Today, I took my turn and ran the CBS Sportsline NL Expert League for Patton & Co.
Eric Mack at CBS Sportsline.com has given us permission to run the results of the league, but without a look at reserve picks that will occur during the week next week, it really is useless to do a "league in review." What I will do here is what Mike did yesterday: take a look at the Patton & Co. team and the strategy, and highlight a couple of other notable events from the draft.
Catchers: Bengie Molina $9, Carlos Ruiz $5
Both catchers came pretty late in the draft. Molina was by far the best catcher on the board, and I am satisfied to pick him up for $9 at that point. Ruiz at $5 is $4 under par on my sheet, but I might have wanted Ronny Paulino to go higher than the $3 he was drafted at just prior to Ruiz. All in all, the average won't hurt and I could see upward of 25 HR out of this group. I'm pretty satisfied here.
Corner infielders: Albert Pujols $38, Troy Glaus $13, Nomar Garciaparra $3
Pujols was my first pickup during the auction, and I was very happy to get him at $2 under my sheet price. To put Pujols in context, he was the first first-baseman off the board, and the next couple of guys went well beyond the numbers on my sheet. The downside: a couple of bargains did fall in late in the draft because first base is very, very deep; I'll talk more about those bargains tomorrow.
Glaus came at a point when he was the biggest potential bopper on the screen at 3B; seven 3B went before him, and all were at least $5 over value on my sheet. If he is healthy, this could be a very nice play at $13.
Garciaparra is one of those buys that springs up on you. Would I rather have Conor Jackson, James Loney, et al.? Sure. But I couldn't let the room have Nomar for $2, even if there is fear of a trade. I personally think that Andy LaRoche opens the year at AAA or on the bench, and Nomar can earn a profit pretty quickly. Even with 300 AB, I get good value here.
Middle Infield: Yunel Escobar $10, Luis Castillo $8, Khalil Greene $11, Jeff Kent $13
Let me start with Kent because he closed out my utility slot with a lot of good OF and 1B still on the board. The trick to this draft is that no one price enforced...except me. There comes a point in the middle rounds where you make a decision to let a guy go at a bargain price, or you say the heck with it and get the guy. I thought someone would press ahead to $14, but I see Kent as a $4 bargain.
Escobar stalled at $10. While I'm not as high on him as some others, his dual qualification at 2B/SS gave me good flexibility early (he was my first MI). Again, he was about $3 under my sheet price.
Castillo came first player after a break. Frankly, I can't stand Castillo and I won't enjoy owning him (I also despise the Mets). He won't hurt the average and will hopefully steal 20, and he was also $4 under my sheet price. I would have rather had Kelly Johnson or Uggla, but I needed some speed (though in retrospect, I don't think I have enough anyway).
Greene is the guy I consider the steal of the auction for me, and he was the very next player taken after Castillo. I had him at $18 on my sheet, and Eric Mack at CBS was stunned when I got him at $11. I'm not sure what people were waiting on - there wasn't another under par player at SS until Jack Wilson.
Outfield: Aaron Rowand $13, Pat Burrell $17, Andre Ethier $7, Colby Rasmus $7, Ryan Freel $3
Well, the draft was going great until Ethier, Rasmus and Freel, but I'll get to them in a minute.
Rowand was only the second outfielder that went at par or below out of the first 13 or 14. Pierre was the other, and I could kick myself for not getting him now. At $13, I couldn't ignore him, despite my thought that he will downgrade this year. You can't ignore bargains.
Burrell is at par on my sheet. I live in Philadelphia, and all Burrell does is hit 30, knock in 100, score 90-100. I can eat the average, because this team is a decent average team.
Ethier was at $4 on my sheet, though a lot of people thought I had him too low. Given the Sportsline room, guys like Ethier tend to go high, and I thought someone would say $8. If he gets 350-400 AB, this could be a wonderful play. If he doesn't, I'll get some production, but given the bargains that came late, I'll regret this.
