National League 5x5 Home League Results

On Sunday, I participated in my home league National League auction.  This is the second year of the league, and this year's auction was certainly much different than last year's fresh auction.

I came in to the auction with the following freeze list: Geovany Soto $16; Nick Hundley $4; Chase Headley $15; Troy Tulowitzki $35; Will Venable $4; Andrew McCutchen $26; Ryan Spilborghs $2; Edinson Volquez $1; Roy Halladay $40; Jaime Garcia $7; Travis Wood $10; Brandon Lyon $2.

I ran into a little bad luck before the freeze date with the Brad Lidge injury; I had him at $11.  The upside is that the prognosis looked bad enough that I was able to drop him prior to the roster freeze.  I also correctly calculated that hitter inflation would be insane, while pitching inflation would be more reasonable.  In an effort to get some top flight hitting and avoid buying another top flight starter, I applied my hitting and pitching inflation separately, really jacking up the prices of the top hitters (48% hitting inflation and 12-13% pitching inflation).  I also assumed that I would not be getting a second closer since there were so few available.

All things considered, I did okay.  I did not get one of the top hitters.  I always preach trusting your prices, and I failed to do so.  On my sheet, Prince Fielder, Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins all went $7 under my inflation price.  There was no reason for me not to push those guys up higher at the very least.  On the flip side, I exercised pretty good discipline and did not overpay for any player on my sheet (though Wallace is my least favorite buy of the auction for fear he could lose his job quickly).

Now that self-flagellating is over, here is the team I auctioned (by position, not price or round order): Brett Wallace $13; Jeff Keppinger $1; Yuniesky Betancourt $13; Pablo Sandoval $32; Nate McLouth $18; Gerardo Parra $4; Kyle Blanks $6; Jon Garland $2; Wilton Lopez $4; Sean Marshall $2; Mark Melancon $1.  We are able to replace DL players on the same day of the auction for $3 FAAB each, and I immediately replaced Blanks with Willie Harris and Garland with Nick Masset.

I walked out of the auction with the second best value team (I'll give you one guess who walked out with the most value), with one team very close behind me, and one more team about $30 more behind.  I'm a little weak in the power categories, but I have players to move in trade, so if I stay competitive for a couple of months, I should be competing for a title until the end.

For those of you with auctions this weekend, I will post our round by round for inflation-price reference.