Baseball auction recap

Fantasy baseball geekery of the highest order ahead; proceed at your own risk.

On Monday night I had an auction draft for a first year fantasy baseball league. Actually, it isn't my first time playing with these guys. Most of them are friends with my wife from college and I've been playing in their leagues for a few years now. But this was the first time we switched from heads-up scoring to straight Roto, and more importantly, the first time we did an auction instead of a draft. All good things. We also use not just four, or even five, but six categories each for hitting and pitching, adding OPS and holds to the standard 5X5 format.

I didn't come in with one firm plan in mind, because that can often be a road to ruin if your fellow owners don't cooperate. Instead, I thought there were two likely scenarios on how this would go with a bunch of guys that have never participated in a baseball auction before: either people would be gun shy, and there would be great buys early, or they would throw money around like drunken sailors on shore leave during the draft's early moments.

It was mostly the latter.

I had designs on grabbing one of the top three players on my board: Hanley Ramirez, Albert Pujols, or David Wright, and I was prepared to spend $40 of my $260 budget on one. That didn't happen, as each name was thrown out very early and they sold for $42, $45, and $43 respectively. Jose Reyes, Ryan Braun, and Miguel Cabrera quickly joined the $40 club as well, and I bought none of them. Time to adjust the strategy on the fly. I had a master list of top hitters broken up into two tiers. I was immediately shut out of my tier one guys, but many of my stud tier twos remained. I entered the draft planning on getting at least three of them. I proceeded to happily double that.

Who would have guessed that my first purchase would wear the dreaded pinstripes? For $34, come on down, Mark Teixeira. Sure, I hate him, but he is going to rake balls into that short porch in right and he will post elite numbers in five categories. Next up: Astros 1B Lance Berkman for $33, an outright steal at that price compared to what his slugging brethren were fetching. I don't expect steals in the high teens again, but as long as he is mostly healthy he will fill up all six offensive categories nicely. My third acquisition was Dodgers OF Matt Kemp for $26, and that's the last time for a long time that he will be going for sub-$30 in any league. He hits, his power is ticking up, he swipes bags (35 steals last year) and now he will be in a lineup with Manny Ramirez for an entire season. Kemp is also all of 24 years old. Boom.

I grabbed Evan Longoria shortly thereafter, loving his upside at the hot corner for $30. I gritted my teeth and watched my beloved Dustin Pedroia go for the same price. I love Dusty--I mean, he's a Sun Devil and a Red Sock, come on!--but I just couldn't pay the frieght on that. I really hope he proves me wrong. Diamondbacks starter Dan Haren became my first pitcher, and the key to my staff. I planned to load up on cheap pitchers later and did exactly that, but I needed one reliable guy. Haren fit the bill.

Steals are often a tough category to manage, and if you don't come away with them on draft day they can be particularly difficult to acquire, so I had every intention of coming away with a number I thought would put me in the top 3-4 in the league. I did that and then some, grabbing Dreamy Jacoby Ellsbury and soon-to-bounce-back superstar Carl Crawford. Those two alone should tally over 100 combined thefts this year. I grabbed some great cheap speed as well: Rangers rookie Elvis Andrus and Astros' 2B Kaz Matusi should combine for over 50 and they cost me just a buck each.

Everything sounds great so far, right? Not so fast. In the early and mid-early rounds, I kept grabbing offensive studs at reasonable rates. Kevin Youkilis, come on down. Jason Bay with a full season in Fenway? Yes, please! This was all great, but before I knew it, I was down to less than $20 with about 16 spots to fill. In a way, I had hoped that this would become my strategy all along, for a few reasons. First, I was prepared for the "$1 endgame" of the draft, and that worked out as well as I could have hoped, as the only thing close to a $1 reach was my backup catcher--I got both of my backstops for a buck each, in fact. But at the end, there were plenty of players left that I would have been happy to add to my squad, exactly as I thought there would be. I cornered the market on the Red Sox 5th starter slot by grabbing the entire trio of Brad Penny, Clay Buchholz, and John Smoltz for a buck a pop. I'll shelve Smoltz on the DL and maybe stash Clay on my bench for a bit to see how things play out. He has been lights out this spring, and his upside if he grabs a full time rotation spot could be a gigantic difference-maker. Some of my end game $1 pickups that I think will be worth much more than what I paid: Chris Ray, Juan Rivera, Hideki Okajima, and Damaso Marte, to name a few.

I predicted that middle relievers would be undervalued, even with holds as a category, and they were. Does it really take much to figure out that closers have less value than ever when saves are only 1/12th of a team's score? I guess it does, because mediocre closers went for double and triple the prices paid to great middle men. I only have one legit 40 save closer right now, but I plan to play the waiver wire like a harp, stream pitchers on and off my roster all season, and trade some steals for what I need in mid summer.

It will be a fun league and an enjoyable season. My team is not an impregnable juggernaut like I thought it might be, but I certainly have strengths to work from. I'll be in the money, and if things break right, I make timely additions, and I swing a key trade or two I think I could be in position to win the whole thing.