The fantasy baseball industry’s highest-profile expert leagues drafted this past weekend. Here’s how the AL LABR auction broke down.
Arguably the most famous expert fantasy baseball league(s), the League of Alternative Baseball Reality (LABR), held their annual auction drafts this past weekend in Phoenix. Now in its 24th year, LABR has set the standard by which most other auctions are held.
The league is comprised of 12 teams owned by experts from around the industry. The rosters are comprised of 23 players – 14 hitters and nine pitchers. Teams accumulate stats in the standard five hitting (average, home runs, RBI, runs, stolen bases) and five pitching (wins, saves, strikeouts, ERA, WHIP) rotisserie categories.
Most importantly, an auction is used instead of the typical draft format to which you may be accustomed. Each owner has $260 to spend on their 23-man active roster (a six-round supplemental draft was held after the auction for bench spots). In drafts, only a few people may have a shot at the best players, and if they do, they won’t pick again for a while. In an auction, every team has an equal shot at every player. For example, one American League owner was able to snag Carlos Correa, Miguel Cabrera, Chris Sale and Yu Darvish, but used up more than half of his budget to do so.
While LABR does have a league that uses players from both the American and National Leagues, the leagues that garner the most attention are the single-league formats. On Saturday the AL-Only draft was held, and on Sunday the NL-Only draft was held. I joined my first auction league in 2002, and have used the AL-Only results to shape what I might be able to expect in my draft.
168 hitters and 108 pitchers were selected. Considering there are only 135 lineup spots when all 15 American League teams are playing, some platoon and bench players have to be used to fill out a roster. Similarly, there are only 90 starting pitchers and 15 closers, so the best middle relievers can have value here.
The results of each auction can be found online, so I won’t list out what each player went for. Instead, we’ll go through some trends that jumped out at each position so you know what you might be able to expect in your auctions this year. This column will cover the American League.