Overview:
Something I have really come to appreciate in my three years running this tournament (with a lot of help, but still it’s a good bit to manage) is that having to get all your teams done first is not in any way an advantage. In order to open up all the leagues, you need to lock in your choices earlier than basically anyone else does. That means cutting a couple corners and tinkering less. Anyway, that’s my excuse for any disappointing performance and I’m sticking with it. Of course falling short of R2 would be pretty awful, since there’s nothing fun about running a round you can’t participate in or even follow carefully. Let’s hope I mostly chose well.
70M
Bulldog and the 88ers
For reasons I’ve probably explained here and there but you’d have no reason to remember, I have a soft spot for the 1982 season. It stems from replaying the 1982 season using Statis-Pro Baseball over a span of several years. Well, I only replayed the NL and tinkered around with the AL a bit. Point being, I really know the players well and have a lot of favorites from my season. So of course that’s where I started and managed to build a team I could live with.
After that, I worked my way through the seasons, starting at 1977, to see if I could make a better team. I got all the way to 1988 and decided I liked that one better. I’m not sure why precisely, because some of the team stats like SLG are a good bit lower, but I think it mostly had to do with speed. I aimed to build a low-homer, high-speed team to stick in the Astrodome and not worry too much about using pitchers who have higher HR rates.
This is a very fast lineup, with 4 regulars over 90 (Rickey Henderson, Tim Raines, Gary Redus and Cecil Espy) and only one below 79 (the catchers). Plus they stole at an 80% rate so I can definitely push them on the bases (Rickey stole 93 out of 106). Also, I’ve got 4.5 switch hitters among the regulars, which doesn’t suck.
Orel Hershiser heads the rotation, because how could I not? I mean, I had to forgo Kirk Gibson to do it so you know that was a tough call. At least there were other good value OF to fill his hobbled knees. Tom Browning and Mike Moore will appreciate the Dome but maybe struggle on the road, and John Farrell completes the rotation because someone had to. The pen features Mike Henneman and a few guys with limited innings. You have to push the IP envelope in a 70M league, so I’m going with 1290 including 63 pretty bad innings for LR and Mop duty.
Actual Batting: 5375 PA, 84 HR, 305-75 SB-CS, .273/.338/.389 $38,400,571
Actual Pitching: 1,290 IP, 3.29 ERA, .236 OAV, 1.16 WHIP, 0.83 HR/9 $31,555,841
80M
Tanyon Sturtze’s 2005 Yankees
I don’t know if this was the right approach or not, but I actually started by looking for teams that could provide a good starting rotation for R2 at 120M. I went through a lot of rosters trying to find combinations of 3-4 top-notch SP who were in a rotation together. I figured it wouldn’t be too hard to find a permutation of the same guys that worked at 80M. I know it’s far from assured I’ll get there, but I needed to make sure I could field a strong team if I do.
What I consistently ran up against with any of these teams is that it’s hard to find a single team that A) had that many SP with outstanding seasons together at once and B) also has decent hitting or a bullpen. I tried a lot of deadball teams that had great pitching combos but it would be very challenging to assemble a good 120M offense out of. I was concerned that more than a few owners would go that route and neuter a modern homer-friendly offense, but I didn’t land on any deadball team I felt could work at both caps.
I’d say my 3 finalists wound up being the 1965 Giants (Perry, Marichal and Spahn), the 2000 Yankees (Gooden, Clemens, Cone and Pettitte) and the 2005 Yankees (Big Unit, Mussina, Kevin Brown). I finally settled on the 05 Yankees because of a better set of relievers and more hitters I liked at both caps. The biggest compromise comes at the back of the rotation where I will have to make do with Al Leiter as SP4, but I don’t think he’s gonna kill me there.
I’ll use 1993 Johnson (2.57 ERC#), 2003 Brown (2.54), 1994 Mussina (2.81) and 2000 Leiter (2.91) for this round. The bullpen options are plentiful, and I of course have a Mariano flanked by the likes of Tom Gordon, Steve Karsay, Buddy Groom and Mike Stanton. Carl Pavano will do some long man/spot start work. I also have Paul Quantrill and Alan Embree available for R2, where they have quality seasons that complement a stud Rivera and the really good 04 Gordon relief season.
The offense has a lot of big names and a few possible permutations for me in both rounds. For this one I’ll go with an infield of 2003 Jason Giambi (.913 OPS#), 2004 Tony Womack (.713), 1996 Derek Jeter (.757) and 2004 A-Rod (.857). For R2, I have Robinson Cano to upgrade at 2B and also the option of Tino Martinez if I want to DH Giambi. 2004 Jorge Posada (.850) handles the bulk of the catching.
