Draft and Hold My Beer: A Tout Wars Story

Season Two of Tout Wars: Draft and Hold kicked off earlier this afternoon. It is a 15-team league comprised of various industry bigwigs and heavyweights. This article will present an ongoing narrative of my attempts to improve upon my debut performance of fifth place.

The Draft and Hold format is designed to limit in-season management. We have no trades or waivers. Instead, we select 50 players throughout the course of Spring Training to fill a standard deep roster (2C, 5OF, CI, MI, UTIL). Our only resources are what we pick now. We can make weekly edits to our lineups.

Mike Sheets of ESPN dominated the field in Season One, amassing an absurd 131 roto points. Ariel Cohen (107), James Anderson (105.5), and Matt Modica (104.5) were just out of reach of my 99 point total.

I learned a few lessons from the first season. My team flailed in the power department, producing just four points in home runs and eight in RBI. A mid-tier performance on the pitching side of the ledger (48 of 75 possible points) sealed my fate. Mallex Smith served as a double-edged sword, driving me to 15 points in both runs and SB while dooming my power output.

I knew power would be an issue early in the draft so I used two picks around #100 to “solve” it. Sadly, bets on Jesus Aguilar and Justin Turner didn’t yield the output I expected. I was extremely down on Aguilar last spring, but his over-30 home run projection was sorely needed when I selected him. Nothing hurts more than picking a guy you don’t like and getting nothing out of him.

My pitching staff taught me an old lesson: there is no such thing as too much pitching. Few of my individual choices were bad, but I did get left with mostly duds on the closer side of the ledger (Joe Jimenez, Ryan Brasier, Diego Castillo, and Seranthony Dominguez). Even so, investing the picks needed to land “bankable” relievers is daunting – especially since that questionable collective was good for seven points.

Enough preface: Here are my picks. You can also read up on the participants and view the live overall draft board.

Brad’s Team

1.06: Gerrit Cole

2.10: Yordan Alvarez

3.06: Shane Bieber

4.10: Ketel Marte

5.06: Paul Goldschmidt

6.10: DJ LeMahieu

7.06: Zac Gallen

8.10: Cavan Biggio

9.06: Nick Castellanos

10.10: Brandon Workman

11.06: Hyun-Jin Ryu

12.10: Will Smith the Reliever Catcher

13.06: Adam Eaton

14.10: Mark Canha

15.06: Shin-Soo Choo

16.10: Mitch Keller

17.06: Alex Verdugo

18.10: Mychal Givens

19.06: Dylan Cease

20.10: Carter Kieboom

21.06: Nate Pearson

22.10: Danny Jansen

23.06: Mike Tauchman

24.10: Alec Bohm

25.06: Jordan Montgomery

26.10: Forrest Whitley

27.06: J.P. Crawford

28.10: Josh Rojas

29.06: James Karinchak

30.10: Randy Dobnak

31.06: Eric Sogard

32.10: Aaron Hicks

33.06: Brad Keller

34.10: Jake Bauers

35.06: Nick Pivetta

36.10: Ryan O’Hearn

37.06: Darwinzon Hernandez

38.10: Michael Lorenzen

39.06: Justin Dunn

40.10: Tyler Rogers

41.06: Roman Quinn

42.10: Amir Garrett

43.06: Garrett Stubbs

44.10: Framber Valdez

Pre-draft: I had fourth choice of draft slot due to my 2019 finish and selected to go sixth. I believe for this format there is a clear Top 6 – the four outfielders you’d expect plus Gerrit Cole and Jacob deGrom. This puts me close enough to the middle to attempt some selective ADP games.

Day Zero: My board of six were indeed the first players selected. To my partial surprise, deGrom was chosen fifth overall. All is going according to plan!

Day One: Plan A here was to pop Alvarez and Joey Gallo. I was heartbroken when Gallo was taken only a few picks after Alvarez. Remember, this is an OBP league so these sluggers with high walk and strikeout rates play up. If I knew for certain Gallo wasn’t making it back, I might have taken him instead of Alvarez. I’m not sure.

