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Like most of my readers, I devour every scrap of expert-league auction data I can get my hands on before the season starts. However, while useful, expert auctions are almost always start-over. While this gives a decent baseline for raw values, it isn’t very instructive as to what might happen when you start dealing with keepers, reserve lists, and other twists on the rules that cater more to carryover leagues.

Below is a brief recap of what I did in my two longstanding keeper auctions this past weekend. While nearly all of us are done drafting or auctioning, looking back at what we did right as well as what we did wrong can be very instructive.

American League: 4×4, 12-team only

This is an old school, 4×4 league entering its 27th year of existence (it is my 18th season in the league). I contended for two years in a row, which left me with almost nothing to keep, so I decided to do a no-power strategy, which often goes by the name of The Sweeney Plan. I always advise against dumping categories unless your freezes are weak, but my freezes were extremely weak.

3B Josh Donaldson $6
P Fernando Rodney $19

And that’s it!

I chose this non-conventional strategy because there was a lot of pitching and speed in the auction and I thought I could buy a strong staff and three stolen base kings at fairly reasonable prices. My plan was to spend $111 on hitting and $149 on pitching. I did something I always advise against doing: slotting money for certain positions or players. Table 1 shows how I planned to spend my money slot by slot and what actually happened.

The league’s estimated inflation rate was about 30 percent.

Table 1: AL Home League Results

POS

Player

Spent

Planned

C

Carlos Corporan

1

1

C

David Ross

1

1

1B

James Loney

2

6

2B

Eric Sogard

1

1

SS

Ronny Cedeno

1

6

3B

Josh Donaldson

6

6

CO

Alex Rodriguez

4

6

MI

Pedro Florimon Jr.

1

1

OF

Michael Bourn

33

25

OF

Jacoby Ellsbury

33

25

OF

Brett Gardner

25

25

OF

Darin Mastroianni

2

6

OF

J.D. Martinez

1

1

DH

Carlos Pena

2

1

P

Joe Nathan

30

25

P

Max Scherzer

30

36

P

R.A. Dickey

28

35

P

Josh Johnson

19

31

P

Fernando Rodney

19

19

P

Anibal Sanchez

17

13

P

Jeremy Guthrie

2

6

P

Bartolo Colon

1

1

P

Steve Delabar

1

1

Total Spent = $260. Offense $113, Pitching $147

I came close to achieving my desired money split; however, not much else went according to plan.

Yu Darvish was the first pitcher off the board, and he went for $36. Then Justin Verlander went for $43. Both prices were on a par with expected value and inflation. Then, Max Scherzer came out, and I bought him for $30. This was also on par with inflation. So far, so good. If the day continued like this, then I’d be able to buy my pitchers at the prices I wanted and everything would go according to plan.

Unfortunately, teams that didn’t have aces yet started chasing aces. Felix Hernandez ($39), Jered Weaver ($38), and David Price ($43) all sailed past my target prices. Jon Lester went for $28, but this was before the Price buy and I decided to wait. This proved to be a mistake. I pushed CC Sabathia—diminished velocity and all—to $35.  But someone went to $36 and I chickened out.

In the end, Dickey, Johnson, and Sanchez rounded out the top of my staff. Sanchez went for more than I would have hoped, but starting pitcher prices were even sillier later. Clay Buchholz ($20), and Alex Cobb ($18) were two significant overpays that put the Sanchez price in perspective.

I was fine with Nathan at $30. He was the next-to-last big closer on the board, and at that point I had shifted my strategy on the $25 closer because it was clear the aces weren’t coming my way.

Because the aces didn’t fall to me, I pushed on my speed guys and grabbed Ellsbury and Bourn. Gardner was fine, but I would have been better off with Coco Crisp, who went for $22. This is a minor quibble, though; I got the speed I needed and then some.

The problem with blowing past my limits on those hitters, though, is that my goal of getting some solid, cheap hitting in the end game didn’t materialize. Pena and Loney are mild bargains, but by themselves they’re not enough. A-Rod is a cute little trade chip for later, but Mark Teixiera went for $5 toward the end and would have filled this purpose even more efficiently. There weren’t a lot of bargains at the end, but I would rather have had Justin Smoak at $6 than Pena or Loney at $2.

