NFBC In NL & AL LABR Auctions: Saturday and Sunday

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Greg Ambrosius
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NFBC In NL & AL LABR Auctions: Saturday and Sunday

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Sat Mar 06, 2021 1:35 pm

For the 28th straight year, I will be in the USA Today LABR Auction Leagues and I'm ready to win a damn title or two!!! :lol:

Shawn Childs and myself will represent the NFBC in Saturday's 7 pm ET NL LABR Auction League and then again on Sunday at 7 pm ET AL LABR Auction League. These are being held Online for the first time ever because of Covid, so it should be interesting. We are using the RT Sports online auction software. Come and join us.

Here's the two public auction boards:

www.rtsports.com/labr-nl-auction

www.rtsports.com/labr-al-auction

Shawn and I won the NL league title in 2017, but it's been a dry period since then. I have no control over Shawn online from 1,000 miles away, so he's driving this train!!! :lol: Expect fireworks early, as expected.

LABR was started in 1994 as the industry's first "experts" league and the auction values have been an important part of the fantasy baseball industry for 27 years. There are 12 industry writers in each league and trading is allowed. Other than that, it's very similar to NFBC rules outside of the way you can move a reserve player into your starting lineup. Should be fun.

John Hunt started LABR in 1994 and included luminaries such as Keith Olbermann, Peter Gammons, Paul White, Danny Sheridan and others. The auctions were held on the phone with people from 12 different locations bidding for players. The phone auction was done during each of the first two years before the first live auction was held in Tampa, Florida. LABR has been held live every year since with auctions either in Florida or Phoenix, Arizona. Until this year, that is.

This will also be carried live on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio between 7 and 11 pm ET, so tune into 210/87 and enjoy.

Thanks and wish us luck. We'll post our lineups here after the auctions and take all criticisms/feedback you have for us.
Greg Ambrosius
Founder, National Fantasy Baseball Championship
General Manager, Consumer Fantasy Games at SportsHub Technologies
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KJ Duke
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Re: NFBC In NL & AL LABR Auctions: Saturday and Sunday

Post by KJ Duke » Sat Mar 06, 2021 4:32 pm

How about recruiting a couple of these EXPERTS to face real competition in a real contest! :D

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Greg Ambrosius
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Re: NFBC In NL & AL LABR Auctions: Saturday and Sunday

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Sat Mar 06, 2021 4:45 pm

KJ Duke wrote:
Sat Mar 06, 2021 4:32 pm
How about recruiting a couple of these EXPERTS to face real competition in a real contest! :D
I would love to get more industry guys into the NFBC. That has always been tough to do. And there's no way anyone calls these EXPERT leagues anymore!!! ;)
Greg Ambrosius
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Gekko
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Re: NFBC In NL & AL LABR Auctions: Saturday and Sunday

Post by Gekko » Sat Mar 06, 2021 8:18 pm

Childs with the buy of the draft. $25 for Bauer!!! Mind blowing!

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mdecav
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Re: NFBC In NL & AL LABR Auctions: Saturday and Sunday

Post by mdecav » Sat Mar 06, 2021 10:45 pm

The draft isn’t over yet but that NL team is fugly.

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KJ Duke
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Re: NFBC In NL & AL LABR Auctions: Saturday and Sunday

Post by KJ Duke » Sun Mar 07, 2021 10:39 am

Gekko wrote:
Sat Mar 06, 2021 8:18 pm
Childs with the buy of the draft. $25 for Bauer!!! Mind blowing!
I literally (using the word correctly) closed the XM app when Arenado went for more than Bauer.

It's just Childs (and a handful of other good players) abusing the other half of the league who are there to showcase their media presence. :| Useless content for the NFBC.

Meanwhile, still a player short for the NL auction as no one in LABR likes to be challenged and some are downright defensive about it. :oops: Hope their feelings aren't hurt too bad. //notreally

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Greg Ambrosius
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Re: NFBC In NL & AL LABR Auctions: Saturday and Sunday

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Sun Mar 07, 2021 10:49 am

KJ Duke wrote:
Sun Mar 07, 2021 10:39 am
Gekko wrote:
Sat Mar 06, 2021 8:18 pm
Childs with the buy of the draft. $25 for Bauer!!! Mind blowing!
I literally (using the word correctly) closed the XM app when Arenado went for more than Bauer.

It's just Childs (and a handful of other good players) abusing the other half of the league who are there to showcase their media presence. :| Useless content for the NFBC.
I'll post our team (fugly??) and some thoughts shortly. This was a weird auction because three teams held money for the longest time, while some of us were aggressive early and couldn't overpay for those final hitters. But this is a trading league, so having more superstars can certainly work to our advantage later.

That being said, the low pricing for pitching was an eye opener. Jacob deGrom went for $40 and then we got Trevor Bauer for $25. We had no idea why he went so low, but after getting Fernando Tatis Jr. for $41 we felt we were off to a great start. AFter Bauer, Darvish went for $28, Walker Buehler for $27 and Jack Flaherty, Aaron Nola and Luis Castillo for $25 each. I think all will go for more in Las Vegas.

