I apologize for the hiatus on this article - there were a couple of holidays that intervened, but we're back for the rest of the season.
This week was pretty quiet in terms of the size of the bids in most of my leagues, and in many cases the number of players picked up. In many of my leagues, I'm down to 25-30 percent of my FAAB budget, which isn't optimal, but it also isn't unusual. Spending typically is higher early - the rate of injury is higher, the number of emerging players is higher, and there's more competition for those players. Often I'll try to save more of my budget in an AL or NL only league, to take advantage of the talent joining the pool coming across from the other league.
AL Tout Wars
When we last touched base, life was swell, I was in first place in this league, and even was drawing compliments from one of my esteemed rivals in the league. Pride cometh before the fall, folks. Since then I've dropped nearly 30 points and seven places in the standings. Injuries are the primary culprits - Cole Ragans, Roman Anthony, Corey Seager (twice!), and Brendan Donovan (also twice!) lead the list. I've had five weeks in a row where I've had more injured players that allowable IL slots (four). But two big mistakes also are taunting me daily - in an AL-only league, when you find a great cheap player in the auction
I apologize for the hiatus on this article - there were a couple of holidays that intervened, but we're back for the rest of the season.
This week was pretty quiet in terms of the size of the bids in most of my leagues, and in many cases the number of players picked up. In many of my leagues, I'm down to 25-30 percent of my FAAB budget, which isn't optimal, but it also isn't unusual. Spending typically is higher early - the rate of injury is higher, the number of emerging players is higher, and there's more competition for those players. Often I'll try to save more of my budget in an AL or NL only league, to take advantage of the talent joining the pool coming across from the other league.
AL Tout Wars
When we last touched base, life was swell, I was in first place in this league, and even was drawing compliments from one of my esteemed rivals in the league. Pride cometh before the fall, folks. Since then I've dropped nearly 30 points and seven places in the standings. Injuries are the primary culprits - Cole Ragans, Roman Anthony, Corey Seager (twice!), and Brendan Donovan (also twice!) lead the list. I've had five weeks in a row where I've had more injured players that allowable IL slots (four). But two big mistakes also are taunting me daily - in an AL-only league, when you find a great cheap player in the auction or reserve rounds, it's a huge windfall. I drafted Jacob Latz in the last round of reserves, but then he lost out on a valuable role. I cut him, and now he's the Rangers' full-time closer. I also cut Paul Goldschmidt right before he caught fire and started playing regularly. Those two gaffes have cost me 7-10 points in the standings.
My Drop: Cole Ragans. Ragans got placed on the 60-day IL, and while I do have four IL spots to park him if desired, I don't think he's coming back this year, and by cutting him I can get FAAB dollars in return. Tout Wars has an injury redemption rule in the AL and NL leagues, where if you drop a player bought in the auction, you can get his auction price x $10 if you redeem him before the All-Star break. After the break, that rate drops to x $5. The $220 in FAAB I got back for Ragans is probably going to be worth more than the slim chance he pitches, and pitches well, at some point this season.
NFBC Main Event
We've had two relatively big FAAB spends in this league. One, Jakob Junis, was a complete bust - he had three saves before we picked him up, and he still had three saves by the time we cut him weeks later. The other was A.J. Ewing, who has had a modicum of success, though well short of calling him a win for us. Still, there's reason to think he can at least be useable for the duration of the season at least.
The consequence of those two bigger spends is that we're playing small-to-medium ball, which has it's own benefits. A relatively cheap buy of Tony Santillan a few weeks ago has netted a few saves, and lessened the need to bid bigger on the likes of Jacob Webb or other partial closers, in the short run.
Some of this preamble is me coping with not getting any of the bigger free agents this week. We had bids in on Trevor Larnach (losing by 2), Matt Shaw, Lane Thomas and Tommy Edman. As a result, we're hanging on to Tommy Troy for another week. We settled on Austin Wells, returning from the IL for the Yankees, and hopefully hitting better than when he went on the IL. We also took a cheap flyer on Gus Varland for the Nats.
Our Drops: Miguel Amaya, Jack Leiter.
