AL Only auction HDID

[Ken]

Auction held 3/31 but just getting around to writing it up. Lucky asked me to write this up, sorry it took my so long!

12* team roto, 5x5 traditional 2C/1UT format

OK, so this year my prep was subpar. Instead of spending my time prepping for the auction, I spent time writing the auction software so that we could imitate our live auction as closely as possible. No nomination time limit, player pool includes minors and FA but not NL, give people easy options to bid without using +1, flexibile timing, etc. Throughout the week we were testing the software with members of the league to make sure they could login and bid, etc. Spoiler alert, the draft software performed well, I had a couple people tell me it's better than any of the big name options. I truly hope that's the case.

So anyway back to the interesting stuff, I came into the auction a tad off, not confident, not really prepared.

Auction starts and we throw out our test player to make sure everyone is there and everyone can bid, no technical issues. Everyone bids but the one person, a long time member of the league who had been having technical problems. We send chats, we try to call (phone was busy), we wait, we scrambled for 45 minutes trying to get him. And he was there, in the draft room, but we couldn't communicate with him.

So we (sadly) pivoted to a 11 team league. I know he was really frustrated, and we tried everything we could, but at some point we just had to move on.

I quickly built a new 11 team league setup in the auction software and started it up.

Traditionally this was a stars and scrubs league, and I knew that going in. Moving to 11 teams, higher replacement level, I knew that I *should* go stars and scrubs too. (I wasn't alone)

My initial plan had been to focus on Bieber and Mondesi to lock down the top starter and steals source. Then Mondesi got hurt and changed plans.

I ran my new 11 team numbers, and they came out pretty low. I knew I wanted stars and scrubs but I didn't really have a plan. I was slightly higher on Bieber and Jose Ramirez than market so I thought I'd go for those guys and see where the rest fell. Fill in with Candelario, McCullers, Bassitt, Montgomery, Verdugo, Eddie Rosario, Dozier, Upton, Schoop. It was a decent plan. Didn't last long.

First few players come out - Trout (I had low 30s) goes 44, Cole (I had mid 30s) 42, Giolito (mid 20s) goes for 30. Bieber next - I'm bidding, all the way up to 41, but it keeps going and he goes for 42. OK, time to change direction.

Jose Ramirez comes out next and I bid him all the way up to 40 and he goes 41. Ugh. I tried!

So what now, Mondesi comes out, and I decide to pass, he goes 32, more than I planned pre-injury. OK. Still waiting just for a decent deal, I'm willing to overpay but not by a huge amount. Bogaerts, Judge, Vlad, Abreu come and go, and I have nothing. Hmm, everyone else is stars and scrubs clearly.

I gotta get some players while there are still players to get, Devers comes out next and I have him valued at 31, I get into the serious bidding at 32, get outbid and go to 34 and get silence. OK I don't mind a $3 tax to get a good player (although it would be nice if he gets a hit).

Next player up, Yordan. I have him valued 24, I get in at 14, 17, 20, 22, 24, sold! OK, I can handle that I like Yordan this year (although later I'd wish I didn't make this move, Franmil went for just 13 and I dont see $11 difference). There's $11 I wish I had back but at this point in the draft I can't just sit out and wait.

I get in on the bidding for a few players but never find a decent buy, I get out on Madrigal at 18, he goes 19, out on Maeda at 24, he goes 25. It's going to be one of those auctions.

A few players fly off the board and then Christian Vazquez comes up. In only leagues with 2C, a decent catcher is valuable. I have him at 13, and I buy him at 14. OK. But again in retrospect I wish I had not. Several catchers went late for cheap. Kirk for 5, Jeffers for 5, Tom Murphy for 4.
Here's another $8 I wish I had back in retrospect, I'd prefer Murphy or Kirk at their price

Still no pitchers for me until pick 52, I jump in on Lynn - I have him worth 22 and pay 24. OK, considering the $ going around that's a good buy. And there's LOTS of money going around, I'm watching deflation and it's rising, 33%+ deflation from overbids. The play here is to wait, but it's really hard, and you can only wait so long.

5 picks later McCullers comes up. I value him at 19, get him for 20. That'll work.

