I was invited into the Memorial Magazine MLB 12-team auction league. This is an “expert” league run on the CBSSports.com platform. The league was full of sharks, including CBS Sports’ own Adam Aizer, Chris Towers, George Maselli, Heath Cummings, Jeff Tobin and Scott White, Roto Experts’ Chris Mitchell, Paul Marvin from Lenny Melnick Fantasy Sports, Tim McLeod and Phil Ponebshek from Patton & Co., and regular guy Matt Kleckner.
Obviously, I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. Interestingly, the auction site allowed me to choose a pair of different projections from two different experts, Heath Cummings and Scott White. Yes, the same two in my league.
Preparing for any auction, expert or otherwise, is the same. However, whereas you can count on mistakes during friends and family leagues, and even some miscues in an NFBC league, mistakes are uncommon in expert leagues. Moreover, just buying the best available player is going to put me somewhere in the middle by season’s end. This isn’t a money league, so finishing 12th really isn’t any worse than finishing second. So, I figured that I would go for it and try something a bit more drastic than perhaps I would have done in a money league that pays three places.
Understanding that this was a mixed 12-team league, I figured that stars and scrubs was the way to go. We choose 450 players in the Main Event of the NFBC. Here we were auctioning off just 276. This meant that there would be good quality even if I ended up with a number of $1 players. Oh, and I did. Eleven in all.
I also decided to try to force speed, hoping to end up with both Jose Altuve and Trea Turner, and then throw out speed at every opportunity. Ideally, I needed both to be thrown out before my turn to throw out the first player, which if all went as expected, would be Billy Hamilton. My slot was 9th. My goal after getting both Altuve and Turner was to follow up with an ace and a couple of pure power hitters. I knew that I would have to overpay for this to work, but I didn’t know just how much I was going to have to overpay.
Mike Trout was the first player auctioned, going for $60. This was at least 20% over what I had expected. This set the bar and overbidding was the rule for the first 30 players. Altuve was nominated second (yes!), and I went all the way to $55 (I know, too much, but go big or go home). Shortly thereafter, Turner was up for auction, and I overpaid to the tune of $51 to get him. Yes, I had overpaid dearly, but I had my desired middle infielder. Now, I had to see if the inflation would follow and if I could then take advantage of the anticipated lull after the initial spending spree.
I threw out speed, and speed was expensive. One-trick pony Billy Hamilton went for $24, Dee Gordon went for $33, and Tommy Pham went for $27. High-end talent was even more expensive, with 15 hitters going for $36+ (Trout, Altuve, Turner, Bryce Harper $48, Mookie Betts $48, Giancarlo Stanton $46, Nolan Arenado $46, Charlie Blackman $44, Kris Bryant $40, Aaron Judge $38, JD Martinez $38, Manny Machado $37, Carlos Correa $37, Gary Sanchez $36, and Paul Goldschmidt $36). The expected inflation came to fruition.
I picked up my ace, Madison Baumgarner for $33 (about the expected price as Kershaw went for $47, Scherzer went for $43, and Kluber and Sale went for $40 each.) I also bought Francisco Lindor for $34, and secured targets Nelson Cruz ($19) and Khris Davis ($18) relatively reasonably. This gave me four top 30 players and another two in the next 30. All was good at that point.
Of course, money was scarce, and when I chose to spend, I did so on hitters, picking up Joey Gallo for $13 and Rafael Devers for $12.
Pitching? Who needs pitching? Obviously, I do. Having already spent $202 of my $260 budget on just 7 offensive players, I was going to have to scrape the bottom for pitching. While I had expected to emphasize hitting, I had not expectation that I would do so at the almost complete expense of pitching.
Pitching is a 12-team league is much easier to find, and closers are much, much cheaper than they would be in a deeper league.
In fantasy football, there’s been some talk about drafting a team’s kicker as opposed to individual kickers. I took that same approach with closers. I paid $1 for Brad Brach and another $1 for Zach Britton. I now likely had 95% of Baltimore’s saves. I did the same thing with the White Sox, paying $1 for Joakim Soria and picking up Juan Minaya in the reserve round, giving me an excellent shot at Chicago’s saves as well. Add in Addison Reed and Brad Boxberger in the reserve round, and I might actually finish in the middle of the pack for saves having spent just $3. For perspective, Fernando Rodney went for $4.
While most everything went well, I am woefully weak at starting pitching. In addition to Baumgarner, I have Marcus Stroman ($5), Garrett Richards ($3), and the following free or $1 pitchers: Alex Cobb, Lance Lynn, Kenta Maeda, Miles Mikolas and Michael Wacha. Yes, it’s ugly. I ended up with a disfavored 82% hitting, 18% pitching split of my $260 budget.
Would I adopt this type of approach in an NFBC league? In a league where I was confident that I was more prepared than the other owners? In a league that paid three places? Naturally not. However, under the circumstances of this league, looking at the talent among the bidders and understanding that the best available talent doesn’t often equate to the best team, I was willing to roll the proverbial dice.
I’ll update the progress, or lack thereof, of this team periodically. I’m cautiously optimistic that with the offense I have accumulated, and with a bit on luck on the mound, this team will compete.
Best of luck,
Buster
