Am I Crazy? My 2018 Tout Wars Team
Last year, I filled in for Stephania Bell at Tout Wars. This year I was invited to to join Tout Wars in the H2H league. I responded by putting together a team (that I think) is unlike any other that has ever been assembled on that kind of stage.
Before we get into the why, let’s take a look at the final product:
| Player | $ | |
|---|---|---|
| C | J.T. Realmuto | $11 |
| C | Evan Gattis | $6 |
| 1B | Brandon Belt | $1 |
| 2B | Daniel Murphy | $9 |
| SS | Marcus Semien | $2 |
| 3B | Mike Moustakas | $3 |
| MI | Cesar Hernandez | $2 |
| CI | Eugenio Suarez | $5 |
| OF | Kevin Kiermaier | $6 |
| OF | Eduardo Nunez | $4 |
| OF | Bradley Zimmer | $6 |
| OF | Michael Conforto | $2 |
| OF | Mitch Haniger | $1 |
| UT | Matt Chapman | $1 |
| P | Max Scherzer | $54 |
| P | Clayton Kershaw | $52 |
| P | Robbie Ray | $24 |
| P | Carlos Martinez | $27 |
| P | Johnny Cueto | $10 |
| P | Jeff Samardzija | $15 |
| P | Sonny Gray | $9 |
| P | Marco Estrada | $5 |
| P | Dan Straily | $5 |
| Reserve | Chris Stratton | |
| Reserve | Kyle Gibson | |
| Reserve | Kendrys Morales | |
| Reserve | Clayton Richard | |
| Reserve | Josh Harrison | |
| Reserve | Felix Hernandez | |
| Spent on Hitting | $59 | |
| Spent on Pitching | $201 |
Yes, I spent $201 on pitching… Now, before you call me crazy or say that I am attention seeking, let’s talk about why I did this. It is all about the format. This year the H2H format switched to a points league from a roto categories league. Here is the point system:
| Hitter Stats | Point Value | Pitcher Stats | Point Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single | 1 | Win | 5 |
| Double | 2 | Loss | -3 |
| Triple | 3 | Save | 5 |
| Home Run | 4 | Blown Save | -3 |
| Walk | 1 | Strikeout | 1 |
| Strikeout | -0.5 | Walk | -1 |
| Run | 1 | Out | 1 |
| RBI | 1 | Hit Allowed | -1 |
| Stolen Base | 2 | Earned Run | -1 |
| Caught Stealing | -1 |
You may still think I am crazy, but there is more! Unlike most points’ leagues, you don’t win the week by having the most points overall. In this format, two points are awarded to the team with the most hitting points, two points are awarded to the team with the most pitching points, and then four points are awarded to the team with the most overall points.
Still think I am crazy? Probably, but there is method to the madness. The strategy is to dominate the pitching points and get enough from my offense to win the overall points each week while likely ceding the hitting points. In order to do this, I needed to spend more than the other competitors on the pitching side. I assumed (wrongly) that about a third of the people would look at the format and do a 50/50 split between hitting and pitching, a third would do a split favoring hitting, and a third would do a split favoring pitching. Here is how it actually shook out:
| $ Spent on Hitting | $ Spent on Pitching | % Spent on Hitting | Percentage Spent on Pitching | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Andrea Lamont | 167 | 93 | 64.2% | 35.8% |
| Peter Kruetzer | 175 | 85 | 67.3% | 32.7% |
| Kyle Elfrink | 199 | 61 | 76.5% | 23.5% |
| Howard Bender | 151 | 109 | 58.1% | 41.9% |
| Dr. Roto | 151 | 109 | 58.1% | 41.9% |
| Jake Ciely | 167 | 93 | 64.2% | 35.8% |
| Stephania Bell | 146 | 114 | 56.2% | 43.8% |
| Paul Sporer | 167 | 93 | 64.2% | 35.8% |
| Clay Link | 134 | 126 | 51.5% | 48.5% |
| Jeff Mans | 160 | 100 | 61.5% | 38.5% |
| Justin Mason | 59 | 201 | 22.7% | 77.3% |
| Michael Rathburn | 188 | 72 | 72.3% | 27.7% |
Only one team did about a 50/50 split, Clay Link of Rotowire. Everyone else went with a traditional hitting heavy approach. This allowed me to not only to invest more money in my pitching than anyone else, but spent more than double than all, but four of my competitors. Using our Depth Charts projections on, my nine pitchers all ranked in the top 63 in projected points in this format. Seven of them ranked in the top 31. Five of them ranked in the top 21. I should dominate pitching.
