With the exception of a few old school leagues that are drafting or auctioning this weekend, fantasy baseball leagues are shifting their focus from auction targets to free-agent targets. While every fantasy writer in the world (including me) advises against pushing the panic button early, injuries happen. If you bought Ryan Ludwick, you’re already scouring the waiver wire for replacements.

Below is a look at potential free agents in American League only, National League only, and mixed formats. For mixed-league owners, the focus is on players owned in less than 50 percent of a “standard” leagues. In AL- and NL-only, these are players in very deep formats that might be available depending on your league’s rules regarding reserve lists and call-ups.

In non-keeper leagues, owners get to draft/auction players every year. In keeper formats, there is always a delicate balance between rewarding owners for their scouting/drafting acumen versus having a decent pool of talent available in the draft.

While a few keeper leagues are dynasty and do allow you to keep a player forever, in roto-style leagues, there is often some kind of contract mechanism. Typically, you can add $5 to a player’s “salary” for each additional year you want to keep him. Not surprisingly, I often get questions along these lines

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Last Saturday, I had the privilege of participating in my fourth Tout Wars NL-only expert league auction, which was my first Tout Wars auction representing Baseball Prospectus. As always, it was an honor simply to be included among so many great fantasy players and baseball minds, and to rub elbows with experts whose work I’ve been reading for the last 15-20 years. I don’t know if I’ll ever get over sitting in a room with Ron Shandler, Lawr Michaels, and Peter Kreutzer and talking baseball with them.

For those of you that followed over me here from my old blog Roto Think Tank, the words I’m about to write already ring like a familiar mantra in your ears. For my new readers that only know me from Baseball Prospectus, my strategy in Rotisserie-style auctions is always the same:

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Between some of my reactions to the prices at Tout Wars and a long list of injury news, it was an incredibly busy week for pricing updates. Below is a list of the most significant changes made this week.

National League Hitters

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Today we continue our positional tier rankings. Last offseason, Derek Carty tackled the tiers by himself; this spring, we've decided to attack them as a team. Players at each position will be divided into five tiers, represented by the number of stars.

Five-star players are the studs at their respective position. In general, they are the players that will be nabbed in the first couple of rounds of the draft, and they'll fetch auction bids in excess of $30. Four-star players are a cut below the studs at the position. They will also be earl- round selections, and they're projected to be worth more than $20 in most cases. Three-star players are the last tier in which players are projected to provide double-digit dollar value in auctions, and two-star players are projected to earn single digits in dollar value in auctions. One-star players are late round sleepers and roster placeholders. As was the case with our positional rankings series, the positional tiers aren't simply a regurgitation of the projected PECOTA values.

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Today we continue our positional tier rankings. Last offseason, Derek Carty tackled the tiers by himself; this spring, we've decided to attack them as a team. Players at each position will be divided into five tiers, represented by the number of stars.

Five-star players are the studs at their respective position. In general, they are the players that will be nabbed in the first couple of rounds of the draft, and they'll fetch auction bids in excess of $30. Four-star players are a cut below the studs at the position. They will also be earl- round selections, and they're projected to be worth more than $20 in most cases. Three-star players are the last tier in which players are projected to provide double-digit dollar value in auctions, and two-star players are projected to earn single digits in dollar value in auctions. One-star players are late round sleepers and roster placeholders. As was the case with our positional rankings series, the positional tiers aren't simply a regurgitation of the projected PECOTA values.

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In fantasy baseball, everyone’s burning question is “what does it take to win?” While a few might ask if it takes a certain kind of temperament or disposition to contend, most who ask this question are asking from the standpoint of how strong their roster should be to win a title.

In non-carryover leagues, this exercise is simple enough. You can set targets in every category in an attempt to finish with a certain number of points across the board. In a 12-team, 5x5 league, if 95 points is typically what it takes to win, your goal should be to finish third in every category. This would net you 100 points, and there’s a good chance—based on historical data—that this would put you atop the standings. As a general rule, I recommend not trying to dump categories in one-and-done leagues.: Since every category is available for purchase, unless there is a crazy draft or auction trend, you’re better off playing it straight.

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Next weekend, Jason Collette, Paul Singman, and I will be representing Baseball Prospectus in Tout Wars. Jason will be in the AL-only pool, Paul will handle the mixed format, and I will tackle the NL-only side. Just like with LABR, there will be plenty of updates based on how the experts profess their opinions with their bid prices.

For now, let’s get right into this week’s updates...

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Believe it or not, there are still a few old school, 4x4 Rotisserie-style leagues out there. For those of you who think that 5x5 is an ancient and outmoded format, this might be as shocking as finding out that there are still people in the industrialized world who don’t have indoor plumbing.

Nevertheless, some of these 4x4 leagues do still exist. I’m in one of those leagues, and my colleague Paul Sporer is in a 4x4 league, as well. If you do play 4x4, one of the biggest challenges now is trying to decipher what 5x5 valuations mean to you. If merely taking the auction prices from CBS and LABR and walking into your auction with them is a bad idea in 5x5, it’s a terrible idea in 4x4. By ignoring the differences between 4x4 and 5x5 valuations, you’re putting yourself at an extreme disadvantage.

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Last Monday, I examined how the bidding in the AL-only LABR auction impacted some of my bids. This week, it’s the National League’s turn (although I do have a handful of notes about the American League based on injury news).

National League Hitters

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