BABS in Auctions
I’ve been playing in auction leagues for 30 years. And for 30 years I’ve worried about optimal budgeting, getting the best values and not overpaying for players. I’ve agonized over whether to go an extra buck, how long to stay in bidding wars and making sure I spent all my $260.
BABS says I worry too much.
When it comes to using BABS in an auction league, everything starts with this paragraph from RSOB Chapter 1:
“There is only a 65% chance that a player projected for a certain dollar value will finish the season within plus-or-minus $5 of that projection. That means, if you project a player will earn $25 and you agonize when bidding hits $27, there is really about a 2-in-3 shot of him finishing anywhere between $20 and $30.”
This tells me that the best we can reasonably do in setting auction budgets is to work in $10 spans. That provides us with a 65 percent chance of being on target. (For what it’s worth, if we wanted to increase our odds to 80 percent, we’d have to work with $18 spans.) So that is the best place to begin, and BABS already does part of the work for us.
BABS starts with the 21 players at the top of the list, all noted with a dark green bar. These are the players with the best shot at earning $30 or more in 2016. Some of them will cost significantly more – and possibly earn as much. Some will cost less, but could still earn over $30. This latter group is your best shot at profit, though at this tier of talent, par is the goal; profit is gravy.
The medium green tier are all your $20-plus players, who could earn anywhere from $20 to $30. There are a few more profit opportunities in this group (16 players, as opposed to only four in the $30-plus group). The light green tier are your players who should earn somewhere in the teens. There are about 60 players here with profit potential.
The uncolored, unwashed masses beneath are all your single digits earners. There are $9 players and $1 players. You should not be agonizing over individual dollars here – or frankly, within any tier – because there is little projectability at this level. A small handful of wind-blown home runs (and associated runs and RBIs) can turn a $3 player into a $7 player. Don’t sweat it.
The point is that your focus should be primarily on rostering the best players, and secondarily on the cost. So, how to budget?
To start off, I would split the difference within each $10 bar. If we’re projecting a group of players to earn somewhere between $20 and $30, then call that a $25 tier. In planning out your roster, you should budget for $35 players, $25 players, $15 players and $5 players. That’s how we’ll label our tiers.
Hmmmm.
Yes, for those of us used to planning out our rosters in finer dollar detail, this is going to cause some discomfort. Take some TUMS. You can’t get any more precise than this.
However, you can use the dollar values listed in the green bars to get a sense of what the marketplace is paying for each player. So, if you win a $31 bid for Andrew McCutchen, you would be +$4 on your $35 budget tier, as well as getting him $2 under his $33 market price (which is irrelevant to your roster building but still nice to know).
As you build out your roster, you’ll continue to keep track of your profit and loss on each pick, just like you’d do normally.
On a player like David Ortiz, if you land him for anywhere near his $12 market value, you stand to pocket a ton of potential profit in the $35 tier. If he costs you even $18, that’s +$17 that you can move to a buy a more pricey player elsewhere. Of course, you could have just planned Ortiz into a lower level tier, but then you might lose sight of the potential value that you’re building into your roster.
It’s within each tier that you can do more detailed roster planning. In the $35 tier, you have your choice from among many (P+,AV) and (p,SB,AV) players. Those are your Asset groups. You could bypass that tier completely and build your team around multiple (PW,AV) and (P+,a) players in the $25 tier. How you design your team comes down to three considerations:
- Your assessment of the Assets and Liabilities of the players within each tier. Do the Asset groups provide the skills that you need? How much risk would you have to incur?
- The market prices of the players. Is the marketplace too high on the players in an Asset group? Is there opportunity for profit?
- The depth of each Asset group. The deeper the Asset group, the more chances you have to get the players you need. Yes, you can plan to purchase Clayton Kershaw (the only E+,K+ starter), but if some crazy owner bids him up to $50, you are going to have to restructure your plan pretty quickly. Plan your targets from groups that have multiple options.
In the end, it’s your choice how you decide to design your team. You are the architect.
Several of you have written me with specific questions, but there’s one that I’d like to answer specifically:
“How do I know when to stop bidding on Goldschmidt or Donaldson? I see that I can probably get Donaldson for less than Goldschmidt, but at what point do I conclude that Goldschmidt’s price is too high, and drop out and go for Donaldson? Should I pay $30? $35? $40? Without a specific projection, how do I know what the price should be, and therefore whether I’m actually making a sound bid?”
