Week 3 FAAB Results - Sad Strider Drops

I had Spencer Strider in five of my 14 managed (i.e., not Best Ball) roto leagues this year. One of those is the RotoWire Staff Keeper League, where he still carries some long-term value, though I'm entering a contract year with him there. Another of those leagues is the First Pitch Arizona Speakers' League, which uses the NFBC's Draft Champions League format - that is a draft-and-hold league with no Free Agent moves. In the other three leagues (one RotoWire Online Championship "Beat Jeff Erickson" league, a home league on Yahoo, and Yogurt (TGFBI), it was time to say goodbye. That sounds a little more dramatic than it is, but it's still an unfortunate day.

AL Tout Wars:

Alert readers (h/t, Dave Barry) may see an unfamiliar name in the list, one that wasn't in their respective FAAB runs. Joey Loperfido already has 10 home runs for the Astros' Triple-A affiliate at Sugar Land, Texas, hitting a robust .333/.429/.895 in 70 plate appearances. Tout Wars has a rule that allows one to bid on prospects in free agent bidding whenever they want, so long as the player is on their active roster for the next week if they win him. Both Patrick Davitt and Eric Samulski put bids in on Loperfido, hoping that he gets the call to replace Jose Abreu soon. The Astros suggested that a callup might be in the offing in the near future, but first he has to reduce his 34.3 K%.

I added two players this week - Yariel Rodriguez, who replaces the injured Cody Bradford in my rotation, and Jose Miranda, who should get a little more playing time with both Royce Lewis and Carlos Correa out for the Twins.

NFBC Main Event:

We're pretty happy with where our hitting is at right now, though it sure would be nice if Ronald Acuña would start hitting homers or Francisco Lindor would start hitting anything at all. So we were entirely focused on adding another pitcher this week. As a continuing theme, we're just not bidding enough to get our top targets. With 26 weeks of FAAB bidding, we need to pace ourselves, but I think we've taken it too far, with only $42 spent in four periods (including "Week 0"). That said, I don't think I could have gotten to the point of spending triple digits on Jose Butto or Yariel Rodriguez, but the tradeoff is that we haven't yet added anyone who we can start week-in and week-out. We got outbid on Butto, Rodriguez, and Kirby Yates.

Our addition this week was Ryne Stanek, who has two saves so far as the Mariners continue to do their "ace reliever" thing with Andres Muñoz. The Mariners haven't had many save chances this year as they struggle at the plate, so it's hard to tell just how much manager Scott Servais is committed to the bit this year, but if we can squeeze 10 saves out of Stanek that would be pretty sweet. However, we're going to keep Stanek on our bench this week as we wait and see his usage, with the Mariners going to Coors, and with us getting Jordan Romano back from the IL this week.

Beat Jeff Erickson1:

This team is off to a pretty good start despite losing Shane Bieber for the season, and Jhoan Duran and Luis Robert Jr. for long periods early on. It helps that I have a whopping 16 wins so far there, despite losing Bieber and waiting until the sixth round to take my first starter (Grayson Rodriguez). Thus I was focused on adding a reliever, lost out on Kirby Yates again, and settled again on Ryne Stanek. He's benched in this league this week too, however. I'm going with eight starters and Jason Foley again this week, hoping to continue to build up wins and strikeouts and then make up the saves (three total so far) later on when Duran returns.

Beat Jeff Erickson2:

This was the first of my Sad Strider leagues, and also the first of my NFBC leagues where I didn't already have Colton Cowser. I lost out on Cowser in the bidding (only by a lot - I bid $37), but did get Edward Olivares, who has been getting some starts against right-handers lately, though he did sit against Zack Wheeler on Sunday.

Once again, I'm light on saves in this league, and once again I didn't get Kirby Yates, but settled on my second and third choices. Stanek again, and Jeff Hoffman, who has two saves so far, and I already have Jose Alvarado. I don't necessarily like having two pitchers from the same bullpen, but I'm rolling with it for now.

TGFBI:

Sad Strider 2, Electric Boogaloo. At least I went "Pocket Aces" here, so I still have Zack Wheeler on the roster. But the tough part of this team is having lesser SP3-SP5, especially when my SP3 is the struggling Tanner Bibee. I added Butto at a more reasonable $55 price, though I still didn't give it enough of a discount to account for the activity of this league.

David Hamilton allows me to push Ryan McMahon to CR to account for Royce Lewis's absence, with Hamilton sliding in at Middle Infielder. My expectations are pretty low, but at least he'll run a little bit whenever he plays.

SCARF:

I've failed in many ways in this league, and found a new way last night. The last two years, our FAAB deadline in SCARF (and all the EARTH leagues) was at 9:00p PT, two hours after all the other NFBC platform leagues. This year it has been at 7:00p PT, despite some rumors that they were going to move it back to it's original time. I missed out on that last night, getting shut out on all of this lovely inventory. I had easy players to cut in Yoan Moncada and Daniel Hudson, too. Aargh.

LABR:

My hypocrisy knows no bounds. I declined to go aggressively after Jose Butto here (and would have won him had I gone with my original bid) because in LABR one is required to start their free agent pickups the week that you roster the player, and Butto is next scheduled to pitch against the Dodgers in Dodger Stadium. So instead, I won the services of Ryne Stanek ... who is pitching in Coors Field for the second half of the week.

That said, I really need saves and lost the tiebreaker on Kirby Yates, so I got my second choice in a thin closing pool. My closers are Kevin Ginkel (with Paul Sewald on the IL) and that's it, with Alex Lange not getting the job for the Tigers after all. I failed in my attempt to replace Lange with Alex Foley or any of the other partially minted starters, so Stanek it is. I also added Jurickson Profar, who has the merits of playing better and more often than Whit Merrifield, plus the following week has a four-game series in Coors Field.

Staff Keeper League:

This is another Sad Strider league, but my more pressing issue on the waiver wire this week was finding a middle infield replacement for Brandon Lowe. The offerings on the wire were pretty slim, so I knowingly overpaid for Josh Smith, hoping at least to net semi-regular playing time. I also re-added the Nard Dog, in case Tanner Scott's struggles continue.