This week, I settled in for a long night with the CBS draft software, bidding against such fantasy sports mainstays as Scott White, Grey Albright, Mike Gianella, and Razzball’s own B underscore Don along seven more fantasy baseball folks to round a league of 12. Here’s how the squad looks today.
C Sal Perez 23
C Connor Wong 8
1B Carlos Santana 7
2B Juan Brito 1
3B Junior Caminero 25
SS Bobby Witt Jr. 51
CI DJ LeMahieu 1
MI Josh H. Smith 1
OF Lawrence Butler 26
OF Byron Buxton 19
OF JJ Bleday 10
OF Angel Martinez 1
OF Miguel Vargas 1
U Luis Urias 1
P Jacob deGrom 19
P Grayson Rodriguez 19
P Luis Gil 10
P Gavin Williams 4
P Luis Ortiz 2
P Jose Soriano 2
P Mason Miller 21
P Liam Hendriks 6
P Tommy Kahnle 1
RES 1B Nick Kurtz
RES P David Robertson
RES P Hagen Smith
RES 1B Joey Gallo
RES OF Wenceel Perez
RES SS Max Muncy
RES 3B Gabriel Arias
Gabriel Arias was my very last pick, and I can’t wait to cut him. No violence intended, but cutting Arias will mean that Brito or Martinez has taken that second base job in the early going. I wish I’d gotten Bazzana as well, but perfection is the enemy of good in leagues like this. In most leagues, really. And this auction is a four-hour stand-off against one’s own attention span. Nonetheless, I was pleased with my roster. Easy for me to say, considering I chose these guys, but I’m not always pleased at the end of these marathons. I usually have holes. Everyone has holes. It’s human to have holes. And this is a deep league, one of the deepest, so the holes are correspondingly . . . deep. I won this league twice, back-to-back in fact, then fell off a bit last year looking for that sweet three-peat. Had to back out of negotiations with Pat Riley’s people. Humiliating.
I like to spend my money in these things. Good money. There’s always somebody who says the highest paid players are inflated, as there was after I bought Bobby Witt Jr. for $51, but my success rate in auctions is pretty, pretty high. This league setup is soft. The money is not real. What do I mean by that? Well, once I’ve filled 3B, CI and U, I cannot nominate or bid on a third baseman. I have no idea why it’s set up this way, except that I guess it keeps people from leaving holes so glaring they’re eliminated before opening day.
The playbook for me is typically spend early, sit middle, and grind out every dollar in the end game. Luis Ortiz and Jose Soriano are the primary fruits of this labor: two pitchers I listed as $8 players but who I got for $2 by pinching and planning. Josh H Smith for $1 is just a quirk of the format as I described it. He’s eligible at 3B, 2B and OF. He’s coming off a season in which he got 592 plate appearances and batted .258 with 13 homers and 11 steals, compiling a 111 wRC+ and 2.8 WAR. He’s probably a $5 or $6 player if he comes out earlier. Juan Brito feels about the same, just a fluke of the league and the timing, only it’s not a fluke, of course. It’s how I build my teams in this format. A lot of people like to save and scrimp early to load up on $15-20 players as the league’s money runs dry, and that’s cool. Helps me with what I’m doing, actually.
One pick I do not like is Grayson Rodriguez for $19. He’s exactly the sort I’m talking about in the previous sentence: a decent player at a decent price, but he’s no fantasy ace like, say, Jacob deGrom, if it all comes together. I suppose he could be, but the WHIP is high, and he’s coming off a lat issue. I felt like I should jump back in then, and I regret it. I could’ve done an awful lot with that $19 and a roster spot. Royce Lewis went for $18 while I was afk dealing with a family thing. Maybe I should offer that trade right now, although I’d swat it away with the quickness if I had Lewis.
The Connor Wong buy came out of nowhere for me. He’s worth so much more than $8, I think. The day after the auction, Wong got traded for very little in a dynasty league where I need a catcher. Wish I’d put two and two together and realized he might be a little undervalued in general as a 28-year-old everyday catcher who cut his strikeout rate by ten percent and hit .280 with 13 home runs and eight stolen bases. Sort of a Realmuto-light look. Wouldn’t be surprising to see him do even more on a better team this year.
Athletics 3B Luis Urias has been going through it the last couple years, but he was ten percent better than league average with the bat in 2022 and 12 percent better in 2021. Gio Urshela is the better defender, but Urias is making twice as much money and retains some upside at 27 years old. This marks the third time I’ve rostered him in 2025. Let’s go Luis!
I do wish I’d gotten another piece or two from the Boston bullpen. Justin Slaten. Garrett Whitlock. Not Chapman.
Though I do like Tommy Kahnle as the highest paid man in Detroit’s bullpen, making almost $5 million more than Jason Foley. And not in a Javier Baez way where it’s old money nobody would spend today. They just signed Kahnle, and I know they’re gonna mix and match, but this wouldn’t be the first time an old changeup specialist (73% usage rate) slid into a closer role.
Here’s a link to the whole auction as laid out by Scott White at CBS.