The short answer – and the one I suspect you don’t want to hear – is that we don’t ever know when a bid is sound. You have the listed market price as a guide but that’s just an industry average; it may not reflect the bidding tendencies in your league. Remember that we only have a 65 percent chance of being within +/- $5 of the right bid anyway. So it really doesn’t matter because it’s the other bidders who ultimately determine how high you’ll need to go to purchase a player.
Tactical Considerations
A helpful in-draft tactic is to find benchmark prices within your group of owners. Whenever the first player in an Asset group gets bought, make note of his purchase price. Players around him should go at approximately the same market level. Based on BABS and the marketplace, if Goldschmidt goes for $41 in your league, you will know that Donaldson shouldn’t go for anywhere near that amount.
Given the above, tossing the first player within an Asset group is always going to be a sound nominating strategy. Toss the first (PW,AV) guy or the first (ER,KK) pitcher, preferably the one with the highest ADP. That should give you some good insight into approximate bidding limits.
I also think that purchasing the second player nominated from an Asset group – particularly a deep group – could provide some profit. Once owners see the benchmark price on, say, one of the elite power 1Bmen, they might be less driven to drive up the price of the second player in the group knowing that there are still others available to bid on later.
A Sample Roster Plan and Draft
Here is a sample planning process. Your approach might be different. Just so you know, this is my plan and mine alone. This plan that I have — that is to say, which is mine… is mine. It belongs to me, and I own it and what it is, too. Just so that’s clear.
Looking at the talent in the $35 tier, I decide that I want to target two players from this group. I want to get one big power bat (P+,AV) and one who has either an SB or S+ for speed.
I budget $70 ($35 x 2) for these two players.
From the $25 tier, I’ll target an (ER,KK) anchor starter and two more power hitters (P+ or PW).
I budget $75 ($25 x 3) for these players. I’ve budgeted $145 for five players so far.
In the next $15 tier, I am going to target a closer, a #2 starter, my first catcher and fill out 2 infield spots.
I budget for five $15 players, or $75. I’ve now budgeted $220 for 10 players. That leaves $40 for 13 players. I’m screwed.
Except I’m not.
You see, many of the players I’ll be buying will go for less than the budget amount, sometimes much less. The reason there are “+” notations is to key us in on profit opportunities. These are the players who will build the profit into the roster. I know that I am not going to chase all $27-$30 players in the $25 tier because I don’t have to. Most every player in that tier that will return earnings somewhere in the $20s – we can’t predict exactly how much – and there are plenty that will only cost me $20-$23, or even less. Each one I roster will add more dollars to my remaining budget.
So if I grab Joey Votto for even $25 (still $2 over market price), that builds $10 profit back into my roster. Now I have $50 for 13 players. Do this enough and I might be able to add players at some of the upper tiers. But my personal goal for this particular sample draft is to have enough money so that I’m paying anywhere from $3-$7 for each of the players in the bottom half of my roster.
At the point of single-digit dollar players, the only thing I am looking for are those with the best skill/risk profile to fill those spots. It hardly matters what I pay for them because odds are the purchase price won’t be anywhere close to what they will earn. So if you get into a bidding war with another owner over a $7 player, just drop out. It’s not worth the stress and odds are there are several other similarly unpredictable players who you can grab.
In the end, my roster plan might start out looking like the one below. I’ve made the assumption that I got all my players at market prices.
POS Bdgt Player BABS Price Ca 15 Wieters,M PW,a | INJ 8 Ca 1b 35 Votto,J P+,AV | Rg 23 3b 25 Carpenter,M PW,AV | Rg 16 ci 2b 15 LeMahieu,DJ SB,AV | Rg 9 ss 15 Crawford,B PW,a | Rg 7 mi of 35 Harper,B P+,AV | inj- 43 of 25 Cespedes,Y PW,AV | Rg 22 of of of ut
sp 25 Archer,C ER,KK 20 sp 15 Salazar,D e,KK 15 sp sp sp sp rp 15 Chapman,A E+,K+ | Rg 17 rp rp
Not a bad start, right?
Actually, it’s not a good start at all. I’ve spent a lot on offense but rostered very little speed. More than that, BABS tells me I’ve purchased a whole bunch of players with regression risk (Rg). While we didn’t set specific limits for Regression risk, that’s still a dangerous downside.
