It Happens Every Spring

Today is the Giants’ home opener, and just as it is supposed to happen, I flipped on the TV this morning with my morning coffee and found the old Ray Milland classic playing on HBO. We all love that movie, but we should remember that at its heart, it is about cheating – applying a chemical substance to the ball. On the other hand, what is funnier than watching King Kelly’s “hop” pitch.

I started this piece – the post BABI auction report - on Saturday, and got about ½ way through it, and now pick it up to finish today. I’m incredibly, incredibly busy in the office, but I can’t post this next week, so I’ll do my best now.

I do have a lot to say. As all of you who were there Friday can attest, yes, I do have a lot to say. Let me start by saying how great it was to see you all again, and how much fun the Doc and I have with all of you guys each year. The Doc and his wife Kenny 9 have joined Mr. Leaguer in his big money league – greener pastures, fancy enough to have their draft in Vegas. But many of our best friends were in that room at Fort Mason last night, none of whom we knew when we started in BABI fourteen years ago. *

* I can never remember when we actually started in BABI, but I have a foolproof method to determine it. We drafted Ryan Klesko in our first year for $16, and he had his first solid year in the bigs. Every time I want to remember when we started in BABI, I just log onto Baseball Reference, type in “Klesko” (he’s the only Klesko in major league history) and note that in 1994 went from 17 at bats to 245 and he hit 17 homers in those 245 at bats.

Allow me to give props to the most influential man in the room during the BABI auction: Merv Pate. Who? No, he’s our utility player.

Merv Pate wrote the Rotolab software. I believe the following teams were running that software Friday in addition to the Pecklers: Falkuhns, Cartel, Old Rips, Pounders and I’m guessing Da Bums. We mostly use the software to keep our lists of remaining players current, and in the general order of what we have in mind, plus to keep track of team rosters and money and needs. I enjoy using the software, though scrambling around trying to find Steve Holm is no fun. Merv has changed my experience of draft preparation and draft execution for the better.

There is a tendency to rely a lot on the values from Shandler that Rotolab imports. You could see it periodically. We got into a bidding war with the Pounders for Billy Hall, who nominally had a value of around 15. He was by far the top outfielder on the Rotolab list. We wanted him, partly because we like him, and partly because I knew he had hit 2 homers and driven in 6 yesterday afternoon against the Giants. It turns out Kevin did not know this. When we bid 20, we were sure we had him, but Kevin went to $21. We blinked, and Billy Hall was a Pounder. We ended up with Mike Jacobs instead, but I think we’ll look back at that moment not too fondly.

Anyway after the Hall War, the Doc turned to me and said that Rotolab caused that war. The software, which updates the inflation values with each change, just made him stick out. I’m sure I would still have wanted him, but I might not have bid quite so much. Modern technology in action. On the other hand, nothing beats good player evaluation.

There was monster inflation this year. Total profits kept according to Shandler were in excess of $550, which meant that we had inflation of about 35%. Then it got worse. The first few players did not sell for the inflation premium. The Falkuhns bought Santana for the highest price ever paid for a BABI starting pitcher, $41, but our inflation number was $46. They also paid $36 for Wagner which factoring in inflation was a bargain. Reyes – 50; Pujols - $45; Beltran and Teixeira - $40; Ramirez - $41; C. Lee - $43; D. Lee - 35: they were all relatively reasonable and generally cheaper than last year. Berkman was relatively expensive at $44, though the Cartel were probably buying him for his two steals in week 1. But this confirmed one of my auction theories: the top players are not inflated enough because buyers feel uncomfortable in the stratosphere.

At this point almost everyone had money to burn, and it stayed that way until the very, very end. If you wanted someone, you had to buy him for more than you wanted. Bargains were few and far between, particularly bargains over $10. If someone was a bargain, there was usually a reason for it. Pierre, the famous French aviator went for $20. Pedro went (to us) for $11. Freel went for $13. Each one has his concerns.

So there were bidding wars on every decent hitter. Taveras went to us for $35. We really liked Taveras. Really, really liked him. We figured he would go for $28, but we penciled him at $33. Some butthead bid $34. What are we to do? Mr. Thornton Melon said after the draft he was shocked at how expensive Taveras was. We were, too. But we have him projected at 45 steals, with a downside of 35 and an upside (from Mock Draft Central Dot Com) of 60. Last year he had 33 steals in 98 games. Meanwhile, this confirmed the great rule of auctions: it only takes two teams to entertain everyone else with their overbids.