Bieber is a fine consolation prize. I’ve seen him going in the first round of some (admittedly wonky) NFBC drafts so nabbing him in the middle of the third feels like a win. While it’s not technically the much-ballyhooed “Pocket Aces” strategy (I picked a hitter between them), I still popped a Top 1 and Top 10 starter. I have a feeling I’m not going to be winning stolen bases this year.

Day Two: I’ll admit, I thought I was picking 66th when I took Marte, not 55th. In my defense, I had awoken moments before. So what looked like a tidy value turned into an on-curve selection. In any event, the best value available was Charlie Morton. I squarely needed a five category hitter instead which left me pondering Marte and a few other choices.. There were great, older, zero SB bats available too like Josh Donaldson, Paul Goldschmidt, and Anthony Rizzo.

I wound up agonizing over Goldschmidt and Tommy Pham. Incidentally, Pham went just two picks after Goldy. I decided to bet on a rebound to his usually lofty BABIP fueling another .380 OBP. He’s had two miserable slumps in the last two seasons so I’m not in love with this choice. If I happen to catch a bounce though, it’s first round value in the fifth. So far, all five of my picks have flashed first round value potential.

Analysis paralysis set in during round six with a host of attractive and appropriately aged (ADPed) men gathered around my corner of the bar. Passing on Eugenio Suarez at pick 85 was a bitter pill, but I eventually decided on LeMahieu as a compromise choice. He has three eligibilities and is one of the best bets to exceed 700 plate appearances. Unlike 2019, the Yankees don’t have robust middle infield depth. Accumulation is at least as important as ceiling.

Choosing Gallen over Carlos Carrasco, Lance Lynn, Sonny Gray, and Max Fried probably isn’t a popular choice. I’m infatuated with Gallen’s deep repertoire. I also like that he can pitch deep into games and steathily compiled 171 IP last season. There’s a case to be made that a more bankable vet is the right match with my pair of aces. However, when I spike a duo like Cole and Bieber, I prefer to high roll straight for the jugular. I’ll throw down the gauntlet now, I’m committing to winning the four SP categories.

Day Three: Two reaches in a row for extremely hyped players. Feels bad. But, as I’ve mentioned, it’s an OBP league. Biggio is supposed to bat second for a decent-looking Blue Jays offense. If you squint, a breakout season could include close to a .400 OBP. It didn’t hurt that my team is SB-deficient and Biggio projects to supply about 20 without hurting another category.

I’ll be honest, I put a good hour of active analysis – interspersed with fruitless ottoneu trade discussions – into selecting Castellanos. Most of it was about eliminating other options. I really wanted to take a pitcher here, but I found myself continually looking deeper and deeper into the pool and finding similar pitchers to the current top arms. It’s starting to feel rather Glob-ish.

Day Four: A closer run bracketed my pick last night. I would have taken Taylor Rogers if he had fallen to me. Since he was nabbed a few picks ahead of me, I surveyed the market and decided I preferred Workman and a couple others to Brad Hand and Raisel Iglesias types. So I locked Castellanos and settled in for a wait. Workman lasted.

There are different types of “safe.” Ryu is coming off his heftiest workload since 2013. That’s not safe. Nor is pitching in a competitive NL East for one of the weaker clubs. But… in terms of ratios and innings per start (a leading indicator of wins) Ryu is about as safe as they come at this stage of the draft.

Day Five: Like a noob, I decided to take Smith as my first catcher, made eye contact with his name in the general draft pool, then promptly selected the reliever from my queue. The gentlemen at Tout Wars were kind enough to immediately reverse my mistake, but I’ll wear this embarrassment until my dying day.

Eaton… yawn.

