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As I noted in the other thread, I was inspired to post here my post-auction analysis. I don't do this every year, but I do it most years, and send to the GMs in that league. I've added a Background section to give context here.
Background
This is a league that is in its 29th year; it was started at Caltech by a bunch of graduate students at the time. I've been in it from the beginning, as have four others, and 3 others have been in at least 20 years. The league is currently 12 GMs. My team is "Cacti and Purple Turtles."
We have a team universe from both AL and NL, and we vote on teams every year, with a set number of teams (1.3*nGM+1 so 17 teams this year); with keepers from other leagues it plays in depth roughly like an AL- or NL-only with 12 owners.
Categories are hitting: OBA, EBA, SB-CS, R, RBI; pitching: W, SV+Ho/2-BS, K, ERA, WHIP (and we add hit batsmen to WHIP).
Positions are: 2 X C, 1B, 3B, CI, 2B, SS, MI, 4 X OF, U; 10 X P
We're allowed 10 keepers, with a cap on keeper salary. I went in this year with a pretty good keeper crop, but not the best (two others had what I thought were better keepers).
Final Roster
The roster I ended up with (keepers are in bold):
C: Will Smith, $4
C: Carson Kelly, $8
1B: Yuli Gurriel, $9
3B: Yoan Moncada, $11
CI: Andrew Vaughn, $0 (activated from my minors right after the auction)
2B: Andres Gimenez, $18
SS: Bo Bichette, $4
MI: Paul DeJong, $10
OF: Michael Brantley, $9; Victor Robles, $4; George Springer, $28; Cavan Biggio, $34
U: Yordan Alvarez, $4
Bench & IL: Kyle Lewis, $4; Nick Ahmed, $2
P: Lance Lynn, $22; Trevor Bauer, $13; Sean Manaea, $16; Taijuan Walker, $13; Dean Kremer, $2; Edwin Diaz, $22; Giovanny Gallegos, $7; Rafael Montero, $1; Victor Gonzalez, $2; Tanner Rainey, $1
Bench & IL: Robbie Ray, $9; Jake Odorizzi, $5; Rafael Dolis, $2; Hunter Harvey, $2
There is obviously some (a lot of?) injury risk, but most of it is not too concerning (Harvey maybe excepted). Or at least I didn't think so at the time of the auction, one week ago (Kyle Lewis, WTF?!?). Some of the bench players will be slotted into active spots once they are back (Lewis, Ray, Odorizzi).
CBS Draft Room Logistics
We started late because of weirdness with chat, and a couple of late-comers who shall remain nameless (cough, cough, Vaughn brothers). But we almost always do. It'd just be nice, sometime, to actually really start on time. Though I think one of the few years we started on time was the first nomination fiasco (Dan will recall Vottogate), so maybe I should just be happy there weren't any serious problems.
Things went very smoothly for several hours - save for an unexpected call to work for Alex (sorry, Alex!). But he filled his queue and we pressed on. We were through almost 16 rounds at about 13:00 (PT) when the Matts and Bill discovered that they had forgotten that we get an extra $5 auction and must fill reserve slots (this is the second year we've done this). Even experienced GMs can make rookie mistakes! But we got over that and pressed on. But then the real disaster struck in the end-game - we got to a point where several GMs could not nominate (and those of us with commissioner powers also could not nominate for them). Stupid CBS software! In any case, much confusion reigned. We lost about 15-20 minutes futzing with it, including ensuing trickle-down effects (Housergate). But we still finished by 13:40 (PT), which is only 5 minutes slower than last year, and we had one more GM this year. So, overall, a fairly smooth auction.
Post-auction Roster Analysis; the Numbers
None of this takes into account a number of things like dev squadders who are likely to contribute, ability to fill injury gaps with reserves or other multi-position players, etc. So take it with a grain of salt.
