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I'll start off saying I miss Judge Jude, especially his annual spring training insights and his ruminations leading up to his draft. He inspired many of us amateur writers to document our own draft experiences, which has become a rite of spring here at RJ. So Jude, I hope we hear from you soon, and that you'll fill us in on how life is treating you...and how goes your preparation for this season.
I won't recount the pre-draft process, which you can read here. The league details are: NL-only, 40 man rosters (25 active, 15 reserve), $280 budget, 5x5 (OBP instead of BAvg). In addition to keeping up to 15 players, pre-auction, a team may protect an additional 3 minor league exempt players (MLE), at no salary impact (first year of contract starts when they exceed MLB rookie minimums of 130 AB/50 IP). Hitting inflation tends to run between 35% - 45%, and pitching inflation tends to run between 15% - 25%, depending on the season. This year RotoLab calculated hitting inflation at 44% and pitching inflation at 11% at the beginning of the draft.
The Set-Up:
As Saturday begins, I'm already a bit apprehensive. I'm focused on mistakes I feel I've already made. I had Lucas Sims relatively cheaply last season, but let him go to acquire another player via FAAB. In the Winter Waiver process, I claimed a $1 Dylan Floro and passed on a $1 Elias Diaz, who would have filled one of my cheap catcher slots very nicely. During roster freeze, I tossed back a $3 Alzolay, whom I could have put into a salary exempt minor league slot, in order to keep three minor leaguers that probably won't reach the majors this season. But I try to push aside these things and focus on the task at hand...putting together a team that can compete for the title. Following last season's fourth place finish, this team has some very solid keepers...and my strategy/draft plan should position it well. Here's what I'm working with:
CI: Alonso $18, Suarez $39, Aguilar $8
MI: C.Taylor $6, M.Dubon $7, M.Rojas $1
OF: Acuna $22, V.Robles $18, K.Calhoun $18, Tapia $5, Hilliard $2
P: Pomeranz $1, Floro $1, D.Hudson $3
MLE: R.Mauricio, H.Bishop, H.Greene
That's 14 keepers for $149, leaving me $131 to draft seven pitchers, two catchers and two UT players.
The Plan:
If you know anything about my draft tendencies you'll know I DESPISE having to pay for pitchers. They blow up ratios, get displaced as closer, and suffer season ending injuries far too often to rely on them. I've had previous success building staffs of cheap pitchers, but it is getting more and more difficult to pull off. So this year, I left myself no choice but to focus on building a viable staff. I'd like to acquire one top tier pitcher ($25 - $30), one "solid & stable" pitcher ($20 - $25), two decent mid-tier pitchers ($10 - $15), a cheap "closer" ($10 - $15) and two cheap pitchers with upside ($5 total). Ideally, I'll pull this off for ~$90, which would leave me ~$41 for a big UT hitter, a UT hitter with upside, and two cheap catchers. Here's what I put together as my "Preferred Plan", going in:
C: McCann $9 or Narvaez $6
C: Eliser Diaz, Vogt or Casali $1
UT: Cron $28 - $31 or B. Anderson $18 - $21
UT: Cooper $8 or Owings $3 (Alternately Gregory Polanco around $13 - $16, if I wind up with Anderson instead of Cron)
SP1: Snell $26 or Darvish/Castillo $31
SP2: Fried or Hendricks $23
SP3: Taijuan Walker $15 - $18
SP4: Freddie Peralta $8 - $10
SP5: Logan Webb $1 - $5
RP1: Hand/Jansen $18 or Bass $13
RP2: Lucas Sims $1 - $5
Other cheap pitching targets (reserves?): Lucchesi, Lindblom, Yamamoto, PonceDeLeon, Alzolay, Jimmy Nelson, Curtiss, Chuck Smith, Rowan Wick
If I can stay close to my price targets, I'm probably not going to be flexible as I'm aiming for a balance between strikeout upside, wins potential, and ratio stability. Many of the teams have kept good pitchers, so my targets are based on the pitchers I think are best in those price slots. There are several pitchers I don't want on my roster UNLESS they are priced significantly below projections, as I just don't trust them to provide the stats I need this season (Carrasco - liked him pre-spring training injuries, Price, Corbin, MadBum, Weaver, Soria, Bradley). So I'm going in with a plan that I feel relatively good about...and we'll see how it goes.
