after owning the Royals in the ALCS from 1976-1978. Then moronic hothead Steinbrenner fired manager Dick Howser, who had done a phenomenal job all year and later got his revenge by winning the 1985 World Series as manager of, as fate would have it, the Royals. The whole thing stung terribly: anger and pain and disbelief and the realization that life might not be fair after all. 1980 changed my sports fan life.

So what about this team? No idea. It’s $70M. Darned if I know what it’s supposed to look like. Reggie will rake. Jason Thompson (.314/.438/.517) and Ken Singleton (.300/.396/.477) seem like they’ll hit. Dave Collins (79/100 SBs) should run well if people skimped on catcher’s arms like I did (which they probably didn’t). Other than them the lineup is basically a Who’s Who of “Who’s that?” of the era. Wayne Gross. U.L. Washington. Jim Gantner. Alan Bannister. Jose Morales. I had all these guys’ baseball cards. In addition to the aforementioned Ven, the rotation consists of Britt Burns, Steve Rogers and an aging Vida Blue. The bullpen is even weaker. We’re playing in Anaheim, which won’t suppress Reggie’s homers but does decrease doubles and triples, which is fine because this team won’t hit many of those anyway.

Offense: 5393 PA, .293/.372/.447, 148 HRs
Pitching: 1284 IP, 2.89 ERC#, 0.51 HR/9+ (plus one mopup)


$80M – Los Angeles Dodgers 2021
I don’t quite know why, but I had a devil of a time coming up with a team that would twist well to $120M. I guess I just have trouble envisioning that a deadball era team can twist to an offense capable of scoring enough runs to win at that cap. I recognize that I’m wrong, which I’m sure will be proven to me mercilessly if I qualify for the second round, but I don’t see the world in such a way as to be able to assemble such a team. One of my myriad weaknesses in this game.

As an aside, I’m writing this in Microsoft Word, and I originally wrote “myriad of” rather than myriad, and Word pointed out that I might be incorrect. The Google confirmed that I was. So, while I don’t ever seem to correct my myriad weaknesses on this site, in this instance I corrected one of my myriad errors in vocabulary usage.

The only teams I built at $120M were the 2000 and 2005 Yankees, 1983 Phillies, and 2021 Dodgers. I liked the latter slightly better than the ’05 Yanks, so I built $80M teams for both and liked that Dodgers team better too so here we are. But looking at the list of chosen teams for this theme, my team is way too home run dependent. There are enough deadball era teams to give my squad some problems. I guess the fact that my team OBP# is only two points better than my $70M team’s should have been my first clue that something was amiss. And I drafted fewer PAs than on my $70M team. What the heck was I thinking? However, I do like my six-man rotation with each tandem alternating righty/lefty. So I got that goin’ for me, which is nice. Hopefully Dodger Stadium will hurt people who chose correct teams more than it hurts me.

Offense: 5368 PA, .283/.374/.494, 264 HRs
Pitching: 1331 IP, 2.68 ERC#, 0.56 HR/9+


$100M – Atlanta Braves 1997-1999
My anti-deadball myopia rears its ugly head again here, but at least here I seem to have a bit more company in that regard. The modern Dodgers, who for some bizarre reason I never considered despite having used one of the seasons for the $80M/$120M theme, were more popular that the late-90’s Braves, so I probably chose the wrong franchise. This team doesn’t have all that much of an offense. In fact, it’s only marginally better than that of my $80M team, albeit with more PAs and some better defense. But the pitching staff is much better. As it darned well better be. My teams all seemed like good ideas at the time, but right now they’re looking hopelessly mediocre.

Offense: 5459 PAs, .298/.377/.497, 223 HRs (not including pinch-runner Otis “My Man” Nixon)
Pitching: 1408 IP, 2.29 ERC#, 0.53 HR/9+ (not including LOOGY Alan Embree, who will probably not be used very often)


$110M – Belle Epoque
Belle Epoque, or the Beautiful Age, ran from 1871 to 1914. This theme encompasses the exact center of that era. And I really need this team to be beautiful, or else I’m in serious trouble.

I probably play more $110M themes than any other cap, and I’ve gotten a little better about using the 1800’s guys, so I think this team is OK. I mean, to be fair, a lot of these teams will be very similar. We’ll all have the same bullpens and are using a lot of the same players. My one anomaly might be my rotation, where I sacrificed a bit of pitching quality to get some hitting to try to turn the lineup over. Charlie Ferguson (.253/.346/.318) and Pete Conway (.275/.320/.377) are not mashers, but they should get on base about a third of the time, which I’m hoping will make a difference. I used League Park II so as not to restrain Sam Thompson’s and Duke Farrell’s prodigious (18 and 12 HRs respectively) power.

Offense: 5482 PA, .346/.413/.530, 71 HRs (plus two $200K guys)
Pitching: 1440 IP, 2.11 ERC#, 0.29 HR/9+ (plus one mopup)


$120M – Heavy Metal Poisoning
Ah, Styx. Kilroy Was Here is one of those records that was amazing when you were thirteen but cringeworthy now. Alas.

