Halfway Through Tout Wars Draft and Hold
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.
To this point, I’ve made 26 picks. In other words, the primary core of my roster is complete. Indeed, I have addressed every active roster spot and a few reserves to boot. I picked eighth which means I had the good fortune to always have 15 picks between me and my next turn. I can confirm it’s a nice spot in the draft.
Let’s get to the results. A full draft grid is available or keep reading for my roster.
| Postion | Player | Round | Pick |
|---|---|---|---|
| C | Danny Jansen | 12 | 173 |
| C | Carson Kelly | 26 | 383 |
| 1B | Jesus Aguilar | 8 | 113 |
| 2B | Cesar Hernandez | 10 | 143 |
| SS | Francisco Lindor | 2 | 23 |
| 3B | Justin Turner | 6 | 83 |
| MI | Jorge Polanco | 15 | 218 |
| CI | Eric Hosmer | 13 | 188 |
| OF | Ronald Acuna | 1 | 8 |
| OF | Mallex Smith | 9 | 128 |
| OF | Adam Eaton | 11 | 158 |
| OF | Domingo Santana | 17 | 248 |
| OF | Brian Anderson | 19 | 278 |
| UT | DJ LeMahieu | 20 | 293 |
| P | Patrick Corbin | 3 | 38 |
| P | James Paxton | 4 | 53 |
| P | Jack Flaherty | 5 | 68 |
| P | Kenley Jansen | 7 | 98 |
| P | Ross Stripling | 14 | 203 |
| P | Seranthony Dominguez | 16 | 233 |
| P | Anibal Sanchez | 18 | 263 |
| P | Ryan Brasier | 22 | 323 |
| P | Trevor Cahill | 24 | 353 |
| Res | Christin Stewart | 21 | 308 |
| Res | Luis Urias | 23 | 338 |
| Res | Brad Keller | 25 | 368 |
The table is sortable if you want to see it in the order of picks. Just know you’ll have to reload the page to get the roster view back.
I don’t want to go into too much detail about my specific projections, needs, and strengths. After all, I still have 24 rounds to go against my fellow industry rivals, and some of them do read FanGraphs. There are some general things happening here that I think we can talk about.
As far as I can tell, I’ve been the most willing to select players who were just sitting there forever. Lindor was the first, and I had to greatly alter my plan to take him. Flaherty, Aguilar, Hosmer, DJLM, and Dominguez were some of the others that fell into my lap later than normal. Conversely, I reached a tad for Hernandez, D. Jansen, Eaton, Polanco, Stripling, Stewart, and Urias. I’m sure most of my rivals have a similar list of reaches and falls. I just happen to feel very good about the guys I got later than expected.
I am of the opinion that we, as an industry, conflate our ability to accurately assess risk. So it goes without saying that certain risk profiles have appeared multiple times on this roster.
Injury: Lindor, Turner, Eaton, Paxton, K. Jansen, Cahill
Lindor is the only one nursing an active injury, one that is hopefully minor. He was a consensus top five pick, and he’s only expected to miss a couple weeks. Turner, Eaton, Paxton, and Cahill would all rate MUCH higher if they ever turned in full seasons. Jansen is reportedly healthy after battling a heart condition last season – a season in which he still returned top 100 value.
Poor Recent Performance: Hosmer, Santana, Anderson, Urias
All four of these players are going to play. A lot. Only Urias is at any risk of a demotion, and he’s a reserve. Anderson didn’t perform poorly, he just didn’t hit for any power. I see 20 home runs in his bat. Hosmer’s results vary. Santana looked the same last year as in his solid 2017. The Brewers just didn’t have a place to let him work out the kinks. The Mariners do.
Playing Time: Kelly, Aguilar, DJLM, Stripling, Dominguez, Brasier
Kelly is battling a concussion prone catcher who was terrible last year (and basically every other year of his career) and a not-concussion prone catcher who is always terrible. Kelly has a health contact rate and a the potential for a positive OBP. I would have taken him a few rounds higher if there was ANY hype around him.
I don’t know why Aguilar stuck around for so long. He’s not my favorite, but I needed home runs. He provides them. Perhaps my opponents didn’t need home runs.
I’m having trouble seeing where LeMahieu is going to play for the Yankees, but he lasted around 100 picks beyond his typical ADP. He started to make some key adjustments last year to become less of an opposite field grounder guy.
I keep saying Stripling will get his starts. Dominguez is the second string closer for the Phillies. He’ll probably finish 20 games, some of which will be saves. Brasier is basically one of two relievers in the Red Sox bullpen.
24 More Picks
That’s all for now, a high level look at what I hope is a winning roster. We’ll see how the dice roll.
You can follow me on twitter @BaseballATeam
Halfway or hallway?
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In a draft & hold league, how many catcher do you try to draft? and as the draft gets deeper do you try and get the backups of players you already drafted or do you try and get more “hidden gems”?
For catchers, it really just depends on the opportunity cost. Since backup catchers are practically worthless from a category management perspective – you can expect something like 5 R, 1 HR, 5 RBI, 0 SB, and a .210 AVG per 50 PA – I don’t really mind if I have to leave that spot fallow. I don’t go in 100% set on even drafting 2, although I can’t recall a time that I didn’t. I’ll probably wind up with 3 or so.
I do like to select handcuffs for my own players, but I also like to take other people’s handcuffs. That way anything that befalls a rival’s roster can be doubly additive to me. Of course, the scope to actually control that is extremely limited. It’s more interesting in theory than practice.
This looks like a very impressive roster to me for a 15 team league. A surprising number of your picks are targets of mine where they are going. My biggest concern would be your pitching injury risk, so I would be banging on pitchers, both starters and relievers, for the next 4 or 5 rounds. and try to score the Toronto and Arizona backup catchers at some point.
Don’t know why I notice this but the table has both Domingo Santana and Anibal Sanchez as pick 17/248. One of them must have been 18th round? (there is no 18th)
Yep, Anibal was the 18th.
You’re going to be way behind in HRs but I’m guessing that’s by design. It can be tough to hold points in RBI without them. Pitching could go anywhere from worst to best. This would be a fun team to watch during the year.
There’s a lot of hope in your top 3 arms, with Corbin and Flaherty being one season wonders so far. I would be a little worried about depth, since Stripling is no guarantee to start all season and Sanchez/Cahill pleasant 2018 vets that were almost avoided like the plague in 2017. Be sure to gamble on some Keller-like upside in your last rounds!
A couple Brad Keller’s aren’t saving this roster if the tri-ace falls apart. That’s the bet I was forced to make. Every team has multiple similar bets in a league of this depth.
That is true re: bets. I think Eaton, Jansen and Hosmer will be suitable bats this year and were fine choices, though the likes of Happ, Musgrove, Heaney, Hamels and/or Porcello would have made a pretty nice 4th (5th or 6th) over Stripling. Hopefully those bats come alive for 2019.
Sure. But those pitchers went two rounds earlier than Stripling.
And I knew I’m always highest on Anibal and Cahill who are ludicrously undervalued.
Right! I was thinking instead of picking the bats you could have picked one or two of the pitchers to protect the triumvirate a bit, especially since Stripling and the others aren’t necessarily sure things to succeed this year. But yes, if you’re high on Anibal and Cahill, then you’ve got the depth you need.
I came very close to taking Heaney or Musgrove over D. Jansen. But knowing I would be using a guy like Kelly as my second catcher, I felt the depth was more important. I had some small hope a pitcher I wanted would get back to me in the 13th, but Hosmer turned out to be a huge value there.