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I'll be one of 12 owners in today's CBS Sportsline.com AL Auction League, which will begin at noon. The auction site is on CBS Sportsline.com and we'll play the league out. I'm pretty sure that Eric Mack of Sportsline.com won this league last year.



I'll post my team and some of the auction results afterwards. If memory serves me correctly, top stars go for higher values here than they do in LABR and I've fallen into these waters too much. I may lay back today and see what bargains can be found later. We'll see.



90 points will normally win an AL Auction League, which means you just need to finish fourth in every category to win it all. I'll set my sights on third place in each category and see if I can hit my targets. Third place in the NFBC $1300 AL Auction League last year included:



BA: .2764

Runs: 896

HRs: 205

RBIs: 848

SBs: 138

ERA: 3.89

Wins: 84

WHIP: 1.308

Ks: 990

Saves: 54



Talk to you later this afternoon on this one.

Kazmir will go for how much today?

Wow, check out these NL Auction League values from yesterday's CBS Sportsline.com auction. Wright and Braun for $52, Hanley for $51, Reyes for $46, Santana for $40. I think I'll be laying low on the superstars today if that trend continues:



http://fantasynews.cbssports.com/fantas ... y/11361968

Okay, 3.5 hours later, I have emerged as a bruised and battered man. We had some technical troubles to start out, but otherwise the site was solid. Great fun and a great rush as you try to build a competitive team with your $260. The dollars were flying like we were passing a stimulus bill at first and I chose to stay on the sidelines and see what I could buy later on. It's stressful to do that, but a lot of fun when you have most of the money.



I didn't make my first purchase until 43 other players were off the board and I didn't make my second purchase until another 20 players were gone. So having one player in the first 60 or so was tough. BaseballHQ.com also sat on the sideline after getting Alexis Rios with the first pick at $30 and thus we had the most money for the $20 players. That created some battles and forced both of us up higher than we wanted to go on some guys.



We'll see if I scored any winners or not, but overall I thought it went well. I'm low on power and chasing saves, but I didn't punt any category and I think my pitching will be okay. I thought I had enough BA to gamble on Giambi for the added power and I took a chance on Jeff Clement, and I promise to cut bait early on Jeremy Bonderman if he starts out badly. I just felt for $5 after reading about his off-season workouts was worth the chance for my fifth starter. It's tough to get 900+ saves with just four starters and two K setup guys, so I took the gamble.



Anyway, here's my team for $260:



CBS Sportsline.com AL Auction League

Team NFBC



C - A.J. Pierzynski $9

C - Jeff Clement $7

1B - Jason Giambi $16

2B - Howie Kendrick $14

SS - Orlando Cabrera $9

3B - Chone Figgins $24

CI - Marco Scutaro $1

MI - Julio Lugo $1

UT - Rocco Baldelli $2

OF - Nick Markakis $35

OF - Curtis Granderson $28

OF - Magglio Ordonez $27

OF - Michael Cuddyer $11

OF - Felix Pie $1



P - Francisco Liriano $22

P - John Danks $15

P - Andy Pettitte $7

P - Joe Saunders $7

P - Jeremy Bonderman $5

P - J.P. Howell $3

P - Troy Percival $7

P - Chris Ray $8

P - Rafael Perez $1



That's $75 on pitching and $185 on hitting. The closers went too high for my blood, but I didn't want to get shut out completely. We'll see. I'll post the highest bids in a followup post and then tomorrow I'll link the story on Eric Mack's column on CBS Sportsline.com and give you access to the entire draft with bids.

Okay, here were some of the eye-catching bids in the AL Auction League. Again, I'll send the link tomorrow for all of the bids/teams:



Grady Sizemore $51

Alex Rodriguez $50

Ian Kinsler $44

Mark Teixeira $43

Josh Hamilton $41

Justin Morneau $40

Dustin Pedroia $40

Evan Longoria $40

B.J. Upton $39

Matt Holliday $37

Brian Roberts $35

CC Sabathia $34

Jonathan Papelbon $31

Bobby Jenks $28 (last of top closers left)

Joakim Soria $27

Joe Nathan $26

B.J. Ryan $27

Mariano Rivera $24



The shortstops went higher than I expected:

Jeter $24

Peralta $26

Michael Young $19

Mike Aviles $14

Elvis Andrus $13



Matt Wieters went for $13. Joe Mauer for $24.



