Fantasy Baseball Today - 03/08: Live Auction! (Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: March 8, 2019

Going once! Going twice! SOLD! We are auctioning on today's show and telling you how many $1 players you should have, why league depth matters and why Heath likes to nominate players that Scott loves. Follow along and get the latest MLB news and much more. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the fantasy baseball today podcast from CBS Sports. What a fantasy question? Email fantasy baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. We're fantasy. Now here's Adam, Scott Heath and Chris. Whoa, we're auctioning. Welcome to the show.

The auction is live right now. If you're watching on video, you'll have about, oh, half hour, 45 minutes of auction. If you're listening on the podcast, you'll have a lot more than that. Welcome to Adam Azer, Scott White Heath Company's Chris Towers. You guys ready? Ready to go here? We're ready. This is the best day of the year. A combination of this league, which is my favorite league,

and getting to do a podcast with Scott while he's auctioned. Nothing is better. I'm already stressed here because Christian Yelich is going for too little. We're here yammering and getting left out of the bidding. Yeah, Christian Yelich is the first player. We're definitely not getting left out of the bidding. Let me lay down the, let me give the lay of the lay in here. here, right? So it's a 12-team league.

I guess I'm just not getting... I'm not going to get Christian-Ellich. I'm going to let everybody else get Christian-Ellich. I'm going to talk to the listeners and the viewers right now. It's a 12-team league. It's a pretty big rosters, and they're going to be 23 spots filled via auction on a $260 budget, and then a seven-round reserve draft afterwards. So 30 roster spots. How much did you have to go for? $36.

Good value. Seems fine. Yeah, it seems pretty good. for. You shouldn't be too strict about, oh, well, Scott and Heath have this guy at this. Every auction is different. They just all have a life of their own. That's what makes it so fun. So Yowich went for 36.

Mike Trout is now being bid on. Chris Towers has the current high bid of 50. I will put it in 51. Adam has a high bid now. We tend to be in this league, it tends to be in a very, very aggressive group of bidders. Mike Trout actually went for... Did I just get him? Oh, my, yeah.

He just got him. I was about to bid you up. That's good. I was in the middle of saying he went for $60 last year. Yes. And Heath's the troll. This is what happens when you try and auction and the podcast at the same time. So, all right.

So we have a market. We have a little bit of a market now, although I suspect that Trout will not be the most expensive player at 51. He should be, but I don't know. So Alberto Mondesi now is on the board. Up to 24. Christian Yelage went for 36 for Monacee to be at 25, 25. 26 right now from Chris. This is crazy.

So it's 12 teams. And Scott is out. He just crossed him off his list. And 26 is the bid to Chris, which really shocks me that Chris just took out of Alberto Monastery. Okay. I really have to go through the basics here. I've crazed him.

Okay, I really have to go through the basics here. So $260 for 23 players. Nine pitcher spots. No starters, relievers, just nine pitcher spots. I think a lot of people will go maybe six and three, seven and two, or it's Some people might completely disregard that. Like Heath won the league last year. He had Chris Sale.

He had Jose Burrios and Rick Porcelo for like $2 and all relievers when he drafted. We're going to talk about dollar bid players. We're going to talk about everything. But the hitters are two catchers, first, second, third, short, five outfielders, and middle infield, corner infield, DH. So there are more hitters spot Travis Shaw on the board right now for 10. Yeah, what is this? such random bidding. Like usually the studs go first, you know, now Mondescy, Travis Shaw.

Scott was trying to pay me back for nominating Mondays. Shaw's up to 14. Not exactly. The funny thing is Heath is just going to get his guy probably for a price that's a little too high, whereas Scott let his guy go. Well, this is Travis Shaw we're bidding on now if that wasn't mentioned. Oh, I mean, we knew. And he's up to 16 now, which is five dollars less than I had him for. That's not an insignificant price tag there, $16 for Travis Shaw. Heath is the defending champion, so maybe we shouldn't doubt him. He won by like 17 points, which was huge. He came in first.

Scott came in second last year. Adam came in eighth, and don't worry about Chris. He came in. Did you and Chris have as many standings points combined as I did? Okay, Heath. I'm glad you got that. I have no idea. That's the answer.

Here's Clayton Kirshaw. He's at $13 right now. And should we talk a little strategy here? What you guys want to do? I know we don't want to give... This is a league we're playing out. We want to win it. This is my favorite league.

I'll say this, that your auction strategies, Chris Towers has 14 on Clayton Kirchaw, and he just won Kirschaw for 14. Your auction strategy should really be influenced by how deeper, shallow your league is, who you think you can get for a dollar, who you think you can get on waivers. You guys can jump in if you disagree,

but if you're playing in a deeper league, you probably want to take less of a studs and duds approach because you won't be able to help yourself out on waivers. If you play in a shallower league, you should spend a lot and get a lot of great players and then you will be able to get more value for your dollar or $2 players. This league is sort of on the deeper end.

I don't know, I call it like a 60 on a 1 to 100. Yeah, like we're in the Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational, which is 15 teams, 30-man rosters. That's a deeply No no no I'm bidding I'm bidding I'm bidding I hit it I was bidding too I don't know what happens Yes I hit it I want oh that we got a frozen room My room's froze too I don't even know if I actually won't oh you got it you got

Mookie bets at 45 that's I was bidding I would have taken both bet yeah it was frozen It was we're gonna back that out do it again do it again froze What? Take bets off the board seconds left on the clock Man, you'd add the degree of difficulty, I guess. That's awesome. Okay, so he thought he had a great value there for mooky bets at $45. I did.

No, you did it. Live television shows. All right, Chris, what were you saying about the league? Yeah, so this is, it's not a deep league, it's not a shallow league. A deep league would be NL only, AL only, or a 15 teamer. Those are, I think, deep leagues. and you'll see some like 50 round draft and hold leagues. But, you know, this is, I think, right in the middle.

I think this is, it's the most popular format for Roto, at least on our site. And you can go either way in this one. If you want to go Stars and Scrubs, there's the potential for that, especially with starting pitcher, I think. Hitter, you probably do want to go a little deeper and spend a little bit more money. But, yeah, this is right in the middle, I think. I noticed two teams You're right? I noticed two teams last year

And I can't express how cool our league history feature is On CBSports.com If you have our commissioner league, the league history, I am the most consistent player in this league. I average 80.8 points per year, which is the highest. My average finish is 3.3, which is the highest. So there's that. Look at you, Adam.

Yeah, yeah. But last year was terrible. but I looked at the teams from last year there were two teams that had a lot of $1 players one was George Maselli he finished second one was Scott Zidman I believe and he had a terrible season

because he spent $106 combined on Trey Turner and Jose Altuve so it happens you know I mean there's only so much you can do it's not necessarily a bad strategy but it happens Muki Betts just went again this time for $52 so $1 more than Mike Trout

And now I do believe that will be the best of spending. You guys want to redo Travis Shaw now, too? Nobody's room for us for that. Kirby Yates went for $13. So that is, I kind of think a lot. Oh, yeah, there's going to be really good closers who go for less than that. You know, your elite closers probably won't go for much more than what, 20? 22, I would guess, is what Diaz goes for,

maybe 21. And that's, this is the thing about auctions is the first player at a position, the first player at a tier, can either go for way less. Like I think Clayton Kershaw for 14, I don't know what you guys have him for, but that feels like you've priced in enough of the risk to where it's fine. And that's because he was the first starting pitcher on the board. you'll probably see whoever the 12th starting pitcher is go for probably more than he should regardless of whether which which order we nominate them for because that's you're going to reach

the point and maybe maybe it's 13 or 14 for 13 probably for you at this point right aces um yeah i don't know the exact i think it's 14 well losing severino yeah it probably is down to 13 yeah so yeah i mean a lot of the early stage of the auction auction is just kind of feeling out the room. It can vary so much from league to league, how aggressively people bid. And, you know, last year, again, Trout went for 60. That's went for 55. That's a big difference between the 52 and 51 they've gone for here. And a lot of times they even go for less than that. So throwing out a Kirby Yates, somebody who's kind of mid-range like that, and seeing whether or not people hold back because, oh, he's not a stud, or

or they go aggressively because they don't have, you know, they're just valuing the position differently than you expect. It's good information to find. I like to throw out kind of a random guy like that as opposed to somebody who you know is going to go at the top. All right, Max Scherzer now, $36 and sold. No one Aeron Aeronado went for $42 to Scott. I was bidding on No one.

