Andy Behrens, yahoo.com
Charlie Wiegert, thegodfatheroffantasysports.com
Scott Swanay, fantasybaseballsherpa.com
Fred Zinkie, fantasybaseball.com
Eric Mack, si.com
David Feldman, mlb.com
Nicholas Minnix, kffl.com
David Gonos, twitter.com/davidgonos
Derek Carty, www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/
Tim Heaney, kffl.com
Paul Petera, baseballhq.com
Nano Di Fino, wsj.com
Seth Trachtman
Gene McCaffrey, wiseguybaseball.com
JP Kastner, ballparkhomerun.com

This format has 15 teams using the standard 5 x 5 fantasy baseball categories with a $260 salary cap and a 23 man roster, with 14 hitters (two catchers) and 9 pitchers. Here is a look at the 2011 Tout Wars results with dollars paid per position.

Catchers:

Of note was Carlos Santana going for more than Victor Martinez and Buster Posey. Mike Napoli seems to be climbing draft and auction boards in the last few weeks.

First Base:

Surprised to see Adam Dunn go for the same price as Kevin Youkilis ($29). For the middle tier guys, Adam LaRoche went highest at $14.

Second Base:

Ian Kinsler always seems to end up a dollar or too higher than Pedroia as people seem to give him an extra boost. Utley has dropped down considerably in the rankings with his injury status, as did Brian Roberts.

Shortstop:

Elvis Andrus was a bargain at $11 compared to what players were going for ranked below him.

Third base:

Not too often that you are going to see Ryan Zimmerman go for more than A Rod. Casey McGehee was a solid get at $11 as was Michael young at $9.

Outfielders:

You can see the value of having money left at the end as there always seems to be bargains for outfielders late in the draft or the last third of the draft as other fantasy baseball owners are running low on funds. Nelson Cruz got a lot of love, going for more than Matt Holliday and Josh Hamilton.

Utility:

Starting Pitchers:

It always seems that there are several pitchers that each season seem to go below their value when it comes to starting pitching and this Tout Wars auction was no exception. This year it was Ubaldo Jimenez, Matt Cain and Jeff Niemann.

Closers:

Lots of uncertainty at the closer spot with some guys dealing with injuries, others dealing with a committee and some just not performing so values seem to widely vary from auction to auction.

Relief Pitchers:

Here is a look at the prices for relief pitchers that are not currently seen as a closer.

If you are playing in a keeper league, it is best to use previous years data that you have collected and you can average dollar values for each ranking at each position and then slot in your players ranked in order accordingly. If you are playing in a league for the first time and don’t have historical data to work with, there are other “expert” industry leagues that have dollar values each season for AL and NL only leagues as well as mixed leagues.

Already this season we have seen 2011 AL LABR results as well as 2011 NL LABR results for fantasy dollar values. I also have on the site the dollar values from the 15 team mixed Tour Wars from 2010 that you can use as a baseline as well.

Now, that is all well and good if you have the same league size as these samples but what happens if you have more teams in the league? For example, the AL LABR is only 12 teams, if you have 14 teams in your fantasy baseball league, you are going to need to adjust the dollar values. An easy way to do that would be 14/12 to give you the markup in price of 1.17. You then can apply this in Excel as a modifier to each of the prices. One thing to keep in mind when using the formula is that you are going to want to use the ROUNDDOWN function as part of the formula so the $1 values stay at $1 and don’t round up.

Another modifer you might need to apply is for differences in salary cap amounts. In the LABR, they use the standard $260 salary cap. If your league say uses $280, then you are going to follow the same process. Take $280/$260 to get a 1.08 modifier and apply that to the prices again using the ROUNDDOWN function.

Using both of these above two steps, this should get you in the ballpark for what fantasy baseball auction dollar amounts will be. If you play in a fantasy baseball keeper league, you are going to have to do some more math work to then factor in inflation as part of the salary prices. Here is a look at how to do that.

1. Determine the total possible money that can be spent in an auction. The formula is number of teams multiplied by the salary cap per team. So if you have a $260 cap and 12 teams in the league, then the total possible spend is $3,120.

2.  Determine the total cost of the keepers for all teams. For the sake of the example, let’s say the total keepers are worth $1,500.

3.  Determine the leftover available money to spend. The formula is to subtract number 1 from number 2 above, so $3,120 less $1,500 leaves us with $1,620.

4.  Determine the projected cost of the keepers in a non-keeper league. Let’s say that amount came out to $1,800. We then subtract our total money spend of $3,120 from $1,800 and come up with what our remaining players to buy would have cost us in a non-keeper league, which is ($3,120 – $1,800) $1,320.

