Some Final (Final) Thoughts

I had intended to start writing about regular season doings this week. But since so many readers mentioned that they were still having auctions as late as tomorrow, I thought I'd continue to write about this years auctions before shifting gears next week.

Looking at the early landscape, one piece of advice I can give that I haven't imparted yet is don't forget your roster.

It's well and good to read everything I've written this winter about theory and simply buy your team using these tactics alone. However, you must know your league and, more importantly, your team, before sallying forward.

In looking back and reviewing the best and worst auctions in my league, the teams that had the most success are the ones that, in my opinion, didn't just buy value (which is important) but also bought a team (which, in the end, is most important).

One owner is already trolling the league for stolen bases. The Patton software projects him with 49 SB, which puts him pretty far behind the next three teams in steals. My advice to him (repeatedly) has been to dump steals. Yet he's trying hard to make a deal.

This owner had a decent, if not great, value auction. He overpaid a little for Troy Glaus and a lot for Erick Aybar but otherwise bought a team that should put him in contention this year. But the time to get steals was in the auction. Instead of a $38 David Ortiz, he would have been better off with a $39 Ichiro Suzuki. Even if Ichiro's owner had pushed Suzuki to $40, saying $41 might not have been a bad idea. I don't like Suzuki at that price but, if you're adamant about playing eight categories, you're better off overpaying a little in the auction rather than overpaying a lot in trade. Now this owner's shopping Ortiz and Mark Teixeira and he will get back 75 cents on the dollar because the league can smell his desperation.

Don't let theory overwhelm the fact that you need to build a team. Another team in my league bought A-Rod at $42, Crawford at $50 and K-Rod at $40. While none of these players are necessarily overpriced, this owner didn't have the freeze list (or the dumps) to support this kind of high-end spending. His end game was good, but not good enough to mask the holes in his team.

This works the other way, too. Individual buys I might not necessarily like look better in the context of a team. One of the favorites in our league didn't improve his team a lot, but kept himself strong with Michael Young and Travis Hafner at $33 apiece. No, these aren't great buys, but he bought the stats he needs to balance his team. He bought Mike Macdougal at $6 as well. In a vacuum, that's a high price. In context, as the owner of Bobby Jenks, it's a good play.

Remember all of this before you buy your team tomorrow. Don't throw away all your value in the auction, but don't be afraid to go a couple of bucks higher on a guy if you need the stats or if you have a strong freeze list and can either buy the best player on the board a few ticks higher than par or can make your opponents overpay, either for the best guy or, better yet, the second best guy.

Good luck, to both those of you buying players tomorrow and to those who have already gone into and come out of the trenches. I'll keep trying to help this year through this forum.