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I've always enjoyed these when other people do them, so I'll put one together for myself. This is a 15-team 5x5 mixed league, standard 23-man active roster, 10 reserve spots, weekly transactions and 7-man farm.
Here’s the list I went in with:
C Jason Castro $1 o15
2B Altuve $10 g15
SS Hanley $32 o15
OF Marcell Ozuna $4 o16
OF Cutch $44 o16
SP Greinke $25 o16
SP J Zimmermann $21 o16
SP Sonny Gray $5 o16
SP Brandon McCarthy $5 o16
RP Cody Allen $1 o16
That’s 10 for $148 plus my farm guys, none of who are contributing much this year (Tim Anderson, Jorge Alfaro, Nick Williams, Raul Mondeski, Albert Almora, Sean Manaea)
The keepers and the plan
I had a tough time narrowing it down to 10, trading a $20 Desmond for Ozuna and McCarthy. Figuring this was a 15-team league, I wanted to give a little extra weight to the stars and hedge against inflation. I didn’t love Cutch and Hanley at their prices, but combined with Altuve they gave me 3 top-20ish hitters. This was probably a middle of the pack keeper list. Allen, Gray and Ozuna all have 1 more year each, so while I'm not selling out completely for 2015, I don't want to spend much time thinking about the future.
This gave me a really nice cushion in AVG and some good speed, and on offense I wanted to add a lot of power, a little speed and not completely crater my AVG. I figured I could get a slugging catcher like Flowers or Rosario for about 10. I liked the available 1B/MI guys at the bottom of the draft (Teix, Ike Davis, Moss, G Jones, Mauer and Semien, Hill, Alcantara), and figured I’d just allocate a couple dollars each to those spots.
The 3B options were terrible at the bottom, so I thought I’d look at making my biggest splash on a guy like Carlos Santana. For the OF/UT spots I was looking at power or power-speed guys with low AVG (Grandy, Crisp, AJax, Snider) and just taking whoever was significantly underpriced. I figured on something like 18-16-11-5 for those 4 spots.
On the pitching side, I had a really good WHIP with Grienke and Zimm, so I wanted to add a couple of stud relievers (MR guys unless a closer fell super cheap), get a couple of high K starters, and then plan to draft a bunch of starters in the reserves and rotate them in and out. I figured I could fill my 4 remaining pitcher slots for 15-20 bucks, something like Andrew Miller, K Herrera, Hahn, House, Heaney, Hammel, Burnett… not all of them were high K but that was the general area I was targeting.
This way, I could make sure I had a good starter at every offensive position, meaning I wouldn’t have to spend many reserve picks on offense. Aside from a big bat (probably at 3b) I could get a lot of hitters in the 5-15 range.
What happened
Well, no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. Tulo and Miggy were the first players off the board and went for pretty reasonable prices (40 and 43). Jose Reyes went for 33, Tanaka for 21, and then I bought the 5th player off the board - Carlos Gonzalez. A speed and power OF who was well under valued. Yes, a big risk, but I figured it was worth spending the Santana money on CarGo.
That left me with $83 for 12 spots. Adam Jones went for 45 immediately after CarGo and that made me feel better about my investment. After the inevitable Yoan Moncada interlude, Encarnacion went for 45 and Wainwright for 27. Then some much more reasonable prices - Pujols 34, Beltre 33, Kimbrel 26, Matt Carpenter only 22, Longoria 30, Kipnis 24 - had me thinking maybe not.
I held my tongue as Santana went for 22. The next player up (33rd off the board) was Koji Uehara and when the bidding stopped at 15, I jumped in and got him for 16. Elite WHIP and really nice Ks? Check. A lot more than I wanted to spend? Yes, but I did have $5 set aside for an elite MR, so it was really only 11 bucks. And at least I had a 2nd closer. That left me with $67 for 11 spots.
After Elvis Andrus went for 21, I snagged Matt Weiters for $12. I had him at 16 on my sheet and he had the power potential I needed. He was the first catcher off the board and immediately after him, Grandal went for 12, then a few picks later McCann went for 18, and then a few more picks after that, Yadi and Ramos went for 12 each. Wieters left me with $55 for 10 spots, but other than allocating a few offensive dollars to saves, things were still relatively on track.
