Week 8 FAAB: The Eury Edition

LEAGUE ACQUISITION SUMMARY

As many assumed entering this weekend, the spending finally pulled back after some crazy spending the last 4 weeks.  If it wasn’t for Eury Perez getting called up, it might have been the lowest spending week of FAAB since the partial Week 1.

After this past week, the average team has $458 in FAAB remaining.  It’s fascinating looking at the disparities between leagues just 7 weeks into the season.  League 1614 continues to lead the way with $9,976 in FAAB dollars spent.  Leaving only $335 per team on average.  League 1520 remains the most stringent with their FAAB.  Only $5,739 has been spent in that league, leaving teams with $617 on average.  This leaves nearly a $300 difference on average between these two leagues, although the difference between the two extremes is narrowing, as one would assume.

• Most Money Spent (Week 8): League 1737 – 31 adds, $1,659 total spent, $54 average per add, $111 average spent per team.
• Most Adds (Week 8):  League 1489 – 43 adds, $1,283 total spent, $30 average per add, $86  average spent per team.
• Most Money Spent (Full Year): League 1614 as mentioned above.
• Least Money Spent (Week 8): League 1444 – 27 adds, $608 total spent, $23 average per add, $41 average spent per team. 
• Least Adds (Week 8): League 1569 – 22 adds, $1,051 total spent, $48 average per add, $70 average spent per team.
• Least Money Spent (Full Year): League 1520 as mentioned above. 

PLAYER ACQUISITION SUMMARY

Most Frequently Added

Only a dozen players were added in over 50% of leagues this past Sunday.  Interestingly, Luis Ortiz was added in 54 leagues, despite there only being 53 leagues in the contest.  How did that happen?  The Phillies’ Luis Ortiz was added by several teams this week!  WHOOPS! Eury Perez was added in the 52 leagues in which he was available, averaging just north of $300.  I will be interested to see how many innings he is able to accumulate the rest of the way given his innings counts of 78 and 77 innings each of the last two years in the minors.  Casey Schmitt and Dominic Fletcher were added in 51 and 49 leagues respectively after getting called up early last week and each seemingly carving out regular playing time.  Kyle Farmer was activated off the IL last Monday and was a popular add after being in the lineup every day following Jose Miranda’s demotion to AAA.  Wandy Peralta, Gregory Soto, Miguel Castro, Dylan Floro, and Nick Anderson were this week’s speculative closer adds.  This felt like one of the best weeks to speculate on closers with the AJ Puk and Jose Alvarado injuries and the Raisel Iglesias meltdowns. 

Most FAAB Dollars Spent

Ten players had $1,000 or more in FAAB spent on them in the Main Event.  Many were already covered in the Most Frequently Added section, so I will touch on the 3 that weren’t already covered.  Christopher Morel was added in the 20 leagues that he wasn’t already stashed in for nearly $200 on average after a huge first week to his 2023 MLB season hitting 3 homers, knocking in 6 runs and stealing a base.  James Paxton returned from the IL last Friday and opened a lot of eyes, including my own, after going 5 innings and striking out 9 Cardinals, which drove his price north of the century mark on average this weekend.  It’s impossible to deny the talent he once possessed, but at age 34 with his injury history it is tough to imagine he’ll be able to take the ball every 5^th day for the next 4.5 months.  Craig Kimbrel was acquired in the 17 remaining leagues he was available at an average cost of $86.  He was already getting a partial share of the Phillies’ saves when Jose Alvarado was healthy, and he has been performing well other than 2 awful outings against the Dodgers in early May.  I think $86 would have been a fair price for him even if Jose Alvarado was healthy, so the fact that Alvarado is going to be out for an unknown period of time makes it even better in my opinion.

Highest Average Cost Acquisitions

A dozen players averaged triple digits this FAAB period.  As is usually the case when looking at the highest average bids, it’s the popular prospects that everyone is looking to add (Perez and Morel), alongside a bunch of regulars that were only available in a handful of leagues.  I get being desperate for saves, but I don’t get dropping 40% of your FAAB budget on Will Smith.  It is even tougher to swallow when the backup bid for Smith was only $218.  Hope it works out for that manager though.  Jon Gray, Pete Fairbanks, Michael Conforto, Brayan Bello, and Kyle Finnegan were all added for triple digits in the one league they were each available.  It makes sense that the bidding is aggressive for a player that is only available in your league.  I was surprised to see Jose Siri and Patrick Wisdom each go for triple digits; however.  After returning from his April IL trip due to a hamstring injury, Siri feels very much in the Rays’ outfield platoon as opposed to their everyday Center Fielder pre-injury.  Regardless, mixing in that Rays’ lineup 2 out of every 3 days or so appears it may yield enough roto value to be worth it.  I did find it interesting that Siri was also cut in 3 leagues this week, I wonder if he once again yields triple digits next week in those 3 leagues.  I came into this week thinking Wisdom’s grasp on everyday playing time could be slipping given the Morel call-up and the seemingly minimum IL stay for Nico Hoerner.  Cody Bellinger’s knee injury may buy Wisdom a little more time as an every day 3^rd baseman for the Cubs, but I think his days are numbered and think paying $100+ for him may have been paying for production from April as opposed to what he will provide going forward.

ADD OF THE WEEK

This week’s Add of the Week comes from Week 1677, where Ari Benjamin was able to outbid his competition by just a buck in order to secure Eury Perez’s services.  What a bid!

DROP SUMMARY

There were 14 players dropped in over 20 leagues this week.  As is normally the case, injuries and demotions being the main driver for most of the cuts.  Some interesting cuts that were made in less than 20 leagues that caught my eye were Adbert Alzolay (16 leagues), Gavin Sheets (15 leagues), Brusdar Graterol (11 leagues), Jose Alvarado (10 leagues), Steven Matz (6 leagues), Gio Urshela (5 leagues), JP Sears (4 leagues), Michael King (4 leagues), Orlando Arcia (4 leagues), Jose Siri (3 leagues), Nick Anderson (2 leagues), and Michael Kopech (2 leagues).  I’m sure Rob and I will touch on a few of these guys this week.

UNOPPOSED BIDDING

I am probably becoming a broken record, but I do love looking at how many times players go unopposed and for how much.  For example, this week Bauers, Graveman and Peterson’s unopposed adds were all double-digit bids on average.  These players were clearly somewhat of a priority for some managers, while others didn’t even bother to bid on them.  Leading the way in terms of the number of unopposed bids is Patrick Corbin, who was added in 20 leagues this week, 14 of them completely unopposed!  With a successful first start in the bank, it feels like those managers are going to come out smelling like a rose if Corbin doesn’t get shelled in his 2^nd start later this week.  He is also lined up for a start vs. the Royals next week, so to get these types of matchups for only $4 on average feels like a wonderful deal whether they are unopposed bids.  I did find it interesting that in the leagues Bauers and Larnach were added, about half were completely unopposed.