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DownloadTrying to get the best auction team is tough in any venue – trying to do it against eleven of the best fantasy baseball analysts and writers is work.
So as much fun as it was to see a room full of friends from the industry, once auctioneer Don Drooker opened the bidding in Saturday’s AL LABR auction it was time to buckle up and see if my plan could be put into play.
And of course you know that’s not easy when your competitors have the same goal so my idea was to avoid the top level of spending – high $30s into the low $40s for the very best hitters; high $20s and low $30s for the best starting pitchers – and try for a team of players who would for the most part contribute double digit numbers in home runs and stolen bases, hoping to arrive with 200+ home runs and 150+ stolen bases which would have been near the top in those categories in 2011.
So while I put in bids on Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, Justin Verlander et al, I was trying to seem competitive with those bids but not landing them at what I perceived to be the winning bid range. And for the most part the prices did approach what I thought – maybe slightly less some of the top players, but balanced off by higher prices for many of the tier two hitters and pitchers.
But let’s look at the prices I paid and see how I came out. My other goal is to get as many at bats as possible from the hitters because the teams that spend several thirty dollar bills on some players would find it hard to fill out their lineup with regular starting players.
The first player I landed was Toronto third baseman Brett Lawrie at $28 – maybe slightly more than the twenty five I had hoped but you have to make some quick decisions – and if I didn’t land Lawrie there (who I think has a floor at 20/20 with considerable upside), would I for sure be able to get Eric Hosmer the best first baseman left? Anyway Lawrie put me off to a good start on the double//double club.
The first pitcher I bought – and second player – was Angels closer Jordan Walden at $16. I thought, correctly as it turned out that some of the closers in the tier 1B (below Mariano Rivera) might go for slightly more, so get what you can. Rivera went in the twenties and several of the others went for around eighteen, so I was right there. I would try later to get one for a little less.
After the first hour I was one of three teams that had not spent over $100 and while I wished I was alone there I should be able to land several players who fit the plan. First was Adam Jones and at $23 I might have overpaid but not by more than a dollar or two and 24/11 would be fine.
I added both Matt Joyce and Dustin Ackley at $19 – I am a little higher on Ackley than most but as a 15/15 or close middle infielder I was happy to have him. I had wanted to get both Ackley and Jason Kipnis but that turned out to be a pipe dream. In fact it was tough to land one of the second tier shortstops early so I waited until later when I could get Alcides Escobar and his twenty plus bags for a reasonable $13.
If you want to see all the LABR results and decide for yourself who has the best team, I will leave a link for the Google spreadsheet that the Sirius/XM crew put up in real time. Sunday’s NL auction will be up by the time you read this on Monday.
Even the second and third tiers of starting pitching were running high, so I was happy later in the auction to start my staff with a $14 Jeremy Hellickson. I added a $13 Daniel Bard soon after that and think they will make a fine pair of starters to anchor what I presume will be a seven starter/two closer staff.
Here is my team with prices
C – Alex Avila (17) & Josh Donaldson (3)
CI – Mike Carp (12), Lawrie (28), & Casey Kotchman (6)
MI – Ackley (19), A. Escobar (13), & Trevor Plouffe (5)
OF – Jones (23), Joyce (19), Francoeur (17), Alejandro De Aza (15), & Andy Dirks (4)
UT – Ryan Sweeney (4)
Obviously Donaldson is a tricky cheap second catcher play but if he can hold the job at third base for Oakland that will be a bargain. If not I will grab a backup in the reserve rounds or a minor leaguer I think will come up (there are two). Plouffe is the only playing time question but reports are the Twins are going to get him plenty of at bats in the outfield and he was the best I could roster late in the auction. We don’t know how long Carl Crawford is out giving Sweeney full time at bats before he reverts to a share with Cody Ross but at least it is at the UT slot. Even with minimal playing time for those three, I came in with a projected 198 home runs and 170 stolen bases, so I am fine with that.
On the pitching side I am very happy with this group:
SP – Hellickson (14), Bard (13), Matt Harrison (6), Jarrod Parker (6), Dustin McGowan (1), hopefully Alfredo Aceves (2) and I took a shot with my last SP slot rostering Seattle’s Danny Hultzen for $4 and hoping the arrival is sooner than later
Closers – Walden (16) and Kyle Farnsworth (13)
I was about the third team to complete my roster but it doesn’t give you much time to relax before the reserve draft because you must mark off all the players drafted, so a quick trip for a soda and trip to the bathroom and I returned to watch so many hoped for targets get taken as the last players for the rest of the room’s rosters.