And as the auction went on, it got worse. The Lickers had a bottomless pit of money to spend on hitting, and it was no fun to buy a guy when they were bidding against you. Geo had even more money, but at heart he’s a value guy, and in the end he kept wimping out, so it wasn’t quite so bad with him. The Pounders never seemed to have money, but they always seemed to have just enough money to buy what I wanted.

Four teams had a ton of money when the quality had disappeared: Cappers, Busch Leaguers, Lickers and the Melonheads (I told you, you’ll never see EBP here in these official BABI pages). And so you end up with Raj Davis for $9, and Chad Qualls for $10 and Todd Helton for $27. And for us, Jason Bay at $28. It was no fun buying hitters that the Lickers were interested in.

There was a new trend: bidding wars on potential closers. The Pecklers planned to live and die with Kerry Wood as our closer, and buy 4 or 5 potential closers: Marmol (insurance for Wood, but probably a future closer), Bell, Pena, Riske, Heilman and Rauch.

Speaking of Rauch, we had him at $5 and threw him back. We think he’ll be the closer this summer when the Nats trade Cordero. We threw him back because we figured he’d go for $7 and we wanted the extra year on his contract. Don’t forget – we only kept 9 players, so we could have kept him, and it was a tough decision. So on Friday we tossed him back and on Sunday night he came in as the closer in the 9th inning. Chad Cordero is hurt. Today he’s on the DL, but on Friday there wasn’t even a whisper about this. Imagine our team today if we had a $5 Jon Rauch on it, and we had an extra $21 to spend on everything (the $26 we spent on Lidge minus the $5 for Rauch). DOH!

But even still, who knew what was going to happen to these potential closers. Marmol went for $17. (Note – Wood pitched a clean 9th yesterday for his 3rd save.) Bell went for $12, Heilman $11, Riske $13 (he’s not even #2, guys!). Fuentes was $8, Lindstrom $6. Jon Rauch went for $16. Not ONE PERSON ever asked for him in trade. And Tony Pena went for $19, $2 more than Eric Gagne. That has got to be a record for a non-closer. When I saw Lyon’s line last week, blowing that save against the Reds and Edwin Encarnacion, I said that Pena’s price just jumped $10, and I was definitely right. Lyon blew another one yesterday, but Qualls, not Pena, was there for the save, and Fantistics is guessing it will be Qualls. We were interested in every one of these guys and we bought none of them.

Part of the reason we were not competitive for the potential closers was we moved early to Plan B. The Doc was responsible for making all of the bids for the Pecklers. I’m tired. I’m not thinking too sharp (I know, what’s new?). On the other hand, the Doc has been in 2 full AL and NL drafts in the past week. So he bid $24 on Lidge while price enforcing. Lidge was sitting on top of the closer list with an inflation value of $36 according to Merv and Shandler. Someone said $25. The Doc suddenly said $26, and I closed my eyes. Silence. It was the same price as Tom Gordon last year, who I bid on while price enforcing. He freaking KILLED us. Same team, too! The Doc turned to me and said “It’s a good price.” I replied, “That’s what I said about Gordon last year.” It was not by plan, but we now had a second closer and no money for any of the potential closers.

The thing that we’ve been grousing about for a year is we would have had Soriano had we not had Gordon. Our plan was to buy Gonzalez and Soriano, and we had bought Gonzalez when Gordon came up. Suddenly, $26 was gone, and we couldn’t go to $13 on Soriano. This year, we couldn’t buy Bell, or Pena (we never would have said $20, though) or Heilman, all guys we wanted. We did buy Cla Meredith again, this time for $3, but although we really like him, it’s not quite the same thing.

We went to war over Taveras, and Jason Bay, Chris Duncan and Mike Jacobs. We also had the penultimate bid of $30 on Brad Hawpe, $25 on Andy LaRoche, and the aforementioned Hall. And we were serious bidders for Ankiel and Kearns, as well as Bell and Heilman. Some guys we liked blew way past our numbers. Some guys we hated blew way past our numbers, too (uh, $13 for Randy Wolf – OOF! To Boof!) What is so great about this game is its unpredictability. You can analyze everything past and nothing future. It will be what it will be. Whatever was special about last year is now the conventional wisdom. You have to be a contrarian to win, but you also have to be right. The only thing predictable is unpredictability.

