KJ's All-Star Auction

[Joe Sambito]

KJ,

I am curious what was decided on what happens if 1000 innings limit is not met. Here is the verbiage from the Main Event Rules:

There is a 1000 innings pitched minimum requirement for all NFBC leagues, but no minimum requirement for the number of starting pitchers or relief pitchers on each roster. Should any team not reach the required limit of 1000 innings pitched by the end of the season, the rankings will be altered to show that team getting 1 point in both ERA and WHIP. No other teams will switch positions in the standings, but the team that didn't reach the minimum IP will automatically earn 1 point in ERA and WHIP.

So for example, if you finish 1st in ERA, and I finish 2nd in ERA, but you fail to meet the innings, then you get 1 point and I remain at 14pts. Is that correct?

Also if more than one person fails to meet their innings they would also get 1 point, by the letter of the rule. Is that how everyone else reads it? As opposed to 1.5 points if two fail, or 2 points if three fail, or 2.5 points if four fail ...

I just want to clarify, as this is an unique league, and it is very possible some unique circumstances will come into play.

Andy

[KJ Duke]

KJ,

So for example, if you finish 1st in ERA, and I finish 2nd in ERA, but you fail to meet the innings, then you get 1 point and I remain at 14pts. Is that correct?

Also if more than one person fails to meet their innings they would also get 1 point, by the letter of the rule. Is that how everyone else reads it? As opposed to 1.5 points if two fail, or 2 points if three fail, or 2.5 points if four fail ...

I just want to clarify, as this is an unique league, and it is very possible some unique circumstances will come into play.

Andy

Greg can confirm, but that sounds correct to me.

[Greg Ambrosius]

Correct. You get 1 point in each category if you don't reach the minimum IP. This obviously isn't determined on the standings until the last pitch of the season is made.

[CC's Desperados]

I talked to KJ about this earlier. I thought it would be interesting to post maybe a profile of each team by their owner to help possibly show possible buyers your outlook on your auction. I know my post will be much longer than most as I wrote about this auction the next day. Here's my plan and ideas behind strategy:

With this league being 30 rounds with no free agent pickups, it is going to be very tough to submit a full roster at times during the season due to the high volume of injury risk to baseball players.

I went into this draft with a game plan. I wanted to buy 2B Dee Gordon and OF Billy Hamilton for speed plus roster two of the best two catchers – Buster Posey and Johnathan Lucroy. With high risk of injuries, I wanted to give myself a chance in two hitting categories – BA and SBs. In addition, I wanted to buy an elite starting staff with two elite closers. My goal was to spend $140 on pitching and $120 hitting.

With high chance of injuries with no reasonable chances of improving your team on the waiver wire, I wanted to fill the rest of my hitting roster with low dollar hitters to give me a chance to pass some teams in HRs and RBI plus hopefully be competitive in runs. If my team stayed healthy, I may finish much higher in some of the hitting categories than expected.

At the same time, I didn’t want to give out any real players I might be targeting in my other drafts over the weekend.

When the gate opened, my plan created a bidding frenzy that led to inflated prices. I stayed committed to my plan at all costs.

I had the second call, which led to me calling out Billy Hamilton. He was very important to my plan so I needed to get him on the table as soon as possible. My price for him in a normal 15 team auction was $24. I knew he would draw more interest in this league style so I was prepared to over pay. The war ended with me winning him at $31 and Stads on the mat.

Two players later, Aroldis Chapman was called out. I won him for $25, which was only a couple dollars over his projected price.

By the end of the first round of calls, Gordon, Posey, Lucroy, and Kershaw were called out. I over paid for both catchers – Posey ($29) and Lucroy ($25).

The theory with buying two top catchers was to help increase my chances in runs. By having strong counting stats from the catcher position, I won’t need to be elite at some of the other roster slots to still be in the game in runs. Ideally, I was hoping to find some value players later in the auction.

My bidding was just crazy with no regard to the end game. I purchased Dee Gordon for $29. I ended up spending $114 on my core four batter, which was $31 over their projected price in a real 15 team auction with free agent pickups.

Just for kicks, I bid $47 Clayton Kershaw as well. I was really painting myself in a corner with no chance of executing a winning game plan. Lucky for me, another owner bid $48 on Kershaw to save me from taking the knife. For the record, the same team purchased Mike Trout for $50.