I, along with a lot of other people, chose Ruth and Bonds as two of my studs. My third choice, Brett, was far less popular. This is totally understandable given his low PAs. I guess I like Brett because he’s a lefty, can be used as a defensive replacement in games he doesn’t start (which is sort of “bonus usage” because you get his defense without having to spend any PAs), and if you happen to make the postseason you can start him every game. More likely, I’m still so haunted by his single-handed annihilation of the Yankees in 1980 that I just assume that no one in the sim can get him out either. In hindsight I think Hornsby and Hamilton were better choices.

Obviously, spending so much on 3 players leads to weaknesses elsewhere. My strategy was to fill the rest of my lineup with high-BB guys, in the hopes of running up pitch counts and getting the soft underbellies of necessarily skimpy, shallow bullpens. ’60 Ashburn, ’95 Weiss, ’05 Miller Huggins, that sort of thing. I’ve tried this sort of strategy before. It rarely works. My pitching staff looks like what I’d use in a $110M theme where I want to concentrate on hitting. Wolff/Schilling/Horlen/Braxton, Tom House and Stu Miller setting up Manship. I put this team in Safeco Field. I wish someone could tell me why, because I don’t have the foggiest idea. Maybe if Ruth and Bonds were my only two HR hitters it might’ve made some sense, but I also rostered Grandal and Nick Johnson with 23 HRs each. I don’t know.

Hitters: 5459 PA, .306/.440/.506, 186 HRs (aka, too many to use Safeco)
Pitchers: 1423 IP, 2.01 ERC#, 0.39 HR/9+ (plus one mopup)


$140M – Maddux Table
This team name is a reference to the song Maddox Table, a deep cut from the major-label debut album The Wishing Chair by the band 10,000 Maniacs. I became a big 10KM fan in college, and The Wishing Chair is my favorite of their records. It was the final album of the Natalie Merchant era that featured guitarist and composer John Lombardo, who I consider to be a creative genius and who successfully counterbalanced Natalie’s uber-ego to create a unique sound and style. They likely had to split ways in order for the band to become mainstream enough to achieve financial success, but to my ears this came at an artistic cost. TWC is an amazing album for its era; for example, young alternative rock bands didn’t cover traditional folk songs such as “Just as the Tide Was A-Flowing” back in 1985. It just wasn’t done. When John left 10KM he joined with fiddle player Mary Ramsey to release two fine albums under the name John & Mary. Mary later played on a few songs of the final Natalie-era 10KM album, Our Time in Eden. When Natalie left 10KM both John and Mary re-joined and have continued to tour and record under the 10KM name, though with less than stellar results. Much like my teams in this tournament will likely have.

If it had not been mandated to refer to your key player in your team name, I would’ve likely called this team “Deadball Myopia 3: Electric Boogalee” and you wouldn’t have to have read a long, boring paragraph about some random band from eons ago. Because, even though I drafted a Tris Speaker team (along with teams for Bonds, Ruth, Wilhelm, Big Unit, Musial, Frank Robinson, Manny Ramirez, Lajoie, Mariano Rivera, Eddie Collins, Quinn, Mays, Cy Young and Pujols), I chose Maddux because his team’s OPS# was equal and his team’s ERC# was superior. This completely ignores the fact that the Maddux team’s high OPS is primarily due to home runs, while the Speaker team had a much higher AVG and OBP, which will play better here. I’m not 100% sure that I made the wrong choice, but dismissing Speaker out-of-hand is indicative of my overall weakness as an owner. I did luck out in two regards: my league has fewer deadball teams than the others, and more Kershaw teams. Kershaw might be a great choice, maybe even better than Maddux, and I never considered him because I didn’t make it far enough down the season list. But he’s a lefty, and most of my lineup is righthanded, so they might do relatively not horribly against him.

Offense: 6100 PA, .316/.390/.557, 308 HRs
Pitching: 1500 IP, 1.76 ERC#, 0.34 HR/9+ (plus one mopup)


Summary:
Before writing this, I figured I’d likely finish in the neighborhood 21^st – 28^th place, on the cusp of qualification for round two. That still might happen, but I’m now more pessimistic, and would not at all be surprised if I ended up around 40^th – 45^th.

Thanks to redcped for running this whole shebang, to ronthegenius and jtpsops for being league commissioners, and to schwarze for helping out with roster verification. Fun time as always. Good luck, everyone.

Another A+++ effort by barracuda. He solidifies himself as the absolute best at these entertaining writeups.

BTW any feedback, either public or private, on my team building strategies, is always welcome. There are many many incredibly smart owners in this tourney and I can learn much. I play for fun because at my age, that's what it is all about. Good luck to all.

Some of the commissioners set up the league to randomly align automatically. When I was commissioner, I would turn that option off, and random align manually.

The automated random alignment happens when the schedule is generated

I love reading all of your strategies and write ups that all of you WIS Champs post. It really does amaze me at how well you guys do playing in these leagues.
Myself, I just love reading the names and play guys that I have enjoyed watching in the past.
I don't mind my overall record being so bad, I just really enjoy playing.
" Best of luck to you all"

For the 70m league I went with good pitching but I'll definitely lack AB and offense.