Rasmus is similar, though I am happier with this pick. I think he will make the team out of spring training, and, like Mike G., I think he's a 15/15 guy out of the blocks. If he doesn't, I'll find someone on the reserve scrap heap.
Freel, well, he was a mistake. I hit the wrong button. On the other hand, if he wins the CF battle, he could steal 25 in 400 AB, and I'll live with it.
Rookie mistake here, btw, and good advice for all of you...I left the OF spots open for the bargains I knew would come (Felix Pie, Wily Mo Pena, Jim Edmonds, Justin Upton, Xavier Nady, Chris Duncan), but I got caught chasing.
Starting Pitchers: Tim Hudson $15, Adam Wainwright $16, Greg Maddux $9, Derek Lowe $8, Barry Zito $11, Yusmerio Petit $1
Well, I overpaid for the pitching I wanted - I did not want to pay more than $15 for a starter if I did not get Johan Santana, and I did not want to pay over my sheet price. I did it twice. Hudson is fine; I like that price. Wainwright is a bit of a reach, but he was a gut feeling at the time he got called up. If I didn't get him, I would have been left paying outrageous prices for a couple of guys that I didn't want to pay those prices for. Maddux and Lowe, well, they are par or bargains on my sheet, and they eat innings. Zito is a slight overpay, but the risk/reward is pretty good. Petit is a guy I had targeted for the endgame, with some other pitchers, and he was the one I didn't get outbid for. All in all, likely a little light on wins, but not too bad.
Relievers: Takashi Saito $21, Francisco Cordero $19, Aaron Heilman $3 (because I had $3; he would have gone for $1)
I nominated Saito and got him in the second round. I nominated Valverde in the first round. Once I saw that price, I knew I could get two closers for $35-$40. When F. Cordero fell in my lap at $19, I couldn't have been happier. Heilman is another nice accumulator.
Analysis: Up until the last stages of the auction, I thought it was going very very well. I tired a bit at the end, and chasing Ethier, Rasmus and Freel dragged me down a little. Those plays could be okay in the end, but I need to get more depth in the reserve round, and I missed out on some real bargains in the endgame.
My initial thought was to go stars and scrubs, and I think that would have worked well in this auction. I set my bid prices on a $185/$75 split (a more traditional AL split) and wound up spending $103 on pitching - go figure.
All in all, though, I think this team is going to be very competitive; there were a lot of teams that looked very thin at the end of the auction. As I said in an e-mail to Alex Patton, there are teams with better offenses, and teams with better pitching, but I think mine is one of the most balanced.
I look forward to your comments, and tomorrow night, I will post up some auction prices and thoughts about how the room auctioned.
2 comments:
Re: your Kent price-enforcement.
Timing is everything. You said in the corner discussion that seven 3B went for $5 or more over their price.
When that kind of cash (at least $35) is removed from the league spending budget, players taken later are going to be "bargains" from the initial bid sheet.
However, that doesn't necessarily make them real bargains. It is quite possible that players taken later would be even bigger bargains as less-and-less money is leftover to chase the best remaining players.
As you mention, there were many bargain hitters later. Given the early over-spending by the league, it had to occur.
However, you need cash to take advantage of it.
Incidentally, this is the opposite problem from what I've observed in my league. The first time or two around the table, there is so much talent available that many of the players are bargains compared to the price on my bidsheet. However, if I price enforce, then all my money is quickly spent on these stars and I cannot hope to buy bargains later.
Catch-22: If I don't price enforce, there aren't going to be many bargains later.
You make a good point rodger. As I look back, there were a couple of good bargains later, but, in the end, I like my bargains at the higher prices, because I am going to generate more stats. I'm more angry about Ethier and Rasmus, since I was trying to avoid the high risk/high reward guys (we can quibble over how much risk these guys actually are).
Generally, I thought through some guys like Conor Jackson at $7, and came to teh conclusion that, if I had money or spots at that time, he would have gone for $11 or $12, which is much closer to his par value, and I still might not have gotten him; in which case, I would be thinner on offense than I already am.
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