I really like how the auction draft for my fantasy team, the Savvy Vets, turned out, although it veered way off script from the very beginning. I was able to recover late in the draft and get almost all of the pitchers I had targeted right about the price I had budgeted. Here's the roster with some commentary. I'm sorry I was too distracted to keep track of the auction prices and that information is now unavailable on Yahoo. I will go ahead and give you prices as closely as I can remember, but they may not be exact and may not add up to $260.
C Matt Wieters $14. It was about midway through the draft. I thought I still had enough money left to bid up to $15 on a catcher. Got Wieters for $14 which I think is good value. Even if his career trajectory plateaus, he's a good source of HR power and he has huge breakout potential.
1B Prince Fielder $30. I did not envision drafting Prince Fielder in any of my scripted scenarios. I was trying to bid up his price and was willing to risk up to $30. I think Prince Fielder at $30 is a good value.
2B Dustin Ackley $6 I wanted Howie Kendrick, but some guy's autodraft bid him up to $20. I'm not wild about Ackley, but I think I'd rather have him at $6 than Kendrick at $20, besides, I couldn't afford to pay $21 for Kendrick at that point.
3B Jose Bautista $45 I think everybody was nervous at the beginning of the draft and were afraid to bid. Miggy Cabrera had gone for $43. There was a group of about 7 players who I was willing to pay up to $50 for. Bautista was one of them. I was mostly trying to bid up his price here, but ended up holding him. BTW, in case you are wondering, Kemp, Tulo and Braun all went for more than $50, so I think I did OK with Bautista.
SS Dee Gordon $10 Wow! This one was totally out of the blue! With Bautista and Fielder as my big guns, I needed steals, and lots of them, from either a middle IF position or OF. There are 3 rabid Dodger fans in my league and they all tend to overvalue steals, so I figured he'd end up way overpriced. I think maybe some bidding fatigue had set in and people were starting to worry about conserving $$ for later in the draft. Whatever the case, I took a flyer at $10 almost on a lark and ended up solving my SB problem with one draft pick. Now I just have to hope his frame will hold up to the physical rigors of MLB.
IF Pablo Sandoval $20. Got Pablo after all and at a very reasonable price.
OF Andrew McCutchen $25. I'm not as wild about McCutchen as some people, but he does have 5 tool stud potential and at worst is as reliable a 20/20 man as you can get.
OF Melky Cabrera $4 We've talked about Melky before. Got him right about the price I expected which I think grossly undervalues him. Let's just hope his bat does not get Giants disease! If not, he should be at least a 15/15 guy with potential for 20/20.
OF Alejandro De Aza $3 De Aza should be the starting CF and leadoff hitter for the White Sox which could give him as much as 700 PA's. If he performs up to his projections, he'll easily be a top 20 OF. At worst, he's a cheap secondary source of steals which I needed more than power at this point.
UT Freddie Freeman $6 Not sure of the exact price here, but it was mid-single digits. Freeman is a very underrated hitter by most fantasy players. Should give at least 20-25 HR's with a solid BA. Maybe not what you want from a 1B, but great from a UT position.
UT David Ortiz $3 Should give me at least 25-30 HR's with 90+ RBI to back up Joey Bats and The Prince. A steal at $3 IMO.
SP Zack Greinke $30. After running through multiple scenario's and reviewing my mock draft results, I decided I could afford one pitcher for up to $30. I targeted Haren and Grienke. The bidding went over $30 for Haren, but I like what I ended up with in Greinke.
SP Madison Bumgarner $15 I budgeted $15 for my #2 starter and targeted Bum, Darvish and Matt Moore. Darvish and Moore probably have more upside, but Bumgarner's upside is not too shabby either and he's much more of a sure thing.
SP Ricky Romero $8 I think so many fantasy sites have proclaimed Romero to be overvalued that he has actually become undervalued. Should help my with W's, ERA and WHIP. K's aren't as bad as some make them out to be.
SP Cory Luebke $6 This is right where I targeted him.
SP Brandon Beachy $6 A little under my target price.
RP Kyle Farnsworth $4 Not the safest closer in the world, but he made it through all last season.
RP Brian Wilson $12. Got into a bidding war with a Dodger fan on this one. Yeah, I overpaid. You know what? I don't care!
RP Joe Nathan $5 Nathan will probably either blow up or get injured, but hey, in my league, you either pay for Saves or you punt the category completely. I tried that once and made up my mind to never do that again.
P Grand Balfour $1 I'm thinking the rest of my league must have missed the memo about Balfour being named the A's closer. Every other semblance of a closer went for >$1.
P Vinnie Pestano $1 I'm thinking there's at least a 50% chance Pestano will be the closer in Cleveland by the time playoffs come around. If not, he certainly doesn't hurt you in non-Save categories.
BN Jordan Zimmerman $4 Zimm as my 6'th starter? Pretty good!
BN Brandon Morrow $4 At worst, gives you lots of K's. Has huge upside in other categories.
BN Ervin Santana $3 IMO, one of the most undervalued pitchers in fantasy baseball.
BN Chris Capuano $3 I might need to replace him before the season is over, but he's a solid source of K's and W's when healthy.
