This article is part of our The Long Game series.
While much of what I write about in The Long Game is focused on long-term keeper leagues, every league has to start somewhere. This year, some of the RotoWire staff took part in a brand new league (officially the Staff Keeper League 3, as there are two other ongoing ones at present) and since I haven't gotten in on the ground floor of a keeper league in a long time, I figured it would be fun to jump aboard a new one. In fact, the last one was the first Staff Keeper League, which launched in 2003. And who won it that first year? This guy.
Yeah. "Fun". Ha. 18 teams, 23 active roster spots, 17 reserve and minor league spots...I forgot just how long it takes to fill all those holes when you're starting from scratch.
Heading into the auction, my plan was to perhaps pay a slight premium on a young stud or two but otherwise focus on assembling a strong, competitive core, and worry about the future with my minors and reserve picks. The contract structure of the SKL leagues puts heavy emphasis on building from within. Minor league players all start with a big league contract of $3 the season after they lose their eligibility, while players taken in the reserve rounds get a $5 salary the following year if they are kept. That eventually leads to dizzying levels of inflation, but in the short term that wouldn't be an issue. Basically, I planned on
While much of what I write about in The Long Game is focused on long-term keeper leagues, every league has to start somewhere. This year, some of the RotoWire staff took part in a brand new league (officially the Staff Keeper League 3, as there are two other ongoing ones at present) and since I haven't gotten in on the ground floor of a keeper league in a long time, I figured it would be fun to jump aboard a new one. In fact, the last one was the first Staff Keeper League, which launched in 2003. And who won it that first year? This guy.
Yeah. "Fun". Ha. 18 teams, 23 active roster spots, 17 reserve and minor league spots...I forgot just how long it takes to fill all those holes when you're starting from scratch.
Heading into the auction, my plan was to perhaps pay a slight premium on a young stud or two but otherwise focus on assembling a strong, competitive core, and worry about the future with my minors and reserve picks. The contract structure of the SKL leagues puts heavy emphasis on building from within. Minor league players all start with a big league contract of $3 the season after they lose their eligibility, while players taken in the reserve rounds get a $5 salary the following year if they are kept. That eventually leads to dizzying levels of inflation, but in the short term that wouldn't be an issue. Basically, I planned on going into the first season treating the league as a re-draft league, at least as far as my active roster was concerned.
What I didn't count on was a league full of people who, in many cases, were participating in their first keeper league. Isaac Buttke wrote up his view of how the auction went on our blog, and seemed happy to come away with a $51 Manny Machado. From my perspective, though, the early auction prices were out of control. Some other examples? Mike Trout went for $57, while Mookie Betts ended up at $52. Bryce Harper at $47 almost seemed like a bargain in comparison, while Nolan Arenado at $42 was downright semi-reasonable. Even unproven youngsters like Andrew Benintendi and Alex Bregman went for $30 each. It seemed like every young star under the age of 30 was getting bid to the moon, and I quickly realized I had two choices. One, I could sit out the early bidding entirely and try to assemble a solid roster from the scraps once the early money tsunami has run its course. Or two, I could pick my spots early, look for star players who might come at a discount relative to their peers due to perceived risk factors, and then judge how competitive I actually planned on being in this first season when we took our mid-auction break.
When I was able to snag Max Scherzer and his (at the time) boo-boo ring finger for $36 while the bidding on Clayton Kershaw went soaring to $52 and Madison Bumgarner ended up coming in at $43, I was committed to the second course.
At the break, I had a decent but hardly overwhelming clutch of stars. Scherzer was joined by a $26 Jon Lester to give me a solid foundation for my pitching staff, but my offense was a little more problematic. I certainly had good players, but paying $34 for Joey Votto, $29 for Brian Dozier and $29 for Yoenis Cespedes left my budget somewhat hamstrung compared to a few other owners who had shown more restraint, namely the biggest threat in the virtual auction room, Todd Zola. When I ended up with J.D. Martinez at $27, injured foot and all, I realized I needed to change my strategy on the fly again. I wasn't ruling out a competitive season, but if I was going to make a run, I'd need to make some deals during the season, and with so many players who would otherwise have been considered prime keepers already carrying extremely high salaries and essentially becoming rentals (hey, how about some more examples. Corey Seager? $40. Carlos Correa? $41. Trea Turner? $51!) I would need to accumulate some cheap assets if I wanted to land any of them over the summer.
