Fantasy Baseball Auction Draft
Swag-Diamond Fantasy Baseball Auction Draft Recap and Analysis
7- Edwin Encarnacion, Tor 1B $41 Encarnacion was one of my main targets in this auction. Starting only 3 Outfielders and adding a Corner-Infielder spot makes Encarnacion a nice option instead of blowing your entire budget on Mike Trout ($57) or Andrew McCutchen (who went to @naapsterman for only $45). I was in on McCutchen, but once it went to 45 I backed off. Encarnacion ended up going for the same as Chris Davis and $5 dollars cheaper than Paul Goldschmidt.
15- Troy Tulowitzki, Col SS $31 Obviously I am gambling on health with Tulowitzki, but who aren’t you gambling with health when it comes to the top Short Stops. Hanley Ramirez ($38) isn’t exactly Super Man and Jose Reyes (only $19 to Ryan Forbes who had a great auction) is, well Jose Reyes. I had Tulow as a $30 player so one extra wasn’t a huge deal.
45 Jose Bautista, Tor OF $24 Bautista was my biggest target in this auction. In 5 x 5 with OB% instead of BA% he can be huge. I was hoping to get him for $22 and went to $24 which was one below my $25 dollar rating.
54 Justin Upton, Atl OF $7 All I can say is everyone fell asleep on this one. I only threw out a $7 bid because there didn’t look to be to much action and I didn’t exactly want him, but I wouldn’t mind making someone else pay for him. By getting him for only $7 dollars it opened me up to spend a little more at other spots.
57 Justin Verlander, Det SP $21 Verlander was my #4 Starting Pitcher before the injuries to Darvish and Kershaw and now he is a much tighter 3B. His price was scoffed at a bit, but then Strasburg went for $33 and Scherzer, Wainwright and Sale all went for $26, Verlander’s price didn’t look all that bad.
89 Mike Moustakas, KC 3B $9 Oh boy did I get caught with my hand in the cookie jar on this one. I was hoping some of my fellow owners would be bidding him up on the account of his strong spring and of course when I thought someone would go to $10 they stuck me with him for $9. Moustakas was a $5 player in my ratings and I almost doubled that up.
90 Wilin Rosario, Col C $19 Rosario is a target of mine everywhere. I overpaid for him here, but when I looked at the Catchers that were available after he was put up, there was no one that could come close to what he brings. He ended up costing the same as Joe Mauer and was 6 and 5 dollars less than Santana and Posey, respectively.
94 Jered Weaver, LAA SP $12 Another one where I got caught bidding up. I was hoping some people would be desperate for starting pitching and paying for past performance, but $12 was not a bad price for Weaver. FantasyPros actually has him rated for $12 and I have him as a $10 SP in Mixed Leagues so I’m not too upset.
104 J.J. Hardy, Bal SS $9 I needed a middle infielder with some pop and Hardy was the guy. His BA% doesn’t matter here and his counting numbers are nice for the MI spot. I still over paid (by at least 3-4 dollars) in a mixed league setting, but I didn’t like what was left on the board.
126 Alex Gordon, KC OF $12 Huge OB% advantage and I get him at a discount?! I don’t know why people are sleeping on Gordon this year, but I’m not concerned as I picked him up everywhere. I got a $8 discount according to FantasyPros and he was $8 cheaper than Hunter Pence who is a very similar player.
143 Trevor Rosenthal, StL RP $16 We need to start two relief pitchers and Rosenthal was the last of my upper-tier closers left. I spent a little more than I wanted (I have him at $12) but I had extra money to spend.
146 R.A. Dickey, Tor SP $6 R.A. could be one of those injury bounce back players, but I only wanted him at the right price with his high WHIP so $6 was perfect.
147 Pablo Sandoval, SF 3B $8 Moustakas was not going to be the thirdbaseman I was going to bank on and Sandoval was a nice back-up/starter plan for around the same price. I wanted to only spend $7 on him, but $8 wasn’t out of the question.
165 Andrew Cashner, SD SP $8 Cashner was a big target for me. (no pun intended with his height) With Wins not being a category Cashner is equal to a lot of the bigger name pitchers available and he can always work on getting his K-rate up.
166 Sergio Romo, SF RP $6 Not bad for my 2nd RP. I had Romo as an $8 closer and again I get some value. He’s in my top ten so there’s that as well.
183 Christian Yelich, Mia OF $3 Yelich is a player who i hope gets off to a fast start. He’s a bit of a post-hype sleeper because he was last year’s version of George Springer. A guy with power and speed who could be a huge fantasy player in the future. I’m not confident that future is now, but if he starts fast the $3 investment could pay dividends in a trade.