The question becomes, do I have enough offense to help me win the weekly overall with my fantastic pitching? I think I do. The Stars and Scrubs approach most people used in this draft allowed me to get some fantastic deals on the offensive side. I was able to Evan Gattis, (my second ranked catcher in this points format) and JT Realmuto (my fifth ranked catcher in this format) who both have tremendous value in this points league as they will get a ton of plate appearances. Catcher also has the worst replacement value and largest drop offs in terms of point production versus every other offensive position. Both Conforto and Murphy are coming off of injuries, but in a shallow league with unlimited DL, I was willing to take those risks for $2 and $9 respectively. Getting Chapman, Haniger, and Belt at $1 were steals. I feel like I got a ton of value on most of my offense. The only mistake was getting Zimmer at $6. I just wanted him because I have always been his biggest fan, but he is not great for this format due to how much he strikes out and the lack of value in speedsters. He may get cut early on.
There was a lot of discussion of how valuable closers were in this format. Many people pointed out that a save is as much as a win and that closers get 20-40 saves and starters only get 12-18 wins on average. I vehemently disagreed with that thought process. There is so much that can go wrong with closers. A blown save loses you three points and it can also come with a loss which loses you another three points. They also pitch a lot less innings and get less strikeouts, which limits their upsides. Less than 20 relief pitchers were worth more than $1 in this format last season and only five of them earned more than $10. According to my projections, only five of the relief pitchers that were bought are projected to outearn my last starting pitcher worst projected pitcher Marco Estrada. For the most part, closers aren’t worth much of anything in this format as far as I am concerned.
In the end, I feel like I had a good grasp of the format and executed my strategy almost to perfection. If the strategy is flawed, then I will pay for it. There is a bit of risk to my strategy, but not necessarily as much as some may think. The fact I am so overloaded in pitching means I can better absorb an injury or two to my pitching staff. It would be awful to lose an ace, but it would be catastrophic to lose my ace if he was the only one I had. The biggest part of the risk is will I get enough from my offense to help me carry the overall each week. That has yet be decided, but all the projection systems that I have see (including the on below that Jake Ciely posted) have me leading the league in points.
Now, obviously standings projections mean absolutely nothing, but it tells me that I should feel somewhat good about my chances. Still think I am crazy?
Justin is the co-host on The Sleeper and The Bust Podcast and writes for Rotographs covering the Roto Riteup as well as other periodic articles. In addition to his work at Rotographs, Justin is the lead fantasy writer/analyst and co-owner for FriendswithFantasyBenefits.com, and the owner of The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational. He is also a certified addiction treatment counselor. Follow Justin on Twitter @JustinMasonFWFB.
That’s called a well executed strategy.
Really interesting idea – fascinated to see how it turns out. Keep us posted throughout the year on your progress! As a side note – do you know what kind of software program/tool Jake Ciely is using in the snapshot above?
I believe it’s fantasy pros draft analyzer
I’m projected to spend $219 on Pitching in Ottoneu this season. Most people say I’m flippin nuts. So that probably makes you some degree of crazy.
Congrats on the 8th place squad. This is called “The Sweeney Plan”. If done perfectly you’ll finish 3rd. Your hitters stink.
The Sweeney Plan is a homer run and RBI double punt, not what I did here. It is also a Roto strategy, not a H2H one. Thanks though.
This is why a plan like this will often succeed. Some people just can’t grasp the idea that significantly changing league settings will often significantly change the optimal strategy. I’m surprised you were the only one who tried it, well done!
This isn’t Roto. That’s the end of my argument against this statement.
That looks really good. You’d think people would notice that a perfect one-inning, three-strikeout save is worth the same as just pitching four innings.
Did Clay Link go really heavy on closers? You mentioned that he spent the second-most on pitching and I see that he’s projected to have the fewest points in pitching by a decent margin, which is pretty impressive in its own way.
Not only do closers not have a ton of upside when they are good, they have a ton of downside when they blow a save. Usually a blown save comes with a loss, earned runs, and walks and hits. You could easily get negative points.
Clays pitching staff is:
Shohei Ohtani – pitcher 17
Justin Verlander 36
Aaron Nola 31
Dallas Keuchel 16
Luke Weaver 10
Dinelson Lamet 5
Blake Snell 6
Felipe Rivero 4
Eduardo Rodriguez 1
I liked it better than the projections did.