So while I’ve rostered about $220 worth of potential value for the cost of $180, there is still a lot of work to do. It’s good that I’ve increased my $40 for 13 players (about $3 per player) to $80 for 13 players (about $6 per player).
At this point, many of you would still like more structure and guidance as to how to spend that $80. The only thing you need to know is that your remaining buys have to average about $6 per player. Of those 13 players, odds are that maybe half of them will draw any interest from other owners; those owners have their own holes to fill and don’t give a flying whoop about you. You won’t have to pay more than a few bucks for any of the rest. And typically, there are plenty of players to pick from, especially in a mixed league. Look to BABS to uncover those hidden pockets of potential value. Admittedly, the dynamic is a bit more rigid in an AL/NL-only league but BABS will still identify the players with some usable skill as well as the land mines to avoid.
It all goes back to the step-by-step Total Control Drafting process I write about in the Baseball Forecaster. Two simple steps:
- Create your optimal draft pool.
- Get those players.
I’m not being flip. If we really knew that we were overpaying for any one player, at any time, then my advice would be different. But we don’t know. The best we can do is just get the best players.
So, let me fill out the rest of the sample roster. I need to find some speed and perhaps a few more stable commodities. New drafted players are asterisked.
POS Bdgt Player BABS Price Ca 15 Wieters,M PW,a | INJ 8 *Ca Realmuto,JT p,s,a | e 8 1b 35 Votto,J P+,AV | Rg 23 3b 25 Carpenter,M PW,AV | Rg 16 *ci Castellanos PW,a 4 2b 15 LeMahieu,DJ SB,AV | Rg 9 ss 15 Crawford,B PW,a | Rg 7 *mi Peraza,J S+,a 3 of 35 Harper,B P+,AV | inj- 43 of 25 Cespedes,Y PW,AV | Rg 22 *of Inciarte,E SB,AV 7 *of Pillar,K s,a | e 8 *of Miller,B p,s,a 3 *ut Martinez,V p,AV 3
sp 25 Archer,C ER,KK 20 sp 15 Salazar,D e,KK 15 *sp Wacha,M e,k 13 *sp Smyly,D ER,KK 8 *sp Ross,J e,k 5 *sp Hammel,J e,k 4 rp 15 Chapman,A E+,K+ | Rg 17 *rp Giles,K ER,K+ 13 *rp Jeffress,J ER,k 1
A perfect roster? No, but you can see how I was able to assess where I stood as I went along and knew what section of BABS I could target. You just have to come out of the draft with a good foundation. That’s the best you can hope for.
Note a few interesting picks. I paid $3 for Victor Martinez, effectively rostering a player in the $20-$30 tier for minimal cost. There are several other players from the $10-$20 tier that I was able to roster for less than $10 as well. And I hardly had to dip into the single digit masses; there were enough good buys in the higher tiers.
Note also that the only roster spots for which I set any real budget were the 10 at the top. Those were my foundation players so I wanted to make sure they were in place. The rest of the draft was about filling needs with the best players.
The beauty of BABS in an auction is that you are not locked into any dollar expectation. You need not obsess about overbidding. You just have to keep telling yourself, “I won’t have to overpay for anyone because nobody knows what the heck these players are going to earn anyway.” Just as long as you target the players with the best skill/risk profiles and bid within the tiers, you’ll be fine.
As much as you might think otherwise, you have no other choice. Our previous methods of auction draft budgeting made us think we had more control, but we never really did.
Larry Schechter just had a cow somewhere. He suggests including the cents when calculating auction values in order to get that extra dollar’s worth.
One thing about Kershaw, I’ve done 4 auction drafts this season and Kershaw went for $50, $50, $51 and $55. I wouldn’t say “If a crazy owner bids $50” since you can pretty much count on an owner bidding $50, and it’s up to players to decide if they want to pay that much. I also saw (your results may vary) that the next few pitchers after Kershaw would be overpriced, such as Scherzer for $40 and $42 or Bumgarner for $39. Perhaps waiting for a few pitchers to pass to avoid the “Kershaw momentum” for pitcher spending would help.
Thanks for the new info as I like the idea of entering my next auction with BABS and my old dollars and cents chart and seeing if I can make sense of it all.