One last Pecklers’ story, and then on to the other teams. As I said, the Doc was responsible for all (well almost all) of the bidding. I could not control myself and blurted $11 on Soto because the Doc looked like he was in a coma. That number just felt so cheap. As it turned out, he blurted out $11 simultaneously. I apologized, because I had made my promise, but also because he didn’t really trust Soto, but there was no knowing who we could afford later. Anyway, that’s not the story.

If you look at our final sketch of the Pickled Battle Plan, we showed 5 starting pitchers, including Webb and Wainwright, who were kept, Pedro or Arroyo at $15, Carlos Villanueva at $7 and Paul Maholm at $4. Those were the guys we wanted. We’ve been drooling over Villanueva since last season. We almost bought him when our mantra was “2007 - last time you can buy Villanueva for a buck.” We had him 2 different times last year, and he was great for us. Every sketch of our 2008 team had him on it. We bid our $7 and someone came back at $8. I was looking straight at the Doc and he appeared not to be breathing. At “Going Twice” I smacked him in the arm and he yelped “9.” Good doggie!

No one defies the conventional wisdom more than Kenny 9. Half way through the draft and he’s got $13 for 11 spots. He bought the last SIX players. He has no closers, but has $36 invested in three potential closers. Thirteen of his players are $1 or $2. He’s a believer in the contrarian theory, but he forgets that you also have to be right. We sat next to each other, and we had a blast together. I knew he wanted Josh Johnson for a buck, and don’t forget, he basically couldn’t say “two.” I kept threatening to bring him up, but hell, we’ve got a good team this year – we don’t want that guy. We did fight over Hawpe and Ankiel (another ridiculously tough guy to go up against for a hitter), but for most of the night he was just an observer. There is no evaluating his team, because Kenny 9 is an extreme fantasy player, and I’m just not smart enough to know what he’s doing. I’d say bottom three, but I said that last year, and he still came in 6th. Of course, that was behind us, if he’s forgotten.

The Lickers love hitters. My guess is they spent less money on a pitching staff ($48) than any team in BABI history. That left $232 to spend on hitting, and having kept 2 $2 catchers and Felipe Lopez at $7, that meant they had $221 to spend on the other 12 hitters, or an average of $18.42 per player. As I said, it was no fun bidding on a hitter against them. They bought Helton, Delgado, Encarnacion, Tejada, Alou, Cameron and Freel. Bought them. They are sure to have plenty of hitting this season, but the fun will be watching whether their pitching staff can stay above water. And they have punted saves completely. They have an intriguing team, quite contrary. How will their garden grow?

We haven’t had a new guy in BABI in a long time. Thornton Melon took over a bad, bad team. Welcome to BABI – we’ve all been there, but your keeper list was really, really bad. That’s a shame. He bought some big players – Beltran (good price at $40 if he has knees), Zambrano (looked great in his first outing) and Ricky Weeks (we bid the penultimate on him, too – we really, really wanted him). He got Rauch, who is the official closer for now. It is impossible to take a team seriously, though, that bought Tom Glavine for $8. Did the team who bid $7 really want him? That couldn’t have been price enforcing. We suspect the Melon Balls will be the first team dumping.

We liked the Pounders draft if not their keeper list. We think Kevin did the best job of finding reasonably priced talent. Teixeira at $40 was a wonderful price. Gagne is scary, but $17 was cheaper than Pena, the same as Marmol and only a buck more than Rauch. This guy IS the closer. Sheets looked spectacular against the Giants. Kuroda pitched well last week. Billy Hall looked like the real deal on Friday. These were all solid prices in an inflationary environment. This may be the only team with a mediocre keeper list that is now a contender.

Hank thinks farm picks are now worth more than money in the draft. It was certainly true last year and this year. We offered him Keppinger at $5 for his 2nd round pick, and he turned us down, and then spent $8 MORE on him than he could have had him for. The way he’s hitting, we sure wish we had kept him. No one wanted him – we offered him to everyone. We figured we’d buy him back for the same price. There is some talent on this team, but you can tell we have different values for some of the players, though he did take Damnit from us. I liked Noel’s purchases of Francis at $12 and Jurrjens at $3. General George McClellan, on the other hand – he’s just not a gamer.

