Auction Continued

As mentioned before, my basic strategy in creating a fantasy team is to focus on dominating Rs, HRs, RBI, and OBP while putting up a fight against most teams in steals. My strategy for pitching is to be competitive to dominant in saves and, new to me, try to find the bargain low ratio SPs that can get wins and hopefully Ks to give me a fighting chance in ERA/Whip/K's/Wins. In past years I would go for high K/Win guys regardless of ERA/WHIP but I find that to be a pretty terrible strategy because you can't afford to punt ERA and WHIP on a week to week basis. You also need as much clean innings as you can get to normalize the times your mediocre closers blow saves. Given this, here is how I budgeted for my team pre-auction:

~$150 for 3-5 elite players

~$50 to fill in the rest of the offense

~$20 on closers

~$40 on SP

Here's who I ended up with at each tier:

~$150 for 3-5 Elite players (I spent $161)

Hanley Ramirez $46

I was willing to go to about $50 for Hanley as I believe him to be so far and away the best short stop that the alternative would be too messy/annoying to deal with. The only other SS I'd consider would be Rollins but in an OBP league he is 50-60 points worse than Hanley who is improving each year, hit .400 OBP last year to Rollins .349. Not to mention Hanley has a decent shot to put up 35-40 HRs and 35-40 steals, remember he stole 50 bases in 06/07. I am really surprised I didn't have to pay $50 for him actually as I thought Gus would go to $48 easily.

Albert Pujols $46

This is where I may have made a mistake, but having your mistake be getting Albert Pujols can't be that bad. It probably would have been a lot better for my team to give up Pujols and get someone like Prince Fielder or Ryan Howard along with another $15 player. Granted Pujols is definitely worth $46-$50, using $92 on two players is a little crazy. I was definitely expecting to be repopped to $47-49, where I probably would have bowed out. I am not too sad to have the league leader in OBP(barring a full season from Chipper) and 40+HR potential etc.

Matt Holliday $29

I have a pretty hefty man-crush on Holliday as most people in the league know, and I have no worries about his transition to Oakland. Don't forget he missed almost a month of the season last year and STILL put up 25 HRs, 28SBs along with an over .400 OBP. I personally think he's a lock for 30 HR's+ if he stays healthy and a fantastic OBP. Looking at the Oakland lineup also could suggest that people might pitch around him more, in which case he could maybe steal that many more bases! I will be happy with 15+ out of him though.

David Ortiz $20

In retrospect I don't love this buy...I think Ortiz has a serious potential to get back to where he was in '07 at least but there are plenty of guys who will DEFINITELY put up certain numbers with very little risk. Perfect example is Thome at $7, I wouldn't be too surprised if Thome has similar numbers to Ortiz in the end this year which shows just how great Thome is in this league and also that I overpaid on Ortiz. Ortiz is another example of a guy who basically cannot afford to underperform on my team or else I massively overpaid. I would put Holliday in this mix too, but I believe in Holliday a lot more.

Brian Roberts $20

After Utley and Kinsler I am not too impressed with the 2nd basemen going forward in the auction. In retrospect I wish I had at least bid on Kinsler at 25 but I had just got done spending $92 on two players and I hadn't been overtly targeting him in my pre-auction preparation. Ultimately I was hoping to get Roberts and Aramis to meet my ~$150 quota. I had to pay a little more than I wanted for Roberts, but I really didn't want to pass on him and pray Uggla didn't go over $20 due to his OBP numbers. Also taking Roberts forces my hand into getting another steals guy to go with Hanley as I generally hate drafting steals. Roberts puts up just enough numbers in the other categories to where I am happy to have him in general. This buy put me to $160 on offense, meaning I had $40 left to spend on Catcher, 3B, Two OFs and a Util.

~$50 to fill in the rest of the offense (Spent $42)

Aramis Ramirez $19

A-Ram is the cutoff for me at 3B as the only other 3B I was interested in were Chipper, Wright, and maybe A-Rod at the right price. I love the price I got on A-Ram and wouldn't be too surprised if I kept him at $24 next year. At this point I had spent $180 on offense and was planning on perhaps one more ~$15 player followed by $1 fill ins at the end.

Jim Thome $7

I've talked about how much I like Thome at length. I think he will produce like a $10-$20 player this year in our league if his 38 year old body can stay healthy that is. The problem is I didn't realize how few people were factoring in OBP into their auction values as we see later on. I think Thome is only slightly better than Burrell/Hawpe who I got for quite a bit cheaper later on. Ultimately I'm happy to have him as I think by stock piling 30+HR guys I can compensate for if one or two of them go down...or if they all stay healthy I can trade for pitching later on.

Matt Wieters $12

The more I research and think about this buy, the more I like it. There wasn't another offensive player left in the auction at $10+ that I felt had the kind of upside Wieters does for this year and the next. I've seen him go for $15+ in non-keeper expert leagues so I wasn't afraid to spend that much on him, but I am excited at the prospect of keeping him at $17 next year. Pretty much every expert I've read flat out believes in him to be a lock for Rookie of the Year and to put up at least Longoria type numbers, with a better OBP. I still find myself a little worried about his lack of experience at anything higher than AA, but he hit well in spring and he put together what is known as the best minor league year of all time last year. I will be surprised if he is a bust at $12.

Pat Burrell $1/ Brad Hawpe $3

Both of these guys are fantastic buys at these prices in our OBP league...they are locks for 25+ HRs, 85-90+ RBI, 80+Rs and solid OBPs. I was very happy I waited to fill up the outfield when I did. Both should have been $1 as Gus was just trying to keep me from getting Hawpe at $1. He admitted later that it would have been really awkward for him to have filled up a roster spot had I let him have Hawpe at $2. I should have considered it and taken Cust at $1 later on, but I do believe Hawpe has a bit of an edge over Cust this year. I was concerned with not having quite enough money at the end to get the closers I wanted, but it ended up being fine.

I will go over my pitchers and the rest of the $1 players I got at another time...