Canha is exactly Luke Voit (who went much earlier) but for one notable difference. Besides position. Well two differences. I’m rambling. In brief, Canha is a high OBP bat with above average contact skills. Voit has the OBP but not the contact rate. However, Canha has a defect in his quality of contact. I think we’ve settled on calling it a “loose launch angle.” Voit, by comparison, has a very tight launch angle. You can sample this trait by peeking at infield fly ball rates. Canha’s is very high. Voit’s is almost Votto-ian.

Day Six: Chooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Day Seven: I strongly considered Keller in the 15th round so I’m positively chuffed he made it back. There are plenty of other available pitchers in this asset class – Dustin May and A.J. Puk are still in the pool. They’re better on a quality basis. However, volume is an important trait in a Draft and Hold too. Keller made 30 starts last year totaling over 150 innings. I expect he’ll make another 30 starts while improving upon his terrible fastball.

Verdugo was First-Team All Hype when the Red Sox acquired. A minor back injury has cooled everyone’s jets. I have the same lumbar spinal issue, and it’s really not a big deal once rehabbed. That entails building a rock-solid core. For an athlete of Verdugo’s stature, that shouldn’t be a challenge. And it might even produce improved outcomes.

Givens is a popular late-closer target of mine. I’ll probably use him as a cheap and easy Bold Prediction. Given was hammered last year yet never had home run issues in the past, and he consistently induces one of the lowest hard hit rates. Regression of the positive variety is likely. And as long as he’s succeeding, he’ll close for those hapless Orioles.

Cease is the same gamble as Keller except with fewer innings. In both cases, I’ve taken a guy with proven swing-and-miss stuff who still needs to actualize the full package. Hopefully, one of these guys takes a big step forward to provide something like 10.00 K/9 with a 4.00 ERA. Admittedly, had I thought I’d be picking Cease, I would have take Puk or May over Keller.

Day Eight: I’m not usually the guy who drafts a bunch of kids in redraft. I like to gold old and boring and productive. So do my fellow touts so I’ve been chasing value and upside rather than bankable numbers. It’ll either work or it won’t, right? Kieboom’s expected SS/3B is much needed since SS and CI are my two open position player roles (and second catcher).

Pearson is probably a foolish selection at this stage of the draft. I like him more than Whitley, and I just wanted one more big upside shot before I started to pump volume SPs.

I completely forgot I picked Jansen. It was the middle of a catcher run, and I actually like Jansen as much or more than the others from the cohort, i.e. Buster Posey and Francisco Mejia. Sean Murphy would have been my first choice. I nearly picked him as early as the 18th. Kept finding excuses to go elsewhere.

Day Nine: Although I already have five outfielders plus Marte and Alvarez, I couldn’t pass up the value of Tauchman this late in the draft. The guy is a Top 100 player if he’s a regular. While that path to playing time is murky, rumors already have him starting on Opening Day. Besides, I just need there to be a smattering of weeks when he’ll obviously start – and that will happen.

There is a scenario where a desperate Phillies franchise turns to Bohm very early in 2020. Or not at all. As I have room to start and impact third baseman, this seemed like a fine upside play. A .360 OBP with power is possible if not entirely plausible.

Prior to all the injuries, Montgomery was a popular breakout candidate thanks to a fastball-curve combo not dissimilar to those of Rich Hill. With the Yankees rotation crumbling to pieces, Monty is now all but guaranteed a role.

Day 10: Whitley has fallen through the cracks yet still possess up to five plus pitches. He’ll open the year in Triple-A, but it’s not as if the Astros rotation is packed with certainty. It’s a couple old aces and a whole bunch of questions. If Whitley pitches well enough to be a fantasy asset, then he will start 20 games. And if he continues to struggle, well, my opportunity cost was… John Means.

One can only hammer “best value” for so long when glaring roster holes are evident. This was a modest reach for Crawford, yet the OBP format is the right one for him. The Mariners have introduced precisely zero competition for Crawford. They barely have a utility guy capable of backing him up. He scarcely makes any hard contact, but he can work a count like no other. Entering his age 25 season as a post-post-hype sleeper, there’s even some room to squint and see upside. More importantly, I needed to add a shortstop to “compete” with Kieboom.