For a little while, anyway… about 6 picks later I snagged Ben Revere for $21. This was right after Cespedes had gone for $32, and a lot of people still had a lot of cash to chase a pretty ho-hum list of outfielders. I had allocated about 15-16 for that spot, and even with money coming out for saves and CarGo, I thought I could make it work rather than chasing speed AND power as a combo. I also figured Revere should hit at least .280 or so, and allow me to really plumb the depths of bad-average power. That left me with only $34 for 9 spots, so I knew I’d be sitting out a while.
Carl Crawford went for 14, Choo for 21, Alex Rios for 20, Heyward for 26, and I was starting to think I made the right call. One of the guys I hoped to get cheap at 3B went for 8 (Plouffe) and Andrew Miller went for 6, but I held off in hopes of finding similar guys for 1-2.
Before lunch, Brandon Moss went for 22 (!) and Rollins only 11 (?). Souza predictably went 19. After lunch Brett Gardner went for 17 and Arcia went for 18. People still had money but were allocating it strangely. Prices were all over the map. What kind of power/speed guy could I still find? I jumped in on Curtis Granderson and snagged him for 15. That left me with $19 for 8 spots.
After that the strangeness continued. $3 for Salty. $2 for Dom Brown. $17 for Tijuan Walker. $14 for Bonifacio. $5 for Beltran. $4 for Brett Cecil. It seemed like people were just holding their money for “their guy” but guessing who their guy would be was tricky.
I bought CC Sabathia for 6. I figured he had massive upside based on last year’s FIP, good WHIP and K upside and would work as a streamer if I avoided tough teams. He seemed to fit into that Hahn/Hammel/House tier I was looking at pre-auction. Then again, the price was probably too high. Or not? Keuchel 8 and Hendricks 6 were the next 2 buys. Now I had $13 for 7 spots.
With 7 spots to go, I wanted to see other people filling up their teams so I could get some of the last few nominations. Some of the remaining big names finally came out - Headley 13, Santiago Casilla 13, Eaton 14, Laroche 14. I bid $2 on Josh Reddick, and the bidding stopped. I thought he’d be significantly better than the end game guys, even with his oblique injury. There was still talent left, but also a lot of people with money. Unfortunately Reddick filled my UT spot so I couldn’t bid up any more outfielders. I had $11 for 6 spots.
Alcantara went for 3 and I probably should have topped him. Boxberger went for 9, more than Cecil and Doolittle combined. Joakim Soria went for 11. Brett Lawrie came out and went for 16. I let a couple of cheap corner guys go (Cron 4, A-Rod 5, Chisenhall 1). When my turn to nominate came up I tossed out Dan Haren. Good WHIP, should get some wins, good for streaming in that park… wouldn’t kill me if I got him, even though I would have preferred the open spot, but I thought surely someone would say 2. Nope. $10 for 5 spots.
End game
After Haren I wanted to be more careful with my tosses if I could, but also try to get guys I actually wanted. I let Jose Ramirez go for a buck since I was more worried about power. Semien finally came out and went for 14. Shane Greene went for a buck and that one hurt but I let him go. Desmond Jennings went for a buck, even though people had money - they just didn’t bid. I was locked out due to Reddick.
C-Mart went for 11. After missing out on A-Rod I tossed out one of the last appealing 3Bs and got David Freese for a buck. Next time around I nominated Jesse Hahn… crickets, so no more pitching spots for me.
I filled things out with Aaron Hill, Mark Teixeira, and Ike Davis for MI, 1B and CI all for a buck each. All the types of guys I originally targeted, but maybe not quite enough given who I ended up buying.
