My fantasy half-season in review

[mjl]

I'm in three serious leagues: a 10-team NL-only 5x5 with Moonlight J and umjewman, RJEL (18-team mixed 5x5 using OBP), and a 12-team mixed 5x5.

In the 10-team NL-only, I had one of the better keeper lists coming into the season including Goldschmidt $20, Freeman $16, Gomez $15, cheap AJBurnett/Cishek/Grilli, and free Owings and Lake, but I had to do the auction at 6am from my car with minimal Internet access because my wife decided that we should go to a spa for the weekend with my mother and daughter for their birthdays and this was the only way I could make it not annoy them, and I couldn't find anywhere indoors locally that had Internet access at that hour. So I had kind of a mediocre auction and left about $20 on the table and also kept Harvey for $10 because it hurt too much to throw him back, and now I'm in fourth with a big pack right behind me and a long way out of first. I am considering dumping since Cuddyer and now Molina are out for extended periods, but the only guys I have who are doing well are obvious keepers so it's hard to figure out a useful trade.

In RJEL, I took over an abandoned team with an average keeper list and through some fortunate auction buys and a lot of trades have made it to third with a decent shot at first.

In the 12-team mixed, we only keep 6 and I had what looked like a good keeper list at the time but Venable and Craig and Ramos have all underperformed. I was excited for my three minor league keepers - Sano, Hamilton, and Taveras - but ended up cutting Sano before the draft and taking Bryant instead, and Taveras hasn't been as relevant as I'd hoped. In previous years I had observed that other people value closers too highly and there was always good free agent pitching available, and almost nobody else even tries to stream, so each year I increased the hitting/pitching split and this year I went even further, spending about $35 on pitching. My pitching has turned out to be average-ish even with that, but my hitting has underperformed some, and I'm in second.

Worst keeper mistakes:

NL-only: YMolina $25
18mixed: ASoriano $9
12mixed: Venable $6, WRamos $6

Best auction buys:

NL-only: Gennett $3, Roark in reserve draft
18mixed: Abreu $31, Gordon $9, Stubbs $5
12mixed: Tulo $34, Kluber $3, YVentura $1, Frazier in reserve draft

Worst auction buys:

10-team NL-only: Cuddyer $29 (would have been fine except for the injuries), Ruggiano $8, Quentin $8, WRodriguez $5, Lee $36 (my most expensive player)
18mixed: Grossman $14 (I had a lot of money left over), HSantiago $5 and GSanchez $6 I guess, Lee $35 (my most expensive player)
12mixed: Holliday $23, Kemp $26, Pedroia $25 (I was price enforcing and got caught)

Best FAAB pickups:

NL-only: Rondon
18mixed: JSmith
12mixed: McHugh, Lind, Keuchel, Pollock, Pearce, JSmith

Worst cuts:

NL-only: enh. I took Bobby Abreu at the end of the reserve draft and it would have been nice to have him, but that's not so bad
18mixed: cut Drew Stubbs after week 2
12mixed: nothing horrible. I guess I cut McHugh after a couple weeks and had to go pick him up again.

Trades I regret my decision on:

NL-only: turned down Gregor Blanco and Jimmy Nelson for Wandy Rodriguez after his first non-terrible start since I needed active pitchers
18mixed: traded Niese and Street for CJ Wilson and Morrow early in the season when I had GHolland, Street, Lindstrom, and Melancon and looked like I would need Ks.
12mixed: traded Frazier for Chapman week 2 because I figured Frazier was replaceable off the WW and my only closers were Hawkins and Axford, and the other team had their 3B injured between FAAB and the start of the week and needed a replacement. I thought I was getting a great deal here. Chapman has been everything I hoped for, but...

Most pointless trades:

18mixed: traded GSanchez for Taylor Jordan, traded ASoriano for CRuiz who got concussed and then cut shortly afterward, about the same time Soriano got DFAed.

Trades I feel almost guilty about, but not quite:

NL-only: traded Grilli ($5X) for TRoss ($1B) on June 1, right after Grilli came back from the DL and about a week and a half before the implosion
18mixed: see below
12mixed: it's not much of a trading league, and the Frazier/Chapman one is the only one I've done so far.

RJEL summary:

RJEL is the most fun ever. There have been more trades in RJEL in the last three months than in every other league I've been in combined in the last three years, and I do like my trading. Also with so many people in the league there's a lot of room for differing valuations and arbitrage, and I have found a lot of chances to leverage that. Here is my roster as of Day 1 and as of now, and note that Joe Smith is the only active addition via FAAB.

C	Castillo $1A	Avila $4A
1B	Abreu $31A	Abreu $31A
2B	Kipnis $16/2016	Kipnis $16/2016
3B	Seager $15/2016	Seager $15/2016
SS	ACabrera $22A	ACabrera $22A
MI	Gordon $9A	Gordon $9A
CI	Olt $2A	LaRoche $5X
OF	MCabrera $7X	MCabrera $7X
OF	RDavis $4B	Bautista $14X
OF	Hunter $16A	Calhoun $7B
OF	Soriano $9X	Rios $7X
OF	Yelich $3A	Yelich $3A
UT	Grossman $14A	Duda $5A
UT	Ruggiano $6A	Ruggiano $6A
P	De La Rosa $3A	Bailey $15B
P	GHolland $25A	Dickey $2X
P	Lee $35A	Fister $8A
P	Melancon $3B	GHolland $25A
P	Niese $6A	Lynn $1B
P	RRoss $3A	Price $32A
P	HSantiago $5A	JSmith $7A
P	Smyly $3B	Smyly $3B
P	Street $14A	Zimmermann $28A

I bought Fister at auction but he was hurt to start the year, and I still have Lee and CJ Wilson $19A waiting to come off the DL. I've also traded away Springer, Sano, Singleton, Marisnick, Rua, and Burns, although Singleton and Springer were also acquired this season.

