Draft Review: AL LABR Auction

This article is part of our Baseball Draft Kit series.

For the fourth time, I sat among the world's elite rotisserie players for the AL-only League of Alternative Baseball Reality auction.

I say this every time I write one of these reviews, but I'll say it again: the league has its own Wikipedia page for heaven's sake.

It's a tremendous honor to sit at that table, and the league is tremendously challenging. After an eighth-place finish in my first year, I finished second and third in 2018 and 2019, respectively, both times falling to the tandem of Glenn Colton and Rick Wolf (Colton and the Wolfman).

Both times Glenn and Rick auctioned exceptionally well, and they separated themselves in the snaking reserve rounds -- the reserve rounds of a 12-team AL-only league are not for the faint of heart by the way. Last year, they grabbed Bo Bichette in the reserves. Nobody knew when Bichette would be up, but we all thought he had a chance, and when Bichette did indeed get the call, he moved the needle for them. Glenn and Rick got an even bigger return on investment from Miguel Andujar the previous year.

I went into this year's AL LABR knowing that I could not let them get that kind of offensive windfall later in the auction or in the reserve rounds. Being well aware of James Anderson's prospect rankings -- the best fantasy prospect rankings in the world -- I was able to pinpoint two players that I felt could have a Bo Bichette-like impact if they were to get the call a bit earlier than expected: Jarred Kelenic and Wander Franco.

I figured I could get Kelenic and Franco for a combined $4-6 in the endgame, and then backfill in reserves with players that were pretty close in value to those I would spend $2-3 on to fill MI and the fifth OF spot in the auction. If I could not get them for the amount I budgeted, someone would really have to pony up for them. 

I told James about the plan last week before our Prospect Pod, and I admitted that the plan to roster Kelenic and Franco sounded stupid when I said it out loud, but the more I thought about it, the more logic it made. The auction is the only portion of this thing I have any control over, and I think I can make do at those two spots for a couple months. Glenn and Rick were not getting a player of that caliber in reserves again.

Aside from that plan, I was pretty open going in. I knew that I wanted to be more flexible than I'd been in prior years. The past couple seasons, I'd created a "dummy team" in our draft software, giving an extra dollar or two to players I liked and building a full roster, to get an idea of how I'd like the pieces to fit in an ideal world. While I did fairly well in the leagues doing that, I fell short of the ultimate goal. In retrospect, I feel like doing those mock-up teams locked me into certain players a bit too much, and left me out on the bidding on others with the thought that, "well he's just not really in the plans."

So, I wanted to play the auction as it fell to me and press the issue on good players. With that, I ended up with five players very early on in the auction (in order of purchase):

Josh Donaldson for $24 (eighth player nominated)

Justin Verlander for $37 (ninth player nominated)

Zack Greinke for $24 (13th player nominated)

Austin Meadows for $31 (24th player nominated)

Tyler Glasnow for $22 (29th player nominated)

"You got somewhere to be?" - Todd Zola after the Glasnow purchase.

In all five cases, I simply felt that the previous high bid was too low. So, great, I ended up with five "values" in my eyes, but that left me open to being reliant on a bunch of $1-3 players in the endgame. And with so much of that money put toward pitching, I also left myself open to being way light on the hitting side, once again. I say "once again," because last year I had 58 out of a possible 60 pitching points but only 26 hitting points total.

From that point on, I knew I'd have to be disciplined and not get caught price enforcing past $25 or so. I was still active in the bidding until that price point, and was rewarded with a below-market (in my opinion) Vladimir Guerrero. Hell, I paid $5 more for Vlad Jr. in last year's AL LABR auction! I knew that I would end up with some Rays on my team (besides Meadows and Franco) because I'm falling for Yoshi Tsutsugo, Jose Martinez is one of my favorite players and I knew some of their position players would be undervalued due to not projecting for everyday playing time.

At one point I was planning to punt speed, but I got a few steals from the likes of Shin-Soo Choo and Willy Adames, and when the bidding stopped at $5 on Dee Gordon, I decided to jump in. I do not like Gordon in a mixed league, as he's too much of a drag in the other categories in a mixed format and does not even have a starting job in Seattle, but I figured he should move around enough and play enough to steal 20 or so bases, and that would be huge for my team. It was a desperation make-up play in the category. We'll see if it works out.

Tristan Cockcroft of ESPN ultimately nominated Jarred Kelenic for $1 and I immediately jumped to $2. I was surprised nobody pushed me harder. I nominated Franco for $3 and there was no additional action.

So, things went according to plan, but I was not able to get a Tony Kemp or an Aledmys Diaz in reserves to plug in for Franco in the MI spot, so I had to settle for Joe Panik. I clicked on Panik in the RotoWire software and saw his player note saying he "appears" to be the favorite for the 26th roster spot, and that was good enough for me in the second round of the reserves.

For Kelenic, he's my UTIL so I can plug in Nate Lowe -- my first pick in the reserve rounds -- or Anthony Alford or anyone I pick up off waivers. Alford may not be on an AL team come Opening Day as he is out of minor-league options, but as long as he was on an AL team on Saturday, Feb. 29 (the day of the draft -- and he was), he'll be eligible to accumulate statistics for my team.

I'm likely going to need contributions from Kelenic AND Franco to win this thing. But it's more of a Young Man's Game nowadays. Plus, the Rays have publicly acknowledged that Franco could debut this year. Tampa Bay is a legitimate World Series contender and a player like Franco could push them over the top. Meanwhile, the Mariners have already made it clear that they will not keep Kelenic down and under their thumb if his play warrants a promotion to the big leagues.

I wonder how much more Kelenic would have gone for if he'd done this earlier in the day Saturday:

See the full results of the auction below, in order of nomination/purchase.

You can see the full board and all of the reserve picks here.

How did I do? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter @claywlink.