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Grab a seat, a drink, and some chips -- it's that time of year again: a look back at the 2011 HCBB Auction, which took place last Saturday (March 26). Several other long-time RJ members (thatrogue and Judge Jude to name a couple) have done some well-written write-ups of their own auctions in the past, and I started doing them a few seasons ago -- as always, hopefully this will be an entertaining if not informative read.
The Background -- The HCBB (Harry Caray's Bleacher Bumz) is a fantasy league I started back in 1992 and ran for 15 years. Current/former RJ members who are in the league include netboy47 (currently the Commissioner), amazing grace, cavebird, Silentmist, TyWebb44, BigBoy, and DMarino (who pretends here that he has no idea who all of us are, but who has been part of the league in some fashion for at least a decade). The league is a 17 team mixed, 5X5 (IP in place of K's), with 34 man rosters (24 active, 10 reserves) and pretty standard positions (1 catcher, 6 SP, and 5 RP designations the only notable differences). We have a $300 budget instead of $260 as well.
I've won the league a league-high 5 times (last in 2008) with a record 14 money finishes, including 10 of the last 11 seasons and 5 years in a row. The defending champion of the league is netboy47 (his 2nd title), who won a four-way race that included cavebird and Silentmist in 2010 with a memorable comeback in the last month -- four different teams were in the lead in the final weekend of the season, and only 2 points separated 1st through 4th at the end.
cavebird's collapse was pretty dramatic -- he had a 14 point lead with a month or so to go, but his team completely died on him down the stretch. The signature move for how low things sunk for him was when he cut Andruw Jones from his reserve roster -- a move that had no effect on his team's performance, but was nothing but bad karma for him (you know Adam, you know this is true). It was so bad that ESPN did an Outside the Lines report on it (click here for the whole story). An analysis of the race can also be found here at our great league website. Check out the whole site if you haven't already -- it's a great read on the history of the league.
The Off-season: One word to describe what took place this off-season, and that's insanity. Our plunger-winning last place team was unable to return do to family/other commitments, but rather than stay at 16 teams, we had two ownership groups in place that both got franchise invitations, pushing the league roster to 17 teams -- a number we had gone with only once in our league's long history. (1999 -- which remains my worst season ever as an owner. Coincidence? Hmmm ....)
Last season we had seen some inflated prices on players on draft day, and that coupled with the addition of another team to thin out the talent I think is what started an pre-season panic that saw a huge number of teams go with what turned out to be the largest number of keepers in league history. Three teams had at least half of their rosters already filled before they entered the draft room, and one team (BigBoy's) had only $43 to finish his roster on draft day.
The thing that surprised me was that, it wasn't that everyone was signing great players to great contracts -- rather, people were signing players that I thought were barely worth what they were being kept at or worse. Our off-season trading period has sometimes been quiet, but we set a record for the number of trades made before the rosters froze again just before the draft -- BigBoy made at least 9 or 10 himself.
I made two deals in the off-season, trading away a cheap $6 Gio Gonzalez to a team for a $16 Alexi Ramirez and trading away Brett Anderson ($11) and C.C. Sabathia ($41 !) to BigBoy for Dustin Pedroia ($16), who he had acquired in another trade earlier in the spring. My other keepers were a mix of cheap and super-expensive: Carl Crawford ($55) and Joey Votto ($41) on the high-end, Jeremy Hellickson (free as a reserve keeper) and Daniel Hudson (same) on the low-end. With Pedroia, Ramirez, and a returning Evan Longoria ($16), I feel like I have some talent at thin positions (3B and the middle infield) and a good start on speed, both important for me going into what I sense already is going to be an ugly draft. My early projections have me in solid if not spectacular shape going in.
Meanwhile, a lot of talent is already being kept. But the big prize of Albert Pujols is available, and there are already rumblings that he's fetch well over $60 -- far above the highest price anyone had ever paid for anyone (Pujols inlcuded) in the league's history. It promised to be a wild Saturday ...