I would have liked to have bid on that. Why didn't you? I didn't realize it was happening. Oh, we're going to have terrible teams. Noan Aronado for 42. I was actually in on that. I was thinking about it, but I already spent big on Trout, and I thought to myself, third base is deep.

If I'm going to spend a lot of money on a second stud, I'm going to make it at a shallower position. Trey Turner now, he's going to go for a lot. He's up to 38. Heath is very much in on this. He's up to 41. Is Heath going to go to 42 for Trey Turner? 41.

I think I'm done. Scott's thinking about it. Yeah, me too. No Turner, no bond to sit back out. I did not have to know. I got Aronado in all the commotion. I got Aronado for 42. So I already, last year when we were doing this podcast,

I wasn't happy with the way it turned out. I kind of got left out of the whole stud first, second round level. You had Aaron Judge. Because I bullied you in the getting him. But that was one I didn't even like, right? Yes, I bullied you. I finished third, so, you know, it wasn't an embarrassment in the end. But I tend to like to go studs and duds in this league

because at least among the auctions, I participate. in it's on the shallower end. And the waiver wires, I know, is good enough. The reserve draft that comes immediately after the auction has some interesting players in it. I feel like you can fill those cheap spots on the fly, if the ones you don't draft out right, if they don't end up working out. All right, let me tackle a couple things here. I just nominated Cory Kluber because I don't want him.

And I like to nominate expensive players that I don't want. I want to get some money off the board. That's my nomination strategy. other nomination strategies sometimes, like I could nominate a Tyler Skaggs and see if I can get him for a dollar or something like that. But if I nominate Skaggs for a dollar and somebody bids two, all of a sudden I have to go three on Tyler Skaggs, and that scares me a little bit. It's going to be really interesting to see. Yeah. All right, Kluber went for 30, but there was something else I wanted to. Oh,

the dollar players. Yeah, so we had an email. Why don't you go, Chris, you can complete your thought. I'm sorry to cut you off. And then I'll talk about the dollar players. So we've already seen Trout and Betts go for, what, $15 combined less than they did last year. And that's not terribly significant. But I think what we're seeing so far with the elite players is we haven't really seen like a crazy high price yet. We haven't seen someone, I don't think, go for $5 or $10 more than you guys have them valued. Well, that's the thing. Betts and Trout still did,

because I always have the first-round players for more money than Scott. Not to say one way is better than the other, but I had both those guys for 46. Scott had both those guys for 41. Sure. They ended up going for over 50. Yeah.

So to Chris's point. But then the second, like Aaron Judge just went for 33. I had him at 31, being a little more conservative with my auction values, but 33 versus 51, 52. I'm not sure the difference in the ranking. justifies that big of a difference in the price tag? So let me catch people up here. Turner went for 41,

Aronado for 42, Lindorra for 31, Aaron Judge for 33, Max Scherzer went for 36, and Corey Klober went for 30. And so far the high bid is Mookie Betts at 52 and Mike Trout at 51. Andrew Benintendi has now passed Aaron Judge. Oh, no, they're at the same price,

$33 right now. That's, you know, I guess, depends on how you value the steals, and they went for the same exact price. Ben and Tendi for 33, Aaron Judge, for 33. My strategy, I do like to have some money left over toward the end. I like to be a little bit of a bully toward the end, because at the end, you're not just getting late-round picks. There are going to be some mid-round picks that slip through the cracks, like rounds four through eight. They're going to be at the end of the auction, some of those players, just throwing out maybe a Lorenzo K.

Just somebody in that range. So I like to have some money and bully people a little bit. Anytime you guys want to talk about your strategy, just consider this show kind of a free-for-all. So Heath nominate Zach Granky. Go ahead, sir. Yeah, my strategy is just to nominate the guys that Scott really, really wants. Like Zach Granky. And so I started with Mondesie in the first round, and he went for a dollar more than Scott had him for.

And now it's Zach Grinky's turn. Scott's got $20 here on Granky. I got a $20 bid. He's jumping in at 21. I am thinking about it. No, let Heath have him I'm gonna go 22 Oh dude, he didn't even want him

That's as high as I want to go If you want to take him from me, he can That's a dollar more than you have him for So I'm good The problem with Doing this while we're Drafting Is

To make it a good podcast We have to talk about what we're trying to do Yeah Yeah Right and I'm willing to do that I know you guys Like I'm willing to sacrifice My team

for the good of the listeners here. So you really have to decide what you want your pitching staff to look like. Because you can't mess around with hitters. I mean, with pitchers, excuse me, you can decide, like, Heath went very RP heavy last year, and it worked. I've never done that. I'm considering it. You have to decide how you want to structure your pitching staff, and that's probably going to determine how you draft your hitters, I think. You know, so do you want middle relievers that just help you an ERA and whip?

Do you want it four or five closers? You know, Heath's pitching staff last year, like I mentioned, it was one stud pitcher, Chris Sale, and mostly relievers, and not all of them, like only one of them was a closer, the ones that he drafted. It was Trinan. Most of them had a chance to be closers, but didn't end up being closers.

He just won Bradhand. Heath took Bradhan for $15. At the time, I'm not totally sure we were considering Blake Trinan, a closer. But, yeah, Bradhand, $15. I nominated him after seeing the Yates bid of $13. I guess that's proportional. I do want to bring up a point you were saying about having money at the end, though, because I think, honestly, the most important piece of auction advice I can offer is that you want,

like, I'm fine going aggressive at the beginning. I'm fine, particularly in a mixed league, blowing most of my budgets on studs and going in studs and duds approach. But by duds, I don't literally mean $1 players. You want to be one of the last people, if not the last. people to be down to nothing but one dollar bids because that's the at the end of the auction, the only way you can jump in for a player you want is if you have an extra dollar to top the guy who nominates him. If you're just down to dollar bids, you only can win the guys you nominate.

Anyone else has any money, you're missing out on it and you're waiting a whole other round to nominate somebody else. And even beyond that, if you have a $2 max bid, then you have to start figuring out, is this the guy I want to go with my max bid for? and make sure that nobody's going to steal him for two. And then you run the risk of losing that guy for a $3 bid. So you have to balance things out for sure. And I want to talk about the dollar bids.

We had an email from Nick in New Jersey. It's our email of the day at Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. He's a first-time auctioner. We want to know how many $1 players you draft each year when doing an auction. His roster is 24 players. So that's helpful. Ours is 23.

Edwin Diaz just went for 18. Boy, closer values are just surprising. right now. That's a good value. You know what? I'm really pissed at Nick in New Jersey. If I weren't reading your email, I would have gotten Edwin-Diaz for 19. How many?

