Expert League FAAB Report - Week of 7/10 (LABR-Only Edition)
Hi everyone,
As we head into the All-Star break, Tout Wars FAAB is taking a short hiatus with this week’s bids being processed on Thursday night as opposed to the usual Sunday night schedule. In LABR Mixed, however, it was business as usual. Just a reminder that the LABR season FAAB budget is $100 with a minimum bid of $1.
TOP BUYS
Tarik Skubal ($9) - Players on the IL cannot be purchased in FAAB in LABR, so this was our first opportunity to add Skubal. Since making his long-awaited return to the big-league mound after undergoing flexor tendon surgery last August, the Tigers lefty has been plenty impressive, tossing a combined eight shutout innings through two starts while racking up 11 strikeouts. The 26-year-old was on the verge of breaking out last season before he was sidelined, suggesting that there’s good reason for optimism going forward. His innings might be limited for awhile but he should still record enough strikeouts to be a valuable mixed-league contributor. The $9 winning bid beat out five other bids, the highest being $7.
Colton Cowser ($8) - Cowser’s playing time outlook is unclear right now but after batting .330 with 10 homers, 40 RBI, 54 runs scored and seven steals in 56 games at Triple-A this season, the 23-year-old top prospect is getting a chance to prove he belongs in the majors. The early results have been so-so but the sample size (five games) is very small. I don’t think the Orioles would have called him up if they weren’t planning on starting him almost every day but he will certainly need to produce if he wants to stick around with the big club. Eight bucks is a reasonable price to pay for a player with Cowser’s five-category upside and I was surprised that only six managers tried to acquire him.
Alek Manoah ($7) - Quite the comeback for Manoah, who only a few weeks ago didn’t seem anywhere close to returning to the majors. But he might have figured something out during his one-month stint in the minors. Then again, Friday’s encouraging first start back with the Blue Jays came against a sub-par Tigers offense, so let’s see how he fares against tougher competition before we get too excited. But considering that Manoah is only one year removed from a Cy Young caliber season, he deserves to be picked up in any mixed league of 12+ teams, even if you don’t plan on starting him immediately. Seven of the 15 managers in this league submitted bids for the Toronto righty, including a tiebreaker-losing $7 bid and a pair of $6 offerings.
MY BUYS
Unfortunately, nobody. I placed a $6 bid for Skubal along with a $6 bid for Manoah if I missed out on Skubal and didn’t even achieve runner-up status for either. Although I’m currently not desperate for a starting pitcher, it would have been nice to add one of these guys. When it comes to starting pitching, you can never have enough injury insurance.
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