Greg & Shawn Competing In LABR AL & NL Auctions

[Greg Ambrosius]

This weekend marks the 22nd annual USA Today LABR AL and NL Auction Leagues and you can hear both of them on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio. The AL Auction League starts at 7 pm ET on Saturday, March 7th and the NL Auction starts at 7 pm ET on Sunday, March 8th.

I am the last original member of the LABR League, which was started in 1994 by John Hunt of USA Today Baseball Weekly. It was really the industry's first high-profile writers' league that was played out through the season with a champion crowned. That first season included well-known writers/broadcasters such as Keith Olbermann, Peter Gammons, Bill James, Danny Sheridan and more. The first two auctions were done over the phone with the majority of owners at different locations and each took about 6 1/2 hours to complete. This was the strike season of 1994, which ended the LABR season prematurely on Aug. 11th. We did phone auctions again in 1995 once the strike was settled and finally all met in Tampa in 1996 for what would be an annual LABR trek.

I asked Shawn Childs to be my partner four years ago and he will be joining me today in Phoenix to lead our teams once again. Asking Shawn to partner with me was an easy choice for many reasons: 1) I hadn't won a LABR league title in 17 seasons; 2) I have no time to properly run these teams during the season; 3) Shawn is among the best auction players in the country who has won 4 NFBC Auction League titles and is an NFBC Hall of Famer; and 4) He's been a great friend since we first met in 2004 and he's a lot of fun to draft with and hang out with in Phoenix. Despite the fact that he's on the phone with other NFBC members 70 percent of the time together, he's fun to hang with at ball games and in just talking about baseball. Everyone knows that. And I've been glad to introduce Shawn to many of the great guys in LABR who now know him and respect him.

We won the LABR NL title in 2013, but struggled with middle of the pack finishes in both leagues last year. We finished 2nd in 2012 AL, but it's time to get back on top and win this thing. A double title would shock the LABR world as nobody has ever done that in the same year!! That's our goal this year Shawn!!

Anyway, look for us to update everything involving LABR on this thread. We'll post our team after each auction and will post the top dollar values in each league. Should be a lot of fun. Wish us good luck and let's get NFBC at the top of each standings. Looking forward to it.

[Greg Ambrosius]

Another interesting industry writers' league that is high profile is Tout Wars, which was started by Ron Shandler around 2002 or so. I've never competed in the AL or NL Tout Wars auctions because they have always been held just before or during our NFBC Auctions. It's just impossible for me to fly to New York for those, but Tom and I are both in the Tout Wars Mixed Draft League that will be held on Tuesday, March 10th at 8 pm ET and will be broadcast on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio. Listen in next week.

The Tout Wars AL and NL Auctions will also be broadcast on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio on March 21-22.

So how was Tout Wars first formed? Ron can probably tell the story better than I can, but one of the frustrations with John Hunt during the early years of LABR was that we'd take the time to all come together and host auctions, which were prominently covered in the fantasy baseball edition of USA Today Baseball Weekly, but then never talked about during the season. In fact, readers never saw the standings or really knew who won those leagues each year. That never bothered me at all, but some owners thought it was a waste of good content and writers who could contribute during the baseball season. Ron wanted more from this league and so one year he chose to start Tout Wars as an industry league that would talk about the auctions, in-season free agent pickups and late-season moves throughout the season. The name of the league made it seem like a battle of publications, but I'm not sure if there really was one as the Tout Wars strategies were heavily written about on industry web sites, not a publication.

Anyway, Ron famously used his Lima Plan to win the 2002 NL LABR title (I think that was the year) and then left LABR for several years. BaseballHQ has always been represented, but I'm not sure if Ron has actually drafted with us since Tout Wars was started. It was always fun, but the industry is well served with both industry auctions book-ending the month of March and I love them both. It's all good fun and the numbers hopefully help all of you as you prepare for your auctions and drafts.

That's your history lesson for the day!!

[Edwards Kings]

Tulo, Tulo...Tulo, Tulo...Tulo, Tulo...Tulo, Tulo...TULO, TULO!

[Greg Ambrosius]

Great first day in Phoenix as I went to Talking Stick Park to see Diamondbacks and A's with NFBC members Shawn Childs, Steve Fiore and Mike O'Connor. There's 35 years of NFBC experience right there!! I think both teams had split squads, but we did get to see Goldschmidt and Yasmany Tomas. The D-Backs had Tomas at DH as Jake Lamb played third base. Not a good sign if they are serious about using Tomas at third base. A few reps there on March 6th could have helped him.