Do you have a set number of $1 players that you want on your team? I don't have a set number, but I'd say most years it's between three and five. Yeah. Okay. And I want to tell you, I went through all of the $1 players from our league last year. 66 of them. In my opinion, 22 of them became good values. I am not including Adelberto Mondesi

because he was almost certainly dropped. So, 22 of them were good values. Odubo Herrera, Thames, Mondes. I guess I was including Mondesie. I didn't mean to. So maybe that's 21. Glaber Torres, Mitch Hanigar, Mike Clevenger, Eugenio Suarez,

Jorge Soler, Stephen Piscotti, Erotus Viscayano, Matt Kemp, Kenta Maeda. I'll even include Brad Brock. That one's questionable. Tim Anderson. Go ahead. Andrewton Simmons, McGilland-Duhar,

Aaron Hicks, Michael Fulmer, Jay Hap, Kevin Gosman, Cole Hamels, Mike Fultenevich. These were the good players, the good values at a dollar. Two-thirds of them were crappy. So just keep that in mind. Holy cow, that is a terrible, terrible value,

what we just saw. That's exactly what I have him for. J.T. Raimuto has no business going for $30. If Aaron Judge and Andrew Benintendi are $33, that is a huge overpay for J.T. Rayabuto. Oh, I don't think, I mean, maybe with Judge, but I don't think Ben Intendi's at all guaranteed to be better than Rao Oh, I think he might be a overpaying rodeo

No Oh, that's a terrible position, no Oh, that's a terrible guy with that You need two catchers You're going to have to draft probably a really bad hitter In your catcher spot, if you can get Rao Muto It potentially puts you well ahead in Five categories among the catchers

Do you guys care how you spend your money When you spend your money? Like I said, I want to wait to have money at the end. Do you guys care? I mean, it just depends. Like a mixed league format, like I said, I tend to like to go studs and duds, so that probably means I'm spending most of my money early. Kind of the point when I know to back off is, like,

basically the point of no return for me is, like, I'm preparing for the end game is when my max bid is half of what my balance is because then you know there's $2 for every roster spot to fill instead of just one. And look, if I happen to nominate a guy that I win for a dollar, great. That gives me an extra dollar to spend on somebody else. But that's once I get to that point where my balance is twice what my max bid is, I'm done. It's one, two, maybe a $3 player, and that's it. Chris is in a bidding war for J.D. Martinez, and I believe just paid more for Martinez than Nolan Aronado went for.

How much? What are we at here? That's reasonable. There's a pretty good chance he'll be better. There is a chance. Like, he was better last year. Can I read an email about Noon Aronado? Probably the year before.

Kevin Trexler says the Rockies are saying they may bat Noon Aronado second, and so far he has in all of the spring games. How will that impact your ranking of RBI machine, Noon Aronado? It won't. He'll probably score more runs. Yeah, he'll score more runs and drive in fewer. Are they really going to bat him second? he'll get

I mean he'll get 22 to 27 more plate appearances it's not nothing but it shouldn't dramatically impact how you value him no but if you're drafting him going oh wow I just

yeah in a roto league wow I just got the RBI leader you might have to make you might have to he's still going to like he's still going to drive in 110 easy I was wowing at the bidding here Kimbril who I feel like his stock is falling because he hasn't signed yet, and that's probably reasonable.

He just went for 19, one more than Diaz, which backs up the idea. Diaz probably went for too little, then. All right, I'm going to nominate Luis Severino, and I wouldn't mind getting him. But let's see, so this is exactly why, what did Clayton Kirschall go for? What did you get him at Matt, Chris? 14. 14. Okay, so that's your basis here with Severino, and here we go.

He's at five, he's at six. he'll get up to, you know, he's at 9 now, 10. Chris and Heath both want him. Creeth going back and forth, 12, 13, 14. Are we going higher? Oh, 15, 16. Chris, could you imagine if Chris gets Severino and Kirshaw? What a fun team that would be.

Now he's at 17. Chris, you're going to go to 18? Nah. Okay. Go on. First or last. $17 for Severino. All right.

That could be a great value. Scherzer went for 36, I think. Kluber went for like 30. What else was I going to say? I had something very important to say. Well, you know what? Until I think of that. Let's go through some news and notes and help people.

Chris Sayle was on the block now. Oh, I know what I was going to say. There are still plenty of aces on the board. There's still Seale is being bid on now. DeGrom, Verlander, Nola, Bauer, Garrett, Garek, Carrasco. So you don't want to be the last person. You don't want to take the last person in a tier,

necessarily. Because a lot of times the last person in a tier goes for way too much. Chris Saleh at 31, that could be amazing. Cluber at 30. Are we locked again?

I was trying to bid on that. Okay, he's going to go. We're going to reset that. Good, it gives me more time to make my thought. But you have to use tiers in auctions. You have to use tiers. You have to understand

when a tier is running out. So when there are like three aces left, you might want to make sure you get one if you don't have one already. I do. think that's a good approach. I generally like to go in with like I want this guy. This guy's my plan B. This guy's my plan C. And it's not as much as I want these tiers. I'm just, I just pick out

the guys that I want and then try to go get them. And sometimes it doesn't work out. You end up with too many plan C guys. But I have specific targets that I want at each position. Okay. Yeah, I kind of, I'm taking more of a holistic approach and trying to build like, I'm looking at the team as I'm going. I'm using this tool that I created that keeps track of what you have and kind of gives you a projection of where you're going to finish based on what you have. It's available on SportsLines, the Roto Team Builder tool. And so I'm using that to kind of make sure that I'm hitting the spots that I want to and I'm getting the team as opposed to the specific players. I don't really care about the name. I want the production that I can get to show what my likely finish is going to be.

I wanted to give one more tip. Think about the amount of players that are going to be bid on. Then look at average draft position. And so what do we have? 280. How many people are going to be bid on? 23 people times 12. So 276, right?

Look at ADP and look at who's going in that range and see if you think those players are good. And if you do, that's probably like Sunny Gray is 276. I think he's perfectly justifiable as a $1 player. Fran Mill Reyes is 272nd. Tyler White, 271. If you think that there are players that you like, that that should influence...

Ooh, Stanton, 32. Do I want to go 33? No, because I already have an outfielder and I already bid on Trout. Judge went for 33, so that 32 seems pricey to first stand. I have him at 29. I've got him at 34, but he's not part of the plan. Yeah.

Yeah, you're standing for 34, but you had Judge for 40, right? Right, yeah. Okay, so anyway, like I said, you know, that's how you get a good gauge on league depth and who you can get for a dollar or two. Armand Marquez now being bid on. I did want to go through some news and notes. Justin Verlander experimenting with a change-up. Cool. Ross stripling the next man up in the Dodgers rotation.

So now who's the late-round Dodgers pitcher we like? Armand Marquez, already more expensive than Severino and Clayton Kirschaw. He's at $18. He's here giggling. So the question. He knows Armand Marquez is part of my plan. So the question that I have, Adam, is, is Ross Stripling ahead of Areas right now?

Because every indication I've seen so far is that Areas has a legitimate chance. He hasn't been bad in spring training. Dave Roberts said just yesterday, Stripling is first up if there's an opening. So, opening. But is that, again, is that including... Is that with the Kershaw opening, Or is it with...

No. The guy clarified who tweeted it out that... It's not. It's your turn of nominated a player. I know. Kershaw, Ryu, Mayada, Bueller, Hey, can I... I need interrupt.

This is too important. That was only four. Hold on. Hold on. This is too important. Jose Altovae is being bid on now. Am I crazy? Because that is my next note. He has general left side soreness a year after playing through a knee injury.