The larger problem with my strategy is that I probably should have abandoned it when Evan Longoria was sitting at $31 early in the auction, or only $3 above my inflation price. I had already pushed Scherzer past where I would have pushed him without this plan, but he wasn’t so expensive that I would have crippled myself had I simply shifted gears. I would have probably purchased a “Stars and Scrubs” team given how conservative the bidding was across the board, but given some of the end game bargains (like Guthrie at $2), maybe I could have pulled this off.

My team can fulfill the no-power strategy in every category except batting average. I can probably finish in the top three or four but will have a hard time winning. Drat.

National League: 5×5, 12-team only

This is a newer league, in its fourth year of existence. Player “contracts” have a three-year life cycle so the fourth year of the league saw a high number of free agents and a lower inflation rate. Inflation was estimated at a more “manageable” 22 percent.

My freeze list in the NL was better than in the AL, but still nothing special:

2B/OF Steve Lombardozzi $2
3B/1B Jordan Pacheco $2
OF Lucas Duda $1
P Brandon League $10
P A.J. Burnett $7
P Ian Kennedy $7
P Cory Luebke $3
P David Hernandez $1

I didn’t have a clear strategy in mind for the NL. Just like I did in Tout Wars, I was conservative on pitching prices and shied away from going overboard for a potential ace. I was hoping to put most of my money into hitting. What happened surprised everyone, including me:

Table 2: NL Home League Results

POS

Player

Spent

Bid Limit

Raw

C

Brian McCann

14

16

13

C

Carlos Ruiz

9

11

9

1B

Ike Davis

23

30

25

2B

Aaron Hill

26

29

24

SS

Luis Cruz

5

7

6

3B

Chase Headley

21

23

19

CO

Aramis Ramirez

19

24

20

MI

Steve Lombardozzi

2

freeze

4

OF

Matt Holliday

32

34

28

OF

Corey Hart

14

19

16

OF

David DeJesus

10

12

10

OF

Delmon Young

8

11

9

OF

Lucas Duda

1

freeze

11

UT

Jordan Pacheco

2

freeze

4

P

Tim Lincecum

17

20

15

P

Brandon League

10

freeze

13

P

Brandon McCarthy

10

12

9

P

A.J. Burnett

7

freeze

11

P

Ian Kennedy

7

freeze

15

P

Matt Garza

6

12

9

P

Shaun Marcum

6

9

7

P

Cory Luebke

3

freeze

4

P

David Hernandez

1

freeze

2

Total Spent = $260. Offense $113, Pitching $147

Including Luebke—whom I froze—I bought eight injured players and Carlos Ruiz, who will serve a 25-game suspension to start the 2013 campaign.

Here are the estimated return dates for these players

  • Marcum: Mid-April
  • Carlos Ruiz: Late-April
  • McCann: May 1 (?)
  • Headley: Early May
  • Young: Early May
  • Garza: May (?)
  • Corey Hart: Late May
  • Luebke: Mid-2013
  • Ramirez: Out indefinitely

My entire season hinges on most of these players coming back at or close to their projected timetables. I can probably afford to have one of these players linger on the DL, and maybe two. Any more than that and my team is in for a world of hurt.

So, why not just go and buy healthy players? Why the high-risk profile for a team that presumably has eight profitable freezes?

Table 3: My NL Team: Inflation Projection Versus Auction “Performance”

 

Salary

Value

+/-

Frozen

33

53

20

Available

227

186

-43

Projected

260

239

-21

Actual

253

283

+30

Frozen: Lists the players available and the value I’m expecting from them.

Available: Lists the money left to spend and the anticipated value assuming all players are purchased at full inflation

Projected: The total projected value of my team assuming a full inflation spend.

Actual: The projected value of my team based on how I spent my money.

It’s easy to argue with how the team stacks up against the competition, but it’s hard to argue against the value proposition. The bargain potential of some of the players on my roster combined with the boring, middle-of-the-road value at most positions improved my team considerably. I’m not sure it’s going to be enough, but I’m close to where I want to be entering the season.

Feel free to share your home league experiences in the comments section or with me on Twitter. I love hearing about people’s home league auctions and never get enough of it. Talking about your results and examining your auction roster under a microscope might bore your spouse, neighbors, co-workers, and your poor mother, but it’s the only way your auction performance is going to get better.