Unfortunately there are a few wildcards that can throw a monkey wrench into my situation. First, we're using CBS's online auction tool for the first time ever (we normally go around the room with bids, and if an owner drops out of the bidding, they can't jump back in)...so I'm concerned that could push prices higher than normal. Second, there's at least one team and possibly two that are playing for next season. If they target any of the players in my plan, they can easily push the prices much higher than I'm comfortable spending. And finally, umjewman and Dreamteam (last season's winner and the heavy favorite to repeat this season) have identified a few of my targets, and I've done little to throw them off the scent. umjewman is fairly well set at SP, and can't really waste too much money enforcing as getting stuck early would hamper his draft. Meanwhile Dreamteam (who also needs several pitchers) has been open about his own interests/targets, and we don't have too much overlap unless something goes terribly wrong.
Oh, and did I mention that I'm now the commissioner...which means I have administrative things to manage, in addition to my team? Alright...enough talking about the plan...let's get into the draft.
Let's get this party started: The first round:
So our previous commissioner is celebrating his 20th wedding anniversary and can't attend the draft. Thus our former commissioner before him, who recently left the league due to ever-increasing work responsibilities is drafting on his behalf. Except, he's running late due to his son's soccer match and has the team on auto-draft. Of course, the system leads with Mmmmoookiie and wow...is this auction process fast. Before we know what's happened his price has reached the mid $50s, but, inexplicably, it stalls out. RotoLab (RL) has him at $60 with our inflation, but the bidding stops at $56. The next throw (umjewman) is Conforto, the highest rated OF and valued at $38...but the fast bidding process stalls out at $35. So early bidding is a little lower than expected, which does happen sometimes but I didn't think it would happen with the online auction.
The next two throws are Realmuto ($30) and Trea Turner ($55), who both go to the commishes, but don't fit his historical bidding tendencies. When we reach out, the bidding commish is ten minutes away, but said his instructions don't have Realmuto nor Turner at those prices. Thus we roll back the auction and start over when he arrives.The good news is that everyone got a couple of rounds to adjust to this way of bidding, and, when we restarted the draft, umjewman had to spend an extra buck ($36) to get Conforto. The bad news is that without the system autobidding, Turner only went for $50 and Realmuto only went for $25. Hitting inflation is actually increasing during the draft...
Relatively early in the round, the better pitching names are thrown. Castillo comes out first and Dreamteam goes full boat, getting him for $36 ($3 cheaper than he went last season). After missing out on Scherzer ($30), Dreamteam also goes to $31 for Darvish (I was in up to $29 but couldn't bring myself to chase into the low $30s). Now I think this is good for me, because with him buying his big pitchers I don't think he'll enforce me too hard on some of the mid-$20s pitchers I'm targeting. Umjewman is able to land Lindor for $40, which feels like a relative bargain in our league even though RotoLab only had him at $33 (all of my quoted RL prices are as of the start of the auction). He's now spent $76 of his $112 budget, so I feel he also won't go too hard enforcing me, despite knowing my interests.
Thus I lead with Snell, whom I think can be a top-three NL pitcher that goes for more of a mid top-ten auction price. I'm feeling good when the bidding slows a bit in the low-to-mid $20s...and wait until 5 seconds remain to bid $25. But someone else goes to $26 and although I'm not happy I won't be deterred. I confidently bid $27 and someone else pushes it to $28. Now I'm bothered, as I don't want to pay as much for Snell as others paid for Scherzer & Darvish. However, I feel I need Snell. His 2018 season was studly, he won't face the DH, he has wins upside playing for a contender, his ballpark should help him lower his ERA & WHIP, he's relatively young, having had a reasonably light workload, AND he has elite strikeout potential. I'm not happy but it's +$1 for me...and I get him for $29.
The next two throws are Seager ($45) and Castellanos ($31...right at the RL price), which are relatively reasonable for first round buys in this league. Then Dreamteam throws Peralta. He knows umjewman likes him (a lot) and makes that toss this early specifically to mess with him. What he doesn't know is that Peralta's been high on my list (as a $6 spec pick initially...but I know he'll go higher due to his spring performance AND winning a rotation role). Once again, the bidding slows down near the low-end of my target price, but when I say $9, someone else pushes it to $10...and I ultimately have to go to $13 to win the bid ($17 on RL). I'm already $6 over on my targets which I feel will cost me on my end-game targets. We finished the first round extremely fast and the average amount spent was $35 (same as last year but lower than 2019's $43 average).
