This past weekend, I missed out on one of my favorite weekends when I head to New York for the Tout Wars 15-team mixed auction and the NFBC Main Event. While the NFBC Main Event was postponed, the Tout Wars auction went on but from the confines of our homes. Here are a few observations on a team I may not get to manage this year and how can these industry drafts help the people in their own leagues.

Thanks to Fred Zinkie and Tanner Bell who both jumped on Skype with me to bounce ideas off and at least giving me someone to talk to.

Preparation

Simply, I have a whole book on how I prepped for the auction. I didn’t deviate from it except in the following few ways. Each will be incorporated into future editions of The Process.

First, I split apart the player pool into four groups: Catchers, non-catchers, starters, and closers. The tendencies of the league are set with each group having their own valuations. The big change for me is a separate catcher group. I didn’t go through the whole replacement level valuations that boost up some catchers into the top-20 players and mess with the auction dollar distribution. Instead, I made them their own player pool. After catchers messed up my hitter valuations in LABR, I adjusted and fewer in auction adjustments were needed.
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This past Sunday, I participated in the first-ever 12-team mixed LABR auction. I have a whole Process on how to create auction values, though one input that was missing for my analysis was any historical league context. While I’ve competed against some of the other owners, there was no league or ownership history like the other LABR leagues to incorporate. Here is how I approached the league and where I failed to take the market into account and rostered a subpar, unbalanced team.

Just so everyone knows, it’s a 12-team standard (AVG) mixed league with 14 hitters and nine pitchers with five reserves (which dropped from six mid-draft). We have $100 FAAB with $1 minimum bids and any player (besides minor leaguers or players on the IL) picked up must be started that week. After that week, they can move freely to and from the reserve list. Also, there are unlimited IL slots.
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TGFBI starts on Monday, but yesterday KDS ran for all 26 leagues. This year there are 390 participants in The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational from all around the industry. Here is each league and the order the participants will be drafting in:
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Last Tuesday, just four days into February, I participated in the earliest LABR draft ever. We always draft in February, but had to do so a week earlier than usual this year due to owner availability. Though I’m certainly not a fan of February drafts, at least it provides me the needed motivation to finish my first run of Pod Projections (now available!) that drive my player values. Without the forecasts and valuation spreadsheet, I’d be drafting blind, and that’s no blueprint for a Yoo-hoo shower. This actually marked my return to the league, as I was on vacation last year when the draft was scheduled.

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I’m headed back from a weekend in New York City after participating in the 15-team Tout Wars mixed auction and a NFBC Main Event league. It was great catching up with everyone and meeting some new faces such as our first president. The weekend didn’t completely consisit of bagels and beers. I had work to do and compiled a couple of teams. Here are my thoughts which other fantasy owners may find helpful.

Pre-weekend thoughts (written before either event).

• Historically the Tout Wars hitter/pitcher split has been a steady 70%/30%. With pitchers being taken earlier and earlier this season, I wonder if this split will change. I’m creating my values with the 70/30 split but know I may need to adjust the split on the fly. Read the rest of this entry »

3/18/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 19, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER19!

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• @sporer – Host
• @justinmasonfwfb – Producer/Co-Host

GET THE SLEEPER & THE BUST T-SHIRT FROM ROTOWEAR!

Notable transactions

• Jung Ho Kang wins 3B
• Carlos Gonzalez to CLE

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I just wrote about some of the players I did not know about from my LABR AL-only league. It’s time for the NL players I didn’t recognize. I figured there would be more on the list because I didn’t do the pre-auction prep work needed to roster full teams. I was wrong. I knew quite a few but a few names didn’t initially

Here are the full AL and NL-only lists.

Most fantasy owners may not agree with the recent #LABR auction values. They may not be even close to rostering as many players. BUT they should look over the players taken and find out why an "expert" wanted them.

AL: https://t.co/uCKWquXmXr

NL: https://t.co/pMafCbEK4O pic.twitter.com/4cCa0yTlU9

— Jeff Zimmerman (@jeffwzimmerman) March 4, 2019

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This past Saturday night I endured Phoenix’s sun and mid-70’s temperatures (Ed. note: ENDURED?? More like basked in!!!) to participate in this year’s AL LABR acution. While I had been in the room before to help Eno Sarris out, it was my first time under the gun. The first item I noticed was that everyone in the room (besides Eno … don’t remind him, it’s a sore subject) had won at least one major industry league (Tout Wars or LABR) and most multiple times. Almost immediately I thought of this line from Rounders:

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We’re a little over halfway through Tout Wars Draft and Hold, a 50-round battle royale. Tout Wars has a standard rule set which includes 5×5 scoring with OBP, active and reserve rosters, and a few other customizations. It’s all pretty close to standard. The Draft and Hold format is brand new. It’s basically a mashup of classic Tout Wars rules with NFBC. The most important detail to remember: there are no trades or waiver moves.

If you’re curious about the exact details, the 2019 Constitution is available online. It governs all Tout Wars leagues.

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2/26/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 20, the best baseball strategy game ever made – PRE-ORDERS AVAILABLE NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms for the March 22nd release! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER20!

Follow us on Twitter

• @sporer – Host
• @justinmasonfwfb – Co-Host/Producer
• @RotoGut – Guest

GET THE SLEEPER & THE BUST T-SHIRT FROM ROTOWEAR!

Note: there’s some choppiness in the audio that I didn’t notice until editing. Not entirely sure what went wrong there, but it shouldn’t impact listenability of the ep.

NOTABLE NEWS

• Clayton Kershaw check-in; where y’all picking him? (:50)

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