Generally speaking, I don’t write about my own fantasy baseball team because I’m 50/50 about whether readers would find that topic very interesting. However, I am going to break that rule for a single post because my draft is next weekend.
The League
The “World League of Rotisserie Baseball” is a 23-team auction keeper league starting its 21st season (if I remember correctly). The real World League folded, was restarted, and then folded again since our league was created. The league was started at a law firm in Houston, and primarily, the owners are still lawyers in Htown. The league is similar to the LABR and Tout Wars where teams can spend $260 on 23 players. The differences are: (1) teams have the option of renewing those players for three years; (2) teams have four farm picks you can renew at $4 for their first three professional seasons; (3) teams are given a total season budget of $100 to bid in the “summer drafts” on players who have been called up to the major leagues and other free agents; and (4) teams are allowed to “cover” a disabled player with a free agent at a salary of $10 (i.e., player cannot be a DL cover until he goes through the summer draft).
My Team
I have been playing in the league since I was about eight or nine years old (hard to imagine…maybe the league is not that old) because my dad worked at the law firm where the league was started. Needless to say, the first team was pretty rough! But the team improved as I got older, and the Fighting Shamrocks are now coming off back-to-back wins. Unfortunately, two years of competing have left the roster in astonishingly bad shape. My renewals are here. The past two teams have been anchored by a great pitching staff, but because of trades and expiring contracts, the team is left without a single renewable pitcher.
Strategy
Here, since it’s safe to call this season a rebuilding year, I have a competitive advantage coming into the draft knowing I don’t have the renewals to compete for a third consecutive title. Basically, my goal is to simply finish the season with 15 undervalued players that will allow the team to compete in the future. In this draft, my basic strategy will be to target: (1) players I can trade for renewals; and (2) speculative players who might be more valuable next season.
The challenge is finding the right speculative players. I can afford to take risks because a few incredible busts won’t matter, but it’s still important to identify which speculative players have at least some chance of increasing their value. I am not sure which players will be renewed yet and the value obviously depends on the price. But using our spreadsheet, here are some ideas of “speculative players” who I thought might be good potential targets for a rebuilding team. Any feedback here would be appreciated. Who are some speculative players that you would target and/or not target?
Catcher: Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Matt Wieters, Jason Castro.
First Base: Matt LaPorta, Mark Trumbo.
Second Base: Brad Emaus, Ty Wiggington, Will Rhymes, Darwin Barney.
Shortstop: Alcides Escobar, Jason Bartlett, Jed Lowrie.
Third Base: Pablo Sandoval, Brent Morel, Alberto Callaspo.
Outfielders: Alex Gordon, Mike Morse, Lance Berkman, Travis Snider, Felix Pie, Ryan Sweeney.
Starters: Adam Wainwright, Mike Leake, Chris Young, Scott Kazmir, Jair Jurrgens, Brandon Beachy, Ivan Nova,
AJ Burnett, John Lackey, Josh Beckett, Javier Vazquez, Homer Bailey, Dice-K.
Relievers: Josh Lueke, Kenley Jansen, Jordan Walden, Evan Meek, Jeremy Jeffress, and Tim Collins.
Good to see a fellow Houstonian on here! It’s definitely pretty fun. Since there are 23 teams, there are usually 1 or 2 spots that open each year. Even though it’s awhile away, if you remember, send me an email during the off-season and I’m happy to see whether there is a spot.
Sounds like a pretty sweet league. I’m a fellow Houstonian who would be interested if a spot ever opens up.
Good suggestions! Actually just got finished w/ the draft. I followed my “aggressive rebuilding strategy” of only buying players I could trade during the season and players w/ upside. I was going to do a whole post about the draft but I’ll just put it in the comments.
My biggest focus was having to rebuild the entire pitching staff. My winning teams were build around a group of undervalued pitchers, but all their contracts expired so I had to start from scratch. I bought Roy Halladay at the very start of the draft for $35, which turned out to be a good buy b/c guys like Lincecum and Kershaw went for more. Then, I bought two injured starters in Johan Santana ($12) and Adam Wainwright ($11). I spent $9 on David Aardsma, even though I wasn’t expecting to. After that, I waited until the very end of the draft and purchased my final 5 pitchers at $1 each. I got Scott Kazmir, Brandon Webb, Jake McGee, Aaron Crow, and Jeremy Jeffress. On the whole, I was pretty happy b/c-even though my pitching will be rough this year-I felt like I got a good start towards building a core group of pitchers that will allow me to compete next year.
I was less happy w/ my hitting purchases. I bought David Wright at $32 (good trade candidate), Pablo Sandoval at $18, Jason Castro at $1 (next year buy), Will Rhymes at $5. The two players I overpaid for were Jason Bay and Chris Coghlan ($25 and $16, respectively). I overpaid b/c I had tons of money left and wanted to buy cheap pitchers. They were two of the last quality hitters available, so I went ahead and overpaid.
My team will be awful this season, but my only goal was to build a foundation allowing me to come into next season’s draft with 15 quality renewals and lots of cap room. Hopefully, a few of the cheap purchases will work out and I’ll be able to get good trade value for Wright and Halladay. Then, if Waingwright and Johan return healthy, I think this team can win next season.
Love Lowrie, he just needs the opp. Jansen and waldan are great speculative CL w excellent periferals. Weiters and Snyder are worth betting on. Young players poised to breakout but i am less confident in Weiters.
Absolutely. Wainwright is a solid target for a rebuilding team at the right price. He should go at a discount price, and assuming he returns healthy, it’s a solid long-term buy. I’m hoping he gets nominated late in the draft and I can grab him for about $18.
I think grabbing Wainwright could be very useful because you can trade him for future studs or keep him and that would be great now.