2022 Auction draft strategy
by Doug Gruber
Auctions play to BABS’ strength, serving to identify players with the best combination of skills and risk who are undervalued at the auction table. And as long as you can budget correctly, everyone is available to you.
Let’s take a step-by-step approach to an auction, from gathering our tools, analyzing the player pool, setting our budget for players and risks, identifying our player targets, and then completing our roster.
TOOLS
First, we need to collect our tools. Here is what we need:
- Curt Brooks’ accounting Overview of the BABS pool: Batters | Pitchers
- The BABS Master Spreadsheet (Excel version).
- A Blank roster grid, including the asset target and risk budget for a 15-team mixed league.
- Other recent BABS articles…such as the BABS Tutorial, positional analyses (incl. the multi-position report by Pat Cloghessy), asset group analyses, strategy pieces, and the FISH List.
THE PLAYER POOL AND OUR BUDGETS
Next, let’s study the 2022 player pool.
For hitters, our goal is to roster at least 13 of our 14 hitting positions with full-time players while amassing a minimum of 35 assets: 14 power, 7 speed and 14 batting effectiveness. Yes, that is an aggressive target, averaging 2.5 assets for each of our 14 hitter positions… but we came here to win!
In 2022, there are only 108 hitters who are listed in asset groups containing two or more skills and projected for full-time at bats. That averages about 7 per team, and we want 13! Of the 108, more than 60 percent contain one or more major liabilities, further restricting our pool of desired targets.
For the pitchers, we must plan for the declining number of full-time starters. The BABS database currently shows only 17 starting pitchers projected for 180+ innings who possess assets in both pitching effectiveness and strikeouts. For mid-timers, we find another 45 with dual (ER,K) assets. That is all… 62 double-asset pitchers projected for 120 innings or more. To make it worse, only 16 of the 62 are devoid of injury or experience liabilities. Like the hitters, we need far more than our fair share from this scarce portion of the pitcher pool.
Our target is to roster at least two full-time and four mid-time starting pitchers, while accumulating a minimum of 12 ER plus K assets, and not rostering too much risk.
For closers, BABS lists only six double-asset arms projected as SV (more than 30 saves), as the trend continues towards fewer solo acts for the ninth inning role. Another 33 are shown as sv- (between 10 and 29 saves) who own dual skills. Our target is to obtain at least two pitchers with saves assets, preferably acquiring at least one of the six with an SV classification.
For our Total Risk Budget, we will target the “Exceptional” level, which is $30 or under to deliberately minimize our risk exposure. We also cannot ignore the skills liabilities for hitters and pitchers, which BABS has preached could do enormous damage to our categories. As such, skills liabilities such as (-P) or (-E) are included in the risk scores along with the other liabilities.
IDENTIFYING OUR PLAYER TARGETS
With the player pool analyzed and our overall mission outlined, let’s look closer at the Master Spreadsheet and begin to identify our player targets.
Starting with the hitters, with a reminder that we need more than two assets per player, it is logical to start with hitters who own three or more. Not many bargains at the very top, except for Byron Buxton (PW,SB,AV) who shares an asset group with Mookie Betts, but can be acquired for a 30-40 percent discount. In (p,SB,a), multi-position players Javier Baez and Chris Taylor are in the same group as Luis Robert and Cedric Mullins but at much lower cost. Ditto for Ramon Laureano (p,s,a) and Jesse Winker (p,A+) versus the prices for their classmates.
Continue this process for the remainder of the hitter asset groups that contain two assets, looking for additional targets. For power and average, several players can be had at a discount versus fellow (PW,a) mates Matt Olson and Austin Riley, such as Ryan McMahon and Wil Myers, who also have clean liability ledgers. For speed, BABS says Adalberto Mondesi and Jazz Chisholm have the same skill sets, but you get a double benefit from a lower price and lower risk. In (SB,a), why pay $15 or more for Tommy Edman when Joey Wendle can be had for a buck or two. And so on through the other asset groups…
Moving to pitchers, the top arms include Corbin Burnes and Gerrit Cole, but these studs cost more than $40 each. And Jacob DeGrom, Max Scherzer and Shane Bieber carry elevated risk to go with their hefty price tag, not what we prefer for our aces. Instead, we could target more reliable starters from either the (e,K+) or the (ER,KK) groups, a slight reduction in assets but pitchers who still possess significant skills. Aaron Nola for example brings full-time innings and a $10 discount. Others come at half the price, such as Kevin Gausman or Joe Musgrove. BABS says any of these could become our SP1 and SP2 staff anchors. Continue to comb through the other highly rated pitcher groups, prioritizing dual-asset starters with price discounts.
For the relief pitchers, Ryan Pressly (E+,K+,SV) comes with a markdown versus his highly skilled group mates Josh Hader and Liam Hendriks. You will find similar opportunities within the asset groups that include those projected as (sv-) relievers. And as you finish looking at the RP asset groups, do not rule out elite arms who may not be the current closer, such as Devin Williams (E+,K+) who could provide a profit without racking up saves.
Important note… The AAV data on the spreadsheet are values calculated from the ADPs and tend to run low. To allow our plan to have sufficient money to acquire our targets, we adjusted our budget to compensate. For any player $30 and above, we budgeted an additional $3 above the AAV; for $15-$29 players we added $2; and, for all other players, we added at least $1 to the AAV. We then altered a few price points that still looked off versus the current market.
SAMPLE AUCTION ROSTER
We can now use a blank BABS roster worksheet to put together our total auction plan. Here is an example, including some of the previously mentioned names. This plan is more of a “spread the risk” team, as our highest target is Freddie Freeman at $30 with another ten players costing between $10-24. Note that the budget R$ amounts include the juiced up AAV discussed above.
This plan allows us to accumulate 58 total assets, well surpassing the 49 minimum asset targets. The total spending is reasonably balanced between hitting ($168/65%) and pitching ($89/35%), and leaves $3 for wiggle room, knowing that the bidding in your league will vary.
Another vital aspect of our sample team is that we remained below our Exceptional risk budget, totaling $27.25 versus a goal of being below $30.
Don’t forget to develop a plan for the reserve rounds as well, treating it as an opportunity to stockpile additional BABS assets to allow for more roster flexibility and depth, and to address potential category deficits. For example, this sample team exceeded the power and strikeout category targets, so we might want to lean towards the other assets in the end game. Or take a shot on high upside players since our risk budget has room to take more chances.
Now comes the fun part…taking our plan to the auction. As you do so, keep in mind BABS’ advice from the BABS Project 3.1, Book 1, Chapter 1: “There is only a 65 percent chance that a player projected for a certain dollar value will finish the season within plus-or-minus $5 of that projection…” With that liberating guidance, there is no need to obsess over a dollar or two, allowing you more freedom to go buy your players!