2020 LABR Mixed Auction Recap Part I

I do not believe in authoring the typical expert draft recap article. I do not believe in writing a recap simply to illustrate one’s favorite players, or as a means to boast about one specific draft outcome. I do not believe in only going through a few undervalued players for the given year which happen to appear on that particular fantasy squad. I do not believe in writing recaps just for the heck of it.

I believe in imparting important lessons that one can take to their own drafts. More importantly, I prefer to communicate wisdom by talking through my process and preparation. I like to discuss various elements of strategy that can be of help to the astute fantasy player – which can be used in any given year.

I hope that in my draft recap series of articles, but especially in this 2020 season in limbo – you will be able to adapt and add many of my strategy components to your arsenal of fantasy baseball tricks.

For the TGFBI draft recap this year, I related the time-specific hitting and pitching landscapes of 2020. In my recap of the 2020 Tout Wars Head-to-Head auction, I provided insights into the process of preparing your own valuations and how to assemble comparative market pricing. I also discussed (at length) how to use your opponents’ tendencies to your advantage.

For my recap of the LABR Mixed auction, I will focus on a few critical strategy aspects:

  • Setting an auction budget
  • Developing a plan
  • Auction nominations

In today’s Part I of my recap, I will set the draft stage, discuss my plan, and review results.

In Part II (next week), I will go through my nomination strategies and their execution.

The League

I am truly humbled to have been invited to one of the longest standing expert fantasy baseball leagues, the League of Alternative Baseball Reality (LABR). When Steve Gardner messaged me asking to participate in this year’s festivities, I was overjoyed and excited. I was truly honored.

This was be the first time that I had ever participated in an expert auction league. It was a live event and was covered/broadcasted by SiriusXM Radio.

A number of years ago, I read Fanatasyland by Sam Walker which depicts the AL Tout Wars league of 2004. Among the Tout Wars participants in the book was fantasy legend and pioneer Ron Shandler, referred to by Walker as “The Bearded One.” Now in 2020, Shandler would be playing against … me. I had attended almost a decade worth of Baseball HQ conferences hosted by Ron, and now I would be given the chance to compete against him, plus ten other experts. This was truly an amazing experience for me.

The inaugural draft for this new division of LABR took place on March 1st in St. Petersburg, Florida. The League of Alternative Baseball Reality would now include a Mixed Auction league. LABR had previously featured both a live AL and NL auction league, as well as an online mixed snake draft league. The new LABR Mixed Auction league was set to be a standard 5×5 rotisserie league (Scoring categories: BA, HR, RBI, R, SB, W, S, K, ERA, WHIP). Further, unlike many other expert mixed leagues which feature 15 teams – Mixed LABR was set as a smaller 12-team contest.

It would be hard for me to say that I had any advantage against 11 other experts, but most of my home leagues all happen to be of the shallow 5×5 mixed auction variety. I was used to the format. I am well versed in its player valuation formulae, as well as many of the in-season tactics needed for this league style. Unlike in Tout Wars (where I was a new participant), everyone here in the new LABR league had no prior history to go by. Some other experts were well known, but no one had any idea of my tendencies at the auction table. That likely helped me.

The Field

2020 LABR Mixed Auction Participants

  • Ron Shandler, RonShandler.com
  • Jake Ciely, The Athletic
  • Adam Ronis, Fantasy Alarm
  • Ray Murphy, Baseball HQ
  • Nick Pollack/Alex Fast, Pitcher List
  • Doug Anderson, Fantrax
  • Jeff Zimmerman, FanGraphs
  • Brian Feldman, fantasybaseballauctioneer.com
  • Craig Mish, Sportsgrid
  • Ryan Hallam, Fantasy Alarm
  • Andrea LaMont, RotoLady
  • Ariel Cohen, TGFBI Podcast

My fantasy partner, Reuven Guy was on hand to draft alongside me, officially representing the TGFBI Podcast. We were a team like Colton & the Wolfman (Glen Colton & Rick Wolf). We even sat in the very same seats that the great Fantasy Alarm duo had occupied during their LABR drafts of the prior two evenings. Colton & the Wolfman were present at our auction – headlining the coverage on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio.

