Redraft League Auction

On Saturday April 3rd, my fourteen team mixed league had its auction. This is possibly my favorite day of the year (and that does not even count the fact that the auction is followed by the Final Four. 12 hours of heaven). I like this auction more than my keeper league auction for a few reason. First, in the keeper league everyone pretty much has half of their rosters filled already, so it only lasts half as long. Second, I only really know a few guys in the keeper league. In this league, I've been playing with these guys for a long time now, there is a lot of pride and bragging rights on the line. Now that I set the record last year for most points in a season (129) and largest margin of victory (23), I have a ton of bragging rights and more importantly, I have a title to defend. Every chance I got I reminded everyone who won the title last year. Gracefully, of course.

For the first time every I executed my auction strategy pretty much to a tee. Usually in an auction atmosphere, all it takes is one guy in the room to like the same guy as much as you do and the bidding can get out of control. Once this happens you either wind up overpaying for one of "your guys" or you let the other guy overpay and you are left there needing to regroup and re-prioritize. Every year I prepare for an auction by making an ideal team, guessing that X player will go for Y value. This is an impossible endeavor as it is not realistic to say how thirteen other people are going to value every player. Nonetheless, I try. So I put together my "dream team" and then make plan b's, c's, and d's. Then as the auction goes on, in the dynamic environment that it is, I just roll with the punches and adjust and re-adjust as the market is established.

But this year? Different store. I somehow nailed almost every player value within a few bucks. It was uncanny. For instance, on my dream team, I had Aramis Ramirez and Kevin Youkilis for $19 and $30, respectively. Within ten minutes after the auction started, I owned both of these players for $19 and $30. This continued for most of the day. There were two instances where this did not happen and they were huge in terms of shaping my team.

First, I had my eye on Carlos Lee as I do every year. I'm a huge fan of consistency and reliability and that is what El Cabayo brings to the table. I know he is not going to hit 35-40 homers anymore, or steal 10 bases for that matter. But he is as solid as a .300-25-100 as there is. And that has a lot of value in my eyes. Let everyone else chase the shiny new objects (I'm looking at you, Jason Heyward). Anyway, the other thing I love is guys with 20 homer/20 steals pedigrees. I like to have as many guys as possible who can fill up the stat sheet on any given night as opposed to specialists, whether it is a 40 homer masher (at the expense of batting average i.e Carlos Pena) or a 60 stolen base thief (at the expense of power and/or average i.e. Michael Bourn). With that said, I need a little variety, and that is where Carlos Lee came in - I wanted to add him to an OF corps of Nelson Cruz (30 hr 20 sb 2009), Shane Victorino (10/30), Andrew McCutchen (10/20 in little more than half a season), and Denard Span (10/30). I decided on a hard cap of $25 on Carlos. He went for exactly $25 and it was not to me. So immediately I had to decide how to re-allocate that budgeted money. I wound up getting Bobby Abreu, another 15/25 type for $15. This means I will probably be a little light on power (but now better on speed). This led me to say I now need to pay what it takes for Adam LaRoche - one of "my guys" who I had pegged for around $10. I wound up getting him for $16 in order to assure me some more pop. Not the worst thing, I have no problem drafting for value and then trading for needs down the road.

The second curve ball was spending a few bucks over budget here and there - and before I knew it it added up and I was priced out of the closer market. I planned on spending about $15 on two closers. Early on I bid $11 Joakim Soria - half price enforcing, half thinking that was great value - and I the bidding stopped there. So now I need to find a sub-$5 closer. Didn't happen - I walked out of the draft with only one closer, albeit a stud one. So now I am left to play waiver wire closer roulette all year until I find another closer. The good news is that a ton of saves come into the league every year due to injury and job losses. I just hope I can find one before I am too far out of the saves derby.

So here's the squad:

Kelly Shoppach $1 - whatever, don't care about catchers
Kevin Youkilis $30 - .300/30/100 in the bank
Aramis Ramirez $19 - a $30 player when healthy
Adam LaRoche $16 - little pricey but I think he earns it, love his shot at 30/100 in the new digs
Brandon Phillips $28 - 25/25 in the bank out of my 2B? Yes please.
Erick Aybar $5 - love this guy - gonna contribute a quiet .285/25 steals/100 runs
Kelly Johnson $3 - my sleeper special, gonna go 15/10 as people say "really?". Really.
Nelson Cruz $28 - a straight up monster - has 40/30 upside
Andrew McCutchen $19 - 20/40 upside - serious mancrush here
Shane Victorino $15 - ho hum, .290/10/30/100+
Denard Span $15 - ho hum part 2, .290/10/30/100+
Bobby Abreu $15 - just hope this isn't the year he stops, need .290/15/25/100/100
Martin Prado $5 - my reserve guy who could fall out of bed and hit .300 and plays 1b/2b/3b

Cole Hamels $16 - an ace at a tier 3 price, I love when people focus on last year's stats only
Brett Anderson $13 - gonna go for $25+ next year
Scott Baker $9 - love that people refuse to buy into this guy, he's cash money in cleats
Kevin Slowey $5 - similar to Baker, a control freak with decent enough K/9 numbers
Hiroki Kuroda $3 - love
Ian Kennedy $1 - out of the Bronx and into the NL, this kid's gonna be special
Brett Myers $1 - my fantasy kryptonite, there is a fantasy ace somewhere in this guy
Jason Hammel $1 - underrated solid numbers last year, underrated money #'s away from Coors
Brandon League $2 - here's hoping Aardsma blows it and I'll have my 2nd closer, or.....
Joakim Soria $11 - here's hoping he breaks the saves record

All in all, I think this might be the best draft I've ever had in any fantasy sport. Imagine if I got a 2nd closer, then I'd really be in business. I'll need to acquire saves and probably some power in-season, but that shouldn't be an issue, especially since I'll have some speed and possibly even SP depth to trade from.

Can you say 'Repeat'? How 'bout 'Dynasty'? Get use to it.

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