There is a draw for an Ace and then the reserve serpentine draft goes clockwise – I was eleventh with Nate Ravitz the only team to pick after me in the first round. Amazing that with all the crappy catchers drafted and someone drafting minor leaguer Ryan Lavarnway during the auction that the first ten picks would still leave me Kelly Shoppach, but I was very happy to add him and give myself Donaldson insurance.
After Nate’s picks I was happy to get the Royals’ Mike Montgomery in the second round. In the third/fourth turn I rostered Seattle 3B Alex Liddi and Royals potential SP Luis Mendoza. And I was very happy (Brad Evans from Yahoo wasn’t) to pair Liddi with my fifth round selection of another young Mariner third baseman, Vinny Catricala. If Chone Figgins can’t improve on last year’s BA/OBA one of these power hitters may get an early opportunity (or if the Mariners used Figgins in center field for the first month while Franklin Gutierrez is out). My last pick being a fellow crafty lefty was Detroit rookie Drew Smyly who is still in the competition for the Tigers’ fifth starter. I think those picks supported my roster very well. I would have liked to find an outfielder for Sweeney insurance but those were well picked over.
So we go to battle soon and I will report on this LABR team all year with trade discussions and decisions and FAAB additions and of course the standings as I try and capture another flag for the Mastersball staff. You can start here{jcomments on}
Well with Ryan Braun’s suspension set aside the top of any draft has just shifted some.
Assuming drafters aren’t holding unreasonable hate for Braun, he should easily enter the conversation for where to draft him anywhere from the first pick down to the fourth pick. Let’s look at those questions:
1st Pick – has now become even more spread out – some will say Albert Pujols but while he does offer a few more runs and RBI and maybe 12-15 more home runs, he will be short that same number of stolen bases, while both Braun and Pujols are projected to have about the same batting average. Others will say that Matt Kemp is a lock to go 30/30 and the upside that he might reach his lofty goal of 50/50 makes him a clear choice. I like the excitement there but think we need to temper the expectations for Kemp because his batting average is sure to regress to the .290 range at best and could go lower. Also remember that unless Andre Ethier makes a huge comeback there isn’t much in the Dodgers’ lineup this year to protect Kemp so he could see a lot of intentional passes.
2nd Pick – Obviously many drafters will take one of the two left while several other drafters claim that Miguel Cabrera should be in the conversation because of his impending qualification at third base. I think that is flawed thinking. First of all on draft day you can only put him at first base and you still have to draft a third baseman. Secondly while Jim Leyland can say all he wants that Miggy is his guy for the hot corner, he will have to watch twenty plus spring training games with Cabrera over at third and then even if the plan holds to opening day will have to hold that though through the first two weeks of the season. Should the Tiger pitchers not be successful in talking some sense into Leyland, there is also the real possibility that he pressure to perform adequately in the field might affect Cabrera’s offense. Especially when there is no real need to have everyone live through this as Cabrera and Prince Fielder could easily trade off at first base and designated hitter.
3rd pick – Is then a choice between the two left and 4th pick is the last of Pujols, Braun, Cabrera, and Kemp.
In Todd’s draft on Friday night the picks went
In three other NFBC drafts that started on Thursday/Friday, Braun went at 1.04, 1.09, and 1.09.
In my draft on Sunday night the order was
But this draft was the twenty team Rotoman’s Regular draft with Yahoo lineups.
Cleveland Indians closer Chris Perez strained an oblique muscle while throwing Saturday and will be out 4-6 weeks. There haven’t been any announcements by Manny Acta yet, but the favorite to slide into the closers role would be Vinnie Pestano, a 27 year old RHP who was excellent in his rookie season last year, striking out 84 batters in 62 innings.
In another spring practice in Arizona, Oakland Athletics’ third baseman Scott Sizemore suffered a bad ankle sprain and is questionable to play in Oakland’s first game which will be against the Seattle Mariners as the two AL West teams play the first two games of the 2012 season in Japan on Wednesday, March 28 and Thursday, March 29. The Athletics will likely use one of their utility infielders there until Sizemore is able to play again but barring a breakout game in Japan whoever plays in those two games won’t have an impact even in AL only leagues.
Two Atlanta Braves' starting pitchers have created more changes in recent drafts. With the news that he likely won’t make his first start in 2012 until early May, Tim Hudson has gone from an average spot of 183rd to 274th on Friday night.
His mate Tommy Hanson with concerns about the change in his throwing motion and missing the first few days of spring training throwing after a car accident moved him from an average of 122nd down to 150th on Friday night.{jcomments on}
I see a lot of players being drafted in early leagues without much regard for their injury status. We know several players won’t be ready for Opening Day – Phillies 1B Ryan Howard for example who is expected to all of April and perhaps part of May as he recovers from Achilles surgery. So I thought I would update the status of many who would be fantasy starters.
