On Saturday, fantasy baseball nerds across the land gathered inside the clubhouse at Richmond County Bank Ballpark in Staten Island, for our first in-stadium Tout Wars extravaganza. It was a cool experience, and four auctions were completed in one day! As usual, I participated in the AL-Only league, but this time, I was returning as the defending champion. Now if only my leaguemates would have allowed me to win Aaron Judge for $3 again.
It’s tough to create a perfectly balanced team on draft or auction day. Owners are feeling the push-and-pull of trying to balance all five categories in a roto league. Mid-draft, many owners decide to drop a category with the hope of finding the needed stats on the waiver wire. Knowing which stats can be found can be tricky. By looking back at last season’s Tout Wars leagues, a decent idea of available stats can be determined.
One feature of the OnRoto.com fantasy league website computes the league’s final standings using just the drafted teams (nine pitchers, 14 position players). I took these draft values and compared them to the actual final values for each of the four roto leagues (12-team AL and NL-only and the two 15-team mixed leagues).
Some specific notes on these leagues. First, they are deeper than most leagues so every player who might be good is already owned. As for the timing of the mixed draft (the other three were auctions) happened a few weeks before the other three. Additionally, only the 23-man rosters were used used for the projected standings. Each team had an additional five or six-person bench.
After squeaking out the top finish in the inaugural 2016 Tout Wars Head-to-Head league, I moved to the 15-team mixed auction league. It was an interesting season and here are some of my “highlights”.
Aaron Judge, my thank you card is in the mail.
This was my fourth year in the American League only Tout Wars league after winning the inaugural Tout Wars mixed draft league back in 2013. I’ve had two bottom tier finishes, a second place in 2015, and now…a Yoo-Hoo shower! And since this post is partially meant to give me a pedestal to brag from, I will giddily share that I not only won, but set multiple league records along the way as well. My team scored 109 of a possible 120 points, the most in AL Tout history, while my 26 point victory margin was also the most. In addition, I set a couple of category records, and actually won eight of the 10 categories. It was quite the season.
The season is at the one-third marker and owners need to evaluate their team moving forward. In roto leagues, the main focus should be future standings gains. I will go over the procedure using my 15-team Tout Wars mixed league as an example.
To start with here is my start of the week Tout Wars standings.
| Team Name | R | HR | RBI | SB | OBP | W | SV | ERA | WHIP | SO | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fred Zinkie | 13 | 12 | 7.5 | 8.5 | 15 | 15 | 1 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 111 |
| Al Melchior | 8 | 8.5 | 11 | 10 | 13 | 11.5 | 10 | 14 | 14 | 8 | 108 |
| Joe Pisapia | 15 | 14 | 15 | 13 | 10 | 9 | 11 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 96 |
| Ray Flowers | 9.5 | 8.5 | 12 | 8.5 | 7 | 6 | 15 | 13 | 11 | 1 | 91.5 |
| Ron Shandler | 11.5 | 4 | 3 | 15 | 11 | 11.5 | 2.5 | 10 | 12 | 9.5 | 90 |
| Jeff Zimmerman | 9.5 | 10.5 | 7.5 | 14 | 12 | 2.5 | 12.5 | 7 | 1 | 13 | 89.5 |
| Zach Steinhorn | 11.5 | 15 | 14 | 4 | 4 | 8 | 4 | 8 | 3 | 11 | 82.5 |
| Bret Sayre | 7 | 6.5 | 13 | 1.5 | 14 | 14 | 12.5 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 81.5 |
| Scott Swanay | 14 | 13 | 10 | 6.5 | 8 | 6 | 2.5 | 1 | 6 | 12 | 79 |
| Brent Hershey | 5 | 3 | 4 | 1.5 | 9 | 11.5 | 9 | 15 | 15 | 5 | 78 |
| Gene McCaffrey | 6 | 10.5 | 9 | 12 | 1 | 2.5 | 8 | 3 | 9 | 6 | 67 |
| Derek Van Riper | 1.5 | 6.5 | 6 | 6.5 | 3 | 6 | 5.5 | 11 | 8 | 9.5 | 63.5 |
| Tim Heaney | 3 | 2 | 1 | 11 | 6 | 11.5 | 5.5 | 9 | 7 | 7 | 63 |
| Scott Engel | 1.5 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 14 | 5 | 2 | 15 | 51.5 |
| Scott Pianowski | 4 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 7 | 6 | 10 | 2 | 48 |
I’m happy to be involved a nice battle for fourth place after being in last place to start the month around the 60 point mark.
On Friday the Blue Jays called up Anthony Alford. The move surprised me since he struggled in 2016 with a 29% K% in High-A. He was doing better in Double-A this season (17K%, .393 wOBA) but I figured he would follow a progressive advancement with a Tripe-A stint.
