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DownloadHopefully, 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}
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}I am sure you have seen several jokes about the cold weather from Colorado all the way to the East Coast.
Major League Baseball, however, isn’t laughing. The half dozen games already cancelled or postponed affect a lot more than just our fantasy hitters and pitchers missing a chance to contribute to our teams. With the American and National leagues realigned, several of the series being affected by Mother Nature’s spring tantrum will cause havoc with the MLB schedule later this summer.
Consider the Atlanta Braves visiting the Colorado Rockies for the only time this year. First, Monday’s game was cancelled, so the two teams were supposed to play a day/night doubleheader on Tuesday. As of this writing on Tuesday afternoon, they did get the first game in and now wait for evening and yes, colder temperatures. The problem is that the Braves are not scheduled to return to Denver for the rest of the season.
While they do travel to the West Coast in May to play the Giants and Diamondbacks, they can’t use their one off-day before returning to Atlanta because it would take away their only day off in the month of May. It would also exceed the number of straight days a team can play under the current bargaining agreement. The same is true when they play the Padres and Dodgers in June.
And they won’t be alone if the Marlins and Twins have trouble with their second game on Tuesday or their scheduled game on Wednesday.
It seems logical that MLB will have to alter its scheduling procedures when NL and AL teams are going to play only one series in the opposing park if either team is in an unprotected environment for games in March, April and May when there is any possibility of weather wiping a game off the schedule.
Let’s just hope that none of the affected teams need that game to qualify for postseason play this year. Then we will really have a scheduling nightmare. {jcomments on}
In my last column, I related some stories from the auction draft of the Splendid Splinter league and noted parenthetically that at the time I was writing I was negotiating a trade to obtain Joey Votto.
It was a little early for a team to make a rebuilding trade but my trade partner was in year two of trying to improve an absolutely terrible roster he inherited last year. That first year was tough for him and he was faced with trying to get a better roster for next season – and that was apparent at the draft.
So with my biggest power hitter on the DL, I needed to find a hitter to get me some HR/RBI to tread water in those categories until Aramis Ramirez returned and then to add to my decent but not championship hitting (the pitching being fine). I had reached out to the team that needed to rebuild and he had correctly posted a note on the league’s site to let everyone in the league know he was open for business. Giving everyone in the league this knowledge is not only the ethical thing to do but may also get some trade dialogue started with a team you would never think would be interested.
There were several pieces I was interested in but it looked like outfielders Matt Holliday or Carlos Quentin were likely the best targets, and I should be able to get them for a very good minor league prospect or even two and maybe a player from my current roster. But I couldn’t help notice that attractive Joey Votto sitting on his roster, and at $47 not a keeper but a very valuable trade chip. So when we got past the introductory emails, I suggested that while I wouldn’t include him in a trade for a lesser player, I would be willing to trade my $5 Yonder Alonso in a package for Votto.
Prior to discussing any players, I had looked at the other team’s roster and also identified a nice upgrade at catcher if I could get his $11 Wellington Castillo in the deal and I would send my $8 Russell Martin so he would have a replacement at that position without having to spend any of his precious FAAB dollars. But I didn’t mention that until we were dealing in specific players – you don’t want to ask for or offer every single player in your first serve.
And I had encountered a problem as I did the math with my current and future lineups. (This is easy to do, take your current lineup and put it onto an excel sheet. I usually put my current players in column A, their salaries in column B, and a list of positions in column C. Then in column D you will put in the new players and their salaries in column E. Run a sum below both salary columns.) It was important for me to make sure that I could fit both Ramirez ($33) and Votto ($44) under the $300 salary cap once Aramis was back. But after printing out both my roster and his, I found my memory faulty because Votto had actually gone for $47 in the auction. That meant since I was also adding three dollars for the upgrade at catcher, I needed to ask for one of his $1 starting pitchers and really needed to add a starter anyway, having only five coming out of the draft.