There are a couple of players who will not play at all in 2012
And few more who have undergone surgery that won’t play until later this year, if then
Then there are still several players who are questionable for Opening Day, so make sure you have contingency plans if you are counting on any of them to be in your lineup:
Reports on the last group are all over the map, so watch news from spring training if they are on your keeper league teams or you intend to draft them before the season starts.{jcomments on}
Early drafts are underway and while it is human nature, I see examples of personal bias altering people’s drafting. Certainly we all view players differently and maybe got burned too badly by Adam Dunn or Vernon Wells to even think about drafting them again.
But what are our draft picks? Pieces of a jigsaw puzzle we all hope get us first place in each of our league’s categories. So shouldn’t they be more about the numbers than about the face on those numbers?
Let’s look at Player X and Player Y and tell me which one you want to draft
Player | R | HR | RBI | SB | BAvg |
MI X | 121 | 32 | 77 | 30 | 0.255 |
MI Y | 92 | 21 | 76 | 21 | 0.300 |
Yeah I know you could run over to Baseball-Reference.com and look them up – hell you might even remember X if you had him last year. And like any set I pulled out you could say I fudged this or that – hey it’s just an exercise. One is drafted half the time in the first round while the other people always say…well you can’t draft him in the first round. Pick yours
And then let’s look at closers. They are a unique brand of pitchers for sure. Ron Shandler's rule of TOG in full force, [that is Talent, Opportunity, and Guile if you haven’t heard it before – the reasons that pitchers get/keep the closer role].
But are we drafting a name or a face or are we drafting the projected number of the revered Saves we need from “our” closers? You may have seen Todd’s comments on this and I am pretty much in the same camp – save are saves. Ugly or clean they count the same in that category. Sure we would like our guy to have a nice ERA and WHIP, but that is not the reason we added them to our roster and if you drafted them late then presumably (hopefully?) your starting pitchers much better innings heavy ERA and WHIP can absorb a poor closer’s numbers pretty easily.
So take a look at these four pitching lines:
Closer | W | Sv | ERA | WHIP | K | IP |
A | 5 | 25 | 2.19 | 0.99 | 51 | 58 |
B | 3 | 43 | 2.44 | 1.15 | 51 | 63 |
C | 5 | 38 | 2.91 | 1.23 | 66 | 65 |
D | 5 | 36 | 2.47 | 1.13 | 57 | 62 |
Okay if I follow my own arguments above, I want Closer B – more saves, MORE ratios. Well Closers A & B are from last year – one cost you a much higher draft pick or considerably more auction dollars. Now which would you choose for 2012? Two saves difference plus nine more strikeouts versus better ERA and WHIP. Pretty much the same guy, right? So why does Closer C get drafted several rounds ahead of Closer D?
Which MI would you draft? X or Y?
Which Closer would you draft? C or D?
I’ll hang up and listed now……………..I have to go draft one of the closers.
Okay just finished a fifty….yes 50 round draft in just over four hours. So here is the first round
Pick | Player | Pos | Team |
1.01 | Matt Kemp | OF | LAD |
1.02 | Miguel Cabrera | 1B | DET |
1.03 | Albert Pujols | 1B | LAA |
1.04 | Troy Tulowitzki | SS | COL |
1.05 | Adrian Gonzalez | 1B | BOS |
1.06 | Jacoby Ellsbury | OF | BOS |
1.07 | Jose Bautista | 3B | TOR |
1.08 | Joey Votto | 1B | CIN |
1.09 | Robinson Cano | 2B | NYY |
1.1 | Justin Upton | OF | AZ |
1.11 | Carlos Gonzalez | OF | COL |
1.12 | Evan Longoria | 3B | TB |
1.13 | Prince Fielder | 1B | DET |
1.14 | Clayton Kershaw | P | LAD |
1.15 | Dustin Pedroia | 2B | BOS |
And Player X, Ian Kinsler went at 2.02 – four spots higher than Player Y, Hanley Ramirez…..someone must have read the article.
Pitcher A/C, Heath Bell went at 9.01. The Marlins won’t win as many games as the Tampa Bay Rays so pitcher B/D, Kyle Farnsworth should have more chances this year….but Farnsworth went at 12.05
The bottom line of course is you should draft the players on what you think they will do this year – last year’s numbers are gone. Still sometimes we need to look at the numbers and not the face.
{jcomments on}
It seems like a simple question – which spot would you like to draft from?
