Freeze List Not Strong Enough?

Noah has a problem that many of us have in freeze leagues: good freezes, but perhaps not good enough.

I have (to me anyway) an interesting problem. My keeper list (10 team AL only 5x5), is solid in that it includes fairly priced players and a few pricing bargains. But does not, at least to my eye, include the type of bargains that would allow me to go after a key star player or two. Q is, have I outsmarted myself with this roster? VMart 27, Napoli 7, Swisher 2, Scutaro 4, Zobrist 10, Cano 19, M. Young 18, Choo 20, N. Cruz 25, Borbon 2. Pitchers Masterson 2, Blackburn 1, Slowey 7.

It's obviously impossible to comment on how strong Noah's freeze list is without knowing who his competitors have frozen in his league. On the surface, this looks like a pretty solid list to me. Swisher, Scutaro, Zobrist, and Borbon are all fairly deep bargains, while most of the other players here are slight bargains. I might throw Martinez, Cruz and Slowey back since it's a 10-team league but - again - I can't comment specifically since I don't know who all the freezes are and what the other rosters look like.

I can comment on Noah's specific question regarding going after star players, though.

Noah has $116 left for 10 players. In a league with freezes, he definitely could buy one or two players at $30+ if he wanted to without having a deleterious impact on his team.

What matters most isn't who Noah buys, but whether or not he's spending his money wisely.

jem1776 alludes to this in his comment, but it matters much more that you take the bargains when they come than it does to target a player at a certain price point in the auction. If the room is pushing players past $40 who are over your inflation price, don't buy them. The players will be there later, and if you've budgeted correctly, you will spend your money and do a better job of maximizing your auction value than if you simply target players at a certain price.

Strategies like Ron Shandler's Portfolio 3 work better in non-freeze leagues or leagues with limited freezes. In leagues with longer freeze lists, it's next to impossible to try and target players in price tiers without overspending in certain tiers.

Good luck, Noah. If your league is like my freeze league, you probably don't have the best freeze list and will need to spend wisely to catch up in your auction.