Chicago wins the Paramount Cup!

[conception]

I've got a league going that's been running for some forty years now. It's a no-trade, draft-heavy league with a salary cap that operates very similarly to the NFL. Players can only be acquired by drafting them or by signing them for typically big money in FA. This means constructing an ideal roster is pretty hard, especially if you usually field good teams as a late drafting position will keep top shelf talent out of touch, especially quality starting pitching. I spend the first 35 years of my league with the same organization but embarked on a new quest five game years ago, when I decided to take my hand on Chicago, a team that had never won the Cup.

Year one I drafted some good players and filled the roster with castoffs and stopgaps. Year two I signed some great talent to supplement what I found was a solid draft the year before. I didn't plan on signing so many free agents so quickly that year, but the talent that my draft brought in deserved complementing. The centerpiece of my team as Addergoole Sukarno, a supremely talented batsmen who had the ability to play SS and CF. He was the reason I picked the team that I did, the guy to build around that was impossible to draft without picking high. I had a high draft pick in my first season and I knew this team needed a top slugger or top pitcher. With no great pitchers available I chose Dale Cannon, a corner outfielder who rewarded me by hitting over 50 homers in a neutral park his rookie year.

Year two and three, my team won the division which, with only three teams making the playoffs per subleague (top team gets a bye). We were good, but lacked the frontline starting pitcher to win the series, and thus bowed out of the playoffs both times. Finally in the fourth offseason I found the player I need to make things complete, Truman Strawson, one of the most flat out talented starting pitchers in the game. We had a tough battle to win the division (no wildcards) but as the season got late we pulled away. We had a lot of injuries in the last few months but good drafting left me with a lot of depth. Come the playoffs my expectations were high and my team rewarded me by dominating in the conference championship 3-1, with all three wins being blowouts. We faced Oklahoma City in the Cup, a team that we vastly outmatched talent-wise. Surprisingly we lost the first game, with the bats being pretty silent. Game two we got out to an early lead and my hopes were high. Bad pitching blew the game, and the team completely disappeared en route to a series sweep.

I was completely deflated after losing that one. My team wasn't young anymore, and injuries and age were gradually making the few elite players I had less exceptional. A bevy of young elite talent had come into the league, with me getting none of it due to low draft picks, and my division had gotten immensely more talented. I acquired a steady stream of solid but sometimes flawed players but needing to have the best 9 players on the field at once it felt like the championship window was closing or already had closed. I hadn't been able to add any more top tier talent; the right pieces simply didn't become available.

My team had the fight of its life for four months into the 2062 season. At the start of August we were playing terrific ball, even sweeping our division rivals, yet they kept pace with us. But in August, something clicked. We went on a double digit win streak, which Milwaukee nearly matched stroke for stroke. Finally, they broke. We won 23 games in August and lengthened that to also ten not far into September. My team had some injuries, but we had the depth to weather them. There was only one position player I couldn't afford to lose, and that was Sukarno, starting at short for me. And of course I lost him not long into September. I had some "solid" backups, a glove guy with contact ability and little else, and a young SS who might develop into a bottom end starter but hadn't found his stride. If we were going to win the championship, we were gonna have to do it without our one elite player.

Playoffs came and I felt good about our chances in the championship series. I was facing a team with a series of flawed pitchers, and with a few young players at corner outfield and first base I had some flexibility with bats to match with the pitcher I was facing. We won the first game handily except....I lost Dale Cannon. He hadn't been elite since his rookie year, but his solid bat had become the rock that formed my offense's foundation. Losing him was a gut check. Suddenly I was facing a playoff run in what may be the end of my championship window and I was gonna have to do it with key spots in the lineup going to talented kids who had scarcely established themselves at the major league level. Still, we handled Philadelphia, a team whose whose pitching staff was a mix of guys with no movement or no control.

Now was the time for the Cup. Our opponent was Nashville, maybe the best opponent I had ever faced in the Cup. Great hitting all around, a couple really good starting pitchers, and a very hitter friendly park that would cause trouble for my pitchers and also make leads evaporate easily. We had an easy draw in the first game pitching wise and won big. Surprisingly we beat up a really good pitcher in game two, winning big. Game three we faced a really good pitcher in their house. Nonetheless, timely hitting from the kids got me out to a sizeable lead late. I began to taste the championship. Then, the bullpen disaster happened. We blew it, and suddenly things felt bad. Game four wasn't close and they crushed us Game five was a pivotal game and was probably the most crazy game I had ever seen. We won in extras by two runs with both teams. Two more games in my house, but we only needed one. Game six was won, and it was done with two homers from a much-maligned RFer who scarcely had more than four hits all postseason but they were all homers. My team had won.

Sometimes it feels like this game has programmed drama where it seems like the worst injury happens at the worst time, but I have to say, it's the championships you win where you overcome adversity that feel the best. Winning it in a league I've designed to be so tough is even more worthwhile. Now I'm not sure what to do. I've intended to leave my team after winning the championship to build up another but I'm not sure if I should do that this offseason or wait one more year. Certainly the next season will bring a challenge. Sukarno and Cannon will miss half the season and my pitching staff will have gotten older. Some of the kids who had done such a good job filling in to win the Cup also don't have clear roles. Sure, it will require some figuring out, but that's part of why I don't know if I should stay around. Maybe these decisions should be made by the computer, who can make a cold, hard, but smart decision without sentimentality. We'll see what the future brings.

[Roy Tucker]

I run a salary cap league too, but am not completely satisfied with the settings. I would be curious to see what your financial set up is.

Oh, and congratulations on the big win!

[conception]

My league has basically halved the salary levels because I can't stand the thought of baseball players making 30 million. I got that idea from when I started a league in Australia and have stuck with it since with every fictional league. My cap is set at 110,000 million. Free agency is after 5 years and arbitration kicks in after a year! No draft pick signing. Everyone comes in at the ML minimum but will quickly be paid what they are worth or given FA. This was the best way to simulate an NFL like structure and also keep things simple. I didn't want the league bogged down in minute details, especially tedious financial stuff, I wanted it to be about making big time roster decisions.

[Hageneezz]

Congratulations!