Are you guys starting to get concerned, Did that do anything to you? Because it made me think, God, is he like 29 years old, I think right now? Are we starting to enter the injury-prone phase of Jose Al-Tuve? No, it sounds like a spring injury. They said he would have played if it was a regular season game. I'm not concerned by it at all. As a 30-year-old, I think he'll be fine.

He's got some time left. Okay, good, then I'm going to start bidding on Jose Al-Tube. He's at the 35. You started bidding a little too late. 36. Does Azer want to go 37? Heath 40. Heath 40, Scott, 41.

Chris, you want to get out of that? No one Aronado went for 42. Oh, 43. Heath jumps in with a $42 bid, and I'm going to let him go. Yeah, I think Aronado, Altuve and Martinez going 42, 43. That makes perfect sense, I think. Adam just, take that, Heath. 43.

You going to take it? Yeah, he can have them. Okay. Trout and Altuve. Trout and Altuve. I'm a little bit worried about the side injury. You know, he's 29. He's kind of hitting that point where he might be injury prone.

All right, so what's the conclusion on the Dodgers rotation? All right, so it's... Kershaw, Ryu, Maeda, Bueller. Who's the fifth right now? Who are we forgetting? We're forgetting some of us. Rich Hill. Rich Hill. There you go.

Yeah, so Stripling would be the sixth guy, replacing Kershaw at the start of the season. Doesn't mean Arias isn't going to start later. It sounds like, from what I've, Red, they're wanting to preserve his innings early so that maybe he could jump into the rotation later in the year. Someone, there's going to be a spot.

That's something like, very early. Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean, and the Dodgers especially. I mean, they put, Rich Hill will get a blister. They put players on the I.L. For sport. Notice I said I. Yes, very good.

That's what it's called. Very good. So, yeah, Stripling was amazing last year. And, like, is he a dollar bid player, you think? Oh, he should go for more if he's, if he's the leader for the sixth spot. I mean, it's going to be a short-term spot. In theory, I mean, he's going to be in the rotation

at other times in the future, probably. So I wouldn't, I have him for $4. It wouldn't surprise me if he ends up going for $1. But, you know, I have him for $4. All right, Jack Flaherty just went for $21. Armourkez previously went for $19. In between, we had Jose Al-Tubei for $43. Now, here's a really interesting one.

Tyler White nominated for $2. The current bid is $2. I don't think I can spend three dollars on him. Well, here's three. This is R.J. White's move, I think. He nominates a low-end guy that he likes for two and lets someone else get them for three. It's what happened with Omar Narvaez earlier today. And Tom Oganovsky gets Tyler White for three.

So what do you think? Tyler White for $3. Is that good or bad? I don't love it. It's neutral. Like, it could be good. But at this stage in the draft, when he's someone that you might have been able to get for a dollar at the end,

is Tyler White irreplaceable? Is Tyler White someone that you think has a really good chance of returning, say, $15 of value? I'm a little iffy on that. I'd rather just wait until the end of a draft and take the shot on someone else being worth a dollar, someone like Steven Sousa, who will almost certainly, if not a dollar in the reserve rounds. Tyler White might have more upside, although I'm not even sure that. that's the case. But at this point in the draft,

spending those marginal dollars can come back and hurt you. This is one of the oddities of a draft, too, is I feel like, of an auction, I mean, even though you theoretically have access to every player and you feel like it should make it more likely that you get your favorite sleepers because you can target them anytime they're on the board. If anyone else in the league,

if that's a favorite sleeper of theirs too, it can wind up going for much more than you want to spend. So I kind of just, my sleepers go out the window in an auction, particularly low-dollar sleepers. I want them to be low-dollar players above being my favorites, you know? There's no such thing as a sleeper anymore. Right. I mean, there's that too. Especially when we're playing in an industry league. It's funny because you'd think in an auction players would go for values relative to where they're drafted, but that's just not how it works.

The draft is so choreographed by comparison that everybody knows about what. when a player is supposed to go, and nobody targets him except maybe like a round before that. Auctions, they can go for double what they theoretically should. All right, we just had some interesting bids. Bryce Harper for 38 and Ronald Acuna for 39. And what did Ray Almutto go for? He went for 30. So now Gary Sanchez is at $26.

I'm going to tell you how much Gary Sanchez goes for. We're going to come back right after this. All right, Gary Sanchez, $26. Sold, right? Sold? Yes, sold. Gary Sanchez, I'm a terrible auctioneer for $36. You have many other positive qualities.

Thank you. Hey, more news. Jeremy Jeffers being shut down for a week. He's always here. We talked about that. Jeremy Jeffers being shut down for a week. He could be ready for opening day, but we like Corey Knable at this point. We'll see how much he goes for.

Here's Trevor's story being bid on. There was a nice article about Cody Bellinger on ESPN.com. Dave Roberts said Cody Bellinger has to be their guy. Scott wrote a good story about some spring training stuff. Jordan Zimmerman's made some adjustments and he's healthy. You can have him, Scott. Houston reportedly. That was the least interesting note you picked out there.

Yeah, I thought I took more. I thought I wrote down more. There was some interesting stuff. Oh, was it the Brad Peacock News? He's the favorite to be the fifth starter. Yes, he is. According to Astro's beat writer, Brandon Mataggart. He is the favorite, and he was awesome as a starter in 2017.

I had more than 10 strikeouts per 9 and 21 starts. We talked about it yesterday. But yeah, he's officially, I think, needs to be drafted in all mixed leagues. I have them valued in this format at $4. And let me tell you something about Peacock. So as a starter in 2017, he had a 322ER, a 135 strikeouts in 111 and 2 thirds. But he walked a lot of guys, 46 walks, and a 1.22 whip for Peacock. However, his last 13 appearances, 12 of them were starting.

starts only 20 walks and 70 and a third. So the walks got better. And then last year, as a reliever, 2.8 walks per nine. So I don't know if it's really an improvement. I have to nominate someone, sorry. But if it is, you know, that's... It could be amazing. All right.

So I have Trout and I have Al-Tuve. I cannot spend big on another player, at least another hitter. So I'm going to nominate Jose Ramirez for $10. he'll probably go for 45-ish, and we will get some money off the board, but I know I am out on Jose Ramirez, so again, that's my nomination strategy. He's up to $34 right now.

Josh Donaldson's going to make his spring training debut today as they kind of handle him with kids' gloves, and Yaddy Amalina's making his spring training debut today. I don't know if Donaldson's today, maybe tomorrow. Houston has reportedly offered Dallas Keikle a short-term deal, which, by the way, would be bad news for Brad Peacock, so keep that in mind. Jose Ramirez is at 45, and I was at 46.

Remember, Trout was 50 and Betts was 51. So Chris has Ramirez 46. Going twice and sold. All right, Chris and Heath were making eyes at each other during that one. Chris, what do you got right now? We're just trying to size each other up. See who's going to blink first. Yeah, you have five bars.

I think everybody else was out at 40. Heath blinked. You know where my stopping point is. Oh, I don't have yours open. Chris, you have five players. I'm not trying to play these little games. Yeah. That's a lot right now.

They're pretty good, too. They're pretty good. Take it, take us through it. I have Jose Ramirez for 46 at third base at Alberto Mondesi for 26. J.D. Martinez for 43, Nelson Cruz for 20, and Clayton Kershaw for 14. So I'm down to a $94 max bid. I think I will probably spread that around between multiple players. It's a good start, though.

you know, looking at it, I'm definitely worried about Atroberto Mondesi's batting average, but I think everyone else in my offense that I've drafted, the other three guys should all be helpful. I've got two power speed guys. I've got a great batting average guy, and I think Nelson Cruz is going to bounce back in terms of batting average. So it's a great starting place for my offense. I've got, you know, I think three, two first round guys and another, maybe Scott might think he's a second, late second, early third round guy in Mondesies.

