Jeff Zimmerman’s Tout Wars Mixed Auction Recap

John E. Sokolowski-Imagn Images

This past weekend, I participated in the Tout Wars mixed auction. I’ve been in the league for about a decade and have won the league a couple of times. Previously, when I won the league, I used a value approach, but over the last few years, the league winners have leaned stars and scrubs. After some middling performances, I needed to find a way to get back to the top. I decided to lean into the league’s tendencies and rules to get ahead.

League Rules: This is a standard 5×5 roto league with OBP instead of AVG with 14 hitter slots and 9 pitches. Additionally we have a six person bench with unlimited IL slots. To add players, they must be started the week they are added, which means zeros if the player added is a prospect or on the IL. Finally, trading is allowed.

League Tendencies

The big lean for this league is that the top hitters go way above their “Auction Calculator” values. For example, in this draft, Aaron Judge went for $63 (the highest bid in Tout Wars history) with his projected production closer to $54.

The inflated values should start to disappear around the $15 players, and the best deals happen with the $10 players. Many $10 guys can go around $5 or less. If I were to roster all these deals, I’d spend $115 for $230 worth of talent. To spend all my money and get as many deals as possible later, I need to spend up on a couple of the top payers.

Also, I didn’t want to get into $1 battles. Historically, there are up to 45 players taken at $1, with some managers grabbing all the late deals with $2 bids. But this is spending $2 for a $4 guy. I thought I could get better values by going for better players.

After running the numbers, I decided I could pay up for one first-round hitter and pitcher and then wait for players showing $2 to $4 of surplus.

Another small tendency I’ve seen in all auctions is holding back on the first few bids as the market sets itself. If the value was reasonable, I was going to jump in before this group begins spending like drunken sailors.

Unlimited IL and $0 FAAB Bids

Tout Wars has unlimited IL slots, so drafting players headed to the IL is a solid plan. I leaned into this strategy more than in previous years after seeing what Alex Chamberlain pulled off in 2025. He added every injured player imaginable. At the end of May, he had only 6.5 hitting points (min possible is 5) and 33 total. As his team got healthy and many of his waiver wire options took off, so did his team. By season’s end, he was at 81.5 total points with 59 hitting points.

With the ability to cheaply churn the waiver wire, especially early in the season when roles and talent are unknown, I could add injury risk with a focus on talent first and health second.

To limit adding IL players to our IL, there is a rule that players must be started the week they are added, which means the draft is the best time to take a chance on injured players.

This strategy works great in Tout Wars with $0 FAAB bids. If I can’t find a decent start for each week, I can pad my ratios with high-quality middle relievers. I have unlimited IL in my LABR League (industry league), but we have only $100 FAAB with no $0 moves. This limits the amount of churning a team can do in any given week. But in Tout Wars, I can always add as many players as I want.

How it went

I started on fire, added two of the first four players nominated trying to take advantage of a sleeping room. After those two, I slowed down and just picked off the deals. Here is the team I bought with the surplus value for each player (full auction results, Mixed Auction tab).

The spending went almost as expected, except the closers went for quite a bit more than previously in the league. The prices were more in line with the prices at the NFBC. For this reason, I didn’t budget enough for closers (added Palencia and reserve-round darts in Uceta and Hendricks). I can also trade for Saves if I need to. There is no way to come out of every auction/draft without a weakness, and the bullpen is mine.

One unique dynamic was that Justin Mason was loaded with cash for the endgame and had the choice of any player. It became a game within the game trying to guess who he wanted to add. Also, if a person got into a bidding war with him, they knew they would lose and immediately bow out of the bidding, thereby giving Justin even more of an advantage. People were happy to see Justin be the first manager to fill his team.

For the top guys, I needed to pay up for Skubal and his elite ratios, but I got a nice deal on Raleigh. In addition to Raleigh, I added Goodman at catcher. I have no problems paying for full-time catchers when they are projected for a combined 64 HR.

The rest of my hitters fell into the auction’s sweet spot, where I was able to grab surplus value with each pick. Overall, I averaged $3.4 in surplus value ($4.2 from the hitters). Getting a surplus on Raleigh (my 4th overall rated hitter with the catcher penalty added) helped. I was willing to overpay for another anchor, but this route worked perfectly.

I’m going to need to churn pitching options, so it’s nice to have a lineup with no known holes with all hitters projected for at least double-digit returns. If I was in a draft, I would value all my hitters in the top 150 players (pitchers and hitters), or round 10 or earlier.

On the pitching side, I went after injured guys, with Rodón heading to the IL to start the season. I considered adding Zack Wheeler, but he went for more than I anticipated. In the reserve round, I added Corbin Burnes, Spencer Schwellenbach, Edwin Uceta, and Clarke Schmidt. In the first FAAB period, I’m going to need to add at least five pitchers as I move these arms to the IL. Even my “healthy” pitchers (Eovaldi, Boyd, Glasnow) have major injury histories.

Final thoughts

I wish every auction went as close to plan as this one did. I leaned into a league tendency and rostered almost $80 of surplus value. With the pitchers, I’ve got a ton of upside if guys stay healthy. Now it’s time to see how it plays out.