5.  Determine the inflation rate. We have $1,620 left to spend on players in a keeper league compared to their true auction value of $1,320. If we divide those two numbers, we will then get the inflation percentage of roughly 22.8%

6.  Take the projected salaries of the players to buy in the auction multiplied by 22.8% and you now have the new adjusted value for inflation for your auction. So a guy like Albert Pujols at $41 in a regular league becomes $50 in a league with inflation.

Just a few points to make sure your numbers come out right. The player pool and dollar values of the keepers plus the players that need to be bought need to equal out. So if you have 23 man rosters for a 12 team league, you need to make sure you have dollar values for exactly 276 players and the dollar amount comes out to exactly $3,120. If you are short a few dollars from your total, those will usually get added on to the top tier players, not the ones that are at the bottom.

If you want to get down to a more granular level, you might want to calculate inflation rate separately for hitters and pitchers if you think there is a wider difference in the percentages. The same steps would apply as above, the only difference is you would first need to determine the dollar split between pitchers and hitters. You could use a standard 70%-30% split, or if you are in league that you have played in before, you should have historical data that will allow you go back and calculate the actual numbers.

At the end of the day, remember that dollar values are just a guide. There will be pockets of each auction where bargains can be had and there were will be periods were players will go several dollar over value because a team needs a certain player or position to fill out their roster. Just like doing mock drafts, it is a good idea to mock out several teams once you have your dollars in place to see what kind of team that you can buy. This way you can see how close you can come to hitting your targets in each category and can then adjust your auction plan accordingly.

Fantasy Baseball Auction Dollar Values:

One of the hardest things that people will struggle with when they first start playing in auction leagues is determining dollar values for the players. Luckily readers of this site have a solution to that because they can get mixed, AL and NL only league dollars values in the 2011 FBT Fantasy Baseball Draft Guide.

What you don’t want to do is head into an auction using values from a magazine. By that time, the prices are out of date and the league format for what they are basing their dollar values on is likely not the format that you are using for your league. Also, most magazines will not have dollar values that match up to the player pool. For example, in a 10 team league with 9 pitchers per team, you will need 90 players with a dollar value assigned to them and in most cases the magazine will have 70 players with dollar values or 100 players with dollar values which don’t equate to their own league size.

Also keep in mind that the dollar values are just a rough guide to follow, they are not an end all be all. For example, the dollar values in the guide for sale on the site take into account player performance as well as bidding from owners to give you the best realistic estimate for what a player is going to go for. There are many different factors during the draft that will influence how true dollars end up being to what is forecasted regardless of what source you use.

For example, in a mixed league auction format last year, one owner decided to go with an all relief pitcher strategy and focus the majority of his money on offense. He bought the top three hitters in the draft and was willing to go $3 to $5 more than their value to get the guys he wanted. By going with all relief pitchers, he also impacted the price of starting pitchers because that was one less owner bidding on them as well as the price of closers because there were now a few less in the pool.

When you are in an auction format, you need to be able to recognize these trends so you can adjust prices as you go to account for these type of situations. Another instance happened in a NL only league a few years ago where one owner bought the top two shortstops in the league. He then proceeded to nominate a shortstop every time it was his turn to nominate a player. It ended up raising the buy price of the next group of shortstops by several dollars because people did not want to be left with a weak player at that position.

In addition to paying attention to situations like these during the auction that might spring up, you can also track dollar values during the draft to see how the money is trending. At some point once you are 30 players in or so, you are going to find that the money spent is running more or less than what you have projected. In either case, you then know in your head to adjust the prices of players up or down accordingly. There will be pockets during the draft where there will be bargains to be had as players start to run lower on money so if you are able to track where the overall money is at during each point, you will have a chance to grab several players that should return you a nice profit.

Managing Your Auction Budget:

One of the biggest challenges for fantasy baseball owners participating in an auction for the first time is how to manage their budget. It can even be a challenge for seasoned owners if you do not head into the auction with a well formulated plan for how your are going to spend your money. Each draft it seems there are one or two owners that end up leaving money on the table that ends up costing them a player or two which can make the difference between winning and losing a league.

The easiest way to make sure that you make full use of your fantasy budget is to assign dollar values to each position so you have an idea of what players you want to target and what you want to spend. You should also have an idea of what percentage split you want to have between pitchers and hitters. This will give you a good baseline heading into the auction which can be adjusted as you go. Here is an example of how you want to think about laying out a possible roster for a 15 team mixed league.