With Gallen and now Rojas in tow, Peripheral Prospects is fully represented. Rojas doesn’t have a job now, but he’ll perform like a top 150 player if and when it happens – especially since it’s an OBP league. Even if the contact skills turn up light, he’ll still give a .335 OBP.

Day 11: It’s just now starting to get a little murky in the draft pool. A possible injury to Emmanuel Clase means Karinchak is the obvious next in line. He possesses possibly the best curve ball in the game and a fastball that kind of pops out of his hand in a way that’s difficult to judge vertical orientation. The two pitches tunnel which is why over 21.00 K/9 at three minor league levels last year. The control wasn’t quite as bad as expected in a 5.1 innings MLB sample.

Dobnak was superb in his brief showing last year. He may not pile up the strikeouts, but the main concern in draft and hold is volume. If healthy and anything like the 2019 version, we’re going to get some sweet two start weeks against AL Central opponents.

Day 12: Sogard will quickly gain much-need third base eligibility – a position at which I have LeMahieu and Bohm covering 3B and CI. While he’s set to platoon with Jedd Gyorko, his quiet blend of leadoff quality skills could easily lead to a most-times role.

Hicks is edging towards a return to game action. He should be ready shortly after the start of the regular season. Since I already have Tauchman, I figured Hicks makes a nice handcuff.

Keller is a solid volume arm for this stage of the draft. He’ll make a bunch of starts and burn some worms without torpedoing my ratios. In an ideal world, I won’t need him very often. Also in an ideal world, I would not have Mitch Keller and Cease among my top nine pitchers. I’ll need Brad Keller.

Day 13: Bauers has CI eligibility which remains a place of concern. The former prospect also reportedly received a wake up call last year and is taking a more focused approach this season. We’ll see.

Pivetta did the pitch lab thing over the offseason and by all reports is, if not BSOHL, then Best Pitching Shape (of his life). He was overdrafted to death last year. At this price, I love the gamble on a high strikeout rate and playable ratios.

Day 14: O’Hearn has OBP and power traits that vanished under a tidal wave of BABIP DOOM. He’s currently slated for a decent chunk of first base reps for the Royals. A rebound to something like his 2018 output would leave him looking Canha-esque.

There are better relievers in the pool than Hernandez, but he’s an obvious handcuff to my premier closer (Workman). The club seems committed to leaving him in relief where he experienced some success (4.45 ERA, 2.25 FIP, 16.91 K/9) in 30.1 innings, albeit with one serious red flag (7.71 BB/9). He’s always struggled with free passes.

Late Rounds: With a touch of weakness in my relief corps, I decided to go after Raisel Iglesias’ most obvious handcuffs. I also nabbed Rogers who I think might secretly be slated for Opening Day closer duties while Tony Watson continues to recover. Giants personnel have been talking him up (Rogers that is).

Dunn is honestly not a dissimilar play to many of my much earlier pitcher gambles like Keller, Cease, Pearson, and Whitley. We’re hoping for one surprise ace and a second startable arm from this collection.

Quinn is a pure stolen bases play who should start the season as a regular outfielder for the Phillies while a couple players mend injury. Stubbs is an offensive-minded catcher who can run a little. He’s a play for later in the year when the Astros tire of ineptitude from their defensively-focused combo meal of Martin Maldonado and Dustin Garneau. Besides, it’s good to have a third catcher with offensive potential in this format.

I keep drinking the Valdez kool aid. He’s dreadnasty*, and the Astros are going to need all kinds of rotation help. The southpaw is basically a better Dallas Keuchel aside from one prickly little detail – command.

*A quick use of google indicates I’m the first to coin this as a word. However, there is a musician who goes by this name.





You can follow me on twitter @BaseballATeam

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lostatlimbomember
4 years ago

Only loosely related, but why are those positions considered a ‘standard deep roster’? Seems odd to have so many OF and C, but only one each of a corner and middle IF?