Do I Hear A Fantasy Baseball Auction Draft?

March 18, 2012

I’ve been playing fantasy baseball for just over a decade, but today I participated in just my 2nd auction draft.  My first was in 2010 and I went on to win the league, so I’m hoping for similar results this go around.  Everyone in the league had tried out for the MLB Fan Cave.  There was a nice mix of people from Cave Dwellers Benjamin Christensen, Ricardo Marquez, Lindsay Guentzel, and Ricky Mast, to top 50/30 participants and a few that unfortunately didn’t crack the top 50.  There are three members of the Three Up, Three Down podcast in the league; myself, Jeremy Dorn, and Kurt Peter.  Kurt and Jeremy unfortunately had to miss the auction and were sent to auto-bid purgatory.

My plan?  Identify players that I didn’t and try and make other people spend their money, especially with two Yankees fans in the league.  I wanted to make them overspend while they still had money ($260 budget) and take it off the table.  It worked to a degree, I threw out Michael Pineda, Curtis Granderson, and CC Sabathia in the first three rounds and all were eaten up above the projected price for them.  I also took the ESPN Dollar Value machine for a spin that can be found at espn.com/dollarvalues (Warning: Insider account needed).  While it’s more for roto leagues projecting values with the ESPN stat projections for players, I found it a useful tool to find players for this league that also counted OBP, SLG, L, and BB along with the normal categories.  With the addition of L and BB’s the tool narrowed greatly the usefulness of SP in this format and you can see from the draft that I went heavy on hitting.

Here’s my hitting lineup:

C-Joe Mauer, $17

1B-Prince Fielder, $41

2B-Dustin Pedroia, $35

3B-Pablo Sandoval, $22

SS-Stephen Drew, $1

OF- Ryan Braun, $49

OF-Andrew McCutchen, $27

OF-Lance Berkman, $14

Util-Michael Cuddyer-$15

Util-Jason Kubel-$1

Bench-Delmon Young $1

Look at that offense.  I spent a lot of money on it and if it’s not the best offense I’ve ever had in a fantasy league, then it’s damn close.  I grabbed Mauer and Cuddyer for my co-manager and Twins fan extraordinaire Lindsay Guentzel.  (Look I found another way to wish you Happy Birthday!)  However, both still presented value according to my chart.  Cuddyer is projected to return $20 of value in this format and gives my flexibility to move Pedroia if I need to for pitching help later in the season and slide Cuddyer over to 2B.  This league also devalaued speed players like Dee Gordon and Elvis Andrus who went for way more than I was told.  Plus, there are two Brewers fans in case I need to one day deal Ryan Braun.

Now for the pitchers:

SP-Matt Moore, $15

SP-Ubaldo Jimenez, $2

RP-Brian Wilson, $9

RP-Matt Capps, $1

P-Javy Guerra, $1

P-Brett Myers, $1

P-Vinnie Pestano, $1

Bench-Anibal Sanchez, $3

Bench-Johnny Cueto, $1

Bench-Huroki Kuroda, $1

Bench-Bud Norris, $1

Bench-Jair Jurrjens, $1

To have spent only $37 of a $260 cap on pitching and come out with a pitching staff like that is pretty solid I think.  There are still a few guys on free agents that could also bolster this pitching staff.  After swearing never to own Jimenez after he single-handedly cost me a league last year, I rolled the dice when my funds were limited at $2.  It’s always easier to find pitching on the waiver wire than hitting, plus I hope that Matt Moore can be the stud everyone says he will be.  Finally, I also succeeded in my tried and true closer strategy;  get one big name closer and fill in with as many of the lower-tier closers as you can to rack up the saves.  Capps, Myers, Guerra, and Pestano all fit the bill there.  Myers is also a sneaky play with his SP eligbility and opportunity for saves, albeit not many with the Astros.

The real take away from the auction?  They are a blast.  Almost everyone in the league was trying a baseball auction for the first time and everyone came out of it thinking it was fun.  It’s a lot more intricate than just picking a player and sitting around for it to come back to you.  You have a chance at EVERY player.  Just ask my opponent that spent 58% of his money on Albert Pujols, Robinson Cano, and Jose Reyes.  Could you do that in a snake draft?  I think not. .  Love my team?  Hate my team?  Leave a comment.  Good luck and happy drafting.

-Bryan Mapes

Written by brmapes Posted in Uncategorized Tagged with Auction, Fantasy Baseball