This week is dominated by the pursuit of Brendan McKay, a big move in one of my dynasty leagues, some pitching missteps and the need for speed.

AL Tout Wars

For such a quiet week, I was pretty active, adding three players. Logan Forsythe is my latest candidate to fill my previously vacant first base slot, as he was dropped last week and has first base eligibility. Jose Urquidy is projected to start twice this week, at Coors Field on Tuesday and against the Angels on Sunday. With Brad Peacock on the IL, Framber Valdez sent to the minors and both Corbin Martin and Forrest Whitley on the minor league IL, Urquidy could stick for a while if he's at all competent. Credit goes to James Anderson, who pointed him out to me on our XM show last week.

XFL

We had our monthly supplemental draft Sunday night - which means we have a wider pool of players of interest to try to pick up, albeit in a league with deeper rosters that include minor leaguers. My colleague Brian Walton had the first pick this month, and I viewed that pick to be extremely valuable, as Zac Gallen was available, having evaded our attention in the March reserves-and-minors draft, then exploded on the scene during the season. Our league typically increases a player's salary by $5 each season you own him, unless they are minor-league eligible at the time you acquire him. It's a pretty low threshold - 50 at-bats or 20 IP. Luckily, Gallen has only 10 major league innings, so he's minor-league eligible, so his salary will increase by only $3 this season. So I paid a pretty penny to get the pick to acquire Gallen - I gave up my first-round pick in last night's supplemental (who turned out to be Jordan Yamamoto), and my second-round March pick in exchange for that Gallen pick and Brian's final March pick. To give you an idea of what that March pick is worth, here are the second round picks from this year's March draft:

Keep in mind that this is an even-numbered round, so generally speaking it's in reverse order of the standings, which might influence whether the person drafting might take a prospect or someone that could help now. Oh man, how nice would have been to get German instead of Peacock!

My team, somewhat surprisingly, started strong - I say surprisingly because I viewed my set of keepers to be below six or seven teams, and I was exceptionally weak at closer. To that end, I turned down a few "win now" offers, particularly those for closers, and in the March draft I emphasized prospects over current major leaguers, including two (at the time) college players in Adley Rutschman and Andrew Vaughn. But it's starting to drift backwards, as expected, and I'm going to sell off many of my veteran pitchers, another reason why it was important for me to acquire Gallen.

NFBC Main Event

I had no chance at acquiring McKay in this league, having spent a big chunk on Austin Riley and Nicky Lopez. I also went from having two full-time closers and two part-time closers (Felipe Vazquez, Jordan Hicks, Diego Castillo, and Steve Cishek) - and all of a sudden I had just one closer in Vazquez, with very little FAAB money remaining to address it. So I put in a slew of $1 spec bids on relievers and walked away with Ryan Pressly, which isn't a bad result. I did miss out on all of my SP speculative bids, so Jalen Beeks remains on my roster for at least one more week, and now with Ryan Yarbrough sent back down, it's possible that Beeks will get another shot.

Meanwhile, I'm pretty excited about getting Manuel Margot in this league. I desperately need stolen bases, more so since I lost Tim Anderson last week.

NFBC OC1

So this one didn't really work out very well at all. I knew that I wouldn't get McKay, or at least guessed as much with my second-place $81 bid. I just ... didn't get the details right on the backup bid with Alzolay. One of my backup alternatives was Logan Allen, which also would have been disastrous. My once big lead in this league is shrinking as my starting pitching is dwindling.

NFBC OC2

So ... in one 12-team league McKay goes for $295 in FAAB, and in this one ... $15? Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Jeff! Hopefully it's a gift and not a Trojan Horse. I'll only get McKay's pitching stats, by the way.

TGFBI

This one is going to linger around for a while for me. I bid $44 on McKay but had plenty more in my budget to bid higher. I need a difference-maker on the mound, and found the other alternatives lacking. I thought that I had a good chance at getting an extended run of saves from Brandon Workman, but the news that the Red Sox intend to use Nate Eovaldi as the closer when he returns shortens that window considerably.

FSTA

For about 24 hours that Workman win felt pretty good, again.

LABR

I activated five players from the IL this week, so no FAAB bids from me.

RotoWire Staff Keeper League

I'm mad at myself for not seeing Collin McHugh on the waiver wire. That's going to be a good pickup.