2019 Fantasy Baseball Draft Prep: 12-team AL-only Rotisserie auction

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This is about as deep as it gets.

Not only did we cut the player pool in half by limiting our selection to those in the Junior Circuit, but we used standard Rotisserie lineups — meaning two catchers, five outfielders, a middle infield spot and a corner infield spot — and stuck with 12 teams instead cutting back to 10, as is more common in league-specific formats. What it meant was every player with an inside track on playing time was worthy of selection, and even going to those lengths wasn’t enough to fully supply our 30-man rosters. It was insanity.

But that’s how we roll, us who make this world ours. And who might we be?

Darius Austin, Baseball Prospectus (@DariusA64)
George Bissell, RotoWorld (@GeorgeBissell)
Heath Cummings, CBS Sports (@heathcummingssr)
Donkey Teeth, Razzball (@DonkeyTeeth87)
Nando Di Fino, The Athletic (@nandodifino)
Rudy Gamble, Razzball (@rudygamble)
Mike Gianella, Baseball Prospectus (@Mike Gianella)
Andrew McClintock, Fantasy Front Office (@FantasyAid1)  
Chris Mitchell, Fantrax (@CJMitch73) 
Tom Ogonowski, Future Studskis (@ProspectFiend)
Dean Peterson, NFBC
Scott White, CBS Sports (@CBSScottWhite)

A few observations now that introductions are out of the way:

As with any auction, when a player was nominated had a little something to do with what his ultimate cost was, but generally speaking, we were pretty reserved with the bidding in this one, knowing we couldn’t afford to have too many $1 players in a league where there’s nothing to fall back on. That’s how it goes in these league-specific formats. The cost for missing is so much higher that you kind of have to play it safe. Boring can be a good thing.  

Bryce Harper hasn’t signed yet, as you well know. He could sign with an AL team, but probably not, so whoever bid on him here was wagering the high probability of getting nothing against the low probably of getting something massive. He ultimately went for $10. I was the last to back out, submitting a $9 bid. Craig Kimbrel himself went for $9 and Dallas Keuchel to me for $7. It’s more of a toss-up where those two ultimately go.

Of course, Kimbrel isn’t much riskier than half the players we drafted for saves given that so few AL teams have declared their closers yet. The seven or so relievers known to be in line for saves all went for around $20, led by Blake Treinen at $22, and those presumed to be in the lead for the role still went for closer to typical closer rates, such as Jose Alvarado for $14 and Trevor May for $12. It may be worth paying the premium for assured saves so you don’t risk dumping a dozen dollars in what turns out to be a middle reliever.

The true aces all went for a premium, which wasn’t altogether surprising given how quickly starting pitcher depletes in the AL pool. You have to bolster those ratios when you can. I had planned to take two myself but backed off when the price tags consistently exceeded $30. Even my so-called ace, Mike Clevinger, came at the crippling cost of $24.

Some of us went a little overboard paying for steals, which probably wasn’t necessary given that most of the steals can be found in the AL. Seven of the nine players that SportsLine projects for 30 or more steals play on this side of the ledger, and that’s not even including Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, Jose Ramirez, who are generally drafted as high as they are because of their potential to impact the stolen base category. Adalberto Mondesi’s $35 price tag was too much for me, and I love the guy. Whit Merrifield at $33 and Jonathan Villar at $27 also seemed too steep. It’s like we all realized we had the category covered by the time sleeper specialist Greg Allen came up, because he went for only $10.

Speaking of Trout, Betts and Ramirez, the former two were the biggest bids at $55 apiece, but Ramirez only went for $40, which seemed like a huge discount for the consensus No. 3 overall pick (especially one with the potential to impact all five categories). Aaron Judge ($43) and Jose Altuve ($42) both went for more.

We’re all a little scared of Francisco Lindor’s calf injury right now, which is how he ended up going for $31 when the similar ranked Alex Bregman went for $38. Good on Heath Cummings for capitalizing on the discount, but it’s worth pointing out that this sort of gamble is harder to make in a format so deep because the quality of your alternatives is much lower.

You can find more detailed look at how the player pool breaks down in AL-only leagues here. Be sure to check out.

Note: The players with no value attached were selected in the seven-round reserve draft that immediately followed the auction. The auction itself supplied only the 23 active lineup spots.