For me to have any chance in my plan, I needed to have a solid pitching staff that included buying a couple of aces. I bought David Price for $31 and then pushed the envelope on Max Scherzer for $40.

After seven key players, I had spent $210. I fell one elite arm short of my core due to me over paying for my key batters. The only missing piece to the start of the plan was a second closer. By pushing all in on Chapman, it didn’t make a lot of sense to have him as my only option for saves.

The craziest part of this auction was the price for saves. In a normal 15 auction, top closer go in the $20 range. The 2nd tier went in the teens with plenty of value in closers in the $6 to $8 range. Seven closer went for over $20 with Cody Allen drawing the top bid of $26. As I watched this happen, I knew a was going to be in a tough spot to buy the ideal second closing option. Reluctantly, I purchased Addison Reed for $7 plus a flyer on Tyler Clippard for $5. Hopefully between the two, I can come up with one full closer. There were three teams that ended up punting saves.

My plan was looking like a complete disaster as I was watching the backend hitting inventory going at a discount due to the high cost of the elite players at the start of the auction. I was fearful that I wouldn’t be able to roster a full team of batters with full time jobs.

I basically walked away from the auction to watch the basketball games for 2+ hours. I kept track of the players while making my required player calls on my turn.

With third base inventory getting weak, I pushed $6 for Chase Headley. This was a real high bid based on my remaining dollars. I thought he still offered power plus he was hitting in favorable part of the batting order. My only two buys of value were Wil Myers and Curtis Granderson. Both players have power with a possible top of the order opportunity.

I bought Drew Smyly for $3, which seemed fair with his upside, but I was excepting injury risk for a pitching staff that wasn’t going to be an edge on the backend.

After sitting with my hands tied for hours, I was finally able to get myself in position where I had an edge in money. I caught a couple of breaks as a couple of backend players I liked didn’t get called out. I finished my middle infield with Jedd Gyorko for $2 and Andrelton Simmons for $3. Slowly, but surely, my team was getting in the backend game in runs, HRs, and RBI.

At this point of the auction, I needed to fill two outfield spots, first base, corner, DH, and two starting pitchers. I had a long ways to go with $12 left.

I only needed to spend $10 to get these players: Ryan Howard ($1), Kendrys Morales ($1), Kennys Vargas ($2), Nick Markakis ($1), Rajai Davis ($1), Rick Porcello ($2), and Clay Buchholz ($2).

Overall, I thought I finished much better than expected considering my position in money for 90 percent of the auction. I wish I bid $3 on Dexter Fowler or at least was quicker to bid $2. I think he was a better fit to my team. It was surprising to see Rajai Davis as one of the last outfielders left on the table for $1. At least he will cover some of my stolen base risk if Gordon or Hamilton get hurt.

In the reserve round, I selected C.J. Wilson, Shane Victorino, Tony Cingrani, Nick Franklin, Brandon Morrow, Joe Kelly, and Rafael Montero.

In the end, I accepted too much injury risk in the backend of my rotation. It’s real tough deciding between pitchers with some upside and pitchers with negative opportunities in ERA and whip. The pitching staff has a chance in all categories if I stay healthy and my back two closers produce 40+ saves. I can’t have the best pitching as one team spent well over $160 on his pitching staff.

I thought the end game for batters ended up being in about the range I wanted when I started my game plan. I wanted to buy my last 10 batters for $20. I ended up spending $27.

I wouldn’t recommend this plan in any other auction. I thought it had a chance to cash in this style league. I may not win, but I was able to execute my game plan, which is half the fun.

[Cocktails and Dreams]

This has come up in the past. While I am not in this league so couldn't care less how it is handled in this league, I do think it is handled incorrectly in the NFBC contests in general. For starters, the same points are supposed to be available in batting and pitching. This isn't the case handling it how they are handling it. 2. If someone has 15 in era or whip but doesn't get to the number then they didn't ever really have 15. So it seems very obvious to me that the leading qualifying team should get 15. Also why should a team that was legal get just 1, when an illegal team gets the same.

This is one I will never comprehend the logic behind, as it just doesn't make any sense.