First we need to decide on the percent split. Most teams use a 70-30 split on average so we will use 65-35 with more money geared toward hitters as they are more predictable. Since the majority of leagues use a $260 budget, that will leave us with $169 to spend on hitting and $91 to spend on pitching. So here is what our team could look like with 14 hitters and then 9 pitchers.

1c – $13, 2c – $3, 1B – $25, 2b – $13, SS – $20, 3B – $15, MI – $3, CI – $3, 5OF – $20, $18, $17, $13, $3 U – $3

SP1 – $19, SP2 – $15, SP3 – $12, SP4 – $10, SP5 – $4, Sp5 – $2, RP1 – $12, Rp2 – $10, Rp3 – $7

As you go through the draft and enter the dollar amount for each player as you buy them, you can then adjust the dollar amounts for the other positions. For example, you see a $20 catcher where the bidding stops at $14 so you bid $15 and buy him. You are now $2 over your first catcher slot so you need to adjust one of your other positions by $2 to make up the difference, so instead of spending say $7 for your 3rd relief pitcher, you would change that to $5.

The same concept applies if you buy a closer for $19, you would flip flop your dollars for your number one relief pitcher and your number one starting pitcher so your budget is always on track for $260. You will notice that I did not leave $1 for any of my rosters spots. At the end of the draft when everybody is low on money, by setting aside more than $1 per roster spot, you have a much better chance of getting the players that you want. If every team only has $1 left per position, the end of the auction then turns into a draft because nobody is able to go over $1 in the bidding.

Nominating Players:

When it comes to nominating players, there is a strategy that you should be using for that as well. If you have 23 rosters spots to fill in your league, that means you are going to have 23 different chances to nominate players so you need to think about what positions and players you want to nominate. You also want to alternate your nomination strategy so other owners aren’t able to pick up on what you are doing. For example, you don’t want to nominate the 23 guys you want to buy most as owners will pick up on that at some point and start overbidding you.

Also be careful when nominating a player about what price you put on a player. There is nothing wrong with nominating every player for $1. Every auction it seems there is a player that gets nominated an an owner puts a price on him only to hear crickets in the room and they end up getting stuck with them on their rosters. Here is a look at some possible nomination strategies to consider for the auction.

If you are in a high stakes fantasy baseball league and are concerned that a team is going to employ the all relief pitcher strategy and you want to be able to adjust prices accordingly, you could make relief pitchers your first five nominations. By that time roughly 75 players will be off the board so you should have a good idea of each team’s roster direction.

Another direction you could go is target the 3rd or 4th player at a position and see if you can get a player for a discount if the top three players are still on the board  in case owners want to save their money for them. For example, at shortstop, Hanley Ramirez, Troy Tulowitzki and Jose Reyes are at the top of the list. If you don’t want to spend what it is going to cost to roster those players but you want to get a good shortstop, you could throw out Derek Jeter or Jimmy Rollins with the idea being other owners may not want to bid and fill that slot while other top players are still on the board.

A third route you could go is nominate players you are not interested in that are higher up in the rankings to get them off the board and eliminate a potential opposing bidder on a player you really want. For example, Paul Konerko at first base, Rickie Weeks at second base, Jose Bautista at third base, etc.

As my first article about baseball I would like to do as I always do at start picking my things I am all in on and things I’m staying away from.  Since my player rankings are nothing I am committed on quite yet with spring training still about two months away there is only one thing that really holds strong in my mind this year and I am ALL IN about it, Auction leagues.

By now almost everyone that reads this knows what an auction league is vs the typical serpentine style player picking draft by round.  I am fine with the fact the draft by rounds is the most common and probably should be for a long time.  Auction style is not for beginners.  Really when you are thinking about going Auction or Draft format you need to think of what type of players are in the league.  The people that I think fit the Auction style and shouldn’t go Round draft fit at least 3 of the 5 following criteria:

1. If you’re the type of player that would be reading an article like this on a site other then MLB or ESPN.com: Just going outside of the typical media mainstreams show you are looking to take that next step into your fantasy baseball and some of the advice you find in places like this will be the difference from winning or losing in a league

2. If you start your baseball research for the upcoming season in or before January: Spring training doesn’t even start until the very end of February and then you still have over another full month before the start of the regular season.  Keeping track of off season moves and team restructurings can give you a leg up but lets not kid ourselves, it is more about passion then an actual advantage.

