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.

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.