Since this auction was online, we kind of got caught price enforcing Juan Soto and got him for $41, so two $41 players!!! That wasn't the plan, but we would have taken Bauer at $30, so it felt like getting Soto for $36. I'll post our team next with comments.
Greg Ambrosius
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Re: NFBC In NL & AL LABR Auctions: Saturday and Sunday

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Sun Mar 07, 2021 11:10 am

This is the 28th year of USA Today's NL LABR Auction League and I'm the last original member of this league. But this is the first time we've ever held the auction online, which made this one as interesting as one we've ever done.

I once again competed with NFBC Hall of Famer Shawn Childs and we were hooked up via Zoom throughout the auction. Our plan was to build around Fernando Tatis, Jr. if the price was right, get a stud ace and this year spend a little more on pitching. We've never gotten a closer in LABR together, but if the price was right we were going to do that and try to be more competitive from the start in pitching.

This is a trading league, so we weren't afraid to spend $100 on three top hitters and try to fill in later on. However, this auction did not go quite as planned because pitching went lower than expected, while three teams had as much as $200-$120 left later in the game to spend on hitters. It made it tough to fill out our hitting lineup and will give us a challenge to fill some holes early in the year.

Anyway, we have some good assets to build around, our pitching should be competitive and we'll be active in FAAB to fill in some spots. Here you go and feel free to tell us where we failed and where we succeeded:

C - Will Smith $17
C - Joey Bart $2
1B - Paul Goldschmidt $25
2B - Scott Kingery $11
SS - Fernando Tatis, Jr. $41
3B - Matt Carpenter $2
MI - Paul DeJong $12
CI - Travis Shaw $3
UT - Brandon Crawford $3
OF - Juan Soto $41
OF - Jared Oliva $3
OF - J.D. Davis $13
OF - Yasiel Puig $3
OF - Odubel Herrera $2

P - Trevor Bauer $25
P - Sixto Sanchez $11
P - Chris Paddack $17
P - David Price $9
P - Madison Bumgarner $5
P - Mitch Keller $2
P - Craig Kimbrel $10
P - Joey Lucchesi $2
P - Keone Kela $1

Reserves: Brad Miller, Luis Garcia, Corey Knebel, Dom Nunuz, Joe DeLeon, Drew Rasmussen

We need a Catcher if Bart goes to the minors and two outfielders before Opening Day and there is FAAB on March 28th. We still have work to do, but the base is there.
Greg Ambrosius
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General Manager, Consumer Fantasy Games at SportsHub Technologies
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Greg Ambrosius
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Re: NFBC In NL & AL LABR Auctions: Saturday and Sunday

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Sun Mar 07, 2021 11:14 am

Nobody went above $41, which is interesting. Here's the top players:

Fernando Tatis Jr. - $41
Ronald Acuna Jr. - $41
Juan Soto - $41
Treat Turner - $40
Jacob deGrom - $40
Christian Yelich - $35
Trevor Story - $35
Freddie Freeman - $34
Manny Machado - $33
Bryce Harper - $33

That was it for players over $30. Interesting indeed.
Greg Ambrosius
Founder, National Fantasy Baseball Championship
General Manager, Consumer Fantasy Games at SportsHub Technologies
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mdecav
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Re: NFBC In NL & AL LABR Auctions: Saturday and Sunday

Post by mdecav » Sun Mar 07, 2021 1:09 pm

Greg Ambrosius wrote:
Sun Mar 07, 2021 11:10 am

C - Will Smith $17
C - Joey Bart $2
1B - Paul Goldschmidt $25
2B - Scott Kingery $11
SS - Fernando Tatis, Jr. $41
3B - Matt Carpenter $2
MI - Paul DeJong $12
CI - Travis Shaw $3
UT - Brandon Crawford $3
OF - Juan Soto $41
OF - Jared Oliva $3
OF - J.D. Davis $13
OF - Yasiel Puig $3
OF - Odubel Herrera $2

P - Trevor Bauer $25
P - Sixto Sanchez $11
P - Chris Paddack $17
P - David Price $9
P - Madison Bumgarner $5
P - Mitch Keller $2
P - Craig Kimbrel $10
P - Joey Lucchesi $2
P - Keone Kela $1
The pitching is decent but that offense isn't good at all; the link shows you having Ian Desmond instead of Travis Shaw.

You painted yourself in a corner with all those early bids which left a number of slots that could generate zero stats (Odubel, Oliva, Puig, Bart). Puig is a fine gamble but that assumes the rest of squad is solid. Personally, I would've bid another dollar on Locastro and Rojas if you were down to a few dollars but then again I would not have gone with that stars-and-scrubs approach. I'd have bid another dollar on Narvaez and Elias Diaz instead of getting Will Smith and Bart.

... but that's just my opinion :D

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