April 07, 2006 - 1:27 PM

Going Once, Going Twice...Gone

Before we talk baseball, you must check out the two trailers for the movie Happy Feet.
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In the 11th round, about the time that the 171st player was being bid upon, I began to get a headache. It steadily grew over the following 4 hours, and it didn't dissapate once the 315th, and final, name was called and sold for $1. As I tried to write this entry on Sunday evening, having crawled back to my apartment after 9 hours of drafting, my headache was so obtrusive, it had to get down out of my head and pull up a chair. I noted, with a grim grin, that the headache was as big as your butt and as painful as your face, but even that delicious bon mot did little to cheer me up.

These first few days of baseball have been just as unkind for that team, especially the pitching staff. I have to keep reminding myself that it's only 4 games so far, and we have 6 months left. Everything will work out.

For those of you who don't give a hoot about baseball, you don't have to read this entry. For the three of you who do, here's how the auction shook out, from my perspective.

8:01 AM- I arrive at CBS studio lot where the auction is taking place. I'm worried because I haven't received word from Tony that he'll be there.

8:05 AM- a bunch of guys in their 40's, 50's and 60's are in the conference room where several looong tables are arranged in a "U". I find a pair of chairs and stake claim to them before grabbing some juice and muffins (breakfast and lunch are catered, which is part of where our $550 entry fee goes).

8:08 AM- I notice that NO one has the same Fantasy Baseball magazines that I do. I'm worried that I have the "loser" periodicals, a notion that I was already playing with when I read over them 2 weeks before with Tony. Both magazines were obviously printed in January, before the start of Spring Training, since many trades and roster moves have not been accounted for. And while one lists fairly reasonable draft prices for players that fall close in line with what I've seen on various websites, the other has crazyprices, like Johan Santana at $49 and Randy Johnson at $42. I'm worried that I am not prepared enough.

8:20 AM- I call Tony, and he sounds like he's just rolling out of bed. He apologizes and says he'll be on his way shortly.

8:50 AM- The auctioneer arrives. Tony's the only person missing, but I assure the commisioner that we can start without him.

9:12 AM- The third player nominated is closer Brad Lidge. I get him at $26, a price that I think is a bargain. You see, Tony and I spent a few hours going through lists of players at each position, sorting them into tiers, and writing down a range of how much we'd be willing to spend on them. Then, I crunched through the names and numbers again on Friday and Saturday, individually ranking the players by position, giving each a specific dollar value that WE wouldn't go over, and a projected dollar value that I thought they'd go for. Lidge was projected as a $29 value for us, and $31 overall; so $26 is a savings of at least $3.

9:20 AM- I am the 6th team in line to throw out a name to be bid upon. I'm surprised that no superstars have been offered by the previous nominators. "Albert Pujols, 10 dollars". A frenzy of shouts follows, with the final bid for Pujols coming in at 46 bucks.

9:30 AM- Tony shows up. I let him know how things are shaping up. He has his computer, so he opens up an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of what players each team takes and how much money they have left to spend.

10:11 AM- We get our third player (the second one was catcher Kenji Johjima for $8), closer Francisco Rodriguez, for $24, an even bigger steal than Lidge because F-Rod is likely to give similar numbers as Lidge. Tony and I are psyched to have two of the premier closers on our roster, and as relative bargains.

10:56 AM- We begin to realize that we overpaid for the closers, as Mariano Rivera is the only other closer to go for over $20.

11:07 AM- David Ortiz goes for the exorbitant amount of $44 dollars. More than Manny Ramirez at $38 and Vlad Guerrero at $39. In fact, he's the third highest dollar player behind A-Rod at $49 and Pujols at $46.

12:50 PM-1:20 PM- Lunch!

1:20 PM-5:15 PM- More drafting.

Blah blah blah. The rest of it is tedium and boring to retell. I will let you know what our roster is:
C- Kenji Johjima $8
1B- Justin Morneau $17 (overpaid, but he was on the block within the first 3 rounds, and I really like him, and I wasn't sure what value other 1B would be going for)
2B- Placido Polanco $8 (we were one of the last teams to pick up a 2B because they were going for a fair amount of money...we should have gone to $14 with Mark Loretta a round before)
3B- Ryan Zimmerman $8 (waited too long with 3B as well, but the price is still good as are Zimmerman's prospects)
SS- Bobby Crosby $11 (aside from his opening day injury, a definite steal. I have him on all my teams. Along with our MI pick, we drafted a lot of value for our infield, which covered for our overspending on closers. It's good that we got these infielders for less than we had them projected at, but we picked them up so late, all that money we saved didn't help us. If we had known we'd have $15-20 extra dollars to spend, we could have gotten one more superstar earlier in the going.)
CI- Paul Konerko $31 (a little overpriced with Delgado at $25, Berkman at $27, and Thome at $22 [the third player put on the block, and one I desparately wanted], but since he's our main source of power, we'll let it slide)
MI- JJ Hardy $3 (batting second for the dangerous Brewers? Worth way more than $3)
OF- Scott Podsednik $25 (health issues and no homers last year brought his price down. But compared to other speed guys, he's cheap. Pierre at $32, Reyes at $37, Crawford at $39)
OF- Brian Giles $13 (decent. nothing spectacular. good batting average, rbis, runs)
OF- Vernon Wells $20 (please please please have a breakout year like 2003)
OF- Casey Kotchman $5 (guys who play DH qualify as OF in this league. This guy might deliver comparable numbers to Giles)
OF- Rondell White $1 (Cleanup for the Twins HAS to provide some numbers. If his body holds up)
Util- Corey Patterson $7 (we had money left over for one of our last picks, and Tony loves this guy, despite his .213 batting average and no certainty of regular starts. He went for over $40 in this league last year, we were told)
P- John Lackey $15
P- Barry Zito $14
P- Javier Vazquez $8
P- Erik Bedard $8
P- Francisco Liriano $3
P- Brad Lidge $26
P- F. Rodriguez $24
Reserve- Gavin Floyd $1
D.L.- Rocco Baldelli $1

Three dollars left on the table. We were a bit panicked about the pitching, but were very happy to get Lackey and Zito at relatively good prices and Vazquez below 10. Our success in pitching hinges on Liriano getting into the Twins' starting rotation, I think.

Now Listening To : iPOD ON SHUFFLE! YEAH!
Random Thought : Ihavetopee.

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