Thank you for reading

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MikeGianella
4/09
Something I should have pointed out in the article is that you can't purchase minor leaguers at auction. All MLB or DL players only.
tbunns
4/09
That's a scary NL team...I understand the reasoning behind your gain in value...but it is all tied up in playing time. None of the DL guys you have are on the upswing of their career, except maybe Headley. And on the pitching side, you combine the DL with the heavy risk of Lincecum and McCarthy...especially if you back date to the beginning of the season. Those first two starts were not very good.

I can definitely understand this strategy more if you have reserve lists and liberal transaction rules (much like Ultra). But you are more brave than I could ever be.

Point of reference - I play in a NL 5x5 Ultra with keepers in its 28th year (9th year with zero owner changes). Your auction pricing isn't that far off ours, although Garza went 14, Marcum 11, Holliday 39, McCarthy 4 in our auction.
MikeGianella
4/09
No reserve lists for active MLBers. But unlimited DL slots and free to add/drop players at will via FAAB. $0 FAAB minimum. So not crazy liberal but definitely not conservative.
tbunns
4/09
Sounds like you don't get to retro-reserve DL players at the beginning of the year...so you have basically missed a half week of stats from all your DL folks...that would bug me, for some reason.

We play with a min $5 FAAB bid ($100 budget) so I'm not sure how a $0 min bid system would change my thinking. I noticed that you didn't buy a player for less than 5 dollars in the auction...something that can be hard to do. Is that something you normally try to do or it just worked out this year?

I would have thought with zero min bids, that a strategy might be to have a streaming-ish slot since you can effectively replace a player over and over again (if you aren't too picky).
MikeGianella
4/09
Actually, we were allowed the choice. You can use a $3 FAAB bid at the auction or wait until that night and go through the regular FAAB process. If you did the $3 bid, you "lost" the stats of the injured player. If you waited, you got the stats of the injured player. The benefit of buying a $3 player is you could buy stats (read: cheap win/cheap save). In the case of Aramis, I waited to get his 5-for-13.

I didn't try to do this, it just worked out that way. Given that I left $7 on the table, I would have prefered to buy a more expensive player and dollared out one slot.

It's N.L. only, so given how weak the last slots are, I prefer having a balanced roster...particularly since injuries happen anyway.
sbnbaseball
4/09
Mike-Ray here. As you saw with my NL auction results, I targeted some injured players as well as a few minor leaguers who could/should get called up this season.
Every league is different, and I had a feeling I could grab the young pitchers on the cheap-Fernandez at $7, Miller at $6, Wheeler at $2 (he is on the 40 man roster), Rosenthal at a buck, sets me up possibly to compete this season, but more likely next season.
I love the prices you grabbed Davis, Headley, McCann and ARam at.....solid keeps for 2014.
I like using different strategies every year, and this one could pay off for you if the DL'd players come back healthy and produce.

Your strategy is similar to a value investor buying beaten down stocks.

Good luck.
MikeGianella
4/09
That's a good observation Ray. Some of the idea is to have a decent core of keepers for 2014 if this doesn't work out.
timjrohr
4/09
My newest league (3 years; I've finished second both years) is a 16-team mixed Yahoo! 6x6 (R, OPS, K, QS) 9H/9P/5bench H2H. Middle relievers, and even closers, are virtually worthless (the H2H nature makes closers and steals guys worth less). There were a lot of pitching freezes; I calculated pitching inflation at around 50%, and I was too low. Some prices:

Latos $52(!)
Gallardo $41
Greinke $55(!)
Hallday $36
Lester $35
Griffin $22
Lincecum $21
Haren $22
Cahill $22

I let all the good pitchers go, so I cobbled together a staff that's already been ravaged by DL stints, demotions and moves to middle relief:
Lee, $32 (F)
Bailey, $3 (F)
Corbin, $2
Lilly, $2
Tillman, $9
Smyly, $1
Danks, $2
Turner, $2
C. Lewis, $2

