Current top 9 regular season win pct in Barnstormers

Now that you are trying - in time for Event 5 - sadly things don't look so good for your initial draft so far:

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1491488

Not sure where you finished in waivers, not sure who you missed besides Marichal. Different story than the 140M draft where you had something like eight round 4 or earlier picks. Apart from Vaughn and Mauer looks like you have no position players worthy of being drafted in the first six rounds of a live draft.

You're going to need quite a few adjustments there. Most likely you'll have to drop this team and use your other five teams for your totals. Let me know if I can help!

The DH setting dictates the staff. I promise I will go with 4 big stars as long as it is DH. If no DH, 3 huge RP. You haven't won a WS since 2008. 10 years ago, it was AAA ball, not major leagues. One could use a tiny staff of 3m SP and make playoffs consistently. I know, I lived through it. See cristano teams of 2012-2015. Once managers smartened up, these tiny SP teams aren't as effective. I remember the days where 6+ teams either had 8 lefty batters or 8 righty batters. Those small SP could own those teams. That just doesn't happen anymore.

For both my 200m and 140m teams I missed on everyone. Bad luck. None the less, I put together a couple playoff worthy teams. Which is saying a lot, since 140m and 200m caps in an auto draft setting are 80% PURE LUCK. Live draft with those caps = skill. Autodraft = nonsense = coin flips.

For 200m team, starting players not on draft card: Mauer, Giambi, Cash, Hodges, Stennett, Brosius, Wells, TWilliams, Snider, Robinson, Walker, Juan Gone. I can't complain that I got Mauer after missing on Gibson, Williams after missing on Bonds, Snider on a Charleston miss, Walker after missing on Ruth. For Starters I got Russ Ford and all my RP off draft card misses or waivers. This amazing 200m team was mostly boys off waivers.

Now the 140m, I missed on *everyone*. Players on my team who were on my initial draft card: PAlexander, Walsh, Mauer, Vaughan, Wilhelm. All but those 5 I got via draft card misses or waivers, and I shouldn't even count Wilhelm since I ranked him 20+ on my card.

As for my 107 win 60m team, the complete opposite. 60m is straight away skill. I hope the finals this year are 60m. I could draft a 60m team post waivers in any league and win 100 games. I love 60m. Who did I get that I needed on this team? Everyone is replaceable with someone almost as good as him. Maybe my 107 wins trickles down to 100, but it is all relative.

Both teams are going to make playoffs in spite of a lousy draft card. For the 140m team, worst draft card I've ever had and I still made a playoff team. Had you not written this post calling out my win percentage, I would have spent 15 minutes post draft on each of those teams. Instead, I spent 4 or 5 hours per team, combed the waivers, broke down the other teams, and probably added 10 wins to each team in doing so. Difference between trying and not trying. If I don't try I can play somewhere in the top 9. If I try, I am finishing 1.

I'll attempt to respond to each point you made.
The game has certainly evolved over the past decade. But I would argue that it was harder to win the BS championship back then as there were so many fewer cards. With the cards we have now, so many more strategies are possible and it is really easy to recover from a bad draft as your 200M team demonstrates. That definitely did not used to be the case. I do agree that the competition for the finals is stronger than it was back then and the overall quality of play higher. But, if one grants your point that ATG was AAA ball back then, still you didn't do all that well at that level. Bruce Foster's success in the earlier part of this decade does show how the platooning at nearly every position with Mazzilli, Ken Smith etc used to work very well but no longer does. So we agree on that point. I append an example from the current tournament when he was in my league to illustrate it not working nearly as well anymore. http://365.strat-o-matic.com/league/436861.
It is an absolute myth that 140M and 200M auto drafted leagues are "80% pure luck." Back in ATG III, that was the case IMHO. But now there are enough players in the pool that anyone can concoct a playoff contender regardless of how bad your draft was. However, there remains a great deal of luck in getting the top players. I am currently in the playoffs against a 160M team that had an identical regular season record. http://365.strat-o-matic.com/league/437141 But he managed to snag Gibson, Mantle and Bonds in the autodraft. WTF! Having to face 3 of the top five players in the game on one team does show the luck element present at these drafts and that is discouraging. The question though is why didn't you live draft your 140M and 200M teams if you acknowledge that live drafts are pure skill? I live drafted the 200M team but not the 140, but that was only because the live draft crashed three days before the BS draft was scheduled for.
While you recovered very well at 200M from your poor draft -although if you had
Bonds, Ruth and Gibson as your top three - it is no wonder you got hammered in the draft. I'd say that bad draft was your own fault, the odds of getting more than one of those guys are not very good at all. I still maintain that your 140M team is just not very good, despite your combing through the available player lists for hours post draft. We will see whose evaluation is correct.
Assuming I can eke out one more championship which should guarantee me a spot in the finals: even if not I appear likely to make it even if I crap out in every remaining playoff game, I will be voting for 100M dh again, to give you the chance to reprise your 4 aces, no-pen strategy. Should be interesting with me playing in Fulton. Your strategy may work if the main competition is in small ball, but on the road in bomber parks, your 4 aces are likely to not make it out of the sixth inning, as often as not. "Till then.