Peter –
I thought you might put something on your page about how much to FAAB Giambi for. I have some thoughts.
I play in a 4×4 Ultra NL with $100 FAAB. I can’t spend all my money on Giambi, as I spent $5 on Mateo (gamble did not pay off) and then $12 on Estalella (gamble did pay off). But I did advise a friend to go high 90s on Giambi, and this is why.
There are usually two FAAB strategies. One is to fiddle with your team from week to week, hope to strike it lucky with a pickup who becomes a closer or replaces an injured starter. The other is to wait til the trading deadline and blow your wad on the biggest names to cross leagues.
But those guys are only on your team for two months. If you get Giambi, you get him for four months. Even if he only plays 2/3 of the time, he’s still probably worth more than 2 months of, for example, Bobby Higginson. Plus, with a strike looming, you have to spend now in any league that has decided to call an early victor if a strike happens.
Thoughts?
Thanks to Aaron for the above thoughts, which make my job a lot easier. Since I’m gently wrassling with the same issue in Tout Wars (in which the FAAB deadline is 5pm today, the better for us so-called experts to demonstrate what we’re doing) I thought Aaron’s missive was timely. Here’s my take:
I agree.
While there may be better players who will come over to the NL from the AL this year, there may not be. And most of the MLB dump trades will come, as Aaron points out, in late July, nine weeks from now. If you have a hole in your outfield or nearly a hole, that’s nearly one-third of the season you’ll have cash and no player. Unless you get very lucky at midseason Giambi is going to do more for you than any pickup.
And, of course, luck has a lot to do with it. Plenty of teams are going to make aggressive bids for Giambi and not get him. They, of course, can fall back on the hope that Carlos Lee will be traded soon, or Raul Mondesi, or Shannon Stewart, or… You get the idea.
Only one team in each league can guarantee that they get Jeremy, and that’s by going all in. Is he worth it? That is completely dependent on your situation. In leagues that have $0 FAAB bidding I think it’s going to take an all-in bid to get him. If you play in a league in which exhausting FAAB exhausts your chances (apart from trading) for player acquisition, then maybe you’ll be able to get him for less than all in.
My RotoTouts.com Tout Wars team is pretty strong, even though we’ve suffered a complete middle reliever meltdown this week that dropped us into fourth place. So I’m going to bid a lot (say $35) of my FAAB budget (of $51) and I know I won’t get him. But if I was in a desperate situation and I had all my original $100 I think I’d spend it to get him.