[KJ Duke]

Originally I thought it would be fun to do a Calcutta in conjunction with this league, which was planned for last Saturday, but the logistics didn't work out so we postponed it to the upcoming week. Upon further reflection, I would suggest just letting the All-Star league play out as is with only the original NFBC payout for 1st-3rd of $3500/ 2000 /1000. The draft itself was a blast but the Calcutta seems too time-consuming at a time when our focus is elsewhere.

[Sack]

Totally agree

[MadCow Sez]

Concur

[Joe Sambito]

I know we aren't going to do the Calcutta for this league, but I'd still be interested in some strategy talk. Shawn posted his earlier, mine probably won't be as in-depth but I figured I'd give it go anyhow.

Stevieland had one career auction under our belt, our strength has always been the 15-team drafts. We recognized this, talked about this, talked about the no FAAB aspect of 30-player rosters, and decided let's grab the best pitcher, the best hitter and scrap the rest of the way.

So our first two buys were Kershaw for $48 and Trout for $50. Later finding out that Trout went for $65 down the hall I was relishing in my bargain. I then was going to sit back and hope that known of my hopefuls got called out. Shawn had set the pace which led to some apparent early inflation, so sitting back was fine by me. However, my internal debate was would I be able to get a 2nd ace or a closer. There were only a few closers I trusted so I was hoping they wouldn't be called out for awhile. Then my favorite closer got called Cody Allen. I love how Francona uses his bullpen and think the Indians are going to generate plenty of save chances. I got into a bidding war, thought I had him at 24, but need to go to $26 to get him, so I did. Highest price paid for a closer. Shawn poked fun at me for that.

At this point it was time to sit back and wait. I was looking for young talent and planned not to pay more than their target price I had for them. My next expenditure was pretty much full price for Nolan Arenado at $24. I now had spent $148 on four players. I then went dormant. I didn't go watch hoops with Shawn, but I might has well of. I needed to wait until money somewhat normalized. So I waited, took parts in some bids, but bowed out most of the time. I did want to secure a few shortstops and I did have an eye to a touch of positional versatility. I ended up with Chris Archer ($9) as my 2nd starter. Here is what the team ended up looking like:

Kershaw(48), Archer(9), Hendricks (5), Odorizzi(4), Gee(4), Hahn(3), Duffy(3)
Allen(26), Nathan(3)

Montero(4), Rivera(2)
VMart(14), Arenado(24), Castellanos(2)
Bogaerts(9), Segura(11), M. Johnson(3)
Trout(50), Polanco(12), Pederson(10), A. Garcia(7), M. Taylor(2)
Alcantara(5)

My reserve draft I forced my hand with my final $3 spent on Nathan, so Soria became a must in R1.

Anyhow, that's what we came up with. The best part about this team was the phone call home to my 9-yr old.

"Dad, who did you get?"
"I got Kershaw!"
"Awesome! Who else?"
"I got Trout!"
"On the same team, that is awesome!"

At that point the rest of the team could have been Huey, Duey and Louie. Mission accomplished.

[edelman24]

Starting my preparation for this auction I originally was thinking the only changes I would need to make from my usual sit back and wait approach was to make sure I bought 2 elite closers that I felt comfortable with to at a minimum hold their jobs all year, barring injury. I had my strategy all worked out until I started having some conversations with people about how this draft could get very interesting. On the Wednesday night before vegas, I started thinking about what could be a good way to attack the draft where I would be able to make the most of my roster spots and not worry about potential injury derailing my season. I’d always wanted to try and pitching a strategy so I came up with a strategy centered around pitching and speed.

Going into this my thoughts were that even if I lost a player or three I would be able to maintain my edge in certain categories as long as someone else didn’t attempt the same strategy, so I had a game plan early on that if I noticed someone else attempting the same strategy I was going to veer off back to a more normalized plan. Going in my plan was to buy 3 Aces and 3 closers to anchor my staff along with 3 other pitchers in the $10-$15 range to spend roughly $160-$170 on pitching. That was only going to leave me with $90 to spend on hitting and I was planning to target all OF’s and MI’s that could score 70-80 runs hit .270 or better and steal at least 20 bases then try and get CI who would help pad my batting average. My goal was to win steals and try to get 5-7 pts in batting average and runs, this will be difficult to do not having much money to spend but figured it was worth a shot.