The ten trades I've made since taking over the team:

Marte $2B for Yelich $3A, Melancon $3B, Springer $6/minors
Headley $13/option and 2nd round minors pick for Seager $5/option and two 6th round minors picks
GSanchez for TJordan
Niese $6A and Street $14A for CJ Wilson $19A and Morrow $3A
RDavis $4B for Singleton $6/minors and Paxton $6/minors
Rua $4/minors, Burns $5/minors, and 1st round minors pick in 2015 for Zimmermann $28A and Duda $5A
Springer $6A and Sano $5/minors for Rios $7X, Braun $50A, Bailey $15B, Peralta $4B, Bautista $14X (I knew I would have to flip Braun for salary cap issues when I made this trade)
Braun $50A, Vogelsong $3A, Peralta $4B for Dickey $2X, DHolland $4A, Lynn $1B
Soriano for Ruiz
Singleton $6A, Olt $2A, Hunter $16A, Melancon $3B, Marisnick $2/minors for Calhoun $7B, Avila $4A, Price $32A, LaRoche $5X

(note that the team that gave me Springer, Singleton, and Paxton is one of the two teams ahead of me and still has Taveras, Glasnow, Alex Meyer, and Aaron Sanchez - he appears to be good at minor leaguers)

[Hornsby]

Ya done good noob... The RJEL can be a bit like the old west...

I think the biggest criticism that I have, is the thing that turned out the best for you, and that was (IMO) overpaying by a fair margin for Jose Abreu. No way did anyone (obviously) think that a totally unproven guy that 99% of the baseball people had never seen play, would turn out to be as good as he has.

Other than that, I'm impressed by how you look at your minor leagues simply as assets, and are not compelled to hold them like many do. Probably your biggest strength, IMO, and one that allows you to make some pretty good deals for this year.

Congrats...looking forward to the next 2 1/2 months.

[mjl]

yeah, I've burned off most of my minor league value and my #1 pick for next year. we'll see how much that ends up hurting. At one point I thought I had more than enough keepers for next year and I'd be able to trade one or two off for draft picks, but I don't think that's true any more. Enh, I'll figure it out when the time comes.

[Hornsby]

yeah, I've burned off most of my minor league value and my #1 pick for next year. we'll see how much that ends up hurting. At one point I thought I had more than enough keepers for next year and I'd be able to trade one or two off for draft picks, but I don't think that's true any more. Enh, I'll figure it out when the time comes.

I've got picks, and I've got minor leaguers...come see me after the season.

[DMT]

You're welcome

[revo]

Who did you rob Seager from? Yikes!

[mjl]

DMT: Thanks! I actually didn't know whose team it was, but your icon looks familiar

revo: Hornsby, but that trade (and the Marte trade) were before the season started, and most projections had them at about the same value. Then Headley sucked. Also, now that I look back at it, I included my second round minor league pick for two 6th round picks, so that was some of the value difference. And in the Rua/Burns trade I also gave up my first round pick for next year, so that explains that deal a little better. Completely forgot about the draft picks.

[Hornsby]

Who did you rob Seager from? Yikes!

Yeah, they were valued about the same coming into the season and I needed the picks since I mortgaged the future the previous season...and lets not forget that you guys gave him a boatload of crap for extending Seager for 2 seasons.

[cavebird]

I think the biggest criticism that I have, is the thing that turned out the best for you, and that was (IMO) overpaying by a fair margin for Jose Abreu. No way did anyone (obviously) think that a totally unproven guy that 99% of the baseball people had never seen play, would turn out to be as good as he has.

In just about every league I am in, I was intrigued by Abreu and made a play for him. In all of them, he went for about double what I was even considering going. I know I didn't think that a totally unproven guy would do this well, and obviously you didn't either, but some people out there must have.

[DMT]

In just about every league I am in, I was intrigued by Abreu and made a play for him. In all of them, he went for about double what I was even considering going. I know I didn't think that a totally unproven guy would do this well, and obviously you didn't either, but some people out there must have.

Same here...he went for $29 in my 12-team mixed.

[mjl]

IIRC Todd Zola/Mastersball loved him and that was my primary source of projections. I found an old set of projections but not the one I would have used and it had him as Prince Fielder with slightly lower R/RBI (well, the Prince Fielder we were expecting in Texas).

[Mithrandir]

Enjoyed the write up.

[Sharky]

Excellent post! Thanks for sharing.

[mjl]

oh, something I forgot to mention: the biggest thing I didn't realize about RJEL is how restrictive the salary cap ends up being. I think it's at a good spot - one of my leagues has the cap at $500 (although all minor leaguers are $5 or $10 of real budget and there's a 17 man bench, so it adds up) and it's almost never a problem, and one has the cap at $320 and you can't really do anything except trade for expiring contracts (the guy with McCutchen would love to trade him but it's hard to fit in a $48 salary without dumping something of value). But I traded for Braun with the intent of flipping him, and it worked out but it wouldn't have a couple weeks later. At this point, as of a couple weeks ago, none of the competitive teams have more than $10 or so in cap space and there are some very good players that look like they're not going anywhere.