Last night I had my first auction of the season. It’s my second season in the league, which is a more serious league than the one I wrote about last week. Like that league, though, a lot of the owners are more inclined towards fantasy football than fantasy baseball, which is why it’s a head-to-head league. Here are some other league settings for background:
- 40-man roster max including major leaguers and minor leaguers
- Categories: 6×6, with the standard 5×5 categories plus OPS on the hitting side and OPS-against on the pitching side
- $50 budget for minor league players (must be rookie-eligible, don’t have to be promoted from the minors until the owner wants to promote them)
- $260 budget for major league players
- Keeper league with major league salaries increasing 25% each season
- Weekly head-to-head
- Weekly add/drops
- Twelve teams
- Mixed (both AL and NL)
- Starting (scoring) positions: 1 C, 1 1B, 1 2B, 2 SS, 1 3B, 4 OF, 2 UTIL, 6 SP, 3 RP
- Players are eligible at positions where they appeared 10 or more times during the previous season, with additional positional eligibility gained in-season with five or more games at a given position
- Roughly 22% inflation
- Players moved onto the major league DL can be placed on the DL in this league, which cuts their price in half for as long as they’re on the DL
- The $260 cap and 40-man caps do not change all season
- You can buy $0 players at auction if you have no more dollars left and if you have less than 40 players, but you need to make roster moves to reach or get under the $260 cap by Opening Day
My major-league keepers:
- Santana, Carlos $8
- Britton, Zach $10
- Myers, Wil $9
- Pedroia, Dustin $8
- Grandal, Yasmani $5
My minor league keepers (can stay in minors indefinitely until promoted to starting lineup):
- Gleyber Torres $3
- Franklin Barreto $6
- Dan Vogelbach 1
- Roman Quinn 1
- Daniel Robertson 1
- Kyle Zimmer 1
- Marco Gonzales 1
I love most of these guys, and the ones I don’t love are at $1, so there’s very little opportunity cost to keeping them.
I’m not going to list every purchase by every team over the course of the auction, but without further ado, here are the major leaguers I bought at auction:
|
PLAYER |
SALARY |
|
Trout, Mike |
57 |
|
Goldschmidt, Paul |
43 |
|
Cano, Robinson |
25 |
|
Jones, Adam |
15 |
|
Seager, Kyle |
21 |
|
Pederson, Joc |
13 |
|
Dyson, Sam |
7 |
|
Tulowitzki, Troy |
8 |
|
McHugh, Collin |
2 |
|
Peralta, David |
1 |
|
Chen, Wei-Yin |
0 |
|
Iwakuma, Hisashi |
3 |
|
Choo, Shin-Soo |
3 |
|
Guerra, Junior |
1 |
|
Moore, Matt |
8 |
|
Liriano, Francisco |
0 |
|
Happ, J.A. |
8 |
|
Cobb, Alex |
3 |
|
Triggs, Andrew |
1 |
|
Werth, Jayson |
1 |
I went big early with Mike Trout and Paul Goldschmidt for a combined $100 (!). I also went pretty cheap on pitching, keeping only one pitcher (Zach Britton at $10) and not buying any pitchers for double digits during the auction.
Let’s change gears and take a look at the players I bought in the minor league auction:
|
Player |
SALARY |
|
6 |
|
|
4 |
|
|
4 |
|
|
4 |
|
|
4 |
|
|
7 |
|
|
3 |
|
|
4 |
This is the only league I’ve ever been in with a minor league auction, and I’m still getting used to it. Last year I figured out that it’s hard to have minor leaguers for $10 or more because their minor league salary becomes their major league salary when they’re promoted. That’s why I ended up not keeping Byron Buxton as a minor leaguer at $19 since he’s not worth $19 as a major leaguer.
Instead of going into great detail on my thoughts on my own moves and my analysis of the moves made by the other owners, I interviewed as many of the other owners as I could after the auction to get their thoughts. Here’s what they said:
Scooter (that’s me!)