For this round the outfield will have 1999 Gary Sheffield (.898), 1996 Bernie Williams (.882) and a trio headed by 2017 Melky Cabrera (.750) and 1992 Ruben Sierra (.784). No spot for a Hideki Matsui this round, but he could make it in R2 if I decide to play Sheffield at 3B and A-Rod at SS and ditch The Captain. Hopefully, I get to make that choice. At least I know I can put together solid balanced lineups with a little speed and decent defense at both caps, and we will all know the deadball/modern composition of R2 advancers and can adjust our lineups to whatever degree possible. Certainly the Yankees had other guys through the years who were pretty tempting, but I felt like this one worked the best for all facets at both caps.
I did wind up using 3 players on the sub-300K exception, including a mopup. I could have used a couple other Yankees who had really awful 200K seasons, but since we had the flexibility I got slight upgrades to the bottom of the bench.
Actual Batting: 5456 PA, 202 HR, 103-33 SB-CS, .290/.379/.474 $40,031,934
Actual Pitching: 1,391 IP, 2.96 ERA, .231 OAV, 1.15 WHIP, 0.75 HR/9 $39,964,913
100M
Heinie Heitmuller’s 1909-11 Athletics
To say I built a lot of teams for this theme would be an understatement. I found plenty that “worked” with the limitations, but I wasn’t sold on them for one reason or another. Some I started, couldn’t make a pitching staff worked, and gave up on (Big Red Machine fell into this category). Some I couldn’t find enough offense even though I loved the pitching (e.g., The Aughts Cubs). Others I worked my way through to a full 25 just to make comparisons among compliant rosters.
Here’s an incomplete list of teams I built at least pretty close to completion:
1896-98 Orioles
1904-06 Giants
1914-16 White Sox
1909-11 A’s
1995-97 Braves
1967-69 Orioles
1970-72 A’s
2015-17 Dodgers
2020-22 Dodgers
1942-44 Cardinals
1927-29 Yankees
2017-19 Astros
1937-39 Yankees
1919-21 Indians
1919-21 Giants
I can’t recall all the reasons I rejected these teams, but no doubt a lot of you tried a great many of them (or adjacent years), too. I only see a couple teams in my league that I didn’t try at all, but you know there’s over 140 seasons’ worth of possibilities so kudos to those who figured out something others of us might have overlooked.
How did I finally come to land on the 1909-11 Philadelphia Athletics, you ask? You did ask, right? Well, I’m gonna tell you anyway because I ran the darn thing so I get to say my peace. Or is it piece? Or both?
The answer is the pitching staff of course, and if I’m being honest my concern of having a modern offense’s power neutralized if a lot of people draft similarly. When I looked at all my modern rosters, the common thread is that without the ability to hit homers they weren’t going to live up to expectations. And when you have to guess how often you’ll face deadball pitching but can’t afford for that number to be too high, you’ve already made your choice.
Once I pretty much talked myself out of using my favorite modern combinations, I tried a lot more deadball options to try to find the one I liked best. There’s still a lot I don’t love about these A’s, but there was enough to commend them.
On the plus side, I have 5 really good pitchers who will basically throw all the important innings: Jack Coombs and Chief Bender from 1910 and Harry Krause, Eddie Plank and Cy Morgan from 1909. That’s 1402 innings, and I just have to figure out how to use them effectively since all have at least 226 IP and it’s not easy to get that many out of a reliever. There are four other pitchers on the staff, but they’re just filler. Even with their 200 IP, the raw stats on this group are 1.76 ERA, .213 OAV, 1.04 WHIP, 0.05 HR/9.
The lineup is decent enough, with reasonable speed, L/R balance, a few dangerous bats, and tolerable defense. I mean sure I would have loved a stalwart set of gloves and a bunch more Eddie Collinses in there, but I think we can put up a few runs a game and let the arms do the rest. In addition to a very good 09 Collins, there’s a solid 11 Frank Baker and outfield of 10 Rube Oldring, 11 Danny Murphy and 11 Bris Lord that should be able to get Collins home occasionally. One third of the catching platoon can hit (11 Jack Lapp). Alas, 1B Harry Davis and SS Jack Barry can’t hit or field well, and that’s going to be frustrating. And the bench is fairly useless.
You know the more I write about this group, I can’t figure out why I wanted to use them exactly. Probably because all the other deadball teams had the same problems, and these guys formed a compliant lineup. Including scrubs, the raw stats are .298/.357/.409. They hit a decent number of triples and average doubles, and Shibe Park only favors singles.
The majority of my league went with modern rosters, so the proof will come in seeing if we neutralize them and scrape together a few runs of our own. Here’s hoping that works, because I have a long list of regrets up there to look at if it doesn’t.