We'll see how your team turns out. Guys, we have to say goodbye to our video audience. If you're listening, though, on the podcast, we will have more for you. But for the video audience, thank you very much for watching. Fantasy Baseball today. I hope this was helpful. And make sure you subscribe to our podcast, Fantasy Baseball Today from CPS Sports Anywhere.

You get your podcasts. And we're back. We haven't missed a beat. Actually, we missed two bids. Justin Verlander went for $32, and Jose LeClerc for 14, and it really struck me that we are running out of closers. So, you know, like for sure closers. So what you have to do, oh, here's Brad Peacock.

$3. Yeah, timely nomination by me. All right. Scott said he'd go four. Nah, no, I'm not going to do it. He said three. There's four, five. Five.

Redded double bid. Yeah, now he might be a little. All right, so I'm going to go to my queue. I'm going to put all the number one, like for sure, going to get saves closers in there. And Brad Peacock just went for $5. And I have to make sure I get, I mean, I'm going to try to get two,

but I might only get one. But, you know, you don't want to miss out completely on that. So use your cue wisely, everybody. How are you guys feeling so far? Let's, it's all. Chris said who he has. I only have, I think, two players. I have Trout and Altovae.

And Heath, how about you? I have yet to get a star. I've got Travis Shaw for $16. Brad Hand for $15. Both of them part of my plan. I've missed out on a couple of guys that I really wanted to get. And it's not a comfortable position I'm in right now, but I am happy with the two players I have and the value I got them for.

There was one other note I didn't get to, by the way. Oh, Scott, why you tell me your team, then I'll get to the Yankees note, of course. Okay. Oh, my goodness. Whitmerfield makes me wish I'd bid on Mondea C. I saw, he had his great back of playing. His finger on the, on the laptop, so I knew he was going to keep in.

Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Heath has a tell. And mine is apparently crossing names off my list. Anyway, my team. Nolan Aronado for 42, Mani Machado for 35. I feel like those were pretty good prices relative to the other first round type hitters, probably because they play deep positions and they don't steal.

And then I have Zach Rankie for 22 as my lone starting pitcher. So three players, all, you know, All high dollar guys. I guess Grinky, kind of the mid to high dollar guy. I feel good. Whitmerfield for 32. Okay.

Remember. I think that's fine. Aaron Judge and Ben and Tendi were 33. Stanton was 32. Rayamuto was 30. I think he's right there with those guys. It makes sense. As Drubal Cabrera,

no thank you. $3 on his Drubal Cabrera? No. There will be $1 players that go. He's like a $7 player every year, though. No. In terms of value. Yes.

Yeah, he's going to hit like 270 with 20 homers. It's just what he does. All right, some more players coming off the board here. As Drewble Cabrero went for $6. Noah's Sindeguard still being bid on, and he just went for $25. So we still have DeGrom, Nola, Bauer, Garrett Cole, and Carrasco.

And then past that, we have Corbin and Paxton, Strasbourg, Clevenger. And then you get to like, Burrios, Tyone, Morton Price, I think Bumgarner's probably still there, Archer, et cetera. All right, here's Nola.

So, yeah, we're starting to run out of Aces. See if Cindergarde just went for 25. Noah's at 25. Now he's 26. Do play-by-play on the bidding. This is where an auction podcast is at its finest. I think it is. You know, as long as the bidding is somewhat speedy.

Well, I'm not going to be. do for every player. Noah's at 29 and Heath won him for 29. I got a good player. It's interesting that Nola goes for $4 more than Cindergarde. He's safer, but... You really like Cindergarde, I feel like. You seem to be much more willing to forgive his pretty extensive injury history at this point. So it's... It was elbow, it was bone spurs in the elbow once, right? But it wasn't like ligamental damage. I mean, come on, he's injured every year.

Like, this is not, oh, he got hit by a comebacker and bruised his shit. He throws extremely hard and he gets hurt all the time. Right. He has yet to deliver an ace workload, right? I think he had 180 innings one year, which is getting pretty close. I mean, right, but again, like, it was bone spurs in his elbow one year. It was the peck

the other year. He had a hand and mouth syndrome, and what was it last year? It was, it. It He did have some time off for that last year, but there was something more related to the arm that he missed time for, too. I can't, honestly, I can't remember because the list is so long. Yeah.

But that's, I consider Cinderguard one of the riskier of the quote, unquote, aces. Sure, but he's thrown 150 the year he got called up, 183 in 2016. 30 in 2017, that was bad. But then 154 last year, I feel like we're, we kind of treat him like he didn't pitch last year, you know? Yeah, 154 is not going to help. I mean, it'll help.

In a points league, it's not going to be great. In a roto league, you know, it's not as important, I guess. It's important, but you're still getting great production. That's not so bad. Yeah, and the thing is, he's also really good, and then he goes for $4 less than Aaron Nola, who's thrown 77 and 2 thirds as a rookie 111 the following year, 168 in 2017, and then 212 last year. So we do have, I guess, proof that Aaron Nola can do the ACE workload.

But it's not like his history is leaps and bounds more impressive in terms of making it through a full season than Noah Cindergars. Well, either of those first two years, did they involve any minor leaguenings? One of them did. The other one, I think he had elbow. And then the third year, I think he had a back injury. And last year it was a finger injury for Noah Cindergarde. That's all it was. So, yeah, look, if Cindergarde can pitch a hundred guard.

180 innings, that would be tremendous in getting him for less than no longer. I don't know. You might get a better pitcher. Trevor Bauer being nominated right now. And we still have the Grom, Bauer, Cole, Carrasco on the board. Probably, I would say, four in that tier. Okay, everybody, okay, Scott. Frozen again?

This is a strange day. So we'll, okay, losing my train of thought, I apologize. One thing I've noticed here in this draft is that some trendy play. are going for a lot. Brad Peacock, what did he go for? Six bucks? And Nick Senzel... Five. Okay, Nick Senzel just went for seven.

I'm not saying that's wrong. I'm saying it's unusual, you know? It's risky. It is risky. Nick Senzel, we all love the skill set. We all like that he has a chance to be the opening day center fielder, but he's hurt right now. And you talk about someone who's always hurt. Nick Senzel has always been hurt.

I don't know if he's a major player. made it through a full minor league season. And so now he's making the switch from the infield to the outfield, involves a lot more running. Maybe he's having trouble handling that as well. Yeah, it's just like you're going to get, for $7, you can get a good and established player. Well, the only problem with that is I legitimately think Senzel,

with what sounds like the expectation he will be the red center fielder, if not on opening day, the mid-April after they buy to get the extra year of team control. Like, I've moved him up in my second base rankings to the point he is a $7 player. But the larger point stands. I mean, if it's just because I have him as a $7 player doesn't mean he's going to go for $7 if the nomination happens later because overspins early in the auction lead to discounts later in the auction.

And it doesn't mean that someone like George Springer might not go for 10. You know, like that's entirely possible. Yes, you're right, you're right. Right. This is really the best application of auction values, particularly our side. I don't know how the others do it.

But if it's a, we have ours, we have done the math for a 12-team standard Roto league. meaning all the dollars are distributed equally among between 276 players across you know for 276 players fitting all the roster needs so the math adds up the the amount of money we've allocated to these players is the total amount of money everybody has to spend in that league so if you see players for going going for more than the projected auction values what that tells you is there's going to be not much money left at the end and you're going to find discounts there.