Going into auction, the Rotolab ETV numbers (which is a measure of "auction strength" of a sort):
1 - Mike/Peter - 307
2 - Bill - 294
3 - Bryan - 286
4 - Mike - 282
5 - Alex - 271
6 - Matts - 271
7 - Yura - 271
8 - Greg/John - 271
9 - Kellie - 268
10 - Dan/Jim - 261
11 - Rich - 212
12 - Nate - 200
Five groups, Mike/Peter, gap, Bill, gap, Mike and I, gap, big bunch, gap, Rich and Nate.
After the auction, the predicted standings are:
1 - Bryan - 91.0
2 - Mike/Peter - 89.0
3 - Bill - 86.0
4 - Mike - 77.0
5 - Dan/Jim - 69.0
6 - Yura - 68.5
7 - Alex - 62.0
8 - Matts - 56.5
9 - Kellie - 55.0
10 - Greg/John - 45.0
11 - Nate - 43.0
12 - Rich - 38.0
Five groups: Me, Mike/Peter, and Bill, gap, Mike, gap, Dan/Jim, Yura, and Alex, gap, Matts and Kellie, gap, Greg/John, Nate, and Rich.
Difference:
Dan/Jim - +5
Bryan - +2
Yura - +1
Nate - +1
Mike - 0
Kellie - 0
Mike/Peter - -1
Bill - -1
Rich - -1
Alex - -2
Matts - -2
Greg/John - -2
So Dan/Jim had a really good auction; the rest of us ended up roughly where predicted going into the auction (from keepers).
Recall that I've noted many times before that if you use draft software, you'd better end up at or near the top of the standings after the auction, unless you go into the auction at a severe disadvantage (in my other league, that is the case for me - not a particularly good crop of keepers this year
...), or have a pretty bad auction. Also, Rotolab uses the Baseball HQ projections, which may or may not be anywhere near reality. Using other projection systems might yield different results (last year I did that whole analysis using like five different projection systems - it pushes GMs around +- a few spots in the predicted standings - I don't think I'll spend the effort to repeat it this year).
During the auction itself, and right afterward, I thought I did a really good job on hitting, and not so much on pitching. Turned out I didn't do as poorly on pitching as I thought I did.
My Auction Narrative
I went into the auction with about the normal amount of preparation. Which means not a tremendous amount of detailed analysis, but I had everybody's keepers in Rotolab (the draft software I use), had updated to the latest projections, had set the value calculation algorithm numbers to give a decent approximation of how our league spends at auction year-after-year (which is what I would call a "moderate" Stars and Scrubs approach - my other league is a more severe Stars and Scrubs). I had also gone through my own roster, looking at where I needed players and how many players were available at all positions given keepers, what the tiers were, etc. I spent a bit of extra time marking down all setup and closer-by-committee relievers, which I normally don't do as part of my prep.
So, going in, not only from our league, but from what others are saying about auctions this year, I knew that middle infield is no longer the shitshow that it used to be. There are so many talented 2B and SS in MLB now that you don't have to scrape to get decent stats from them. On the other hand, there was a pretty big dropoff from Cavan Biggio for available 2B, and I needed one. So I really targeted him. I also knew that OF is overstocked for our league. This is always true for us, because we carry one less than the "normal" amount of OF for roto leagues, and we always have a lot of good keepers. I only needed one OF because I kept three, which might have been a mistake, but you keep value where you have value, so that's what I had. I knew that I needed a C, and in 2 C leagues, you can get stuck with some stinkers. So I had planned to either spend a bit more than $1 or $2 on my second C, or really punt that position and hope for a FAB acquisition during the season. My specific summary notes were:
"Hitting summary.
Three OF slots and U slot full. Don't worry about OF. Target 2B, and _maybe_ C. 2B is the real issue. The rest should be OK. Need speed - maybe 35 or so SB-CS. OBA and EBA look OK for now. Need about 350 R and RBI. Out of 6 players. Shouldn't be terribly difficult.
