I'll post a couple of my stories here so that folks know what we're talking about:
Shawn may have posted our NL-only LABR team this morning, but he didn't reveal the details. I'll do that here:
We had discussed before going to the auction that we were going to be aggressive and get four of the top stars because we both agreed that the NL was top heavy with stars early and then there were a lot of $15-$20 guys who all had issues. We felt if we took some of the stars out early that it would push inflated values on the next tier of players, especially if we grabbed the top infielders.
Early on we let Pujols go to Perry at a good price of $41, Hanley go for $42, then Wright went for $36 and Fielder for $37 and Kemp for $38 and we thought we were in trouble. Our plan to be aggressive was being trumped by others and we didn't have a player through about 8 bids. Shawn turned to me and said "I have a bad feeling. This isn't going well."
We both laughed and then he proceeded to spend my LABR money luck a drunken sailor!!
My blood pressure went through the rough!!
We spent $190 of our $260 in the next 30 minutes on SIX PLAYERS!! That left us with $70 for EIGHTEEN PLAYERS!!! We didn't get all of our targeted players, but we moved when we had to and came out with:
Ryan Howard $35
Tim Lincecum $36
Matt Holliday $32
Rickie Weeks $16
I was okay so far, but then out of the blue Jose Reyes was at $25 and Shawn jumped in at the last second and said "$26." I turned to him with a cold stare and said "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?" By then the auctioneer said SOLD!!
So we got Weeks and Reyes back-to-back and everyone was hootin' and hollerin' about that. Tulowitzki comes out next and Wolf & Colton -- who also like to go with many top stars -- had him at $30 with the auctioneer going "ONCE, TWICE" "THIRTY ONE" shouts Shawn!!!
I couldn't believe we were adding him too!! Sure enough they let him go to us and we now have $70 left with 18 open spots to go. I couldn't believe it.
During the break Rick Wolf of NBC Sports came over to me and said "wow, you got some sun today. Your face is all red." I told him it rained all day and we never got outside. The red was from my blood pressure!!
And that was the truth.
We then sat for about two hours and added Chris Young for $14, leaving us with $56 for 17 players. It was a battle but we were patient, saw how many second tier players went for $2-$4 higher each and eventually we had as much money as everyone else. In fact, we were disciplined enough to be at $22 for 11 players and still finished with only three $1 players. Having that extra buck down the stretch really helped us fill in this roster.
Now I have no idea how this is going to play out, but I now like this NL team better than the AL team. Remember, it's a trading league and we should be able to trade steals for saves or power for more pitching later. Obviously we need Weeks, Reyes and others to stay healthy and we need Lincecum to perform like he has before. But I now see the madness in this strategy and it was fun to watch it unfold -- except for in the beginning. What a crazy night, but what fun.
Shawn, you almost killed me there. $70 with 18 spots left was something I've never done before. But I can see us doing it again next year if this works.
[ March 09, 2010, 07:31 PM: Message edited by: Greg Ambrosius ]