NFBC Auction Championship
I've spent all season trying to catch up in the pitching categories, after coming up woefully short in the auction, despite landing on Parker Messick and Foster Griffin in the endgame. Logan Webb is my putative ace that hasn't pitched like an ace, Ryan Pepiot didn't throw a pitch all season, and while Kevin Gausman has mostly pitched well, he was light on wins due to a lack of run and bullpen support. Then he got blown up against the Cubs on Friday. My premise, though, was that the offense was good enough to overcome slightly below-average pitching. That hasn't come to fruition either.
I made three small pickups this week, and in one of my drops acknowledged a mistake in earlier bidding. First, I picked up Victor Caratini, with the news that Will Smith will miss the Dodgers' road trip due to his neck injury. I picked up Davis Schneider to replace Yohendrick Pinango, who appears to be out of favor in the Jays' outfield rotation. And finally, I added a dangerous two-step pitcher in Aaron Civale, who at least will be on the road for the two starts after the A's had a two-week homestand at two different venues.
My Drops: Ryan Waldschmidt, Yohendrick Pinango, Lucas Giolito. Waldschmidt unfortunately earned his demotion to Triple-A Reno. He had a 33.1 K%, and has yet to hit his first major league homer. Unfortunately, he was expensive for me - both in terms of my pickup price ($175), as well as the oportunity cost of getting other free agent outfielders concurrent or after him. Giolito's next two starts are against the Dodgers.
Beat Jeff Erickson1
As opposed to AL Tout Wars, a couple of key pickups have helped fuel this team. I was able to target Jordan Walker after the first week of the season, winning a contested bid that paid immediate dividends. And later in the season I grabbed Jacob Latz just as he was emerging as the Rangers' closer (though he's struggling to clean out the 8th inning against the Marlins as I'm writing this!).
This week was a calm week - I picked up two cheap pitchers in Landen Roupp and Shane Drohan. Roupp's numbers are tinged by a horrible outing against the Brewers four starts ago. There's still some question marks on his resume, but I like how he increased his K% by nearly 5 percent. Drohan has to beat out either Robert Gasser or Brandon Sproat to remain in the rotation, but I like what I've seen in him over the last two months.
My Drops: Lucas Giolito, Ryan Waldschmidt.
Beat Jeff Erickson2
This is my lone Shohei Ohtani team, and for that matter, my lone snake draft team that had a top-five pick. It's in third place right now, but has had some major negative news on the pitching side. I went with four pitchers (not including Ohtani!) in my first six picks. Mason Miller (2.24) has been amazing, but I also took Hunter Brown (3.25), Cole Ragans (5.49) and Daniel Palencia (6.60). Despite that, I still have not used Ohtani as a pitcher!
To that end, adding Gage Jump and Tony Santillan were priority adds for me this week, especially Jump, who has really impressed me so far, especially overcoming Las Vegas and Sacramento in his last two starts.
My Drops: Cole Ragans again, Brett Baty.
TGFBI
I have a pretty good team here, vacilating between first and third for most of the season. I am light in stolen bases, so I went with the discount version of Cooper Pratt here, taking David Hamilton after not getting Pratt.
My Drop: Jorge Soler.
SCARF
I'm very dumb at times. I dropped Daulton Varsho last week, thinking he was going to be out longer than he was, and missed out picking him up this week. Andrew Benintendi has a good home slate this week, but this was an unforced error.
My Drop: Jonah Heim. I got Cal Raleigh back last week. Thank you for your service, Jonah. We'll always have Vegas.
LABR
I got shut out trying to bid on Matt Shaw, but stayed away otherwise this week. Maybe someday I'll be able to list Luis Rengifo as my drop.
RotoWire Staff Keeper League
Frankly, I was surprised that Santillan was still available here. The Staff Keeper League is an 18-team mixed league with seven man reserves and 10-man minor league rosters. Even with Monday night's outing - where he was working despite throwing two innings on Sunday - I'm persuaded that he fixed what was holding him back earlier this season. Now I don't know how long he'll be the guy, as Emilio Pagan is starting a rehab assignment this week. But even two saves is worth a lot in this league, and it's worth more to me because I have Daniel Palencia here.
My Drop: Wade Meckler.