Really don't be afraid to spend for 2B. Have $125 for the 6 players, though some may have to go to pitching. Easy to find an OF, and a MI, 1B and CI should be OK; punt C if needed. So, spend on 2B. Target Biggio, unless it gets insane. He's even more valuable because he qualifies at all of 2B, 3B, and OF. Altuve _should_ go cheaper, but probably won't just because of his history."
Then, for pitching, I was going in with only three keepers, but had two good SP (Bauer and Lynn), and a marginal closer (Montero). There weren't a lot of top-tier pitchers in the auction, so I knew they'd go for top dollar. And our league typically overpays for the middling SPs, but I thought I could get a couple of 2/3 tier SP, pick up one good closer, and get a couple of good setup guys (with our SV category, they provide good value for usually not a lot of $), and be at least OK in pitching.
My specific summary notes:
"Pitching summary.
Have 2 starters and 1 closer. Target 6 starters, 2 closers, 2 setup, so need 4 starters, 1 closer, 2 setup.
Target 90 W. Have 30 currently, so need 60.
Top starters get ~16, and are costing up to $40 now, which is too much of my budget. Target 1 tier 2 pitcher, which is more like $20 and will net ~12 W. That leaves ~48 W to find. Say I find 15 between four relievers, then need 33 W for the remaining 3 slots. That's tough. A tier 3 pitcher might get 10-12 W, for $8 or so. That leaves me about there, hoping for good years :/. Just gonna have to hope that I find some savings.
Need about 80 S+H/2-BS. Have 20. Top set-up guys get around 25 H, or 12 in that category. With 2 setup guys, that leaves 36 more to find. Problem is that I've spent $44 of my $60 on starters already. A $15 closer, and 2 $2 setups is about in the right range, but then have to find something in-season, and am taking some from hitting.
For closers, 5 teams with closer by committee (and large committees!). The class are Hendriks, Diaz, and Hand. Smith maybe, but competition there. Target one of Hendriks, Diaz, or Hand.
So, plan is 1 tier 2 pitcher ($20), 3 tier 2 pitchers ($8 each), 1 closer ($15), and 2 setups ($2 each). That's overspending by a few $, which have to come from hitting."
Some in-auction musings.
I took George Springer at 1.12 for $28. I didn't want to spend that much money on OF, since I had only one slot open, but that was almost $10 under his rotolab value at the time, and I think he's really going to produce in that Blue Jays lineup. So I was fine with it.
My second purchase was Edwin Diaz at 2.12 for $22. That was more than I wanted to spend on a closer, but he was the last of the three top closers left (Hendriks was taken at 2.8 for $24 and Hand was taken at 2.10 for $18). So I was also fine with this.
My next purchase was Cavan Biggio at 3.3 for $34. As my notes indicated, I had really targeted him going in. His pre-auction (inflated) value was $36, and while inflation had gone down a bit, he was still at $32, so I felt fine with that price. As I thought, Altuve went for an inflated price because of his heritage (he went for $30 at 2.7; his value was only slightly north of $20 at the time). The dropoff beyond those two was more than I wanted to face for that position, so I was actually extremely pleased with this one. If only Kellie hadn't bid me up I'd have gotten him for even cheaper
.
I then waited two more rounds for my next purchase - Andres Gimenez at 5.5 for $18. Very happy with this, as he qualifies at multiple positions and is a pretty highly-touted prospect.
At this point, I played the waiting game. I knew that I wanted Yuli Gurriel at 1B, because he was the only full-time player left there, then I needed a MI, and still needed a C. But my real need was pitching, and I knew it. I had only four pitchers, and pickings were getting thin. But no good purchases seemed to present themselves (though I bid on a few), so it wasn't until 8.3 that I bought Robbie Ray for $9. Not a huge Ray fan (despite his D'backs lineage), but I think he'll do OK. And he does get K.
Just four picks later, at 8.7, the aforementioned Yuli Gurriel came up. I was worried that he'd be bid up, but I got him for $9, which made me happy. He's an OBA burden, but his EBA and counting stats should be good (well, no SB-CS, but the R and RBI).
