Just finished my first NL-only auction, also my first "industry" auction. HDID?

[Lucky]

12-team, NL-only, 5x5 Roto. They give you a $264 budget, because you have to buy your four bench players. 23 active players in standard configuration.

It was fast and furious. The other guys obviously knew what they were doing, not surprising since they work for The Sporting News, RotoWorld, RotoProfessor, etc. Nice guys, but they just didn't seem to make any mistakes. I was playing for Jon's AFB site, and did make the occasional mistake.

Not sure yet what to think of my squad, since many of the are relatively new to me.

Here they are:

Advanced FB Crumpler

C Yadier Molina 20
C Travis d'Arnaud 5
1B Yonder Alonso 14
2B Neil Walker 17
3B Jordan Pacheco 6
SS Josh Rutledge 16
2B/SS Aaron Hill 21
1B/3B Logan Morrison 12
OF Bryce Harper 28
OF Norichika Aoki 16
OF Angel Pagan 16
OF Juan Pierre 12
OF Chris Heisey 2
UTIL Placido Polanco 1

P Madison Bumgarner 20
P Yovani Gallardo 19
P Mat Latos 18
P Kyuji Fujikawa 11
P Sean Marshall 2
P Bronson Arroyo 1
P Fernando Salas 1
P J.J. Hoover 1
P Eric O'Flaherty 1

BE Edward Mujica 1
BE Antonio Bastardo 1
BE John Baker 1
BE Tim Stauffer 1

Total: 264
Remaining: 0

At least I didn't leave any money on the table.

[whalewang]

Looks very solid.

[JudeBaldo]

Good job. Personally I would have rather had one more bat than Latos.

[Judge Jude]

C Yadier Molina 20 - can pay off 1 more year
C Travis d'Arnaud 5 - June callup, I say, so ok
1B Yonder Alonso 14 - market value
2B Neil Walker 17 - can upside this price
3B Jordan Pacheco 6 - dull but ok
SS Josh Rutledge 16 - a reach, but reaches win pennants
2B/SS Aaron Hill 21 - not a fluke so ok
1B/3B Logan Morrison 12 - pricey, but not doomed
OF Bryce Harper 28 - nice not to pay for the possible explosion. good buy on that
OF Norichika Aoki 16 - don't love him, but willl SB
OF Angel Pagan 16 - ditto
OF Juan Pierre 12 - ditto, and may profit
OF Chris Heisey 2 - sensing a trend, and it's ok
UTIL Placido Polanco 1

P Madison Bumgarner 20 - like a lot
P Yovani Gallardo 19 - Danger Will Robinson
P Mat Latos 18 - even money
P Kyuji Fujikawa 11 - can't predict
P Sean Marshall 2 - lock
P Bronson Arroyo 1 - like
P Fernando Salas 1 - am ok with
P J.J. Hoover 1 - ok
P Eric O'Flaherty 1 - no harm



BE Edward Mujica 1
BE Antonio Bastardo 1
BE John Baker 1
BE Tim Stauffer 1

I like this group - competiive...

[JudeBaldo]

Good job. Personally I would have rather had one more bat than Latos.

ETA: What Judge Jude said. So I wouldn't have paid that much for him.

[bryanbutler]

not a big fan of spending $11 on fujikawa. marmol may explode, but if he doesn't you spent $11 on a setup guy.

i like harper at $28. but overall in hitting you seem a bit speed heavy. i'd look to deal some speed for power if you can.

i don't mind you spending for latos - your hitting/pitching split is pretty close to 70/30.

[mjl]

In the interest of being honest... it looks not that great. I think you got decent values on a lot of your guys (although Fujikawa priced as a closer scares me) but no real bargains, you have no closer unless Fujikawa takes the job soon so you'll need to scavenge for one of those which I assume is tough in an experts league, other than Harper and maybe Hill I don't like any of your team to hit 20 HR or get 80 RBI, it's going to suck tremendously if Rutledge isn't actually a 20/20 threat, and you have three very good starters admittedly but only four total, which is going to make the counting stats tough. At least the starters pitch for decent teams so you have a good chance at getting wins. To be fair, you do have almost all starters in your hitting, which is good to keep you in the counting stats, although it would have been nice if you had at least one offense player on the bench, maybe Matt Adams or someone like that. I'm sure there weren't many left at the end.

It doesn't look like a coherent team. It looks like a bunch of individually decent players but you're going to need to do a lot of careful managing and trading to get anywhere. And you'll probably have to be aggressive with FAAB when guys get called up early, which is always a little scary.

[tinitoys]

out of curiosity, is it possible to post all the team's rosters and salaries or you can pm me if you don't mind

[Hornsby]

In the interest of being succinct, too much speed and too little power. Harper, and maybe Alonso are your only power guys...Hill will get 20+ and I think that may be it. I don't know where they came up in the auction, but getting both Pierre and Pagan was essentially an overkill.

Personally, I like your pitching, I don't see what reservations JJ has about Gallardo, unless he thinks an injury is likely to happen. You'll be able to deal one of those 3 studs off at some point, hopefully for some power. All in all, not a bad job for a 1st auction...

[mgwiz22]

Morrison should be good for 20 or close to 20 home runs.

[Pauly]

when Alonso and Lomo are your best sources of power other than your best player, you know you need to start trading speed ASAP. With all those base stealers, surely theres a team or two thats very light in that department.

[joncarlos]

I really like the values you got. I don't like Lomo but I think at $12 he's worth the risk. Same with YoGa. But you're light on both saves and Ks. You need another SP and you really need your Fujikawa lottery ticket to pay off.

I don't mind all the 15-20 HR guys, it is a good strategy to spread the risk, and you can always turn one of your speed guys into a bopper once you have a few steals from them.

[Gregg]

My first thought after looking at your team and before reading what others had to say was a lot of speed and no saves. By spending $11 on an MR who should eventually become the closer does not help you unless there is a team or two that are punting saves. If it was a keeper league it would be a different story. You either need to trade one of the speed guys for a closer or trade Fuji plus a speed guy for a power hitter.

I do not think you embarrassed yourself by any means. Without seeing the other teams, I would guess this to be in the middle of the pack. I would also be curious to see what the other teams look like.

[B-Fly]

I don't mind building a roster around 15-20 HR guys, but then you can't really afford to also roster all-speed, no-power guys, so I agree with the group that you'll need to try to trade speed for power. I also wouldn't have gone nearly that high on Fuji, but I do like your top three starters.

[james33]

First reaction: you knocked it out of the park. Great sensible gambles on lower priced guys, without overpaying for your best players. In NL-only, offense is all about getting at bats, and I can't imagine any team is forecasted to get more at bats than yours.

Second reaction: let's check labr against what you paid.

Harper - you $28, LABR $35.
Hill - you $21, LABR $21
Molina - you $20, LABR $21.
Bumgarner - you $20, LABR $20
Gallardo - you $19, LABR $14
Latos - you $18, LABR $15
Walker - you $17, LABR $17
Rutledge - you $16, LABR $16
Aoki - you $16, LABR $19
Pagan - you $16, LABR $20

Still looks very good! I do agree with others that you need to trade some speed. On the pitching side, I like that you didn't take any veteran starters in the $6-$12 range; those guys always tend to blow up for me.