AMERICAN DREAM LEAGUE
We gathered at 10am yesterday on Zoom. There were tech problems and we had to practice bidding in the chat, once we all found the chat. I don’t know what time we started bidding for real, but even with a fair number of keepers, this 12-team AL-only 4x4 league finished the last of its seven reserve rounds as 7pm approached. Some called it grueling.
I’ll call it hard work.
I’m not going to recount my auction, the specifics are too specific (a keeper league, so draft inflation shifts prices), and unlike Tout Wars the league doesn’t play out in public. But I do want to talk about catchers.
First, there are some good fantasy catchers, but not nearly enough good ones. And in leagues that use batting average the not-good ones are pretty bad. Quite a few bad catchers take walks, so they’re less damaging in OBP leagues. I know this, you know this, everybody knows this, but somebody has to fall into the second catcher trap. I was one of those that fell yesterday.
Before the draft began Yennier Diaz, Jonah Heim, Bo Naylor, Mitch Garver, Ryan Jeffers, and Shea Langelier were frozen. Six good catchers were left: Adley Rutschman, Sal Perez, Logan O’Hoppe, Cal Raleigh, Alejandro Kirk, and MJ Melendez. We have a 10-games played to qualify in this league, explaining Melendez on this list.
So, six guys for 18 spots. You can see how it gets ugly. I identified two other potential targets: Austin Wells and David Fry. Wells can hit, but is second-string and a rookie, while on Opening Day I missed Fry making the Guardians. He’s played DH and 1B so far this year, but last year started eight games at catcher and participated in 28 at the position in the majors.
That’s it:
Every one of them except Rene Pinto went over my bid price. I bought Perez at $2 more than my bid price, which was his inflated price, and planned on making runs at O’Hoppe and Melendez, falling back to Wells or Fry if things didn’t work out.
As each went up to the bid price I dropped out, planning to take the next one until, suddenly, there were no more. One team had his sights on Fry, who went to $8 before I dropped out, and another went to $8 on Wells. My biggest regret was not bumping O’Hoppe to $17. No guarantee that would have won him, but it would have been better to battle harder for a good hitter who could surprise than end up with Christian Vazquez. At the very least it would have squeezed some money from elsewhere.
The challenge is finding the balance. If you overpay too much for the good catchers you later sacrifice opportunities in the outfield to roster better players. Or you don’t have the extra scratch to select the pitchers you want in the endgame. That was my concern. It’s a real one, and there is a price that’s too high for catchers like O’Hoppe and Cal Raleigh, but the fact is that half the catcher pool is underwater.
That is, the first replacement outfielder, the outfielder who won’t be taken in the auction, is better than nearly half of the catchers who will be rostered. So it’s wise to look at your second catcher’s production paired with your fifth outfielder’s production. A homer or a steal is a homer or a steal, no matter who accumulates the stat, but it’s easier to find productive replacements in the outfield than behind the plate.
$17!
THE PLAN
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HOUSEKEEPING
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