The Draft -- pre-lunch -- After breakfast and trophy presentations, the first lob by the defending champs is A-Rod -- who goes to netboy's team for $52! Considering that he was coming off a down year and also considering that, in the past, only the elite of the elite ever went past $50, makes me think that the craziness of the off-season is definitely going to carry over. cavebird snags his favorite pitcher, King Felix next ($39) as well as Juan Piere ($30). After a comebacking Justin Morneau goes for what he almost did last year ($36), I toss out the big fish, Pujols at $49.
So much for that. The bids quickly escalate to beyond the previous league record as $60 is left behind and $70 is approached. Finally, Pujols is sold at $68 to one of the teams favored to get him. It's my take that a team in our league can't win dropping that much on one player, and that the team that got him didn't have enough savings in keepers to spend that, but only time will tell if I'm right.
The fun continues as my wife's team wins a spirited bidding for Matt Holliday ($52) from one of the expansion teams (whose owners are huge Cardinal fans) and Roy Halliday goes for an astounding $48 (my wife had kept him the season before at $43, and the general perception then had been that she gotten him at value or over -- amazing how much things changed in one season!). Closers go for what they normally do (Soria for $26, Mariano for $25, Papelbon for $24) -- but I'm surprised to see how much love Matt Thornton gets (I lose out on the bidding for him as he goers for $20). Two intriguing players go next in the injured Chase Utley ($16) and 2010 breakout Jose Bautista ($34).
So far, I've been lying back -- I have players I've targeted, and so far, none of them (with the slight exception of Thornton, who was one of several closers I'd take at the right price) have come up. That changes as one of my targets, Nelson Cruz, gets tossed next -- and if I thought I'd been surprised before, that's nothing compared to what I'm thinking when this bidding is over.
When the dust settles, I'm long out of the bidding on Cruz as he goes for an astounding $50 (!) Holy crap! To paraphrase the late Lloyd Bentsen, I've drafted $50 players, I've bid on $50 players, and in our league, Cruz just isn't a $50 player. And I'm probably the biggest Cruz fan in the whole league, having rostered him when he was tearing it up in the minors for Texas and having him as a cheap keeper the last two seasons (his contract was up and he couldn't be kept). At this point in the draft, I wasn't the only one just shaking my head and buckling up for the bumpy ride the rest of the way.
People continue spending money they simply don't have -- Victorino for $39, Tex for $52, Youkilis for $49, Werth and B.J. Upton both for $41, and Adrian Gonzalez for $58 (!) -- with what would have been a league record price if not for the earlier Pujols bid. With a good team average already in place, I was in the bidding on Upton but again, couldn't believe that he was going for so much. Is anyone going to go for a bargain? Someone has to eventually -- right?
One of my big targets, Jay Bruce, comes out, but I'm out of the bidding as he goes to $39. I finally land my first players with Joel Peralta as a speculative save purchase ($5) and Andre Ethier ($35), who I hope flashes his pre-2010 injury form for me again (I dealt him last season right after he came back from the DL). I also end up getting a pitcher to head up my staff, an underrated Matt Cain ($28) and another outfielder in Nick Swisher ($25) -- I'm worried about OF depth, as we're going to be rostering as a league every starter and then some by the time the auction is over.
Prices don't really slow down much, but teams are treading more cautiously at this point. Speedster Chone Figgins is the target of a bidding war by teams in need of steals ($26), while the object of my scorn last season, Josh Beckett, goes for $19 to one of the favorites coming into the year (good for us, bad for him I suspect). By the time lunch arrives, the room is spent -- like most of the money. I'm happy with my base at this point, but I still need to add pitching and fill in the rest of the roster. The problem is that several teams -- including one of the expansion clubs -- still has more money than I do, which might cause me major problems before we're done.
The Draft -- post lunch -- Whether it's everyone's full stomachs or the realization of how much money we've spent, the owners slow down the spending sprees and there's actually something resembling bargains in the later portions of the draft.
Bounceback candidate Scott Baker goes for $8, while Luke Scott only goes for $11 (a bid I probably should have raised in retrospect). Pitching is plentiful, as Kuroda ($18), Gallardo ($14), and Nolasco ($10) -- all pitchers I would roster -- go for prices I think are pretty good. I'm starting to get concerned -- I didn't want to overpay and really put a hit on my money (which had risen to one of the higher amounts in the room by this point), because I want some sort of leverage in the end-game. The last two years I had been at a disadvantage there without money and lost out on several targets I wanted (like a dirt-cheap Matt Latos last season), and I don't want to repeat that mistake. But I have to get some talent before it's too late.
