Tout Wars recap: Jose Abreu, Xander Bogaerts, Carlos Rodon and various other Sox

It would not be entirely accurate to say that I entered this year's A.L.-only Tout Wars auction with a highly detailed and thoroughly vetted plan.

No, plan is definitely the wrong term.

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Last year I had a well-rehearsed plan, executed it reasonably well, and then four of my players suffered season-ending injuries almost immediately. Mike Trout couldn't do it all by himself. My pitching staff was basically Yordano Ventura and five dudes who threw like Boof Bonser. That is to say, it was not a good pitching staff.

So this season, I suppose I'm trying to move beyond plan-making, beyond scripting. Still, I did enter the Tout auction with a set of guiding fantasy principles in mind (some of them disposable), plus I'd spent a good deal of prep time identifying players likely to be available for $1 (some of whom went for $7). When preparing for any auction or draft of unusual depth, my focus is generally on finding the best possible end-game targets. It's much easier to tweak your positional budgets mid-auction if you absolutely know that you can live with, say, the $1 outfielders or pitchers or catchers.

At a very basic level, of course, the idea in any fantasy auction is to use your $260 budget to purchase a group of players you believe will deliver far greater than $260 in value. And then you need to remember to address all statistical categories while simultaneously tracking the needs of your competitors ... and their dwindling auction resources, and their bidding habits.

And obviously you don't want to spend your way into a situation in which you're at the mercy of the room, desperately needing stats or positions you can no longer afford. And you need to react appropriately to unanticipated opportunities.

And you gotta know when to quick-bid, when to exceed your prices (ideally never), and when to simply shut up.

Auctions are hard, is what I'm saying. They're also the truest test of an owner's ability to forecast the season ahead, and, without question, an auction is the fairest method of player distribution — every manager gets a shot at every name in the pool. Basically, when the auction vs. draft debate erupts, I'm with Pianowski.

Before we review Tout rosters, I should note that this particular league is not exactly the standard-issue hometown fantasy setup. We select a total of 324 players, strictly from the A.L. Thus, it's inevitable that every manager will start a part-time player or two (hopefully not three). Also, the league is loaded with sharks — here's the lineup. If my back-of-the-envelope math is correct, the managers in this particular A.L.-only league have a combined 877 years of fantasy experience. (Hard to say with precision, because Lawr's true age is unknown. Lost in the mists of history.) Every owner knows every player. We've all won leagues. We're all paid by someone to know something about baseball. I have a pretty fair record as a fantasy ranker, just for the record. Bargains are hard to find in Tout — they only happen by accident, really. Tough league.

This year, for the first time, Tout unintentionally added a survivalist element to the auction by holding it in a room that was as cold as deep space. Serious, bone-chilling cold. Twenty minutes into the event, Chris Liss and I were huddled together, burning a stack of Rotowire draft guides for warmth.

But obviously we all made it through the auction safely, with minimal damage. You can find full results right here. Pick a winner, if that's your thing.

Here's a snapshot of my team and its salaries, beginning with the bats...

C: Jason Castro $13, Geovany Soto $2

1B/3B/CI: Jose Abreu $36, Xander Bogaerts $18, Albert Pujols $26

2B/SS/MI: Jonathan Schoop $4, Elvis Andrus $21, Asdrubal Cabrera $15

OF: Lorenzo Cain $16, Dalton Pompey $11, Seth Smith $5, Aaron Hicks $1

UT/SW: Mitch Moreland $2, Mike Aviles $1

RSV: Billy Burns, Delmon Young

Again, this is a 12-team only-league with 23 active roster spots and a $260 player acquisition budget. It's not possible to assemble a lineup of stars. In a standard mixed league, the quality of your draft or auction is usually determined by your best players; in an only-league, the relative strength of your roster has more to do with the worst names in your lineup. You won't need to mess with guys like Castro, Soto, Schoop, Aviles or Hicks in a 10 or 12-team mixer, obviously. But they all have value in a deep A.L.-only league, because all will see at-bats. Schoop just hit 16 homers in his age-22 season. Aviles carries eligibility at 2B, SS, 3B, OF, CI and MI, plus he's likely to see another 300-400 plate appearances.