Enjoy. Any thoughts on all of this?

Greg-do you guys play for money? If not, what is the prize or motivation?

Looks like a keeper league-where are the bargains?

Originally posted by GYOZTES:

Greg-do you guys play for money? If not, what is the prize or motivation? No prize. The motivation is beating your peers in the industry. Sorry, that's the best we can do. We're just lowly journalists.

Originally posted by GYOZTES:

Looks like a keeper league-where are the bargains? When you see the results tomorrow, you tell me.

SS - Orlando Cabrera $9I find that an interesting purchase since he's still a free agent. What happens if he signs with an NL team?

Okay, here were some of the eye-catching bids in the AL Auction League.I love seeing these kind of results and comparing them to how the bidding in my AL only league usually turns out. Things of interest to me:



1. We've never had a $50 player in the 9 year history of my league.



2. My league overpays for pitching. I expect CC to bring well over $40 when we draft in April.



3. Mariano went for $33 in my league last year and if he's not kept should bring at least that this season.



Matt Wieters went for $13.Another interesting buy since he's not guaranteed to be in the majors at the start of the season.



Good luck this year, Greg!

Originally posted by ssmarsh:

quote:SS - Orlando Cabrera $9I find that an interesting purchase since he's still a free agent. What happens if he signs with an NL team? [/QUOTE]Yes, that was my one gamble. Might be a mistake if he signs with an NL team because I would lose him. I covered myself at the position later, but yes that could be a bad gamble. We'll see.

Here's the link to the auction values in that league:



http://fantasynews.cbssports.com/fantas ... y/11367162

Originally posted by ssmarsh:

quote:Okay, here were some of the eye-catching bids in the AL Auction League.I love seeing these kind of results and comparing them to how the bidding in my AL only league usually turns out. Things of interest to me:



1. We've never had a $50 player in the 9 year history of my league.



2. My league overpays for pitching. I expect CC to bring well over $40 when we draft in April.



3. Mariano went for $33 in my league last year and if he's not kept should bring at least that this season.



Matt Wieters went for $13.Another interesting buy since he's not guaranteed to be in the majors at the start of the season.



Good luck this year, Greg! [/QUOTE]I agree that it is always interesting to see other leagues.......BUT they are never the same!

# teams, rules, etc, etc change a LOT in Auction Dynamics



I do find it odd that your league overpays for pitching to that degree and yet won't pay for a STUD hitter at comparable rates when the pitching is far less reliable.

Greg- do you feel comfortable enough with this software to move forward?

I agree that it is always interesting to see other leagues.......BUT they are never the same! # teams, rules, etc, etc change a LOT in Auction Dynamics



I do find it odd that your league overpays for pitching to that degree and yet won't pay for a STUD hitter at comparable rates when the pitching is far less reliable.I couldn't agree more. As for my league, what can I say? People are different...you just have to learn how to play in the confines of your own league.

Originally posted by Chest Rockwell:

Greg- do you feel comfortable enough with this software to move forward? I was one of three owners in this auction who couldn't get the countdown clock to work. I never was able to get it fixed, so I bid immediately whenever I wanted a player. It was funny, because when it was $17 I went $18. Then the other guy would wait six seconds and I'd go $19. I think I scared a lot of guys off, but I had no choice because I had no clock!!



That being said, CBS said they would fix this and one other glitch: You could only nominate a player at $1. That HAS to be changed because there is strategy in entering someone at a high price or a late bid at $2. So there are some things that need to be fixed.



But overall, this was VERY smooth software. Very easy to just click on BID, which was like +$1 on FA.com. You can also enter a bid number once the bidding is going on...jumping from $5 to $20 easily. It was very cool and the commissioner was able to pause for a potty break, roll back a pick, etc., easily. Tom will have that commissioner access, so I think this will work fine.



Again, if the system is updated in four more weeks, I'd have no problem hosting a $250 NFBC Satellite Auction League on this site.