2007 NFBC Champion Profile - Larry Bodin

[Tom Kessenich]

NFBC CHAMPION PROFILE – LARRY BODIN/MARC PERLMUTTER NEW YORK $650 AL AUCTION LEAGUE



1. How did it feel to win your league title?

Terrific and relief that the season was over. At the end of the season, Larry was in Romania on a tour and Marc was in Hong Kong on business. Watching the last day’s happening from those distances on the computer and having some difficulty communicating with each other made the win seem great. We never talked from September 23 to October 11 although we communicated by email.



2. What were the keys to your championship season?

Hitting: We generally had at least 13 (out of 14) players who started. In that way, we earned many at bats. Each AB generates an opportunity for runs, RBIs and HR as well as stolen bases. We had 7098 official at-bats plus several hundred walks. As such, we earned 12 points in runs scored, 9.5 points in HR and 10 points in RBIs. We also had 10 points in steals and 9 points in batting average.



Pitching: Although we only spent $72 in the auction on pitching with Roy Halladay being our major investment, we attempted to do as well as possible in Wins, Strikeouts, ERA and WHIP. Our bullpen from the auction never produced the 18 saves we felt would give us 4 points in saves but we managed to pick up Jeremy Accardo and earned our 4 points in saves. We lost a number of wins because of blown saves. Much of our FAAB $ was spent on attempting to improve our pitching.



Position Flexibility: In the auction, we selected several players who were eligible to play more than one position. This gave us flexibility to move players between the active roster and the reserve roster. We were hit hard by injuries in the first 3 months of the season. By having this flexibility, we were able to keep the active roster filled with players who were not injured and that helped our hitting statistics in particular.



FAAB Spending Control: We were not reckless in spending our FAAB dollars. In that way, we were able to pick up Gavin Floyd in the last two weeks and block the acquisition of several players in the last two weeks of the season.



3. What draft day strategies worked best?

Control on our emotions. We did not chase any of the really expensive hitters even though it would have been nice to have somebody like A-Rod or Big Papi on our team. We did pay market value for our four most expensive players - Joe Mauer, Roy Halladay, Hideki Matsui and Mike Cuddyer.



We decided to select younger players with upside. This strategy worked well for our hitting. Some of the players we acquired in the auction were B. J. Upton ($10), Gary Matthews ($11), Casey Blake ($8), Ty Wigginton ($15), Dustin Pedroia ($5), Yunecky Betancourt ($12), Howie Kendrick ($20) and David DeJesus ($12). These players were kept for the entire season.



Also, we selected Marlon Byrd for our reserve squad at the auction, dropped him shortly after the season began and then acquired him as a free agent after he was recalled by Texas.





4. Were there any draft day strategies that didn't pan out?

We did not acquire any closers in the auction but did acquire four ‘setup’ relief pitchers - Scott Shields, Akinori Otsuka, Juan Rincon and Joel Zumaya. We were hoping for about 18 saves from these four pitchers. We figured that 18 saves was worth 3-4 points and that these four setup pitchers would give us good ERA, WHIP, and strikeouts along with a few saves. That did not happen.



We were hoping that our players were injury-free. We had a large number of injuries but our depth allowed us to compensate for them without having to pick up players off the free agent list.



5. How did FAAB work for you?

Like most owners, the FAAB works well for you if you do not overspend on the free agents. We found that the less expensive free agents produced more for us than the more expensive free agents. Key players like Marlon Byrd, Jeremy Accardo, Jeremy Guthrie, Jacoby Ellsbury, Kevin Slowey, and Gavin Floyd were acquired as free agents. They all became major contributors to our success.



Accardo gave us enough saves to earn 4 points in saves. We acquired Ellsbury in mid-August and he gave us 9 steals and the margin of victory in our league. Gavin Floyd and Kevin Slowey gave us about 3-4 great starts in the last couple of weeks of the season and allowed us to hold our points in pitching. Guthrie was great for about 2 months and Byrd played very well for the last four weeks of the season.



We became very good at estimating the FAAB price for a free agent. FAAB is a challenge and we are not sure that we have totally worked out all of the nuances in the FAAB process. A key to the FAAB is to anticipate when a player is going to be called up or have an expanded role on the team and acquire that player early. One such player for us was Jacoby Ellsbury. We selected Ellsbury and kept him on the reserve squad until the Red Sox decided to play him.



6. How long have you been playing fantasy baseball/fantasy sports?

Bodin has been playing fantasy baseball for 16 years and Perlmutter has been playing fantasy baseball for 27 years.



7. Personal - single/married/occupation/where do you live?

Bodin is married (44 years), an emeritus professor in Operations Research at the R. H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland in College Park MD, and lives in Ellicott City, MD.



Perlmutter is married (32 years), has been practicing corporate law for 30 years and is a partner with the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifking, Wharton & Garrison. Perlmutter lives in Chappaqua, New York.