So we actually exchanged trade proposals in cyberspace – something that wouldn’t happen on the phone but can have some benefit. He had asked for Alonso and a minor league prospect for Votto and another player. At the same time, I had sent an offer of Alonso, Martin and a prospect for Votto and Castillo. I followed that saying I needed the one dollar pitcher and asked for A.J. Burnett. That didn’t work for him as he thought Burnett was the only keeper of his four one dollar starting pitchers (and he is probably right about that).
So after a phone discussion, we arrived at the final trade.
I would give Alonso (5D12), Martin (8D13), and minor leaguers Brett Jackson (CHC) and Alex Castellanos (LAD) for Votto (47D13), Castillo (11D13) and Ricky Nolasco (1D13).
I got Votto to replace Ramirez at CI (and then stay there when Ramirez was back going to 3B, moving Matt Carpenter to the outfield) and an upgrade at catcher, as I think Wellington Castillo will hit plenty of Wrigley Field home runs. My trade partner also did well, as he will be able to put Alonso under contract next year and has two very interesting prospects that will hopefully graduate from his Farm next year or later. Jackson’s star is not as bright as it used to be, but the Cubs reworked his swing this year and early returns from his first few weeks at Triple-A Iowa have been positive. Castellanos would have been the star of the Dodgers spring training games if not for the explosion of Yasiel Puig, but is a very good outfield prospect.
There are some points here that may help you:
And getting an early start puts you ahead of your competition to get a deal done and gets you ramped up in your quest for the Yoo-hoo shower. {jcomments on}
In my last column I mentioned briefly a very interesting auction draft I had on Wednesday, April 3. This was for an NL-only league – the Splendid Splinter league - an 11-team, 5x5 keeper league, now more than 25 years old.
I entered the draft with the following freeze list after rebuilding last year:
C – Wilson Ramos 8D11
1B – Ryan Howard 29D12
CI – Matt Carpenter 10F12
2B – Daniel Murphy 2D11
SS – Brandon Crawford 5D12 (promoted from FARM last year)
OF – Gerardo Parra 6D12
OF – Starling Marte 5D13 (promoted from my FARM on draft day)
OF – Yonder Alonso 5D12 (promoted last year)
P – Jeff Samardzija 8D12
P – Patrick Corbin 10F12
P – Wade Miley 10R12
P – Ross Detwiler 5D12 (promoted last year)
P – David Hernandez 1D12
P – Rex Brothers 3D12
So I would have $153 dollars to spend in the auction and I hoped to get one top tier hitter ($40+) along with a couple of good hitters in the twenties and then fill in the remaining slots. On the pitching side, I just needed to buy three pitchers but at least one closer was a necessity since neither Hernandez nor Brothers had assumed closing duties for their respective clubs. (Who knew the Diamondbacks would give an already aging J.J. Putz a new two-year contract?)
This auction was oversold – over 20 percent draft inflation – so I would have to pick and choose carefully on which players I battled for as well as trying to get money out of the other bid purses. There was one team with over $200 and two more with $175+. This also meant I didn’t want to go into the middle/late phase of the auction with too much money – there would be bidding wars on players not deserving of even uninflated prices if those three teams hadn’t spent most of their money.
I didn’t roster a player for the first round and was quite surprised in the second round when the bidding was stopping on Russell Martin at $7; I said $8 and won him. Martin and McCann were the only two decent catchers available in this draft (and McCann, injury and all, went for $17 later in the draft).
In the next round – too early for my tastes – Milwaukee shortstop Jean Segura was brought up and I was very happy to win what turned into a two-team battle at $22. I think Segura was undervalued this year given that in addition to 30+ stolen bases, I think he will deliver a good AVG and maybe double-digit home runs.
A while later, I don’t have the exact order for the next player I rostered but I think it was Rafael Soriano, who I was glad to pay 21 dollars for as he was the best closer available and the Nationals will win a lot of games.
I now had $100 left but spent awhile gently nudging the better players brought up to extract two dollars here and four dollars there from my opponents when they were buying players not on my list.
