How Would You Approach This Tout Wars League?
A week ago, I participated in a new Tout Wars league which is called the Head-to-Head league, but it has a roto component. It was interesting to prepare for a highly competitive league with no previous similar leagues to reference. With the new format, first I had to decide how I would approach the league and second how my opponents would approach it, and how to find some advantages. Today, I will go over the rules and then ask you, our readers, about how you would approach the league. Later, I will go over my approach.
Here are the simplified rules with the full set being available at the Tout Wars website.
Rules
• 12 team mixed league with 23-man rosters, 6-man bench, and unlimited DL slots
• Weekly matchups with weekly lineup changes
• Pitching categories: W+QS, K/9, WHIP, ERA, Net Saves
• 9 pitchers with no RP or SP designation
• Hitting categories: OBP, RBI, Runs, HR, Net Steals
• 14 hitters: 2 C, 1 1B, 1 2B, 1 SS, 1 3B, 5 OF, 1 MI, 1 CI, 1 UT
• In each of the 22 weekly scoring periods, six wins are handed out. Two wins for winning three or more pitching categories. Two wins for winning three or more hitting categories. Two wins for the most wins in all 10 categories. If there is a tie, the wins are split. Officailly, wins and losses are handed out so each team has a record like 30-18. In my opinion, it is easier to just concentrate on the wins.
• Also for scoring, there are three roto contests: first half, second half and full season. The first-place team overall in each roto season will get 11 Wins with the second-place team getting 10 Wins and so on down to zero wins for last place. For the half seasons, the minimum innings pitched is 475; 950 minimum for the whole season. If these levels aren’t reached, the owners finish last in each of ERA, WHIP and K/9.
• In total, there are 22 matchup periods (long weeks for the season’s start, All-Star game, and end of the season) generating a possible 132 wins (6 * 22 or 80 percent) and the roto aspect generating 33 wins (20 percent).
You get all that? To say the rules are complex is an understatement. Brent Hershey at BaseballHQ had this quote about the rules.
Confused yet? You wouldn’t be the only one—several of us participants [including myself] debated the specifics of the scoring on Saturday afternoon of the weekend, nearly 24 hours after we selected our teams.
So, with the above rules, how would you approach the draft and how do you think your opponents would? Early next week, I will give you my opponents and my approach and it I think it was the right approach.
Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.
I would approach it by running far, far away.
I don’t think I’d care about the minimum innings pitched, too much. I’d try to get there, but I can only see the really top aces being worth anything in this league. Its almost Kershaw or bust for the SP.
I’d also discount power/speed guys. One or two speed only guys are more likely to win you a week. The random SB here and there may be the difference any given week, but its more likely to be wasted. So, I’d have a few steals targets, but if I missed them I’d punt SBs and load up on sluggers.
From a scoring standpoint I’d completely ignore the roto aspect of it; H2H wins are what’s going to most directly impact the overall standings and I’d build my team accordingly. (And not to state the obvious, but if you have a good H2H team you’ll likely have a good roto team – slight scoring nuances not withstanding.)
From a drafting perspective, since it’s weekly roster changes I’d prioritize having a couple high end SP and at least 2 high end, K dominant RP (preferably 3-4) to anchor the ratios and K/9 of the staff (Betances, Miller, Chapman, Jansen, Herrera, etc.). From a hitting perspective at the top of the draft I’d prioritize balanced players like Cain, Springer, Rizzo, McCutche/Marte, Blackmon, Upton, etc. and back fill as needed later in the draft. With weekly roster changes, consistency and durability are key, so limited exposure to rookies and guys who tend to get nicked up would also be important.
Just my $0.02.
I would try to win the first half and then go for the second half win by winning each week by having good players.
#strategy
Agree with jbona3 on the pitching side. I think most of the league would target batters like dparker713 suggested, so I would ty to pick up undervalued speed and top of the order guys who will accumulate counting stats. Blackmon is a great example.
Punt steals and wins. Ignore the innings minimum–it doesn’t count for much, really. If you draft nine good relievers, three of whom are closers, you’ll win ERA, WHIP, K/9, and Net Saves every week. Avoid at all costs players projected to hit less than 20 HRs/600 ABs–you should be able to win HRs, runs, and RBIs by loading up on power, even if it means drafting low-average hitters. This means you’ll have to prioritize middle-infielders, as there are relatively few of them with that kind of power. Carlos Correa may be a sensible #1 pick in this league, even over Trout or Harper.
The innings minimum is extremely important. 9 RP will only give you about 600 innings so you will need to start 2 SPs each week.
The goal is to dominate three categories on each side, it seems. On the pitching side, ERA, WHIP, and K/9 seem the easiest, so I’d target those. I’d try to draft two or three aces with K/9 over 9, and focus on K/9 on starting pitchers in general. I’d have a healthy stable of relievers, again ones who are likely to have high K/9. On the hitting side, I’d try to win home runs, rbis, and runs. Speed and average are so fluky week to week that I’d instead focus on grabbing as many mashers as I could. You are rewarded for domination, not balance.