I go on a mini-spree at this point, filling out my last two OF spots with Jason Kubel ($6) and David Murphy ($6), both of whom I'm more than happy to land at that price, and a catcher in Miguel Montero ($7 -- I missed out earlier on Carlos Santana, who went for $18, out of my price range in this one-catcher league). I snag a closer in Chris Perez ($17) and a host of closers-in-waiting, grabbing Rafael Soriano ($4 -- hoping that this is the year Mariano shows his age), Jason Motte ($2), and young sleeper Jordan Walden ($3). Meanwhile, there's still a few higher-priced players coming out, as Billy Butler ($25), Manny Ramirez ($15 !), Tsuyoshi Nishioka ($21), Chase Headley ($18), and Mike Morse ($16 !) all drain people's money.
In the end game I focus on finishing my pitching staff. Travis Wood ($6) is my top target and I land him, along with Annibal Sanchez ($2). I also grab R.A. Dickey ($2) and Rick Porcello ($2), along with a speculative pick in Mike Minor ($1) to round out the staff. In the reserve round, I grab more young pitching in Homer Bailey, Justin Masterson, and Twins prospect Kyle Gibson.
The end of the draft also sees me fill out my offense with Freddy Sanchez ($1), Brandon Inge ($2 -- ugh), and David DeJesus ($1). In the reserve round, I also add Dan Johnson, Gerardo Parra, and Alberto Callaspo, all of whom I think will accumulate plenty of at-bats this season (though it remains to be seen how good those at-bats will actually be).
The Aftermath -- I don't think there's a clear favorite leaving the draft. I'm happy overall with the way my draft went. Last year's Hotel California squad was plagued by terrible pitching, mostly by my veterans (Beckett, Aaron Cook, Joe Saunders, etc.). My forte in years past has been to identify young pitchers on the verge of breakouts, and I got away from that with a number of my selections last year (though I hit home runs with my reserve picks of Daniel Hudson and Jeremy Hellickson). This year, I planned to go back to what has served me well before, and my staff is, if nothing else, real young. My plan is for Cain to be the glue that holds everything together, and I just need to hit on 2 or 3 or the 7 young arms to be competitive. If more than that strike gold -- and the potential is there -- then my staff could be dangerous. My bullpen will be a work in progress, though I finished in the middle of the pack in saves last year doing a similar thing.
My offense should be very solid. Even with Crawford, I'm a little light on speed (I could have used EY Jr. on my bench to get some regular playing time somewhere), and I don't think I'll be able to overcome the ridiculous amount of injuries I had last season (31 DL trips by my players, easily a new league record) -- the early injury to Longoria is an ominous sign. But if I can stay healthy, I think I can make another run at a title, or at least, another money finish.
Comments are welcome, and other people from the league will probably drop their rosters here as well. Hope this was a good read, and good luck to everyone who still has their drafts ahead of them.
2011 Hotel California (adjusted with reserve picks put in active lineup)
C -- M. Montero -- $7
1B -- J. Votto -- $41 (keeper)
2B -- D. Pedroia -- $16 (keeper)
3B -- E. Longoria -- $16 (keeper)
SS -- A. Ramirez -- $16 (keeper)
CIF -- B. Inge -- $2
MIF -- F. Sanchez -- $1
OF -- C. Crawford -- $55 (keeper)
OF -- A. Ethier -- $35
OF -- N. Swisher -- $25
OF -- J. Kubel -- $6
OF -- D. Murphy -- $6
U -- D. DeJesus -- $1
SP -- M. Cain -- $28
SP -- T. Wood -- $6
SP -- D. Hudson -- free keeper
SP -- J. Hellickson -- free keeper (will be in RP spot until he's accumulated 5 starts)
SP -- A. Sanchez -- $2
SP -- R. Dickey/Porcello/Bailey/Minor/Masterson
RP -- J. Walden -- $3
RP -- J. Motte -- $2
RP -- J. Peralta -- $5
RP -- R. Soriano -- $4
RP -- C. Perez -- $17
Other reserves -- G. Parra, D. Johnson, A. Callapso, J. Gibbons, E. Young, Jr., K. Gibson
Pictures from Draft day 2011:
The Background -- The HCBB (Harry Caray's Bleacher Bumz) is a fantasy league I started back in 1992 and ran for 15 years. Current/former RJ members who are in the league include netboy47 (currently the Commissioner), amazing grace, cavebird, Silentmist, TyWebb44, BigBoy, and DMarino (who pretends here that he has no idea who all of us are, but who has been part of the league in some fashion for at least a decade). The league is a 17 team mixed, 5X5 (IP in place of K's), with 34 man rosters (24 active, 10 reserves) and pretty standard positions (1 catcher, 6 SP, and 5 RP designations the only notable differences). We have a $300 budget instead of $260 as well.