Favorite Buy: Adam Jones $15
Least Favorite Buy: JA Happ $8
Guy I Wish I Stayed In On: Edwin Encarnacion $33
Other Comments: As noted above, I spent $100 on two players (Trout and Goldschmidt) very early. I like their prices, though. And I went cheap on pitching, not buying a single pitcher during the auction for a double-digit price. We’ll see how it goes.
Twitter Handle: @rcpeco
Favorite Buy: Cespedes at $23 on the high end, Ezequiel Carrera at $1 because he has to do so little to earn it
Least Favorite Buy: Ivan Nova $6 (because I hoped he was RP eligible but he isn't), AJ Ramos $8
Guy I Wish I Stayed In On: Edwin Encarnacion $33
Other Comments: The bidding for AJ Ramos included two other bidders thought the player nominated was Wilson Ramos, which was annoying. I might have been too strict with my own numbers on Edwin Encarnacion. I love Greinke at $15. Wish I had gotten Realmuto for less than $9 but I still like his upside. Love that I got Trey Mancini at $1 in minors. Also, I’m a horrible owner.
Boris
Favorite Buy: Felix Hernandez $12
Least Favorite Buy: Corey Kluber $30
Guy I Wish I Stayed In On: Every relief pitcher
Other Comments: I didn’t realize how many relief pitchers were kept, so I didn’t realize how shallow the relief pitcher pool would be at the auction. I also wish I didn’t have to keep d’Arnaud, but he came in a package deal with Schwarber, who I love, and players on contracts have to be kept.
Matt
Favorite Buy: Yasiel Puig $5
Least Favorite Buy: Byron Buxton $12
Guy I Wish I Stayed In On: Jose Altuve $37
Other Comments: I was very happy with my endgame. I think I got a lot of value with ten $1 players. I went big Max Scherzer and Chris Sale on the SP side, which had been my plan going in. I had Roberto Osuna and Wade Davis cheap as keepers, so I nominated relievers early to get money out of the room and got a cheap late RP in Kyle Barraclough (what’s up, George Bissell). I was happy to get Hector Rendo as a handcuff to Wade Davis.
Scott
Favorite Buy: Miguel Sano $12
Least Favorite Buy: Jonathan Schoop $9
Guy I Wish I Stayed In On: Jose Altuve $37
Other Comments: My pricing algorithm was spot-on all night.
Ward
Favorite Buy: Anthony Rendon $14
Least Favorite Buy: Andrew McCutchen $26
Guy I Wish I Stayed In On: Felix Hernandez $12
Other Comments: Pretty happy with my stars & scrubs strategy overall.
Andy
Favorite Buy: Eduardo Nunez $9
Least Favorite Buy: Jedd Gyorko, thrown out to complete silence at $4
Guy I Wish I Stayed In On: Max Scherzer $37
Other Comments: Also liked Kevin Kiermaier at $5 and Danny Duffy at $14 because he is RP-eligible in this league. Picking a guy I wish I stayed in on was hard because I was pretty happy with how I executed my strategy overall.
Jay
Favorite Buy: Edwin Encarnacion $33
Least Favorite Buy: It’s not a buy, it’s keeping Clayton Kershaw at $55 because I thought I was keeping him at $22, which was his half-price DL salary on the site when I looked.
Guy I Wish I Stayed In On: No idea, still upset and obsessing about Kershaw.
Other Comments: My favorite part of the auction was that I got very drunk (confirmed by author).
Ryan
Favorite Buy: Miguel Cabrera $33
Least Favorite Buy: My least favorite buy was probably some of the keepers or leftover keepers that are prospects that prevented me from using my whole budget.
Guy I Wish I Stayed In On: Jose Altuve $37
Other Comments: Overall, I love my team. I wish I had some extra roster space to take flyers on some SP I loved.
And now it’s time for me to finish my Evolution Lot 3 and head home.
Thank you for reading
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