5 picks later Berrios comes up. I have him valued around 23, but I really feel like I need to make a buy, and I pay up to 28. It's an overpay, but with Lynn, McCullers, and Berrios I can feel comfortable with my starters in an AL only league. Prices are high, time to get patient.

Three teams wait - Lucky, Brian (a new team this year) and me. We are starting to get to where the 3 of us have money and no one else does.

I wait, and wait, and wait, 40 players later, I jump on Josh Donaldson for 15. Had him worth 18. OK, maybe teams are running out of money (yes I know he's hurt now, but if he wasn't so old and injury prone he'd be worth more than 18).

I look at my roster and realize I'm light on speed. And there aren't many options. Dylan Moore is a guy who I think the market is overpricing, but he does have some SB potential, I'm in. Had him worth 19 and got him for 18. Sounds good!

20 picks later and prices are starting to really fall. I value Jorge Polanco at 17, got him for 11. Good. Upton's worth 14 in this format, bought for 9. Jeffers is about on price at 5. I get Pineda for 8 after valuing him at 11.

Severino comes up and for 4 I take a flier on a partial season. Maybe not the best play but with prices too high and a 10 player bench, I can stomach one injured player.

At this point I'm targetting Singer, Candelario, Boyd, Grossman, and with the $ I have left I can pretty much grab who I want. I buy all of them.

That leaves me enough to fill out my roster with Soto and Kiermaier (ouch), and I end up paying $10 for Keirmaier just because at that point he was the best player left.

Note, I dont tend to pay for saves, Soto is fine to start with, I'll add saves through FAAB, and in a deep league I don't try to win saves, just stay off the bottom. In this league, I knew early on that saves were not for me, One team bought Pressly, Barnes, Karinchak (ouch), Romano (ouch), Holland (ouch), Britton, Harvey, B Garcia. He won saves. He gave away 8 roster spots to do it. And he took several closers away from other teams. No reason for me to try to get 1st and 5th or 6th is a lot easier to reach with him taking so many guys. Sounds good to me! Soto plus FAAB.

Overall, I made 3 major mistakes, Alvarez over Franmil cost me $11, Vazquez cost me $8, and I had $9 left at the end that I blew overpaying for Kiermaier just because I could. I should have had $28 more dollars to improve this team. Not ideal, and I see room for improvement in my auction skills. What can I do now though other than learn from it?

In an 11 team league, it's relatively deep so the names don't jump off the page, but I'm okay with this team considering my lack of prep. By my projections I should have a decent shot at first (along with Lucky).

I skipped over a few names but my final roster goes:


C Ryan Jeffers
C Christian Vazquez
1B Jeimer Candelario
2B Dylan Moore
3B Rafael Devers
SS Jorge Polanco
MI Jose Iglesias
CI Renato Nunez** need a replacement here for Donaldson
OF Jake Cave
OF Adam Eaton
OF Robbie Grossman
OF Hunter Renfroe
OF Justin Upton
U Yordan Alvarez

B Tony Kemp
DL Josh Donaldson
DL Kevin Kiermaier


P Jose Berrios
P Matthew Boyd
P Lance Lynn
P Lance McCullers
P Michael Pineda
P Brady Singer
P Nick Pivetta
P Justin Dunn
P Gregory Soto
P Ross Stripling

B Kris Bubic
B Jesse Hahn
DL Luis Severino

[bryanbutler]

You're probably right about the C (wishing for an alternative to Vazquez) since there seem to have been multiple others. But I don't think kicking yourself for Alvarez vs. Reyes is necessarily warranted. If you hadn't purchased Alvarez, that would have changed your own auction dynamic (butterfly flaps its wings in Peking and all), and in any case the owner that eventually got Reyes may have continued to bid you up. So no guarantee that you get him for that much of a discount. As a fellow Yordan owner I agree that I think he's going to have a good year. I've watched several Astros games and he looks healthy and is running well. Now if he'd just get eligibility in the OF!