Hicks is ... well, OK, he's coming off a rough season, hitting just .215. He also hasn't yet locked down a starting job. He could be a problem. But let's not forget that Hicks has the top-prospect pedigree, and he's demonstrated on-base skills at every level — even in a crummy 2014 season, he still reached base at a .341 clip. Tout replaced AVG with OBP last year, shifting away from traditional scoring.

As mentioned above, my preparations for this year's auction were really all about the end-game names, the $1 to $3 players. Going in, I was comfortable with the depth of the outfield player pool, so I expected to spend sometihng in the $30-$35 range to fill four OF spots, plus UTIL. I would have been substantially below that range, too, if it weren't for a bidding skirmish with Liss on Pompey. No question, I paid full retail price for the Jays presumptive starting center-fielder, but he's a 22-year-old with legit 30-steal speed, and he slashed .317/.392/.471 last year in the minors.

If you need more hype on Pompey (and Burns), I urge you to click here.

Moreland was a prime end-game target of mine, and I nominated him at $2 when no one with an open hitting spot could outbid me. He was an injury-related bust last year, but he's a player with no-doubt power, having a solid spring (10-for-30, 2 HR). Moreland figures to serve as Texas' primary DH this season, so he should have little trouble earning a profit. Unless of course he gets shelved again.

Bogaerts might very well be the make-or-break buy for my team, the player who needs to make a value leap. He's just entering his age-22 season and hitting in a ridiculously loaded lineup, so I'm somewhat optimistic. The kid hit .297/.388/.477 in the high minors back in 2013, when he was only 20 years old, so he remains a high-ceiling young hitter, eligible at premium positions (SS, 3B).

It should go without saying that I'll need Jose Abreu to perform like the 2014 version of himself, when he was one of only two major league sluggers to deliver a 30-100-.300 season. (V-Mart was the other). Abreu was the auction's third most expensive player, behind only Trout ($46) and Jose Bautista ($37), tied with Miguel Cabrera. He's having a silly spring, to no one's surprise, going 18-for-40 with four extra-base hits and seven RBIs. On Tuesday, he hit a ball that didn't land until Wednesday . No, I'm not expecting any sort of catastrophic dip in production in his second big league season.

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And now for the arms...

SP: Hisashi Iwakuma $19, Phil Hughes $14, Anibal Sanchez $13, Danny Duffy $8, Carlos Rodon $2, Tommy Milone $1

RP: David Robertson $20, Neftali Feliz $11, Ryan Cook $1

RSV: Junichi Tazawa, Ricky Nolasco

It feels as if I've worked Phil Hughes into pretty much every video and blog post I've produced this spring, so by now you should know that I'm bullish. His Yahoo ADP remains insane (139.5), considering last year's stellar numbers: 16-10, 3.52 ERA, 2.65 FIP, 1.13 WHIP, 7.98 K/). Hughes has found a park that suits his tendencies, and his control of the strike-zone is, at this point, beyond ridiculous. I seem to own him everywhere. Duffy is a hard-throwing lefty coming off an excellent season (1.11 WHIP), having a solid spring. Assuming good health, he's a good bet to return more than $8 in value.

Rodon was the purchase that pleased me most, however — and I felt that way before Wednesday's four-inning, nine-K performance. At his best, his stuff is pure magic. Almost invisible. Check the tape . There's a very good chance Rodon will arrive in May, if not before. I'm in. He was another end-of-auction target. When Rodon was nominated for a buck, I blurted "TWO!" as quickly and emphatically as possible. So deeply satisfying.

Owning two closers in an only-league is a clear luxury, a move that should guarantee 10 or 12 roto points in at least one category. It should also spare me the agony of season-long saves speculation, which burns through FAAB like nothing else. Of course when you spend $31 on a pair of closers, there's an opportunity cost. If I lose a starter anytime soon, I'll likely regret not using Robertson's salary slot on an upper-tier starter. So it goes.

If you've made it this far ... well, wow. That's a lot of time to devote to another person's fantasy team. You've certainly earned the right to ridicule my roster in comments.

As Dock would have said, let's do the do...

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