1996 League O' American Cheese
Home Home
Last updated: 20 April 1997
I came out of our 1996 draft with a team that looked like this:

C  Mike Macfarlane      KC       .15
C  George Williams      Oak      .15
1B Rafael Palmeiro      Bal     1.55
3B Jim Thome            Cle     1.50
CI Scott Stahoviak      Min      .05
2B Todd Walker          Min      .50
SS Mariano Duncan       NYY      .05
MI Keith Lockhart       KC       .10
OF Chad Curtis          Det      .90         (Kept from 1995)
OF Johnny Damon         KC       .50         (Kept from 1995)
OF Tom Goodwin          KC       .05         (Kept from 1995)
OF Tim Salmon           Cal     1.75
OF Bernie Williams      NYY      .90         (Kept from 1995)
DH Pedro Munoz          Oak      .65

PITCHERS
SP Vaughn Eshelman      Bos      .05
SP Tom Gordon           Bos      .55
SP Chuck Nagy           Cle     1.00
SP Melido Perez         NYY      .05
SP Paul Quantrill       Tor      .15
SP Brad Radke           Min      .05
RP Stan Belinda         Bos      .30
RP Jeff Montgomery      KC      1.40         (Kept from 1995)
RP Dave Stevens         Min      .50         (Kept from 1995)

RESERVES
C  Todd Greene          Cal                  Minors
OF Jon Nunnally         KC                   Minors
SP Luis Andujar         ChW
SP Rocky Coppinger      Bal
SP Jeff Fassero         Mon                  NL
SP Butch Henry          Bos                  DL
SP Doug Johns           Oak
SP Rich Robertson       Min
SP Jeff Suppan          Bos                  Minors
RP Gil Heredia          Tex
Right away you may be able to see that I had several problems:

  • Minnesota phenom Todd Walker was a highly-touted prospect, but in fact he would spend the whole 1996 season in the minors.
  • Oakland catcher George Williams would bat beneath the Mendoza line while Terry Steinbach was having his career year, and he would eventually get sent down.
  • Oakland OF/DH Pedro Munoz would get hurt early in the season and never did much.
  • Eshelman, Perez and Quantrill would all suck, and I eventually dumped all three of them during the season. I kept Tom Gordon, even though he had the worst year of his career.
  • Both Jeff Montgomery and Dave Stevens struggled in their respective closer roles.
I did have a few bright spots, though:

  • Mariano Duncan would sieze the Yankees' second base job and bat over .300.
  • After Rick Krivda and Jimmy Haynes failed in their tryouts, Baltimore prospect Rocky Coppinger was eventually called up and performed very well.
  • Minnesota's Brad Radke had a very good year considering what I paid for him, and Rich Robertson was a respectable #5 pitcher.
I spent much of the season in the second division of the league, but I slowly managed to put together a decent team and climb into the money. Among my moves during the year:

  • I picked up both Jeff Frye and Reggie Jefferson, who had great seasons for the Red Sox. I also grabbed Marc Newfield when he was traded from San Diego to Milwaukee.
  • I pulled off a few good trades, acquiring Bobby Bonilla and Derek Jeter for my offense.
  • On the pitching side, I grabbed John Burkett and Jose Rosado when the former went from Florida to Texas, and the latter was called up by Kansas City.
  • The same trade that brought me Jeter also brought me Roger Clemens, who was absolutely dominant down the stretch in 1996.
At the end of the season, I ended up in fourth place, which considering that this was perhaps my worst draft to date was a real victory for me. (In points I was tied for third, but the tiebreaker involves counting who is ahead in more categories, and I fell to fourth there.) Here are the final standings:

PLACE TEAM            SCORE
    1 Weazez          79.0
    2 Street Pizzas   70.0
    3 Hot Rawds       66.0
    3 Cracklin' Macl  66.0
    5 Sweet Tomcats   52.0
    5 Oley Cows       52.0
    7 Heinous Homonk  44.5
    8 Dendarii Free   41.0
    8 Lut's Mangy Mu  41.0
   10 Mad Bombers     38.5