All told, here’s who I ended up buying:
C Wieters $12
1B Teixeira $1
CI Ike Davis $1
MI A Hill $1
OF CarGo $29
OF Revere $21
OF Granderson $15
UT Reddick $2
SP Sabathia $6
SP Haren $1
SP Hahn $1
RP Uehara $16
So far in the reserves I've gotten: Colby Rasmus $10, Pedro Strop $10, Marcus Stroman $5, DJ Lemahieu $5
Here’s the list I went in with:
C Jason Castro $1 o15
2B Altuve $10 g15
SS Hanley $32 o15
OF Marcell Ozuna $4 o16
OF Cutch $44 o16
SP Greinke $25 o16
SP J Zimmermann $21 o16
SP Sonny Gray $5 o16
SP Brandon McCarthy $5 o16
RP Cody Allen $1 o16
That’s 10 for $148 plus my farm guys, none of who are contributing much this year (Tim Anderson, Jorge Alfaro, Nick Williams, Raul Mondeski, Albert Almora, Sean Manaea)
The keepers and the plan
I had a tough time narrowing it down to 10, trading a $20 Desmond for Ozuna and McCarthy. Figuring this was a 15-team league, I wanted to give a little extra weight to the stars and hedge against inflation. I didn’t love Cutch and Hanley at their prices, but combined with Altuve they gave me 3 top-20ish hitters. This was probably a middle of the pack keeper list. Allen, Gray and Ozuna all have 1 more year each, so while I'm not selling out completely for 2015, I don't want to spend much time thinking about the future.
This gave me a really nice cushion in AVG and some good speed, and on offense I wanted to add a lot of power, a little speed and not completely crater my AVG. I figured I could get a slugging catcher like Flowers or Rosario for about 10. I liked the available 1B/MI guys at the bottom of the draft (Teix, Ike Davis, Moss, G Jones, Mauer and Semien, Hill, Alcantara), and figured I’d just allocate a couple dollars each to those spots.
The 3B options were terrible at the bottom, so I thought I’d look at making my biggest splash on a guy like Carlos Santana. For the OF/UT spots I was looking at power or power-speed guys with low AVG (Grandy, Crisp, AJax, Snider) and just taking whoever was significantly underpriced. I figured on something like 18-16-11-5 for those 4 spots.
On the pitching side, I had a really good WHIP with Grienke and Zimm, so I wanted to add a couple of stud relievers (MR guys unless a closer fell super cheap), get a couple of high K starters, and then plan to draft a bunch of starters in the reserves and rotate them in and out. I figured I could fill my 4 remaining pitcher slots for 15-20 bucks, something like Andrew Miller, K Herrera, Hahn, House, Heaney, Hammel, Burnett… not all of them were high K but that was the general area I was targeting.
This way, I could make sure I had a good starter at every offensive position, meaning I wouldn’t have to spend many reserve picks on offense. Aside from a big bat (probably at 3b) I could get a lot of hitters in the 5-15 range.
What happened
Well, no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. Tulo and Miggy were the first players off the board and went for pretty reasonable prices (40 and 43). Jose Reyes went for 33, Tanaka for 21, and then I bought the 5th player off the board - Carlos Gonzalez. A speed and power OF who was well under valued. Yes, a big risk, but I figured it was worth spending the Santana money on CarGo.
That left me with $83 for 12 spots. Adam Jones went for 45 immediately after CarGo and that made me feel better about my investment. After the inevitable Yoan Moncada interlude, Encarnacion went for 45 and Wainwright for 27. Then some much more reasonable prices - Pujols 34, Beltre 33, Kimbrel 26, Matt Carpenter only 22, Longoria 30, Kipnis 24 - had me thinking maybe not.
I held my tongue as Santana went for 22. The next player up (33rd off the board) was Koji Uehara and when the bidding stopped at 15, I jumped in and got him for 16. Elite WHIP and really nice Ks? Check. A lot more than I wanted to spend? Yes, but I did have $5 set aside for an elite MR, so it was really only 11 bucks. And at least I had a 2nd closer. That left me with $67 for 11 spots.
After Elvis Andrus went for 21, I snagged Matt Weiters for $12. I had him at 16 on my sheet and he had the power potential I needed. He was the first catcher off the board and immediately after him, Grandal went for 12, then a few picks later McCann went for 18, and then a few more picks after that, Yadi and Ramos went for 12 each. Wieters left me with $55 for 10 spots, but other than allocating a few offensive dollars to saves, things were still relatively on track.
