Week 6 was a challenging FAAB week. While there was a top prospect getting the call in Travis Bazzana, he isn't necessarily a top target in traditional fantasy leagues. The two top starting pitching targets, Christian Scott and Logan Henderson, have difficult matchups this week, at Coors Field and against the Yankees respectively. The closer targets are all pretty shaky this week too, and yet I felt compelled to go after them. Let's dive in.
AL Tout Wars
The standings are currently packed in AL Tout Wars - I've fallen five slots in a day and climbed right back two days later. That makes my failure to retain Jacob Latz all that much more painful. I drafted Latz in March in the reserve rounds, hoping he'd win a rotation spot over Kumar Rocker. He did not beat out Rocker, and though he threw four innings in a spot against the Phillies when Jacob deGrom got pushed back from his season debut, I cut him. Boy, that was a mistake. He now seems like the first choice for manager Skip Schumaker to get saves, and he's been lights out. My $83 bid to get him back was a distant fourth, with Ian Kahn winning him for $180. My consolation prize is Sam Bachman of the Angels, who I'm hoping will get a shot at saves following a few decent appearances as of late.
My Drops: Paul Goldschmidt, Hunter Bigge.
NFBC Main Event
We only had one
Week 6 was a challenging FAAB week. While there was a top prospect getting the call in Travis Bazzana, he isn't necessarily a top target in traditional fantasy leagues. The two top starting pitching targets, Christian Scott and Logan Henderson, have difficult matchups this week, at Coors Field and against the Yankees respectively. The closer targets are all pretty shaky this week too, and yet I felt compelled to go after them. Let's dive in.
AL Tout Wars
The standings are currently packed in AL Tout Wars - I've fallen five slots in a day and climbed right back two days later. That makes my failure to retain Jacob Latz all that much more painful. I drafted Latz in March in the reserve rounds, hoping he'd win a rotation spot over Kumar Rocker. He did not beat out Rocker, and though he threw four innings in a spot against the Phillies when Jacob deGrom got pushed back from his season debut, I cut him. Boy, that was a mistake. He now seems like the first choice for manager Skip Schumaker to get saves, and he's been lights out. My $83 bid to get him back was a distant fourth, with Ian Kahn winning him for $180. My consolation prize is Sam Bachman of the Angels, who I'm hoping will get a shot at saves following a few decent appearances as of late.
My Drops: Paul Goldschmidt, Hunter Bigge.
NFBC Main Event
We only had one list for our potential pickups, and got our second choice, "Uncle" Rico Garcia, winning him 41 to 29. Is Garcia going to get the next save chance for the Orioles, if/when one should emerge? I don't know for sure, but he did get the save last Wednesday when Ryan Helsley was unavailable after pitching the two previous days. Helsley is on the IL right now and maybe it's just a short IL stint, but we need to scratch and claw for any potential save we can get.
It's time for a full disclosure - this team is awful right now. Fernando Tatis Jr. doesn't have a homer yet. We haven't found a second closer to support Raisel Iglesias, who at least returns this week. We passed on Aroldis Chapman to take Freddy Peralta, who is a mortal enemy with the fifth inning. Getting Iglesias back will help, and other injured players are on their way back shortly, but this team has been a mess so far.
Our Drop: Jesse Scholtens. Scholtens gave us two wins the last two weeks with the Rays using an opener in front of him, but we weren't going to use him this week with a game scheduled at Fenway Park, and I'm not yet ready to declare total defeat with Jakob Junis, and he was our only other cut option this week.
NFBC Auction Championship
Sometimes you leave a draft or auction knowing that you probably messed up, but maybe, just maybe, some of the bets you made will come through and it will all work out. Other times, your second-most expensive starter on a team that is light on starting pitching doesn't even make it to Opening Day and misses the entire the season, and your pitching is exactly as bad as you feared.
That's the case with my Auction League team, which lost Ryan Pepiot and Kirby Yates before getting to the opening bell. Pepiot is now out for the season, and my ace Logan Webb has not performed as an ace to boot. In a related note, I have 25 pitching points. You truly cannot have enough pitching in a 15-team league, especially in an NFBC league.