I've won the league a league-high 5 times (last in 2008) with a record 14 money finishes, including 10 of the last 11 seasons and 5 years in a row. The defending champion of the league is netboy47 (his 2nd title), who won a four-way race that included cavebird and Silentmist in 2010 with a memorable comeback in the last month -- four different teams were in the lead in the final weekend of the season, and only 2 points separated 1st through 4th at the end.
cavebird's collapse was pretty dramatic -- he had a 14 point lead with a month or so to go, but his team completely died on him down the stretch. The signature move for how low things sunk for him was when he cut Andruw Jones from his reserve roster -- a move that had no effect on his team's performance, but was nothing but bad karma for him (you know Adam, you know this is true). It was so bad that ESPN did an Outside the Lines report on it (click here for the whole story). An analysis of the race can also be found here at our great league website. Check out the whole site if you haven't already -- it's a great read on the history of the league.
The Off-season: One word to describe what took place this off-season, and that's insanity. Our plunger-winning last place team was unable to return do to family/other commitments, but rather than stay at 16 teams, we had two ownership groups in place that both got franchise invitations, pushing the league roster to 17 teams -- a number we had gone with only once in our league's long history. (1999 -- which remains my worst season ever as an owner. Coincidence? Hmmm ....)
Last season we had seen some inflated prices on players on draft day, and that coupled with the addition of another team to thin out the talent I think is what started an pre-season panic that saw a huge number of teams go with what turned out to be the largest number of keepers in league history. Three teams had at least half of their rosters already filled before they entered the draft room, and one team (BigBoy's) had only $43 to finish his roster on draft day.
The thing that surprised me was that, it wasn't that everyone was signing great players to great contracts -- rather, people were signing players that I thought were barely worth what they were being kept at or worse. Our off-season trading period has sometimes been quiet, but we set a record for the number of trades made before the rosters froze again just before the draft -- BigBoy made at least 9 or 10 himself.
I made two deals in the off-season, trading away a cheap $6 Gio Gonzalez to a team for a $16 Alexi Ramirez and trading away Brett Anderson ($11) and C.C. Sabathia ($41 !) to BigBoy for Dustin Pedroia ($16), who he had acquired in another trade earlier in the spring. My other keepers were a mix of cheap and super-expensive: Carl Crawford ($55) and Joey Votto ($41) on the high-end, Jeremy Hellickson (free as a reserve keeper) and Daniel Hudson (same) on the low-end. With Pedroia, Ramirez, and a returning Evan Longoria ($16), I feel like I have some talent at thin positions (3B and the middle infield) and a good start on speed, both important for me going into what I sense already is going to be an ugly draft. My early projections have me in solid if not spectacular shape going in.
Meanwhile, a lot of talent is already being kept. But the big prize of Albert Pujols is available, and there are already rumblings that he's fetch well over $60 -- far above the highest price anyone had ever paid for anyone (Pujols inlcuded) in the league's history. It promised to be a wild Saturday ...
The Draft -- pre-lunch -- After breakfast and trophy presentations, the first lob by the defending champs is A-Rod -- who goes to netboy's team for $52! Considering that he was coming off a down year and also considering that, in the past, only the elite of the elite ever went past $50, makes me think that the craziness of the off-season is definitely going to carry over. cavebird snags his favorite pitcher, King Felix next ($39) as well as Juan Piere ($30). After a comebacking Justin Morneau goes for what he almost did last year ($36), I toss out the big fish, Pujols at $49.