But how many leagues offer you at least the chance to answer that question?
My mother said always best to start at the beginning, so let’s make sure we are at the same starting line.
Q: What is the NFBC?
A: The National Fantasy Baseball Championship ($$$$ entry to try and win the $100,000 grand prize and likely some league prizes as well; 15 team, 5X5, mixed league leagues with serpentine draft format)
Q: So what is KDS
A: Named after Kentucky Derby where when your entry is drawn you get your choice of remaining pole (draft) positions. So they get a randomized list of your league. Pull the first player at random, check his list and he gets his first choice; pull next drafter, check his list and give him the first on his list that is available (okay easy for instance they both list 1-15 then first player is #1 and second is #2).
Q : Don’t I want the best player I can get?
A: Well ….yes …..BUT not everyone agrees on who the first pick should be: Albert Pujols? Miguel Cabrera? Matt Kemp? They have all gone #1 in some early leagues) and of course the answers get more disparate after that. Plus if you draft at the end of round one you have a much earlier pick in round two, so maybe you think that taking the last pick in round one and getting Dustin Pedroia and either Justin Verlander or Clayton Kershaw is better than Pujols and Matt Holiday.
Or maybe you have a particular player you want to get either late in the first round or early in the second round – then you would prefer to be at the end of the first round. Or maybe you like to draft in the middle – guaranteed a nice player in round one and a better choice in round two than drafting from the top of the first round. There are hundreds of permutations. But the point is you have some input. Yeah you might still get drawn last and settle for the empty chair but that might have happened anyway and with everyone else getting their choice you might have improved.
So I had this dilemma a few days ago and after looking at the following table you decide before you see my answer what would YOU pick
Pick |
Mastersball ranking |
Random league |
NFBC ADP (slow) |
1 |
Albert Pujols |
Miguel Cabrera |
Albert Pujols |
2 |
Matt Kemp |
Albert Pujols |
Matt Kemp |
3 |
Miguel Cabrera |
Matt Kemp |
Miguel Cabrera |
4 |
Jose Bautista |
Troy Tulowitzki |
Troy Tulowitzki |
5 |
Jacoby Ellsbury |
Jacoby Ellsbury |
Jacoby Ellsbury |
6 |
Joey Votto |
Adrian Gonzalez |
Adrian Gonzalez |
7 |
Robinson Cano |
Jose Bautista |
Robinson Cano |
8 |
Prince Fielder |
Joey Votto |
Jose Bautista |
9 |
Carlos Gonzalez |
Carlos Gonzalez |
Joey Votto |
10 |
Evan Longoria |
Robinson Cano |
Carlos Gonzalez |
11 |
Justin Upton |
Prince Fielder |
Justin Upton |
12 |
Ian Kinsler |
Justin Upton |
Prince Fielder |
13 |
Troy Tulowitzki |
Dustin Pedroia |
Evan Longoria |
14 |
Adrian Gonzalez |
Evan Longoria |
Curtis Granderson |
15 |
Mike Napoli |
Clayton Kershaw |
Dustin Pedroia |
Okay FIRST write down where you want to draft ______
Now before you say I massaged our rankings, sure there are ties on projected dollar earnings and I have to break them somehow. So you could flip the order on CarGo, Longoria and Upton – all projected to earn $32; just as you could do with the next four players. I likely did it off which I would draft first or which I know will be available later (nobody is drafting Napoli in the first round – he probably goes in the third or fourth round so even if you loved him (:wave: yeah I was the guy who said he would be worth $30 last year and I wasn’t far off) you know you could get him with your second if not third pick…..depending on where you are.
And that is the point – some drafters will try and plot that out. I admit I think that is the result of over mocksturbation but here is my thought process:
So what I looked at was where the point was that I just really didn’t like my choice if the other drafters took the other players. Look at any of those three lists and see how far down you are comfortable with taking a player as your first round pick – the player who is the foundation of your team. Who will be consistent and give you solid production. I stopped at the eleventh spot. Below that I thought I had given up on a better player. Slightly above that I liked several players. (Of course all of this assumes that you don’t absolutely have to or want to start the draft with Pujols….or Miggy…..or Kemp.
But don’t forget that the only draft position that guarantees you that you can get THAT first round player is #1. And then you will wait almost two rounds before you get your next pick.
That however is the point you have some influence in where you draft. In my case my first choice was #11 and I was the eleventh draft picked but still got my first choice. Let’s look at how everyone did – on the left will be the order in which the players were drawn, followed by the pick they got, what choice that was for them, and then the beginning of their wish list for spots.{jcomments on}