Compounding my problem is that once again I have just one closer (Andres Munoz), with my other save forays failing so far. I took three stabs at snagging saves this week, with the category still viable. Once again, Rico Garcia led the way, plus I took cheap stabs at Calvin Faucher on the Marlins and Bryan King on the Astros. For the Marlins, Faucher is clearly a "Mr. Right Now" and not a "Mr. Right," both in terms of the duration of his opportunity with Peter Fairbanks out and in terms of his skill set. I think he has a slight edge over Tyler Phillips, however. The fact that defending over Auction Championship winner Mike Mager saw otherwise does concern me! (Note: So does Faucher pitching the seventh inning on Monday night!) King got the last Astros save and Enyel De Los Santos has been used in early situations lately, so he's got a small chance of being the closer for now with Josh Hader on the 60-day IL and Bryan Abreu still struggling.
My Drops: Ryan Pepiot, Corbin Martin, Martin Perez. Most often I wouldn't pick up three relievers in one FAAB period, but all three of my cuts were eminently cuttable - why not add someone, anyone with potential, to fill their spots?
Beat Jeff Erickson1
Another league, another problem with the lack of a second closer. I already have Jakob Junis in this league, so I thought I'd corner the market on Rangers relievers named Jacob or Jakob, and get Jacob Latz this week. I'm conceding that I no longer want to chase Dodgers saves with Alex Vesia any longer. I also lost Agustin Ramirez to the minors this week, so Luis Campusano is my attempt to cover for that. Campusano has long been a catcher with unrealized hitting upside, but he's made the best of his limited opportunities so far, hitting .300/.352/.620 so far. I'm not cutting Ramirez just yet, but the news that the Marlins are not considering a position change for him bodes ill.
Getting Andrew Vaughn was a pleasant surprise - I put in token bids for he and Travis Bazzana, and the Vaughn bid went unopposed. He's coming back from a broken hamate bone suffered on Opening Day, and I'm buying what he did with the Brewers last season after getting acquired from the White Sox.
My Drops: Alex Vesia, Brady Singer, Enyel De Los Santos.
Beat Jeff Erickson2
For the second week in a row, I needed someone that was eligible either at third base or outfield to play while Eugenio Suarez is out, having lost Ronny Mauricio at the worst possible time for him, with the Mets starting a series in Coors Field this week and with Francisco Lindor out. Nathan Church was my third option, behind Jasson Dominguez and Carlos Cortes.
My Drop: Ronny Mauricio.
TGFBI
I messed up here - even with Jhoan Duran returning soon, I could have used another closer but got too cheap with both Latz and Jack Perkins, and ended up getting nothing this week. This is a strong team, but it just got weaker on Monday afternoon with the news about Tarik Skubal needing elbow surgery.
SCARF
SCARF continues to be my most competitive FAAB league, in terms of high bids and in the number of players added each week. I had a robust list of pitchers to pick up and got smoked on all of them. Thus, Nick Pivetta continues to earn service time on my roster.
With that in mind, I'm surprised that I won both Nathaniel Lowe and Travis Bazzana in this league. Lowe was useful last week, playing six games and hitting .316 with a homer and five RBI. The Reds have seven games this week, with only one left-handed starter projected to go against them. Adding Bazzana gives me an extra hitter to swap in the event of another hitter injury, with Andres Gimenez going to the bench to start the week.
My Drops: Javier Baez, Jorge Polanco. I'm potentially giving someone else a winfall with Polanco later on, but (a) he was awful before getting hurt, and (b) nothing is stopping me from bidding on him whenever he's close to returning in the future.
LABR
I entered the week having spent more on FAAB than all but one of my competitors, so I kept my bids low on four players this week - Travis Bazzana, Jacob Latz, Rico Garcia and Logan Henderson, with the hope that I could slide one of them in. They went for $12, 7, 12 and 11 respectively. I did not put in for the fifth big bid of the week, Christian Scott, because of LABR's rule requiring one to start the player that was picked up in the week he was acquired, with Scott pitching at Coors Field this week.
Because of the lack of pickups this week, Garrett Mitchell and/or Carmen Mlodzinski were spared from getting benched, and Jacob Lopez earns more service time.
RotoWire Staff Keeper League
Ugh, I won Erik Miller as my second choice as a closer speculation, behind Rico Garcia, only to see Miller get placed on the IL today with a back injury. Back to the drawing board in this 18-team mixed league.
My Drop: Jacob Lopez.