We loved the Bums’ keeper list, but we did not like them spending $29 on Valverde. They have $57 tied up in closers, and it is going to leave them short somewhere. We’re not sure where, but we think that was a mistake. They have a lot more cheap guys than they did last year. We don’t know if that’s good or bad. But, man – that was some keeper list.

The Cartel had a great keeper list too. We think he made a mistake on Oswalt. We never had interest in him. We think he’s headed downhill. We’d rather have bought Smoltz or even Lowe at a lower price. On the other hand, we’re in the Juan Pierre camp, who he bought at $20. We know there is a mess there, but there is no way he won’t get 35 steals and hit at least .290. And this is the team that spent a buck on Steve Holm.* I have season tickets to the Giants, and I didn’t even know who he was. Is he really going to do better than Brian Schneider, who went undrafted and is a starting catcher?

* Steve Holm was drafted. Seven Giant pitchers were drafted, including 5 starters. One hundred and twenty National League pitchers were drafted. Yet NOBODY would venture a buck on Barry Zito? OK, he sucked last year, and on opening day and yesterday too. But nobody, even teams playing for next year, wanted to take a chance on a relatively young guy that won a Cy Young award a few years ago? He may suck, but we came pretty close to buying him at the end. The funny thing is, we had $1 left for our last pitcher slot. We were deciding between David Weathers (who is a setup man, everyone, and had a pretty decent season last year) and Zito. I said to the Doc, “Let’s nominate Weathers first, because he’s the safe one.” We did, and we got him, but when we nominated him, Mr. Leaguer looked at me and asked, “He’s the safe one?” Well, yes. Had someone said $2 on Weathers, we’d own Barry Zito right now.

The Falkuhns paid a good price for Santana. But they didn’t have to spend $36 on Wagner, and it tied up way too much money in their pitching staff - $120. By the way, the Bums spent $126 and the Rips $122. Everyone else had a more normal split. They ended up with a lot of cheap guys. They also had a great keeper list, but we’re not convinced they capitalized on it. They do have a lot of cheap speed, but they have some guys on that pitching staff I’ve barely heard of. Mr. Dot should have made two more deals. He tossed back Ruiz at $2 and Greene at $16 and Arroyo at $7, all of whom when for a lot more than that. He says he tried. To quote the great American president, Gerald (Warren Commission) Ford, “Baloney!”

Geo didn’t seem all that prepared. He certainly wasn’t prepared to deal with the rampant inflation. He did pay $35 for Derrick Lee, which is looking like an awfully good price this week. But Geo is a value guy, and he insists on waiting for values, even if there are none. Looking at his team, we might be lucky he didn’t spend that last $11. This team has more talent than you realize, and maybe, just maybe, he picked the right guy (Qualls) to insure Brandon Lyon.

Boof was price enforcing on Pujols against the Leaguers when he said $45. Be careful what you wish for. I liked the Doc’s line – the Pickled Pecklers like to price enforce on $3 guys. Boof wasn’t prepared to spend that much on him, and it changed his draft tremendously. He also spent $28 on Hoffman, the second scariest closer after Lyon. Even scarier than Gagne. Why? Because Hoffman is on a good team that is going to contend and he has not one but two guys behind him who could take over as closer (Bell and Meredith, neither of whom has given up a run yet). Gagne has nobody of substance to step in, but Hoffman looks done. On the other hand, his other 40 year old, Smoltz, looked sharp yesterday. We don’t think Mark spent enough money on hitting, and now he may not have a closer. By the way, Lidge is back. How many saves did Gordon get while he was on the DL?

Finally, it is always a challenge to be in a draft with Mr. Leaguer. He is the one guy we regularly price enforce against because bidding a buck more than Mr. Leaguer is probably a pretty decent deal. He didn’t have a great keeper list, but he’s got Rollins and Ramirez and Atkins, so how bad was it, really? As usual, he’s got 6 pitchers for a total of $8, but he’s better at doing that than anyone I’ve ever seen. He’s got enough hitting, and he’ll fix his pitching. He’s Mr. Leaguer. Of course he’s going to win it all.