Rogue Waves

Here was the line-up for the Sunday 10am Vegas 15 team mixed auction, my last draft of the weekend;

Las Vegas April 1 10 am PT League
1. Gregory Churchill, Victoria, British Columbia
2. Kevin Schiller, Marina del Rey, California
3. Dustin Wagner, Katy, Texas
4. Rob Kalupar, Hamilton, Ontario
5. Dale Morgan, Westerville, Ohio
6. Bobby Jurney, Dunkirk, Maryland
7. Aaron Smith, Wakefield, Rhode Island
8. Jon Stadtmueller, Little Rock, Arkansas
9. Ronny Mor, Newport Beach, California
10. Donald Warner, Wayzata, Minnesota
11. Ken Magner, Freehold, New Jersey
12. Jason Steeves, Calgary, Alberta
13. Dan Semsel, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio
14. Dallas Jones, Centennial, Colorado
15. Brady Bellis, Oakland, California

Defending Main Event champion, Lindy Hinkleman sat in with team 11 throughout. $15k overall first prize and just over $5k in league prizes, including $3500 to the league champion.

I tried to build this team similarly to the Friday morning N.L. auction team. Acquire solid talent at all positions, try not to overpay for anyone, ignore the early superstar spend-a-thon. Coming out of the first ten rounds of bidding, I was happy with my team. Only two purchases over $20 ( Pence and Jennings each cost $25 ) I had several players I targeted, pre-draft, for less than projected cost, including; Posey, Morales, A Cabrera, Goldschmidt, and Ortiz. I made one serious strategic error. I should have nominated Greinke at the start of rounds two or three. Greinke was the last true ace nominated, and he went for way over projection, at $28. By comparison, Halladay was the first ace nominated, and he cost Wagner $25. Losing out on Greinke forced my hand later, and I felt compelled to buy two pitchers I am not thrilled about, Shields and Latos, although they both came relatively cheap.

I went on a bit of a buying binge just out of break, picking up M Cabrera, Swisher, and Ch Young, all at below-cost. I took a $6 flier on a devalued M Pineda, and a similar $6 gamble on Thornton. I sat tight for several rounds, then won two minny-battles and secured A Hill and Encarnacion for my infield. I lost a bidding war over the last catcher, Doumit, and settled on Mesoraco.

Halfway into the auction I realized I`d grossly under-estimated how cheap outfielders and corners would be selling for late. Hitters I`d projected would earn anywhere from $7-$9 were selling in the endgame for a buck or two. This meant that teams that had blown big cash on superstars early, were now filling in the back end of their teams with cheap quality. That hurt.

I think I made up some ground with the back end of my pitching staff. Nicasio, Alvarez, and Cahill came very cheap.

the rogue waves;
c posey
c mesoraco
1b morales
3b encarnacion
1/3 goldschmidt
2b hill
ss a cabrera
2/s scutaro
o pence
o jennings
o ch young
o m cabrera
0 swisher
o ortiz

p shields
p latos
p worley
p nicasio
p cahill
p leake
p alvarez
p storen
p thornton

res. m pineda, h rodriguez, h bailey, g richards, s smith, r tejeda, j donaldson

You could call this squad 'well-balanced', or simply admit it is a bit mediocre Next season I will bid more aggressively at the outset and be confident that the endgame will return several inexpensive regulars. Unless I win...in that scenario, I'll make exactly the same mistakes in 2013.

The team sits in sixth place at the moment. Blown leads for Nicasio, Worley, and Alvarez has been costly.


end of week three

the waves made a huge splash in faab purchases, grabbing downs for $301, strop $37, and below $16. the team is in fourth, but only 5.5 points out of first in the tightest league i am in.

great hitting continues to prop up this team, 69.5 points out of a possible 75. the faab moves were made to try and move up in some of the pitching cats, especially saves. with thornton getting a save sunday, there may be another opportunity ahead. downs is closer-du-jour in anahiem. those two along with hrod are all active this week. only six starters, but four of them have two start weeks, below, cahill, nicasio, and worley. drabek also has a two start week, but he is on the bench because one of those starts is vs. texas. i am going to avoid texas and nyy when possible. pineda, richards, and leake were released.

a good pitching week will vault this team into first in the league. in addition to the league prizes, this team is also competing for national prizes, 20k for first overall.

the downs purchase is especially risky. that was a lot of faab for one player. at this point, if downs becomes the everyday closer, then he could move this team well up the national standings. the waves are currently 22 out of 135, just ahead of jon stadtmueller, and just behind lindy hinkleman and k j duke.

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dobber pro 2012-2013; campbell conference

c; b richards, ribiero, desharnias, zajac
lw; sedin, e kane, pacioretty, kunitz
rw; kessel, callaghan, cole, paranteau
d; chara, seabrook, souray, leddy, markov, s elliott
g; rinne, elliott
bench; garon, giguerre, hodgson, orpik, d roy
ir; nobody, yet