3.  Your team never makes less then 100 waiver moves in a season: Some of the things that separates the men from the boys is taking that step from just doing the football season is adjusting the the everyday games and the everyday moves.  In football making 100 moves can be a bit for the ridiculous but in fantasy baseball I consider it a baseline.

4.  You never pay for saves: If there is one lesson it seems people always talk about but then again every year people seem to keep doing it and have pitchers like Neftali Feliz and Matt Capps make them regret it.  None of the top five RP drafted last year finished in the top five RP for the year and only one of them even finished in the Top 10 (Mr. Rivera)

5. You have ever drafted someone who you didn’t like just because 2 rounds after they were supposed to go you found them to be a “Good Value”:  So many times people go into a draft very against a player, someone like Grady Sizemore who you know is not going to be good but suddenly after 50 or 60 players are off the board you start thinking…Maybe he will get back into his old form regardless of his injury risk and falling average over the last 4 years. Never Again Grady…

Really most of these just check your level of commitment to the game because in the end the only difference between a successful auction and a horrible one is preparation.  With a lot of sites already setting out rankings a team can auto draft in a round based draft and still win with good management. In an auction league it keeps more of the human element in the game and really helps define the skill level of the players.  Another benefit is there is no real draft order so your chance at the players you love and are ALL IN on like me, you can go for them and you won’t feel obligated to draft Pujols if you end up with the #1 overall pick in a round based league.

I hope this helps spark the auction wild fire in more fantasy baseball owners. If you have questions or are searching for fantasy baseball advice you can find me on twitter @FantasyFanalyst.

Here is a look at a method for calculating inflation for your fantasy baseball auction.

1. Determine the total possible money that can be spent in an auction. The formula is number of teams multiplied by the salary cap per team. So if you have a $260 cap and 12 teams in the league, then the total possible spend is $3,120.

2.  Determine the total cost of the keepers for all teams. For the sake of the example, let’s say the total keepers are worth $1,500.

3.  Determine the leftover available money to spend. The formula is to subtract number 1 from number 2 above, so $3,120 less $1,500 leaves us with $1,620.

4.  Determine the projected cost of the keepers in a non-keeper league. Let’s say that amount came out to $1,800. We then subtract our total money spend of $3,120 from $1,800 and come up with what our remaining players to buy would have cost us in a non-keeper league, which is ($3,120 – $1,800) $1,320.

5.  Determine the inflation rate. We have $1,620 left to spend on players in a keeper league compared to their true auction value of $1,320. If we divide those two numbers, we will then get the inflation percentage of roughly 22.8%

6.  Take the projected salaries of the players to buy in the auction multiplied by 22.8% and you now have the new adjusted value for inflation for your auction. So a guy like Albert Pujols at $41 in a regular league becomes $50 in a league with inflation.

Just a few points to make sure your numbers come out right. The player pool and dollar values of the keepers plus the players that need to be bought need to equal out. So if you have 23 man rosters for a 12 team league, you need to make sure you have dollar values for exactly 276 players and the dollar amount comes out to exactly $3,120.

Also, if you are doing the calculations in Microsoft Excel, I would use the ROUND DOWN function to round the dollars down in value instead of up like you normally do in math. That way you aren’t moving up a bunch of players in the $1-$3 range higher. If you are short a few dollars from your total, those will usually get added on to the top tier players, not the ones that are at the bottom.

If you want to get down to a more granular level, you might want to calculate inflation rate separately for hitters and pitchers if you think there is a wider difference in the percentages. The same steps would apply as above, the only difference is you would first need to determine the dollar split between pitchers and hitters. You could use a standard 70%-30% split, or if you are in league that you have played in before, you should have historical data that will allow you go back and calculate the actual numbers.

It happened to two owners in my auction league this past weekend and I also saw it happen several times in recent “expert” auction leagues. What I am referring to is the mismanagement of money.

In my auction league last week, Jeremy Hellickson went for $16 as the last player taken for one owner because of all the money he had left over. Another owner spend $16 on Sean Rodriguez because of the same thing; way too much money left and not enough players to roster to spend it on.

To me, an auction format is 10 times better than participating in a draft. No longer do you have to worry about players sliding to you in the draft, or having the 10th pick in the first round, knowing that you have no shot at nine players in front of you, in an auction, you have much more control of what goes on around you.

For most players when participating in a fantasy baseball league auction for a first time, they usually run into one of two problems, either they run low on money with multiple players left to buy, or else they have already filled their roster, but have several dollars left to spend.

I am going to give you a couple of tips in order to prevent this from happening and to ensure that your first auction experience is a great one.

