I Won 2024 AL Tout Wars!

While the Mets and Braves are in the midst of the second game of a doubleheader as I type this, the American League stats are in the books. So although many fantasy leagues still haven’t been decided yet, I have taken home my third overall Tout Wars league and second AL Tout Wars league championship. Check out the final standings:

Remind yourself of my auction experience and the league changes made this year, if you’re so inclined.

It was a pretty crazy season. From dealing with injury after injury early on and thinking my season was already over as I languished near the bottom, to surging toward the top of the standings and remaining there until the very end. Any win is a thrill against top competition, but it’s always more exciting when it’s a rags to riches type trajectory during the year. Let’s begin by reviewing the roster I left the auction with and the end of season dollar values each of those players earned.

In yellow, I highlighted the EoS $ Value if the player earned a meaningful profit over my cost. In red, I highlighted the EoS $ Value if the player realized a meaningful loss compared to my cost.

Overall, the auction calculator suggests I earned a small profit from the players I bought at the auction, earning a total of 268 units if I started that exact squad all year. Of course, no one starts the same players they bought at the auction or drafted all season long unless you’re in a draft and hold league. I earned meaningful profit from nine players and realized a meaningful loss on seven.

The profit I made on the green names was barely higher than the loss I took on the red names, and that assumes that both Alex Lange and Shane Bieber earned exactly $0 since their dollars earned aren’t available from the calculator. The EoS $ value also assumes I would have played Ryan Noda all season long, which obviously would never happen since he was demoted to the minors at the beginning of May, at which point I replaced him. So, it’s not easy to truly determine the quality of one’s auction, but overall, this exercise suggests I made a small profit. Of course, you likely wouldn’t think such a small profit would be made from the winning team!

I made a meaningful profit on five hitters, but one name is glaring — Brent Rooker. Playing for his fourth team in three seasons, he enjoyed a mini breakout in 2023 by swatting 30 homers and posting a solid .348 wOBA. But a high strikeout and age (he was already 28 that year) made him a risk. It was clear that no one really wanted to take on such a risk, especially on a bad offense in a pitcher friendly park, so I ended up with him for just 9 auction units. He actually slumped early on and started sitting occasionally, but he eventually busted out of his slump and went on to a true full season breakout.

However, I didn’t actually get to enjoy all the good times. In mid-late July, it was pretty clear that I was running a surplus of home runs and RBI. On the other hand, I desperately needed stolen bases, as I was sitting toward the bottom of the category standings. I figured given where my roster currently stood that it made all the sense in the world to look into trading a power bat for speed. So I researched potential player targets along with good team matches that might be willing to trade away speed for power. I landed on longtime leaguemate and former FanGraphs writer Jason Collette, who sat dandy in first place in steals, but toward the bottom in home runs. Perfect!

Helping propel his stolen base total was David Hamilton, which became my prime target. I was fairly certain that I wouldn’t lose anything in home runs and RBIs by replacing a power bat with Hamilton, but could potentially surge toward the top of the stolen base category. After some negotiations and rejected offers, we finally settled on a trade:

I trade: Brent Rooker & Drew Waters
Jason trades: David Hamilton & Richie Palacios

Holy guacamole, what an absolutely terrible trade that turned out to be! Hamilton swiped just eight bases before getting hurt toward the end of August and missing the remainder of the season. I asked for Palacios as a “throw-in” as I liked his OBP and ability to plug in for current injuries, while also increasing my stolen base upside. Naturally, he got hurt after literally just a week on my team, but did steal four bases as a parting gift. On the other hand, Rooker did everything Jason could have ever dreamed of.

Luckily, I correctly calculated my home run and RBI potential, because even without Rooker, I handily took first in the categories. And despite the duo of Hamilton and Palacios swiping just 12 bags for me, the rest of my team went on a steals binge, vaulting me up to second in the category.

It’s one of those rare times where an awful trade didn’t end up making a difference at all. That said, I do wonder if I should have targeted another player or pair of players that could have delivered more overall value, but I guess that’s moot at this point. Tout Wars is a notoriously tough group of leagues to trade in — there were only five made in ours this year.

