(*) MASTER NOTES: A fortuitous blunder?
Mar 28 2014
Ostensibly, if you get an invite to an experts leagues—particularly LABR or Tout Wars—you have to be at the top of your game.
But every once in awhile, one of the experts makes an egregious blunder. Or, at least it appears so. The most frequent mistake is bad budgeting, which often leads to bidding wars on marginal players. That's how a guy like Nick Punto goes for $19 (might as well open with my historic 2007 misstep). Sometimes the error becomes a classic story.
Back in 1996, Larry Labadini walked away from the draft table with a $9 pitching staff. That was more plan than blunder, but at the time, we all thought he was out of his mind. He traded his way to a 4th place finish. In 1998, I drafted Jose Lima—a 5-plus ERA pitcher—on purpose; the other owners thought I was nuts. In 2001, then rookie Lawr Michaels drew chuckles when he drafted three closers and catcher Chris Widger for his UT spot. Both Lawr and I took our blunders to titles.
In 2003, Mark Haverty announced that he was going to own Vladimir Guerrero at any cost and then was bid up by Jonah Keri to $53. Haverty finished last and was never invited back.
Then there is the blunder of leaving money on the table, the extreme of bad budgeting. A few dollars is no big deal. But probably the most notable instance was when Jonathan Mayo left $23 unspent in LABR-AL in 2001. But he went on to win.
That particular class of error is going to be put to the test this year.
Scott Swanay of Fantasy Baseball Sherpa had a massive—wait for it—$61 unspent with only one roster spot remaining in the Tout Wars Mixed League draft. He then bid it all on Brandon Beachy, a move that will allow him to reclaim the dollars for his in-season FAAB. He explains it all here. The other touts have characterized this end-game save as everything from bogus to brilliant. But everyone has concluded that there is still no way Scott can recover to contend.
I think it's intriguing.
You may recall the rules for the Rotisserie500 game I developed a few years back. Among them is the setting of a single, season-long $500 budget to pay for everything—active roster players, reserves and in-season free agents. This gave owners the flexibility to spend as they saw fit. If they wanted to go deep at the draft, they could spend $300 or more for active players and leave less for in-season use. But they could also decide that in-season acquisitions are more important and allot more dollars to post-draft players. That's what Scott has essentially done, and it is not an entirely bad idea in the right circumstances.
For one thing, research has shown that more than 40% of a team's eventual pitching stats will be acquired after the draft, during the season. Yes, that's how much pitching turns over. That alone begs for minimizing your investment in pitchers at the draft table and the need for more resources later on.
Although Scott's move was unintentional, he might consider that Tout Wars has a single $360 budget. We are forced to divide it up as $260 for the draft and $100 for free agents, but it is a $360 bankroll nevertheless. And he decided to spend $199 at the draft, leaving $161 for in-season use.
Can he leverage this in-season windfall to build a contender? Most observers don't think so, but I'm not as quick to conclude one way or the other. If there is any type of league where one could pull it off, it is in a mixed league. There is still a lot of talent in the free agent pool and all it takes is for him to hit on a few undrafted gems to improve his team.
But there is a very fine line between success and failure. His FAAB acquisitions have to be near-perfect. He needs to identify the players with the greatest upside and bid enough to get them. Even with his deep budget, there is no guarantee that he can land any particular player since the FAAB system Tout Wars uses is a blind bidding process.
But there could be impact players worth pursuing. Last year, remember that Jose Fernandez was an April free agent in most leagues. Wil Myers and Yasiel Puig didn't arrive until a couple of months later. This year, maybe Byron Buxton or Mark Appel are the in-season call-ups that make a difference. Neither was rostered in this draft.
In any case, it's going to be a tough road but it will be interesting to watch.
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