$50 for Kershaw is crazy. Your auction dollars go to pay for counting stats, which starting pitchers only contribute to two – Ks and Ws – and wins are unpredictable. You do not have to pay for average categories — ERA and WHIP can be managed through careful roster construction. So what do you get for spending $50 on Kershaw? $50 fewer dollars to spend on everyone else.
FYI: BABS in auction is not linked in the members area
Is now.
😉
Do you have a recomendation for Pitching inning limits (minimum) for AL/NL only and Mixed leagues? We are trying to prevent someone from loading up on RP. I could care less but the consensus speaks otherwise. Thanks Ron
900 innings is the industry standard.
This is a great article. I plan on using BABS exclusively this year. My wife doesn’t seem to mind when I bring her to bed at night, either!
I play in 2 leagues and they couldn’t be any more different from each other – one is 12 team mixed, head to head, snake draft, very shallow (9+7 roster). The other is 8 team AL only, rotisserie, auction, very deep (16+10 roster).
Will you be updating the spreadsheets periodically for important changes, such as Carter Capps out for the season, G. Stanton’s knee, or Bryce Harper going 0-3 in a spring training game?
My drafts are March 26 (auction) and April 2 (snake). Thanks!
The ON DECK page lists all upcoming posts. There will definitely be a full update of the spreadsheets on March 29. There may be an interim one, perhaps next week, but I can’t fully commit to that. But for players who will be out for all or most of 2016, just cross them off the list. Their losses will not have enough of an impact on the marketplace values to matter (I’m not ready to upgrade AJ Ramos’s saves grade yet) and BABS doesn’t care a whit. (Glad your wife approves.)
Ok, I know a keeper article is coming soon, but after looking at your roster construction, and planning $35 on both PW, AV, and SB or S+ I see you didn’t go that route with your two $35 players. Anyway, I have Goldschmidt at $44 and O Herrera (SB) at $2. I realize there is e risk with Herrera, but would I qualify him as a big savings for my $35 SB player, or does the e risk trump that as a non qualifier for that roster fill? Thanks.
You’re the first one to notice that I didn’t draft my two $35 players the way I had intended. In draft dynamics always affects us. Presumably, I decided I wanted Bryce Harper and was willing to pay $43 for him. When bidding for Votto stalled at $22, I couldn’t resist. The littlest of missteps can easily derail a draft.
I’ll talk about these keeper issues on Friday, but in short – how do you consider Herrera as a $35 player?
I don’t at all. I was only going by the basic formula of looking for a SB guy at that level. Now as I’m writing this, I realize he doesn’t fall in the color coding for that level player, I was merely thinking of assets and not the values given to him and others within your parameters. My mistake, still wrapping my head around BABS. Hey, at least I caught the change in your draft strategy!
Ron, love the book and Excel. My auction is this Saturday. 15 teams mixed. With 10 bench players and 7 minor leaguers.
Here are my keepers:
OF George Springer OF | HOU 5
U Justin Turner 3B | LAD 5
OF Christian Yelich 14 o17
P Ken Giles P | HOU 10 o16
P Francisco Liriano P | PIT 16 o17
P Edison Volquez 1 o17
P Jose Fernandez 15 o16
P Colin McHugh 10 o16
P Mark Melancon 6 g16
Of the available players, I’m targeting getting some top 1B/3B with power (Rizzo, Cabrera, EE and C. Davis). Should I grab two of them for around $35 each since I’m only spending $75 on my 10 keepers?
Thanks! I’ll post my draft results with your method after Saturday.
Hey Bob – I’d probably target one $35 banger and maybe portion out that other $35 with the rest of your budget to get some speed and a frontline starter. Your pitchers are high-risk – you’re depending upon health from both Liriano and Fernandez, and those are the only truly elite skill pitchers you have. Good luck!
Thanks Ron!
So, the top 3 on your list that are available are Bumgarner, Archer and King Felix? Is there one you prefer over the others? They will all go for around $30 (+/- $3).
I agree that I need speed as well.
New question….so when I coming trying to reach my targets in Sp, Pw, K, Er, etc. Would you say that (for example in ERA) that “e” = 1; ER = 2 and E+ =3? So if I one player with each of those “skills” that I have 6 in ERA towards my 7 in my 15 team league? Thanks!
BABS says they’re all the same. For me, Archer and Bumgarner are identical. SF might win more games. Or they might not.