For a little while, anyway… about 6 picks later I snagged Ben Revere for $21. This was right after Cespedes had gone for $32, and a lot of people still had a lot of cash to chase a pretty ho-hum list of outfielders. I had allocated about 15-16 for that spot, and even with money coming out for saves and CarGo, I thought I could make it work rather than chasing speed AND power as a combo. I also figured Revere should hit at least .280 or so, and allow me to really plumb the depths of bad-average power. That left me with only $34 for 9 spots, so I knew I’d be sitting out a while.
Carl Crawford went for 14, Choo for 21, Alex Rios for 20, Heyward for 26, and I was starting to think I made the right call. One of the guys I hoped to get cheap at 3B went for 8 (Plouffe) and Andrew Miller went for 6, but I held off in hopes of finding similar guys for 1-2.
Before lunch, Brandon Moss went for 22 (!) and Rollins only 11 (?). Souza predictably went 19. After lunch Brett Gardner went for 17 and Arcia went for 18. People still had money but were allocating it strangely. Prices were all over the map. What kind of power/speed guy could I still find? I jumped in on Curtis Granderson and snagged him for 15. That left me with $19 for 8 spots.
After that the strangeness continued. $3 for Salty. $2 for Dom Brown. $17 for Tijuan Walker. $14 for Bonifacio. $5 for Beltran. $4 for Brett Cecil. It seemed like people were just holding their money for “their guy” but guessing who their guy would be was tricky.
I bought CC Sabathia for 6. I figured he had massive upside based on last year’s FIP, good WHIP and K upside and would work as a streamer if I avoided tough teams. He seemed to fit into that Hahn/Hammel/House tier I was looking at pre-auction. Then again, the price was probably too high. Or not? Keuchel 8 and Hendricks 6 were the next 2 buys. Now I had $13 for 7 spots.
With 7 spots to go, I wanted to see other people filling up their teams so I could get some of the last few nominations. Some of the remaining big names finally came out - Headley 13, Santiago Casilla 13, Eaton 14, Laroche 14. I bid $2 on Josh Reddick, and the bidding stopped. I thought he’d be significantly better than the end game guys, even with his oblique injury. There was still talent left, but also a lot of people with money. Unfortunately Reddick filled my UT spot so I couldn’t bid up any more outfielders. I had $11 for 6 spots.
Alcantara went for 3 and I probably should have topped him. Boxberger went for 9, more than Cecil and Doolittle combined. Joakim Soria went for 11. Brett Lawrie came out and went for 16. I let a couple of cheap corner guys go (Cron 4, A-Rod 5, Chisenhall 1). When my turn to nominate came up I tossed out Dan Haren. Good WHIP, should get some wins, good for streaming in that park… wouldn’t kill me if I got him, even though I would have preferred the open spot, but I thought surely someone would say 2. Nope. $10 for 5 spots.
End game
After Haren I wanted to be more careful with my tosses if I could, but also try to get guys I actually wanted. I let Jose Ramirez go for a buck since I was more worried about power. Semien finally came out and went for 14. Shane Greene went for a buck and that one hurt but I let him go. Desmond Jennings went for a buck, even though people had money - they just didn’t bid. I was locked out due to Reddick.
C-Mart went for 11. After missing out on A-Rod I tossed out one of the last appealing 3Bs and got David Freese for a buck. Next time around I nominated Jesse Hahn… crickets, so no more pitching spots for me.
I filled things out with Aaron Hill, Mark Teixeira, and Ike Davis for MI, 1B and CI all for a buck each. All the types of guys I originally targeted, but maybe not quite enough given who I ended up buying.
All told, here’s who I ended up buying:
C Wieters $12
1B Teixeira $1
CI Ike Davis $1
MI A Hill $1
OF CarGo $29
OF Revere $21
OF Granderson $15
UT Reddick $2
SP Sabathia $6
SP Haren $1
SP Hahn $1
RP Uehara $16
So far in the reserves I've gotten: Colby Rasmus $10, Pedro Strop $10, Marcus Stroman $5, DJ Lemahieu $5
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