As such, I used four active roster spots during the auction on buying players who otherwise might have gone in the minor league draft or reserves. The plan really got rolling when no one topped my $2 bid on Alex Reyes, but I supplemented the future Cardinals ace with three $1 hitters in the endgame: Jorge Alfaro, Rowdy Tellez and Ronald Acuna. If my core stars kept me afloat, I had four great young players who project to be in key big league roles by 2018 (or in Acuna's case, at least knocking on the door) that I could dangle as trade bait. And if my core didn't do its job, well, then those four would give me a head start on next year's roster.
My mistake in the auction was misjudging how that early spending would impact later salaries. The middle class of players weren't heaving affected. Instead, basically everyone left after that middle class were gone went for $1 or $2 in the endgame, including a shocking number of starting pitchers and closers. That made a couple of my purchases, like an $11 A.J. Ramos right before we took our mid-auction break or an $11 Hunter Pence right after it, terrible ones in retrospect. Cam Bedrosian and Jim Johnson, to pick two examples, went for a combined $8. Had I kept a bit more powder dry, I could have scooped up a number of bargains late, rather than settling for the $1 players I did. That particularly became an issue in filling out the back end of my rotation.
On the other hand, I was miraculously able to land a young player at an actually decent price in Manuel Margot. If he turns into the Starling Marte-like player his minor league resume and prospect pedigree suggest, $11 will be a steal.
In the end, my active roster looked like this:
C: Brian McCann $11, Jorge Alfaro $1
1B: Joey Votto $34
2B: Brian Dozier $29
3B: Yulieski Gurriel $1
SS: Jose Peraza $19
CI: Rowdy Tellez $1
MI: Didi Gregorius $2
OF: Yoenis Cespedes $29, J.D. Martinez $27, Hunter Pence $11, Manuel Margot $11, Jarrett Parker $1
Ut: Ronald Acuna $1
P: Max Scherzer $36, Jon Lester $26, Alex Reyes $2, Mike Foltynewicz $1, Tyler Skaggs $1, Drew Hutchison $1, A.J. Ramos $11, Ryan Madson $3, Koda Glover $1
In the combined minors/reserve draft, I elected to focus mostly on pure upside in my minor league system while sprinkling in a couple of high minors arms who could provide innings this year if I needed them. I'd essentially bought my high minors hitters at the auction, so major league proximity was no longer as big a priority. With my reserve picks, I wanted players who could plug my immediate holes, ideally with a couple of hitters who would qualify at multiple positions to compensate for the lack of depth I'd have from carrying my quartet of cheap keepers. This also allowed me to forego chasing prospect with many of my early round picks. After the first round (I used the sixth overall pick on Vlad Guerrero Jr.) I could target higher-quality reserve picks to plug those active roster holes while everyone else went after top-50 prospects, and then fill out my farm system with low-minors upside plays in later rounds who would hopefully be top-50 prospects next year.
Here are the results:
Minors: Vlad Guerrero Jr., Thomas Szapucki, Fernando Tatis Jr., Adalberto Mejia, Bo Bichette, Mitchell White, Fernando Romero, Adrian Rondon, Dustin Fowler, Aaron Blair
Reserves: Andrew Toles, Matt Duffy, Matt Boyd, Zack Wheeler, Cheslor Cuthbert, Daniel Hudson, Tucker Barnhart
Mejia (who just got named the Twins' fifth starter to begin the season) and Blair are the minor league arms who could help right away. Of the rest of my farm system, only Romero and Fowler have even played above Low-A yet. That's a lot of risk, sure, but it's also a ton of upside, particularly from White and the trio of bloodline picks. I don't need all of them to pan out for this to have been a successful start to my new fantasy franchise, even if I don't start reaping the rewards for a couple of seasons.
Duffy (whose heel injury seems to be more serious than I thought when I picked him) and endgame-purchase Hutchison (who's already been sent down to Triple-A after losing out on a rotation spot) will be churned quickly for immediate help. In fact, the first FAAB deadline is tonight... I better get cracking. Toles, Barnhart and Cuthbert will be on my Opening Day active roster, though, as will spring darling Boyd and, apparently, Mets fifth starter Wheeler – an unexpected bonus from a player I thought might not contribute for a month or so.
Can this roster compete this season? Maybe not for a title. It looks just a little too thin in some spots for that, even in an 18-team league. In fact, the consensus in the room after the auction was that Zola already had the inaugural crown locked up. But I could be in the running for a top-six money finish, which means I might have some interesting decision to make over the summer when it comes to trading away those cheap young players – or holding onto them, dealing away the likes of Scherzer and Votto and building for 2018 and beyond.
