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Depending on how long you have been a Baseball Prospectus subscriber, welcome or welcome back to the Expert FAAB Review. Every week, I’m going to take a look at the players and the process behind the bidding in LABR mixed, Tout Wars NL, and Tout Wars AL (I will alternate every week). Bret Sayre and I participate in LABR mixed while I have a team in Tout Wars NL, so I can provide some insights behind the reasoning on the bids. Budgets in all three leagues start at $100 at the beginning of the season.

Random Quote of the Week – “I love a good caper.” —Jerry Seinfeld, “Seinfeld – The Dream Cafe”

LABR Mixed
James McCann $13.

Chris Young The Pitcher $6. Other bids: $2, $2, $2, $2.
We have been down this road with Chris Young The Pitcher before. He’ll put together a terrific run of starts and then it will all come crashing down like the all-too-confusing ending of Mulholland Drive. Young does have the Royals sterling outfield defense in his favor this time around, but I’d be reluctant to use him as anything more than a spot starter in deeper mixed.

Justin Maxwell $5.
Kyle Blanks $5.

Carlos Frias $4. Other bids: $3, $3, $2, $2, $1.
I wrote Frias up in last week’s FAAB review in the Tout Wars NL section. I have even less faith in him in mixed formats, but he is getting the Marlins this week and it isn’t a bad play. I’m not particularly sold on him going forward, but if the Hyun-Jin Ryu news continues to stink on ice, Frias could stick in the rotation for the foreseeable future.

Colby Lewis $4. Other bid: $1
I wrote about Lewis a couple of Fridays ago in the Free Agent Watch and nothing has changed since then. Lewis is a solid enough matchup play in 15-team mixed and I would prefer to use him on the road. His LD% probably is due for some correction given his historical and batted ball data but he still should be able to manage something in the high 3s/low 4s for ERA.

Wandy Rodriguez $4. Other bid $3, $1.
As Kate Morrison pointed out on Sunday at Baseball Prospectus, Rodriguez put up a “Hidden Reverse Humber” over his last two starts: nine-plus perfect innings across two games. Rodriguez isn’t going to keep baffling hitters to the same degree that he has in his last two starts, but his ability to change his assortment of pitches frequently and effectively could increase his survival rate for a little while longer as a major-league pitcher.

Rafael Betancourt $2

Peter Bourjos $2. Other bids $2, $1.
After spending the first few weeks of the season as a pinch runner/defensive replacement/guy who is glued to the bench in a simultaneously hilarious and tragic mishap, Bourjos has been playing more frequently of late. He was in a strict platoon with fellow Cardinal Jon Jay last week, and performed capably with the bat. Bourjos is still a stretch for deep mixed at the moment, but I’m still a sucker for his long term potential, particularly since he finally had hip surgery this offseason to repair a long standing health issue. If Bourjos hits, his defensive abilities could push Jay to the bench even when the Cardinals are facing a lefty, and if Bourjos plays five times or so a week, the speed plays in this format.

Kyle Gibson $1. Other bids: $1, $1.
Gibson’s raw numbers look fine, but I can’t recommend a pitcher in fantasy whose career strikeout rate per nine is 4.96. Even as a streamer, Gibson is a scary option.

Mike Pelfrey $1
Tyler Lyons $1
Wilin Rosario $1
Brandon Guyer $1
Steven Geltz $1

I like Rosario as a sneaky play this week since the Rockies get the DH in two games against the Angels.

Bret and I didn’t bid on anyone this weekend. We actually have enough depth on offense with Anthony Gose and the suddenly revitalized Aaron Hill on our bench that our best move right now is probably a trade for a pitcher, ideally a closer (hint, hint, hint, industry folks in LABR reading this article).

Tout Wars NL

Hector Gomez $1 ($12)
Johnny Monell $1 ($3)
Abraham Almonte $1 ($3)
Austin Hedges $1 ($3)
Michael Blazek $1 ($3).
Other bid: $0
Pedro Baez $1 ($2). Other bid: $0
Phil Gosselin $1 ($2)
Seth Maness $1 ($2)
Rob Scahill $1
Miguel Socolovich $1
Julio Urias $1

Carlos Hernandez $0
Pete Kozma $0
George Kontos $0
Carlos Torres $0
Paco Rodriguez $0

This was a boring week in NL Tout in terms of the bid mechanics, but there are two interesting takeaways (interesting to me, at least, consummate NL-only player and quintessential man-about-the-house who spends 16 hours during the weekend flipping between games and developing couch sores that look like a thousand angry red suns) from a slow week.

First, Ray Guilfoyle of Fake Teams grabbed Julio Urias for one dollar. The Tout Wars rules allow owners to speculate on minor league players in-season with two catches: you have to bid at least one FAAB dollar (no zero dollar bids) and you have to carry the player on your active roster for one full week.

I am not sold on Urias making any kind of appreciable impact in 2015, but for $1 in FAAB, who really cares? Compare Urias to the one dollar players on the long list above. The purchases this week are littered with middle relievers and mostly backup hitters. Thirty or forty impact innings at the end of the season from Urias could provide significant value for Guilfoyle in the heat of our make believe pennant race. If it doesn’t work, big deal, Guilfoyle only spent a dollar.