By the way, has anyone seen Tomas' body type? Do you really think he's going to be able to handle third base? And if not, can they really put him at a corner outfield spot with Mark Trumbo out there? I don't see it. I shouldn't let first impressions form a strong opinion, but it will be interesting to see where Tomas plays and where he can play. He sure looks like a DH type with a long swing. I look forward to seeing him in the field as much as I want to see a few more at-bats.

Anyone else have thoughts or insights on Tomas?

[Tom Kessenich]

Live board for tonight's AL auction

http://www.rtsports.com/labr-al-auction

[Yah Mule]

They're off to a nice start.

[Schwks]

Fielder for 30?! Thats no discount for injury, body type, age and a middling season. For 3 extra bucks...EE or for 4 less...Pujols. Kipnis for 27...what has he done lately? stars and scrubs or scrubs and scrubs?

[Greg Ambrosius]

Competing in the LABR AL Auction League last night felt like a visit to the dentist for a root canal: IT WAS PAINFUL!! And my dentist was a drunken sailor!!

When Shawn focuses on a player it's tough to talk him out of it and money is no issue!! The AL is devoid of top pitching talent with the loss of Max Scherzer, Jon Lester and James Shields to the NFL, and with the latest injury of Yu Darvish and uncertainly to Masahiro Tanaka. As a result, prices for top hitters went $3-$4 over expected prices and even pitchers went high. It was not easy to leave with a team that anyone was completely happy with.

Thankfully this is a trading league and maybe some of our top assets can be tradeable midway through the season. Anyway, here's how our roster looked when the dust settled:

C - Dionar Navarro $8
C - Alex Avila $2
1B - Prince Fielder $30
2B - Jason Kipnis $27
SS - Francisco Lindor $5
3B - Pablo Sandoval $23
CI - C.J. Cron $8
MI - Nick Franklin $8
UT - Mitch Moreland $7
OF - Mike Trout $44
OF - Mookie Betts $22
OF - Allen Craig $5
OF - Michael Choice $1
OF - Kevin Pillar $1

P - Sonny Gray $19
P - Drew Smyly $16
P - Justin Verlander $11
P - Kevin Gausman $14
P - Clay Buccholz $5
P - Erik Johnson $1
P - Tommy Hunter $1
P - Brandon Finnegan $1
P - Michael Tonkin $1

Reserves:
Matt Dominquez
Craig Gentry
Carlos Sanchez
Hector Olivares
Carlos Correa
Gordon Beckham

Okay, have at it. We've never won AL LABR, but can this one do it? Let's see.

[TrunkMonkey]

I like the team, but what do I know, I've never won anything.......

Once the auction is over, the values mean nothing, time in the auction being nominated is key to take into consideration when comparing what players went for...

Looking forward to seeing the NL version tonight. Go get 'em guys!

[Greg Ambrosius]

Here's the top prices from last night's LABR AL Auction:

Mike Trout $44
Jose Abreu $37
Miguel Cabrera $35
Jose Bautista $33
Jacoby Ellsbury $33
Edwin Encarnacion $33
Felix Hernandez $32
Josh Donaldson $31
Jose Altuve $31
Robinson Cano $30
Prince Fielder $30
Hanley Ramirez $30
Michael Brantley $30
Adrian Beltre $29
George Springer $29

[Greg Ambrosius]

Pitchers were interesting in the AL. Here's the top ones:

Felix Hernandez $32
David Price $27
Chris Sale $25
Corey Kluber $25
Alex Cobb $23
Hisashi Iwakuma $20
Carlos Carrasco $20
Marcus Stroman $20
Sonny Gray $19
Jeff Samardzija $18
Garrett Richards $17
Jose Quintana $16
Drew Smyly $16
Masahiro Tanaka $15
Yu Darvish $1

Closers:

Greg Holland $21
Dellin Bettances $19
Cody Allen $17
David Robertson $17
Koji Uehara $17
Glen Perkins $17
Huston Street $16
Fernando Rodney $16
Neftali Feliz $14
Zach Britton $14
Jake McGee $10
Tyler Clippard $10

[Yah Mule]

The AL is devoid of top pitching talent with the loss of Max Scherzer, Jon Lester and James Shields to the NFL...

Now, Jeff Samardzija wouldn't have been a total shocker, but this is huge news.

[Yah Mule]

I love that you guys took Olivares as a reserve. Great zero risk/high reward flyer.