Show me the money? Rounds two and three:
Round two begins with Arenado ($35) and I regret my pre-auction trade of Reynolds $12 for Suarez $39, as the prices are not as high as I feared when I made the deal. Then Jansen goes for only $18 (right at his RL price), yet I hesitate and don't go the extra buck. And now comes Mr. Fried (whom I should have extended to $8 last season...but why cry over spilled milk). RL has him at $22 and he's my targeted stable pitcher so I'm making sure to top the bid each time the clock winds down to 5 seconds. We're using Webex to connect via video and Dreamteam is telling everyone Fried's going to wind up on my team again, so I can't be sure if others really want him or they're enforcing. No matter which it is, it takes me $26 to secure him for my team...but I like him a little better than Hendricks, who winds up going for $27. I've purchased three of the first thirteen throws, got my two front-end starters and have $63 remaining for my final eight players.
There are some other reasonable hitting buys (Baez $27, S. Marte $31, Yadi $5, Rizzo $31) but Hand goes for $23 (RL $18), so the best available closers are gone. So I toss Bass and WAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY overpay, going to $15 (RL $7). Seeing as how I have Floro at $1, I'm going to try to get Curtiss late, as Yimi was already kept and I need to grab insurance policies for that buy. Later, Soria winds up going for $12 and Bradley for $14 (Crichton and Neris were kept)...so there was no cheap path to named closers. Dreamteam buys Carrasco for $16, a risk I'd gladly take if I had his stacked roster, but a gamble I can't afford with mine. There's a nice run of hitters, and I move early buying Cron for $25 (RL $30), who's followed by Bryant $26, Pham $31, Blackmon $20, K.Marte $25, Cutch $16, Segura $18 and Bell $29. Hitting inflation is still rising as many of these purchases are at better prices than some keepers.
I've spent $108 on five of the first 26 players...leaving me $23 for three pitchers, a UT player and two catchers. Unless I get lucky, there's going to be too much money available late and I'm not going to be able to afford the catchers or UT players I'm targeting. Round two and three average prices were ~$22 each, which is considerably lower than 2020 ($32 & $27) and 2019 ($28 & $23).
Can I scramble and still stick to the plan? The middle rounds and end game:
After the Cron purchase, none of my targets come out for another 30 picks, so I do some mild bidding/enforcing at prices way below value. Interesting hitters were Moustakas $28, Didi $22, Cain $15, Winker $20, Brian Anderson $19, Peralta $19, Votto $18, and Bradley $14. A turning point took place when umjewman bid $19 on O'Neill, but someone else swooped in to grab him at $20 (right at the RL price). Interesting pitchers were Corbin $18, Price $10, C-Mart $10 and Madbum $6. Then Taijuan Walker is thrown and a few people are nibbling, but it slows quickly. I take the bid up to $6...then $8...as umjewman and I start going back and forth. As the price continues rising slowly, he bids Walker up to $11 with dollars he couldn't have spent had he wound up with O'Neill. So I wound up having to pay $12 instead of the $6 it would have cost me if he weren't bidding. With only $11 for five players, my max bid is now $7.
Right after Walker, the commish buys Cooper for $12 (and his sub-bidder later revealed he could have gone as high as $19 for him), so I had no shot to get him for my second UT slot. He also buys Alzolay for $7, further cementing that I should have exempted him. umjewman picks up Polanco for $15 (RL $16). Some players of interest get snatched up (L.Sims $5, Caleb Smith $5, Dom Nunez $3, Lewis Brinson $6). I try to sneak Logan Webb for a buck, but someone bids $2 so I spend $3 to get him...and immediately after that purchase, E. Diaz goes for $6, then Narvaez goes for $5 when my max bid was only $5. I'm kind of screwed on catchers, so I pivot and go all the way to $5 to land Lindblom, as some insurance against Peralta's volatility. I'm now at $1 max, which prevents me from bidding on Barnes $2, Vogt $1, Owings $2, D. Ponce De Leon $3, Colton Welker $3 or Lucchesi $1. I close out by grabbing Curtiss $1 at SUT, along with M. Pina $1 and William Contreras $1 as catchers.