And Jacob de Grom just went for $6 more than Trevor Bauer. I don't think that's worth the $6 difference. I know it's an auction and things change, but Trevor Bauer was just about as good as Jacob de Grom, if not as good last year. I know he got hurt, but it wasn't. He didn't like pop a ligament in his elbow. He wasn't as good as DeGrom.

DeGrom had arguably the greatest season in baseball history, but he also went for the same amount as Max Scherzer. I'm talking about 36. Not necessarily results. In terms of the peripherals, he was right there with Jacob de Grom. People forget how good Bauer season was. He had 221 ERA. I wanted Bauer. I just missed them.

At the time he got hurt, I thought he was leading the A.L. Cy Young race that obviously Snell ultimately won. And I think you make an argument Trevor Bauer should have won it over Blake Snell. Because it's not like Blake's not had that many more innings. Does anybody not have an ace, by the way, other than me? I have Clinton Kirchall. I have Granky, who I'd like another pitcher, at least on that same level. Yeah, I've got Nola. I'm good.

Okay. Javier Baez going for $30. There we go. Clevenger went for 21. So the two that I'm looking at are Garrett Cole and Carlos Carrasco. And based on the bidding, I am willing to... Those are the last... willing to say this out loud. I'm willing to go in the...

No, I'm not going to say it out loud. They're both going for more than 30. Those are the last two aces. Right, and this is the kind of the problem that you get to when you wait to the end of a tier, because they are going to get bid up. But I think I might spend like 31 on coal. Not sure about Carasco. Here's Freddie Freeman.

All right, we got some hitters now. Honestly, I don't know. I was debating. I don't know that I shouldn't have gone 22 on Clevenger just because of... There isn't much better out there to buy. Like if I want to have two guys at the top of the rotation, that's kind of what it means. Yeah, you could see what James Paxton goes for, Stephen Strasbourg.

There's certainly guys with A's potential left. But in terms of have done it before, don't have question marks, guys. It's Carasco and Cole left. Scott, you just took Freddie Freeman for $33. So makes sense. I'm a little surprised. Right.

So now you have three pretty expensive players. $33 Freeman, $35 Machado, $42, $42, $0.42 and a $22 granky. Nobody has ever been more proud of themselves than Heath when he just nominated Rick Porcelo for $2. Like he is throwing a little parade for himself. He's got the hat and the baton. Now he's up to $6.00, Porcelo,

and he just went for six bucks. Scott wasn't interested. So Scott passed on principle. Scott has to nominate a player, but I want you to talk about having Freeman, Aronado, and Machado for $33, $35, $42. It's awesome. Yeah, I think relative to the other

first, second round type bats, those are good price tags. And it's a little more than I have them for, maybe even a little more than I'm comfortable with. But my experience last year was that I backed off too early from these guys and then had to build a lineup of mid-tier guys, which I don't like doing in a mixed league. There are going to be enough surprises late, low dollar, off the waiver wire even in this format. I don't feel like you have to resort to that. I really thought you were price enforcing me on Freddie Freeman.

I wasn't. I wanted to get a stud first baseman, a stud first baseman, and I had budgeted as much as 35. for it. I thought maybe I could get Goldschmidt for that amount, who I like more than Freeman, but I don't want to, I didn't want to pass up Freeman at 33, and then Goldschmidt goes for 39 or something, you know?

All right, so Patrick Corbyn just went to Scott for 25, so Scott just got the last two players. Now remember, DeGrom and Scherzer went for 36. All of the Aces are going for, you know, 30-ish. Scott has Granky at 22 and Corbin at 25. You like it? I wanted two $20 guys like Zach Rankie, and I had to go five extra on Corby. I think just the way this auction's played out forced my hand.

I didn't want my second starting pitcher to end up being somebody like Chris Archer, which if we continued down that path, it might have been. So I went ahead and nominated Corbyn with Garrett Cole and Carrasco still on the board, because I thought if they went first, Corbyn was still out there. by the time Corby if he was clearly the best pitcher his price might get inflated too so that's a scenario

where I feel like it makes sense to nominate a player you want but you know it's just what I hate one of the things I hate most in an auction is saving my money for a specific player passing up players that would have worked instead

this is kind of what I was saying with Freeman passing up players that would have worked instead It's money ball. You buy numbers. You don't buy names. And then when my player gets, oh, he goes for way more than I'm comfortable with. Well, I can't go back in time and go after those players that would have been fine. Right.

So sometimes I like to just nominate them right away, pull the Band-Aid off, don't have any false expectations of what you're able to accomplish, and then you can't get burned that way. Okay, so we are 50 minutes into our draft, and I have two. players. This draft is going to take at least four hours. We won't. That's how much drafts are. Our auctions are. Hour 15. I wanted to see how much Vlad was going to go for. I'm glad that he was bid on while we're doing the show on the air. I'm going to say 20. Well, Daniel Murphy just went for 18. So I'm going to say like 24 for Vlad. That's my guess. He's up to 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. He's just riding that

click button. 22 to RJ White. What do you think, Heath? You're going to go 23? Nope. why why just cut it off because that's 21 was all I was going to spend on him okay 22 for Vladibiger does a hedge man I debate that last dollar or two

I'm like am I really going to miss it but he doesn't he has a cutoff and that's where he he sticks to it man okay here we go Garrett Cole the last ace I like unless you can't Ferrasco I like just trying to play mind games The, we'll see.

Oh, never mind. Okay. Oh. I'm sorry. Sometimes I get sidetrack because stuff's going on in the draft room. So I'll take the lead here. Adam is trying to bid on Garrett Cole, but he can't seem to figure it out. Garik Cole is up to $33 to Tom Ogganowski.

Adam is trying to figure out whether he wants to go, and he does not. He's out. I'm not, you know what? Look, you can win. I can win without an ace. Okay, Chris Towers. I can do it. I'm not going to do it in a draft, but I'm not going to overpay and hurt myself in other areas.

Here's the problem, though. Yeah. You're probably going to overpay for, like, the next tier of pitchers or even pay full price. Maybe. And that's a lot riskier than paying a premium for an ace. I hope, yeah, you might be right. You might be right. But if Nick Zenzel is going for six or seven, then I feel like there's going to be some value in the middle rounds.

the guys that would normally go in the middle rounds? There are going to be so many players. It happens every year in our mixed auction. There are going to be players that go for $5 or less that absolutely shock you. Right. And so if I'm going after a true scarcity, something that I know is not, I can't replace later in the auction, which is the whole idea behind valuing aces like we do.

You're just not going to find those guys. You will. somebody will somebody will but you certainly can't rely on it you might find one but you need to take a lot if you get lucky you need to like your reserve rounds should all be high upside back the guy who got

Snell last year yeah the guy who got Severino the year before but it doesn't happen with near the frequency it used to so my bigger point being it's okay to overspend for those the things that are irreplaceable it's okay I'm regretting not

going the extra dollar on out Alberto Monde at this point because all the steels have gone for too much because it's a scarce commodity. And I feel like Mondesie for what he could bring overall was worth the price tag. And Garrett Cole went for 33. Lorenzo Kane, speaking of steals, went for 24. Here's Alex Bregman. This looks like a great value right now for Bregman.

I feel like I have to get in on that. Actually, no, I think that was stupid. I think I just made a really... $3 more than Scott has him for, $1 less than I'm for. I think I just made a really stupid decision. I have Alex Bregman for $37. It's not bad. I mean, you don't have many high dollar players, right?