Overall I think I was able to execute my plan that I laid out for myself except for the fact that I was unable to land a top elite closer to anchor my staff as they went higher then my plan allowed for and I didn't plan on 3 teams punting saves. We will see how this turns out either way it was fun to draft 8 straight pitchers and have everyone wondering what the hell I was doing..

C – Norris, Suzuki
1B – Hosmer, Mauer, Loney
2B – Prado, Bonafacio
3B – Mcghee
SS – A. Escobar, Aybar
OF – Martin, Gardner, Souza, Eaton, Cain, Span
SP – King Felix, Cueto, Wainwright, Tehrean, Cobb, Cashner, Hudson, Gonzales, Hellickson, Chavez
RP – Robertson, Krod, Street, J. Smith

[KJ Duke]

Because vet NFBCers love to overpay for elite pitching, I decided to punt K's (and probably Ws), try to dominate Saves, and be near the top in ratios with strong hitting. I paid $53 for 3 closers (Holland, Britton and Rondon) and just $25 for my starting pitchers (McHugh, Fiers, Latos , Ryu, Gravemen and Shane Greene; plus reserve picks of Jaime Garcia, Buehrle and S Matz). I need to reach 1,000 innings - if I can get 200 total out of my closers I'll need about 90 innings per drafted starter. Hopefully I can build up innings early in the year, then I can pick and choose matchups in the second half from my better starters. With Latos first game, of course, I'm starting out in a hole ... not what I needed trying to win the ratios category.

Hitting came together nicely, I tried to be strong and balanced with a few multi-position players to offset the inevitable injuries with a minimal bench. Ortiz didn't fit the plan, but he seemed like a bargain at the time and with several multi-position players he was a little easier to roster, and as a DH hopefully less likely to be injured himself. SBs will be light, but with a couple teams hoarding steals and injured players to come, the rest of the field will be easier to pass so maybe I can reach 7-8 points for steals and mid to upper 50's for hitting overall along with mid 40's in pitching.

C • Chirinos, Avila
1b • Votto, Morneau
3b • J Lamb, Middlebrooks, Plouffe, (Rendon)
2b • Rendon, Jace Peterson
SS • Hanley, Reyes
OF • Puig, Kemp, Soler, Lagares, Rua, M Saunders (Hanley)
DH • Ortiz
SP • McHugh, Ryu, Latos, Fiers, S Greene, Graveman, Jaime Garcia, Buehrle, S Matz
RP • G Holland, Britton, Rondon

[KJ Duke]

SP • McHugh, Ryu, Latos, Fiers, S Greene, Graveman, Jaime Garcia, Buehrle, S Matz

uggh

[MadCow Sez]

Strategy? I guess I sort of had one.

My intent going in was to mitigate the impact of injuries by snagging multi-positional players as often as possible. Chris Davis, Zobrist, Ryan Zimmerman, Rendon, Amarista, Morse, Pearce, Grandal, Posey, Asdrubal...all on the jump-in list. Target 4 mid level pitchers ($10-$15) with high K potential and cheap closers. Grab a couple upside youngsters and ride out the first few weeks. Make sure I had coverage for every position on my bench to avoid zeros.

Threw this out the window as I couldn't resist the man-crushes I had going in....and Springer, Bryant, and Kluber are in the herd.

C- Ruiz, Salty (Bethancourt)
1B - Pujols (Chris Davis)
2B - Utley (Phillips)
3B - Chris Davis (Zimmerman, Bryant, Asche...why the hell did I grab Asche in reserve?)
SS - Alexei Ramirez (Lowrie)
OF - Adam Jones, Springer, Zimmerman, Crawford, Bourn (DeAza)
SP - Kluber, Danny Salazar (whoops), Jordan Zimmerman (cornered the Zimmerman market), Anibal, Yordano, Tillman, Niese (Locke, Bradley)

I feel extremely confident I can handle any injury at 3B.....
RP - Andrew Miller, LFH (Parnell, Motte)

[Quahogs]

All these sharp players with their well thought out strategies... I was just happy to be invited, psyched I was back in Vegas and ecstatic it was a no-faab league ! I figured it would be a good practice run for a new tracking spreadsheet I made and some recon for the Diamond auction.

