Collette Calls: 2026 AL LABR Review

This article is part of our Collette Calls series.

The League of Alternative Baseball Reality, LABR, began in 1994. RotoWire took some time to take home a league title, but Chris Liss set the standard in 2011 in the AL-only auction before Derek Van Riper took home an NL-only title as well as a mixed-league title in 2015 and 2018. Over the past five seasons, Jeff Erickson won a mixed-league title in 2021, while myself and James Anderson have won two of the last three AL-only titles. I would argue I would have gone back-to-back in 2024 if I had not fought the Law Dog, because Lawrence Butler's monster second half helped propel James Anderson over me in the standings just after Labor Day, and he never looked back on his way to the title. My 2025 team was one I would like to forget, but if I just dismissed the results and did not look back and learn from those mistakes, I would likely repeat the same ones again in 2026, so I would like to explain how my 2025 failures, and the intricacies of AL LABR, framed my 2026 plan.

I used a 58/42 hitting and pitching split in my budget when I won in 2023, because I expected others to spend on hitting and planned on acquiring an extra quality starter or two with the pitching budget. It worked, barely, because Jesse Roche would have likely surpassed me in the standings if the season continued another week, as his team was blazing hot in September. I changed that focus in 2024 to go with a 64/36 split to pick up an extra bat after the title scare of 2023, and that plan nearly worked had James not picked up Butler right before he was arguably the best player in the league the final four months of the season. Last season, I went with a 67/33 split as another reaction to shortcomings in my hitting, and while the $16 spent on Shea Langeliers and $23 spent on Junior Caminero provided excellent returns on investment, nearly every other purchase I made was a junk bond, including the $17 on Zack Gelof, the $13 spent on each of Ryan Mountcastle and Jorge Soler, as well as the $12 spent on Royce Lewis. The $46 I spent on Bobby Witt Jr. was never going to return a profit, but it was supposed to provide a foundation to take other cheap risks later in the auction. Unfortunately, no amount of reinforcement would have helped the purchases I made with the rest of the offense.

Those mistakes were compounded by a pitching staff which included taking a risk on Shane McClanahan's elbow truly being 100% (never trust the team or the player) and Spencer Arrighetti breaking his non-pitching arm in fielding practice. A $1 Noah Cameron, a $17 Joe Ryan and a $13 Carlos Rodon were not enough to carry the rest of the pitching performances and I finished in 10th place overall ending a very successful two-year run in the league. I should never have assumed that much injury rebound risk with McClanahan and Gelof while also rostering the perpetually injured Royce Lewis and that was all fresh in mind as I sat down to decide how I wanted to approach the 2026 auction.

Pitching has carried the load in AL-only LABR success in recent seasons as my research showed me the teams who finished first or second in the league spent at least 32% of their budget on pitching at the auction table. The other factor in play here was Andy Andres, who has traditionally blown up hitting values for the rest of the league by spending $220 on his hitting. He is not the only aggressive spender in the league, but he is typically the only one who will roster multiple hitters who cost $40 or more, and this year was no different. The Andres factor, as well as the aggressiveness I have seen Bret Sayre display in his playing history and what James Anderson has done helped me decide I was staying out of the top three or top five of both hitting and starting pitching. I took on too much risk last year, so I decided to spread it around a bit this year while working with a 68/32 hitting-pitching split, understanding that early hitting prices were likely going to be 15 to 20 percent above the projected values any system was going to spit out due to the particular dynamics in this league.

I created a $177 budget for hitting and an $83 budget for pitching. I do like to budget dollar amounts for each roster spot while reserving the right to be flexible at the draft table should I see a price I like on something I was not planning to do. For example, I ended up with Gerrit Cole a few years back at a price I felt was below market value and ended up trading him to Ian Kahn for Vladimir Guerrero Jr right after the draft when we both saw how the team worked well for our respective teams. This year, this is how I budgeted for my team and the targets I was attempting to reach:

C: $12
C: $2
1B: $15
3B: $15
CI: $10
2B: $14
SS: $21
MI:  $2
OF: $30
OF: $20
OF: $15
OF: $10
OF: $2
U: $2
SP: $24
SP: $10
SP: $10
SP: $3
SP: $2
SP: $2
RP: $24
RP: $10
RP: $5