When you are preparing for the auction, make sure that the dollars you have assigned to each player add up to the total dollar amount that is to be spent for the league. For example, if you are playing in a 15-team league, and each team has $200 to spend, make sure that the combined salaries you have for the number of players that need to be bought equals $3,000 ($200 x 15). This way you will have closer to a true dollar amount of what a player is worth. So many of the cheat sheets or projections floating around out there provide dollar totals, but they do not add up to what a league total dollar amount is. Each league is different in roster size and team size so make sure that your dollar values are adjusted accordingly.

To make sure that you spend all of your allotted dollars and on the flip side, to make sure you do not run out of money, it is a good idea to go into the draft with dollar amounts assigned to each position on your roster. If your team budget is $200, determine what amount you want to spend for hitting and pitching. On average the split is roughly 70-30 skewed toward hitting. That means with a $200 budget you would plan on spending $60 on your pitching staff. Assuming you have a 10  man pitching staff, you dollar amounts would look something like this:

1Sp – $15

2Sp – $8

3Sp – $7

4Sp – $4

5SP – $2

6Sp – $2

1 Closer – $16

2RP – $2

3 RP – $2

4 RP – $2

You have $15 budgeted for an ace on your staff and $16 budgeted for a closer and so on down the line to fill out your rotation and bullpen. This gives you a good plan of attack to start with. If you happen to spend $17 for an ace starter, simply adjust by $2 another spot on your staff to make sure you hit the $60 mark if that was your allocation to build your staff with.

I usually try to leave $2 for each of the positions instead of $1. At the end of the draft when people are low on money, the auction at that point basically turns into a draft because each person is down to a dollar per player. By having $2 left per player, this ensures that you have a much greater chance of getting the players you want late in the draft.

If there are several low priced players you are hoping to snag at the end of the draft, don’t be afraid to throw them out early and roster them. If you are interested in say Shaun Marcum and Brian Matusz and are saving $8 to spend on them, if other owners run out of money, you might only have to pay $4 for them at the end of the draft leaving that money on the table. if you throw them out in the early to middle part of the draft, you should still be able to get them at the $8 you intended to spend, or else better yet, they go for a lower price and you can put those dollars toward another position instead of leaving that money on the table.

I saw several “experts” comment after recent auctions that had money left over because they were saving it for certain players. There is no rule at an auction that says all of the expensive players have to be thrown out first. If you have a targeted group of players you want to buy, don’t be afraid to throw them out early.

Going into the auction, I had mocked up eight sample teams I could possibly buy in order to hit the targeted goals for each category depending on the flow of the auction. Here are the results for my team:

Hitters:

C – Victor Martinez ($25) – one of the guys I was targeting, as I have written many times before, I don’t believe in punting the catcher position.

C – Russell Martin ($11) – I wasn’t looking to get Martin, but several other catchers went for higher dollar amounts and I needed his 10 stolen bases.

1B – Lance Berkman ($16) – sometimes I am willing to price enforce a player if I think he is under the value I have set for him depending on the makeup of my roster and the other owner that is bidding on him, knowing that I am okay with rostering him if no one bids another dollar. I had $20 forecasted for Berkman so I was okay with him at $16.

2B – Brian Roberts ($17) – I was targeting him at the $16-$17 range, even if he only steals 20, I am happy to get him at a discount

SS – Derek Jeter ($22) – I had him a few dollars higher and was bidding him up, again, happy to get him at this price.

3B – Michael Young ($15) – I had him in the $17-$18 range and with this auction team, I was really trying to ensure my batting average held up to my goal.

Cor – Garrett Jones ($9) – I like being able to put his stolen bases at the corner spot.

Mid – Erick Aybar ($7) – another high average guy, he should steal 15-20 bases and score a ton of runs hitting first.

OF – Shin-Soo Choo ($19) – one of my targets, love to get 20-20 outfielders.

OF – Jason Bay ($22) – I had him a few dollars higher than this.

OF – Adam Dunn ($16) – was too cheap to pass up his power.

OF – Hunter Pence ($15) – another guy I thought was under valued.

OF – Lastings Milledge ($5) – not a huge fan of his, but needed 20 steals and he was the best fit. He is only 25 so there is still some upside there.

UT – Kyle Blanks ($5) – this was one of my main targets, I think he has a ton of upside even in San Diego, especially if he hits clean up.

Overall, I LOVE my offense. I tried to minimize risk by not going over $25 for any player so I think I was able to get a solid team and I should be first or second in every hitting category barring injuries. There was another team that drafted all closers and bought Albert Pujols, Hanley Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez as his first three hitters so his offense is loaded as well.