So much for that. The bids quickly escalate to beyond the previous league record as $60 is left behind and $70 is approached. Finally, Pujols is sold at $68 to one of the teams favored to get him. It's my take that a team in our league can't win dropping that much on one player, and that the team that got him didn't have enough savings in keepers to spend that, but only time will tell if I'm right.
The fun continues as my wife's team wins a spirited bidding for Matt Holliday ($52) from one of the expansion teams (whose owners are huge Cardinal fans) and Roy Halliday goes for an astounding $48 (my wife had kept him the season before at $43, and the general perception then had been that she gotten him at value or over -- amazing how much things changed in one season!). Closers go for what they normally do (Soria for $26, Mariano for $25, Papelbon for $24) -- but I'm surprised to see how much love Matt Thornton gets (I lose out on the bidding for him as he goers for $20). Two intriguing players go next in the injured Chase Utley ($16) and 2010 breakout Jose Bautista ($34).
So far, I've been lying back -- I have players I've targeted, and so far, none of them (with the slight exception of Thornton, who was one of several closers I'd take at the right price) have come up. That changes as one of my targets, Nelson Cruz, gets tossed next -- and if I thought I'd been surprised before, that's nothing compared to what I'm thinking when this bidding is over.
When the dust settles, I'm long out of the bidding on Cruz as he goes for an astounding $50 (!) Holy crap! To paraphrase the late Lloyd Bentsen, I've drafted $50 players, I've bid on $50 players, and in our league, Cruz just isn't a $50 player. And I'm probably the biggest Cruz fan in the whole league, having rostered him when he was tearing it up in the minors for Texas and having him as a cheap keeper the last two seasons (his contract was up and he couldn't be kept). At this point in the draft, I wasn't the only one just shaking my head and buckling up for the bumpy ride the rest of the way.
People continue spending money they simply don't have -- Victorino for $39, Tex for $52, Youkilis for $49, Werth and B.J. Upton both for $41, and Adrian Gonzalez for $58 (!) -- with what would have been a league record price if not for the earlier Pujols bid. With a good team average already in place, I was in the bidding on Upton but again, couldn't believe that he was going for so much. Is anyone going to go for a bargain? Someone has to eventually -- right?
One of my big targets, Jay Bruce, comes out, but I'm out of the bidding as he goes to $39. I finally land my first players with Joel Peralta as a speculative save purchase ($5) and Andre Ethier ($35), who I hope flashes his pre-2010 injury form for me again (I dealt him last season right after he came back from the DL). I also end up getting a pitcher to head up my staff, an underrated Matt Cain ($28) and another outfielder in Nick Swisher ($25) -- I'm worried about OF depth, as we're going to be rostering as a league every starter and then some by the time the auction is over.
Prices don't really slow down much, but teams are treading more cautiously at this point. Speedster Chone Figgins is the target of a bidding war by teams in need of steals ($26), while the object of my scorn last season, Josh Beckett, goes for $19 to one of the favorites coming into the year (good for us, bad for him I suspect). By the time lunch arrives, the room is spent -- like most of the money. I'm happy with my base at this point, but I still need to add pitching and fill in the rest of the roster. The problem is that several teams -- including one of the expansion clubs -- still has more money than I do, which might cause me major problems before we're done.
The Draft -- post lunch -- Whether it's everyone's full stomachs or the realization of how much money we've spent, the owners slow down the spending sprees and there's actually something resembling bargains in the later portions of the draft.
Bounceback candidate Scott Baker goes for $8, while Luke Scott only goes for $11 (a bid I probably should have raised in retrospect). Pitching is plentiful, as Kuroda ($18), Gallardo ($14), and Nolasco ($10) -- all pitchers I would roster -- go for prices I think are pretty good. I'm starting to get concerned -- I didn't want to overpay and really put a hit on my money (which had risen to one of the higher amounts in the room by this point), because I want some sort of leverage in the end-game. The last two years I had been at a disadvantage there without money and lost out on several targets I wanted (like a dirt-cheap Matt Latos last season), and I don't want to repeat that mistake. But I have to get some talent before it's too late.