The eighth round proved to be a bounty for me. At 8.10 Paul DeJong came up, and I took him for $10. Not sexy, but fine for a MI. Then at 8.12, Sean Manaea came up. He was about the best SP left, and while he no longer gets the Ks like he used to, his ratios should be good. So, I overspent a bit for him ($16, while valued at about $12 at the time). I was willing to take the hit on value to get a relatively reliable starter.
I bought Carson Kelly to fill my 2nd C slot at 9.1 for $8. He's one of the few C that isn't a big drag on OBA. A bit pricey, but I was OK with it given the other options.
I bought Giovanny Gallegos at 9.7 for $7, and Taijuan Walker at 9.8 for $13. Both a bit pricey, but many GMs had extra $ on the table, and there wasn't a whole lot of great pitching talent left.
Jake Odorizzi for $5 at 12.2 almost filled out my pitching. He's a question-mark for this year, but is a workhorse when healthy and not terrible on ratios (I say, hopefully!).
Dean Kremer for $2 at 13.2 then really filled it out. He's a flyer, but is an Oriole prospect and has the fourth SP position in the Baltimore rotation (well, that's not saying much, but the homer in me can hope!). I may put him in my reserves for one of the other setup guys. That goes for Odorizzi too, for that matter. It will depend on how they do.
The rest was reserves - mostly setup guys that have a chance to get some vulture saves (or real ones): $2 Rafael Dolis, $2 Victor Gonzalez, and $1 Tanner Rainey, and a long-shot on a $2 Hunter Harvey, who may end up closing in Baltimore depending on how his injury heals and how the other possibilities do. And a $2 Nick Ahmed, who may end up getting dropped, but is some injury safety.
Overall, in the end, I am pretty happy with my hitting. I could have done better with the pitching, by maybe spending some more on a higher-end starter and distributing less amongst the reserves (or the lower-tier starters), but I'm OK with that part too. I probably should have saved the $10 on DeJong (and just slotted Ahmed in there), and spent that extra $ earlier on pitching too, but hindsight is 20/20 as they say; by that point, there wasn't more money to be spent on starters (that were worth anything).
Another fun auction!
Background
This is a league that is in its 29th year; it was started at Caltech by a bunch of graduate students at the time. I've been in it from the beginning, as have four others, and 3 others have been in at least 20 years. The league is currently 12 GMs. My team is "Cacti and Purple Turtles."
We have a team universe from both AL and NL, and we vote on teams every year, with a set number of teams (1.3*nGM+1 so 17 teams this year); with keepers from other leagues it plays in depth roughly like an AL- or NL-only with 12 owners.
Categories are hitting: OBA, EBA, SB-CS, R, RBI; pitching: W, SV+Ho/2-BS, K, ERA, WHIP (and we add hit batsmen to WHIP).
Positions are: 2 X C, 1B, 3B, CI, 2B, SS, MI, 4 X OF, U; 10 X P
We're allowed 10 keepers, with a cap on keeper salary. I went in this year with a pretty good keeper crop, but not the best (two others had what I thought were better keepers).
Final Roster
The roster I ended up with (keepers are in bold):
C: Will Smith, $4
C: Carson Kelly, $8
1B: Yuli Gurriel, $9
3B: Yoan Moncada, $11
CI: Andrew Vaughn, $0 (activated from my minors right after the auction)
2B: Andres Gimenez, $18
SS: Bo Bichette, $4
MI: Paul DeJong, $10
OF: Michael Brantley, $9; Victor Robles, $4; George Springer, $28; Cavan Biggio, $34
U: Yordan Alvarez, $4
Bench & IL: Kyle Lewis, $4; Nick Ahmed, $2
P: Lance Lynn, $22; Trevor Bauer, $13; Sean Manaea, $16; Taijuan Walker, $13; Dean Kremer, $2; Edwin Diaz, $22; Giovanny Gallegos, $7; Rafael Montero, $1; Victor Gonzalez, $2; Tanner Rainey, $1
Bench & IL: Robbie Ray, $9; Jake Odorizzi, $5; Rafael Dolis, $2; Hunter Harvey, $2
There is obviously some (a lot of?) injury risk, but most of it is not too concerning (Harvey maybe excepted). Or at least I didn't think so at the time of the auction, one week ago (Kyle Lewis, WTF?!?). Some of the bench players will be slotted into active spots once they are back (Lewis, Ray, Odorizzi).
