Saturday afternoon I wished I had a way to blog this in real time – but on the other hand there are some in my AL keeper league based in LALA-land who might happen upon it.

So the best I can do is set up the FAAB question for you and then give a recap of what happened.

The GAR is an eleven team league that plays deeper because each team has three reserve spots in addition to DL slots, and the league has very deep Farm Team rosters for minor league prospects.

You already know the subject of the question, Papa Grande the nickname for Jose Valverde the past and present closer of the Detroit Tigers. Valverde who signed a minor league contract with the Tigers after the season started was just called up this week and already has two saves. So while we say there are always closers that come available during the season, here is an extreme case – an experienced closer for a contending team that was not available in the auction (or minor league draft).

And because of that limbo status on draft day, in this league he is treated as a normal free agent - bid and salary wise – he will count $5 against the cap. But he can’t be retained next year and he can’t be traded within the league this year.

So how much of your $100 FAAB budget would you bid for Valverde?

My team is currently in 6th place having moved up seventeen points this week with a good not great week but categories starting to settle at least a little. In fact the Live Scoring would show me gaining three points and temporarily at least in 4th place (of course that could change in an hour). I have $92 left and have Fernando Rodney and Ernesto Frieri whose eight combined saves have me in 5th place in the category, one save behind fourth place and six off the lead. So Valverde if he remains the Tigers closer for the balance of the year would put me very close to all eleven points or certainly competing for ten or eleven.

But the rule regarding his status will effectively eliminate most of the teams behind me in the standings – although there is one team with a good roster off to bad start who might well think he could win or at least place if things broke right for him. But he has only Seattle closer Tom Wilhelmsen on his roster. The two teams who started Saturday just ahead of me also need saves to contend and while they can certainly obtain them via the trade route as teams rebuild (we have no trades in the first month of the season so next week will be the first chance to test those waters) this is a rare chance to buy them. One of those teams has a couple dollars less than I do and the other has several dollars more. The three teams atop the standings all have $92-97 left to bid with.

There is one other factor before you guess how much to bid – the league does allow zero dollar bids but only after you have used all your $100 (or any salary of a player bought in the auction reclaimed if they were to be traded to the NL IF you wanted to drop them).

So how much would you bid in my shoes?

Not an easy question but a very interesting one.

I finally decided to bid $80 of my $92. Part of that is the one team lower in the standings who thinks he can compete has $79, and would win on a tie at that number if he went all in. So he is the one possible bidder I can eliminate by going with eighty. I can also win a tie at that number with the top three teams in the league. But really I have no idea if any of the other five teams will go that deep. For one thing a couple of them like to have control when there are NL players traded over later in the year. For another I don’t know how they feel about their real ability to compete this year.

Trades will go a long way to determine if they can truly put their team in the hunt at the early August (first weekend) trade deadline. And one or more of them may already be working on a trade with the one team that was known to be taking a two year plan at the draft. But that team is not likely trading their $7 Addison Reed who they can keep for next year or long term contract for another year.

So it will be very interesting to see the actual free agent bids tomorrow (Sunday) morning.

And I will reopen this file and write the postscript then.

Sunday morning – the bids are in and of course are very interesting. Two of the teams in the top three bid for Valverde with bids in the $40 and $30 range – one in third place in saves but only two back, the other on save below me. The third team that did not bid on Valverde leads the league in saves with two good closers, Jim Johnson and Casey Janssen.

Only one of the next group that I am in although both needed saves. That bid was in the $60’s.

Two of the teams below sixth who still think they have a shot to finish in the money and needed saves bid – one in the $40s and the other $71.

So my $80 bid held and I just have to hope that both Valverde can stay healthy and closing all year in Detroit and closer to home that I can manage the rest of my team to continue to move forward navigating the inevitable trade wars and finish in the money.{jcomments on}