My offense is really good, but I have a lot of value (Espinosa, Cuddyer, Ethier, Markakis, Revere) languishing on the bench. I'm hoping I can flip some of those guys, or one of my big starting bats (Wright, Holliday, J-Up, Choo, Chris Davis), for a couple good-to-great starters.
geneclaude
4/09
19 year, 13 team, NL/AL Central, 4x4 sub OBP for AVG and Ks for Ws. 4 keepers, but strict rules on who, average inflation 15 - 20%. Super, hyper aggressive stars/scrubs bidding. Multiple players over 50, 13 over 40 this year, almost all hitters. I got third with Sweeney plan last year. I think the "conditions" that must be met for a successful small ball run are: steals concentrated in a few players, preferably with very little power (so price is not outrageous, you want to spend as close to zero on power as possible); entire offense can be done for $85 or under; do not reach for additional hitting, take $1 prospects that you might get lucky on via trade or promotion. I have to admit, your approach is...confusing. Carlos Pena is like the Satan of small ball. Ellsbury is overpriced because he offers power, as opposed to Crisp, although that is fine. Way too much spent on offense, looks like you hedged. Of course...I spent $40 on Lincecum last year, so what do I know. Good luck! I totally changed it up this year and ended up with all power, no speed.
MikeGianella
4/09
I agree with you about most of your observations. As noted in the article, I would have rather went in a different direction on a few of these players.

If I shook out with Gardner, Crisp, and Bonifacio instead I would have saved some money, but only about $16-18. Could have moved that to pitching and bought another ace.
jfranco77
4/09
It's always fun going into a crazy inflation league with very few keepers.

I had a 12-team 5x5 NL only where I went in with a $15 Stanton and a few pieces of flotsam (Eovaldi-5, Casilla-1, Hanigan-3). Hitting inflation was about 60% and pitching was about 50%.

My "hope" was to try to get an everyday player at every position, but when Brandon Belt is going for $33, that's hard to do. I was willing to spend $220+ on hitting if I had to, but it turned out that almost all the inflation dollars went to the big hitters.

End up with Braun for $58 and Street for $21 as my only big buys. I also got Kubel-24, Cody Ross-17, Juan Francisco-15, Placido Polanco-7, Helton-3, Tabata-10, Valdespin-13, Cowgill-9, Barmes-3... and it gets worse from there.

But I also got Dillon Gee-9, Edwin Jackson-13, Wade Miley-11 and a $6 Luebke for keeper purposes. So my pitching will be OK if everyone stays healthy, but offense is an issue.
swarmee
4/09
So being so far behind the 8-ball, why didn't you just ditch and play for 2014? We have a lot of owners who will not sacrifice a season when they have a keeper list like yours and they're rarely competitive. I'd suggest you trade your real players for the best keepers ASAP before someone else decides to ditch and start the best 2014 keeper list. Would have been easier if you went into the auction with that strategy.
MikeGianella
4/10
Worthy of an article-length response, but:

1) I've won this league more times than anyone in it despite having only dumped three times in 18 years.
2) I have had success dumping in-season and trying at the auction. Two of the three times I dumped in-season, I won the following year.
3) I have not found that more value comes in a dump trade later rather than sooner. I've done some analysis at this and teams that dump in March or April fare no better or worse than teams that dump in June or July.
swarmee
4/10
Well, my response was directed at jfranco77 since he's the one with the weaker keeper list. However, your statistics show that dumping can be a reliable strategy. I have won my league once out of the three times I've dumped. However, I feel I have a good shot this season (would make it 2/4).

I'm surprised that you don't think (or your historical evidence doesn't show) that ditching earlier leads to a higher success rate. Normally, there are only super-studs either signed to cheaper long-term contracts or MLB all-stars signed to reserve status contracts in any given league. The first person to ditch has the "first mover" bonus in that he's willing to give up a Ryan Braun for a free keeper Giancarlo Stanton, which I did last season. He can also buy seven $3 relievers in the auction and keep the ones that turn out to be closers. He can also buy both sides of a platoon for $1-3 each and then keep whichever one turns out to be the starter the following season.