The Plan (and Auction Budget)

Just a few hours prior the LABR Mixed auction, I had the good fortune to present at First Pitch Florida (presented by BaseballHQ). For 45 minutes, along with Reuven Guy, I spoke about a number of advanced auction strategies. Two of the topics included nominations and hotspots.

I will get to nominations in Part II of my recap (next week) – but let us set the stage for this draft with our initial plan and hotspots. There are three basic components to setting up an auction plan.

  • Calculate your own auction values.
  • Calculate market values.
  • Compare #1 with #2. Find the hotspots.

For my auction values – of course, these were based on ATC projections.

As for market values, unlike in my Tout Wars prep – there was no prior league history to go by. I couldn’t look at a prior year’s pricing curve. Since LABR is of the standard 5×5 roto variety, I simply used my ADP$ formula to convert NFBC ADP into market auction values.

For the final step in generating the plan, I compared my prices to the market prices. The goal is to find pockets of players with similar market prices that would result in bargains. In finding the price points with the largest number of said undervalued players, one is provided with a greater chance of accumulating excess auction value.

I call this method – Finding the Hotspots.

I define a hotspot as a group of players who are similarly valued by the market, where each player is a potential bargain (an undervalued player) AND either:

  • All play the same position
  • All have a similar base of projected statistics

Every auction is a different exercise. After finding the hotspots for this particular auction, our plan was set forth as follows:

We listed a number of potential undervalued (or reasonably priced) players at every position for the price point that we think that we can best optimize total team value. The dollar amounts are market price points.

The above are our actual shorthand draft notes. Some names are sometimes abbreviated, or even misspelled. Speedsters are italicized.

Some auction plan notes:

  • We did not foresee spending more than $31-$33 on any single player.
  • The plan was to spend ~$30 for two high priced hitters – one in the outfield, and one at corner infield.
  • Reasonably priced outfielders were available at almost every price point. Our plan includes players at each stage of the draft – and monies can be moved around easily in the OF.
  • There were a few “big bopper” corner infielders that may be available at reasonable prices, as well as at the $10-15 price point.
  • We didn’t like the potential pricing on any expensive middle infielders. We didn’t want to drop down to $1 initially either.
  • We wanted to get one #1 catcher and then any $1-2 catcher. There should be available backstops to satisfy those two slots for under $10 in the aggregate.
  • We thought that elite pitching would be too expensive. We thought that a 1A type starter for just under $30 would be profitable.
  • We did not like the estimated pricing on starters in the $5-11 range.
  • We liked the pricing on closers and were prepared to play both up top and down low on the closer draft board. Our goal was to draft a #1 closer, a #2 closer and a #3 closer.
  • For closers, we generally believe that that quantity is preferred to quality in 10 to 12-team mixed leagues.

In any plan (and auction budget), one should assemble hitter and pitcher hotspots such that:

  • Statistical balance can be achieved.
  • League Hitter%/Pitcher% tendencies can be mimicked.
  • Value slots at various price points are available to you.
  • The plan is adaptable and is flexible enough to change in real time throughout the auction.

No matter how imperfect you plan is … make one. I have seen too many fantasy players not take the time to assemble an initial plan. Drafting at an auction with an “I’ll see how the market goes” attitude – can lead to the surrender of critical value or draft capital.

Now, let us see how our plan panned out.

Ariel’s LABR Roster

Ariel Cohen’s 2020 LABR Roster

The full final draft board can be found here.

