Working together on a fantasy baseball auction is more of an art than a science. It has been all the time. And it’s a strange thing to say because we know more about gamers now than ever before. There are many ways to build a rotating staff, but good art will surprise you and make you think about things in a way you haven’t before. When everyone knows what you will do, what kind of art can you make? In other words, is it possible to get good at a method without shock?
Numerous stars and scrubs. This method is familiar; people have written about it since at least the 1990s. But, like steel, it’s all about how heavy it is. In the 2023 public sale, I entered the room with $22 left and seven players on my squad. At the time, I laughed that it was partly okay because other big spenders like Derek Van Riper and Fred Zinkie weren’t in Tout. Combined and partly allowed because no one thought I’d spend that much money so early. By 2024, the shock would no longer be visible.
It’s possible that my identity learned “Beat Sayre” more accurately than my given identity when the Tout spreadsheet was first proven on the projector. I’m not going to lie—I liked it. It’s not a group that hits back.
The Stars
We’ll talk about spending in a moment, but I wanted to enjoy my first throw for now. As the current winner, I get to choose the first player in the public auction, and I wish to freeze-bid the room on a player I want at a specific price. That’s where I went because I needed to figure out Gerrit Cole. I did some mental math before the auction to figure out what price I’d sell him for, and this is what I came up with:
For the whole season, Cole is worth $40 over the odds. Cole misses the entire season: 30%. The best guess for when they’ll be back is June 15 (about 60% of the season). If he comes back on June 15, it will be worth it: $24—increasing by 25% because springs aren’t connected—so $18$18 * 70% = $12.60
I threw him away for $12 and got him back for $12. If I had thrown him away for less money, I could have bought him for $9 or $10. Also, if it starts at a price that gets more bids, maybe more people will do so, and it could go up to $14 or $15. Don’t worry about your beliefs.
The names of these people were added to my staff pretty quickly after Cole left:
That happened about 10 minutes ago. It was time to race.
I still have too much money here, so let’s buy some catches.
There were also 27 picks left for my following 15 choices. Almost two and a half hours went by before I bought another member. I needed to stay on top of a couple of slow drafts.
I was shocked that the OBP tax wasn’t on Decide/Alonso. I had chosen to bet $51 in this format, so when the bidding stopped at $40, it caught me and a few other people in the room off guard. Ohtani was priced at $51, and Tatis at $49. Different celebrities didn’t come cheap, either. Ronald Acuña used to get $60 or more. It cost $55 for Juan Soto. It cost $48 to get Kyle Tucker. $43 was paid for Yordan Alvarez. A lot of people spent. But they spent money on star players they wanted instead of the ones the room gave them (most of the time, Brent Hershey’s deal for Jose Ramirez for $36 was great).
I talked about this on my SiriusXM show after the main break. You need to pay attention to which stars you get with this method to get more of them. Most of the time, they cost more. I wasn’t going after any of those guys—I’d have been happy with another great event with 15 to 20 people at the right price. These turned out to be correct.
This was a planned way for the catchers to avoid the wrong people in the room. This league has 30 catchers on active teams this year, so the endgame feels very unhealthy. There are different job splits; even the full-timers are terrible at their jobs and need to put more value on the positive aspects. René Pinto? Has Travis d’Arnaud? Who is Yan Gomes? Does Tyler Soderstrom? All these guys are starting for someone, and they can play 100 games and give back $2 to $3 worth. But this year, the gap is much more significant than usual.
The Scrubs
Targets look something like this when you have this little money left over to distribute across the last 15 positions on your roster:
Three players will get an additional $10.
Five more players who will be in your active roster on Could 15
The remaining develop into reserved, get harmed, or become waiver wire fodder. A few of these guys have more upside than others; however, if you ask me properly now to guess which falls into every bucket, I’d be hilariously improper. If you customize your valuations before the public sale and unfold the chance, you give yourself the best probability of hitting these targets.
In no particular sequence other than value:
We shall observe where these chips land. Some of these players—Lowe, Moncada, Laureano, Morton, and Bradish—were more traditional targets because I rated them all at $48—far more than the $10 they brought in at public auction. The others were, for me, just the best available.
That usually means understanding your league and its rules and taking advantage of them when possible. Because reserves are interchangeable (you may readily swap them out and in of your lineup, unlike LABR), FAAB bidding in Tout each is comparatively swift and unrestricted. Stow people like Bradish much easier when there are endless IL spots without sacrificing roster flexibility.
Within the reserves, I sought to strengthen my team where it was most vulnerable—in terms of pitching quantity and health, saves, and steals:
Jennifer Cano picked “I don’t believe in Craig Kimbrel”. John Means chose “I don’t have enough injured Orioles pitching”. Ranger Suarez picked “oh shucks, I have to fill out my energetic roster”. Jon Berti said, “He is the only man left who can steal 25 bases.” Ricky Tiedemann said, “I wanted at least one prospect within the reserves.” Colin Rea stated, “I believe we should draft this man in 15-team leagues.””
After the public sale, a couple of members came as much as me and said they needed perseverance to conduct a public sale of this kind. Few of them had behaved themselves. Neither the faint of heart nor everyone should use this method. Additionally, something is only sometimes profitable just because it grabs attention. For a fantastic example, watch the ABC hit TV show’s first (and only) season, “Flash Ahead.”
However, I’ll say this. If I can hit my spots in 2024, the identical approach I did in 2023, I anticipate these worth of stars to vanish in the subsequent 12 months’ public sale. After that, I must discover a new strategy to create good artwork. Despite everything, there are solely so many Marvel motion pictures you’ll be able to drive.
Even so, allow me to state this. I expect these worth of stars to disappear in the next year’s public sale if I can strike my spots in 2024 like I did in 2023. Then, I need to figure out how to make good art . You can watch only a limited number of Marvel films, no matter how much you try.