196 Danny Salazar, Cle SP $8 Salazar was a must because I needed to add K’s after getting Weaver and Cashner. Salazar has top of the rotation strike-out stuff, but I think people are over-paying in redraft leagues. $8 is not bad and is actually below where i had him rated.
200 Austin Jackson, Det OF $4 Huge discount alert. Some people were running out of money and I picked up a steal in Jackson at $4. FantasyPros has him rated at $16 and I have him just below that at $15. So excited about this buy.
203 Clay Buchholz, Bos SP $3 With a DL spot available he is definitely worth the gamble. When healthy he is top of the rotation stuff and when he’s hurt he’s on the DL. I recently heard Eno Sarris say the very same thing and it’s always good to have someone reassure you. Cueto went for $6 and he’s the same injury gamble. Great when healthy and when he’s hurt you DL him.
209 Marco Estrada, Mil SP $3 I really like the Strike out upside and I didn’t want to overpay for him in a room of experts. $3 was perfect for me as I had him rated as a $6 SP.
213 Brian Dozier, Min 2B $5 Bit of an overpay here, but I needed him because I had missed out out Gyorko to TraderX for $16. I couldn’t go that high and now Dozier was my position punt. Not that bad a punt though with his ability to go 20/15.
222 Adam Eaton, CWS OF $3 This late in the auction strategy came to the forefront. I knew some of my other friends in the league wanted Eaton and their max bid left was $3, so I threw out an opening bid of $3 dollars on an outfielder that people want and they were stuck letting him go to me. If he doesn’t end up in my starters maybe I can package him for a new 2B option.
256 Taijuan Walker*, Sea SP $2 I had $2 left and I had a DL spot to use so Taijuan Walker was a nice lottery ticket to get this late. I would much rather have him sitting on my DL then spend $2 on Danny Haren or any other former decent fantasy pitcher.
The Worst Over Pays
Ben Zobrist for $25 – that was just crazy because his number have been declining for the last few years and you can’t pay a premium just on flexibility.
Yu Darvish for $36 – It’s never a good strategy to over pay for a stud Starting Pitcher and this case was no different. His neck issues aside this was at least $8 too much for me.
Billy Hamilton for $21 – I know the hype train is in full effect, but this is still a ONE-Category guy that should not be going in the same price range as Matt Holiday or Alex Rios.
Bryce Harper and Steven Strasburg for a combine $72 – I don’t mean to pick on my good buddy Ricky Sanders here, but these were two overpays for me. Sometimes you get caught up in the auction with your eyes focused on your targets and you blow your budget because of it. It caught up to him at the end of the draft as his depth took a hit.
The Best Buys
Nolan Arenado for $1 – One dollar price tag was a little soul crushing for me as I paid a combined $17 for Panda and Moustakas. I really like Arenado this year and I would have been a lot happier if I went Panda and Arenado and saved the Moustakas money to get Gyorko at 2B.
Austin Jackson for $4 – This guy score a ton of runs and he will steal bases. His OB% is not ideal for an OB% league, but he is still worth at least 4x the cost. I won’t even count the Upton buy because there was a lot of chatter in the message box when that was going on. Distracted everyone.
Hisashi Iwakuma for $8 – Renee Miller picked up a nice injury steal here by getting the excellent Iwakuma for below market value. I have Iwakuma as a $15 pitcher and would have loved to get him, but Renee made a great buy.
Aroldis Chapman for $5 – This was a really smart buy considering he will still pitch for at least 17 weeks of the season. He cost the same as Booby Parnell who could lose his job the first month of the season.
Julio Teheran was every experts’ pick to be the next big thing coming out of spring training. While Matt Harvey and Shelby Miller have performed like fantasy studs to start the year Teheran has slowly built up a little steam. He showed poor command and little fantasy value as he started the year cold. He started the year with a whimper as he shelled by the lowly Cubs. He was able to escape without a loss thanks to the Upton brothers and Carlos Marmol, but his next few starts were not much better. He has slowly worked his way back to fantasy relevance ever since. His 9.00 ERA has come down to 3.99 and his record is a respectable 3-1. His 5.4/9 K rate and 1.35 WHIP show that he is not yet a fantasy star as many predicted, but if his current form continues he could be a nice pitcher to have on your roster (especially when he faces the offensively-challenged Mets and Marlins within the division).
I refuse to be the next guy to drop a future fantasy MVP before the season even heats up. I saw my friend desperately try to make up for his big mistake, eventually trading for Holmes a few years later just so he could put that miss-step behind him. I will place Josh Hamilton and B.J. Upton right where they belong, sitting next to each other on my bench while I weather the storm with the Jason Kubel’s and Dominic Brown’s of the world. Just because your guys go through a cold streak or are at the top of Yahoo’s most dropped charts doesn’t mean you have to panic. Just try to be patient and think of Priest Holmes running into the end zone for someone else’s team.