I sympathize for you having to deal with your own auction software, but applaud you at the same time. For a few years (many years ago) I helped run a rotowire league (I think heyelander was in it?), and I made custom software to do the drafting (and it was drafting, not auction, so much simpler). I was always so busy prepping the software (and then babysitting it) that I never drafted well in that league. For my main league, before we went to CBS, we did all of our auctions via chat (mostly yahoo, but there were others). I had a set of custom software that tracked all the purchases, kept track of money left, updated an HTML page, etc. But I had to type the details of every purchase into an ASCII file. It was painful to keep up with my own bidding, and I suffered for it. I also had a whole set of software - scripts, CGI, css, HTML, etc., that did what CBS does for during the season, but with a lot of funky custom rules, for that league. It had all sorts of bells and whistles (custom FAAB system, trade evaluator, valuations, etc.). It used raw stats delivered from TQS for stats, which were delivered weekly. It scraped HTML from the USAToday site for daily stats. It scraped HTML from rotoworld for DL moves. Etc. But I got tired of maintaining it, and eventually convinced everybody to move to CBS for both the auction and the season (in 2007). I wish we had some of the old features of that software back, but the ease of CBS just trumps all of that, IMHO.

[joncarlos]

Looks like a solid team, but I worry that your avoidance of paying for saves caused you to avoid good-ratio MRs, and that back-end group of SPs is a bit scary. Berrios and Lynn, for all their benefits, are not WHIP monsters. McCullers probably the same. Your team needs ... I don't even know who you need in the AL, but someone like Yusmiero Petit or Tyler Duffey or Matt Foster. Spending so much on your SPs leaves your offense a bit light too. That's not an impressive OF, but Yordan can make up for some of that.

[Ken]

Looks like a solid team, but I worry that your avoidance of paying for saves caused you to avoid good-ratio MRs, and that back-end group of SPs is a bit scary. Berrios and Lynn, for all their benefits, are not WHIP monsters. McCullers probably the same. Your team needs ... I don't even know who you need in the AL, but someone like Yusmiero Petit or Tyler Duffey or Matt Foster.

Good analysis, but believe it or not I'm not terribly worried about the ratio stats

A couple reasons:

1) IMO those middle reliever options are abundant and unpredictable. There are a large number of middle relievers who go undrafted in fantasy every year that can put up good WHIP/ERA in short stings. Easy to acquire.
2) I'm currently projected for 2nd in both ERA and WHIP. Every team in an only league struggles and I while your points above are absolutely correct, they are correct for every team other than the one who bought Cole, Bieber, and Giolito, and has no chance on offense.

Spending so much on your SPs leaves your offense a bit light too. That's not an impressive OF, but Yordan can make up for some of that.

This is true, I need to improve the OF for sure.

[Redbirds Fan]

I think it is the best looking team out of the gate, given the competition. Almost everyone went Studs-or-Duds and wound up with way too many duds on their squads after paying way to much for their studs. Ken waited and put together an STR team that should serve him well.

Love the Devers buy. The outfield doesn't leap out at you, but it has good upside. Love the starting pitching - I was in competition for several of those guys but lost out.

Under the circumstances I agreed with Ken on saves, with one guy buying all the closers and everybody overpaying. That owner will have to trade them off to make his IP minimum, and there should be some candidates on the FAAB market.

[Ken]

I'm hating the Vazquez buy less and less each day. 2 SB from my catcher spot already? Sign me up!

[Gregg]

I enjoyed the read. I hope you will keep us posted as to how your season unfolds.

I find it interesting that I have none of your offense on my AL only team, but do have 3 pitchers.

They are Berrios, Boyd, McCullers. I was on the fence for Pivetta (who I just picked up in FAAB Wed. night) during auction endgame. I do believe seeing him on your list had some influence on my FAAB bid.

[Teenwolf]

Overall, I think you did really well. I really love a lot of your value buys late in the auction, and especially on offense you targeted a lot of guys I really like. Great prices on Upton, Moore and Jeffers. Also love the Pineda pickup for $8. I think Minnesota has a much better defense this year with Simmons at SS and hopefully healthy Buxton in CF, and I believe in Pineda's veteran resume to produce some value for a few more years.

I just dislike some of your pitching targets. Lynn is one that I don't trust. Too much mileage, and moving from a great pitchers park to a poor one... I would have much preferred Maeda and Giolito at $54, while your pair of Lynn and Berrios cost $52. I think there's a much wider gap in value between the two pairs, but that's just my personal preference.

The actual money management seems like you did quite well to save enough to scoop some endgame bargains that will produce good value. I always try to do the same. You played it well, despite the Franmil bargain putting a sour taste in your mouth.