For the 80M league i went with a team that had Stan the man Coveleski and I think it should do ok.

For the 100m league I went with the Indiens of the 50s combine decent pitching and position players

For the 110m league I filled the important positions first and then filled the rest to accommodate the years left.

For the 120m league I went with the 3 cheapest 15m players eexcept for Brett because why spend 15m on player that will have to sit out 10-15 games. I went with Billy Hamilton, Bonds and the Babe.

For the 140m league I went with 8 Pedros and took the best player from every teams season he played for. My bullpen is a mystery tho.

All in all I ttried to keep it simple because I'm still familiarizing myself with the older players and teams. I went with what I know, didn't work last year so why not try it again lollll

Good luck to all

Ben

I was finally in the process of reading the classic novel "1984" by George Orwell for the first time when the WISC Round 1 theme reveals were announced.

As has become my custom, my first step is to do some traditional research into the musical highlights of a specific year. The first thing I see is the $70mm theme is a single-season soup theme and 1984 is within the eligible range. There was never a doubt where this team-building journey would lead.

70mm -1984

How convenient that Van Halen released an album simply entitled 1984. Any theme with a salary cap below $80mm for me is a pretty formula build with pretty much equal amounts used for hitting and pitching. Furthermore, I pretty much try to use very balanced $/PA and $/IP throughout the entire roster.

Some roster highlights:

Courtesy of the novel: Both the protagonist (Smith), pitcher Dave Smith, and the primary antagonist (O'Brien) 1b Pete O'Brien.

Courtesy of the album: Ben Oglivie (born in Panama) and John Tudor (Hot For Teacher) - I know, this class has to spend a little more time on spelling,

General: 1984 was pretty generous with the amount of switch hitters that could be considered so that was a lucky plus. I rostered 4 of those as main starters (Wally Backman, Chili Davis, Spike Owen and Butch Wynegar). Pitching was also pretty uniformly crappy with manageable HR/9 allowed levels.

Finally, the actual 1984 All-Star game was held at Candlestick Park in SF. I had some work colleagues who were going to the game and we had a little one-game fantasy betting pool the day of the game. During the process, I predicted that George Brett would hit a home run off of SP Charlie Lea, and that actually happened. Both Brett and Lea are represented here and of course, we are playing at Candlestick.

80mm - Prince's 2002 Twins

The novel depicts a society that has experienced a Revolution and the Party is in total control of all aspects of life.
There was indeed a significant Revolution impacting the year 1984 in music . The soundtrack to "Purple Rain" by Prince and the Revolution was the number one album on the charts beginning 8/4/84 (for all of you numerologists) and remained there for 22 weeks straight through the entire rest of the year. The film took place in Prince's hometown of Minneapolis and the plot revolved around competitive local bands.

It just so happened that Catcher Tom Prince played 3 seasons for the Twins (2001-2003). What could be more perfect. At first, 2001 seemed to be the most appropriate of these seasons to use, with the correlation of another piece of futuristic fiction, the film of the same name. However, even though the rosters were pretty similar, 2002 also featured Mike Jackson. 1982 "Thriller" occupied the top spot in the album charts for the first 15 weeks of the year.

Roster highlights:

Of course, both Tom Prince (1998) and Mike Jackson (1999) made the team.

From the film: The leader of the rival band (Morris Day) is represented by 2b 1999 Warren Morris

This theme offered another degree of flexibility by allowing any sub-300k players and I took advantage to add these 3.

1971 Willie Smith - Not so much for the 1984 character but more so for another Prince, the Fresh Prince of BelAir.
1909 Claude Ritchey of the Boston Doves because there will be a lot of crying in the clubhouse as a result of the inevitable lengthy losing streaks.
1999 Steve Decker - Since we were talking about the Party, we had to find a cheap date from the appropriate season.

We did not use David Ortiz but plan to do so in .......wait a minute, don't even think about Round 2. Let's NOT Get Crazy.

100mm - 1902-04 Cleveland Three Year Plan

On 6/24/1903, Earl Moore shut out the Washington Nationals while pitching for the Cleveland Naps. That Cleveland team would eventually become better known as the Indians.

Speaking of India, on that exact same day Erich Arthur Blair was born in Matihari. Blair would eventually become better known as George Orwell.

Using that date as a midpoint, we checked out the 1902-1904 Cleveland Blues/Naps. The public policy of the Party in the novel was summed up as a series of Three Year Plans and this 3-year plan was meant to be.

Roster highlights:

1902 - Charlie Hickman and Bill Bradley on offense and cookie Bill Bernhard pitching.

1903 - 6 of 9 pitchers are from this season including Addie Joss and Earl Moore.

1904 - Nap Lajoie's stud season helped fill the minimum yearly salary component.

Very pleased to have rostered both 1b 1904 George Stovall and his Big Brother 1903 pitcher Jesse.