Here’s a quick dive into what we know about his possible production. First here are his available prospect grades.
| Source | Year | Batting | Power (Raw/Game) | Speed | Defense | Arm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FanGraphs | 2017 | 40 | 60/50 | 70 | 55 | 40 |
| MLB | 2017 | 50 | 50 | 70 | 60 | 45 |
| MLB | 2016 | 60 | 45 | 70 | 60 | 45 |
| MLB | 2015 | 60 | 45 | 70 | 60 | 55 |
| BA | 2017 | 60 | 50 | 60 | 55 | 40 |
| BA | 2016 | 60 | 45 | 70 | 60 | 40 |
Tout Wars Outfield
I knew coming into the season, my Tout Wars outfield would not be the strongest. Usually, I wait on outfielders until they become great values which happen around the $15 mark. The only outfielder I send more than $15 on was Jose Ramirez and he is now at second base with Logan Forsythe on the DL. I need to start four these five with Bellinger taking the other outfield slot.
| Name | Cost | G | PA | HR | R | RBI | SB | BB% | K% | AVG | OBP | SLG | ISO | BABIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kevin Kiermaier | $12 | 33 | 139 | 1 | 15 | 6 | 5 | 10.1% | 25.2% | 0.205 | 0.297 | 0.270 | 0.066 | 0.279 |
| Kole Calhoun | $8 | 32 | 138 | 4 | 17 | 11 | 0 | 8.0% | 19.6% | 0.248 | 0.319 | 0.384 | 0.136 | 0.287 |
| Carlos Beltran | $1 | 30 | 121 | 2 | 12 | 10 | 0 | 2.5% | 24.8% | 0.243 | 0.273 | 0.357 | 0.113 | 0.310 |
| Jayson Werth | R | 27 | 110 | 5 | 18 | 10 | 3 | 11.8% | 27.3% | 0.292 | 0.382 | 0.479 | 0.188 | 0.377 |
| Steven Souza Jr. | R | 31 | 136 | 4 | 14 | 19 | 0 | 13.2% | 27.9% | 0.284 | 0.385 | 0.457 | 0.172 | 0.392 |
Beltran is easily the odd man out. The 40-year-old had a decent 2016 season with 29 home runs and a .295 AVG (.337 OBP). This year his ability to make contact is gone dropping from 83% to a career low 74%. The lack of contact has driven his K% to 25% (first time over 20%) and his BB% down to 2.5%.
Quick Look: Jordan Montgomery
Montgomery is probably getting a little more press than the average 24-year-old mildly-touted pitching prospect because he’s a Yankee. I decided to see what is behind the hype by watching yesterday’s start.
• He’s a left-handed pitcher with a high 3/4 arm slot and pitches straight to home. No weird left-handed pitcher angles going on here.
• Fastball (Four-seam: 30, 2-seam: 50): He has a two and four-season fastball which both sit at 89-92 mph. He’s able to command both of them around the plate, but the two-seamer should perform better. It has some nice late life as seen here.
Quick Look: Mike Foltynewicz
The people spoke and I watched Foltynewicz’s start this past Friday.
Who should I watch (and then write about) this afternoon?
— Jeff Zimmerman (@jeffwzimmerman) April 7, 2017
I’ve seen him throw previously and nothing has changed. He’s got a hard straight fastball and owners seems to be hoping one or more of his non-slider breaking pitches eventually play up. I only tracked his progress for the first two or so innings and quit once the rain at the game started coming down. Here’s what I saw.
Fastball (Grade 55): 92-97. Straight. Some rise. Heavy early use. The ball comes in fast and sometimes leaves even faster.
Tout Wars Weekend
This past weekend, I participated in the 15-team Tout Wars mixed auction. Participated is a misleading term. Survived is probably more accurate. The auctioneer, Jeff Erickson of Rotowire, keeps the auction moving along at a pace which barely allows a person to find a player’s bid value yet alone perform any in auction calculations. Most of the breaks aren’t breaks. They are used to catch up with your team and assess the rest of the league.
Additionally, the location added difficulty. We bid in an open New York City bar on a Saturday afternoon into the evening. It was not a quiet venue. Since I am about 3/4 deaf, it made hearing everything hard at times. Additionally, as the auction went from afternoon to evening, our location lost its window lighting and morphed into the bar’s dimly lit romantic location. It might be great for singles hoping to score but it forced me to read my printed rankings from my laptop’s light. Even with the challenging conditions, the auction process was great.
I came with a plan of taking Mike Trout and Clayton Kershaw and then filling in my team with $10 options and four $1 plays. With Trout and Kershaw, I found over the past three seasons, no owner has spent over $38 on Kershaw and $48 on Trout. My valuation had both valued more than those top values. These two were the only two top players who went close to their perceived values with heavy inflation for the top 30 or so stars. I devised a predraft plan on allocating the rest of my money on the other 21 players after dropping closing to $90 on just the two players. My backup plan was to just to go with my normal value centered approach. Within four nominations, the auction dictated I switch to the alternate plan.
