Auction Post Mortem

[cwk1963]

Standard rosters and categories with K/9 replacing K; 16 teams; $260 auction cap; $310 in season cap. League rules state that any kept player can be DL'd and someone acquired in the auction to replace them but their salary counts towards the $260 auction cap. So I DL Duchscherer ($5) and Baker ($1) which left me $127 for 15 players. The order I bought them:

Mariano Rivera ($24) - First player tossed out. He was on the Papelbon list and I budgeted $25 for one of them.
Grady Sizemore ($44) - 2nd but of first 7. In between was Jose Reyes (47), Hanley Ramirez (47), David Wright (46), Arod (36) and Santana (41). I would not buy another player until 56 more had gone off the board.
Brad Hawpe ($14)
Magglio Ordonez ($18) - The plan was to spend this $32 on MI but when the bidding slowed on these guys I jumped in and got them at nice bargains.
Akinori Iwamura ($3) - My Brandon Phillips plan evaporated when he went for $27 (which I could have kept him at) after bidding him up and after spending $32 on the last 2 OF so I had to go to plan B.
Ted Lilly ($8) - I was hoping to spend around $10-$12 on Vazquez, Cain, King Felix or Harang type but they went for $5-$7 more.
Yadier Molina ($4) - Satisfied with my 2nd C.
John Smoltz ($5)
Bronson Arroyo ($2) - Pickings were getting kind of slim for SP. Got these 2 back to back.
Mike Fontenot ($3) - 2/3 of my MI taken care of. $3 CVRC profit.
Andy Pettitte ($2) - Should get plenty of wins.
Mike Lowell ($1) - Hopefully he comes back healthy.
Randy Winn ($2) - Had my eye on him and was very pleased to fill DH with him.
Takashi Saito ($1) - Rounding out my pitching staff and taking care of WHIP and ERA.
Yuniesky Betancourt ($1) - He was the best MI left and I was in a bind with 2 other teams needing a MI. If I tossed out someone else I as taking the chance nobody said $2. The only chance I had in getting him was tossing him out now and crossing my fingers. I sweated out the 'going once, going twice'.

Entire team (keepers in red)

C - Laird $2, Y. Molina $4
CI - Texeira $35, Youkilis $16, Lowell $1
MI - Iwamura $3, Fontenot $3, Betancourt $1
OF - Bay $21, Ibanez $10, Sizemore $44, Hawpe $14, Ordonez $18
DH - Winn $2
P - Liriano $13, Gallardo $15, Lilly $8, Smoltz $5, Arroyo $2, Pettitte $2, Saito $1, Rivera $24, Francisco $10
Bench - Wellemeyer $1, Betemit $1, Feliz $1
DL - Baker $1, Duchscherer $5

I went in with the Papelbon and MI Plan. There were only 3 Papelbon closers in the auction. I jumped at Mo at $24 and got one of the bargains of the auction with Papelbon costing $36 and Nathan $33. I couldn't get a top level MI (I wanted Phillips) because they were costing too much and I couldn't pass on Hawpe at $14 and Magglio at $18. I took Lord Zola's advice and didn't aim for targets but rather took what the auction presented me and managed my budget. As a result, I am light on SB (which I realized during the auction) because I didn't chase them when I saw they were costing too much and decided to maximize other areas and trade for them later. The strategy worked out very well and I was very pleased. With the projections entered in RotoLab (START won't work with K/9) I project for 1st by 15 points. All I need to do is manage it to 1st now.