110mm - The Smiths

Keeping in mind that the hero of the novel is named Smith, we cannot resist including the band from Manchester, the Smiths, who released their first album in 1984 simply called The Smiths

Roster highlights:

5 players named Smith: 1896 OF Elmer, 1899 C Aleck, 1899 2b Heinie, 1890 pitcher Edgar (EE) and 1888 pitcher Phenomenal

This is too easy. How can we complicate this build? Let's see if we can get the band members in:

1891 Bill Joyce can work for drummer Mike Joyce
1891 Lefty Marr can work for guitarist Johnny Marr
1894 Tim O'Rourke is pretty close to bassist Andy O'Rourke
But what about front-man and lead vocalist Morrissey? There is a pitcher, Frank Morrissey, who has a 1902 season. There is a 2b, Jack Morrissey, who has a 1903 season. Tantalizingly close but no cigar. However, there IS a "Morris, E", as in Ed Morris that technically qualifies. That 657 IP 1886 year would definitely create a totally unmanageable situation but "hey, that's what we do". 1886 Ed Morris it is.

Starting pitching is 1886 Ed Morris, 1888 Cannonball Titcomb and 1885 Lady Baldwin
Revievers are 1885 Toad Ramsey, 1886 Phoneminal, 1888 Bill George (for George Orwell), 1898 Sam Leever 1898 Jack Taylor and 1890 EE Smith
Starting Lineup: C) 1887 John Kerins, 1b) 1896 Dan "Big" Brouthers and 1887 Bob Caruthers platoon. 2b) 1894 Heinie Reitz, 3b) 1900 John Mcgraw and 1891 Joyce platoon, SS) 1897 George Davis, OF) 1893 Billy Hamilton, 1895 Tuck Turner, 1896 Elmer Smith,

120mm - The Phisher King

The Fisher King is a character in the lore of King Arthur and the protection of the Holy Grail dating back to 12th century England, who is injured, perhaps in battle, and cannot procreate to extend the royal succession.

On 10/24/1984 after playing off and on for about a year as Blackwood Convention, the band rebranded as Phish and performed its first public gig as such. I had no idea that many of their early songs derived from a musical that Trey Anastasio co-wrote as a school project. Several recurring characters from this fictional world called Gamehenge find there way into the lyrics or titles of various songs.
There is also an extensive database which lists pretty much every setlist for shows they have done with cumulative stats extracted.

Roster highlights

My 3 albatross players are:

1886 King Kelly - because of the aforementioned Fisher King
1894 Billy Hamilton - because of the line of 4 prominent political Hamilton Fish's. In fact, Hamilton Fish II was reelected to the NY State Legislature in 1894
1922 Rogers Hornsby - When the Grateful Dead did their 50th-anniversary farewell gigs in Chicago and Santa Clara, both Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio and Bruce Hornsby were in this lineup. Bruce would occasionally display a 1963 Baseball Immortals bust of Rajah on his piano during his time with the Dead.

Some obvious choices:

1930 Showboat Fisher, 1982 Mike Fischlin and 1935 Frankie Frisch

1998 Tim Salmon, 2009 Mike Carp, 2021 Mike Trout, 1974 Catfish Hunter, 2022 Anthony Bass, 1989 Bob Kipper

Gamehenge characters

1945 Roger Wolff (known primarily for his hanging curveball)
2003 Wilson Delgado (Wilson is an evil king)
1983 Jim Morrison (the lizards are also a major character group so the Lizard King is in)

Based on song titles played live over 300 times

Chalk Dust Torture (played 515 times) - 1973 Dave Chalk
Possum (played 571 times) - 1920 Possum Whitted
Suzy Greenberg (played 451 times) - 1945 Hank Greenberg
Sparkle (played 333 times) - 1973 Sparky Lyle
Runaway Jim (played 406 times) - 1942 Jimmie Foxx (extra points since Jackie Fox was the bassist for the band the Runaways classic lineup)

Rounding out the roster;

2022 Sandy Aalcantara, 2013 Jose Fernandez and 2009 Nick Johnson from the Marlins
2018 Blake Snell and 2020 Ryan Sheriff from the Rays

playing in Land Shark Stadium

140mm - Kershaw's Riddle

English artist Nik Kershaw, released his best-selling album, The Riddle, in October of 1984. The UK release featured the song City of Angels, so pairing Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers was meant to be.

Hunting for enough pitching that I liked with other options was not immediately working out and I guess I could have tried harder. However, choosing Kershaw allows for/requires 8 different versions and for the most part the pitching side of the riddle is solved. And the musical connection is solid.

Not surprisingly, several other owners had the same idea as there are a total of 3 Kershaw teams including mine my division, 6 in my league. The thing about the structure of this theme is that there will be a lot of the same player versions, both Kershaws and teammates.

For the record, my 8 Kershaw seasons are: 2009, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2020, 2022 and $400k cheapo 2024. This gave me some room to add studs 2015 Greinke, 2016 Jansen and so-so 2012 Belisario.