[Tom Kessenich]

Live draft board for tonight's NL Auction

http://www.rtsports.com/labr-nl-auction

[Captain Hook]

JEEBUS stop the presses - Greg & Shawn bought a closer

[Lunatic]

They also spent $53 on speed only; not crazy about that; luv Strasburg and Storen for $42; can't wait to see what they get for power.

[Yah Mule]

They've got SB's locked up, but they've punted batting average into the sun.

[Schwks]

Interesting strategy ...punting avg for speed and then finding good power guys at decent prices. Jose Fernandez could be the key to their winning. Love to hear the why on Melvin Upton

[KJ Duke]

Interesting strategy ...punting avg for speed and then finding good power guys at decent prices. Jose Fernandez could be the key to their winning. Love to hear the why on Melvin Upton

HR and SB but seems short run production ... lots of all-or-nothing swingers, bottom of the lineup and bench types.

[Tom Kessenich]

Love to hear the why on Melvin Upton

I'm assuming they were both drunk and about to pass out.

[Greg Ambrosius]

We kicked around several potential strategies before the NL auction before deciding on the punt batting average plan. We tried to plan for a team centered around Kershaw, but figured someone would go all in for him (we were right as Lawr Michaels had an opening bid of $40 for him). We looked at getting someone like Andrew McCutchen and building around him, but felt that the bats weren't deep enough in the NL, even if we punted saves again. It was going to be tough without finding an edge somewhere.

So we decided to lock up speed with Billy Hamilton and one other top speed guy and then get the slug power hitters that nobody wanted. We knew it would be an ugly looking team, but we would have money to spend on one closer and enough starting pitchers to compete for pitching points. And if we did the speedsters right we'd force an inflation on the remaining speed guys and have a trade able asset during the season.

The draft board really wasn't visible during the auction, so even though the Sirius XM guys knew what we were doing I'm not sure the other drafters did. They just knew our squad was ugly.

We got Hamilton at $27 and didn't expect to get Dee Gordon, but when we bid $25 and nobody else bit we had locked up that category. Melvin Upton at $5 fit our dump batting average perfectly!!! Another asset to add steals at just 5 bucks.

I've never left the auction with an uglier team, but I think Shawn nailed the strategy correctly. The NL is very thin with sluggers and while the top pitchers are better here than in the AL the depth falls off quickly. We still need another arm until Jose Fernandez comes back, but the Strasburg-Cueto start was solid. We'll see how it plays out, but it was a fun strategy to try, it was like picking all of the ugly contestants in a Miss Wisconsin contest!!

I'll post the lineup in a bit. Hopefully this explanation sheds some light on our plan.

[Schwks]

Every year I look at the results of draft and I wonder what Lawr Michaels has been smoking. $40 for Kershaw when Scherzer, next highest sp, went for 32 is flat out just bad strategy. Then he sat on $211 for about 90 minutes and really didn't get a quality bat in his entire lineup. Im no "expert" but does that guy ever place?

[mdecav]

Every year I look at the results of draft and I wonder what Lawr Michaels has been smoking. $40 for Kershaw when Scherzer, next highest sp, went for 32 is flat out just bad strategy.

How is this a bad strategy? Kershaw beat Scherzer in 3 of 4 categories and had a higher strikeout rate. Scherzer's move to the NL isn't going to improve him THAT much.

http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/how-mu ... in-the-nl/

[Captain Hook]

Every year I look at the results of draft and I wonder what Lawr Michaels has been smoking. $40 for Kershaw when Scherzer, next highest sp, went for 32 is flat out just bad strategy. Then he sat on $211 for about 90 minutes and really didn't get a quality bat in his entire lineup. Im no "expert" but does that guy ever place?

Not sure you are cognizant of all the auction dynamics with this group - if he opened at $35 or lower he would invite bids - in fact a few of the participants said they were willing to go to $40 - but they weren't willing to go beyond so if that was the case he judged his opponents pretty well - $40 was the make or break spot

[Greg Ambrosius]

We had Kershaw targeted at $33 and knew that with Derek Carty in the NL that he would go higher than that. We asked Derek if we had gone $35 would he have gone $36 and he said yes. He said he might have gone to $38 for him, so whether Lawr could have gotten him at $38 or $40 was kind of a mute point. Lawr opened him at $40 -- similar to what John Hunt did with Pedro Martinez at $50 in 2001 or 2002 -- and got him.

Next player please.