baseball sim auctions

When deciding what teams to select for the Sim Auctions the two main considerations are likely to be:

1. Choosing a great historical team full of talented players

2. Choosing a team that did not perform at the highest level, but had one or two players with legendary seasons.

The year 1998 fulfilled both criteria. The New York Yankees had a historic season, finishing with the second highest win total in history (114) – culminating in a 4-0 sweep of the San Diego Padres in the World Series. The Bronx Bombers were balanced from top to bottom, and would give us plenty of players to choose from during the auction.

The 2nd team chosen for this Sim Auction was the 1998 St.Louis Cardinals, the Cards in 1998 were mediocre, winning only 83 games, but they had one major attraction – Mark McGwire.

I have fond memories of the 1998 season and the home run battle between MarMcGwire and Sammy Sosa (before steroids became part of the conversation) and wanted to see how close Mark McGuire could come to his real life record breaking performance.

My adversary started the auction by purchasing Derek Jeter for $24, I really wanted Jeter as the cornerstone of my infield and almost bid $25, but backed off at the last second remembering the player I was primarily targeting was McGwire. Big Mac’s turn came up a few rounds later and I was able to grab him for $34.

What makes auctions so engrossing, especially with the two team format that we’re using, is that every combination of teams is unique and forces you to create a new strategy, additionally, when a player is introduced for bidding also has a big impact on the price paid, in McGwire’s case, we started the bidding in the middle part of the auction, had he been nominated earlier, I might have been forced to pay $2 or $3 more for him, so I was happy to get him at $34.

I was able to grab Bernie Williams to patrol center field and bat in front of McGwire and also supplemented the hitting with Brian Jordan and Darryl Strawberry. Darryl only had 345 ABs, but that went along with an .896 OPS, I was fortunate to get him for $7.

1998 was tilted towards hitting so acquiring quality pitching was paramount for the auction to be a success, my rival GM and I recognized this and shadowed each other by acquiring the two best starting pitchers – David Cone and David Wells, however, I was able to gain a tactical advantage by landing both Mariano Rivera & Graham Lloyd, together giving me 112 superb relief innings.

My opponent followed up David Wells nicely with Andy Pettitte ($24), Orlando Hernandez ($19) & Hideki Irabu ($14). On the hitting side, he buttressed Jeter, with Ray Lankford, Chuck Knoblauch & Paul O’Neill – all at excellent prices. For the most part, both teams were evenly matched, but ultimately the lack of reliable relief pitchers is what turned out to be the Achilles heel for my opponent’s team.

MVP – Mark McGwire turned out to be everything I anticipated, he ended the year with 70 Home runs, how many HRs did he hit in real life you ask? You guessed it – 70! It didn’t stop there, 411 total bases, 157 RBI, 160 BB, 1.179 OPS!! – by any measure, a phenomenal year.

CY YOUNG – As we all know, baseball is a delicate balance between hitting and pitching, someone needed to step up as the ace to complement the hitting exploits of Big Mac, David Cone was up to the challenge delivering 244 quality innings encased in a 2.98 ERA (he was the only SP with an ERA under 3.00). David ended the year 20-6 and was also the only pitcher to strike out more than 200 batters (214).