I go on a mini-spree at this point, filling out my last two OF spots with Jason Kubel ($6) and David Murphy ($6), both of whom I'm more than happy to land at that price, and a catcher in Miguel Montero ($7 -- I missed out earlier on Carlos Santana, who went for $18, out of my price range in this one-catcher league). I snag a closer in Chris Perez ($17) and a host of closers-in-waiting, grabbing Rafael Soriano ($4 -- hoping that this is the year Mariano shows his age), Jason Motte ($2), and young sleeper Jordan Walden ($3). Meanwhile, there's still a few higher-priced players coming out, as Billy Butler ($25), Manny Ramirez ($15 !), Tsuyoshi Nishioka ($21), Chase Headley ($18), and Mike Morse ($16 !) all drain people's money.
In the end game I focus on finishing my pitching staff. Travis Wood ($6) is my top target and I land him, along with Annibal Sanchez ($2). I also grab R.A. Dickey ($2) and Rick Porcello ($2), along with a speculative pick in Mike Minor ($1) to round out the staff. In the reserve round, I grab more young pitching in Homer Bailey, Justin Masterson, and Twins prospect Kyle Gibson.
The end of the draft also sees me fill out my offense with Freddy Sanchez ($1), Brandon Inge ($2 -- ugh), and David DeJesus ($1). In the reserve round, I also add Dan Johnson, Gerardo Parra, and Alberto Callaspo, all of whom I think will accumulate plenty of at-bats this season (though it remains to be seen how good those at-bats will actually be).
The Aftermath -- I don't think there's a clear favorite leaving the draft. I'm happy overall with the way my draft went. Last year's Hotel California squad was plagued by terrible pitching, mostly by my veterans (Beckett, Aaron Cook, Joe Saunders, etc.). My forte in years past has been to identify young pitchers on the verge of breakouts, and I got away from that with a number of my selections last year (though I hit home runs with my reserve picks of Daniel Hudson and Jeremy Hellickson). This year, I planned to go back to what has served me well before, and my staff is, if nothing else, real young. My plan is for Cain to be the glue that holds everything together, and I just need to hit on 2 or 3 or the 7 young arms to be competitive. If more than that strike gold -- and the potential is there -- then my staff could be dangerous. My bullpen will be a work in progress, though I finished in the middle of the pack in saves last year doing a similar thing.
My offense should be very solid. Even with Crawford, I'm a little light on speed (I could have used EY Jr. on my bench to get some regular playing time somewhere), and I don't think I'll be able to overcome the ridiculous amount of injuries I had last season (31 DL trips by my players, easily a new league record) -- the early injury to Longoria is an ominous sign. But if I can stay healthy, I think I can make another run at a title, or at least, another money finish.
Comments are welcome, and other people from the league will probably drop their rosters here as well. Hope this was a good read, and good luck to everyone who still has their drafts ahead of them.
2011 Hotel California (adjusted with reserve picks put in active lineup)
C -- M. Montero -- $7
1B -- J. Votto -- $41 (keeper)
2B -- D. Pedroia -- $16 (keeper)
3B -- E. Longoria -- $16 (keeper)
SS -- A. Ramirez -- $16 (keeper)
CIF -- B. Inge -- $2
MIF -- F. Sanchez -- $1
OF -- C. Crawford -- $55 (keeper)
OF -- A. Ethier -- $35
OF -- N. Swisher -- $25
OF -- J. Kubel -- $6
OF -- D. Murphy -- $6
U -- D. DeJesus -- $1
SP -- M. Cain -- $28
SP -- T. Wood -- $6
SP -- D. Hudson -- free keeper
SP -- J. Hellickson -- free keeper (will be in RP spot until he's accumulated 5 starts)
SP -- A. Sanchez -- $2
SP -- R. Dickey/Porcello/Bailey/Minor/Masterson
RP -- J. Walden -- $3
RP -- J. Motte -- $2
RP -- J. Peralta -- $5
RP -- R. Soriano -- $4
RP -- C. Perez -- $17
Other reserves -- G. Parra, D. Johnson, A. Callapso, J. Gibbons, E. Young, Jr., K. Gibson
Pictures from Draft day 2011:
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