In the reserve round I picked up pitchers: Arrieta, Wick, Voth & Cahill; hitters: Y.Daza, Aquino, Goodwin & Jose Martinez; and minor leaguers: M.Allan, Brett Baty, Mitch White & Kevin Cron (perhaps he'll improves the contact enough in Japan to let that power play at the MLB level). Focusing my early reserve picks on augmenting my major league team cost me any chance at my highly rated minor league targets. And spending more than my budgeted amounts really cost me my end-game UT and C targets, as I'd prefer to have one more solid hitter. Hopefully when Calhoun returns, my offense will still be decent enough to make noise. And, I've built a pitching staff that (aside from the closer situation) I actually like...even though I've spent a whopping $109 (39% of the budget) on them.
Here's my team (drafted players bolded):
C: William Contreras $1
C: Manny Pina $1
1B: Pete Alonso $18
3B: Eugenio Suarez $39
CI: Jesus Aguilar $8
2B: Chris Taylor $6
SS: Mauricio Dubon $7
MI: Miguel Rojas $1
OF: Ronald Acuna $22
OF: Victor Robles $18
OF: Kole Calhoun $18
OF: Raimel Tapia $5
OF: Sam Hilliard $2
UT: C.J. Cron $25
P: Blake Snell $29
P: Max Fried $26
P: Taijuan Walker $12
P: Freddie Peralta $13
P: Josh Lindblom $5
P: Logan Webb $3
P: Anthony Bass $15
P: John Curtiss $1
P: Dylan Floro $1
P: Drew Pomeranz $1
P: Daniel Hudson $3
Reserve Hitters: Yonathan Daza, Aristides Aquino, Brian Goodwin, Jose Martinez
Reserve Pitchers: Jake Arrieta, Rowan Wick, Austin Voth, Trevor Cahill
Minor Leaguers: Ronny Mauricio, Hunter Bishop, Hunter Greene, Matt Allan, Brett Baty, Mitch White, Kevin Cron
I think these anatomy auction recaps are getting longer each year, so if you've made it this far, thank you once again for indulging me and coming along on this journey. Feel free to let me know what you think of the team, and how/where you might have done things differently.
PS: Captain Hook has joined our league as a replacement for the previous, previous commish...and did a great job building a dreadful roster into one that can compete. Kudos to him on a great job.
PPS: The dump deals have already started, and caused the usual grumblings. Here's hoping neither of the two teams that acquired players meets with any success.
I won't recount the pre-draft process, which you can read here. The league details are: NL-only, 40 man rosters (25 active, 15 reserve), $280 budget, 5x5 (OBP instead of BAvg). In addition to keeping up to 15 players, pre-auction, a team may protect an additional 3 minor league exempt players (MLE), at no salary impact (first year of contract starts when they exceed MLB rookie minimums of 130 AB/50 IP). Hitting inflation tends to run between 35% - 45%, and pitching inflation tends to run between 15% - 25%, depending on the season. This year RotoLab calculated hitting inflation at 44% and pitching inflation at 11% at the beginning of the draft.
The Set-Up:
As Saturday begins, I'm already a bit apprehensive. I'm focused on mistakes I feel I've already made. I had Lucas Sims relatively cheaply last season, but let him go to acquire another player via FAAB. In the Winter Waiver process, I claimed a $1 Dylan Floro and passed on a $1 Elias Diaz, who would have filled one of my cheap catcher slots very nicely. During roster freeze, I tossed back a $3 Alzolay, whom I could have put into a salary exempt minor league slot, in order to keep three minor leaguers that probably won't reach the majors this season. But I try to push aside these things and focus on the task at hand...putting together a team that can compete for the title. Following last season's fourth place finish, this team has some very solid keepers...and my strategy/draft plan should position it well. Here's what I'm working with:
CI: Alonso $18, Suarez $39, Aguilar $8
MI: C.Taylor $6, M.Dubon $7, M.Rojas $1
OF: Acuna $22, V.Robles $18, K.Calhoun $18, Tapia $5, Hilliard $2
P: Pomeranz $1, Floro $1, D.Hudson $3
MLE: R.Mauricio, H.Bishop, H.Greene
That's 14 keepers for $149, leaving me $131 to draft seven pitchers, two catchers and two UT players.