Actual Batting: 5852 PA, 33 HR, 237-227 SB-CS, .298/.357/.409 $45,773,937
Actual Pitching: 1,601 IP, 1.76 ERA, .213 OAV, 1.04 WHIP, 0.05 HR/9, $53,892,659
110M
Dude Looks Like a Lady
I started this one with the pitching staff, selecting 1886 Lady Baldwin and 1888 Tim Keefe to pitch darn close to 9 innings each every other day. I’ll have a handful of low-inning guys able to fill in the final few outs as needed (mostly behind Keefe to make his IP work). I suspect a lot of us have similar pens (1898 Sam Leever, 1886 Phenomenal Smith, 1888 Bill George, 1891 Ted Breitenstein, 1898 Jack Taylor). I expect to see a variety of SP choices, but really it’s hard to go too wrong with a good handful of them. Baldwin and Keefe aren’t the top options, but they have ERC# under 2 and should be able to alternate starts all season. Everyone is a potential spot starter if fatigue hits a bit.
I went for contact hitters with great speed and good range for the most part. I think it’s kinda funny that my catcher, Buck Ewing, has 99 speed. You can’t really steal effectively with guys of this era, but you can be aggressive on the bases at least. Top hitters include 85 Roger Connor, 95 Jake Stenzel, 97 Hughie Jennings and 91 Billy Hamilton. I’m not sure whether to expect to see too many different approaches here, because I think this is just what you get a lot of in the 19th century. Tons of errors, not many homers, basically no strikeouts.
I built this team first, didn’t spend a ton of time on it and never went back to it. Let’s hope that wasn’t shortsighted.
Actual Batting: 5900 PA, 38 HR, 511-280 SB-CS, .327/.401/.450 $55,815,254
Actual Pitching: 1,455 IP, 2.06 ERA, .201 OAV, 0.98 WHIP, 0.16 HR/9 $54,172,285
120M
Billy, Babe, Jimmie and the Cheapies
The fun of this league is that you get something akin to an $80-90M roster surrounding the three hitters you pick depending on your choices. I figured we’ll get a lot of offense out of the big bats, so I spent a bit extra on pitching with the remaining salary to compensate. So I guess I’d call it a $100M league pitching staff with $80M-caliber hitters surrounding my big three.
The first choice here has to be your hitters so you know what salary you’ll have left. I went with three of the cheapest options so as not to hamstring the rest of my team too badly while still obviously getting a lot of quality: 1894 Billy Hamilton ($15.56M), 1927 Babe Ruth ($15.36M) and 1932 Jimmie Foxx ($16.66M). I don’t like Hornsby’s defense, Bonds always disappoints me, and I want my big 3 hitting 1-2-3 … so leading Hamilton off made sense despite the extra PA. That left about $72M for the entire pitching staff and the other 5 hitters, and I used $49M of it on the pitchers.
One strategy I went for in this league was to fill my bullpen with SP types to avoid in-game fatigue, so we’ll see how that works. I’ve had mixed results with it, but relievers are always a mystery anyway. Go read schwarze’s writeup and his season-long laments for more on that. I also looked to minimize walks and not be too generous with homers.
The rotation includes 1980 Jerry Reuss, 1942 Tiny Bonham, 2024 Tarik Skubal, and 2019 Jacob DeGrom. The bullpen (including spot starters) includes 1943 Howie Pollet, 1944 Joe Berry, 1981 Andy Rincon, 1990 Randy Tomlin, 1992 Dennis Rasmussen, 1967 Dick Bosman and 2014 Zach Britton.
So what did that leave for the rest of the lineup? Well, since there was no room for him on the $70M roster, of course I have 1988 Kirk Gibson filling out the outfield. I’m sure that’s a good move to use him in a league with a cap $50M higher … smh. What other cheapos did I enlist? How about low-cap superstar 2021 Whit Merrifield with a bunch of unnecessary PA? Sure, why not? Let’s toss in a couple switch hitters (Wally Schang and Rafael Furcal) and a mid 3B in 2015 Kris Bryant. Looks like a lineup to me now. Hamilton-Ruth-Foxx and a bunch of Hail Marys, basically.
Actual Batting: 5847 PA, 210 HR, 238-97 SB-CS, .310/.401/.518 $70,940,547
Actual Pitching: 1,438 IP, 2.30 ERA, .215 OAV, 0.97 WHIP, 0.54 HR/9 $49,056,191
140M
A Lavish Set of Speakers
So I started off just curious to see how hard it was to hit $140M with a roster that didn’t include someone with a huge salary or two. I decided on Clayton Kershaw for my first trial, and I really like what I wound up with. The pitching staff is 8 Kershaws, plus 2015 Zack Greinke and a couple stud RP. It really is a wonderful staff, one I couldn’t beat with any subsequent roster. The hitting is strong, in a very modern way. I couldn’t even find a way to roster Mookie Betts and it’s still really loaded. Being able to use 2024 Ohtani at DH doesn’t hurt, either.
