Mastersball

It may sound cliché, but sometimes cliché is sound advice.  Over the weekend, the auction for my local Boston keeper league was held and I am tucking away a couple of tidbits that I hope will be beneficial next spring when we get together.  I am not going to present the following and suggest it is globally true.  In fact, something to keep in mind when you review your drafts and auctions is not to assume the same thing will happen next time, so be careful about planning a stringent strategy around something you hope occurs again.  There is a fine line between tucking away some hopefully helpful hints and assuming too much.  The take home lesson is going to be to take a few minutes and think about your drafts in an effort to elucidate some potential tips to utilize next draft or auction.

By means of a bit of background, the league I am going to discuss in an American League only, 5x5 rotisserie scoring, keeper format with a minor league reserve squad.  As with most keeper leagues, there is some inflation at the auction and trading away some of your future to boost the present is integral to winning.  The small catch with this league is we have an amendment to the constitution that adjusts the roster size and salary cap if we have fewer than 12 teams.  I joined the league last season and we played the season with 11 teams and maintained that number this season.  The roster adjustment is to add an extra utility spot and a 10th pitcher.  This adds 22 players to the pool, which basically makes the pool penetration the same as if there were 12 teams with 23 man rosters.  The salary adjustment was for everyone to start the auction with $283 and not the usual $260.  The idea here is $253 added to the overall available money balances the $260 that would have been associated with the 12th team.  The end result of these adjustments is to keep the salaries of the players consistent with what they would be if we expanded to 12 teams, so the keeper dynamic would not be affected.

I came into the proceedings with a keeper list that included Miguel Cabreraat $46, Jacoby Ellsbury at $33, Nick Markakis at $25, Dustin Pedroia at $22 and Max Scherzer at $19.  I had ample high priced players and planned on buying a second decent starting pitcher and a closer.

The first tidbit I noted was a phenomenon known to exist, and that is a geographical bias with respect to prices.  Maybe I did not notice it last spring, or maybe these players were not available in the auction, but it did not take me long to notice there was a definite Boston tilt in the room.  To wit, Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez were both bought for $38 while Kevin Youkilis was purchased for $40 with Adrian Gonzalez leading the pack at $44.  The difference may not seem to be that great, but in a neutral setting, Teixeira and Gonzalez would normally go for about the same price while Rodriguez would sell for a few bucks more than Youkilis.

I learned several years ago that while it is fun to joke about, a player’s performance is not impacted by his presence on my roster, so I have grown immune to the name on the front of my player’s uniforms, only caring about the stats produced by the name on the back.  As such, even though I had not planned on buying another high priced stick, I had to take advantage of the table’s bias and purchased Alex Rodriguez.  In retrospect, had I known of this league trait, I would thrown back Cabrera and saved a few bucks targeting Teixeira.  I knew by purchasing A-Rod I would be handcuffing my ability to spend on the pitching I needed, but I decided that since trading is allowed, I would still look to get the starter and closer, but if I could not, I would channel old partner Jason Grey and continue to fortify the hitting, cobble together a pitching staff and then trade bats for arms to make a run if necessary.

This segues nicely into the second observation, which was even though top players, as usual, went for high prices, the inflation never seemed to abate and the prices of players I expected to drop never did – particularly the starting pitchers and closers.  I will not bore you with the list of names and prices, but suffice it to say that almost every hurler went for greater than full value, even considering the conventional means of calculating inflation.  Had I not invested in Rodriguez, I would have not hesitated to pay the going rate.  But, I made the decision that the value would be with hitting towards the end and decided to make sure I had a full time player at each hitting spot so I would have ammunition to trade for pitching.

Here comes the interesting part.  On my ride home, I was trying to figure out why the prices of the pitchers never fell.  I was perplexed that even though a ton of money was spent at the beginning, effectively wiping out the inflation from the keepers, players continued to sell at full value much longer than usual.  Then it struck me.  I completely overlooked a very key point.  Maybe you have figured it out by now.  If not, I will give you a hint; it revolves around the roster and budget adjustments we made for the reduction to 11 teams.  Do you know what my big mistake was yet?

With 11 teams, we added two extra roster spots and $23 per team.  This kept the average player to be about the same $11.30 in each setup.  But the additional 22 players were obviously well below average.  Many owners simply slotted $1 for the two extra roster spots, allowing them to distribute the remaining $21 to the rest of their roster.  This is what subsidized the high prices for longer than I anticipated.  I completely failed to recognize this was happening during the auction.  If I had noticed it, while I still would have likely purchased A-Rod, I may have not been as reticent to overpay for a closer or quality starter instead of hoping to take advantage of the expected deflated economy, which never came.