Runs: 850
Home runs: 240
RBIs :835
Steals:140
AVG: .256
Wins: 85
Saves: 70
Strikeouts: 950
ERA: 3.65
WHIP: 1.27

My overall roster came out as such (* = in 2026 Bold Prediction series)

Admittedly, I did not execute well right out of the gate. Pepiot was not on the list of pitchers I was looking at for the $24 pitching spot, and I got caught pushing him up one more dollar as everyone believes he and the rest of the Tampa Bay pitchers will benefit from the move back indoors. I was hopeful someone would say $19, but that did not happen. That said, Pepiot ended up being the cheapest starting pitcher to go until I bought Mackenzie Gore with the 54th nomination, so I felt better about the Pepiot purchase as things unfolded:

Two nominations later, Chapman came to me at $22, and he was one of the small group of relievers who I was hoping to get to anchor that space knowing I was not going to purchase another guranteed closer spot. Chapman was the third closer off the board, even as the eighth nomination, as Andres Munoz went for $23 while Cade Smith went for $26 the nomination before I acquired Chapman. David Bednar similiarly went for $22, and my break glass in case of emergency option was Ryan Helsley, who went for $17 as the 35th nomination. I would have loved Helsley at that price, but I also do not like getting to the last name on my list and being forced to overpay against someone else, which why I took the chance on Chapman early.

I waited until the 39th nomination to finally start buying some hitting with Rooker and Montgomery. I had to go $1 over slot budget for Rooker, but he was someone I wanted on the team for the boost his home-field advantage gives to his power and run production. Montgomery coming to my team should not have been a surprise after what I said about him in my AL Central Bold Prediction piece earlier this year. I used the cost savings in my pitching budget from the forced audible to Pepiot as SP1 to add Gore as my SP2, who should greatly benefit moving to Texas and its better team defense and park situation. Rafaela was a necessary add for my roster at that moment in time as speed was a lagging category for me, but he also the beginning of a theme where I wanted to collect position flexibility since the free agent pool is quite shallow most weeks. Jung's purchase came before the news broke about him suffering an adductor strain, as that news item was not yet published as I reviewed the RotoWire newsfeed over breakfast just before the auction, hence the end-game purchase of Yoan Moncada. Moncada is currently projected to hit cleanup for the Angels, so assuming Jung begins the season on the IL, I can move Moncada to first and pick up any hitter for the Utility slot, or possibly promote one of my reserves (more on that later).

Kyle Teel is arguably the most regrettable purchase I made, one that came about because I let too many catchers go off the board by the time his name came up:

I do not regret letting any of those catchers go at those prices and I even went to $14 or $15 on Kirk and $10 or so on Jansen, so I went the extra couple of dollars on Teel and soon regretted it after watching Ryan Jeffers go for $8 and Dillon Dingler go for $7 some time later. This will be a lesson to apply to AL Tout Wars in two weeks. Burger and Keaschall were both purchases to address specific needs in the moment. Burger was one of the names I had penciled in for the $15 1B roster spot after making my case for him in the AL West Bold Prediction piece, so I was pleased to get him there. Keaschall was purchased for his speed, as I was encouraged to see Minnesota turn into a track team late in the season. The Twins did dismiss both their manager and General Manager this winter, but Derek Shelton was raised in the Tampa Bay system in their running days so I expect him to utilize Keaschall's speed from somewhere near the top of the order, allowing him to challenge 30 steals this season. 

Next came a run of Bold Prediction purchases that I am pleased to have acquired, as I have these players on multiple teams this winter. Matthews is all but guaranteed a roster spot with the Twins with the Pablo Lopez news and I love his upside this season, and the same can be said about Leiter. We knew he was in the rotation, but his second-half adjustments to both his repertoire and the utliization of his pitches have me excited to see whether this is the start of bigger things to come for him. McNeil continued the positional flexibility plans as well as addressing a need for more run production, hoping he can rake in Sacramento and make my bold prediction come true. Caglianone and Bell were both power adds for me, even if I had to go a little over budget to get the former because I was still on my overall budget plan at that moment. Please revisit what I had to say about these players in this piece as well as this piece. I am, if anything, someone who puts his money and his reputation where his mouth is and do not make these predictions for article quotas or reactions. I make them with the intent of adding or avoiding those players on my team under the right circumstances.