The Plan:
If you know anything about my draft tendencies you'll know I DESPISE having to pay for pitchers. They blow up ratios, get displaced as closer, and suffer season ending injuries far too often to rely on them. I've had previous success building staffs of cheap pitchers, but it is getting more and more difficult to pull off. So this year, I left myself no choice but to focus on building a viable staff. I'd like to acquire one top tier pitcher ($25 - $30), one "solid & stable" pitcher ($20 - $25), two decent mid-tier pitchers ($10 - $15), a cheap "closer" ($10 - $15) and two cheap pitchers with upside ($5 total). Ideally, I'll pull this off for ~$90, which would leave me ~$41 for a big UT hitter, a UT hitter with upside, and two cheap catchers. Here's what I put together as my "Preferred Plan", going in:
C: McCann $9 or Narvaez $6
C: Eliser Diaz, Vogt or Casali $1
UT: Cron $28 - $31 or B. Anderson $18 - $21
UT: Cooper $8 or Owings $3 (Alternately Gregory Polanco around $13 - $16, if I wind up with Anderson instead of Cron)
SP1: Snell $26 or Darvish/Castillo $31
SP2: Fried or Hendricks $23
SP3: Taijuan Walker $15 - $18
SP4: Freddie Peralta $8 - $10
SP5: Logan Webb $1 - $5
RP1: Hand/Jansen $18 or Bass $13
RP2: Lucas Sims $1 - $5
Other cheap pitching targets (reserves?): Lucchesi, Lindblom, Yamamoto, PonceDeLeon, Alzolay, Jimmy Nelson, Curtiss, Chuck Smith, Rowan Wick
If I can stay close to my price targets, I'm probably not going to be flexible as I'm aiming for a balance between strikeout upside, wins potential, and ratio stability. Many of the teams have kept good pitchers, so my targets are based on the pitchers I think are best in those price slots. There are several pitchers I don't want on my roster UNLESS they are priced significantly below projections, as I just don't trust them to provide the stats I need this season (Carrasco - liked him pre-spring training injuries, Price, Corbin, MadBum, Weaver, Soria, Bradley). So I'm going in with a plan that I feel relatively good about...and we'll see how it goes.
Unfortunately there are a few wildcards that can throw a monkey wrench into my situation. First, we're using CBS's online auction tool for the first time ever (we normally go around the room with bids, and if an owner drops out of the bidding, they can't jump back in)...so I'm concerned that could push prices higher than normal. Second, there's at least one team and possibly two that are playing for next season. If they target any of the players in my plan, they can easily push the prices much higher than I'm comfortable spending. And finally, umjewman and Dreamteam (last season's winner and the heavy favorite to repeat this season) have identified a few of my targets, and I've done little to throw them off the scent. umjewman is fairly well set at SP, and can't really waste too much money enforcing as getting stuck early would hamper his draft. Meanwhile Dreamteam (who also needs several pitchers) has been open about his own interests/targets, and we don't have too much overlap unless something goes terribly wrong.
Oh, and did I mention that I'm now the commissioner...which means I have administrative things to manage, in addition to my team? Alright...enough talking about the plan...let's get into the draft.
Let's get this party started: The first round:
So our previous commissioner is celebrating his 20th wedding anniversary and can't attend the draft. Thus our former commissioner before him, who recently left the league due to ever-increasing work responsibilities is drafting on his behalf. Except, he's running late due to his son's soccer match and has the team on auto-draft. Of course, the system leads with Mmmmoookiie and wow...is this auction process fast. Before we know what's happened his price has reached the mid $50s, but, inexplicably, it stalls out. RotoLab (RL) has him at $60 with our inflation, but the bidding stops at $56. The next throw (umjewman) is Conforto, the highest rated OF and valued at $38...but the fast bidding process stalls out at $35. So early bidding is a little lower than expected, which does happen sometimes but I didn't think it would happen with the online auction.
The next two throws are Realmuto ($30) and Trea Turner ($55), who both go to the commishes, but don't fit his historical bidding tendencies. When we reach out, the bidding commish is ten minutes away, but said his instructions don't have Realmuto nor Turner at those prices. Thus we roll back the auction and start over when he arrives.The good news is that everyone got a couple of rounds to adjust to this way of bidding, and, when we restarted the draft, umjewman had to spend an extra buck ($36) to get Conforto. The bad news is that without the system autobidding, Turner only went for $50 and Realmuto only went for $25. Hitting inflation is actually increasing during the draft...
