Podhorzer’s 2025 Tout Wars AL Only Season Review

I was excited about my AL-Only Tout Wars team this year on my quest to defense my 2024 championship, as I filled it with a ton of offense and a plethora of young potential pitching breakouts. This is how I usually do things, and sometimes it works out, while other times it doesn’t. This was one of the seasons where so much went wrong, but enough went right that I seemingly managed to finish far better than expected given my auction.

Let’s begin with the final standings:

Honestly, it was a miracle I managed to finish tied for fourth given my auction. Let’s now take a look back at that auction with each player’s end of season dollar value so you can see exactly what I mean.

I arbitrarily chose cutoffs to highlight the hits (green) and the misses (red). This was an extremely frustrating season. Incredibly, my purchased roster at the auction earned just 182.3 units in value, despite spending 260 units on the group! I don’t believe I’ve looked at end of season value in the past to see how this year compares, but it’s hard to believe I’ve done a whole lot worse than this. If this is all you had to look at, you would have almost certainly guessed my team finished near the basement. Though I didn’t win, or even finish in the top three, I was able to salvage the season as much as possible.

Let’s now discuss what went right and what went wrong.

What Went Right

I’ll begin with my auctioned roster before discussing in-season transactions. First is second baseman Jorge Polanco who enjoyed a strong bounceback season after three straight subpar fantasy performances. The 32-year-old has battled injuries in the past and was even platooned early on as he wasn’t able to hit from the right side. Ultimately, he ended up posting the second highest HR/FB rate, ISO, and home run total of his career. He’s a great example of buying a forgotten about veteran who has delivered value in the past, but a recent spate of injuries has clearly marred his performance. At a single digit price, there was little downside, with the upside that the player is healthier than he has been in years and rediscovers the skills of his younger days. Obviously, this isn’t always going to work out this well, but if the cost is right, it’s always worth the speculation.

This was the second year in a row that I rostered Randy Arozarena. Coming off a disappointing 2024 made him meaningfully cheaper at this year’s auction, which made for a price I couldn’t pass up. He ended up enjoying perhaps his best fantasy performance, with a career high in home runs and the second most steals of his career.

Speaking of bounceback veterans, holy George Springer! I can’t remember how I ended up rostering him and I didn’t mention him in my original writeup. His price of 16 units may have been slightly below my value, but he was no Polanco in the single digits. So perhaps I just needed to spend my money at that point in the auction, and man, that was money well spent! Sometimes you just gotta get lucky, and luck was indeed in my corner when I rostered him. He posted the highest wOBA of his career…at age 35. He also recorded his highest home run total since 2019, the highest batting average and OBP of his career, and continued stealing double digit bases, finishing with the second highest total of his career. The underlying skills fully supported this re-breakout, but who the heck knows where this came from!

Ahhhh, Spencer Torkelson. I am really, really both thrilled and relieved he ended up working out. He was nominated toward the end of the auction and given the remaining hitters, knew I had to roster him given that his home run potential was far and away the highest still available. I was actually shocked I had to spend 7 units to acquire his services, as I was fully expecting to get him for only a couple. There was real risk here that a slow start could cost him a starting job, which was only available early on due to Tigers injuries. Luckily, he held onto a starting job all season and essentially duplicated his 2023 season. Given his extreme FB% pulling down his BABIP and merely good, but not great, maxEV, I’m not sure it gets much better than this. That’s perfectly fine though in most formats, and he does get a bit of a boost in those using OBP instead of batting average, like Tout Wars. Unfortunately, since he has no defensive value and is much better against left-handers, he’s going to remain at risk of losing playing time.

It’s pretty funny that Carlos Estévez ended up being one of my top profit-makers, as he actually ended up leading all of baseball in saves. I rostered him solely because at that point, I just needed a closer and wasn’t interested in spending 20+ units on a supposed top tier name, given in-season turnover at the position. It just so happened that Estévez was the name I got, as I didn’t have any particular opinion on him. He ended up really lucking out though, as his SIERA was nearly two full runs higher than his actual ERA, while his xERA was also significantly higher than his actual mark. With a quickly declining strikeout rate, I have absolutely no interest in rostering him again next year, as I presume his price will be even higher given the save total.

I made a number of in-season pickups that had a major impact on my results. First was Kyle Teel. My catching was a mess early on, which gave me the opportunity to proactively search for alternatives in the form of potential future callups from the minor leagues. I won Teel during FAAB for only two units on June 1 and amazingly, he was promoted to the White Sox just five days later to make his MLB debut. I had no secret insight to when he might be recalled, so I definitely lucked out there. But this is a good example of the benefits of scouting the minors early in the season for future callups. Teel posted a .375 OBP for me, which is superb for any hitter, let alone a catcher. He also hit eight home runs in what was essentially half a season.

On a similar note, I also picked up Samuel Basallo all the way back on May 26. Sadly, my timing luck here wasn’t nearly as good as it was with Teel, as I had to wait until mid-August for his recall. He then ended up disappointing offensively, so he didn’t end up making the impact I had hoped for.

Finally, to complete my overhaul at the catching position, I also picked up Carlos Narváez back in mid-April. This was solely in response to Korey Lee’s injury. Turns out, Narváez was pretty darn solid, and because I used Teel and Basallo from mid-August on at the position, I missed a bunch of his poor weeks. So a position that was a major sore spot coming out of the auction ended up being one of my biggest strengths.

Addison Barger! I picked him up on April 21, so very early in the season. It was solely because MJ Melendez was shockingly demoted to the minors. At the time, Barger wasn’t a regular and didn’t have an obvious path to everyday at-bats. But the free agent pool in Tout Wars is so thin that you sometimes just need to pick a player you think has the most potential to deliver value if he does end up earning regular playing time. Sure enough, that’s exactly what Barger did, and he earned 13.5 units. He therefore remained in my lineup for the majority of the season.

