This article is part of our Rounding Third series.
What Do You Do When It Quits Being New?
We're starting to settle into the grind of a long season - the shine of a brand new season is off, and perhaps there's a lack of a hyped prospect hitter or newly minted closer becoming available. But these are vital weeks - it helps to dig into the corners, and find a new skill emerging, or just a player that helps you get through a few injuries, or hitters that have just five games this week. It's also gives me a good excuse to post a link to this Lyle Lovett song:
AL ToutWars
Mike Gianella got a nice price on a potential closer in Hansel Robles - his name will come up later. You might also notice that Chris Liss added two injured players in Eloy Jimenez and Zach Britton - that's a rule from ToutWars - you're allowed to add players on the IL so long as you keep them on your active roster for a week. Why was Jimenez available in the first place, given that we have unlimited IL spots? It's because we also have a FAAB reclaim rule - if you roster someone in the auction, you can drop him and reclaim his salary at a 10x rate - if you paid $30 in the auction, you get $300 in FAAB back if you choose to drop him.
My pick up was boring - I picked up Jake Rogers to replace Chance Sisco. Just
What Do You Do When It Quits Being New?
We're starting to settle into the grind of a long season - the shine of a brand new season is off, and perhaps there's a lack of a hyped prospect hitter or newly minted closer becoming available. But these are vital weeks - it helps to dig into the corners, and find a new skill emerging, or just a player that helps you get through a few injuries, or hitters that have just five games this week. It's also gives me a good excuse to post a link to this Lyle Lovett song:
AL ToutWars
Mike Gianella got a nice price on a potential closer in Hansel Robles - his name will come up later. You might also notice that Chris Liss added two injured players in Eloy Jimenez and Zach Britton - that's a rule from ToutWars - you're allowed to add players on the IL so long as you keep them on your active roster for a week. Why was Jimenez available in the first place, given that we have unlimited IL spots? It's because we also have a FAAB reclaim rule - if you roster someone in the auction, you can drop him and reclaim his salary at a 10x rate - if you paid $30 in the auction, you get $300 in FAAB back if you choose to drop him.
My pick up was boring - I picked up Jake Rogers to replace Chance Sisco. Just shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic.
NFBC Main Event I
Click here for a larger image
(and then scroll all the way down to the bottom to see our pick up)
Tim and I were in on the bidding for some of the higher-bid players this week, but weren't too enthusiastic, in part because we've been aggressive in previous weeks and need to conserve, and because we weren't eager to drop anyone. David Fletcher was a somewhat reluctant drop, but we didn't want to take a zero from our MI spot, and both he and Didi Gregorius are day-to-day with injuries. We decided that Fletcher was the more expendable of the two. Ha-Seong Kim will serve as an acceptable hitter stream while both Gregorius and Fernando Tatis (not on our roster) are out.
NFBC Main Event II
Two parts:
and
Logan Gilbert was available in this league but not my other ME league, and while we were interested in him, we also weren't about to go to the mat for him, which obviously was required to win him. I hope that this doesn't come back to haunt by writing it here, however! We also are leading our league in wins, so while it's always nice to improve, we have a bigger priority - our bullpen. Going into this FAAB period we had a shaky half-closer (Jake McGee) and a bullpen spec play in Amir Garrett. We're going to be bidding on possible closers for a while now, also known as NFBC Hell.
Thus enters Hansel Robles, who got the save on Saturday for the last-place Twins, who are in this predicament in part due to the failings of Alex Colome and to a lesser extent Taylor Rogers. Rogers didn't allow an earned run until May 3rd, but he has allowed runs in four of his last five games, including an unearned run on Sunday when he got the loss against the A's. I still think Rogers might be a better pitcher, but Robles could get the next save chance. He's closed before last year's disaster season and seems to be closer to being on track now. Whether we identified the right player is up for debate, but at least we optimized the bid.
RotoWire Online Championship I
12-team leagues are weird after doing the bids for 15-team leagues. I'd be thrilled to get Mike Tauchman in a ME league for three-figures, though there's no way he would have been available, but then I won him here unopposed.
RotoWire Online Championship II
TGFBI
Back-to-back leagues where I got shut-out, and in both cases I have needs but not players I wanted to drop. I may have to lower my threshold to what player constitutes a drop.
LABR Mixed Draft
This going to be a theme in this league for me - I'm going to be bidding in $1 or $2 increments at tops. With $39 remaining in FAAB I still am 14th in remaining FAAB budget. Joey Votto and Christian Walker went on the IL the last two weeks, so I am still in the market for another corner. I bid $2 on Josh Fuentes, naturally one week *after his best week ever, but that wasn't enough. I settled instead for Michael Chavis, who has been getting a good run with the Red Sox, though Enrique Hernandez's potential return clouds his picture.
