2017 Fantasy Baseball Draft Prep: AL-only 5×5 Rotisserie auction shows scarcity of stolen bases, saves – CBSSports.com

Go deep!

OK, then.

Here’s our first foray into the AL player pool, leaving all those NLers out of it (don’t worry — we’ll get to them next).

The format is standard 5×5 Rotisserie, which means a five-outfielder, two-two catcher, 14-hitter lineup for each of the 12 teams. Hey, you wanted deep.

And did I mention it was an auction? Not only did we go as deep as we’ve gone this year, but every owner was in on every player. Buckle up, buttercup.

But it’s OK. It’s good, even. The great thing about auctions is that they tell us what’s really happening within the player pool, untethered to the choreographed dance of the snake draft. There is no “right time” to select a player except for right now, when he’s up for bidding.

And, Lordy, were we living proof.

I’ll sum it up for you in two words: steals, saves. That’s all anybody wanted to pay for. Forget convention. Forget real-life application. The players in highest demand were the ones that could impact those two elusive categories.

And I suppose I should have seen it coming given that I’ve written about the scarcity of stolen bases already and have always known, considering the nature of the role, that the AL features only 15 closers to divide between 12 teams. Or actually, it’s worse than that this year. Any idea how the short-relief situations are going to shake out for the Athletics, Angels and Twins? Yeah, me neither.

Basically, if you wanted a “secure” closer (like there is such a thing), you had to spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $25. It was the same as you would expect to pay for an ace, pretty much. Because of where he was nominated,
Craig Kimbrel
went for a whopping $29. Party like it’s 2012, right?

Here are some examples of stolen bases weirdness:

• 
  Lorenzo Cain
  , who’s coming off a 14-steal season and has a modest career high of 28, went for $25, one less than
  Nelson Cruz
  . Crazy.
• 
  Tim Anderson
  , who stole all of 10 bases in his 99-game debut, went for $23, same as
  Ian Kinsler
  . Crazy.
• 
  Kevin Kiermaier
  , who eclipsed the 20-steal mark for the first time last year … while batting .246, went for $22, same as
  Adrian Beltre
  . Crazy.
• 
  Carlos Gomez
  , who might have some fleeting hope of recapturing some semblance of his youth after a strong September, went for $21, same as
  Kyle Seager
  . Crazy.
• 
  Elvis Andrus
  , who’s coming off sports hernia surgery and is rarely good for more than 25 steals when healthy, went for $20, same as
  Khris Davis
  . Crazy.
• 
  Jacoby Ellsbury
  , who has crashed hard the past two years, went for $18, same as
  Dustin Pedroia
  . Crazy.
• 
  Raul Mondesi
  , who hasn’t even shown he can hold down a major-league job after a lackluster minor-league career, went for $11, same as
  Starlin Castro
  . Crazy.
• 
  Ben Revere
  , who — wait, what team does he play for? — went for $8, same as
  Carlos Beltran
  . Crazy.

Crazy … except that everyone was doing it. I’m the one responsible for paying $18 for Ellsbury. Me! And I hate the guy!

The player. I hate the player. [Grumbles.] I strongly dislike the player.

By the way, our projections have me in the middle of the pack in steals, and my only real sources are
Jean Segura
(solid),
Brett Gardner
(modest) and Ellsbury (modest). It’s fair to say, then, that in some of these cases where the owner paid up for steals, that’s all he has. It was either that or punt the category, and personally, I had already done that with saves.

Here’s who took part in this fresh nonsense:

George Bissell, Baseball Prospectus
Keith Cromer, Patton & Company
Heath Cummings, CBS Sports
Rudy Gamble, Razzball
Bryan Joiner, Baseball Prospectus
Mike Kuchera, The Fantasy Man
Clay Link, RotoWire
Justin Mason, FanGraphs
Tim McLeod, Patton & Company
Dean Peterson, NFBC
Chris Towers, CBS Sports
Scott White, CBS Sports

Note: A seven-round reserve draft followed the 23-round auction. The players selected there are represented with an “R” in place of the dollar amount.

Chris Towers Fantasy Writer, CBSSports.com Ft. Lauderdale, FL, 33309 Mobile: (954)205-6598

On Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 5:08 PM, Chris Towers

wrote:

@cbsinteractive.com>