Nope. They are all 1. If you roster an E+, then that gives you a mulligan on a blank cell. Of course, the more ER and E+ pitchers you roster, the better, but you still need to roster seven pitchers with above average skill.
Not to argue with you, but that doesn’t make sense. LOL It gives you a mulligan on a blank cell so then shouldn’t it count as 2? One for the player and one for the blank cell? Just sayin’….
I suppose you could say that a + Asset could count as a “2”. But the whole point of the exercise is to get away from the numbers! (That’s impossible, right?)
Exactly! As an accountant and a CPA, I obviously love the Balance Sheet approach! LOL
Thanks again!
I was thinking maybe more:
e = 1
ER = 1.5
E+ = 2
Prefer to STAY AWAY from the numbers, but if you are going to assign weights, at least have them comparable to what they represent:
+ = top 10%
XX = top 25%
x = top 50%
But because you rostered Votto for $23, you in essence, created room to move a $25 player up to a $35 player (notwithstanding the fact that you “overpaid” for Harper — and as a Mets fan, how could you!).
Yes, that is one way you could look at it – just like my Ortiz example above.
As for overpaying for Harper, I don’t like the term “overpay.” First of all, $43 was his market price. Yes, he was a bit higher than my established $30-$40 tier, but $3 is noise. I made that back, and more, by rostering Votto. For all we know, he could earn $50 this year. And Mets fan or not, I own Bryce Harper and you don’t. 🙂
OK, you got me. I’m in entirely. I just want to make sure I understand entirely. (NL, 12 teams, 5X5)
$35 Pollock $20
$35 SMarte $20
$25 AGonzalez $36
$25 Kemp $35
$25 Syndergaard $15
$15 Hammel $5
$15 Realmuto $8
$15 MFranco $25
$15 NWalker $15
$15 CLOSER
And, according to you, I’ve paid $179 for $205 tiers’ worth of players — so I can budget a reasonable amount for a closer, and take the rest of that “profit” to the rest of the auction.
PS — Long-term / silly contracts make Cespedes, Braun, Strasburg, Ty Ross and Lucroy the only bodies left in the 2d tier. Your “+” grades for Adrian and Kemp are meant to ease the pain of their prices, I tell myself. (Franco’s price is “don’t want to miss out on the next great thing, so let’s put 2 years on his contract at $5 a year”.)
I have to keep blinding myself to the fact: $81 for 14 players.
Yikes! You used *my* process, which was meant to be purely a demonstration, not necessarily an optimal roster construction. But it still might work, though in an NL-only league, your margin for error will be small. I probably would not have gone that deep for Kemp and AGon in the $20-$30 tier but you do have some good buys there. I have to plan my Tout Wars-AL draft this coming week so I look forward to tackling this myself.
Well, then, I’m looking forward to your suggestions after you take it out for a spin, so I can get ‘er all set for our auction April 4. Biggest pressures seem to be the closer, one more PW,AV bat, and three starters.
Thank you for getting the thinking into high gear.
Any thoughts on applying BABS to a Salary Cap Challenge Game?
Alternative formats column coming next week.
I am in a 10 team mixed 5×5 ESPN league. 13 batters (only one catcher) and 9 pitchers. Only 3 bench players. 1000 IP min and 200 games started max. I plan to use BABS. In a shallow league like this I am thinking of targeting 14 players as my “Core” and spend about $200 to get them, then use the final $60 on the remaining 11 players. I plan to target Votto, Carpenter, AGon, Revere, Upton, A Jones, Dickerson, Ortiz, and Gordon for my core batters. I was looking at Sale, Harvey, Hamels, Ross, and a $15 closer for my “core” pitchers. With a league this shallow there should be plenty of players to choose from at the end and I could spend $5 on average for each of them. I used the ESPN auction prices to project what I would be spending on the core players. What are your thoughts?
Sure, sounds like it would work. But all you need is one more guy who is looking at the BABS list… 🙂
So I’m going to combine your last two chapters into one question. Auction leagues and keepers. I’m in two separate AL/NL only keeper 12 team auction leagues. Up to 15 players can be kept, and obviously most of those are value keepers. I know exact values can’t be known, but I would presume both keeper leagues and only leagues alone would drive up value in the players available in the pool. Add the two together, and its going to drive up prices all the more, especially the higher tiered players. I know I can start to gauge value as the draft is proceeding, but if a position is very thin, I don’t want to miss out by waiting for those prices to set. Do you have a recommendation for a % increase of player auction values going into a draft like this?It will help me with my own team, as I have a couple I’m teetering on whether or not to keep (Cespedes at $32 is one), and prepare for this as I head into my draft. ALso, I know you’ll be touching on other formats, but thoughts (if any) on values of players for 4×4 leagues with no Runs or WHIP? Thanks!
