I wound up finishing fourth last season...my first "money" finish in several years, but a disappointment, nonetheless. If you read my 2020 Anatomy thread, you'd know I felt very good after the auction...but by the time the season began in late July, I had lost Price ($23) and Cespedes ($9) to opt-outs, Archer ($10) to TO surgery, then lost Doolittle ($21) & K.Bryant ($48) to various injuries and poor performances. The three pitchers accounted for all of my auction pitching buys ($54), and Bryant ($48) was my most expensive hitting purchase. Finishing 1st in both the saves and steals categories primarily due to cheap keepers (and the FAAB of Jeffress) was instrumental in making it onto the podium, despite getting virtually nothing for $115 out of my $280 auction budget.
So now I'm back to seek the Pen's assistance/approval in making a run at winning. My core is mostly intact, with Fried being the most significant loss from last year's squad (though Nick Ahmed was a key contributor too). Here are the league details:
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.
Here's what I have to evaluate, with roster freeze being two weeks away (March 19th):
If things remain the same, I'd have room for one additional keeper, unless I pull off a trade. I'm leaning towards extending both Alonso and Robles by two years, to $18 apiece. Part of the reason is that we have a Dynasty Prize, based on your aggregate finish over a rolling four year period, so I'd like to have the core of Acuna, Alonso and Robles together during all four seasons of this planned run. I don't plan to extend M.Rojas, and will take whatever he produces as a nice profit on his $1 price. I'm torn on what to do with Reynolds...and am leaning slightly towards extending him one season to $12 (though I could be swayed against doing so). Finally, I won't extend Pomeranz or Hudson, and just hope for decent saves from them at relatively cheap prices.
This plan would give me fourteen keepers for $107, leaving me $173 to purchase eleven more. I'll need two catchers, a third baseman, two utility players and six pitchers. I could easily afford two solid ~$35 - $40 hitters, two ~$25 starting pitchers, a ~$20 closer, two additional starting pitchers for ~$15 - 20 total and have ~$8 - $18 to spread among my final four players (two of which could be cheap catchers). Alternately, there will definitely be some decent catchers available in the draft (Realmuto, Contreras, McCann), so I could spend there, buy a solid 3B, and have reasonable funds left for more solid purchases at UT and SP.
I welcome your thoughts, feedback and suggestions. I definitely need help figuring out which three less-than-spectacular players to keep as MLE (especially since Alzolay also qualifies, so he's another option).
So now I'm back to seek the Pen's assistance/approval in making a run at winning. My core is mostly intact, with Fried being the most significant loss from last year's squad (though Nick Ahmed was a key contributor too). Here are the league details:
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.
Here's what I have to evaluate, with roster freeze being two weeks away (March 19th):
Contracts | ||||
Pos | Players | Team | Salary | Contract |
PROBABLE KEEPERS | ||||
1B | Pete Alonso 1B | NYM | $8 | A19 |
2B | Chris Taylor 2B, OF, SS | LAD | $6 | A20 |
SS | Mauricio Dubon 2B, OF, SS | SF | $7 | A20 |
MI | Miguel Rojas SS | MIA | $1 | A19 |
CI | Jesus Aguilar 1B | MIA | $8 | A20 |
OF | Ronald Acuna OF | ATL | $22 | *23 |
OF | Sam Hilliard OF | COL | $2 | A20 |
OF | Bryan Reynolds OF | PIT | $7 | A19 |
OF | Victor Robles OF | WAS | $8 | A19 |
OF | Raimel Tapia OF | COL | $5 | A20 |
P | Adbert Alzolay P | CHC | $3 | A20 |
P | Dylan Floro P | MIA | $1 | A21 |
P | Drew Pomeranz P | SD | $1 | A19 |
P | Daniel Hudson P | WAS | $3 | A19 |
MLE OPTIONS | ||||
SS | Jose Garcia SS | CIN | $7 | A20 |
SS | Ronny Mauricio SS | NYM | $8 | A20 |
OF | Hunter Bishop OF | SF | $7 | A20 |
P | Hunter Greene P | CIN | $2 | A20 |
OTHER OPTIONS…BUT LEANING AGAINST KEEPING | ||||
C | Jorge Alfaro C | MIA | $12 | A20 |
C | Stephen Vogt C | ARI | $4 | A20 |
OF | Lewis Brinson OF | MIA | $3 | A20 |
OF | Yoenis Cespedes OF | NYM | $9 | A20 |
P | Rowan Wick P | CHC | $3 | A19 |
P | Johnny Cueto P | SF | $4 | A19 |
P | Jeremy Jeffress P | WAS | $8 | A20 |
If things remain the same, I'd have room for one additional keeper, unless I pull off a trade. I'm leaning towards extending both Alonso and Robles by two years, to $18 apiece. Part of the reason is that we have a Dynasty Prize, based on your aggregate finish over a rolling four year period, so I'd like to have the core of Acuna, Alonso and Robles together during all four seasons of this planned run. I don't plan to extend M.Rojas, and will take whatever he produces as a nice profit on his $1 price. I'm torn on what to do with Reynolds...and am leaning slightly towards extending him one season to $12 (though I could be swayed against doing so). Finally, I won't extend Pomeranz or Hudson, and just hope for decent saves from them at relatively cheap prices.
This plan would give me fourteen keepers for $107, leaving me $173 to purchase eleven more. I'll need two catchers, a third baseman, two utility players and six pitchers. I could easily afford two solid ~$35 - $40 hitters, two ~$25 starting pitchers, a ~$20 closer, two additional starting pitchers for ~$15 - 20 total and have ~$8 - $18 to spread among my final four players (two of which could be cheap catchers). Alternately, there will definitely be some decent catchers available in the draft (Realmuto, Contreras, McCann), so I could spend there, buy a solid 3B, and have reasonable funds left for more solid purchases at UT and SP.
I welcome your thoughts, feedback and suggestions. I definitely need help figuring out which three less-than-spectacular players to keep as MLE (especially since Alzolay also qualifies, so he's another option).
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