Four of the nine pitchers I won at auction delivered a meaningful profit. Two of those names — Bryce Miller and Jack Flaherty — I told you about in my “The Projections Are Wrong! 6 Starting Pitcher Targets + Bonus Hitter Sleeper” article. I also highlighted Shane Bieber, but after two dominating starts, he got hurt, ultimately resulting in TJ surgery.

In that post, I talked up Miller’s new splitter. He ended up throwing the pitch 17.1% of the time, and it proved fantastic. He allowed just a .173 wOBA and generated a 15.1% SwStk%, the highest of any of his pitches. For Flaherty, I noted that his fastball velocity had rebounded during Spring Training, but alas, that didn’t last and he ended up averaging a velocity mark right in line with his recent past. Despite the stable velocity, his slider and knuckle curve were fantastic, generating a mid-teen SwStk% and 20% mark, respectively, while his strike percentage was his highest since 2019. Simply getting his control back was a big deal.

It wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns though, as I suffered from a number of losses as well. Josh Jung’s season was marred by injury, while Noda, mentioned earlier, was demoted to the minors after a poor first month.

The craziest thing is my two highest cost hitters, and the only two that cost me more than 14 units, both were majors disappointments this year! Randy Arozarena did his usual 20/20, but a weak supporting cast hampered his runs scored and RBI totals, while his OBP fell, thanks in part to his first career sub-.300 BABIP. Luis Robert Jr. was a true bust, and one that was quite unexpected at the age of 26. Battling injuries and playing on one of the worst teams in baseball history, his power collapsed, and his strikeout rate spiked above 30% for a career worst, pushing his OBP below .300 for the first time.

On the pitching side, it was a poor decision to pay 23 units for Kevin Gausman, who dealt with shoulder issues during the Spring and was never right all season. At the point in the auction, all the other top flight pitchers, along with the next tier, were going for well above my value, so I risked rostering Gausman at what I thought was actually a slight discount, hoping his shoulder issues proved to be a non-issue. Not only was Gausman’s average velocity down for the year, but his splitter’s SwStk% finished at the lowest mark of his career, and the first time it fell below 20% (to just 16%).

So if you’re following, you realize that I spent more than 20 units on just three players, and all three of them were major disappointments!

It was pretty clear coming out of the auction that saves might be a struggle…or not. It turned out to be the former, as Alex Lange was awful and lost his closer job after saving just two games, while Michael Kopech closed for a team that barely won any games, though still earned me a profit.

As you can see from my reserve picks, they contributed nothing. I was optimistic about Casey Mize, and he was even included in my aforementioned “The Projections Are Wrong!” article, but even with two additional miles per hour of velocity, his strikeout rate was weak, and finished even lower than his 2021 season.

Left’s now shift to in-season pickups. First, it’s important to note that I don’t typically spend a whole lot of my FAAB before the trade deadline when we get NL players crossing over to the AL and there’s a bidding bonanza. I don’t intentionally save my FAAB in order to reel in the big fish at said deadline, I just rarely find a difference maker in free agency that I’m willing to make a FAAB splash on. This scenario happened again this year, as I entered the trade deadline with the most FAAB, giving me the choice of any league switcher.

That choice turned out to be Jazz Chisholm Jr., who I spent the majority of my FAAB stack on and he delivered everything I had hoped for, even considering he missed some time to injury.

The other productive FAAB acquisition I made was Tyler Soderstrom. I really lucked out on the timing here, as I acquired him in early May for only 2 units when he was still in the minors, probably as an injury replacement as I figured speculating on him and getting zeroes for the week was better than picking up a stopgap who only plays half the week. Sure enough, he was recalled two days later, which was shocking. I hadn’t read any whispers of an imminent callup, I simply noticed he was hitting well in Triple-A, the Athletics offense stunk, and figured it would be prudent for the team to get him to the Bigs. He only accrued 169 ABs for me due to injury, but hit for nice power during his time in the lineup.

Apart from those two, there were no other FAAB acquisitions of note.

Ultimately, what really worked here is grinding out relatively smaller profits on a number of high single to low double digit cost hitters and getting lucky on a big hit like Rooker. Then building a cheaper pitching staff than most with young breakout candidates, and paying particular attention to Spring Training for clues on who those names might be.