The reason other teams spent less on pitching than you is because of you. You skewed the results by outbidding them. Whereas someone might have bought Kershaw for $50 if it weren’t for you, you bought Kershaw at $52. And since you sought to dominate pitching so obviously, it changed other people’s approches to hitting.
not exactly. Justin drafted (and pushed up) 2 top 4 pitchers and 4 top 17ish pitchers. There were plenty of other pitchers to be taken, and you could even argue Justin helped push the price up on more pitchers. The league overall did a 60/40 split.
This team could kill in a pts league obviously, but its always risky spending on pitching. An owner in my league tried this last year, ended up with Syndergaard, Strasberg, and cueto, and finished 11th
He drafted a lot of risk in that pitching staff though too with Syndergaard and Strasberg. I tried to go with guys I felt pretty comfortable that were going to get a lot of innings at the top of my rotation.
The other teams were crazy not to respond to valuation changes caused by the shift in point values. I would have done the same thing, assuming that there is no restriction on innings pitched per week. Streaming is also a viable strategy under these settings.
This is why I love points leagues; it exposes the people that don’t adjust to the different settings.
This precisely why I don’t like points leagues without plenty of restrictions on streaming…it becomes all about who streams more.
Cut down the weekly “moves” to something like 5. Since you frequently need 2-3 moves just to deal with injuries and “hot pickups”, that limits streaming starts to about 2 a week.
Until you stream for a -11 point game.
Scoring is pretty similar to my pts league, atlhough mine’s not H2H. Assuming no innings max per week (I assume you’d have mentioned if there is one), you’ll do ok, especially in weeks where Scherzer/Kershaw/Ray/Martinez make 2 starts. And probably Gray. But if you’re only getting 1 start weeks you’re not going to win the overall 4 pts. I think the hitting will give people more of a stable base from week to week.
In the end it comes down to health, like it normally does. I think you’d be better off having invested the 42 dollars from Martinez/Samardizjaiaigjoiage into hitting and a couple of cheap arms. Or just stream 2 start pitchers each week with your last spot or two.
Are there no caps on IP or starts each week? If not, relievers could be more valuable to teams willing to stream heavily.
There is a season long minimum, but no max
Could be a flaw in your strategy if there is enough depth on waivers for folks to stream consistently. Teams with stronger hitting could abuse this whereas you can’t stream hitters as effectively.
This would work a few seasons ago, but it’s pretty hard to find solid streaming options that can top his rotation.
If no max on innings or starts wouldn’t the strategy to just be get as many innings as possible (assuming mos players average something positive). I would spend all money on hitters and then just stream as many pitchers as possible everyday (this assumes daily league, if weekly that changes things a bit though is prob still my strategy)
If you stream enough, you’ll get Ws and Ks almost by proxy, (sacrificing era and whip)
This isn’t Roto…..
Streaming has dried up in the live ball era. Not worth it anymore
Then I think you wrongly valued (and targeted) Straily and Richards on the basis of them accumulating innings on the year, which merely indicates they stayed healthy. If you can stream, you can get better quality (higher scoring) starts from more skilled SP with good matchups.
I mean those guys will show nice $ on your auction calculator just because they accumulated innings on the year, and not even necessarily high IP per start to go with their crappy ratios….week to week you are not gonna like their point totals regardless of an IP being 3 points.
Given how strong your starting pitching is, why wouldn’t you take a shot on some high upside offensive bench players instead of the likes of Clayton Richard and Chris Stratton?
I may end up dropping Stratton, but I am a big fan of his. I loaded up on starters on my reserve to set up streamers in two start weeks. Richard was also very valuable in this format because of his innings totals, strikeout totals and the fact that he is likely the #1 in San Diego which means he won’t be skipped and could land a lot of two start weeks in spite of the longer schedule this year.
This completely makes sense,
Though that doesn’t preclude you from being bonkers…
What a weird league. I get the feeling that it will be phased out sooner or later. The only two viable strategies look like they are to punt pitching and stream away or to punt hitting and do what you did. Given the normal sized rosters and 12-team mixed factor, I imagine it is shallow enough for some solid streaming options, which might make the punt pitching strategy stronger, although that could be tricky given that iffy pitchers can be dangerous with the negatives. Still, sooner or later, results will show which strategy is best and make the format obsolete.
Agreed. I think you need strict acquisition limits or IP/starts caps for points leagues like this not devolve into gaming the scoring system by streaming.