As for the hitting side, my toughest choice was taking 2020 Will Smith as part of my platoon catching over any of a variety of stud relievers. But W Smith is the good guy in the book 1984 so why not?

I also took both 2021Trea and Justin Turner as obvious choices but secondarily as a tribute to one of the greatest comebacks of all time in the music industry. Tina Turner's Private Dancer ranked #2 on the 1984 album charts and it also includes a cover version of the song 1984 written by David Bowie. Maybe not the soundest strategy but "What's winning got to do, got to do with it?"

Chronologically rounding out my offense we have 2008 Manny Ramirez, 2009 Ronnie Belliard, 2010 Rod Barajas, 2011 Matt Kemp, 2013 Hanley Ramirez, 2017 Austin Barnes, 2018 Max Muncy, 2019 Cody Bellinger, 2022 Freddie Freeman, 2023 Mookie Betts at 2b and 2024 Ohtani as DH.

In Closing

Some teams may be competitve and some may not (looking at you $80mm and $110mm) but team building process has been a lot of fun.

Great themes

Games kick off in a little over 7 hours from now and I am sure we are all ready to "Embrace The Chaos"**

**This was the second release by the band Ozomatli. Very appropriate as we welcome the former champ back to the tourney.

Posted by calhoop on 6/28/2025 5:15:00 PM (view original):
I was finally in the process of reading the classic novel "1984" by George Orwell for the first time when the WISC Round 1 theme reveals were announced.

As has become my custom, my first step is to do some traditional research into the musical highlights of a specific year. The first thing I see is the $70mm theme is a single-season soup theme and 1984 is within the eligible range. There was never a doubt where this team-building journey would lead.

70mm -1984

How convenient that Van Halen released an album simply entitled 1984. Any theme with a salary cap below $80mm for me is a pretty formula build with pretty much equal amounts used for hitting and pitching. Furthermore, I pretty much try to use very balanced $/PA and $/IP throughout the entire roster.

Some roster highlights:

Courtesy of the novel: Both the protagonist (Smith), pitcher Dave Smith, and the primary antagonist (O'Brien) 1b Pete O'Brien.

Courtesy of the album: Ben Oglivie (born in Panama) and John Tudor (Hot For Teacher) - I know, this class has to spend a little more time on spelling,

General: 1984 was pretty generous with the amount of switch hitters that could be considered so that was a lucky plus. I rostered 4 of those as main starters (Wally Backman, Chili Davis, Spike Owen and Butch Wynegar). Pitching was also pretty uniformly crappy with manageable HR/9 allowed levels.

Finally, the actual 1984 All-Star game was held at Candlestick Park in SF. I had some work colleagues who were going to the game and we had a little one-game fantasy betting pool the day of the game. During the process, I predicted that George Brett would hit a home run off of SP Charlie Lea, and that actually happened. Both Brett and Lea are represented here and of course, we are playing at Candlestick.

80mm - Prince's 2002 Twins

The novel depicts a society that has experienced a Revolution and the Party is in total control of all aspects of life.
There was indeed a significant Revolution impacting the year 1984 in music . The soundtrack to "Purple Rain" by Prince and the Revolution was the number one album on the charts beginning 8/4/84 (for all of you numerologists) and remained there for 22 weeks straight through the entire rest of the year. The film took place in Prince's hometown of Minneapolis and the plot revolved around competitive local bands.

It just so happened that Catcher Tom Prince played 3 seasons for the Twins (2001-2003). What could be more perfect. At first, 2001 seemed to be the most appropriate of these seasons to use, with the correlation of another piece of futuristic fiction, the film of the same name. However, even though the rosters were pretty similar, 2002 also featured Mike Jackson. 1982 "Thriller" occupied the top spot in the album charts for the first 15 weeks of the year.

Roster highlights:

Of course, both Tom Prince (1998) and Mike Jackson (1999) made the team.

From the film: The leader of the rival band (Morris Day) is represented by 2b 1999 Warren Morris

This theme offered another degree of flexibility by allowing any sub-300k players and I took advantage to add these 3.

1971 Willie Smith - Not so much for the 1984 character but more so for another Prince, the Fresh Prince of BelAir.
1909 Claude Ritchey of the Boston Doves because there will be a lot of crying in the clubhouse as a result of the inevitable lengthy losing streaks.
1999 Steve Decker - Since we were talking about the Party, we had to find a cheap date from the appropriate season.

We did not use David Ortiz but plan to do so in .......wait a minute, don't even think about Round 2. Let's NOT Get Crazy.

100mm - 1902-04 Cleveland Three Year Plan

On 6/24/1903, Earl Moore shut out the Washington Nationals while pitching for the Cleveland Naps. That Cleveland team would eventually become better known as the Indians.

Speaking of India, on that exact same day Erich Arthur Blair was born in Matihari. Blair would eventually become better known as George Orwell.

Using that date as a midpoint, we checked out the 1902-1904 Cleveland Blues/Naps. The public policy of the Party in the novel was summed up as a series of Three Year Plans and this 3-year plan was meant to be.

Roster highlights:

1902 - Charlie Hickman and Bill Bradley on offense and cookie Bill Bernhard pitching.