I have only high dollar players. I have Trout, Al Tubei, and Bregman. Breggman is my cheapest player. So, yeah, that was... It's not bad. This is one spot where I think you might be paying for a name instead of numbers. Because, like, Paul Goldschmidt will probably produce very similar numbers. If not better.

But Charlie Blackman might be an Alex Breggman clone. I mean, we're talking about it. What a disappointing season Charlie Blackman had, and it was 29 homers and 12 steals in like a 290 average. One thing I'm going to say, Bregman is third base in shortstop eligible. When you get into any format that's a little bit deeper, it is nice to have that flexibility.

George Springer are not going to go for those $10. He's at 23 right now to Heath. Heath and Scott want George Springer. A George Springer player with numbers like George Springer will go for $10. It's what I meant, obviously. We all knew that. I find myself liking Springer more than I thought. I didn't go 23 like Heath did.

He's going to start running. That's the thing. Is he going to be good at it? Because he's been abysmal. On the one hand, it's like, okay, that's just a dumb Spring store. You should ignore it. But he lost 12 pounds. Hinch is talking about having the Astros as a whole run more.

Springer's three for three on steals this spring, which is very aggressive by his standards and successful. Maybe. Maybe this is finally the year he gives. us the 20 steals, maybe. I recently lost 20 pounds, and I'm not any faster. I don't want to draft them with that expectation,

mind you, but you know, it could work out. 23 seems like a fine value for what George Springer has been, like a slightly better version, maybe. Goldschmidt for 34 to Heath. So Heath just took two players back to back, Springer and Goldschmidt. I've basically

ruined my team with Bredman. That was unfortunate. I don't know how I'm going to Can I quit? You're doing fine. You're doing fine, sweetie. You really are.

I think you're being a little too pessimistic. You just have to be disciplined the rest of the way. Yeah, all right. So I have 20 spots to fill. Yeah, that's a 20 spots this bill and $129 left. So that's like six bucks per player, basically. I don't know how I'm going to pull this off.

I'm going to need some $1 guys for sure. Okay, so now what? Charlie Blackman. All right, he's at 30. Goldsmith went for 34, 31, Bregman for 37. Yikes. 32 for Blackman. Chris, that's your bid. Are you going to go to 34 if somebody beats you? Nobody's going to beat me.

What if I hit 33 right now? I'm unbeatable. 32! I love it. I tried to get it in there. I love Blackman this year. I think he's being undervalued. I don't think, even before the big breakout in Midway 3,

2017 or midway through 2016 and all of 2017, we were still looking at him as a borderline first rounder. I don't think the skill set has declined so dramatically that, you know, we should have discounted him as much as we have. 32 isn't a value necessarily, but I think it's perfectly fine. Yeah, I mean, especially since he's one of the last of maybe three hitters that strike me as unquestionably elite. I had him at 30, but I almost went 33

just because of that. That's my last chance out. One of my last chance is that, that caliber of player. All right, Anthony Rizzo now, 27, 28 to Scott. 29 for Anthony Rizzo. 30 for Anthony Ritz. Whoa, Scott, 31 now to Greg.

You're going to go 32, Scott White? Speaking of that, scarcity. No, I think that pushes me to my limit. Okay. That's a lot. 31 for Rizzo, 32 for Blackmun. Rizzo much better in points leagues. He's always, like, forget last year.

Let's say Rizzo's just what he normally is. That's usually like a top 12 hitter in points leagues, closer to 20 in Roto. Unless maybe OBP would be better. OBP would be better. But this is a batting average league. I should have said that. Batting average, home runs, RBIs, runs, and steals.

Wins, ERA, WIP, saves, and strikeouts. You are really. rattled at him. I am. Rattled. It's tough to do. Come on. I think he's nominated for Mell Reyes, thinking I'm going to try and buy a $2 player when everybody's bidding on.

It's too early for that, Heath. Come on. He's not going to be there for you at the end. I thought I was going to get him from three. He went for five bucks. If you were listening to this podcast, Heath, you can't get too attached to your own players, especially the low dollar guys, because they end up going for five when they should go. for four.

For two. He may have gone for two in two hours. Yeah. Yeah. They're going to be some crazy bargains at some point. Are here's Starling Marte? Okay. Scott, you still need steals?

I'll let you figure that out. Okay. Starling Marte at 23, 25 to Heath, 26. Will Heath go 27 on Starling Marte? Charlie Blackman went for 32, Rizzo for 31. Marte's up to 29 now. Springer went for 23. remember. Marteta, 31 to Scott, 32.

Scott White, you're going to get in there at 33? I think I'm going to have to go the bargain basement route with the stolen bases. You'll be fine. You will be totally fine doing that. There's plenty of them. You will have Greg Allen on your team. No, there's not plenty of them. We talked about it yesterday. I thought about that the other day. You led off by saying there were 23 players of any value to mixed leagues that stole 20 plus bases. That's less than two per team. That's not. Not. Yeah.

So you'll get, you'll get, 12. 20 steals is not going to do it. Right. You'll get, well, but still,

we have. You need four guys who are going to steal 20 bases. Well, okay, if I expanded it to 15 steals, there'd be a lot more. No,

but there'd be a lot more than just 23 or whatever. Sunny Gray for $3. I think that's fine. What a weird job. I'm optimistic about him. The Yankees were a bad fit. They were.

Yeah, they were. That could be a good one. Lance Bruss Dowell he gets Sunny Gray for $3. And it makes sense why it was a bad fit. Even before what he said, you know, the Yankees want guys to throw their breaking balls, but they want them to throw them for strikes, you know, not necessarily to chase.

When you look at the way Masair Tanaka pitches, he's almost slider-splitter first. And Sunny Gray's slider has been a good swing and miss pitch for him. But that's not the same thing as being a pitch you can establish early on. in the count. I tweeted this the other day. Chris, you know the song, Gypsy by Fleetwood Mac? Sure. I think you can sing you say Kukichi

as you see your gypsy. I think it works. You say, wait, you say Kukichi. I say Kikuchi. You say Kikuchi. Like it can work, and he just went for $7, by the way. It can't work. That's fine, fine value. All right, we're past an hour. Let's recap our squads.

I have a great team for now, but it will soon be terrible, because I have Mike Trout for 51, Jose Outube for 43, and Alex Breggman for 37. Scott, who do you have? Well, Adam, I am taking a close look at the guy on the clock right now, and I'm trying to bid on him, and it's not letting me. Am I the only one? Is that another freeze? It's another freeze. It looks like it. We're using a beta version of...

This is not a good endorsement for our product. No, this is the first time as Zembris. happened is very strange, but we'll work out all the kinks. So you're trying to bid on Zander Bogarts. All right, so let Scott deal with that. Chris, tell me who's on your team? It's a great team, Adam. Jose Ramirez at third base, at Alberto Mondesi at shortstop, J.D. Martinez in the outfield flanked by Charlie Blackman, Nelson Cruz, holding down the designated hitter spot,

and Clayton Kershaw, as my only pitcher, I will need more pitchers than that. for sure. Yeah, I think probably. But you have more than I do, so that's good. And I'm in a good spot with my offense where I can kind of lay off for a little while now. Yeah, me and you both, buddy. Heath, how about you? What do you got?

I have six players. I went on a little run there and got three out of four. I've got Goldschmidt at first base, Travis Shaw at either second or third, depending on what comes up later. Two outfielders and Lorenzo Kane and George Sprite. ringer, and I have Aaron Nola as my ace and Brad Hand as my top closer. You're ready to compete. You're ready to go.

