When I responded to Rodger, I forgot that he's in a league where you can't draft minor leaguers on reserve and freeze them on the cheap. Of course Longoria isn't cheap in Rodger's league.
Our league ties salaries to FAAB bids. Since Longoria went for $50, he's far from a 2009 keeper. In fact, we have a salary increase scale and he would cost $57 to freeze next year!Obviously, the goal is to win every year. But what do you do in leagues like this in the rare instance where you do wind up playing for next year.
I decided to take a look at some of the dump targets from my A.L. last year to determine whether or not they were acquired at auction, via the farm draft, or via FAAB.
Acquired at Auction, 2005 (4): Grady Sizemore, Mark Teahen, Huston Street, John Lackey.
Acquired at Auction, 2006 (8): Nick Markakis, Joel Zumaya, Justin Verlander, Jon Papelbon, Carlos Guillen, Nate Robertson, Chien-Ming Wang, Zack Greinke.
Acquired at Auction, 2007 (4): James Shields, Mike Lowell, Francisco Liriano, Brandon Inge.
FAAB 2007 (1): Marlon Byrd.
Initially Acquired as Farm Player (12): Billy Butler, Evan Longoria, Alex Gordon, Brandon Wood, Dustin Pedroia, Luke Hochevar, Nick Adenhart, Jeff Clement, B.J. Upton, Jacoby Ellsbury, Justin Huber, Jeff Niemann.
Keep in mind that these are players that are part of dump trades. Not all of them are centerpieces. Someone didn't give up the world for Adenhart. There are players, though, who were traded in deals closer to the deadline that were significant chips just because teams did run out of chips and teams out of the money still had players to deal. Ellsbury, for example, was swapped for Joe Nathan and Curt Schilling, and while Ellsbury worked out incredibly well, he was far from a sure thing on July 31, 2007.
Surprisingly, though, the majority of players in these dump deals were acquired at auction. I would have expected more chips acquired through the farm system. While there certainly are a number of these pieces, there are also players like Sizemore and Markakis who fall through the cracks and become dump chips. A lot of these guys who fell through the cracks were pitchers. This isn't as surprising. Pitching is harder to predict, and thus the pitchers who are purchased as farm players often become nothing. To further illustrate my point, listing Greinke here is charitable. He only broke through after he was acquired, and I doubt the owner who got Greinke was jumping up and down after the trade.
Where you might get stuck in a league without farm systems is trying to make those smaller trades to flesh out the holes on your team after the major dump deals have gone down. Clement, Huber and Niemann certainly aren't big time prospects like Longoria or Butler were, but since they were traded at the deadline, they netted some pretty big fish in return. This isn't because the owners who acquired these minor leaguers are stupid; if anything, it's because something is better than an option year player or a clearly overpriced player like Nathan.
This is where gamesmanship comes into play. If you're in a league like Rodger's, you're not working the farm player angle, but you're clearly working some other kind of angle. Because you do want to maximize your roster's potential. And if you can't do it by dumping farm players, you're going to find some other way to do it. Or you're not going to win.
2 comments:
Thanks again for commenting on the oddities of my league.
Each year, it gets harder to play the angles in this league.
Smaller sums of FAAB cash are bid on players who are clearly up for only a week or so to fill in for an injured player. Those guys are often purchased relatively cheaply and stashed away for dump deals or for the owner to retain cheaply. Last month, I bought Jed Lowrie for $8 and German Duran for $1.
We have a lot of auction bidding in the $2 to $10 range for relief pitchers who might become closers. There's nothing like a cheap source of saves to salvage a freeze list and a couple of these guys pan out every year. Of course, a lot of cash is wasted on pitchers who are no better than the $1 pitchers viewed as having no chances for saves. I've avoided this bidding the past 2 seasons.
We have a major league reserve draft at the end of our auction. Several 2008 keepers were retained for $5, $4 or $3 after being purchased in the 2007 reserve draft. I picked up Jeremy Accardo in the final round of that draft last year.
Finally, many keepers are in the category that John Hunt used to call "post-hype." I bought Jason Kubel for $15 this year and he could be a $18 keeper next year.
Too much information, right?
Nah, it gives me some fun stuff to write about, especially after a quiet FAAB week.
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