CBS Draft Room Logistics
We started late because of weirdness with chat, and a couple of late-comers who shall remain nameless (cough, cough, Vaughn brothers). But we almost always do. It'd just be nice, sometime, to actually really start on time. Though I think one of the few years we started on time was the first nomination fiasco (Dan will recall Vottogate), so maybe I should just be happy there weren't any serious problems.
Things went very smoothly for several hours - save for an unexpected call to work for Alex (sorry, Alex!). But he filled his queue and we pressed on. We were through almost 16 rounds at about 13:00 (PT) when the Matts and Bill discovered that they had forgotten that we get an extra $5 auction and must fill reserve slots (this is the second year we've done this). Even experienced GMs can make rookie mistakes! But we got over that and pressed on. But then the real disaster struck in the end-game - we got to a point where several GMs could not nominate (and those of us with commissioner powers also could not nominate for them). Stupid CBS software! In any case, much confusion reigned. We lost about 15-20 minutes futzing with it, including ensuing trickle-down effects (Housergate). But we still finished by 13:40 (PT), which is only 5 minutes slower than last year, and we had one more GM this year. So, overall, a fairly smooth auction.
Post-auction Roster Analysis; the Numbers
None of this takes into account a number of things like dev squadders who are likely to contribute, ability to fill injury gaps with reserves or other multi-position players, etc. So take it with a grain of salt.
Going into auction, the Rotolab ETV numbers (which is a measure of "auction strength" of a sort):
1 - Mike/Peter - 307
2 - Bill - 294
3 - Bryan - 286
4 - Mike - 282
5 - Alex - 271
6 - Matts - 271
7 - Yura - 271
8 - Greg/John - 271
9 - Kellie - 268
10 - Dan/Jim - 261
11 - Rich - 212
12 - Nate - 200
Five groups, Mike/Peter, gap, Bill, gap, Mike and I, gap, big bunch, gap, Rich and Nate.
After the auction, the predicted standings are:
1 - Bryan - 91.0
2 - Mike/Peter - 89.0
3 - Bill - 86.0
4 - Mike - 77.0
5 - Dan/Jim - 69.0
6 - Yura - 68.5
7 - Alex - 62.0
8 - Matts - 56.5
9 - Kellie - 55.0
10 - Greg/John - 45.0
11 - Nate - 43.0
12 - Rich - 38.0
Five groups: Me, Mike/Peter, and Bill, gap, Mike, gap, Dan/Jim, Yura, and Alex, gap, Matts and Kellie, gap, Greg/John, Nate, and Rich.
Difference:
Dan/Jim - +5
Bryan - +2
Yura - +1
Nate - +1
Mike - 0
Kellie - 0
Mike/Peter - -1
Bill - -1
Rich - -1
Alex - -2
Matts - -2
Greg/John - -2
So Dan/Jim had a really good auction; the rest of us ended up roughly where predicted going into the auction (from keepers).
Recall that I've noted many times before that if you use draft software, you'd better end up at or near the top of the standings after the auction, unless you go into the auction at a severe disadvantage (in my other league, that is the case for me - not a particularly good crop of keepers this year
...), or have a pretty bad auction. Also, Rotolab uses the Baseball HQ projections, which may or may not be anywhere near reality. Using other projection systems might yield different results (last year I did that whole analysis using like five different projection systems - it pushes GMs around +- a few spots in the predicted standings - I don't think I'll spend the effort to repeat it this year).During the auction itself, and right afterward, I thought I did a really good job on hitting, and not so much on pitching. Turned out I didn't do as poorly on pitching as I thought I did.