I had hoped my next pitching buy would be a starter – but at the same time I was hoping it was quite awhile before Hyun-Jin Ryu was brought up in front of a Los Angeles draft table. In the meantime, Jason Grilli suddenly became available for I thought a bargain price of $15. Now I really needed to wait on Ryu and hope that if that failed I could find another good starter.
Having not been able to get one of the top hitters despite going to the mid to high forties chasing Votto, Tulowitzki and Kemp, I moved $10 off the top slot to add another $20 hitter. The best third baseman with Hanley Ramirez injured was Aramis Ramirez, and being able to move Carpenter to the outfield, I battled to get Aramis for $33 as I really needed the power.
Just after that, Jimmy Rollins was nominated, and while Segura had filled my MI, I had to go after the power/speed combo and play Rollins at UT for now with the ability to bench Crawford if he fails to hit. The other bidders were surprised I was in on Rollins and that I was staying in through the twenties but there wasn’t a better player for me at that point and I was going to at least try. And successful I was, getting him with my last bid - $29.
Now I was in a great position as I had $25 for just three players, needing one starting pitcher and two outfielders. But I still wanted Ryu, and the young Korean Dodger still hadn’t been nominated … so I waited.
(By the way, as I am typing this on Wednesday morning I am negotiating a trade to try and add Joey Votto in part because Aramis is on the DL for a couple of weeks but also to take my best shot at making my team a true contender in this league).
There were some pitchers going but I stayed the course and was pleasantly surprised that when Ryu was brought up he went for only $13, half of my remaining funds. Perhaps it was that the night before, in his first start, he had given up 10 singles to the visiting Giants. But I was unconcerned about that. He had only allowed one earned run and it WAS his first big league start in the United States (and he had a very nice second start getting a win). His pitching and training may be unconventional but he HAS swing and miss stuff and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he struck out 200 batters this year.
Little did I know at this point that what had really been a super draft for me so far – dancing between the more contentious battles, getting some good players for my team and a pitcher I really wanted along with not just one but two closers, would take a downward turn in a hurry. What should have been a great position, 12 dollars left for just two outfielders, turned into a nightmare as every decent fly chaser nominated was out of my reach, and believe me I was reaching.
The pre-draft favorite needed an outfielder as well, but their max bid was $8 so for awhile if there was an outfielder I wanted, I would either try and get to “Eight” before them or bid “Nine” after their eight. If I really wanted the player – Chris Heisey is the one I vividly remember but there were a few more – I would just go to “Eleven.” And I got nothing. Outbid every time. Obviously, this was before dollar days or even the late several but less than a handful endgame.
It was at least an hour (obviously not all the nominated players were outfielders).
And it wasn’t fun – at all. Finally, moving well into the middle of my second page (of two pages of Mastersball tiered rankings that I had modified for this particular league), I found an outfielder I could use and get. It cost me $4 to roster Andres Torres but at least he could add some stolen bases.
And now the last stage, trying to get a playable outfielder for eight dollars or less. Yes, I know it sounds easy. Surely there would be bargains at the end of the draft, and there were if you were in the market for a pitcher. But it wasn’t in my quest for an outfielder even when jumping to “Eight” several times. Finally, I landed Padre Chris Denorfia, although I needed to bid all eight of my remaining dollars to get him.
Well, no draft is perfect. But aside from the agony of the last few hours, I had fun and had collected a very nice team. And little did I know dessert was waiting.
No, not the fudge brownie ala mode I ordered (we draft in a back room at a local Denny’s). After the auction portion, the Splinter league drafts three reserve players (actually some teams draft more because for each injured player you have you get an extra reserve pick). I thought with my first pick I really needed to draft some saves insurance and since Mark Melancon was there at 1.07, I was glad to take him and back up Grilli. But the FUN was my second pick at 2.05 when I proudly called out "Didi Gregorius, shortstop, Arizona." I got a few looks before one of my opponents loudly objected. But Gregorius, on the Diamondbacks' DL, was in fact on the opening day roster, and much to the chagrin of my vocal opponent was thus a legal pick. One of my other opponents could only shake his head and say “Wow, nice pick.”
Sweeter than the fudgy brownie. {jcomments on}