So I went in armed with some projected prices and loose allocations and just had a good time. The lack of faab and 1000 IP minimum never really dawned on me until others starting talking about it so I figured on a strategy too late . Buy healthy players ! I overpaid dearly for 2 closers (a total of $53?) which blew out my budget and probably borrowed too much of that from the offense.

I figure if I suck I can blame the injuries and lack of faab.

Harvey Wacha Hughes Miller Keuchel Pomeranz Miley Cishek Melancon

McCann Hundley Adams Napoli C.Santana D.Santana Kendrick Gennett. S.Marte - Brantley - Heyward - Snider - Coghlan -Moustakos

[Glenneration X]

Sorry I'm a bit late to the party, but I just caught this thread.

Like Mr. Quahogs, I had no elaborate strategy or game plan going into this auction. With the ridiculous roster of competition KJ assembled for this event, the unique DC short roster format, and the fact that this was my first auction of the year, I just hoped to make it out alive and with my self esteem in tact. Well, I made it out alive.

All kidding aside, I just hoped to grab at least one, preferably two aces if possible, a pair of legitimate closers with what I hoped was a good chance to keep the role (this being the one format I was willing to pay for closers), and a few of "my guys" on offense.

Closers and aces were going for big bucks, so I was only able to make it out with one elite ace, but was able to shift gears away from a 2nd ace and grab a couple young wannabe aces on the rise that I liked instead. I was happy with my closer situation until the Kimbrel trade that shook the world. And on offense I paid a few dollars more than expected to grab a few of "my guys", and just filled in the rest.

C - Yan Gomes (17), Tyler Flowers (2)
1B - Edwin Encarnacion (33)
3B - Aramis Ramirez (8)
CI - Brandon Belt (11)
2B - Jason Kipnis (17)
SS - Wilmer Flores (2)
MI - Aaron Hill (1)
OF - Andrew McCutchen (38), Kole Calhoun (17), Hnter Pence (10), Shin Soo Choo (6), Coco Crisp (2)
UT - Anthony Gose (1)

SP - Chris Sale (30), Carlos Carrasco (16), Tyson Ross (16), Matt Cain (2), Jimmy Nelson (1), Matt Garza (1), Josh Collmenter (1)
RP - Drew Storen (17), Joaquin Benoit (14)

Reserves - Alex Rodriguez, Mitch Moreland, David Peralta, Josh Rutledge, Kyle Gibson, Matt Moore, Joel Peralta

Obviously the time since the draft has not been kind to this team as just about every player I bought has lost some time to injury already or lost their job. Tough breaks in any format, but a death sentence in a no FAAB 30 man roster league. Ahh well, at least I get to say a bunch of All-Stars kicked my a**.

How this league plays out aside, KJ deserves major kudos for putting this thing together. It was great just being a part of it and a fun way to start the live draft season. I hope it becomes an annual event.

[Bob Enzyte]

I guess it is my turn. I've never really written anything about my drafts before so I'll do my best. Following Quahogs eloquent and in depth analysis of his team will be a challenge to top. It was exciting to be a part of this league (okay, KJ had to talk me into it) and the setup was great in a Bellagio suite with Brady Tinker running the show.

Gabe picked me up at the airport and we only had time to park at the Flamingo and race over to the Bellagio. When we parked I put my draft sheets in a folder, set it down to take off my coat and picked up a different folder which I didn't discover until the auction started. Gabe ran back to his pickup to get the one I needed. What a way to start.

I planned on doing something different at this auction. I wanted to get two good closers at around $25, allocate another $35 for durable starting pitchers and load up on hitters.

Closers went high so I ended up with Perkins (12) and Mejia (9). Strike one.

My starting pitching went Kennedy (9), Peralta (5), Hammel (2), Dickey (2), Alvarez (2), Peavy (2) and C. Martinez (1), who at the time was behind Garcia for the Cardinal's 5th starting spot. After one week Kennedy and Alvarez are on the DL, Peavy has a bad back and Mejia (I don't know how it got in my body) is suspended. I guess that is what I get for only spending $46 for pitching. Strike two.