I should also note that with the second most FAAB heading into the trade deadline, I figured I’d have a good choice of players to roster. It wasn’t a great selection, but I ended up with two months of Eugenio Suárez, who rarely got on base, but still hit 13 home runs with 31 RBIs. It was a move that made my trade decision discussed later much easier.

So that covers what went right. Despite losing my most expensive player for the majority of the season, I managed to recover his lost offense with in-season pickups. Sadly, I wasn’t able to make similarly impactful pitching pickups to offset those disasters!

What Went Wrong

My gosh, where do I begin?! In three of four seasons, Jonathan India had recorded double digit home runs and steals. In the first year I ever owned him, he recorded double digits in neither home runs or steals. Heck, he didn’t even steal a base! I have no idea what happened to his power or why he decided to stop stealing bases. The skills here still look fine, though, so assuming he opens the season with a starting job, he might make for a good rebound candidate in deep leagues.

Alright, I’ve held it in long enough, it’s now finally time to talk Yordan Alvarez. He gave me exactly 100 at-bats before getting hurt, and those at-bats were extremely un-Alvarez like. Spending 40 units on a hitter, and then getting just 100 poor at-bats from him through about the first five months of the season is typically a death knell in a deep league, at least to your team’s offense.

Eventually, I ended up trading him just before his return for Chandler Simpson. My rank in the standings where Alvarez contributes was looking pretty safe, while I could have gained and lost more points in the steals category. The idea of the trade ended up being the right call, as I didn’t lose any points in the categories Alvarez was an asset in. Simpson’s steals pace fell off a bit after he joined my roster, so it’s possible I could have gained one additional point there, which would have solidified fourth place for me, instead of tying.

Ughhhh, MJ Melendez. I was quite excited about him this season and felt really good a breakout was coming. Instead, I got 47 awful at-bats and then he was demoted to Triple-A. Let’s see if I get sucked into buying into him again next year.

Should I blame myself for buying Shane McClanahan as my ace? He hadn’t pitched since 2023 after recovering from TJ surgery, so was clearly a risk. While it wasn’t necessarily prudent to expect a full season’s worth of innings, I expected at least one inning! I have to imagine his price is going to be a bit cheaper next season, though a lot will depend on how he’s looking in Spring Training. Don’t be surprised if he once again ends up on my team as the potential ace at a cheaper price than the rest of the known aces.

Where did Yusei Kikuchi’s strikeouts go?! He posted his worst rate since his rookie season in 2019, while his walk rate jumped. That’s not a good combination. It resulted in an ugly WHIP, and because the Angels offense decided to take the day off when he took the mound, he ended up winning just seven games, despite finishing with an acceptable 3.99 ERA.

I really didn’t want to tempt my fate by buying Jack Flaherty again. He was one of the drivers of my 2024 league win, so I wasn’t exactly eager to buy him again after the rebound, as I like buying players before a breakout/rebound, not after! This was especially true after his underlying skills faded last September and then were downright poor in the playoffs. However, the price was reasonable and cheaper than expected, so he ended up finding my roster. Then he went out and posted a 4.64 ERA and suffered from terrible run support as well to make me truly regret the decision to roster him.

On the bright side, at least for next year, he significantly underperformed both his SIERA and xERA, so the skills here were much better than the ERA suggests. Essentially, the pendulum swung the other way this time. You know what that means? He’s very likely to end up on my team for a third straight season next year!

I might be most upset about Zebby Matthews. A Spring Training velocity spike got everyone excited, but he was surprisingly left out of the Twins’ opening day rotation. He didn’t end up making his season debut until the middle of May. Though given his season results, that may have actually protected my ratios from additional damage! Matthews did end up maintaining that velocity spike, and his SwStk% did rise. However, his strikeout rate barely budged, while he allowed a huge LD% which led to an inflated BABIP and suppressed his LOB%. That all meant that he massively underperformed his SIERA, though his xERA suggests it wasn’t all bad luck.

Right now, Matthews looks like that classic pitcher that many label as being “too hittable”. Yes, the results so far over a small sample would seem to suggest such an observation, but it’s far too early to confirm preventing hits on balls in play is truly a skill that’s lacking. Didn’t people call Shane Bieber too hittable after his 2018 debut when he allowed a .356 BABIP? Since that season, he has posted a .293 mark, right at the league average. Interestingly, Matthews’ total MLB innings is almost a perfect match for the number of innings Bieber recorded during his rookie season. So the lesson here is to look past a high BABIP over a small sample size, as the odds are we’ll see significant positive regression. I’ll probably be in on Matthews again next year if he has a rotation spot, though I really want to see more called strikes to push that strikeout rate higher.

It’s kind of crazy how many #N/A values there are under the End of Season $$ column. I’m not sure why Triston McKenzie, Marc Church, and Kenta Maeda’s values weren’t calculated, but all three pitched less than 10 innings. I was very excited for McKenzie in particular, given a massive velocity spike during Spring Training, but it wasn’t enough to make him a good pitcher again.

None of my reserve picks worked out, and a number of pickups I spent the most of my FAAB on like Nolan Jones ended up being worthless.

*****

So all in all, I somehow survived both my highest paid hitter and pitcher giving me close to nothing and actually nothing, which seems like a feat in itself. It wasn’t exactly the follow-up to my 2024 championship, but you can’t have perfect luck every year. Hopefully next year I’ll actually get to enjoy my most expensive players!