http://advice.sportsdraftdaily.com/2013 ... -al-recap/
The toughest game in fantasy baseball is an auction. I have been playing in auction leagues for a long time and each year you learn something new. This year in the AL LABR auction we had a turnover of owners. I believe there were four different teams in the auction. Three of the owners I had played against in the NL in the previous season. The one new player was Eno Sarris from Fangraphs. All owners have auction experience, but the change in owners resulted in a big change in aggressive players which led to less inflation. Our style has been aggressive in each season in the LABR. With prices at the mid-tier level falling more in line, we were unable to find many bargains as I handcuffed our flexibility by changing our game plan with two higher priced players (Pujols and Teixeira).
When the gate opened, we had the first call and we called out Mike Trout for $30. After some quick back and forth action, we made the last bid at $42 to win him which was the exact number on our cheat sheet. We were hoping to save a couple of dollars, but we knew we would pay full price.
On our next call, we called out Evan Longoria. He was the second important player to our plan and we wanted know if we were going to get him early so we had more options if we changed our game plan. He fell right into our price point ($31).
As this point of the auction, we were right on target for our plan. Albert Pujols was called out and he was about to be rung up for $33 when I decided to bid $34. Our target first baseman was Eric Hosmer for $21. He went for $22, but he probably would have gone for more money if we were still in the game later in the auction. When we purchased Pujols, we were still within our plan if we cut out a $13 closer.
We had a great start, but we were now under the gun to fill out our offensive team. Alex Gordon was the next player called out that we were interested in. We purchased him at full value, but he price was the exact number we expected ($22).
At this point of the auction, we felt as though we had the core to offense. We needed to fill out the other key skill positions if we were going to have success this year.
Earlier in the auction, we tried to purchase Jesus Montero. He went just higher than our price point and our real target was Salvador Perez. I decided to call him out as I thought we wouldn’t have any leverage later in the auction due to over spending. We bid $15, but Steve Gardner went $16. I just couldn’t say $17 with Carlos Santana still on the table. At that moment, I thought I was going to push to own Santana.
A couple of rounds later, I decided to use the same theory on Dustin Ackley. The same situation arose, but I decided to push one step higher and we overpaid slightly ($16). We now owned 5 players for $145. We had our full budget for our pitching staff ($70) which left $45 to fill the rest of our offense.
I believe we purchased Matt Moore next for $21 which was higher than our target number ($18). Most of the top pitching inventory had already come of the board and we had already missed on our targeted number two starter Brett Anderson. I know there were a couple of better bargains at pitcher earlier in the auction, but we can only make our decisions on the remaining inventory.
At this point of the auction, we felt as though we were still within our plan with the exception of the catcher position and punting saves.
As Jacoby Ellsbury was called out, I started to walk out of the auction room. I thought he would go full value and I had no chance of owning him. As I walked back into the auction room, he was rung up for $24. I was in shock and I know I would have said $25 if I stayed in the auction area. Ray Flowers was the winner and I asked him if he would have gone $26. He said he would have so there was probably no chance that we could have owned him, but we could have had a slight price enforce.
The next player called out was Mark Teixeira. Just like Ellsbury, he was falling short of my expectations. As he was about to be sold for $21, I decided to bid $23. I was so surprised and frustrated by the Ellsbury price, I couldn’t remember the exact number at the moment so I bid an extra dollar. When we won him, we were officially on tilt on the batting side of the team.
We had two choices going forward. We could steal some money from pitching to help fill out our offense or we could just wait as long as possible for players that would give us at bats. We certainly would have no chance if we didn’t build a strong base for our pitching staff.
I think I was still stunned when Trevor Bauer was called out a couple of players later. He was in play as a back end pitching option, but I was trying to reevaluate our plan going forward as he was being counted off for $4. Greg was getting nervous as he wanted to purchase him and he felt he was a value at that price point. He went rogue on me and he bid $5. He then had to over bid for $7. It was a good buy and he went for $2 less than our price on our cheat sheet.
At this point of the auction, we really started to see the impact of the less aggressive owners as most second and third tier players were going for full price. We also had a problem with the draft board which really made it difficult to see the development of other teams and their remaining dollars.
We took a gamble on Tommy Hanson for $7 and I thought we had a nice buy in Matt Harrison for $5.
Later in the auction there were two top starters left (Max Scherzer and Brandon Morrow). Scherzer went for $25 as two teams really needed a top starting pitcher. At that point I thought Morrow would go for higher than expected. When he was called out, he appeared to be dying. We took a shot at $17, but it took an overbid of $19 to win him. He was key part to us finishing our pitching rotation. Our pitching has plenty of risk, but we may have more upside if they all pitch well and they stay healthy. If Bauer or Hanson pitches well, we will have an asset to trade to help our offense.
Here’s our whole pitching staff:
P - Matt Moore $21
P - Brandon Morrow $19
P - Trevor Bauer $7
P - Tommy Hanson $7
P - Matt Harrison $8
P - Al Albuquerque $4
P - John Lackey $1
P - Danny Hultzen $2
P - Carter Capps $1
Once we had our core of pitching staff in line, we needed to buy time to fill out our offense. We really wanted to roster Stephen Drew as a 7th hitter and we hoped to buy him for short money. We ended up paying full price ($10) which was acceptable at the time.
Our target backend of our roster was Vernon Wells, Jason Bay, Mike Zunino, and J.D. Martinez. In order to have any chance of executing the backend of the auction, we need to find players that we didn’t want that would draw a bid. I decided to call out Carter Capps which was a player I liked, but I knew he would be available in the reserve round. This move ended up hurting us as a much better reliever went for $1 (Kelvin Herrera). I really want to bid $2 on him, but Greg wanted Danny Hultzen as our last pitcher.
Our plan ended up coming together as we waited out all the teams that had plus dollars left. We tried to get J.D. Martinez for $4, but he went for $5. We then dropped down to Brennan Boesch to replace him.
Here is our offensive team:
C - Mike Zunino $2
C - Austin Romine $2
1B - Albert Pujols $34
2B - Dustin Ackley $16
SS - Stephen Drew $10
3B - Evan Longoria $31
MI - Johnny Giavotella $1
CI - Mark Teixeira $23
OF - Mike Trout $42
OF - Alex Gordon $22
OF - Vernon Wells $2
OF - Brennan Boesch $2
OF - Jason Bay $2
UT - James Loney $2
After finishing the auction, the big question is whether our team would be stronger if we didn’t make two major changes in our plan. Which three players combined will deliver better stats at the end of the season – Mike Zunino, Albert Pujols, and Mark Teixeira or Eric Hosmer, Jesus Montero or Salvador Perez, and the $15 to $17 player we would have upgraded to at corner or outfielder?
This team has plenty of holes in the offense, but it could be really strong if Wells, Bay, and Boesch combine for more than 1200 at bats. We will need to find speed on the waiver wire or through a trade.
We added Rubby De La Rosa, Nick Franklin, Luke Hochevar, Grant Green, Jake Elmore, and Kelly Shoppach in the reserve round. Shoppach will replace Zunino in our starting lineup.
Hopefully they can fix that tonight so that you can follow the auction results on SiriusXM.