BN Trevor Cahill $1 This was a mistake! I had one slot left to fill and had $5 left. I intended to nominate Francisco Liriano here but somehow clicked on the wrong guy. It was getting late and I think fatigue was setting in or something. We get free adds/drops until opening day. I've already replaced Cahill, who I really don't like at all, with Matt Harrison who I think is very underrated.
I ended up with $4 left over.
I'll be monitoring Henderson Alvarez, Juan Nicasio, Hector Noesi, Carlos Zambrano and Garrett Richards as possible adds once we get into the season. Another sleeper? Alfredo Aceves if he wins a rotation spot in Boston.
Well, that's how it shook out. After reviewing the other rosters in my league, I think I have a strong team. There is only one other team I think is definitely stronger and I think my pitching is better.
What do you think?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Well done. I think you got bargains all the way around on your core, which is quite impressive. Because power won't be a problem you can monitor the speedy OFs - don't know how deep the league is - Ben Revere get drafted? If you have one weakness its OF talent and depth - Cabrera and DeAza are great flyers but not sure things. But due to the 3 boppers in the IF its not as important. At that price Ackley is great.
ReplyDeleteGetting 2 aces is always a good way to start the rotation, Greinke and Madbum will smooth out the ratios and hopefully provide wins. I drafted Wilson as well, we'll just have to hang on. The reports early have been great. I wanted to snag Matt Harrison as well. I think the Texas pitchers are underrated right now as well. I hope Capuano is not a solid source of wins, but now I'm just nitpicking... Great draft!
Thanks for the comments. I had pretty much used up my offensive budget by the time I got to the last 2 OF spots. Yeah, I'm planning to scour the FA market before the season starts to see if maybe a better option slipped through. If not, I'll identify some OF's to monitor for possible adds as we get into the season. I don't think Ben Revere got drafted. He should be a nice source of steals, but I'm more bullish on De Aza and Melky honestly. I don't think Mayberry got drafted either. I could go for total HR dominance and exchange him for Melky. I don't think I really need Melky's steals that much anyway.
DeleteYeah, I'm not feeling so good about Capuano, mostly because he's a Dodger. If it was Kemp or Kershaw that would be one thing, but Capuano as a Dodger doesn't really make me feel good. I'm not dumping Dee Gordon just yet though.
Forgot to add... Nice job on McCutchen! As a big fan, I like that price a lot. Keep your expectations low and look out when that breakout comes.
DeleteI know you love those 5 tool OF's. So do I. Like I told my daughter when she was trash talking about Matt Kemp, Kemp is a great player whose only problem is he plays for the wrong team. I'd give almost anything to have a player like that on the Giants.
DeleteWell, Aceves got shelled today, so scratch THAT idea! On the other hand, get a load of Henderson Alvarez against ATL, 5 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 4 K's.
DeleteMatt Wieters had a huge game, 4 for 4 with a 3 run dinger and 6 Ribeyes. Now, THAT's what I'm talkin' about!
....and Ryan Madson goes under the knife and is out for the season. I had read he was having some arm issues and intentionally avoided him in the fantasy draft. Didn't even put in a bid on him as I didn't want to be stuck with him even at $1.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, should I consider dropping Melky for Mayberry?
ReplyDeleteNope. Your IF is just too damn solid. Keep the low end 5-tool.
DeleteYeah, I looked at it closely today. Mayberry is intriguing, but he has a rather nasty L-R split hitting just .250 against RHP which is about 75% of what he faces as a full time player. Melky, on the other hand, is almost identical numbers vs RHP and LHP's. I'll stick with Melky for now.
DeleteDefinitely keep Melky. At the very least, you know Melky is going to get consistent playing time with the Giants, which you can't really say for Mayberry. Plus, Mayberry hadn't really showed anything at the Major League level until last year, while Melky has showed flashes prior to his breakout in 2011 (2009 is an often forgotten good season for Cabrera).
DeleteThought you had a good draft. I like how you loaded up on offense and then went bargains for pitching. I'm not the biggest Ackley fan out there (great prospect, but still a little unproven; considering how deep second base is, I figure you can get more proven production at that position elsewhere), but at six bucks, I don't think you can complain.
LIke I said, I'm not wild about Ackley either, but it was either him or something else just as unappealing like Kelly Johnson(wildly inconsistent), Aaron Hill(kills the BA), Yunel Escobar(just meh) or Jose Altuve, guys like that. I really thought I could land Kendrick for $12-14 but then this dude's autodraft blew me away with a $20 bid. I got the last laugh though because he showed up at the draft right after that just in time to find himself with something like $26 to spend on his next 17 picks! While I was loading up on undervalued starters and closers, he was twiddling his thumbs waiting for dumpster dive time.
DeleteKipnis was the one 2B who went later and cheaper who might be a better option than Ackley, but he's unproven too.
I think some people might look at De Aza and Melky and say I have a weak OF, but I didn't go for them just because they were cheap. I really think both Melky and De Aza are going to outproduce a whole lot of OF's who were ranked a lot higher and cost a lot more. There were a lot of higher ranked OF's that I could have gotten for about the same price that I passed over to nominate Melky and De Aza because those were the guys I wanted and I wasn't sure anyone else would even nominate them.