Relatively early in the round, the better pitching names are thrown. Castillo comes out first and Dreamteam goes full boat, getting him for $36 ($3 cheaper than he went last season). After missing out on Scherzer ($30), Dreamteam also goes to $31 for Darvish (I was in up to $29 but couldn't bring myself to chase into the low $30s). Now I think this is good for me, because with him buying his big pitchers I don't think he'll enforce me too hard on some of the mid-$20s pitchers I'm targeting. Umjewman is able to land Lindor for $40, which feels like a relative bargain in our league even though RotoLab only had him at $33 (all of my quoted RL prices are as of the start of the auction). He's now spent $76 of his $112 budget, so I feel he also won't go too hard enforcing me, despite knowing my interests.
Thus I lead with Snell, whom I think can be a top-three NL pitcher that goes for more of a mid top-ten auction price. I'm feeling good when the bidding slows a bit in the low-to-mid $20s...and wait until 5 seconds remain to bid $25. But someone else goes to $26 and although I'm not happy I won't be deterred. I confidently bid $27 and someone else pushes it to $28. Now I'm bothered, as I don't want to pay as much for Snell as others paid for Scherzer & Darvish. However, I feel I need Snell. His 2018 season was studly, he won't face the DH, he has wins upside playing for a contender, his ballpark should help him lower his ERA & WHIP, he's relatively young, having had a reasonably light workload, AND he has elite strikeout potential. I'm not happy but it's +$1 for me...and I get him for $29.
The next two throws are Seager ($45) and Castellanos ($31...right at the RL price), which are relatively reasonable for first round buys in this league. Then Dreamteam throws Peralta. He knows umjewman likes him (a lot) and makes that toss this early specifically to mess with him. What he doesn't know is that Peralta's been high on my list (as a $6 spec pick initially...but I know he'll go higher due to his spring performance AND winning a rotation role). Once again, the bidding slows down near the low-end of my target price, but when I say $9, someone else pushes it to $10...and I ultimately have to go to $13 to win the bid ($17 on RL). I'm already $6 over on my targets which I feel will cost me on my end-game targets. We finished the first round extremely fast and the average amount spent was $35 (same as last year but lower than 2019's $43 average).
Show me the money? Rounds two and three:
Round two begins with Arenado ($35) and I regret my pre-auction trade of Reynolds $12 for Suarez $39, as the prices are not as high as I feared when I made the deal. Then Jansen goes for only $18 (right at his RL price), yet I hesitate and don't go the extra buck. And now comes Mr. Fried (whom I should have extended to $8 last season...but why cry over spilled milk). RL has him at $22 and he's my targeted stable pitcher so I'm making sure to top the bid each time the clock winds down to 5 seconds. We're using Webex to connect via video and Dreamteam is telling everyone Fried's going to wind up on my team again, so I can't be sure if others really want him or they're enforcing. No matter which it is, it takes me $26 to secure him for my team...but I like him a little better than Hendricks, who winds up going for $27. I've purchased three of the first thirteen throws, got my two front-end starters and have $63 remaining for my final eight players.
There are some other reasonable hitting buys (Baez $27, S. Marte $31, Yadi $5, Rizzo $31) but Hand goes for $23 (RL $18), so the best available closers are gone. So I toss Bass and WAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY overpay, going to $15 (RL $7). Seeing as how I have Floro at $1, I'm going to try to get Curtiss late, as Yimi was already kept and I need to grab insurance policies for that buy. Later, Soria winds up going for $12 and Bradley for $14 (Crichton and Neris were kept)...so there was no cheap path to named closers. Dreamteam buys Carrasco for $16, a risk I'd gladly take if I had his stacked roster, but a gamble I can't afford with mine. There's a nice run of hitters, and I move early buying Cron for $25 (RL $30), who's followed by Bryant $26, Pham $31, Blackmon $20, K.Marte $25, Cutch $16, Segura $18 and Bell $29. Hitting inflation is still rising as many of these purchases are at better prices than some keepers.
I've spent $108 on five of the first 26 players...leaving me $23 for three pitchers, a UT player and two catchers. Unless I get lucky, there's going to be too much money available late and I'm not going to be able to afford the catchers or UT players I'm targeting. Round two and three average prices were ~$22 each, which is considerably lower than 2020 ($32 & $27) and 2019 ($28 & $23).