So my “note to self” for this league going forward is not to rely on being able to go bargain hunting and still get quality players like is often the case even in keeper leagues.  In fact, the best play may be to get my top players early as the trend was similar to what happens in the industry leagues like LABR and Tout Wars where sometimes the bargains are the first few players.

In summary, the point of this discussion is not to suggest what happened in my league will happen in your league.  The point is to spend some time going over your leagues in an effort to pinpoint something that may help you prepare better or execute your plan better next season.  And, after you think of it, write it down and put it in a place where you will remember it, unless of course you write for a web site and can archive the notes in a weekly column.

With the mid-week start of the 2011 baseball season, there are still a bunch of leagues that will hold their draft or auction the first weekend of the season.  This is in fact the official rulebook date.   This discussion is intended for those in deeper leagues but can possibly be used to help those that have already drafted if the players went undrafted.

The idea is that a lot of people overreact to the last minute roster decisions.  One of my favorite ploys is to target the loser of the position battle if they were beat out by a perceived lesser player that had a hot spring.  You can often get the incumbent out of a job at a huge discount.  The worst case scenario is you get an end game player at value but many times, a hot spring turns into a cold April and next thing you know, the veteran is given his old job back and now you have a starter at an end game price.

Perhaps the most flagrant example of the scenario is Blake DeWitt beginning the season as the Chicago Cubs utility infielder while Jeff Baker and Darwin Barney cover second base.  DeWitt will get his chances, including occasionally spelling Aramis Ramirez at the hot corner.  It would not shock me if DeWitt finished the season with more at bats than Baker.  This is not to suggest DeWitt is a difference maker, but getting 300-400 plate appearances for a buck or two is a nice treat.

Depending on your league rules, Roger Bernadina is someone to put on your radar.  He was recently demoted which came as a mild surprise.  After Nyjer Morgan was dealt to Milwaukee, it appeared Bernadina was going to break camp with the Nationals.  But do you really think the combination of Laynce Nix, Jerry Hairston and Rick Ankiel will keep Bernadina on the farm that long?  Actually, it is no sure thing that Mike Morse holds on to the left field job all season.  If you have already drafted Bernadina, do not panic.  If he has been dropped in your NL-only, check your rules and try to pick him up when he is eligible.

A similar situation occurred in Kansas City where Lorenzo Cain was demoted so he can play full time.  Alex Gordon should be a fixture in left and Jeff Francoeur should patrol right.  Melky Cabrera gets the nod in center, but if Cain continues to get on base and run in the Minors, eventually Cabrera will be exposed and Cain should get the call if only to help justify the Zack Greinke trade.

A scenario to continue monitoring is the first base and left field battle in the desert.  Arizona has Xavier Nady, Juan Miranda, Gerardo Parra, Juan Miranda, Russell Branyan and Brandon Allen all jostling for playing time.  Nothing has been announced, but Parra and Branyan appear to be the leaders.  If Branyan is named the regular first baseman, Miranda and Allen make nice end game targets.  I know there will be much drooling over Branyan in Arizona, but he has trouble staying healthy, and when he does, he usually strikes himself out of a job.   My gut says Nady falls out of the picture and Allen and Miranda both contribute by season’s end.

The demotion of Eric Young Jr. has helped clear up a bit of the second base situation in Colorado.  The hot spring of Jonathan Herrera has him in the running for the job.  If he indeed wins the job, be ready to jump on Jose Lopez who will see plenty of run by season’s end.

Site favorite Mike Napoli’s value just took a big hit as he is now the backup catcher for Texas after they dealt Matt Treanor to Kansas City.  Keep in mind Taylor Teagarden still looms so at some point, Napoli could return to floating between first base and designated hitter.  He is no longer a strong option as a number one catcher, but the playing time discount makes him a nice target for your second catcher with upside.

There are several other scenarios that deserve watching the next couple of days and weeks.  Will Rhymes will begin the year at second base for Detroit, but Scott Sizemore will get another shot if he hits while on the farm.  Jack Hannahan will play third for Cleveland because he is the only healthy option they have.  Left field for Seattle could be interesting once Franklin Gutierrez is healthy as both Michael Saunders and Milton Bradley have played well.  Brent Morel has won the job at third for the White Sox, but expect veteran Mark Teahen to pick up some time as well.

By means of a cheap plug for those of you that have not purchased our Platinum package, one of the in-season features will be a weekly review of playing time scenarios which will be reflected in the rest of year projections we provide.  Keeping on top of playing time issues can be crucial to maximize your at bats, and as I like to say, at bats are currency in deep leagues.