My Auction Narrative
I went into the auction with about the normal amount of preparation. Which means not a tremendous amount of detailed analysis, but I had everybody's keepers in Rotolab (the draft software I use), had updated to the latest projections, had set the value calculation algorithm numbers to give a decent approximation of how our league spends at auction year-after-year (which is what I would call a "moderate" Stars and Scrubs approach - my other league is a more severe Stars and Scrubs). I had also gone through my own roster, looking at where I needed players and how many players were available at all positions given keepers, what the tiers were, etc. I spent a bit of extra time marking down all setup and closer-by-committee relievers, which I normally don't do as part of my prep.
So, going in, not only from our league, but from what others are saying about auctions this year, I knew that middle infield is no longer the shitshow that it used to be. There are so many talented 2B and SS in MLB now that you don't have to scrape to get decent stats from them. On the other hand, there was a pretty big dropoff from Cavan Biggio for available 2B, and I needed one. So I really targeted him. I also knew that OF is overstocked for our league. This is always true for us, because we carry one less than the "normal" amount of OF for roto leagues, and we always have a lot of good keepers. I only needed one OF because I kept three, which might have been a mistake, but you keep value where you have value, so that's what I had. I knew that I needed a C, and in 2 C leagues, you can get stuck with some stinkers. So I had planned to either spend a bit more than $1 or $2 on my second C, or really punt that position and hope for a FAB acquisition during the season. My specific summary notes were:
"Hitting summary.
Three OF slots and U slot full. Don't worry about OF. Target 2B, and _maybe_ C. 2B is the real issue. The rest should be OK. Need speed - maybe 35 or so SB-CS. OBA and EBA look OK for now. Need about 350 R and RBI. Out of 6 players. Shouldn't be terribly difficult.
Really don't be afraid to spend for 2B. Have $125 for the 6 players, though some may have to go to pitching. Easy to find an OF, and a MI, 1B and CI should be OK; punt C if needed. So, spend on 2B. Target Biggio, unless it gets insane. He's even more valuable because he qualifies at all of 2B, 3B, and OF. Altuve _should_ go cheaper, but probably won't just because of his history."
Then, for pitching, I was going in with only three keepers, but had two good SP (Bauer and Lynn), and a marginal closer (Montero). There weren't a lot of top-tier pitchers in the auction, so I knew they'd go for top dollar. And our league typically overpays for the middling SPs, but I thought I could get a couple of 2/3 tier SP, pick up one good closer, and get a couple of good setup guys (with our SV category, they provide good value for usually not a lot of $), and be at least OK in pitching.
My specific summary notes:
"Pitching summary.
Have 2 starters and 1 closer. Target 6 starters, 2 closers, 2 setup, so need 4 starters, 1 closer, 2 setup.
Target 90 W. Have 30 currently, so need 60.
Top starters get ~16, and are costing up to $40 now, which is too much of my budget. Target 1 tier 2 pitcher, which is more like $20 and will net ~12 W. That leaves ~48 W to find. Say I find 15 between four relievers, then need 33 W for the remaining 3 slots. That's tough. A tier 3 pitcher might get 10-12 W, for $8 or so. That leaves me about there, hoping for good years :/. Just gonna have to hope that I find some savings.
Need about 80 S+H/2-BS. Have 20. Top set-up guys get around 25 H, or 12 in that category. With 2 setup guys, that leaves 36 more to find. Problem is that I've spent $44 of my $60 on starters already. A $15 closer, and 2 $2 setups is about in the right range, but then have to find something in-season, and am taking some from hitting.
For closers, 5 teams with closer by committee (and large committees!). The class are Hendriks, Diaz, and Hand. Smith maybe, but competition there. Target one of Hendriks, Diaz, or Hand.
So, plan is 1 tier 2 pitcher ($20), 3 tier 2 pitchers ($8 each), 1 closer ($15), and 2 setups ($2 each). That's overspending by a few $, which have to come from hitting."
Some in-auction musings.