1903 - 6 of 9 pitchers are from this season including Addie Joss and Earl Moore.

1904 - Nap Lajoie's stud season helped fill the minimum yearly salary component.

Very pleased to have rostered both 1b 1904 George Stovall and his Big Brother 1903 pitcher Jesse.

110mm - The Smiths

Keeping in mind that the hero of the novel is named Smith, we cannot resist including the band from Manchester, the Smiths, who released their first album in 1984 simply called The Smiths

Roster highlights:

5 players named Smith: 1896 OF Elmer, 1899 C Aleck, 1899 2b Heinie, 1890 pitcher Edgar (EE) and 1888 pitcher Phenomenal

This is too easy. How can we complicate this build? Let's see if we can get the band members in:

1991 Bill Joyce can work for drummer Mike Joyce
1891 Lefty Marr can work for guitarist Johnny Marr
1894 Tim O'Rourke is pretty close to bassist Andy O'Rourke
But what about front-man and lead vocalist Morrissey? There is a pitcher, Frank Morrissey, who has a 1902 season. There is a 2b, Jack Morrissey, who has a 1903 season. Tantalizingly close but no cigar. However, there IS a "Morris, E", as in Ed Morris that technically qualifies. That 657 IP 1886 year would definitely create a totally unmanageable situation but "hey, that's what we do". 1886 Ed Morris it is.

Starting pitching is 1886 Ed Morris, 1888 Cannonball Titcomb and 1885 Lady Baldwin
Revievers are 1885 Toad Ramsey, 1886 Phoneminal, 1888 Bill George (for George Orwell), 1898 Sam Leever 1898 Jack Taylor and 1890 EE Smith
Starting Lineup: C) 1887 John Kerins, 1b) 1896 Dan "Big" Brouthers and 1887 Bob Caruthers platoon. 2b) 1894 Heinie Reitz, 3b) 1900 John Mcgraw and 1891 Joyce platoon, SS) 1897 George Davis, OF) 1893 Billy Hamilton, 1895 Tuck Turner, 1896 Elmer Smith,

Great stuff! Bravo.

Thanks dvorr80. Much appreciated. You caught me before I could get everything posted.

Its intimidating to read some of these write ups. The amount of research time and analysis some of you use is truly impressive. With me, well, not so much. My teams are listed below in the order I built them.

$100M Three year dynasty. For no particular reason this was the first build I tried. It ended up taking a lot of time and ultimately involved the use of spreadsheets (never a good development for me). I started by picking my own brain about good teams that had some year to year turnover. When I hit on a likely suspect I'd do some preliminary draft center investigation of the available pitching and primary hitting. Came down to three choices. 2019-2021 or 22 Dodgers; mid-1975-77 Reds and 1909-11 Athletics. I partially built all three teams for comparison. The A's and Reds were a toss up for pitching but the A's hitting was by far the weakest. So I dropped them. The Dodgers had significantly better pitching and hitting. The Reds had more speed, better defense and Tom Seaver. My heart tugged me toward the Reds. My brain said go with LAD 19-21. I decided to go with my brain.... which is usually the last thing I think before disaster strikes. After the dust settled I noticed whole lot of people went with the Dodgers of this time period. So my question is what were you all thinking?

$110M Nineteenth Century. This was my next project. Addressing the pitching first I started with Tim Keefe and decided to pair him with Charlie Buffington. There's my rotation and 1000 of my IP. Because of the constraints of only 2 guys per year I skipped over some of the bullpen cookies most other people rostered. I did get Baldwin, Ramsey and Shaffer. The bad news is that is my entire bullpen. I've got over 1500 IP spread among 5 useable arms. This might be a train wreck. But, since it doesn't cost any extra, I'm choosing to be optimistic for now.

As for the position players, I tried to get some decent defense. G. Davis (B/A) Delahanty (B-/B) and Griffin (B/A) cover SS and 2/3 of the OF. McPhee (C/B-) and Dahlen (C/A-) are ok at 2d and 3d respectively. Weakest link in the defense is Carroll at catcher (C-/C+/C-) but who cares? Few if any of the deadball guys steal efficiently and he can really hit. In fact all the offense looks pretty good to me -- high OBA with significant pop.

The one thing I didn't do was consider rostering good hitting pitchers. Why? Well probably because I'm stupid. Its as good an explanation as any.

$140M Teammates. I approached this like a modified clone roster. Fortunately, I've built a lot of clone teams at various caps. Among the disappointments have been Maddux, Pedro, Kershaw, Mussina, Musial, Sheffield. Having learned from all those mistakes I started this mistake by narrowing the search field. I wanted someone who could contribute to the team over multiple seasons so I zeroed in on starting players with multiple good seasons and about 20 years of service time who preferably had very good deadball pitchers as teammates. I eyeballed Ruth (weak pitching), Lajoie (expensive), Collins and Speaker. Like so many others, I pretty quickly picked Speaker. He gives great offense and defense in 4 clones (all OF slots and out of position at 1B). Goslin DH's. Sewell at 2B, Foxx at 3B, Chapman at SS and O'Neill at C.