I like points leagues, and given this one’s scoring this is a very viable strategy. I expect in the future wins/losses/saves/blown saves will be discounted (and maybe strikeouts exalted) in order to even the hitting/pitching tilt, but even so in points leagues pitching matters- which is kind of nice.
We got rid of Wins and Losses in my points league a few years ago and it has gone a long way towards evening out the balance.
I agree with your analysis on closers and their extreme volatility. In the H2H points league I manage, we ended up completely removing the penalty for a blown save, and added +2 for a hold. They are still worth less than a good SP, but are now reasonable.
I’m generally a fan of spending heavily on H2H pitching, even in a more standard league. I have a 6×6 with K/BB. I’m keeping Kershaw, Max, Sale, Kluber, Carrasco, Godley, and Morton for a combined $219 of my $260 budget.
The league in question is only 12 teams/25 player rosters so it’s not hard to compete with a $15 offense of $1 players. I’ve been using this strategy for 3 years and have either finished top 2 regular season (biggest cash awards) or won the postseason (third biggest award).
Without knowing what the strategy was ahead of time, I really loved the infield that you put together at those price points to be honest. When I got to the outfield, I figured out what was coming next.
After seeing the end result, this is a team I would be interested in managing but I really wish that either Martinez or Ray was another hitter (preferably an OFer). I love the Conforto pickup for $2 and I think every IF you have is a bargain. Would love to see how this plays out.
just think if this works! It’s the Baseball version of drafting all WR’s with your top four or five picks-
We’ll see who’s laughing in the end (insert evil laugh)!!!!!!!
Based on the assumption of weekly transactions and a weekly roster locks…..
Your team generated 16.3 pts per start last year.
16.3 x 11.2 starts per week = 180 points per week.
Hypothetical team (using stats from last year):
League average starters = 4.50 ERA, 1.35 WHIP, 5.5 IP, 8K/9, 49% W% = 11.8 pt/GS
Bad pitchers = 5.00 ERA, 1.50 WHIP, 4.8 IP, 3.8 K, 38% W% = 8.5 pt/GS
Load up on cheap “League average” pitching for $30. Dedicate reserve to more SP.
End up with a stable of 11 or so SP.
Start 6 of your starters per week = 9.3 GS x 11.8 = 110 pts
Stream 3 bad starters per week = 6 GS x 8.5 = 50
= 160 points average
Start 5 starters = 8.4 GS x 11.8 = 100
Stream 4 bad = 8 GS x 8.5 = 70
= 170 points average
153 out of 185 pitchers with 10+ game started earned more than 8.5 per start
92 out of 185 pitchers with 10+ game started earned more than 11.8 per
85 “starters” were drafted.
I’m guessing that this strategy would ultimately average 190-200 points per week in pitching. That’s what happens when a two start week from Ricky Nolasco equals one start from Robbie Ray.
Your league mates would catch on eventually and mimic, but at that point it would probably already be too late because you spent $230 on hitting and picked up cheap two start starters at the beginning of the season.
If every owner is trying to stream bad pitchers, I don’t think it will be likely to be able to stream 3 or 4 bad starters a week. Also, is there anything precluding Justin from streaming bad pitchers, too? He has all his P spots to use for whoever is starting that day since he doesn’t have any relievers he needs to keep active.
Damn, that format just crushes relievers doesn’t it? Just using ZiPS projections, I get Jansen with 403 points and Scherzer with 609. Even Straily comes out with 350 points.
Tough for relievers to hang when they are spotting starters 360 points (60 IP v 180 IP) to start with. . . . .
As to your strategy – a lot of injury risks there on offense. Fundamentally one of the categories is total bases so I think I’d have focused on healthy guys with an everyday job.
Wow, a whole new meaning to: “no hitter”. Ha!
Annnnd this is why points leagues are stupid
Yes, they can seem dumb when a point-based strategy beats out quantity of team talent. I remember in a fantasy hockey league I noticed that faceoffs won were worth 1 point, the same as an assist (goals were 2 points). I maxed out on no-name face off guys and was very competitive. It was fun, but indeed, points leagues can be silly with certain settings.
Not crazy at all. My first year I did a H2H points league with a bunch of guys who assumed traditional fantasy values and I did the same thing. I found that pitchers would be worth about 100 points more than batters in most cases and drafted 4 aces in the first 4 rounds before anyone knew what was happening. Got 8 guys in my top 50 pitchers, got value on the hitting side and I ran away with first place right from the very beginning. The league manager made sure to change the point values the next year.