Just about, after bingobango helpfully last-minute sniped Youkilis. I'm feeling rich again.

Someone with money really ought to price enforce Xavier Nady.

looks like they already did

Phillies lefthanded pitchers - YEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Every other Philly - meh.

ya i feel like i am a few years behind having the phillies hitters and closer haha

I would but I only have papelbon at 10

no problem

Yeah, I'm less bothered about that now that I don't have half my remaining money tied up in Youkilis. Also, I don't like Papelbon.

can't blame you. I don't remember what I was thinking

A quick note for Ares. Dee Gordon signs his name "Dee Stylez" and stuck out 2 times on 7 pitches today.

This guy sounds like a winner imo.

I like confidence in a guy I had never heard of before I drafted him.

And I will probably always call him Dee Stylez from now on.

pretty sure ludo sent that email today just so he would get it when he opened his email.

I've been in an auction league for years were we get $100 of FA money to play with after the draft. Then FA pickups are controlled like this: you bid on who you want (silent auction style through the system so you don't have to tell anyone who you're after or how much you want to pay) and then every Thursday night the winners get their players.

It's a lot more fun than potentially being hamstrung here if you spend your auction budget on actual players.

luckily i have avoiding taking the auction seriously enough to be broke.

i really meant to get jaime garcia and just completely missed that someone had outbid me.

This is how we've done it in the past leagues I've been in.

Edit for more info:

You got $50 FA money, and the free agent contract was $5 min/ 2 yr max. (So you get punished a little for picking up free agentsin salary and contract length, as you can only keep them 1 year past when you pick them up.) Only money that you spent past $5 counted against your free agent money. IE, if you bid $10 on a player and get him, you now have $45 to spend on free agent money. This ensures that you can pick up players at min contract to always have a healthy team or whatever.

In that league we did not have a minor league system and were AL only, so many times the only pickups worth more than the min were rookies coming up and NL players coming over, neither of which we will have.

Well, no one is making you spend all your $$ now.

This way adds even more strategery to the auction, and allows you to assess/set your level of risk as far as leaving money for inseason use. YMMV of course as to how much you like it; I probably prefer it this way. Or at least am interested in trying it out. I have been in leagues where you do have weekly bidding for FA.

agree

At some point, I should probably get around to deciding how much money I want to have left over. And if you guys could let me know how much you will have left over, that would be cool and really help me with my bidding.

The rules are deliberately designed to encourage people to build a team for the long term, rather than allowing you to make too many changes (while still giving you flexibility to remain competitive if someone is injured). People should be assessing their roster, and working out how much they need to keep - for example, in my other league, I have nobody that I am likely to need to call up this year, cover for most positions on my bench, I will get Johan Santana back later in the year, and my closers are relatively secure, so I don't need to keep as much as some other people. In any case, if you do **** it up and run out of money, you can always work a trade to either fill your gap, or free up some salary.

About $3.50 seems likely.

*looks at LB's roster**

**nods**

I'm trying to leave either $9 or $12 left over. Who knows how it will work out though.

$9 is probably pushing your luck a bit unless your roster is very well designed to minimise the number of guys you need to call up/bring in as DL replacements/whatever.

We have bench? Weekly lineup changes?