The end game allowed me to fill in the gaps on my roster. I hadn't added any more saves since the early purchase of Chapman, and that was intentional as I believe there is value to be found late with the uncertainty of several AL bullpens. You had to know Sterner was in my plans in the uncertain Athletics pen, and I was able to get him at the budget spot I was hoping to fill with his services. Erceg became a target as the news on Carlos Estevez this spring around his lack of velocity and overall stuff so far has to be concerning despite the fact that he's coming off a surprising 42-save season. Estevez's fastball has already been in a four-year decline, and the extreme flyball pitcher with a low strikeout rate can ill afford to lose his heater as the fences in Kauffman just got a little closer to his back. Moore is in camp working out at third base while also being penciled in as the Opening Day second baseman, so the hope was to gain positional flexibility from him in-season while fully recognizing he could be a total flop if he doesn't make better contact. The Moncada purchase was already explained, while the rhyming purchases of Matz and Latz were both pure Stuff+ purchases, as each had 100 or higher scores in Stuff+, Location+ and Pitching+. It would be nice if one or both make the rotation, but I am betting on the stuff here and trusting the process.

The order of the reserve draft is a randomized process done between the auction and the draft, so you don't know what you can really do until that happens. You feverishly jot down names you would like to get and hope you have enough names written down to make it through the draft. I commented to James Anderson during the break that I loved what he did in the outfield with his budget buys, especially a $1 Brooks Baldwin as his final outfield purchase. I was convinced James was taking Jacob Melton in that spot, and was surprised he did not, and no other outfielder went more than $1 while only Coby Mayo and Kristian Campbell went above that as positional need purchases. The randomizer granted me the second pick, so I had a 50/50 chance in getting my primary target and hoped that another endgame Rays outfielder could help me win this league again as Josh Lowe did in his one good season back in 2023. Luck went my way as Melton did fall to me. He's looked fantastic in camp and could potentially make the Opening Day roster, giving me an in-house option to replace Jung should he open the season on the IL. It also gives me an option should Moore do poorly to start the season, as I have three outfielders who can also play second base that I can move around. Bryan Baker was the next pick as his Stuff+ grades are good, and the Rays bullpen is not a settled situation. Griffin Jax, Garrett Cleavinger and Edwin Uceta went for a collective $23 in the auction, so I took the other option to see how things play out. If anything, I can trade him for one of Eno Sarris's reserves since he lamented about the price it cost him to get Jax throughout most of our lunch together after the auction. 

Round 3 was another outfield power play, looking for the upside that Emmanuel Rodriguez has always shown around his stints on the injured list. The Twins are rebuilding and Rodriguez is but another Byron Buxton injury away from a roster spot. Round four was another homer pick with Ben Williamson, someone I expect to see all over the Tampa Bay infield at some point this season, but for now, he's only eligible at third base, a position I might need help with considering the suspect track records of both Jung and Moncada. Round five was a pure speculative play, but I can't help but get excited watching Carlos Lagrange in camp, not as a starter like he's been throughout his minor-league career, but as a version of Dellin Betances out of the pen. There were safer options there, but the upside was too enticing to pass on given the open opportunities in the middle innings of the Yankee pen. Finally, I made my ninth bold-prediction acquisition, taking Steven Okert to round out my reserves.

All in all, I am happier about how this team came out than I was last year. I can live with question marks at third base, whereas I had an entire suspect outfield last year that played out worse than expected across the board. I would like to have a more proven innings anchor in my rotation since streaming is not possible without making drops, so I'm banking on a lot of youth to carry the day, but I believe the skills acquired in the rotation spots have more reward than risk. Finally, the bullpen situation has tons of upside should Erceg usurp Estevez and if Sterner does what I expect him to do this season. While I did not stick to my positional budget by roster spot, I did finish with the planned 68/32 overall budget split, with $84 spent on pitching and $176 spent on hitting. The league, as a whole, finished with a 67/33 split. 

I have attempted to embed the chronological order of the auction for your review below, but if that view is not to your liking, you can click here to see the source sheet with all the information. I hope this review exercise has been helpful for overall auction strategy as well as those of you who still play mono-league formats, as I have done for nearly 30 years now.