Hopefully, you read the reviews of the weekly free agent bidding in the different Tout Wars leagues. Even if your league uses a different format for bidding, I think there is a lot to be gained – if nothing else which hitters and pitchers the very experienced players in AL, NL or Mixed leagues thought warranted rostering and how much value they think they have.
This week’s bidding in the mixed draft league that I am in was very interesting as both a good young power hitting outfielder in Marcell Ozuna of Miami and a speedy, young middle infielder in the Dodgers’ Dee Gordon were available. So which one did I go after and why?
Good question – glad you asked. While I am currently seventh in steals with 23, 4th thus two more points in the category is only six steals away and there are six teams behind me only 1-3 steals back. My best contributors in that category are Jean Segura, Jose Altuve, Bryce Harper and Austin Jackson. But I should also get double-digit swipes from Paul Goldschmidt, Todd Frazier and Kyle Seager, so I think I am in decent shape. Meanwhile, my middle infield slots are filled with Segura, Altuve and J.J. Hardy, all good contributors in several categories, and to play a MI in my UT slot would diminish my ability to get power from the extra hitter. Still, it was a consideration.
But Ozuna, assuming he stays in the Marlins' lineup (I think that is pretty likely given the good start he has had), would help in HR where I am currently tied for 4th/5th with 54, only two round trippers out of 3rd and five behind 2nd place; Runs where I am in the middle of the pack but can gain a quick point(s) with just one or two more; and RBI where I am third but could eventually get to 2nd place. At the same time, he would help with my on-base percentage where I definitely need to make a move.
The bottom line for my decision was that my only “weak” slot is my fifth outfielder, which is currently manned by either Fernando Martinez (a failed try last week) or John Mayberry Jr., who is playing more now but not really cementing his spot in the Phillies' lineup. My UT slot is filled by the emerging Mitch Moreland, who doesn’t look like he will gain the outfield eligibility I had hoped for on draft day. But with my corner infielders hopefully staying healthy, I have no other place to play Moreland.
So I decided to go hard after Ozuna and back the bid up with a shot at the Padres' Chris Denorfia, who is doing quite well as a full-time fly chaser for the Padres with Cameron Maybin injured. I looked at the last two weeks of bidding for likely ranges (the first two weeks have people plugging holes from draft day and more players available so the bids were higher. Last week, the highest bid for an outfielder was $13 for Oswaldo Arcia and $5 for Jordan Schafer. The previous week saw a $19 bid for Travis Snider (reasonable if you remember the BA tear he was on then) while Diamondbacks' shortstop Didi Gregorius, new to the pool, had $18 thrown at him and Yuniesky Betancourt fetched an $11 bid.
Remembering that Tout uses the Vickrey system (where the winning bid is adjusted downward to one dollar more than the runner-up bid), I felt I needed to at least be in the twenties to have a chance to get Ozuna but being in the thirties would greatly increase my chances. As one of the five teams in the 15-team league with $90+ remaining, I also felt I could stand to bid a third of what I had left to upgrade that OF spot. There were no teams with less than $50 left, one in the fifties and three in the sixties for what that is worth.
So what would you bid with $91 available?
It might help you to know that there was only one pitcher I was interested in bidding on, in part because my starters – Justin Verlander, Clay Buchholz, Hishashi Iwakuma, Ross Detwiler, Bartolo Colon, Wade Davis and Travis Wood have been terrific so far. Yes, in their last starts Detwiler and Colon haven’t maintained but as a group they have me with 18 wins, tied for 4th/5th; sixth in strikeouts with 241; first in ERA at 2.623 and second in WHIP at 1.1383. So it’s hard to replace one. The only one I am going to bid on is Brewers' rookie Hiram Burgos. I would have also bid on Jerome Williams if the new Angels' starter had not looked so poor in his last start since I had him active in LABR’s AL league.
Okay, back to decision time on Ozuna.
I bid $37 and Ozuna is now in my lineup. Surprisingly, there were only two bids for him, and Tom Kessenich's (NFBC/STATS) $27 bid meant I paid $28 for the young Marlins' outfielder.
I got even luckier with Burgos as I had the only bid, so I only had to pay $1 for him. As all free agents added each week have to be active for their first week, I will hope that Burgos has a good outing next weekend in Great American Smallpark, but if not I have some buffer in my league leading ERA and WHIP.
If you didn’t read the Tout recap on Monday, there were eight bids on Dee Gordon and the $50 bid by Ray Guilfoyle was reduced to the $39 winning bid. While I think the Vickrey system takes some strategy elements out of free agent bidding, it does work nice when there is a player you really want/need and can figure out the price you would be willing to pay if you had to but often get a break if there aren’t others that are as enamored. Great to have Ozuna and Burgos this week for a total of $29 – less than a third of my remaining FAAB budget. {jcomments on}