Week 22 FAAB Results

This week featured a flurry of trades in leagues that had an August 31st trade deadline - that included two leagues featured here, and all of my Scoresheet leagues.

AL Tout Wars

I had bids in for Zebby Matthews, Elmer Rodriguez and Brandon Young, but didn't have a realistic expectation of getting any of them, as I'm limited to $0 bids the rest of the way. The good news? I just got Roman Anthony and Blaze Alexander off the IL. Victory shall be mine! Well, maybe eighth place shall be mine.

My Drops: Jasson Dominguez, Ryan Kreidler. Even at the $3 discounted rate, Dominguez was a total bust this season, even accounting for him recovering from a thumb injury. That Dominguez didn't get the call even with the September mini-roster expansion speaks volumes.

NFBC Main Event

It's pretty funny that my best free agent pickup of the week was a mistake. We set our free agent bids in early this past weekend, with the notion that we'd circle back closer to the deadline and update as news dictates. Well, I neglected the "news dictates" portion of that check apparently, and missed that Mickey Gasper got sent down when the Red Sox got Roman Anthony and Trevor Story back from the IL. Luckily for us, when the Red Sox put Willson Contreras on the IL on Monday with a hamstring injury, they called Gasper back up, started him at first base and batted him second. And then Gasper homered in his first at-bat on Monday.

Our Drops: Blaze Jordan, Brandyn Garcia, Agustin Ramirez. 

NFBC Auction Championship

Kyle Leahy last allowed more than two runs in a start back on June 17, against the Padres. So why was he available in this league? As a converted reliever, Leahy has thrown three and four innings respectively in his last two starts, as the Cardinals monitor his workload. Moreover, the Cardinals are on a road trip taking them through Los Angeles and Colorado this week. Even still (!), Leahy is better than who I have been rolling out there, so I plunked down anyhow.

My Drops: Kumar Rocker, Luke Weaver, Henry Davis. So much for the notion that Weaver would close with the Pirates! The good news is that I have Mason Montgomery in a lot of places, so the sacrifice of few serves the needs of the many!

Beat Jeff Erickson1

I like that "@BzaRzaGza" thanked me on Twitter for dropping Ketel Marte, and then outbid me this week to get him back. I had to settle for Matt McLain as my third choice, behind Marte and Trevor Story. McLain is 1-for-9 so far this week, and Marte sat out Wednesday's game against the Phillies.

I'm stashing Joe Musgrove this week, and hoping he makes one decent start before I can start using him next week.

My Drops: Maikel Garcia, Roki Sasaki. I divested myself of most of my Garcia shares this week - remember when he was one of our answers at a weak position in draft season?

Beat Jeff Erickson2

Somehow every week John Pausma has enough FAAB remaining to win the top free agent of the week. It's almost as if he's won the overall contest before or something!

I didn't go into the week thinking I'd be in the Bryan Hudson business, but here we are again with another league where I won him.

My Drops: Nick Gonzales, Cooper Pratt. I stand with Pat Murphy.

TGFBI

I went on a spending spree a few weeks ago, adding Joshua Baez, Griffin Conine, Andrew Painter, Jacob Lopez, Kaelen Culpepper, and ... Yennier Cano (gulp!). As a consequence I don't have a lot of FAAB remaining, nor too many droppable players. I stayed put here on purpose.

SCARF

I knew that Randy Dobnak's recent stretch of competence was a mirage, and yet ... nevertheless I persisted. I got what I deserved (maybe not all of what I deserved - there's still one more start this week!) with a six-run outing against the Marlins.

My Drops: Isaac Collins, Yennier Cano.

LABR

Will I be lamenting the Curse of Kodai Senga? Two weeks ago I overspent on Senga, thinking that there wouldn't be too many big spends left in the season, and I had two specific needs, saves and stolen bases. Since then, Edwin Diaz got hurt with Tanner Scott available here, and now Walker Jenkins got the call. Both players would have helped! But the winning bid in each instance exceeded my remaining budget.

Instead, I picked up Bryan Hudson, whom I'm hoping will get a plurality of the remaining White Sox saves, after getting two saves last week. I don't love that he worked 1.1 innings in a non-save situation, albeit with a lead, Tuesday against the Astros. At least Senga got a save on Monday! I'm currently rolling with five starters and four relievers, and would have gone 4/5 if I could have pulled off another trade before Monday's games.

Speaking of trades, I made one big deal on Monday, only for Derek VanRiper and Alan Harrison to make a bigger trade between each other. First, here's a graphical look of the standings (as of Wednesday afternoon) over RT Sports - you can see where I have clear needs and surpluses:

I dropped the ball by not getting a deal done sooner, to make a bigger impact in the categories. Compounding the problem was that even though we have an August 31 trade deadline, three league members didn't want to trade at all, suggesting it was too late to impact the race. That's there prerogative, even if I disagree. But it only reinforces the point that my sloth in wheeling-and-dealing could cost me the league. I have a clear surplus in power, and I'm in pretty good shape with wins, with at max a downside of two points. I was trying to trade power and starting pitching in exchange for stolen bases and saves. Alas, I only got the first part of the equation done, and that's the category that's going to be harder to move up.

Erickson trades: Kyle Schwarber

Sporer trades: Jazz Chisholm Jr.

It's a pretty clean trade - I dealt a 40-homer hitter in exchange for a 40-stolen base guy. Too bad I just missed out on a six-steal week from Jazz! But at least I feel confident that Jazz is in stat-padding mode the rest of the season.

Unfortunately, this trade by DVR and Alan happened two hours later:

VanRiper trades: Jacob Misiorowski, Bryan Baker

Harrison trades: Pete Crow-Armstrong, Nasim Nunez.

Now that's an impactful trade. DVR could afford to trade the Miz and Baker, given that he's miles ahead in the ratio categories and in saves. I'm actually lucky that he didn't make that trade sooner - look at the gap in ERA, WHIP and Saves for him. It would take eight more Kyle Harrison bombs for him to lose a ratio point. It's almost risk-free for DVR - kudos to him for building up such a buffer.

My drop: None - Byron Buxton went back to the IL for the third time.

RotoWire Staff Keeper League

Life comes at you fast. A few weeks ago, I was bidding to climb to third place here and traded for closers Edwin Diaz and Kenley Jansen. Suffice to say, that did not work out so well. Meanwhile, my $3 pickup, Mason Montgomery, has been much better than both of them. I turned into a seller on Monday's deadline, trading away Sonny Gray to Erik Siegrist, who has won the last two seasons, for Jefferson Rojas. Gray has been amazing, but at $35 he was going to be a tough decision whether to keep or not - my rule of thumb usually is to not keep a player that I can get back for the same price in the auction. Maybe Gray would cost a buck or two more, but it's close enough that I'm better off cashing in and getting the prospect.