I actually play in a league not entirely dissimilar to this one. So from my experience I’d suggest:
1) This is H2H. Don’t kill yourself trying to win every category each week. SBs and Saves will distribute unevenly and are very difficult to corner the market on. Innings can be largely predicted by who happens to be a 2xStarter that week. Plan your draft around winning the others and hope to split 50/50 on the more random ones.
1b) OBP and Ks will be life. All good things follow players who excel there. Mike Trout is pretty great, but Mookie Betts is the Platonic Ideal player for this setup.
2) Only chase steals when they occur in otherwise well rounded players. Good OBP/SLG guys who get 15 SBs will be gold. Billy Hamilton will be iron pyrite. In a H2H league the irregular distribution of SBs will mean that having the best guys guarantees you nothing.
3) Beware the one category slugger. HR guys with bad OBP are every bit as bad as single category speedsters.
4) Absolutely maximize your pitching ratio categories. Aim for 5-6 dynamite RPs to start every week, and you can probably get away with only 3 of them being actual closers.
5) 2-3 top tier starting pitchers will go a long way. For lower tier pitchers you can just line them up based on K/9 (or K-BB%) and just draft in that order. Never let yourself get suckered into picking a control guy.
The main result is that RP value skyrockets, High K rate, high IP elite SP rise, and the rest of SP plummets.
I think Kershaw is easily best player in this format even if you decide to punt W+QS. To get to the 950 minimum innings you are going to need about 500 IP from your starters and outside of the elite ones the only category they help in is W+QS. The ERA, K/9, WHIP . The extra 40 or so innings he pitchers over a Strasburg or Jose Fernandez is huge.
I would think most teams would go with a 6-7RP/2-3SP approach with enough SP to reach the minimum to take advantage of the strikeout category being K/9. This is punting W+QS, but you should be able to win 3-4 pitching categories every week. This will enable you to go hitter heavy early in the draft and should therefore have an above average lineup. Since OBP and steals don’t mix I would think the drafters will wait longer on drafting steal heavy players or ignore the category all together.
I would aim to get 1 elite starter with a high k/9. I would grab 2 or 3 SP later in the draft and play the match up game each week. For my 7 or 8 RP I would go for 1-2 top closers, 1 -2 mid to bottom range closers focusing on good ratios/ K9 as opposed to role. Then I would aim for good ratios and K/9 RP especially those next in line for saves.
The majority of base stealers lose value in the format. I would further devalue SB and focus my offense on being better in the other 4 categories.
My thoughts are that this approach should yield to winning the the 2 pitching wins almost every week, the 2 hitting wins over 50% of the time and the overall wins over 50% of the time. This strategy will lose points in the Roto part as the team will likely finish in the middle of the pack.
It is accurate that the value of RPs skyrockets, but spending resources to draft an ace like Kershaw would be self-defeating. SPs have little value in regular fantasy. Typical calculations of SP value ignore a very important variable: the extremely high floor of pitchers who will always be available on the waiver wire. In a league in which SPs contribute in one category, they have almost no value. The Tout Wars rules are very, very unbalanced which can easily be exploited.
Draft hitters. 80+% resources should be invested in hitters. (Almost always true.)
Draft relief pitchers, a full complement of relief aces. Don’t sweat saves. Don’t ignore saves but prioritize quality because quality relief pitchers contribute in three categories, and good relief pitchers find their ways into saves as the season progresses.
Draft maybe one or two innings eaters that play for contenders, and cycle two-start pitchers (occasionally and as needed) against favorable matchups as the season progresses.
I’ve played in a few rate-heavy leagues which minimize the value of starting pitchers. It’s pretty easy to win by a very large margin. The rules are too clever by half and haven’t been vetted by trial and error. I think, if anyone bothers to run the mental calculations, this league is likely to be proven flawed by design as early as June.
Truth is, typical 5×5 fantasy baseball is pretty exploitable. It’s made more exploitable because experts largely repeat the same rule-of-thumb falsehoods. The emphasis on “bold predictions” on this, an otherwise smart site, is a great example. People are spending capital in order to validate their gut feelings. This is an inefficiency (and one common to most leagues.) Anyway, no one believes the claims of some anonymous internet commenter. But I promise you: it’s a beatable game.
Tricky. On the pitching side, I’d build two value sheets – one punting most SP and one punting saves. You can then respond to whichever method of winning pitching is least expensive – a stable of aces or top RP. My guess is it would be easier to win consistently with elite SP.
The hitting side of the fence is standard. The only question is the budget split between hitting and pitching. I usually go for somewhere between 50/50 and 60/40 (h/p) in a H2H. Reliable pitching takes on extra value. Since the league is pretty deep on the hitting side, I can see going with a normal 70/30 too.
Any thoughts on how to handle the catchers? With H2H format and power needed, Posey seems necessary? Then follow up with any catcher besides Yasmani Grandal. Yeah, he gets the OBP, but in H2H his lack of playing time will hurt with the other stats. I owned him in a H2H OBP last year… yikes.