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.
SUCCESSFUL BIDS
| PLAYER | WINNING BID | |||
| Tyler Glasnow, TB | SiriusXM 7 | Baseball HQ 3 | ||
| Dylan Bundy, BAL | Baseball HQ 3 | Colton & The Wolfman 1 | ||
| Jose Fernandez, LAA | Colton & The Wolfman 1 | SiriusXM 1 | ||
| Daniel Norris, DET | Colton & The Wolfman 1 |
UNAWARDED BIDS
| PLAYER | ||||
| Ryan Borucki, TOR | Baseball HQ 1 | |||
| Nick Vincent, SEA | SiriusXM 1 | |||
| Jeanmar Gomez, CWS | SiriusXM 1 |
Lawr Michaels’ Commentary
If “location, location, location” is the keyword for LABR free agent moves, the mound is indeed where that location lives as we go into the final season throes of moves.
The top team driven by Rick Wolf and Glenn Colton went for a pair of starters, one of whom was a pre-season curiosity in Daniel Norris. And, Dave Adler and Ray Flowers simply did their best to improve the situation by nabbing a pair of name starters who went on draft day, Tyler Glasnow and and Dylan Bundy.
Oddly the prospect with the seasonal upside–that would be Glasnow, who was a reserve pick in LABR NL on draft day–fetched a larger amount than did Bundy, ensconced in the Orioles rotation.
Such are the strange late season machinations that roto owners encounter and ideally hurdle trying to climb to the top of the standings.
Todd’s Take
Tyler Glasnow is like the little girl with the curl. SiriusXM’s Ray Flowers is hoping for the good version, something we’ve seen more often than not. However, his September 5 outing against the Jays where he allowed seven runs in two-thirds of an innings reminds us when he’s bad, he’s horrid.
Dave Adler from BaseballHQ has a fighting chance to finish in second. The joke may be second place is first loser, but trust me, being first loser is still better than second loser, third loser, etc. Lately, Bundy has been piling up the whiffs, but in between he’s been generous with the long ball.
SUCCESSFUL BIDS
| PLAYER | WINNING BID | |||
| Joe Ross, WSH | Baseball Prospectus 3 | |||
| Yoshihisa Hirano, ARI | ESPN – Karabell 2 | |||
| Terrance Gore, CHC | Baseball Prospectus 1 |
UNAWARDED BIDS
| PLAYER | ||||
| Cody Reed, CIN | Baseball Prospectus 1 |
Brian Walton’s Commentary
Coming into the weekend, five of the National League LABR owners had already exhausted their $100 FAAB for the season. With zero-dollar bids not allowed, they could not purchase free agents.
Only three players were acquired this week and all three winning bids were uncontested.
A sixth owner has joined the $0 balance group, as ESPN’s Eric Karabell spent his last $2 on Arizona reliever Yoshihisa Hirano. The right-hander went 2-for-3 in save opportunities this past week as the apparent head of the committee replacing deposed closer Brad Boxberger.
The top dollar player is starting pitcher Joe Ross, acquired for $3 by Zach Steinhorn of Baseball Prospectus. After 45 starts for the Nationals over the prior three years, the right-hander made just his second big-league appearance of the season on Thursday, holding the Cubs to two runs over five innings. Ross is slated to remain in the Nats rotation for the final two weeks of the season.
Steinhorn also added outfielder Terrance Gore of the Cubs for $1. The former Royals speedster offers a great pinch-running option off manager Joe Maddon’s bench, but other than a few of steals and runs scored, Gore may not contribute much. Then again, second-place Steinhorn is just 4.5 points out of a share of the league lead and stolen bases is a category in which he has maybe two points of upside. He already leads in runs scored.
Todd’s Take
Gore has one of the more amusing career stat lines. He’s slashing .071/.235/.071 in 57 games. Over that span, he has 17 plate appearances… and 26 steals.
SUCCESSFUL BIDS
| PLAYER | WINNING BID | |||
| Adam Frazier, PIT | RotoWire – DVR 1 | |||
| Adam Engel, CWS | Yahoo Sports 1 | |||
| Victor Caratini, CHC | Yahoo Sports 1 |
UNAWARDED BIDS
| PLAYER | ||||
| Billy McKinney, TOR | RotoWire – DVR 1 |
Todd Zola’s Commentary
Given that I’m also guilty as charged, there’s no excuse for me and my Mixed League brethren to have ignored Adam Frazier for this long. Kudos to DVR for recognizing what Frazier has done since the break, shame on the rest of us. After getting nearly regular playing starting on July 24, all Frazier has done is slash .324/.371/.547.
The other two acquisitions were courtesy of Scott Pianowski. Back in February, Scott tried to crash the Internet by drafting hitters with his first 11 picks before picking his first pitcher, Andrew Miller. Pianow took a lot of stuff for this ploy. I wonder how many will recant their criticism seeing as though Scott is currently in third, though there are three other teams vying for that spot. Still, while Scott won’t win, he ‘s going to finish higher than at least two-thirds of the league. Not bad.
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