Not as pleased with this one.

We had our 12-team, NL-only 5x5 Rotisserie auction Tuesday, and only now do I have a chance to comment on it. It's not that I think it's a disaster or doesn't stand a chance of competing. But I feel like it could have gone so much better, and our AL-only auction the next day pretty much confirmed my suspicions.

Oh well. Let's just look it over and talk it up.

C - Angel Salome ($1)
C - Yorvit Torrealba ($1)
1B - Travis Ishikawa ($3)
2B - Blake DeWitt ($12)
SS - Hanley Ramirez ($51)
3B - Aramis Ramirez ($34)
MI - Stephen Drew ($29)
CI - Chad Tracy ($1)
OF - Carlos N. Lee ($32)
OF - Bobby Abreu ($8)
OF - Elijah Dukes ($6)
OF - Jerry Hairston ($2)
OF - Nate Schierholtz ($2)
DH - Jonny Gomes ($1)
SP - Yovani Gallardo ($21)
SP - Ryan Dempster ($19)
SP - Brett Myers ($14)
SP - Micah Owings ($1)
SP - Braden Looper ($1)
SP - Jorge De La Rosa ($1)
SP - J.A. Happ ($1)
RP - Jose Valverde ($18)
RP - Ryan Franklin ($1)

Granted, any time you've had a steady stream of mixed-league drafts, a jump in the NL-only pool will come as a shock to the system. Understandably, your team will look worse, and that immediate reaction might help explain my disappointment. But I do detect some clear pitfalls, beginning with my outfield.

Obviously, Abreu came at a discounted rate based on the possibility he'd sign with an AL-team, which he eventually did. Oops. If Dukes ends up moving to the bench with the signing of Adam Dunn, I suddenly have an outfield of Lee and ... garbage, potentially. I like Schierholtz, but I get the strange feeling the Giants don't, at least not as much as poor-hitting team like them should.

Fortunately, my infield -- by design, mostly -- makes up for the shortcomings of my outfield. The Ramirez duo should generate plenty of stats, and having Drew as my middle infielder should give me some sort of advantage. Looking back, though, I showed a little too much love for both him and DeWitt, who I like as a sleeper but not for $12. Those $41 between the two of them would have better served my team elsewhere.

Like maybe my starting rotation. Or maybe not. Maybe I just needed a slightly better dollar distribution throughout. Hard to say. But while a top three of Dempster, Gallardo and Myers looks like an advantage at first glance, that heap of garbage behind it might more or less counteract it. Then again, as with all leagues this deep, half of those low-end starters will eventually give way to whatever middle relievers emerge on the waiver wire during the early months.

If Franklin opens the year closing for the Cardinals, which I think could potentially happen, I suddenly have a nice little purchase. If De La Rosa remains in the rotation and builds on his impressive second half (7-3, 3.08 ERA, 8.4 K/9), I might have another. If Happ beats Kyle Kendrick for the fifth spot in the Phillies rotation -- ah, who am I kidding?

But that's the problem with this team. I have to hope for a few too many breaks. If some go my way, I might end up in pretty good shape, but I could just as easily finish in the bottom half of the standings.

And that's not the way I like to play.

We had our 12-team, mixed 5x5 Rotisserie auction Monday, and I thought I'd share some thoughts on my team, which you'll find so conveniently listed below.

After the general disappointment I felt following each of my last two drafts, I have to call this team my favorite so far:

C - Kurt Suzuki ($1)
C - Brandon Inge ($1)
1B - Adrian Gonzalez ($22)
2B - Ian Kinsler ($39)
3B - Alex Rodriguez ($41)
SS - Jose B. Reyes ($43)
MI - Jimmy Rollins ($40)
CI - Aubrey Huff ($10)
OF - Ryan Ludwick ($14)
OF - Rick Ankiel ($6)
OF - Elijah Dukes ($3)
OF - Nelson Cruz ($2)
OF - Denard Span ($1)
DH - Jason Giambi ($1)
SP - Chad Billingsley ($12)
SP - Zack Greinke ($6)
SP - Aaron Harang ($3)
SP - Jair Jurrjens ($1)
SP - Gil Meche ($1)
SP - Wandy Rodriguez ($1)
RP - Brian Fuentes ($9)
RP - Mike Gonzalez ($2)
RP - Chris Ray ($1)

Notice anything unusual? Yes, I spent $163 of my $260 budget on four players: Reyes, A-Rod, Rollins and Kinsler.

Some people call it a studs-and-duds approach, but I don't really feel the need to qualify it. To me, it just makes the most sense in this particular format. In an auction, where you have the ability to get any player you want, assuming you have the money to follow through with it, why not give yourself as much of an advantage over the competition as possible by securing elite players at the four positions that offer the fewest elite options? In Reyes, A-Rod, Rollins and Kinsler, I have four of the eight elite shortstops, second basemen and third basemen (with Hanley Ramirez, Chase Utley, Dustin Pedroia and David Wright making up the rest of that group). In a draft, you could never, ever, ever, ever do that.

I wouldn't try it in a deeper league, like an AL-only or an NL-only. But in a reasonably sized mixed league, where you know plenty of sleepers will go unclaimed at the end, you could pretty easily patch any shortcomings that result from the big spending. For all the "studs," there really aren't any "duds." You just have to make sure you wait at the positions -- in this case, outfield and starting pitcher -- where you can find the most bargains.

But before you decide this approach sounds too risky or too stressful for you, you should know I don't feel like I spent the majority of this auction biting and clawing for every underpriced talent I could find. In fact, the rest of my picks fell into place rather easily. If you correlate each of my bids to the rounds of a standard draft, calling my highest bid my first-round pick and so on, I got the big four in the first four rounds, obviously putting me ahead of the curve. I got Gonzalez in the fifth round -- no problem there. I got Ludwick in the sixth round -- a little early, but reasonable. I got Billingsley in the seventh round -- still a reasonable pick. I got Huff in the eighth round -- again, perfectly rational. I got Fuentes in the ninth round -- everything good still. I got Greinke in the 10th round -- eh, kind of a reach. You could even defend Harang in the 11th round before running into a clear issue with Dukes in the 12th, but I hopefully made my point. By shelling out all that money early, I really didn't lose anything until the second half of any hypothetical "draft," and considering how much that last half of a mixed-league roster gets turned over during the first weeks of the season anyway, what does it matter?

Of course, when we actually tally up the statistics at the end of the season, will I come out ahead using this approach? I don't know. I obviously can't guarantee it. But in an offseason where I generally haven't felt comfortable with the teams I've drafted, I feel surprisingly good about this one.