For our cockamamie rules, we cannot bid in the alternate. So this week, for instance, if you have $50 left, you cannot bid say, $35 on (Matt) Capps and if not get him $35 on (Lance) Berkman. So the guessing is not just about the money but who to bid on, you only get one shot at a large number bid. Bad for a week where (Ryan) Kalish, now (Peter) Bourjos (don't ask) and Jeanmar Gomez are all available.This year in Tout Wars, I discovered that a similar format is used for bids at the trade deadline week only.
Here is the example provided by Rotoman in his league-wide e-mail.
A team has 30 FAAB.Unfortunately, I can't see how each team put their bids in because the league's transaction guru - Scott Swanay of Fantasy Baseball Sherpa - had to enter the moves manually (he deserves a free dinner next year for that). So I can only offer my general thoughts and comments on this rule.
1. To RELEASE BABE RUTH
Tommy Davis 10, Tommie Agee 8, Ryan Klesko 4
2. To RESERVE ED KRANEPOOL
Willie McCovey 15, Frank Thomas 10, or activate Dave Kingman
3. To DL JOHNNY BENCH
Ernie Lombardi 1, Yogi Berra 5, Chris Snyder 0
Note: The highest bids in the three blocks (Davis 10, McCovey 15, Berra 5) total $30, though the team could certainly spend less. This is legal bidding.
Please be careful with this. The first bid that exceeds the max will be invalidated (Let’s say the Yogi Berra bid were 6 instead, it would be struck) and all subsequent claims will also be invalidated (so you’d lose your shot at Chris Snyder, too).
It does add an interesting strategic wrinkle. As Noah implies, you pretty much have to decide on either Player A or Player B. Do you need saves or steals more? A power hitter or a starting pitcher? The non-contingent dollar bidding system makes you decide.
On the other hand, if you're stuck in the middle you essentially have to spend time guessing on what other owners are going to do and hope that you guess right.
It didn't matter so much for me in Tout Wars this year. I was down to $2 in FAAB at the deadline and knew I was going to be shut out on every one. Alex Gonzalez was my big ticket item at $52 and I had spent my money all year long. After landing the "big prize" in CBS A.L. last year in Scott Hairston, I decided to spend my money all year long.
It will be interesting to go back this winter and see what sort of impact these August 2 additions make. The teams above me in the standings (I'm currently in 4th) spent $10 on Sean West (Nate Ravitz, 1st), $36 on Brett Wallace (Scott Pianowski, 2nd) and Miguel Tejada $51 (Brian Walton, 3rd). My suspicion is that none of these players is going to have a significant impact on the pennant race, but I'm going to wait until October to do that analysis.
2 comments:
Hey Mike, how goes it? My leagues have never used FAAB and we are considering this, however, we dont know what various leagues are doing ie what the various rules are. Any idea how we can find out the options so we can see what fits best for us? Thanks a lot. PS when can I buy you dinner in san francisco???
Net here, AL Citrus, was that 2nd place team took Berkman at 44 (out of his 70, am betting he spoke to team with next lgst. amt of money) - interestingly since he either could have traded R. Soriano for SB, Ellsbury, and taken Capps or with his leftover money taken Bourjos (he blinked and bid too little). 4th place team took Capps for 44 - see, am sure they spoke (he had one closer - but really needed Berkman since Youk went out that morning). 5th place team took Cantu (his CI were Branyan and worse). I took E. Jackson at 19 (Sheets and Meche were not cutting it and then they were themselves being cut on). And first place team took Bourjos (he needed saves, with Rauch going out of the job, but had a fix for that, he traded Figgins and Wiggington to 4th place team for M. Gonzalez - ask me if I think that made any sense other than to the 4th place team). I also bought Kalish at 11 and J. Gomez at 5. Since then, no change in the standings, I gave up on SB (after trading Ellsbury for Damon and JJ Hardy (the latter is $6 keeper in my feeble mind), having waited on Ells way too long (yes, I know he has 5 SB this week), instead placing faith in getting one more SB point from Pennington as DH and playing Kalish, at least until C. Pena comes back.
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