Ah, but now my hitters.
Rosario (5) and Castro (3) at catcher.
Corners are Freeman (20), Alvarez (7) and Gonzalez (25) who I now just call ADRIAN].
Manning the infield are Semien (5) plus flexibility, Dozier (20) and my unfortunate love affair of Baez (5).
Outfield has Ellsbury (26), Gomez (39) had to have him, Dickerson (22), Bautista (29), Jennings (6) and Kiermaier (2).
The first week the offense went .291 51 16 47 3. I sleep well at night seeing that.

Strike three was the reserve round. I was getting tired, hadn't checked into my room etc. I did manage to get useful parts in Crawford (Baez insurance), Marisnick and Ike Davis. What I really needed was pitching. Sabathia was okay but taking Minor and Trevor May was inexcusable. It was so bad for me in the last round that I asked Brady for a name and he said Keone Kela. I had never heard of him so I said okay. I was ready for bed.

Looking back I probably over did the offense a bit. I should have dropped an outfielder (Bautista) and upgraded the pitching. This team has 5th place at best written all over it. But it was fun to be part of this star studded league. At least I didn't spend $26 on Steve Pearce.

[Glenneration X]

At least I didn't spend $26 on Steve Pearce.

Best line of the entire thread.

[ALL-IN JD]

Lindy,

I expect those kind of insults from Lowry but not you!!

[Quahogs]

No need to cover Gabe's ass Lindy... we all know the reason you were late... Instead of spending all his $ on his designer wardrobe ya think Gabe would upgrade the pickup he drives ?? How many times did it break down on the way to pick you up ??

[Greg Ambrosius]

Gabe picked me up at the airport and we only had time to park at the Flamingo and race over to the Bellagio. When we parked I put my draft sheets in a folder, set it down to take off my coat and picked up a different folder which I didn't discover until the auction started. Gabe ran back to his pickup to get the one I needed. What a way to start.

A two-time NFBC overall champ should be comped at the Bellagio, not staying at the Flamingo!!! Strike Four!!

[DOUGHBOYS]

First, I want to say that KJ is very convincing. I don't know who else could get a group like this together. Some altering flights, hotels, and other travel plans just to be a part of this prestigous bunch.
Kudo's Kevin!
Roger Martin and I were partners in this league. We talked over the phone about going pitching heavy. I believe we came up with a 180/80 split.
It was the first time either of us had done an auction.
And both of us found out that all plans can be changed by one thing. The first bid.
Seriously.
Both of us didn't keep track of money spent for pitching, hitting, or the beers in the room.
In a sentence, we were just happy to be in Las Vegas and doing an auction among the best.

In the end, I was glad we did not follow our original plan.
There is a category, not among the 10 roto categories, that is paramount in this league.
1,000 innings pitched.
In my estimation, three, four, possibly five teams will not reach 1,000 innings. It is just the nature of the injured pitcher beast.

True to our original plan, our first four purchases were pitchers.
Taijuan Walker, $15. Craig Kimbrel, $23. Jon Lester, $24. Neftali Feliz, $10.
After these purchases, we talked and agreed that pitching and speed was going for too much money.
So, a change of plans was in the works.
Ours, was going to be a power laden team with pitching that came to us.
13 of the next buys were offensive players with a tilt towards power.

In the end, we are hoping to be above average in hr,rbi, runs, with an average average, and anything we can get in steals for offense.
Pitching-wise, we're hoping to get 1,000 innings and letting the chips fall where they may.
We're hoping to start out with three Closers, ending with four when Amaro gives away Papelbon at the trade deadline.
With three of our pitchers and one of our hitters now in the minors currently, we feel as secure as Wally Pipp.

Here's our team:

Mesoraco, Zunino
Pearce $7 (love ya, Jeff) Cron
Walker, Kinsler, D Travis
Longoria, Sandoval
Peralta, Hardy
Cruz, Cuddyer, JD Martinez, Dom Brown, Tomas, Van Slyke

Lester, Paxton, Liriano, T Walker, Masterson, Pineda, Kimbrel, Feliz, Papelbon, Giles, R Iglesias, Quackenbush, S Wright

Again, it was worth the money and altered plans to have shits and giggles with this group.
And also Brady makes an auction, an event. And with this group, it was already an event.
Already, Rog and I can't wait for this premier event next year.
And who knows, we may even follow a plan.