Every league’s inflation % is going to be different depending upon which players are kept and at what cost. If all the top shortstops are gone, what do you pay for Brandon Crawford? The answer is $1 more than the last bidder, no matter what that is, if you desperately want him. There is no set answer.
As you’ll read this week, BABS skills ratings do not correlate directly with any specific stats, so there should be no changes for use with your format.
Thanks Ron, makes sense. Look forward to the next article.
Ok, so here’s my team after my auction yesterday (15 teams mixed – keeper league with 10 keepers per team). It’s hard to read but I believe I fulfilled all of the requirements as stated in the book. Ron, your thoughts?
Pos Tm PT Pw Sp Av Pk Rg Av Inj Ex Nw Pk Ag Rg
Hundley,Nick 2 COL F p a inj-
Castillo,Welington2 ARI F PW
Davis,Chris 3o90 BAL F P+ a Rg
Turner,Justin 3B LA F p AV inj- Rg
Moustakas,Mike 5 KC F p a Rg
Hernandez,Cesar 4 PHI F SB a e
Segura,Jean 6 ARI F SB a
Andrus,Elvis 6 TEX F s a
Springer,George o9 HOU F PW SB a INJ e
Yelich,Christian o78 MIA F s AV inj-
Revere,Ben o78 WAS F S+ AV Nw
Santana,Domingo o98 MIL F PW -AV EX
Valencia,Danny 5o7 OAK M PW AV
Lind,Adam 3 SEA F PW AV Nw Pk
Target 14 14 7 14 0 4 4
Pos Tm PT Er K Sv Pk Rg Er Inj Ex Nw Pk Ag Rg
Fernandez,Jose SP MIA M ER K+ INJ
McHugh,Collin SP HOU F e k
Liriano,Francisco SP PIT M ER KK inj-
Volquez,Edinson SP KC F
Lester,Jon SP CHC F ER k
Eovaldi,Nathan SP NYY M
Smyly, Drew SP CHC F ER k
Giles,Kenneth rp HOU – ER K+ SV e Nw
Melancon,Mark rp PIT – E+ k SV
Target 7/2 6 6 2 0 2 2
Ron – question. I am in an NL only league with 12 teams – super deep lineups. We are going on year 25 when it was done via newspapers states. I have been in it for about 15. Cool league. Now on to the question. NL only but get 4 ALers and you can “trade” them in up until a deadline in late July/early August. I feel I always get burned with SP (Waino last year). I am thinking of using 3 or 4 of my ALers (remmeber I only get 4) for top SPs. In the event they get hurt I can trade them in. Seems like an obvious choice right? but then it limits me to make sure I get all my hitters in NL and that might mean overpaying. Thoughts?
Light on power. Volquez and Eovaldi are weak links in your pitching staff. Otherwise, good job.
I’d flip it. Get 4 hitters from the AL. NL pitchers will always have an advantage over AL pitchers just by virtue of not having to face a DH. Don’t try to game that.
Wow – never thought that would happen with you reversing course. Everyone goes after AL hitters, no one grabs a closer and maybe one or two speed guys so the top hitters, like Trout, go for 25-30 and the others like Bautista, Encarnacion, Abreau, etc. for for 10 – 20 depending on year and then some good decent hitters 2-10. So – I am worried spending 70 on 3 NL pitchers if they get hurt I am done whereas if I get 2-3 AL pitchers and they get hurt I can trade them into the AL player base. If I get 4 NL hitters it still costs a ton on 260 budget and if NL pitchers get hurt im screwed. Am I overthinking it or did I leave out some extra info earlier I supplied here?
Thanks Ron
Ron – meant to say the top AL SP only go for $5. Sometimes a TOP guy with a great year before Sale or Price years ago might go for 8. But you can easily get 2 or 3 top 8/10 AL SP for $5 or under.
I wasn’t clear on your rule on those AL players. Are you saying you have NO DOWNSIDE on those 4 AL players? I never heard of a rule that allows you to “trade them in” which is why I was confused. Then sure, when you have no risk, you do exactly what you suggest.