The 8 man pitching staff is Leonard, Young, Coveleski, Wood and Ray Collins along with short IP guys in Caldwell, O'Brien and Pape.

This looks like a good team to me. But as one of my law school professors once asked me, "who cares what you think?"

$120M Big Hitters. Like so many of you, my first instinct was to keep down the cost of the 3 ringers. That left 27 Ruth, Brett, Hamilton, 02 Bonds, 22 Hornsby and 32 Foxx. I was dissatisfied with all of them. Ruth and Foxx had so much of their slugging value in HR I was afraid the power suppressing strategies of my competitors would discount them some. Hamilton had too many PAs which you had to pay for. Bonds and Brett had too little. Hornsby and Foxx played positions (1B and 2B) where there are abundant other decent choices playable at this cap.

The end result is that I am one of the few people who picked from the next tier of ringers. I chose King Kelly because he is versatile and gets on base half the time. Instead of 27, I got 20 Ruth who is a monster at the plate and, in a different way, in the outfield. Oh well. At the last minute, I swapped out 01 Bonds for Mantle. Not sure why. Probably liked Mantle's glove and I've never had good experiences with Bonds. I kept imagining all that salary going to a guy who only walks. Like most of my decisions, it was probably a mistake.

As for pitching, I searched for the best low BB pitchers under $32,500 $/IP. How did I settle on Hacker, Farrell, Lee, Sutton, Guidry, Nolan, Fowler and Randy Tomlin from that group? Beats the hell out of me.

$80M Twist. I have a decent working knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of various franchises since 1900. So I didn't consider 1800 teams at all. I figured they would lack scrubs and be hard to fill them out. I also didn't consider a Dodgers team because I'd already done one and was tired of them. I came back to the 77 Reds from the dynasty league and built a great $120M offense. Unfortunately other than Seaver the SP would have been pretty weak at $120M. Tried the 27 Senators but other than Speaker, Goslin, and Johnson they didn't measure up at the higher cap either. As I browsed Baseball Ref I came upon the 1908 NYG. I pretty quickly liked everything about them. They had good pitching (only about 7 pitchers though) at both $80 and $120M. The hitting was surprisingly good, as was the defense (until I had to downgrade it to fit the lower cap). Nobody else took them so they'll probably implode. But it was fun building the team.

$70M Soup. I left them for last except for some preliminary scouting to come up with the year I wanted to use. I started building them on the last day and it went pretty good. The franchise soup aspect made it a simple puzzle. You just had to keep track of what you had used and what you had left. By 8 pm Monday night I was ready to enter them. Imagine my surprise when my chosen year was outside the permissible range. Reading really is a skill... one I haven't yet mastered. So it was back to the drawing board with very little time left.

My next instinct was to go with a 1980s team. I thought the strike year (81) was as good a choice as any. So I went with it. I was surprised and gratified to find it was a popular choice. Anyway, the pitching seems solidly above average for a $70M squad. Sutton, Honeycutt, Hooton and Ken Forsch are the SP. McGraw, Hrabosky and Tiant are my main bullpen guys. Raines is my best offensive guy. Singleton, Mayberry and Baines supply some power. Morgan and Hubie Brooks can get on base. Lance Parrish supplies a great glove and arm. My SS Dave Stapleton can do everything below average but he is cheap. The big weakness here is the defense, which is awful. Maybe the Astrodome will suppress errors along with homeruns. That's my plan anyway.

My best guess is this soup will be a hot mess.

My favorite read every year

70M: 1981 All Average Team, 5/6 (from most to least) in confidence
My first thought for this theme was 1981. I started putting a team together that was coming together somewhat but I thought I would look at all other years. I couldn’t make the 70s work and I thought 1988 looked good. I was able to cobble together an OK team but thought I’d try the 90s. I wanted to have more team options so I started looking at 1993 and on but couldn’t even get a decent start. I gave up and looked at the early 90’s and 1992 stuck out to me. I put together the pitching staff and starting lineup and compared it with the 1981 and 1988 teams. I was surprised to like the 1981 team more. Bob Knepper is my ace and Pedro Guerrero is my top bat. This team doesn’t give up many HRs and should hit a decent amount so I put them in my favorite park of all time due to all my memories there from my youth – Riverfront Stadium.

80M: 1910 Cleveland Naps, 6/6 in confidence
I started with the ‘40s Cardinals but couldn’t get any to work. I then went to the deadball area and tried early Red Sox/Americans teams, Athletics, Pirates and Naps teams. I’m partial to the Naps because they have (by far) my favorite team name of all time but they ended up giving me the best combination of an 80M team and 120M team. I didn’t spend much time on this one and boy it shows. I had remembered that I had finished it and I remembered incorrectly. I just looked back at it yesterday (after the deadline to change had passed) and I’m not sure what I was thinking. Low PAs and not nearly enough innings for a 108 park (1504 with over 130 being under 300K mop-ups). This will be the team that is voted most likely to wreck my season. I’m going to have to abuse my mopups to have any chances. That will probably meaning purposefully tanking several games. I like some of the pieces (Joe Jackson, Roger Peckinpaugh, Elmer Flick, Nap Lajoie, Addie Joss, Cy Young) but I’m too dependent on my three starters and only have two other pitchers not counting the scrubs.

