LABR FAAB Report: Week of June 25

Welcome to this week’s LABR FAAB report.

The American League only and National League only formats are 12-team contests using standard 5×5 scoring rules. There’s an old-school flavor as players purchased in the auction cannot be freely bounced from the active to reserve roster. A player purchased in the auction can be placed on the disabled list if he’s on the MLB DL. However, he can’t be reserved then replaced by a player won with FAAB; he must be released. A auction-purchased player may also moved to reserves if subsequently sent down to the minors.

The 15-team Mixed LABR league allows free movement between active and six-man reserve.

In all three leagues, a player acquired via FAAB must be immediately inserted into the team’s active lineup. Each LABR squad starts with 100 FAAB units, with a minimum bid of $1. Owners can ask for a FAAB rebate upon releasing a player on the DL.

Each week’s report will display the winning bids along with listing all contingency and failed bids so you get a feel for the level of interest in each player. After the tables showing the successful and unsuccessful bids, Lawr Michaels, Brian Walton and yours truly will offer commentary for our respective leagues. I’ll share additional thoughts for each league. The heading for each league doubles as a publicly accessible link so you can check the standings, roster and complete list of transactions.

AMERICAN LEAGUE

SUCCESSFUL BIDS

UNAWARDED BIDS

Lawr Michaels Commentary

Though this week’s AL LABR trannies might seem ho-hum in that there were only six players who found a new home, four of those six players generated multiple bids meaning the waiver pool might be thin, but all the owners have their eyes upon who is available.

Only one player–Oakland’s reliever Lou Trivino–generated a bid over a buck, and that bid was lodged by RotoWire league leader Clay Link who dropped $6 when $2 would have done it.

In fact every other bid this week was for a buck, and the object of desire was saves with Tim Hill and Cam Bedrosian finding new LABR pens in what was indeed otherwise a ho-hum week.

As for me, I am down to $8 in FAAB, still bouncing around last place with the likes of RotoLady Andrea Lamont, trying to figure out how to just move up a couple of slots with five players still on the DL and that is a low number for the season.

Todd’s Take

NATIONAL LEAGUE

SUCCESSFUL BIDS

UNAWARDED BIDS

Brian Walton’s Commentary

Relievers were king this week in National League LABR. Unlike in Tout Wars, where new Nationals reliever Kelvin Herrera went for more than new Giants closer Sam Dyson, here the latter topped the spend at $9. Derek Carty won the spirited bidding, which included five owners. Herrera joined my roster for $5.

In between the two relievers in price, new Brewers infielder Brad Miller fetched $7, also paid by Carty. In an odd move, Miller had been DFAed by Tampa Bay earlier in the month and was acquired by Milwaukee in trade. Unless Orlando Arcia picks up his offense, Miller could steal increasing amounts of his playing time at second base for the first-place Brew Crew.

Colton and the Wolfman added a pair of hurlers for $3 each. Former Cardinals closer Greg Holland is back from the minors and in a very small sample, looks better. Earlier, in the depth of his struggles, I had given up on the 2017 NL co-saves leader, who was supplanted in St. Louis by Bud Norris.

The duo’s other addition is Miami starter Trevor Richards. The 23-year old impressed last time out, fanning eight in six one-run innings at Coors Field, but in his prior start, he was bombed for six runs in 3 1/3 innings in Baltimore. As a reminder, pitcher streaming is not allowed in LABR.

Todd’s Take

MIXED

SUCCESSFUL BIDS

UNAWARDED BIDS

Todd’s Commentary

We’re not even halfway through the season and only $494 of the initial $1500 total FAAB budget is left to spend so don’t expect many double digit bids the rest of the season. Stephania Bell from ESPN has the most with 64 units while Jake Ciely from Rotoexperts/FNTSY is already out of FAAB. I’m playing with the one of the lower stacks with $14 remaining.

Fred Zinkie dropped a rare double-bid, spending $10 on Freddy Peralta and his two-start week. The Brewers need someone to provide innings until they (hopefully) are active at the trade deadline, bringing in at least one starter.

Mike Podhorzer hopes the recent string of saves procured by Sergio Romo is a sign he’s transitioned back to closer after spending time as one of Tampa’s proverbial openers.

Speaking of openers, it looks like Wilmer Font has earned the right to not only open, but work as deep as he can, tossing 5.2 scoreless frames against the Yankees over the weekend, His move back to the third-base side of the rubber is being credited with his overall improvement.

Todd’s Take

ARGH! I should know better, but here’s my too frequent reminder to know your commissioner services quirk inside and out.  I put Brandon Morrow on the DL, moving David Robertson (temporarily, or so I hoped)  onto the active roster. This left me with five reserves. I put two bid groups together, not attaching a drop to the first, then adding one to the second group to clear a spot.

What I forgot is depending on how the site processes, if it does the one with the drop first, it won’t drop the player since it doesn’t need to with the open reserve. Then, when it gets to the bid without a drop, it doesn’t process since there would now be too many reserves.

I’ve had this happen enough to know to add the drop to both so whichever gets processed second will have a drop. My snafu cost Steve Cishek, a possible replacement for Morrow in terms of saves. Oh well.

Please follow me on Twitter @ToddZola and visit me at Mastersball.