The only downside is paying $50. We did it on purpose to generate more money into the pot and keep people “in it”. Let’s say you get 4 ALers and three get hurt you’re done for the year but if you can spend more $ to “Trade them in” for other ALers – have at it. It is a very unique rule and quite fun. It makes predicting stats hard because not only can teams trade amongst themselves they could also use the AL trade in as a strategy. Get 4 speed guys, 4 power, 4 closers. etc. then build up stats and dump them to trade them in. Risk is in the guys you can trade for are not the top guys and have inherrant risk.
Ron,
I play in a 15 team mixed league with 16 hitters (2 each plus 5 OFs and UT) and 10 Pitchers (4 SP, 4RPs and 2swings). We use RPs, HRs, SBs, AVG, OBP, SLG as offensive measures and Ws, Svs, Ks, ERA (X1.5) and WHIP (X1.5) on the pitching side. We also have a $300 budget and I had added $s from off season trades of players that I could not keep under our Keeper budget.
I was really excited about my auction results from last weekend.
$ Player
10K Martin,Russell
2 Phegley,Joshua
24 Freeman,Freddie
25 Duda,Lucas
10K Duffy,Matt
2 Uribe,Juan
2 Hill,Aaron
2 Flores,Wilmer
11K Lindor,Francisco
2 Simmons,Andrelton
25K Marte,Starling
3K Aoki,Norichika
20 Kemp,Matt
23 Gomez,Carlos
30 Springer,George
34 Encarnacion,Edwin
Pitchers
1K Keuchel,Dallas
18K Gray,Sonny
21 Ross,Tyson
2 Karns,Nathan
7 Gonzalez,Gio
2 Nelson,Jimmy
5K Romo,Sergio
3K Davis,Wade
13K Allen,Cody
2 Knebel,Corey
Reserves
2 Butler,Billy
1 Mahtook,Mikie
1 Altherr,Aaron
1 Smith,Seth
1 Brinson,Lewis
2 Diaz,Jose
All the “K” designations are my keepers. I have 3 potential $35 guys in Marte, EE and Springer plus Gomez, Freeman, Duda, and Kemp. I know you are believe Kuechel is going to regress but as a $1 Keeper and backed up by Gray and Ross. I figured I was going to be doing really well.
Then I loaded my team into BABS. It looks like I missed on all the hitter targets.
I only have 13 Full Time hitters (Hill, Flores and Phegley are my deficiencies).
I only have 11 Power indicators (Duda, Kemp and EE are P+s so I can say I have 14)
I only have 6 speed indicators
and finally, I have 14 BA indicators (Hill and Phegley are my only deficiencies)
Based on some of the comments you made regarding adjusting BABS targets for your individual leagues I was thinking my targets would be 15 FT; 15 P; 7 Sp; and 15 BA. I was not expecting to get Springer nor was I expecting to landed Encarnacion after I already had Duda and Freeman but at the time I was very happy to get both at the prices provided. Am I over thinking this or did I not do as well at auction as I thought?
Thanks in advance,
Robert
Hello Ron. 12 team mixed 5×5.
M. Wieters C
M. Cabrera 1b
A. Nolan 3b
N. Castllano cor
C. Hernandez 2b
C. Seager SS
B. Miller Mid
B. Revere OF
M. Conforto OF
J. Soler OF
B. Burns OF
M. Trumbo OF
D. Ortiz Ut
M. Scherzer SP
C. Carrasco SP
T. Ross SP
J. Hammel SP
A. DesclafaniSP
K. Jansen RP
K. Giles RP
J. Papelbon RP
G. Perkins RP
Bench
D. Mesoraco C
A. Lind cor
V. Velasquez P
C. Spangenberg 2b
Think that I need to trade closer for a starter. What do you think? If BABS works I think I did great.
Thanks Mike B
Sorry My 3rd Baseman is Nolan Arenado .
Without recalculating the targets based on your league depth, and seeing the ratings for all the players, I think you’re close. Do you have enough strikeouts?
Agreed that you should trade a closer for a starter. Also, despite have great speed anchors in Revere and Burns, do you have enough SBs otherwise?