Maybe the strategies people have used when planning to ditch were poor, but another column to hash it out would definitely be of use to the readers here.
jfranco77
4/10
If I knew how to do that, I would. Luebke went for $6 which was nice, but Beachy went for 12, Cashner for 9, G Parra for 19, etc etc. This league doesn't give any discounts on guys who could be keepers for 2014. So last year I bought Kemp and Cain and a couple other studs, and the only thing I got in trade was Stanton and a couple of minor league picks. Paying $58 for Braun makes him tough to trade with our cap. So rebuilding at auction is almost impossible. I just have to hope some guys hit and I can trade them away, then wait for my farm guys to pay off.
MikeGianella
4/21
This is a good subject for a future article. Thanks for sharing.
Slyke18
4/09
I love this type of analysis, since a lot of us are in keeper leagues where you need to have an objective view of prices on draft day. Sometimes the best laid plans are not always so....I know some BP readers may not like your NL auction Mike, due to the risk, but I liked your approach based on your freeze list and the way the auction went. You got great value on all those injured guys and you are rolling the dice. Worst case, they are keeps next year at those prices. I tried that same approach a year ago in our NL, but it did not work because Chris Carpenter, Utley and Howard were all duds. At least I was able to move Jorge De La Rosa in a pre-season deal.

You were able to FAAB a bunch of players cheaply ($0 FAAB allowed) later that night, so you have a couple of decent placeholders until those injured studs get back. The SP might be a little thin for a month, but so be it.

As for the AL, I think the Sweeney plan was a great strategy. It may not have worked out as you planned, but your pitching will keep you afloat early on.
geneclaude
4/09
One of the strategies another owner and I kicked around in our NL/AL Central league was drafting injured players. This was an interesting year with a lot of valuable pieces out until late April - May. I don't mind that strategy, but tough to plan for because it depends on the discounts being offered being greater than they "should" be, so you just don't know.

I didn't mean to be too critical of your Sweeney plan, I figured you might have had some league rules (AB minimum?) that came into play. I will try it again some day when conditions are good.
MikeGianella
4/10
4,250 AB requirement.
lemurine
4/09
I love reading your analyses of your auctions, I wish there were more out there to read, I guess you do too. It seems even when you did rotothinktank it was mostly you and your fellow writer doing this. I would love to see Patton and Rotoman do more of this the way you do. BTW,

I like how you try many different things with your base being to get undervalued guys.

I feel the key is always being flexible at each auction, something I havent done enough of in the past. For eg. I believe I have been too rigid about trying to keep my pitching under $80 and therefore letting some starters go way too cheaply.
swarmee
4/10
Well, I went into the 4x4 NL auction 11 team $260 league with a crazy good keeper list, including Yonder Alonso, Daniel Murphy, Andrelton Simmons, Juan Francisco, Giancarlo Stanton, Aroldis Chapman, John Axford, Bobby Parnell, Carlos Quentin, Lucas Duda, Andrew Cashner, and Oscar Taveras all for under $46 in salary for $200+ in projected value via PFM. I had the following positions to fill:
2xC, 1xOF, 1xU, 5xP, and had $214 to spend. That's $24 per player if I spent the same on all of them, but I allocated my projected dollars this way: $5 for each catcher, $50 each for OF/U, and wanted to get two $35 pitchers.
I ended up with Ryan Braun ($50), Matt Kemp ($47), Zach Greinke ($32), Cliff Lee ($36), Ryan Hanigan ($4), Russ Martin ($14), Wandy Rodriguez ($12), Brandon McCarthy ($6), and Wilton Lopez ($2). By PFM, I was about $50 over the next highest projected team, and $95 over the third place preseason team. Pretty happy with the auction, and I went prospect heavy in the reserve rounds to have trade bait for when owners started ditching.
swarmee
4/12
Hah; less than one week later, and it's all starting to crumble. Quentin charges Greinke, and Alonso and Kemp are part of the scuffle. Let's see how many starters I have to play for Week 3.
Robotey
4/12
Inflation for keeper leagues is a bitch. I always forget that in a 10 team NL only with max 7 keepers it's essentially an auction that when the auction begins each team has already stocked its team with bargains so there's plenty of $ chasing less talent. The money horders get screwed in the whiplash towards the end when they've been saving $ for Matt Latos and he goes for $30 --2 less than Kershaw, 1 more than C Lee--and Aramis Ramirez gets bid up to $33! Wow. Have you ever tried charting auctions to watch where the money gets spent?