This article is part of our Rounding Third series.
It seems like every year my FAAB bids in the first couple of weeks fall consistently short on the bigger bids. While that wasn't the case in every single of my FAAB leagues yesterday, it was mostly true. In two of my leagues I was completely shut out, and in another big league I settled for scraps. Let's get to the results.
AL Tout Wars:
I have Jackson Holliday on my bench following his demotion last week and have been scrambling a little bit to fill his spot and to upgrade my weak second base slot (Luis Urias). That made Jon Berti a bit of a priority for me. Unfortunately he was more of a priority for Doug Dennis, who outbid me by a whopping 101 FAAB dollars. Apparently I was bidding with Schrute-bucks instead of a valid currency.
My consolation prize was a pitcher, Cody Bradford, who had six strikeouts in his first outing and will probably get just one more start while Michael Lorenzen ramps back up. But I do like Bradford's overall skill set.
NFBC Main Event:
It's not just that we didn't get Jason Foley or Kevin Ginkel, it's also that we weren't especially close to winning them in the league that has the highest entry fee. It's possible that the market is overreacting to early results, but it's also true that we have the opportunity to land a player who could be good for us for six months. I
It seems like every year my FAAB bids in the first couple of weeks fall consistently short on the bigger bids. While that wasn't the case in every single of my FAAB leagues yesterday, it was mostly true. In two of my leagues I was completely shut out, and in another big league I settled for scraps. Let's get to the results.
AL Tout Wars:
I have Jackson Holliday on my bench following his demotion last week and have been scrambling a little bit to fill his spot and to upgrade my weak second base slot (Luis Urias). That made Jon Berti a bit of a priority for me. Unfortunately he was more of a priority for Doug Dennis, who outbid me by a whopping 101 FAAB dollars. Apparently I was bidding with Schrute-bucks instead of a valid currency.
My consolation prize was a pitcher, Cody Bradford, who had six strikeouts in his first outing and will probably get just one more start while Michael Lorenzen ramps back up. But I do like Bradford's overall skill set.
NFBC Main Event:
It's not just that we didn't get Jason Foley or Kevin Ginkel, it's also that we weren't especially close to winning them in the league that has the highest entry fee. It's possible that the market is overreacting to early results, but it's also true that we have the opportunity to land a player who could be good for us for six months. I think I need to recalibrate my early bidding a little bit. Chris Martin of the Red Sox could have been a sneaky pickup given Kenley Jansen's back woes.
We ended up with "waterfall" acquisitions Matt Waldron and Jesse Winker. Waldron has two starts this week after winning the Padres' fifth starter job in spring training. Winker is coming off of two terrible seasons, but he's batting third against right-handers and fifth against lefties so far this season for the Nats.
Beat Jeff Erickson 1:
At least I got Jason Foley, who I prioritized over Ginkel and Abner Uribe. I also had a token bid for Victor Scott but came nowhere near getting him. I might regret that. Scott stole 94 bases in the minors last year, but he also might get sent back down when the Cardinals get Lars Nootbaar back this weekend.
Beat Jeff Erickson 2:
I got bupkis here - zero, zilch, nada, the first of two leagues where I got completely shut out. The sad part was that I didn't even get the second-place bid on Jared Jones (still available!), Jason Foley, Kevin Ginkel or Victor Scott II. I should have been more aggressive with volume bids just to replace Matt McLain, but I was tepid on a second bid.
TGFBI:
Daniel Hudson was my best pitcher in many leagues to begin the season, with a win and a save, and the thanks he gets for his efforts is to get cut for the Flavor of the Week. Tough game. It was odd to see successful bids here in a 15-team league after getting shut out in the 12 above — if this was a reflection of the market, I wonder if I can ratchet down my bid prices. I'll give it another week or two to get a larger sample before making big changes.
SCARF:
Aaaaand .... we're back to being shut out. My $137 Foley bid was good enough for second place, but my $111 bid on Victor Scott II was not. I've landed just one free agent so far (Daniel Hudson) in this league. So while that's efficient and I do have a hammer, I also have some weak spots on this slow-starting team without any reinforcements.
LABR:
I tried to land both Foley and Ginkel, but I ended up with just Ginkel (who replaces my Paul Sewald) and Cody Bradford again. The bids here are lower as a percentage of each owner's FAAB budget, and that's a feature not a bug, because we have a $100 budget with no $0 bids allowed. Thus we can't be as granular with our bidding. Not only that, but any pickup has to be active in the week where you pick him up.
RotoWire Staff Keeper League:
Here's another league where I lost out on my top target, Kevin Ginkel. It hurts a little more because closers are even harder to come by in this 18-team keeper league. I have Peter Fairbanks and the hope that Hunter Harvey might close someday, and that's it. This league is similar to LABR in that we have just a $100 FAAB budget with no $0 bids, and it's a keeper league so every pickup must cost at least $1. We can, however, trade FAAB money in this league. I also got outbid on Oswaldo Cabrera, settling instead for Cody Bradford and Sixto Sanchez. Sanchez doesn't have a fantasy-viable role now, but consider this a bet on his talent.