100M: 20 – 22 Dodgers, 2/6 in confidence
Without doing any research, I thought the best option would be centered around the 2020 Dodgers. I put together the framework of a team and then started looking at other teams (1902ish Naps and Pirates, 1940s Cardinals, 2020ish Braves, etc.) and none came close to the Dodgers because of the dominant pitching. I see that this was the longest build for most but it was average with me. Maybe that just means I didn’t put enough time in it.

110M: Rangy Iron Gloves, 1/6 in confidence
This was the easiest build (less than an hour) and maybe it was too easy. I went with a rangy infield of 1889 Brouthers (D+/A-), 1887 Sam Wise (D, A+), 1894 Dahlen (D+/A+) and 1899 Jimmy Williams (D+/A+). Notice a theme? It was like I was back in one of Ozomatli’s themes when he was running this tournament where we were restricted to fielding % above D+ except I actually did this all on my own. If I don’t lead the league in errors, it’s not from lack of trying. They’ll be able to get to everything but won’t be able to do anything with it. It reminds me of the story Tommy Lasorda told about when the Dodgers were trying to turn Guerrero into a third baseman and Steve Sax was struggling throwing to first base. I read his book and he said he was really frustrated at the time (Please forgive me if it isn’t exact but I read a bunch of versions with all being slightly different):
Tommy: ‘Pedro, when you’re in your fielding stance and the batter’s at the plate, what are you thinking?
Pedro: ‘Don’t hit it to me’.
Tommy (exasperated while some players are laughing): ‘Is there anything else you’re thinking?
Pedro: 'Don’t hit it to Saxxy either’.
It’ll be like that but with everyone on my team. The only regular above a D+ range is my overachieving CF 1897 Mike Griffin (C/A+). But he’s doing some heavy lifting being next to 1900 Elmer Flick (D/D+). All that said, this is the team I have the most confidence in, misguided as it might be. Oh – and I had read that this theme didn’t have any roster mistakes. I think that’s only because Ronthegenius didn’t tell on me as he saw I somehow messed up on one of my scrubs. It was an easy fix but I still felt shame….

120M: Odell is a distant fourth, 4/6
I zeroed in on Jimmie Foxx and Babe Ruth right away as they were some of the cheaper options. I then looked at Billy Hamilton, Rogers Hornsby, Mickey Mantle and Tip O’Neill. I decided that Hamilton didn’t provide enough punch and I wanted my big three all to have high slugging. I liked Tip more than Mickey but I’ve found in the past with these kind of leagues that cheape is better as it makes a big difference with the rest of the lineup. So I went with Rogers Hornsby even though I like better range in the middle infield. I put together a team I liked and then didn’t look at it again until I was ready to submit my teams. Hornsby was still bothering me so I looked at all the options again. I had never used a SF version of Bonds before in any league and didn’t even consider him the first time around. I ended up picking Bonds over Hornsby and I like the team better. I have a good IF defense and 1975 Billy North covering a lot of ground in CF. My pitching staff cost under 47M but they give me 1504 innings with only 60 HRs and a 1.04 WHIP. 1976 Randy Jones and 1968 Gaylord Perry are my aces and I round out my starting rotation with a platoon. My relievers, led by 2003 Mariano Rivera, should be decent. I put them in Riverfront Stadium so I’m hoping to hit more HRs than I give up and I’m counting on this team to sniff the playoffs.

140M: Kentucky Speak-Easy, 3/6 in confidence
This was easily my favorite them and, like a child, I spent the most time on the theme I most enjoyed. My first thought was Stan Musial but I couldn’t get the pitching to work and the team came in too cheap. I looked at Rivera and Gossage but couldn’t get close to the salary. I then tried a Tris Speaker team and they looked decent. I tried Cy Young and came up with a team I liked more than any others to that point. I really, really wanted a Lave Cross team to work but couldn’t get a 2B or SS I liked for that salary cap. I tried Quinn, Wagner, Pennock and Deacon McGuire and couldn’t get a complete team. Nap Lajoie worked but I didn’t like the pitching enough, was too right handed and felt I was wasting too much salary if I used his 1901 season. My favorite attempt was an Ed Delahanty team and, if he hadn’t taken a dive into Niagara Falls when he still had some quality seasons left, he probably would have been my pick. I just couldn’t work around trying to use 9 seasons with no scrub seasons. So I decided on Cy Young but then, since I had both in the draft center, I compared the Young and Speaker teams. I liked the Speaker overall defense better but it was still basically a toss-up. I went with Speaker and I see I was no trend setter. That said, I’m surprised there wasn’t any Cy Young teams. I am in a league with a bunch of Speaker teams and a division with a Kershaw team but I still think this team will be pushing hard for the playoffs.