This past Saturday morning, I hopped on the NYC subway for the quick trip to Hotel Edison to participate in the annual Tout Wars live auction. It’s one of the most exciting days of the year, and it’s always bittersweet when it’s over, knowing that I’ll have to wait an entire year to auction with these lads again.
My 11th season as an AL Tout Wars participant has concluded and it was once again an extremely frustrating season. I knew that my auction resulted in a high risk/high reward roster, but not only did my high risk guys not work out, many others failed to as well. For those of you who want to refresh your memories with some background information on my auction, check out my initial recap. Let’s start with the final standings.
The 2023 Bold Predictions episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.
Guest: Michael Govier
NFBC & Tout Wars experience
Strategy Section
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The 2023 season marks my fifth year in Tout Wars. My tenure to date can be characterized graciously as mediocre; I accomplished a head-to-head semifinals appearance (a benched Kole Calhoun home run away from a finals appearance) in my 2019 debut but succeeded it with consecutive ghastly, basement-dwelling finishes and last year’s extremely turbulent middle-of-the-pack showing.
Entering my third year of the 15-team 5-by-5 roto mixed league auction (salary draft) with on-base percentage (OBP), I feel like I’ve finally found my footing. I had little enthusiasm for fantasy baseball in its pandemic-shortened 2020 season, and the 2021 season was my first after my daughter was born. Needless to say I had (and still have) a lot less time (and sleep) to prepare than I did in my glory days. And having freshly moved from 12-team head-to-head to 15-team OBP, playing a new format against a high level of talent, I got absolutely clobbered. Last year marked my second in 15-team OBP, and it went a little better.
I vowed to do better this year, despite the impositions—my performance last year gave me a faint glimmer of hope that I could—but that, of course, remains TBD. Truthfully, I have less time than ever before. But I don’t want that to be an excuse. I just knew I’d have to be more focused at the draft table. I think I was. I’ll get to all of that shortly.
First, a review of last season:
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The 2023 Draft Recap episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.
Guest: Steve Cozzolino
The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational (TGFBI)
LABR Mixed Auction
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Every year, fantasy analysts from around the country gather for a collection of leagues called Tout Wars. This year was the 26th season of Tout Wars and the first time we have been able to do these auction leagues live since COVID-19 shut things down prior to the auctions in 2020. This year, I was in the 15-team mixed auction league.
This past Saturday, I hopped on the F train in NYC for the quick trip to Hotel Edison to participate in the first Tout Wars live auctions since 2019. After several Covid-induced online auctions, it was great to enjoy one of the best days of the year in person once again.
My 10th season as an AL Tout Wars participant has concluded and although I failed to take home my second championship, a second place finish was a decent consolation prize. It was also validation of my auction, which was the epitome of high risk and high reward. For those of you who want to refresh your memories with some background information on my auction, check out my initial recap. Let’s start with the standings.
2022 was the worst year I have ever had as a fantasy player. I played in 16 leagues and did not cash in a single one. The hard part is that I don’t even know what went wrong. I had teams I really liked coming out of the draft and some that were doing very well throughout the season. Over the next few weeks I will deep dive into each team in a series of articles to examine what went wrong and what the common threads were. This is my 2022 Apology Tour.
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The Mock Draft Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.
Guest: Chris Welsh
Tout Wars Head to Head Recap
Strategy Section
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