Can I scramble and still stick to the plan? The middle rounds and end game:
After the Cron purchase, none of my targets come out for another 30 picks, so I do some mild bidding/enforcing at prices way below value. Interesting hitters were Moustakas $28, Didi $22, Cain $15, Winker $20, Brian Anderson $19, Peralta $19, Votto $18, and Bradley $14. A turning point took place when umjewman bid $19 on O'Neill, but someone else swooped in to grab him at $20 (right at the RL price). Interesting pitchers were Corbin $18, Price $10, C-Mart $10 and Madbum $6. Then Taijuan Walker is thrown and a few people are nibbling, but it slows quickly. I take the bid up to $6...then $8...as umjewman and I start going back and forth. As the price continues rising slowly, he bids Walker up to $11 with dollars he couldn't have spent had he wound up with O'Neill. So I wound up having to pay $12 instead of the $6 it would have cost me if he weren't bidding. With only $11 for five players, my max bid is now $7.
Right after Walker, the commish buys Cooper for $12 (and his sub-bidder later revealed he could have gone as high as $19 for him), so I had no shot to get him for my second UT slot. He also buys Alzolay for $7, further cementing that I should have exempted him. umjewman picks up Polanco for $15 (RL $16). Some players of interest get snatched up (L.Sims $5, Caleb Smith $5, Dom Nunez $3, Lewis Brinson $6). I try to sneak Logan Webb for a buck, but someone bids $2 so I spend $3 to get him...and immediately after that purchase, E. Diaz goes for $6, then Narvaez goes for $5 when my max bid was only $5. I'm kind of screwed on catchers, so I pivot and go all the way to $5 to land Lindblom, as some insurance against Peralta's volatility. I'm now at $1 max, which prevents me from bidding on Barnes $2, Vogt $1, Owings $2, D. Ponce De Leon $3, Colton Welker $3 or Lucchesi $1. I close out by grabbing Curtiss $1 at SUT, along with M. Pina $1 and William Contreras $1 as catchers.
In the reserve round I picked up pitchers: Arrieta, Wick, Voth & Cahill; hitters: Y.Daza, Aquino, Goodwin & Jose Martinez; and minor leaguers: M.Allan, Brett Baty, Mitch White & Kevin Cron (perhaps he'll improves the contact enough in Japan to let that power play at the MLB level). Focusing my early reserve picks on augmenting my major league team cost me any chance at my highly rated minor league targets. And spending more than my budgeted amounts really cost me my end-game UT and C targets, as I'd prefer to have one more solid hitter. Hopefully when Calhoun returns, my offense will still be decent enough to make noise. And, I've built a pitching staff that (aside from the closer situation) I actually like...even though I've spent a whopping $109 (39% of the budget) on them.
Here's my team (drafted players bolded):
C: William Contreras $1
C: Manny Pina $1
1B: Pete Alonso $18
3B: Eugenio Suarez $39
CI: Jesus Aguilar $8
2B: Chris Taylor $6
SS: Mauricio Dubon $7
MI: Miguel Rojas $1
OF: Ronald Acuna $22
OF: Victor Robles $18
OF: Kole Calhoun $18
OF: Raimel Tapia $5
OF: Sam Hilliard $2
UT: C.J. Cron $25
P: Blake Snell $29
P: Max Fried $26
P: Taijuan Walker $12
P: Freddie Peralta $13
P: Josh Lindblom $5
P: Logan Webb $3
P: Anthony Bass $15
P: John Curtiss $1
P: Dylan Floro $1
P: Drew Pomeranz $1
P: Daniel Hudson $3
Reserve Hitters: Yonathan Daza, Aristides Aquino, Brian Goodwin, Jose Martinez
Reserve Pitchers: Jake Arrieta, Rowan Wick, Austin Voth, Trevor Cahill
Minor Leaguers: Ronny Mauricio, Hunter Bishop, Hunter Greene, Matt Allan, Brett Baty, Mitch White, Kevin Cron
I think these anatomy auction recaps are getting longer each year, so if you've made it this far, thank you once again for indulging me and coming along on this journey. Feel free to let me know what you think of the team, and how/where you might have done things differently.
PS: Captain Hook has joined our league as a replacement for the previous, previous commish...and did a great job building a dreadful roster into one that can compete. Kudos to him on a great job.
PPS: The dump deals have already started, and caused the usual grumblings. Here's hoping neither of the two teams that acquired players meets with any success.
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