Value. Simple as that.
No funky strategies, just properly price every player -- every player, all 348 of them picked at the bare minimum -- and let the values guide the way.
You've read about this before, and this past Saturday, in the annual League of Alternative Baseball Reality (LABR) AL-only auction, it was put once again to the test. What you might not have known: The cheat sheet you see in that column was my initial draft for that very LABR-AL auction; I made maybe $3-5 of total changes to the final version.
Using my series of cheat sheets, I planned for nothing more than sitting back, awaiting values and trying to keep my team as balanced as possible. This isn't an obvious punt-a-category year, with the only decision to be made in advance my hitting/pitching split: The aim was to pay more aggressively for hitting than usual, seeing more mid- to low-end pitching values, and end with a 68-74 percent budget for hitting.
Judging by this auction, at least, it seems that the soft spots on the value scale were at designated hitter and closer/relief pitcher, while the priciest market was at catcher. This is why it was no wonder that two of my first three buys were Miguel Sano ($21, 11th player sold) and Ken Giles ($14, 34th), while I spent a total of $5 on my two catchers, Carlos Perez ($3) and Geovany Soto ($2).
Don't fear DHs: While I've often suggested diving head first into this market, which tends to be annually undervalued, this is an unusual year: I count eight DHs that are clearly start-worthy in a standard, 12-team AL-only league. As an aside, neither Jimmy Paredes nor Jurickson Profar, both DH-only this year in LABR, was among my eight. That means that as DH/utility spots are tied up, and auction budgets depleted, the odds of squeaking a DH through at a tremendous discount only increases, if only because of the proportionately decreasing amount of competition for their services.
Strangely, this was not the way the DH market played out in LABR. Values were consistent across the board, besides Sano, with Prince Fielder ($20), David Ortiz ($18), Victor Martinez ($12), Evan Gattis ($12) and Billy Butler ($2) all selling for between $2-4 beneath my book prices. Whether your league follows suit is unclear, but as you prepare for your similar-depth AL-only league, keep it in mind. It isn't a reason to avoid DHs outright, but it's also a year where demanding a bargain price before rostering a DH is the optimal play.
Cheap closers! To be fair, the position has been trending in that direction among LABR veterans in recent seasons. Only three "full-time closers" sold for greater than my book prices, my top two options Wade Davis ($21) and Craig Kimbrel ($21) and Sean Doolittle ($12), who was a disaster of an $8 pick to my 2015 squad. Giles felt like a brilliant pickup in the early stages, until Cody Allen ($17) and Zach Britton ($17) sold for less than book price, but I couldn't justify spending in excess of $30 on closers alone. In retrospect, I'd have liked to let Shawn Tolleson ($11 buy of mine) go for $10, going after more nicely priced Drew Storen ($8) or Andrew Miller ($7).
Alas, the flow of the auction drives those decisions. Based on LABR's history of slightly underpricing top closers while overpricing the final few put up for sale, as well as the fact that for the near entirety of this year's LABR, the total amount of remaining auction dollars on the board exceeded my total book value of the remaining players for bid -- I had our inflation rate consistently ranging anywhere from a quarter to half a percent -- Tolleson appeared the right time to strike.
Sticking with the relievers, Ray Flowers might've gotten two of my favorite bargains of the entire auction, with not only Miller but also Dellin Betances ($7). With a light-on-pitching squad like mine, and one that was part of the plan, Betances would've been a desirable safety net for ERA, WHIP and strikeouts.
A reserve draft that mattered? It's unusual to see desirable players linger into the reserve draft -- a six-round serpentine draft immediately following the 322 player auction -- but this year's was an apparent outlier. Drawing the first pick in the auction, I narrowed the field to three candidates: Aaron Judge, Max Kepler and Profar, finally settling upon the former. Profar and Kepler went second and fourth, and another desired target, Sean Manaea, went sixth, in what was one of the deepest first rounds I've seen in this league in years.
Remember your rules, as in LABR, reserves can be freely moved back and forth between the bench and starting lineup (what we call "streaming" in ESPN leagues), while players bought in the auction can only be removed via disabled list placement, minor league demotion, suspension or otherwise deactivation from a big-league roster; you also have the right to outright release the player into LABR's free-agent pool.
In the past, with teams as hitting-heavy as this, I've opted to select six consecutive starting pitchers, in the hopes of streaming my matchups to make up the difference. Not so this year, as hitting appeared to be the richer market in the reserves, with Pedro Alvarez (No. 12 reserve pick), Brandon Guyer (17th), Jesus Montero (36th) and Travis Shaw (48th, and my selection to conclude the fourth round) among four I was targeting. Trading for pitching help will be practically mandatory, but with Judge, Oswaldo Arcia and Shaw in reserve, and Sano possessing a chance at outfield eligibility, I've got the depth to do so once the right deal presents itself.
The helpful, annual exercise: Longtime followers of my LABR recaps might recall the concept of "shadow drafting"; this is when you take the final purchase prices, determine whether you'd have purchased that player for an additional dollar, then construct your own team comprised of those picks. While this is ideally done as an outside observer and live during the auction, it's also a useful exercise to, seeing the final prices, pick your own team of "best values" using this method. This roster of mine can be seen at column's end, along with my actual team. If I was the buying owner of the player, I left his price as the price that I paid.
The end result? ESPN's projections had me second, one point behind Larry Schechter, but with a surprisingly glaring weakness in terms of stolen bases (five projected points, 42 behind the leader). If that proves to be true and my projections are too generous, I'm going to be in a rough spot, needing to reserve my trade resources more for pitching than speed. Rajai Davis' role in the Cleveland Indians' outfield might prove critical to my chances, and Kevin Jepsen's emergence as the Minnesota Twins' closer -- I'm more skeptical about Glen Perkins' ability to hold the role all year -- would help in terms of building more trade chips.
As a note, Michael Fulmer, drafted to my shadow-draft squad for $1, was one I had earmarked in advance of the auction as a final pitching bid, designed to be an immediate reserve -- he's highly unlikely to make the Detroit Tigers' Opening Day roster -- to free up a pitching spot for streaming candidates (whom I'd pick in the reserve draft), much the way Alex Cobb would have immediately gone to my DL.