On the flip side, the pitching staff is not as pretty. I figured from mock drafts the way that pitchers were getting drafted several rounds higher that the prices would be higher as well and I was correct. I had set slots for 4 $10 starting pitchers, but once I saw those guys going in the $13-$15 range, I loaded up on offense and will have to scramble for pitching during the season.

Pitchers:

P – Max Scherzer ($8) – not a target, but I was happy to get his strikeouts for under $10

P – Stephen Strasburg ($5) – once I realized I was going to be short on pitching, I needed to take a chance on some strikeout pitchers that can help me later in the season. I think his numbers as far as starts / innings should mirror Tommy Hanson of 2009.

P – Aroldis Chapman ($3) – see Strasburg.

P – Jeff Niemann ($5) – picked up his strikeouts the second half of last year and has been striking out even more this spring

P – Wade Davis ($5) – hasn’t been that good in spring, but I still like his talent.

P – Hiroki Kuroda ($3) – good ratios to balance the rest of my staff.

P – Bronson Arroyo ($3) – numbers were much better the second half of the season when he put down his guitar.

RP – Jonathan Broxton ($19) – I would rather play two closers than three when possible so I wanted at least one solid guy. His price was the same as Mariano Rivera’s and I would rather have the extra 30-40 strikeouts.

RP – Leo Nunez ($5) – decent price for a second closer.

Reserves:

I had the first pick in the reserve draft so that too played into my thinking for how I built my pitching staff. I was hoping to grab Colby Lewis, Ian Kennedy, Jaime Garcia or Jeremy Hellickson here but they were all taken at the end of the auction.

So instead I went with Daisuke Matsuzaka with my first reserve pick followed by Kevin Correia and Ricky Romero. I also took a flier on Oliver Perez and added David Bush, so I have a few pitchers to possibly rotate into my rotation while waiting for Strasburg and Chapman. I grabbed two hitters in Chris Carter (Oakland) and Nate Schierholtz.

The way my offense is stacked, I don’t really need any hitters on reserve, but Schierholtz is insurance in case Berkman misses the first week and I can swing Dunn over to first base, which is another advantage of drafting / buying players that are eligible at multiple positions.

Overall, my pitching staff is a little short on some numbers, although I should be okay in saves assuming Nunez has the job the entire season. If Correia and Romero hold up, Dice-K comes back to form and Strasburg and Chapman are up by the start of June, I think my team will be in contention.

Here is a look at the 2010 Mixed Tout Wars results, the participants and their teams with my comments added.

Andy Behrens – Yahoo

Pick I liked:  Jose Reyes at $21. At less than 1/2 the price of Hanley Ramirez at $45, I think that is a risk worth taking.

Pick I disliked:  Taking three closers at $15+ each. I assume is going to be looking to trade a closer for a starting pitcher after he builds up a lead in saves.

Derek Carty -The Hardball Times

Pick I liked:  Justin Duchscherer at $1. Definitely worth a buck, even if he makes only 20 starts this year.

Pick I disliked:  Takashi Saito at $13. Unless he knows about an injury that Billy Wagner is hiding….what in the world? Since it was his last pitcher taken, I will assume he had extra money left and no more players to buy.

Alex Cushing -MLB.com

Pick I liked:  Jimmy Rollins at $27 was a few dollars under what he should have gone for.

Pick I disliked:  Phil Hughes at $9. As a fifth starter in the American League East, $9 was just too expensive with cheaper alternatives that were better on the board.

Doug Dennis – Baseball HQ

Pick I liked:  Jason Werth at $22 looks like a good buy compared to some of the other prices paid for outfielders.

Pick I disliked:  He spent a total of $14 on his pitching staff, will be interesting to see how that turns out.

Nando DiFino – The Wall Street Journal

Pick I liked:  Sean Rodriguez at $2.

Pick I disliked:  Too many injury risks on his pitching staff with Rich Harden $7, Brandon Webb $7 and Ben Sheets $4.

Steve Gardner – USA Today

Pick I liked:  Chone Figgins at $14. That is an absolute steal at that price, plus the added flexibility he will offer at second base or third base. He was able to pick up quite a few decent hitters at cheap prices.

Pick I disliked:  None that I can see, it looks like he has a really solid team all around.

Dave Gonos – Opensports.com

Pick I liked:  Alfonso Soriano at $10. Another player that is falling in drafts, but worth the $10 investment even if he doesn’t steal 20 bases again.

