BullpenGuru
LEAGUE ACQUISITION SUMMARY
First off, apologies for missing last week’s FAAB article. Life gets in the way on occasion and at least it chose a boring week of FAAB to do it, as it seemed to be a week everyone chose to either try to acquire Royce Lewis or save funds. After 4 consecutive weeks of declines in spending, Week 12 saw spending bounce back up, thanks in large part to a pair of Reds. Elly De La Cruz was the most sought-after player this week, drawing an average bid of $433 across the 46 leagues he was available. His teammate Andrew Abbott was second, being added in all 53 leagues for an average of $151 per add. Without the two of them entering the pool, this would have been the lowest full week of FAAB; however, one could argue that these types of players are who teams are intentionally saving for and would allocate their funds elsewhere had they not entered the pool this week. I wouldn’t argue with that logic.
After next week, we will be 50% of the way through the MLB regular season, and we enter this week with teams on average having $251 in FAAB remaining. The most FAAB spent spent resides in League 1717, which has spent $12,540 FAAB dollars, or about 84% of total FAAB, leaving each team in that league with $164 remaining on average. Conversely, the least amount of money spent remains in League 1520, which has seen conservative spending on a league total almost all season. This league has spent $8,877 in total FAAB dollars, leaving each team in that league with $408 remaining on average.
PLAYER ACQUISITION SUMMARY
Most Frequently Added
Fifteen players were added in over 50% of Main Event leagues. AJ Smith-Shawver was added in all 53 leagues, and was the third most-popular add from a dollars spent standpoint. As I mentioned on the Pull Hitter podcast last week with Rob, I thought that Smith-Shawver would be more sought after than Abbott assuming they both pitched similarly over the weekend. Obviously, that did not materialize, and Abbott shined in his second start, but I thought Smith-Shawver would have come at a little higher cost than $81 on average. Maybe my brain just needs to adjust to rookie pitchers finally going at a slightly more reasonable price than the prices we saw earlier this year! Scott McGough was added in 47 leagues as this week’s Closer Spec of the week. McGough has certainly pitched well over the last few weeks, but I am not sure Miguel Castro has done anything to lose his job in Arizona (as I type this he’s on the verge of blowing Monday’s save against the Phillies, but prevailed). Tommy Pham looks to be the playing time beneficiary of Pete Alonso’s “bone bruise”, as Mark Canha seems to have shifted to 1st base. I think the 5-game week may have tempered bids for Pham’s services slightly, as he was one of the better power/speed threats available this week. Kerry Carpenter came off the IL on Friday and had a perfectly timed injury to Akil Baddoo which seemingly opens even more playing time for him to work between the corner outfield spots and DH. Trevor May seems to have taken the A’s closer job, at least until he is potentially traded at the deadline. The A’s are on a roll right now so maybe more save opportunities will present themselves for May over the next month and a half or so. Yonny Chirinos was a sneaky two “appearance” pitcher this week, as he is not listed as the starter on most starting pitching projections but is likely going to handle bulk innings behind an Opener in Oakland on Tuesday and San Diego over the weekend. Michael A. Taylor might be having the quietest 20/20 pace season I can remember in my 20+ years of playing fantasy baseball. Mauricio Dubon and Yainer Diaz are likely two of the beneficiaries of playing time in light of Yordan Alvarez’s oblique injury.
Most FAAB Dollars Spent
In looking at acquisitions that garnered the most money this week, many have already been touched on above in the Most Frequently added section. Cory Abbott was not one of them. He was added in 10 leagues. Cory Abbott has a 5.71 ERA in AAA for the Nationals. SMARTEN UP! Edouard Julien was added in all 27 leagues he was available, going for an average cost of $34. He appears to be in-line to get an expanded role for the Twins due to Jorge Polanco’s latest hamstring injury, but one has to wonder if his defensive struggles and the Twins’ preference to platoon him will hamper his fantasy utility.
Highest Average Cost Acquisitions
Only eight players had an average bid that exceeded $100 this week. Three have already been covered in Elly and the Abbotts. The remainder are players that were only available in a handful of leagues. Nolan Jones has been an unbelievable power and speed producer since getting recalled and has one less outfielder competing for playing time after Charlie Blackmon’s fractured hand. His .483 BABIP will certainly regress, but as long as he keeps hitting homers and stealing bases, I don’t think his owners will mind much. Jose Abreu finally showed some signs of life with two homers last week, let’s see if that’s something he can build on. Joey Wiemer has done his best Nolan Jones impression over the last month or so, so I’m not surprised to see him go for triple-digits after being a single-digit add a few weeks back.
ADD OF THE WEEK
This week’s Add of the Week comes from Week 1443, where James Maples got Elly for $372 to a backup bid of $369. Picking the add of the week this week is a little tough because it’s hard for me to decipher who’s wins were just a result of managers using their FAAB hammer, but not only did James win Elly by $3, but he also got one of the cheapest adds of Elly. Very nice!
DROP SUMMARY
Only 11 players were dropped in over 20 leagues this week. As per usual, demotions (Soroka, Valdez, Turang), injuries (deGrom, Baddoo, Sale, Blackmon), and underperformance (Roansy, Mayers, Wesneski, Johnson) were the overriding themes behind this weeks popular drops. Interesting drops in fewer than 20 leagues included Jarren Duran (18 leagues), Dylan Floro (15 leagues), Brenton Doyle (14 leagues), Jared Walsh (12 leagues), Yennier Cano (11 leagues), Connor Wong (10 leagues), Michael King (9 leagues), Nick Senzel (9 leagues), Yoan Moncada (9 leagues), Adalberto Mondesi (9 leagues), Mickey Moniak (9 leagues), Jon Berti (9 leagues), Michael Grove (7 leagues), Andrew Benintendi (5 leagues), Willi Castro (5 leagues), CJ Abrams (2 leagues), Taylor Walls (1 league) and Grayson Rodriguez (1 league).
UNOPPOSED BIDDING
I normally like looking at the unopposed bidding summary, but this week’s glaring add is obviously the Cory Abbott snafu. At least he went unopposed in all 10 leagues he was added!
