I participated in another NFBC 15-team, mixed, 5x5 auction league last week and while some of my purchases will be of interest, I think after several early auctions we can clearly see certain trends and pitfalls for you to put into your study notes.

As always, there is a lot of overspending in the early rounds of the auction. This was a private NFBC auction with 13 NFBC players competing with head honcho Greg Ambrosius and his first officer Tom Kessenich. A small money league with a lot of bragging rights on the line. (Listed as FEB 26 7:45 PM EST Auction w/FAAB, w/Greg & Tom if you want to read about it on the NFBC message boards.) So let’s take a look at the first two rounds of nominations and some of my brief comments.

Round One

1.

M. Trout

$51

Great player but a net loss

2.

C. Kershaw

$40

Usually goes low 40s

3.

B. Hamilton

$18

A few dollars less than projected value

4.

A. Jones

$29

Right on the mark

5.

M. Fiers

$9

Early attempt to steal failed

6.

J. Bautista

$28

Good buy – just a few dollars over

7.

H. Bailey

$5

A bet he regains health early

8.

J. Altuve

$31

Don’t pay for 2014 stats

9.

P. Goldschmidt

$38

Would like to get for a few pennies less

10.

J. Reyes

$20

Should be slight profit here

11.

S. Strasburg

$28

A tad expensive but could be worth it

12.

A. McCutchen

$43

You don’t want to go over $40

13.

F. Hernandez

$33

Reasonable but I don’t spend over $30 for P

14.

G. Stanton

$45

Ten dollars over projected value

15.

A. Rendon

$33

High 20s at most, 2B pool is deep

Round Two

1.

J. Abreu

$37

Highest I have seen on Abreu

2.

T. Tulowitzki

$30

Too much for part-time player

3.

C. Kluber

$27

We all love Kluber but he can’t earn that much

4.

C. Sale

$31

Good price if he is your guy (well before the injury)

5.

J. Arrieta

$15

A tad high unless he can take another step

6.

Y. Puig

$26

The potential is there but I wouldn’t pay that much

7.

M. Cabrera

$36

Only works IF he is healthy on opening day

8.

M. Bumgarner

$28

Just a few dollars over

9.

A. Beltre

$27

Only two top third basemen but lots below

10.

Y. Darvish

$24

This is a silly price for Yu and You

11.

T. Frazier

$27

Another over ten dollars over projected

12.

C. Gomez

$38

Another magical year? I will take the under

13.

A. Rizzo

$33

Price keeps climbing – will his HR?

14.

J. Donaldson

$31

Love Donaldson in Rogers Centre but high

15.

R. Cano

$27

Finally a decent price for Robbie

I bid on more than half those players but wouldn’t pay those prices. IF you can conserve your money, you will still have lots of good players to buy AND make a profit on most of them.

That doesn’t mean I won’t spend the extra dollar or two when there is a player I really need, as you will see, but staying at $30 or less is a better way to build a roster – you want all your hitters to have starting jobs so you can have more at-bats thus more counting stats than your competitors.

So here is my team:

C – Jonathan Lucroy (20), Salvador Perez (15)

CI – Adam LaRoche (12), Matt Carpenter (13), Adam Lind (2)

MI – Dee Gordon (26), Ian Desmond (27), Chris Owings (2)

OF – Yoenis Cespedes (23), Kole Calhoun (19), Austin Jackson (3), Dexter Fowler (2), Josh Reddick (4)

UT – Everth Cabrera (2)

SP – Sonny Gray (19), Tyson Ross (17), Doug Fister (9), Chris Archer (8), Jered Weaver (5), John Lackey (3)

RP – Mark Melancon (17), Koji Uehara (11), Tyler Clippard (2)

If you haven’t taken a good look at our position value sheet or the Tiers sheets, I suggest you do to see which positions are really lean and where you have more options. There are plenty of good catchers to roster this year. In my opinion, the problem position is shortstop, where the top end is just four deep with Hanley Ramirez and Ian Desmond at the top closely followed by Troy DL Tulowitzki and Jose Reyes. If you don’t want to bid what it takes to get one of those, you better find a few alternatives that you like and hope you aren’t in a bidding war for them. Almost all middle infielders this year will come from the healthier 2B pool.

Another thing to keep in mind when you make your draft plan is that the real bargains come in the end game when there are plenty of nice players at just TWO positions – outfielders and starting pitchers. (Yes, there are some nice setup relievers but you want to add those in reserve – i.e. free rounds or via FAAB, not in the auction.)

Look at my last two outfielders – Jackson is projected to earn $10 and I got him for $3 while Reddick is projected to earn $9 but only cost $4 (and he was my last player so I went all in to make sure there weren’t other bids). Similarly, Weaver will earn double digits, so a nice profit at $5, and Lackey could get there but certainly a small profit at $3 even if he doesn’t.

Platinum readers will soon be able to see my 2015 auction plan. {jcomments on}