Greg & Shawn Compete In LABR AL & NL Auctions

[Greg Ambrosius]

I'm a little late with this post, but what the hell, there's still one more LABR auction to watch.

So this marks the 29th year of USA Today's League of Alternative Baseball Reality auction leagues and I've been fortunate to be the only participant all 29 years. John Hunt started LABR in 1994 as an AL-only auction league and an NL-only auction league featuring industry writers and other personalities. Those personalities included Keith Olbermann, Peter Gammons, USA Today Baseball Weekly editor Paul White, Danny Sheridan and others. It was Olbermann who coined the name of the league and it has stuck for almost three generations.

The first two years were phone auctions, where yes, you actually made your bids over the phone. Olbermann was originally scheduled for my AL-only auction which went first, but had prepared for the NL Auction and we had to find a replacement for him at the last minute as he moved to the next night's NL Auction. Thus began what has always been kind of an interesting and somewhat chaotic league of industry writers.

I finished 2nd that first year of AL LABR, having led most of the year and then falling from 1st to 2nd during the shortened last week of the Strike Season. Of course, since you didn't get standings and stats until the next week, I didn't realize I had fallen from 1st place when the players walked off the field on that Friday night in mid August, but at least I hoped they would return and I could still win the title. But alas, the season never returned and my initial season ended with the players walking out.

It's kind of appropriate to look back at that initial season because 29 years later we are hosting online auction leagues when the players are locked out of training camps. The first week of the MLB regular season has already been canceled, but LABR moved forward nonetheless. It felt kind of weird bidding on players during a lockout, but actually it was fun to get back to the grind and compete again with the hope that the owners and players will give the National Pastime back to us pretty soon.

Anyway, thankfully Shawn Childs ran our auction as I'm no longer the content guy I was in 1994. Back when John Hunt invited me to participate in LABR, I was the editor of Fantasy Baseball Magazine and I ranked every player at every position and also wrote every single player profile in the magazine. I was a content guy at that time and as in tune with the player rankings and values as anyone in the industry. Today, I can't even pretend to know every player on every team as my job is to run high-stakes contents, secure hotel space, create every banquet order at those hotels, set and reach bigger budgets than I ever imagined, and keep tens of thousands of high-stakes customers happy!!! I'm not a content guy anymore and during the busy baseball months I'm knee deep in our football contests. My life has changed, but for the better.

So without Shawn, I would have left LABR years ago. Thanks to Shawn, we won the 2017 LABR NL title, but we've struggled mightily in the AL. We've had a couple of 2nd and 3rd place finishes, but we haven't won an AL title yet. On Friday, we took a slightly different tact with our roster construction as we shied away from the top stars and attacked some weak areas in the AL: middle infield, third base and top-tier Starting Pitching. Our top bid was $30, which is uncommon when we usually grab the top stars for the highest prices. It was a fun, fun auction for sure and you can see the final auction board here:

https://rtsports.com/labr-al-auction

There also was a 12-team LABR Mixed Auction League last night. Here is that auction board:

https://rtsports.com/labr-mixed-auction

Okay, our draft plan went the way Shawn set it up and I think we finished with a solid rotation after holding back and having the most money in the end game. We spent $92 on pitching and $168 on hitting. Here's the final lineup card:

C - Adley Rutschman $9
C - MJ Melendez $2
1B - Spencer Torkelson $8
2B - Javy Baez $30
SS - Bobby Witt $20
MI - Wander Franco $28
CI - Jake Burger $1
UT - Elvis Andrus $1
OF - Jarred Kalenic $18
OF - Ramon Laureano $12
OF - Andrew Vaughn $12
OF - Edward Oliveras $1
OF - Josh Lowe $3

P - Shane Bieber $28
P - Justin Verlander $20
P - Tristan McKenzie $10
P - Cristian Javier $7
P - Grayson Rodriguez $4
P - Casey Mize $5
P - Luis Severino $9
P - Ken Giles $5
P - Brady Singer $4

Thoughts?

[Greg Ambrosius]

Tonight's NL-only Auction League will be held tonight at 7:15 pm ET and will air on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio starting at 7 pm ET. Listen in or watch the auction board here:

https://rtsports.com/labr-al-auction

[Greg Ambrosius]

Last night's LABR NL-only auction league was interesting, to say the least. There were several owners who held onto their money for the $20 tier players and there were a lot of intense fights for players in that area, and some owners even had money left at the end. Shawn and I were aggressive for players we liked early and got the players we wanted, but the end game was tough as we sat with $21 for 7 players for a long time. We have some work to do in free agency, but the core of the team is solid. Here's where you can find the finished board:

https://rtsports.com/labr-al-auction

Here's our team:

C - Will Smith $22
C - Daulton Varsho $19
1B - Colin Moran $1
2B - Luis Garcia $7
SS - Paul DeJong $9
3B - Alec Bohm $15
MI - Luis Garcia $7
CI - Carter Kieboom $5
UT - Seth Beer $1
OF - Ronald Acuna Jr. $35
OF - Cody Bellinger $23
OF - Victor Robles $9
OF - Dominic Smith $11
OF - Lars Nootbar $1

P - Walker Buehler $34
P - Julio Urias $24
P - Jack Flaherty $19
P - Trevor Bauer $7
P - Dakota Hudson $3
P - Mike Soroka $2
P - Luke Weaver $1
P - Camilo Doval $8
P - Nick Lodolo

Thoughts?

[King of Queens]

Shawn

OF - Cody Bellinger $23

The more things change, the more they stay the same

[Ultrarunner]

Shawn

OF - Cody Bellinger $23

The more things change, the more they stay the same

Where’s Tulowitzki?

[Greg Ambrosius]

Here is Shawn's LABR AL writeup for SI.com:

https://www.si.com/fantasy/2022/03/08/b ... ber-franco