TEAM             AVG    AB    H    R   HR  RBI   SB
---------------------------------------------------
Cracklin' Macl 0.279  6904 1927 1022  275 1092   50
Sweet Tomcats  0.290  6901 2003 1119  269 1075  129
Hot Rawds      0.291  6782 1972 1138  237 1005  182
Oley Cows      0.261  6260 1632  900  189  861  128
Heinous Homonk 0.287  6790 1946 1029  226 1067  115
Street Pizzas  0.286  6773 1940 1071  285 1098  150
Lut's Mangy Mu 0.272  6662 1812 1059  249 1008   79
Dendarii Free  0.286  6507 1862 1002  205  857  168
Weazez         0.290  6834 1983 1202  294 1090  154
Mad Bombers    0.275  5537 1524  826  194  805   54

TEAM             AVG     R    HR   RBI    SB   TOT
--------------------------------------------------
Cracklin' Macl   4.0   4.0   8.0   9.0   1.0  26.0
Sweet Tomcats    9.0   8.0   7.0   7.0   6.0  37.0
Hot Rawds       10.0   9.0   5.0   4.0  10.0  38.0
Oley Cows        1.0   2.0   1.0   3.0   5.0  12.0
Heinous Homonk   7.0   5.0   4.0   6.0   4.0  26.0
Street Pizzas    6.0   7.0   9.0  10.0   7.0  39.0
Lut's Mangy Mu   2.0   6.0   6.0   5.0   3.0  22.0
Dendarii Free    5.0   3.0   3.0   2.0   9.0  22.0
Weazez           8.0  10.0  10.0   8.0   8.0  44.0
Mad Bombers      3.0   1.0   2.0   1.0   2.0   9.0

TEAM               ERA   W     IP   ER    H   BB  WHIP*9   SO  SV
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Cracklin' Macl  4.8330  92 1441.1  774 1559  525  13.013 1066  77
Sweet Tomcats   5.4062  48 1167.0  701 1314  503  14.013  746  71
Hot Rawds       5.1023  79 1469.1  833 1585  618  13.494 1058  45
Oley Cows       4.2750 105 1593.2  757 1657  540  12.407 1037  14
Heinous Homonk  5.4186  80 1260.2  759 1417  581  14.264  926  36
Street Pizzas   4.7188  80 1371.1  719 1459  534  13.080  976  43
Lut's Mangy Mu  5.0430  77 1386.2  777 1514  540  13.331  931   8
Dendarii Free   4.6365  54  945.1  487  958  412  13.043  682  24
Weazez          4.2967  60 1129.0  539 1136  438  12.547  882  79
Mad Bombers     4.4836  78 1276.2  636 1344  468  12.774  863  43

TEAM             ERA     W  WHIP    SO    SV   TOT
--------------------------------------------------
Cracklin' Macl   5.0   9.0   7.0  10.0   9.0  40.0
Sweet Tomcats    2.0   1.0   2.0   2.0   8.0  15.0
Hot Rawds        3.0   6.0   3.0   9.0   7.0  28.0
Oley Cows       10.0  10.0  10.0   8.0   2.0  40.0
Heinous Homonk   1.0   7.5   1.0   5.0   4.0  18.5
Street Pizzas    6.0   7.5   5.0   7.0   5.5  31.0
Lut's Mangy Mu   4.0   4.0   4.0   6.0   1.0  19.0
Dendarii Free    7.0   2.0   6.0   1.0   3.0  19.0
Weazez           9.0   3.0   9.0   4.0  10.0  35.0
Mad Bombers      8.0   5.0   8.0   3.0   5.5  29.5
Once again, I put together a decent offense, but my pitching was very shaky. Even Clemens' great fall couldn't pull up my ERA and WHIP, although I did well in the aggregate pitching categories. Still, I felt I had learned from my mistakes and thought I could draft better next year.

hits since 24 August 2000.
Home Email me Michael Rawdon (rawdon@leftfield.org) http://www.leftfield.org/~rawdon/