The primary concern for Guilfoyle is whether or not he can maintain Urias on his reserve list all season long. At the moment, he only has three of his four reserve spots filled. The other slots are taken up by minor league Dodgers as well (Hector Olivera and Corey Seager). My only concern with this type of roster strategy would be if Guilfoyle had one or two starting pitchers who were streamers, but with a strong starting pitching core, this doesn’t appear to be a concern.

Knowing the rules/playing the angles is important enough in shallow home leagues; in deep expert leagues, it is pivotal. Even if Urias does nothing, this is a savvy play.

Second, if there is a quiet transaction week like this, it pays to look closely at what kind of holes teams are trying to fill, regardless of how small said holes are. My Tout Wars team didn’t place any bids this week, in part because I didn’t have any injuries, in part because I believe the 23 active players on my team are better than what is/was out there in the free agent pool, but most importantly because of the call-up of Noah Syndergaard. Unless Syndergaard is immolated versus the Cubs later today, it is likely that he will stick in the rotation for a few turns. In a few weeks, I have gone from having a deficiency of pitching to a surfeit.

The addition of my Bourjos to more of a full-time platoon role (see the mixed league section above) leaves me with some flexibility on offense as well. This is where looking at the list of bids—and the players shuttling in and out of other owners’ lineups—pays off. If April is a time to sit tight and take an accurate temperature of your team’s fortunes, May is the time to gauge whether or not you can make upgrades via the trade market. These upgrades will be more modest in a super-deep league like Tout Wars NL, but the opportunities are still there if you know what to look for, both in your team as well in in your competitors.

Tout Wars AL

The bidding was livelier, feistier, and more exciting in Tout Wars AL than Tout Wars NL. Let’s dive right and take a look, shall we?

Jackie Bradley $10 ($16). Other bid $9.
When Shane Victorino made the club over Rusney Castillo, it seemed like a matter of time before Victorino got hurt/didn’t perform and Castillo got the call. But with Castillo suffering through his own April injury, it is Bradley who gets the next opportunity (in a platoon with the just activated Victorino). Bradley didn’t hit in 2014 but was humming along at a .343 clip in 107 plate appearances at Triple-A Pawtucket before his promotion. The problem is that he wasn’t really running this year, and he is not going to provide enough power to return significant dividends. He is fine at this price in an only, but I wouldn’t go too far past $15 with my bid.

Chris Colabello $9. Other bids: $9, $8, $6, $5.
Sometimes teams are aggressive due to Vickrey. Other times no one steps up and makes a hyper-aggressive bid. This was clearly a case of the latter, as five teams placed a very narrow range of bids on Colabello. My assumption is that while Colabello is starting now and certainly has some solid power potential, no one in AL Tout believes that he is a strong candidate to keep a job in Toronto all season long, particularly given his track record. So instead of pushing the Vickrey envelope, teams decided to be conservative (or, alternately, not bid at all). It is a sensible strategy, though as we all know too well, sometimes the least certain AL-only commodities are the ones that return the most value. This sounds like a fantasy baseball fortune cookie.

Carlos Perez $9 ($18). Other bids: $8, $6, $3, $1.
With Chris Iannetta struggling, Perez is a candidate to wrest at least part of the job away in Anaheim and start 3-4 days a week at a minimum. Perez’s calling card isn’t offense, but in the big AL-only picture, at bats are at bats, and if you can replace a non-entity at catcher with a job sharer, you better go do that. Andy Behrens of Yahoo placed the aggressive Vickrey bid in order to obtain Perez’s services.

Jose Pirela $7 ($11). Other bids: $6, $6.
In the old, George Steinbrenner-driven Yankee world of bludgeoning their problems with comically large stacks of dollar bills and overstuffed bags of gold coins (look it up on the Wikipedia machine if you don’t believe me, kids), Pirela would likely be a non-entity, a Triple-A lifer or—at best—an occasional emergency replacement at some point during in the season. But in the new Yankee world order, a player like Pirela will get an opportunity to carve out a significant role on the team. Didi Gregorius is struggling and Stephen Drew is now shifting over to shortstop to spell Didi against lefties. The optimal scenario for Pirela is Gregorius flopping and getting pushed to the bench or the minors. A job share is more likely. Pirela could still cobble out some value with his speed/power combination, but it’s more likely he’ll be kind of fringy, even in AL-only, unless he gets full time at bats.

Carlos Correa $1 ($34)
Joey Butler $1 ($6)
Preston Tucker $1 ($5)
Andrew Bellatti $1 ($4)
Matt Andriese $1.
Other bid $0
Asher Wojciechowski $0
Bobby Wilson $0.
Other bid $0
Jose Alvarez $0. Other bid $0
Luke Hochevar $0
Justin Wilson $0
Josh Fields $0

Correa is the AL version of Urias, except: 1) Chris Liss of Rotowire was far more aggressive than Guilfoyle was, willing to plunk down $34 and 2) Correa seems to have a far more significant chance to make an impact in 2015, having just been promoted to Triple-A. Liss was willing to risk a third of his budget if it came to that, so he obviously has confidence that Fresno is going to be a brief stop on the journey for Correa.

Thank you for reading

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