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July 28, 2015 Expert FAAB ReviewWeek 17Depending on how long you have been a Baseball Prospectus subscriber, welcome or welcome back to the Expert FAAB Review. Every week, I’m going to take a look at the players and the process behind the expert bidding in LABR mixed, Tout Wars NL, and Tout Wars AL. Bret Sayre and I participate in LABR mixed while I have a team in Tout Wars NL, so I will provide insights behind the reasoning on some the bids. Budgets in all three leagues start at $100 at the beginning of the season. Tout Wars uses a Vickrey Auction system. A basic description of the Vickrey bidding system can be found here. Random Quote of the Week – “I’m going to ride my llama. From Peru to Texarkana.” –Neil Young In both LABR AL and Tout Wars AL, Johnny Cueto was not available to bid on this week. I am not sure if this is the explanation that applies in Tout Wars, but here is part of the email I received from Steve Gardner shortly after the midnight deadline in LABR: From RTS: We actually did not receive the official transaction from our stats provider until just now. We do not update player teams and status on Sundays after 1 pm in order to try and keep things fair and give everybody ample time to make waiver moves on Sunday. We don’t have the ability to change Cueto’s team and make him eligible in only the LABR AL league without making him eligible in all of our AL leagues. If Cueto had been available in LABR or Tout AL, he would have likely drawn the highest bid from Brandon Funston of Yahoo (in LABR) and Robert Leibowitz of Mastersball (in Tout Wars). In some seasons, categorical need may have given either fantasy expert pause, but with what appears to be a soft/uncertain hitting market, it would have made no sense for either Funston or Leibowitz to sit on their cash and wait for next week’s trade deadline imports. At best, Cole Hamels would be a push with Cueto, and unless Carlos Gomez or Justin Upton gets moved to the AL, Cueto is likely to be the best of the players crossing leagues. Of course, then the surprise blockbuster swap between the Rockies and Blue Jays was reported by Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports late last night/early this morning. Would Funston/Leibowitz have been better off waiting for Troy Tulowitzki? Perhaps—depending upon their categorical needs—but playing the guessing game only to lose out at the end is often a pointless exercise. LABR Mixed
Aaron Nola $3. Other bids: $3, $2, $1, $1. Player released: None. Jake Smolinski $2. Player released: Fernando Rodney. Tout Wars NL
Godley was acquired by the Diamondbacks as part of the Miguel Montero deal with the Cubs. As Christopher Crawford wrote yesterday, Godley is a back-end-of-rotation guy at best, but Godley could survive a few turns with decent numbers. He is at the Mariners tonight against Hisashi Iwakuma; I bid $6 because I liked the fresh young pitcher in that park as a matchup play. $6 may seem like a lot for a matchup play, but follow me to the bottom of this section to get more insights on my thinking, both with Godley as well as my FAAB strategy from this point forward. Adonis Garcia $1 ($12). Player reserved: Eury Perez. The popular parlor game this week was “guess who the next starting pitcher for the Reds will be.” Brian Walton of Mastersball grabbed Finnegan, Hertz got Lamb, while Tristan Cockcroft of ESPN took a stab on Stephenson. It could also be “none of the above”, but at a dollar, it isn’t particularly important if all three of these experts are wrong. This is also the time of year for speculating on the next position player starter once a trade vacates a position. Besides the Reds, the other big place for guesswork was the Braves. The Johnson/Uribe trade opened up two slots, and Garcia and Ciriaco are the plays du jour in an NL-only. Ciriaco is a known commodity. He might steal a few bases but won’t do much else, and you hope he doesn’t hurt the batting average. Garcia is a Cuban import who defected to the United States way back in 2011, but didn’t too much in the minors in the last two seasons. He’s now 30 years old. There’s a window for him, but the depth chart still has him on the Braves’ bench. I wound up with Hawkins as a consolation prize for Godley. With John Axford rumored to be on the block, it’s possible that Hawkins winds up back in the closer’s role for the Rockies. Hawkins has pitched very well since coming off the DL, and with the Rockies on the road this entire week, I figured I could take the gamble. If Axford isn’t traded, chances are excellent I cut Hawkins on Sunday. Hawkins is included in the Tulo/Jose Reyes deal, so my speculation was for naught. Oh well. The bigger piece of the FAAB puzzle for me than Hawkins is that I enter this week with the most FAAB in the league. Table One: FAAB Left, Tout Wars National League
As a result, I have a $24 cushion on Melnick in FAAB ($23 in actuality, since I would lose a tiebreaker). Some have asked why I haven’t started getting more aggressive with my FAAB, but when I do spend big on an NL-import, I will have only $23 left to spend the rest of the season. If an import doesn’t come in, I will have a pile of FAAB burning a hole in my pocket, but this is an acceptable risk to me given my position in the standings (first place by seven points as I write this). Regardless of whoever else comes over to the National League in trade, I already won this gambit if the Tulo/Reyes trade does come to fruition. Reyes would be a big upgrade in Coors Field over my worst player on offense, Freddy Galvis. It is possible that the Rockies flip Reyes again between now and Friday, but at the moment my strategy looks like it will pay off significantly. Tout AL
The health news on Crisp seems slightly more promising this week than it did last week, which would explain the slightly more aggressive bids. If he plays—and if he’s healthy—he could even have deeper mixed league value. This is the rub. Jemile Weeks $1 ($20). Player reserved: Dustin Pedroia
Mike Gianella is an author of Baseball Prospectus. Follow @MikeGianella
2 comments have been left for this article.
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"Here" link under nola comment not actually a link?
Nevermind, i seem to have been braindead when I read that the first time.