(*) FANALYTICS: My Tout Wars bid openers

In my continuing look at the decision-making process for Draft Day (see my Tout Wars draft prep article), I think it is a useful exercise to analyze the players I tossed out to open bidding at last weekend's draft. Bid openers offer an important tactical advantage.

I like to use my early tosses to help set benchmark values for scarce positional or statistical commodities—mostly catchers, closers or top speed guys. By opening bidding on a top player, we set a general ceiling for the values of all subsequent like players, which aids in the bidding process down the line.

I had the 5th toss in last weekend's Tout Wars-AL draft and I used it to open bidding on Mariano Rivera. Given that there are few sure things in AL bullpens and it was a heavy New York-centric room, I figured the Yankees closer would provide a measure of upper level closer pricing as well as risk tolerance. Rivera ended up going for $19; no other closer went higher.

When my second toss came around, I noted that no starting pitchers had been selected yet. I considered opening Justin Verlander but thought that I might be able to sneak in Chris Sale, a high-end arm with slightly lower market value. At that point, owners were busy spending their cash on big bats and there were still several higher-ranked starters. Bidding on Sale stalled at $20 and I took him for $21. Given that my draft plan called for just one "anchor" starter, this gave me flexibilty to start tossing other high-end starters in subsequent rounds.

And as luck would have it, no other pitchers came off the board by time my next opener came back around, so tossing Justin Verlander was an easy decision. He went for $31, which I was happy about. It's tough to imagine a $10 difference in value between Verlander and Sale.

Another one of my draft goals was to roster a frontline closer between $10 and $15, focusing on arms that owned the role but might have slightly lesser skills. With several better closers still available, I opened on Joel Hanrahan, thinking that his negative skills buzz and Boston's deep bullpen might depress his value. He got bid up to $15, which I thought was too high in comparison to the top closers going for $19, so I dropped out.

When my next opener came around, I was surprised to find that one of the top contributors to a scarce commodity was still on the board—José Reyes. I had only a $15 budget for a shortstop, so he was not a target, but tossing him out served to extract $31 from another owner's budget.

At the next pick, I took another shot at tossing a discounted closer—Ernesto Frieri—and was very happy to land him at $9. I know that Ryan Madson was signed to close for the Angels, but he is not completely healthy and, at worst, might be eased into the role over time. At best, if Frieri gets off to a good start, he might hang onto the role. At $9, I considered it a worthwhile gamble.

In the next two rounds, I tossed out big power bats with batting average downside—commodities that I would have wanted to roster at the right price—but dropped out on Chris Davis ($20) and Trevor Plouffe ($15).

By my toss in the ninth round, Melky Cabrera was still out there. I only had Yoenis Céspedes and Austin Jackson in my outfield at that point and a $15 budget for another outfielder. Had bidding on Cabrera stopped at $20 or less, I probably would have taken him—and I thought he might go short, given that a good deal of cash was off the board—but he was bid up to $22 so I was out.

At this point in the draft I needed to start focusing exclusively on my own needs. I've written about how speed tends to fall and I had waited to start grabbing stolen bases. I tossed Alcides Escobar and rostered him for $19.

By the 11th round, I still had but two outfielders, but could not pull the trigger on my next two tosses—Michael Morse, who went for $17, and Josh Willingham, who went for $23. In retrospect, I should have gone another buck on Morse as I ended up having to scramble for outfielders in the end game.

Round 13 and I completed my infield by tossing, and buying, Eduardo Núñez for $8. I have no faith in the Yankees regulars this year.

With Frieri on board, I might have considered grabbing Ryan Madson as a handcuff, but I tend to shy away from players coming off of injury. Still, there were a few owners who had bullpen holes and cash to spend so I tossed out Madson. Bidding stopped at $5, which was incredibly frustrating, but I had already rostered three relievers at that point and did not want to take on another.

From then on, I was just tossing names of players I needed to fill holes. Some I got, some I didn't. Pretty typical draft.

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