Pick I disliked:  Ryan Howard at $42. He went for the same price as Alex Rodriguez which puts Howard $3-$4 higher than what he should have gone for.

Eric Karabell – ESPN

Pick I liked:  Garrett Jones at $9.

Pick I disliked:  Jorge Posada at $15. I think there were several better catchers than Posada that went a dollar or two below him.

J.P. Kastner -Mastersball

Pick I liked:  Colby Rasmus at $7. Has good upside and and a good place in the batting order.

Pick I disliked:  Chad Qualls at $16. There were better closers out there at a cheaper price.

Eric Mack – CBS Sports.com

Pick I liked:  Matt Cain at $12. Cain was a good buy as he went for several dollars less than pitchers ranked below him.

Pick I disliked:  John Lackey at $12. Not as good as Matt Cain yet went for the same price.

Nick Minnix – KFFL

Pick I liked:  Chad Billingsley at $11. Another case of a pitcher going at a lower price than players ranked below him.

Pick I disliked:  Chris Davis at $16.

Paul Petera – Baseball HQ

Pick I liked: Josh Johnson at $15. A very good price to pay for an upper echelon starter.

Pick I disliked:  Matt Wieters at $22. A little high for him with only half a season of major league experience.

Seth Trachtman – Fanball

Pick I liked:  Carlos Gonzalez at $10. All I can say is WOW!!

Pick I disliked:  Lance Berkman at $20. Went for a few dollars more than he should of with the injury concerns.

Perry Van Hook – Fantasybaseball.com

Pick I liked:  Adam Jones at $14. A good buy at that price as his dollar tag should have been in the high teens.

Pick I disliked:  Elvis Andrus at $18. Went for about $5 more than he should have.

Charlie Wiegert – Fanball

Pick I liked:  Andrew McCutchen at $17. A good price to pay for a guy that should have gone over $20.

Pick I disliked:  Juan Pierre at $16. Because he spent so much on his pitching staff, he should have worked harder to find cheaper alternatives on offense like a Nyjer Morgan at $10.

Check out the 2010 AL Tout Wars Results.

Check out the 2010 NL Tout Wars Results.

Here is a look at the 2010 NL Tout Wars results, the participants and their teams with my comments added.

Tristan Cockcroft – ESPN

Pick I liked:  Kyle Blanks at $15. I think Blanks breaks out this season with 25-30 home runs and a few stolen bases thrown in.

Pick I disliked:  Cameron Maybin at $18. Still has not proven he is ready for the major leagues and there were better options at this price.

Mike Gianella – Roto Think Tank

Pick I liked:  Jose Reyes at $23. A risky pick yes, but the upside for that price is worth it.

Pick I disliked:  Kenshin Kawakami at $8. It looks like they were better pitchers to buy for that price.

Phil Hertz – Baseball HQ

Pick I liked:  Josh Willingham at $15. Hard to pick a player I liked as all of his players seemed to be bought right at their expected price.

Pick I disliked:  Stephen Drew at $22.

Peter Kreutzer – Askrotoman.com

Pick I liked:  Jim Edmonds at $1. I think he ends the season with a lot more at bats than people are expecting.

Pick I disliked:  Too many injury risks with Lance Berkman, Aramis Ramirez, Carlos Beltran, Elijah Dukes (cut), Brandon Webb, Edison Volquez.

Chris Liss – Rotowire

Pick I liked:  Jason Heyward at $14. He was a better buy in the outfield that some players that went for several dollars more than him that I have ranked below him.

Pick I disliked:  Jermaine Dye at $3. Hard to see him signing this late in spring, especially with a National League team.

Lenny Melnick & Paul Greco – Fantasy Pros 911

Pick I liked:  Willy Taveras at $1. Nice late game pick for some cheap speed.

Pick I disliked:  Rickie Weeks at $24. Much too high of a price to pay for someone that injury prone.

Scott Pianowski – Yahoo

Pick I liked:  Ian Desmond at $10. Now that he has won the job as starting shortstop, he has a good chance to hit double digit home runs with 20+ steals.

Pick I disliked:  Barry Zito at $5.

Nate Ravitz – ESPN

Pick I liked:  Casey McGehee at $10. Decent batting average and some power for a decent price.

Pick I disliked:  Dan Haren at $28. I love Dan Haren but there were comparable pitchers to be had for $4-$6 less.

Larry Schechter – Sandlot Shrink

Pick I liked:  Garrett Jones at $14. Has 20+ home run power, can steal a few bases and qualifies at first base and in the outfield.

Pick I disliked:  Chase Headley at $17. A few dollars higher than what he should have gone for.