The next roster I built was for Greg Maddux. I put together the other 23 teammates and then saw what was left for my two Maddux seasons, and I was able to use both 1994 and 1995, which is, you know, pretty good. It produces another strong modern offense, though the pitching around Maddux isn’t quite outstanding. Some of those early Cubs teams he was on didn’t have a lot of talent.
I built rosters around Babe Ruth and Frank Robinson and Pete Rose and wasn’t happy with any of them. Then I realized that maybe I was going to find my modern offense seriously hampered by deadball pitchers if we faced a lot of them. So I decided to see what I could come up with out of that era instead. I started with Honus Wagner, who gets you a fine pitching staff but not the deepest or speediest of lineups and of course all of Honus’ errors with him playing the whole infield. Great range, anyway.
Finally I landed on Nap Lajoie. You get a nice trifecta of SP in Addie Joss, Bill Bernhard and Vean Gregg, plus a decent enough SP4 in Willie Mitchell and a handful of decent but not overwhelming relievers. It’s a pitching staff with a couple soft spots but enough very strong innings to be competitive and of course neutralizing HR-based offenses (0.09 HR/9).
The real selling point here is the offense, though. It’s a bit of a puzzle to fit 4 Naps in there, but you get to surround him with the likes of Ed Delahanty (1.087 OPS#), Joe Jackson (1.052) and Elmer Flick (.989) in the OF. It’s a fairly RH-heavy lineup but it’s loaded (.358/.410/.528 raw stats, including scrubs). The two lowest AVG# in the lineup would be .320 and .322.
But … I’ve only spent $47M on pitching, which is less than either my 110M or 120M team. That’s bothersome enough that as I got to the end of the writeup I started to doubt myself and went looking for other options.
And with no reasonable explanation I can recall for not doing it sooner, I finally built a team around Tris Speaker instead. The main drawback is that Speaker is by far the best hitter on every team he played on, but you get four of him and there’s a few solid other guys to place around him so it works. It’s a more balanced lineup with better range and speed, plus it’s a better pitching staff. Good enough all around to make me pass up the awesome Lajoie lineup.
This team will feature Speakers (1923/1912/1916) across the OF with B+/A+/A- range and 1914 (with A+++ range) at 1B. I drafted 1926 George Burns (.872) and his 64 doubles thinking he would play 1B, but I think my best alignment is the A+++ Speaker at 1B instead of CF and just letting Burns DH; I suppose looking back I could have rethought this and taken someone whose defense was irrelevant, but at $140M I wasn’t really struggling to save money. And Burns should do really well in a +3 doubles park.
1917 Ray Chapman (.817) has A+ range at SS. 1928 Jimmie Foxx (.948) will primarily play 3B, but he could also serve as backup C, though with his 501 PA he’s going to miss a lot of games. I have another 3B and backup C who aren’t as good but won’t kill me. 1924 Glenn Myatt (.896) will catch against RHP. Second base is less than ideal, though, with half a season of 1923 Riggs Stephenson (.818) and 1927 Bucky Harris (.671) playing the rest of the time.
Including scrubs, the team has a raw slash of .334/.408/.478 with a boatload of doubles and triples playing in League Park (II), which is +2 for 1B and +3 for 2B while doing even more harm to HR hitters (-2).
The pitching staff will largely neutralize the HR ball anyway (0.07 HR/9 for 1556 IP), headed by 1914 Dutch Leonard, 1908 Cy Young and 1912 Joe Wood. I could have used Stan Coveleski if I didn’t use Chapman at SS and went with a weak-glove, better-bat Joe Sewell, but I don’t think I’ll miss him. I have 1910 Ray Collins and 1915 Carl Mays to fill in the rotation and handle long relief, plus 1919 Ray Caldwell, 1911 Buck O’Brien and 1920 Duster Mails for late-inning work. At $59M with better quality (1.70 ERA, .215 OAV, 1.00 WHIP) and more innings, this feels like a staff equipped for this cap.
I’ll always wonder how the Lajoie squad might have fared (and the Kershaw too, especially if HR wind up playing in this league). Something tells me I’ll see these teams in the league anyway and find out.
Actual Batting: 7414 PA, 70 HR, 246-174 SB-CS, .334/.408/.478 $80,456,944
Actual Pitching: 1,556 IP, 1.70 ERA, .215 OAV, 1.00 WHIP, 0.07 HR/9 $59,450,118