Judge Jude's 2019 Anatomy of an Auction

[Judge Jude]

I did the deal, sending out 29 IP AMiller 14-S2 as well

[Sharky]

I did the deal, sending out 29 IP AMiller 14-S2 as well

Good! Go get em.

[Judge Jude]

ok, SPOILER ALERT - I finished 6th (1 point out of the money, just No. 1 farm pick last April), as a final-week collapse kept me from third.

from March (the first page has the pick by pick, and my thoughts on auction night):

"I must walk out of Sunday's auction with at least one of Kershaw, Strasburg, or Hendricks. my freeze list is too weak to spend 50 on Scherzer or 40 on Thor, and 6th-best SP is Bumgarner - and Maeda and Arrieta are next after that.

I expected on either the Kershaw hill (again) or Strasburg hill. half the league has been disappointed by Strasburg, but I've never owned him. they also seem terrified of Kershaw - which makes sense with a great freeze list but if not, dice must be rolled."

...............

Scherzer was named first, and I went to 44 and then.... crickets. hmm. well, it could work, I figured.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED:
Strasburg went for 30, Kershaw 27, and Hendricks 25.

what they were worth, at uninflated prices:
Scherzer 26
Strasburg 29
Kershaw 26
Hendricks 16

if I had spent 57 on Strasburg and Kershaw instead of 52 on Scherzer and Roark.... (although one team bought both Strasburg AND Kershaw for those prices - and finished 7th! they also paid 31 for Thor). I bid 26 on Kershaw, btw, even after buying Mad Max, and the other owner confirmed to me right after the auction that he was mine if I had bid 28).

after Scherzer, I bought Votto for 27, Posey 12, CDickerson 17, AMiller 14, NWilliams 2. the only decent pick - CDick - missed half the season with injuries.

bad freeze list and that's my bid-up to spending 210 units? why didn't I finish last?

Dyson 8 gave me my SB, Jeff S 1 was a nice profit, and PLopez 1 was flipped for a lame-duck Keuchel.

I led in ERA and Ratio at the ASB - Roark first half also was fine to go with holdover CSmith 1 - and was doing fine in W and K as well. then the staff got hurt (or traded to the AL), and I nosedived to 7th in ERA and 5th in Ratio as I chased W and K and hoped to get away with it. sorry, Charlie! and had 6 SV all season for 1 point. wasted 10 units keeping Seranthony, oof.

I scampered to 2nd in R and 3rd in SB and did fine in HR/RBI - thank you, Ketel Marte and Adam Eaton, as well as Harper! but my club dropped from 9 AVG pts to 4 down the stretch - too much DeJong, BCrawford, Bruce, Descalso, ABarnes overall.

Bonus note: I bid my last 8 FAAB for AL arrivals on Castellanos - who put up .321-16-36-43, BUT FOR ANOTHER TEAM, an also-ran no less, who also bid 8 and won the tiebreaker as the weaker team.

if the other guy had bid 7, I almost certainly would have finished 3rd in spite of all those other woes.
#badbeat

Wait 'til Next Year!

[Sharky]

Thanks as always for sharing, JJ. Always a fun read. Good luck in 2020!