I took George Springer at 1.12 for $28. I didn't want to spend that much money on OF, since I had only one slot open, but that was almost $10 under his rotolab value at the time, and I think he's really going to produce in that Blue Jays lineup. So I was fine with it.
My second purchase was Edwin Diaz at 2.12 for $22. That was more than I wanted to spend on a closer, but he was the last of the three top closers left (Hendriks was taken at 2.8 for $24 and Hand was taken at 2.10 for $18). So I was also fine with this.
My next purchase was Cavan Biggio at 3.3 for $34. As my notes indicated, I had really targeted him going in. His pre-auction (inflated) value was $36, and while inflation had gone down a bit, he was still at $32, so I felt fine with that price. As I thought, Altuve went for an inflated price because of his heritage (he went for $30 at 2.7; his value was only slightly north of $20 at the time). The dropoff beyond those two was more than I wanted to face for that position, so I was actually extremely pleased with this one. If only Kellie hadn't bid me up I'd have gotten him for even cheaper
.I then waited two more rounds for my next purchase - Andres Gimenez at 5.5 for $18. Very happy with this, as he qualifies at multiple positions and is a pretty highly-touted prospect.
At this point, I played the waiting game. I knew that I wanted Yuli Gurriel at 1B, because he was the only full-time player left there, then I needed a MI, and still needed a C. But my real need was pitching, and I knew it. I had only four pitchers, and pickings were getting thin. But no good purchases seemed to present themselves (though I bid on a few), so it wasn't until 8.3 that I bought Robbie Ray for $9. Not a huge Ray fan (despite his D'backs lineage), but I think he'll do OK. And he does get K.
Just four picks later, at 8.7, the aforementioned Yuli Gurriel came up. I was worried that he'd be bid up, but I got him for $9, which made me happy. He's an OBA burden, but his EBA and counting stats should be good (well, no SB-CS, but the R and RBI).
The eighth round proved to be a bounty for me. At 8.10 Paul DeJong came up, and I took him for $10. Not sexy, but fine for a MI. Then at 8.12, Sean Manaea came up. He was about the best SP left, and while he no longer gets the Ks like he used to, his ratios should be good. So, I overspent a bit for him ($16, while valued at about $12 at the time). I was willing to take the hit on value to get a relatively reliable starter.
I bought Carson Kelly to fill my 2nd C slot at 9.1 for $8. He's one of the few C that isn't a big drag on OBA. A bit pricey, but I was OK with it given the other options.
I bought Giovanny Gallegos at 9.7 for $7, and Taijuan Walker at 9.8 for $13. Both a bit pricey, but many GMs had extra $ on the table, and there wasn't a whole lot of great pitching talent left.
Jake Odorizzi for $5 at 12.2 almost filled out my pitching. He's a question-mark for this year, but is a workhorse when healthy and not terrible on ratios (I say, hopefully!).
Dean Kremer for $2 at 13.2 then really filled it out. He's a flyer, but is an Oriole prospect and has the fourth SP position in the Baltimore rotation (well, that's not saying much, but the homer in me can hope!). I may put him in my reserves for one of the other setup guys. That goes for Odorizzi too, for that matter. It will depend on how they do.
The rest was reserves - mostly setup guys that have a chance to get some vulture saves (or real ones): $2 Rafael Dolis, $2 Victor Gonzalez, and $1 Tanner Rainey, and a long-shot on a $2 Hunter Harvey, who may end up closing in Baltimore depending on how his injury heals and how the other possibilities do. And a $2 Nick Ahmed, who may end up getting dropped, but is some injury safety.
Overall, in the end, I am pretty happy with my hitting. I could have done better with the pitching, by maybe spending some more on a higher-end starter and distributing less amongst the reserves (or the lower-tier starters), but I'm OK with that part too. I probably should have saved the $10 on DeJong (and just slotted Ahmed in there), and spent that extra $ earlier on pitching too, but hindsight is 20/20 as they say; by that point, there wasn't more money to be spent on starters (that were worth anything).
Another fun auction!
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