Cory Schwartz – MLB.com

Pick I liked:  Ian Kennedy at $6. Lots of upside, with decent ratios.

Pick I disliked:  Andre Ethier at $29. A few dollars higher than what he should have cost.

Brian Walton – Mastersball

Pick I liked:  Everth Cabrera at $13 looks like a great price for a lead off hitter with the potential to steal 40+

Pick I disliked:  Liked his pitching staff, he got a lot of solid guys, but I think  that Jason Hammel at $7 was too much. It was almost overkill at that point with everyone he had on his staff.

Scott Wilderman – The Owners Edge

Pick I liked:  Blake DeWitt at $5.

Pick I disliked:  Pablo Sandoval at $33. Yikes !!!.

Todd Zola – Mastersball

Pick I liked:  Scott Hairston at $6 if he can get 400+ at bats.

Pick I disliked:  Too many part-time hitters on his team and he left $6 at the draft table. Cody Ross at $18 seemed too much for just his power when there were power / speed guys that went for around the same or slightly lower price.

Check out the 2010 AL Tout Wars Results.

Here is a look at the 2010 AL Tout Wars results, the participants and their teams with my comments added.

Matthew Berry – ESPN

Pick I liked:  Wade Davis at $7. His struggles in spring training helped suppress his price.

Pick I disliked:  Brian Roberts at $23. I like Brian Roberts ever year but with his recent back problems, I would think he should have come at a little more of a discount.

Jason Collete – Fanball

Pick I liked:  Jacoby Ellsbury at $31. Went for several dollars less than I had him forecasted at.

Pick I disliked:  Brandon League at $5. I would have rather seen him grab a starting pitcher for that price rather than speculate on David Aardsma losing his job.

Jeff Erickson – Rotowire

Pick I liked:  Nolan Reimold at $16. His price is about right, but he does have some upside to earn into the low $20′s.

Pick I disliked:  Daisuke Matsuzaka at $7. He could miss the first month of the season and then will have to hope there is a spot for him in the rotation when he comes back.

Jason Grey – ESPN

Pick I liked:  Brian Matusz at $6. Has a lot of upside and has looked great in spring training.

Pick I disliked:  Kelly Shoppach at $11. There must have been a bidding war for him late in the draft that drove his price up.

Rob Leibowitz - Mastersball

Pick I liked:  Jose Bautista at $3. His batting average is scary but he could see 400+ at bats this season.

Pick I disliked:  Besides leaving $6 on the draft table, Joel Pineiro at $6. The move to the American League, the loss of Dave Duncan, plus there were better options at that price.

Lawr Michaels – Mastersball

Pick I liked:  Juan Rivera at $13. That is a decent price to pay to get a .280 average and 20+ home runs.

Pick I disliked:  Jack Cust at $14. Batting average downside plus the possibility that he will lose at bats at some point this year.

Steve Moyer – Baseball Info Solutions

Pick I liked:  Kevin Slowey at $9. Has been outstanding in spring, injury that ended his season in 2009 probably kept the price lower than it should have.

Pick I disliked:  Kerry Wood at $8. Don’t see him earning that with Chris Perez locked in at closer.

Dean Peterson – STATS LLC

Pick I liked:  Chris Davis at $14. Based on the price of other players at 1B, Nick Johnson $13, Lyle Overbay $11, $14 was a good get.

Pick I disliked:  All of his starting pitchers except Shaun Marcum and he also left $8 on the table.

Ron Shandler – Baseball HQ

Pick I liked:  Brandon Wood at $10.

Pick I disliked:  Delmon Young at $14. Risk to at bats with Jim Thome in the mix.

Joe Sheehan – Baseball Prospectus

Pick I liked:  Victor Martinez at $22. Joe Mauer went for $30 and I don’t think there is that much difference between them.

Pick I disliked:  Neftali Feliz at $9, Joba Chamberlain at $5. Not sure why these guys continue to get all the hype when they have no roles of value in 2010.

Mike Siano – Mlb.com

Pick I liked:  Willie Bloomquist at $1. Always a nice end game play for $1 to get 15-20 steals.

Pick I disliked:  Ervin Santana at $9. There were better pitchers taken at the same price.

Rick Wolf & Glenn Colton – Rotoworld.com

Pick I liked:  Willy Aybar at $2. Cheap price for some decent pop in the bat.

Pick I disliked:  Julio Borbon at $25. Went for $3 more than Juan Pierre who is a much more proven player. Also was the same price as Denard Span.

Check out the 2010 NL Tout Wars Results.