Scott, did you get Bogarts? No, you did not. No, I can't feel like I should have. Scott is really upset. I do want to point one thing out that's really cool that you can do if you're a sports time subscriber. If you download the Roto team builder tool that I made right now with just Jose Ramirez, Alberto Mondesi, Jani Martinez, Charlie Blackman, Nelson Cruz, and

replacement level players at every other. position, I'm projected for a top three or four finish at every hitting category. And so what that tells me now is I really don't have to spend more than $10 on any other hitter and I should be in a pretty good spot. So now I can start to go after pitching. Okay, that's great. Yeah. So go to sportsline.com and use the promo code Vegas and get the first month for a dollar and download that tool and get the ACEs metric and all that cool stuff. Sportsline.com, the promo code is Vegas. Yasio pleaded for 17

bucks. Yeah, Scott, what's going on? Scott is sitting here with a brown on his face, deep size, and I just can't stop smiling. This is the best day of the entire year. Scott is a pinball machine. The auction...

And you just lost your ball. The auction is such an emotional experience for me. I am drained at the end of everyone. So many highs. Such high highs, such low lows. And I'm at a low point. Bogart's going for 19 when I have him for 23.

And I was in on the bidding till the end. I had my shot at him. And I said no. I already have a shortstop, Manny Machado. But I still think, I wouldn't have minded him in my middle infield spot. I just had that. No, you did the right thing. In the back of my mind, it's like, you know,

then I can't get too, like, There's a couple second basement I want. I couldn't get two second basement if I already fill my middle end. I don't know. I don't know. We'll see how it plays out. But that looks like a pretty good deal. As opposed to who went right after, Yassiel Pueg for 17.

And that's kind of what we're like. You can't get stuck on the favorites, especially when they're that trendy, because they're going to get bid up to a price tag that's not such a value anymore. Pueg for 17. We're going to do a few more minutes here and wrap it up. What have we learned so far? Don't look at something for one second and then bid, and then you end up with $37 on Alex Bregman when you didn't need it. You actually really have to pay attention.

You really have to pay attention. This happens to me so often these stupid options. One of my favorite draft auction draft experiences was the football league that I'm in with my college friends. And I was hosting the league. They all showed up a little late. and I had already gotten into the beer a few times and ended up spending $63 on LaShawn McCoy. And that's what, but like, you know, you can make mistakes.

You have to have, you have to focus and you have to have some restraint. So we just had four straight players go for $17. Yasser Pueig, Eddie Rosario, Roberto Ozuna, and roll this Chapman. That's very funny. Ozuna and Chapman going for the same prize. Who got Ozuna? You Heath? I did.

Oh, good job. Chris. All right, I'm going to nominate. It's my turn to nominate a player. Closers have been a nice value in this draft so far. You have not had to overspend for any closers, except I think one went for more than Edwin Diaz, right? Kemprel. Yeah, Kimbril.

Yeah, Kimbril. I'm for 11, so it's less surprising than I thought. but I would say it's closers are all being valued like they're more or less the same guy if they have a job which is interesting I could go for a Correa here and just get every Angels, every Astros infielder

Correa is at 20 that seems like a fine I mean relative that's a great deal oh it's 21 it seems proportional Keith for sure go to 22 yes I did good for you This is a good value here.

Going once. Going twice. Correa is sold to Heath Cummings. So last year, I think Scott told me I had six $30 players on my roster. This year I'm going to have one. You had five? Interesting. And let me tell you who they were.

I think you had five. You pretty much hit on all of them. Goldschmidt, Jose Ramirez, Mani Machado, J.D. Martinez. Oh, you had six. Scott was right. Goldschmidt, Ramirez, Machado, J. J. Starly Marte and Chris Sale.

Chris Sale was $40. So 5 for 30 and 1 for 40. That's what I saw. Yeah, you nailed it. I mean, part of fantasy, like strategy, all that, like he's just, he got almost every single one of them right. And what's interesting is, yeah, I mean, they were all safe players. There's a chance, obviously, one of them could have busted, whatever.

But look at the rest of his roster. He did get Trinin at a good value. His two catchers were a good value. But otherwise, it's a lot of scruff, like a lot of guys who are. scrubs for the whole season. Oh, I won that league on the waiver wire. He was playing the waiver wire, which is what you can do, which is why you can afford to go stars and scrubs. Those stars are irreplaceable. Very unlikely you're going to find somebody like that off the waiver wire. But a mid-range outfielder, it's a good chance if you're active on the waiver wire, you could get two or three of those guys.

And even cheap guys bust, you know, and that's not just like they were bad, but like you might have a $7 player that you drop on April 17th. Sure, sure. Like Nick Senzel could be dropped at some point. I just got my pitcher, Stephen Strasbourg, for $24. So Heath, I sort of borrowed your, remember that points league where the pitchers went much earlier and you were like, all right, Strasbourg's my ace. It's risky.

You loaded up on hitters, you took Strasbourg, and we know when he's healthy, he's probably going to be an ace. And Carasco could still be your ace. No, I can't. I just can't spend. I don't think I can afford it. Here's Edwin Encarnassion. An interesting player here.

I don't know how we feel about him. I feel like we don't like him, but $10. It's a good buy. He's like 45 over 100 RBIs every year. I haven't for 14. I'm passing him up with the hope that we do find those. How is this guy going for only $4 players at the end? Right.

Because I don't like Edwin D. Edwin Encarnassion. I think he's pretty clearly on the decline. It's on my bust list. He's just nominated another player I like. Cole Hamill's. Do it. Hit the button, Scott.

I mean, I'm going to go five on, I'm sure. Well, you're going to go six. Six to Scott White. Seven. Eight. Scott, eight? Let me see what I have him for. We got five seconds.

Four. Three, a $7. Cole, Hamel. Oh, he's eight. You got to. You have to. Now he's nine, Scott White. Probably got to go a dollar more just to make sure you get him.

I would just bid him up to 12, make sure nobody goes 13. Nine, going once, going twice. Scott White goes 10. That's his high. Come on. Come on, please, somebody go 11. I just reviewed the state of starting pitcher. 11.

All right, Scott. You're out? If you think he was a 190-eating, a 190 strikeouts guy, I think that's a perfectly fine price. Basically, Rick Porsela. I feel like you guys are making fun of me. They are.

Scott, they always making fun of someone. Don't be offended. You know what? The joke's on them. I don't know why, but I'm just going to say the jokes on them. And we're going to end the show. It's really fun in auction. With that great moment.

All right, Scott's going to nominate a player. And what are we doing? The result's going to be on the website? All right, Heath. Yeah, they'll be up by the end of Friday. Take a look at this hot shot. I know what's coming. Matt Carbidner.

Okay, well, end with this. This is awesome. I hope people stick around for the end of the show. All right. What do we do in here, Heath? $2. That'd be good. And Carnacio went for 10.

Carpenter's up to 14, 15, 15, 15, 16, 17, 17, 17, 17, 17, 17 for 17. 17, 17. I mean, Rizzo went for, like, what was it, like 30? If Heath doesn't bid 20, this is, frankly, an abdication of his duty as a fantasy analyst. Geez, 17 for Carpenter, and Bogartz went for 19, 18 for Scott. 19 for Heath.

Scott knew I could go at least another dollar. That was definitely price enforcing. Rizzo went for 30. He's for 20, so I wouldn't have mind winning in. This is not a bad value here. I have him for 30. You just got him for 19. Yeah, steal.

Jokes on. Jokes out. Really well. Everyone else. Damn it, he did not deserve to win that. All right, we're out of here. Thanks for listening, everybody. Maybe he likes players.

Nobody else like. Maybe. And have a great weekend. We'll talk to you on Monday, Fantasy baseball today.