Above is my Mixed LABR Auction roster. A few player notes on the assembled team (in no particular order):

  • As I will describe in Part II of my recap (next week), Rafael Devers was a tremendous purchase with my very first auction nomination. I paid $24 for a player that I was willing to pay $30 for. That is a rare event. It made our draft more “breathable.”
  • Freddie Freeman was a few dollars overspend at $33. If I did not purchase Devers, I would have only gone to $31 for Freeman. If I had purchased Devers at ~$30, I would have only bid to about $28-29 for Freeman. But with the extraordinary savings on Devers (my first nomination), I was able to afford Freeman at the higher price. I will talk more about this on-the-fly price tolerance adjustment in Part II.
  • My middle infield was close to the target plan.
    • I spent $17 vs. a planned $22 budget.
    • Jorge Polanco was a fantastic value, and Elvis Andrus supplied my speed.
    • I would have preferred a better second baseman than Hernandez, but I ran out of money. Cesar will have to do.
    • I picked up Jean Segura with my first pick of the snake draft. Segura, who may gain 2B eligibility early on in 2020, is superior to Hernandez.
  • Jean Segura as a reserve round pick was a fantastic purchase. He fell to me because of two things that happened at the auction.
    • Alex Fast mistakenly drafted him during the live auction without an open MI slot – and he was returned to the player pool a few picks later. Others had crossed him off of their lists for good.
    • I had the good fortune of randomly picking second in the snake draft right behind Jeff Zimmerman who did not want or need a middle infielder.
  • Rather than spending ~$30 at corner infield and outfield, I fell into purchasing two CIs, thereby swapping the $10 CI slot with the OF one.
  • Aaron Judge at $14 was my injury risk selection. If baseball starts up this summer, this selection may prove to be profitable.
  • Michael Brantley at $8 was a fantastic bargain. He is perpetually undervalued, and 2020 is no exception. He was close to a 50% discount by my valuation.
  • My catcher plan worked out as planned. I purchased Carson Kelly, a #1 catcher at $8 and Kurt Suzuki, a serviceable #2 catcher for $2.
  • Stephen Strasburg was my #1 starting pitcher target, as we planned to go the 1A SP route. We bought him for $26, at par value. Relative to the other elite pitching option prices in this auction, this was a nice purchase.
  • Luis Castillo at $21 was in line with our #2 SP plan.
  • We did not expect to purchase Tyler Glasnow at $16, but the price was excellent. We diverted some money from other slots due to this purchase.
  • I was able to buy two #1 closers, as well as two cheap #3 closers – for four stoppers in total. In shallow mixed leagues, I have found that the extra closer to start the season is immensely useful. An extra closer is preferable to selecting a 6th starting pitcher (I only rostered five SPs).
  • Nomar Mazara was a nice pickup in the second round of reserve snake draft. I had valued him at $3.
  • At the time, Miles Mikolas was intended to be an IL stash, as LABR features unlimited IL slots. Using a late reserve round pick with upside is sometimes how leagues are won.

Planning the auction budget is just one component of proper draft preparation. In Part II (next week), I will dive deeper into my nomination strategy and its execution.





Ariel is the 2019 FSWA Baseball Writer of the Year. Ariel is also the winner of the 2020 FSWA Baseball Article of the Year award. He is the creator of the ATC (Average Total Cost) Projection System. Ariel was ranked by FantasyPros as the #1 fantasy baseball expert in 2019. His ATC Projections were ranked as the #1 most accurate projection system over the past three years (2019-2021). Ariel also writes for CBS Sports, SportsLine, RotoBaller, and is the host of the Beat the Shift Podcast (@Beat_Shift_Pod). Ariel is a member of the inaugural Tout Wars Draft & Hold league, a member of the inaugural Mixed LABR Auction league and plays high stakes contests in the NFBC. Ariel is the 2020 Tout Wars Head to Head League Champion. Ariel Cohen is a fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) and the Society of Actuaries (SOA). He is a Vice President of Risk Management for a large international insurance and reinsurance company. Follow Ariel on Twitter at @ATCNY.

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Michaelmember
3 years ago

Good team. Some nice values in the auction. Nice balance overall with both hitting and pitching.