Ridiculous Depth For 12 Team Leagues

Yesterday was my first normal draft of the season. It is a 12-team auction keeper league with standard deep rosters. It’s 5×5 roto, and we use OPS rather than average. We have a $310 budget. You can keep an unlimited number of players at the cost of previous draft price plus $7. Undrafted players cost $8 to keep.

After reviewing the keeper rosters, I adjusted my goal for the season from winning to acquiring as much keeper value as possible while contending. I have a few streaming tricks that should keep me within striking distance even as I optimize for next season. The best keepers are usually found in-season, but I sought to draft as many as possible.

The Team

The results aren’t pretty. In fact, I expect some of you to scoff. However, this roster should give me plenty of flexibility moving forward. That’s all I ever wanted.

Position Players	Cost	Pitchers	Cost
Ian Desmond	$31	Marcus Stroman	$1
Mark Trumbo	$21	Ian Kennedy	$7
Jose Bautista	$36	Lance Lynn	$7
Giancarlo Stanton	$36	Danny Salazar	$8
Carlos Gomez	$22	Drew Smyly	$5
Leonys Martin	$13	Homer Bailey	$6
Brian McCann	$17	Ken Giles	$8
Ryan Zimmerman	$16	Ervin Santana	$2
Steve Pearce	$18	Taijuan Walker	$3
Chase Headley	$11	Carlos Martinez	$1
Jung-ho Kang	$2	Matt Shoemaker	$4
Jose Ramirez	$1	Jesse Hahn	$1
Chris Owings	$1	Justin Masterson	$1
J.J. Hardy	$1	Brad Boxberger	$8
Rusney Castillo	$8

I kept Bautista, Stanton, Gomez, Castillo, and Boxberger, hence their mostly fantastic prices. Before leaving grumpy comments, remember this is an OPS league. Based on the various publicly available projections, Mark Trumbo is one of the top players in this format. McCann, Zimmerman, and Pearce are also highly rated.

Let’s quickly chat about what’s going on here. I went into the draft searching for value. I thought I could grab a few veterans like Hanley Ramirez, Adrian Beltre, and Albert Pujols at slight discounts. They cost way more than my values which were already adjusted to reflect my preference for position players. Rather than overpay for a bunch of guys, I grabbed one five category talent (Desmond) and sat back.

This club should provide some high quality offense despite looking a little gnarly. Home runs, RBI, and OPS should be strengths while stolen bases might be a weakness. I often fall into that pit in this league since home runs are so valuable (again, the OPS).

I selected ALL of the leftover pitchers. Some are boring veteran placeholders like Kennedy, Lynn, and Santana. They’ll do a job without excelling. Others like Salazar, Walker, Martinez, and Hahn are unestablished upside plays. My fellow RotoGraphists and I have been excited about their ceilings all winter. I have reason to expect at least one to perform well. Bailey was simply too cheap for what he is, even with Great American Ballpark ruining his ceiling.

The run on relievers was pure insanity. David Robertson cost $19. Neftali Feliz and Jonathan Papelbon were $14. Since identifying relief aces is one of my specialties, I opted to abstain from the madness. I did snag an $8 Giles late in the draft. It’s a reach, but we know the ceiling is huge.

For all my positivity, this is a sloppy roster. By selecting this team, I’ve committed myself to a lot of active management in my quest for third place.

The Lessons

Let’s approach this from another angle, what should I have done differently? I finished with a $14 surplus, which isn’t a big deal in this league. The extra money goes to my FAAB, and we use daily waivers. I’ll probably get something out of that cash. Last year, I used surplus budget to grab Castillo.

Between the unspent budget and the $27 I dropped on Kennedy, Lynn, Santana, and Smyly, I could have drafted Clayton Kershaw instead (about $40). Felix Hernandez would have cost me about $35.

When people tell you pitching is deep, they aren’t exaggerating. The position projects to be incredibly flat. If you want to distinguish yourself from the pack, you have three options: luck, relievers, or aces. Finding room for Kershaw could have made this fugly roster a legitimate contender.

I learned during mock draft season that outfield is deceptively shallow. Players will emerge – they always do. For now, you should be sure to strike early and often just in case you grab a dud instead of Michael Brantley.

Conversely, it’s tempting to look at the dearth of middle infield talent and allocate a lot of budget to the position. If you miss on guys like Anthony Rendon and Troy Tulowitzki, you’ll quickly find yourself with iffy choices.

The end game still includes a lot of viable talent. I really like Owings. He’s a guy who should be right around average in all five categories. Ramirez is the poor man’s Elvis Andrus. The Indians probably won’t bat him second again this year, but that’s the only real drawback. Hardy is healthy, but not everybody is ready to buy 30 home runs from him.

Kang usually won’t go this cheaply. I anticipated spending most of my surplus on him. I really wish he landed in an offense friendly park. He could bust, but we’re looking at another high ceiling, cheap middle infielder. There are others, including some that weren’t even drafted in this league.

Parting Thoughts

Both pitcher and middle infield can be solved late in the draft – especially in an auction league. Keep your competition in mind. They’re snagging the same cheap, decent pitchers for peanuts. You need a plan to beat them. If you do plan to skimp on a position, be sure to compensate by acquiring depth. Pairing Owings with Hardy dramatically reduces your risk exposure.