Hey Ron,
Kinda sorta think I have a decent handle on this. It exceeds the criteria. I didn’t draft yet, but trying to come up with a few scenarios for what I want to do. This roster has 70 Assets to 7 liabilities. Do you see any holes. Any other critiques would be awesome. According to your spreadsheet this come to a total of $254. But again my market will determine this. It gives $6 to play with which I don’t know will be enough. Anyways here it is. 14 team mixed H2h 5×5. 1 catcher 2 DH. Pitching just doesn’t feel right but that’s probably good since my gut has been wrong too many times in the past!
Thanks!
C-Norris
1-Encarnacion
2-Odor
3-Lamb
SS-Miller
CI-Abreu
MI-Eduardo Escobar
OF-Betts
OF-Upton
OF-Eaton
OF-Revere
OF-Conforto
DH-Vmart
DH-Blackmon
SP-Cole Hamels
SP-Tyson Ross
SP-Gio
SP-Teheran
SP-Jimmy Nelson
SP-Hammel
SP-Alex Wood
RP-Cody Allen
RP-Tolleson
I don’t see info for Juan Nicasio SP for the Pirates. Am I just missing him?
If you ever can’t find a player, do a CTL-F (or CMD-F) search. Nicasio is there, though listed as a RP when this file was created.
Yeah, I might try to upgrade the pitching just a bit, and make sure Lamb is going to get the playing time (Drury is making a play to unseat him). Stay on top of spring training news for any role changes (though don’t dismiss high-skilled players who lose out to lower skilled players who land roles).
Had my first BABS baseball draft yesterday. Who knows how it will turn out (since projections mean NOTHING), but it was a different experience. For 20 years I’ve been a slave to the projections and have labored over the minutia of whether player A or B will have the better stats based on the unreliable predictions of a legion of prognosticators. My first date with BABS was a delight!!! While the other eight people were filling in their projected stat needs I simply looked for assets and liabilities and found my order of preferences didn’t put me in competition for the same players constantly.
We have an NL only auction style draft. There are nine teams. We draft by position, with each person drawing a position to draft randomly.
Here’s the team I ended up with
Pitchers
Matt Harvey
Tyson Ross
AJ Ramos
Anthony De Slafani
Jimmy Nelson
Hunter Strickland
Sergio Romo
Rubby De La Rosa
Antonio Bastardo
SS – Cory Seager
Catchers
Wellington Castillo
Miguel Montero
2B
Kolten Wong
Scooter Gennett
1B
Joey Votto
Y. Solarte
3B
Jake Lamb
Derek Dietrich
OF
AJ Pollock
Marcel Ozuna
Michael Conforto
Ben Revere
Denard Span
Alejandro De Aza
What say you Ron?
This looks nothing like a team I’d normally draft but I tried to follow your guidelines. I have far more that average assets and slightly over on the liabilities. I guess we’ll know in a few months but I’m taking BABS out for a second date next week for our AL only non-auction serpentine draft.
We’ll see how your 3B situation plays out but I like this team otherwise.
Ron – reading this brings a question to mind for me. As you note in your example, Ortiz is someone you categorize as being worthy of the $35 tier, despite the marketplace AAV of $12.
I’m wondering how it is you made the call that he should be in that tier. For instance, running projections at BHQ for a 15-tm mixed league would put him at the $16 mark – a full two tiers lower.
I know you are trying to be more broad than the numbers coming from a projection, but at some point in generating your spreadsheet, you had to translate the assets into a rough dollar figure. Is it as simple as saying that:
(500+ AB) + (P+) + (AV) = ~$35
?
Essentially. yes. I used no statistical projection. That combination positioned him among like-skilled players who ranked high. When all players were ranked, I assigned the top group to the $35 tier.
HI Ron,
I guess Matz is getting skipped in week 1 would you start eovaldi or Eickhoff in his place? Sorry about the spelling lol. can u also let me know what you think of my team? just got done drafting.
Eickhoff has the mets at the mets eovaldi is home against Houston.
14 team h2h roto
I think I did ok according to Babs, I’m about half way done evaluating. Had your spreadsheet up during the draft.
Thanks!
C- Hundley/Norris
1-Abreu
2-Walker
SS-Crawford
3-Carpenter
CI Encarnacion
MI_Andrus
DH-Duda
DH-Deshields
OF-Kemp-Pence-Polanco-Conforto-Joc Pederson
SP
Carrasco-Liriano-Matz-Rodon-Corbin-Gio-Fiers
RP-Krod
RP-Street