TOUT WARS!

In the final installment of the 2024 season, the Touts were asked: What is your plan for offseason prep? Are you considering doing any differently than past years?

Jeff Boggis (Fantasy Football Empire, @JeffBoggis): Looking at my numerous leagues that I’ve played in this season, I want to evaluate my draft results versus how well each player did at that draft round. Some leagues were better than others, so I want to conduct an internal retrospective of what went well and want needs improvement. This pertains to drafts, in-season management, and trades. I also want to conduct a deeper dive to see where my overall strengths and weaknesses are by each category. Finally, I want to review risk/reward picks and start preparing for 2025 with potential breakouts and prospects.

Ray Murphy (BaseballHQ, @RayHQ): Writing the 2025 Baseball Forecaster and putting together First Pitch Arizona will have me chomping at the bit to get in a draft room right after Thanksgiving!

Ron Shandler (RonShandler.com, @RonShandler): What Ray said.

Chris Blessing (BaseballHQ, @C_Blessing): I’m not the type to do a post-mortem until after New Years, getting as far away from the season as I possibly can, mostly because of my various assignments from now until then. This year, I felt behind the eight ball a bit with my in-season moves, especially in my dynasty leagues where I didn’t have the same success in FAAB and on the wire as I have in the past. I try not to analyze my player preferences most off-seasons. However, this year, I will delve into my player preferences much deeper than ever before.

Chris Clegg (Pitcher List, @RotoClegg): I have already started taking in what went right and wrong in each league and how I can improve on the things that did not go well. I think its always important to evaluate process, player evals, etc. to really see where you can improve. The start of my offseason involves writing prospect evaluations and top 30s for each team. After that it will be doing player evaluations on the major league side. From there my draft prep will really begin.

Seth Trachtman (SethRoto.com, Yardbarker, @sethroto): My offseason plan is generally the same each year: Evaluate farm systems in October, evaluate each MLB player in November/December, and finalize v1 of projections/rankings by Christmas. The rest of the offseason until Opening Day is a constant adjustment based on player news, league news, and ADP.

Howard Bender (Fantasy Alarm, @RotoBuzzGuy): My offseason prep will remain exactly the same. I don’t see a reason to change my process for that. My in-season work? Well, that requires me budgeting more time for MLB and less for the mouth-breathing knuckle draggers of fantasy football. Sorry for my in-season neglect, Touts. I’ll be better next year!

Dan Strafford (MoonshotsMLB, @DanStrafford): My offseason plan? To quote Homer Simpson “I’m gonna drink a lot of beer and stay out all night!” Sincerely though, every year I think I’ll look back at the drafts I did previously and assess what I did as best as I can. This year, I’m not even going to pretend that to be a possibility. Instead, I am going to take some time to check in on projections vs end of season results for any potential bounce back candidates or overachievers to flag for potentially early best ball drafting. From there, I’ll start tracking the work of some of the smart folks I follow to see where there first inclination on 2025 is.

Rob Leibowitz (Rotoheaven, @rob_leibowitz): Step 1: Repeat the mantra “I will not price enforce Esteury Ruiz” into a state of unconsciousness. Step 2: Systematically analyze depth charts evaluating players, playing time, and prospects. The earlier I begin, the quicker I finish, the more time I can spend adjusting and strategy prepping.

Doug Dennis (BaseballHQ, @dougdennis41): I need to be more careful about players who have shown a propensity to miss games for injury during the season. I need to re-think OBP and BA after the first half of this season. I need to consider how to change up my strategy in a couple of leagues where the league has figured out how to adjust to the prices/talent pool. I need to be more long-term going into my dynasty league. I need to think differently about the middle rounds of my draft/hold. I need to consider my own biases–particularly with pitching. (Why does all this make me feel like Bart Simpson writing sentences on the blackboard?) Otherwise, 90% of the work is identical year over year.

Patrick Davitt (BaseballHQ, @patrickdavitt): FPAZ prep from now till Oct 31, then no baseball until after Christmas. When I do start, I’ll have a reading regimen, and I want to go through the player value list to get an early start on what might be mis-valuations. I’ll also be noodling around with hitter-pitcher budget splits and auction-dollar allocations, hoping to develop some useful way of doing likewise for snake drafts.

D.J. Short (NBC Sports, @djshort): I’m usually competitive in Tout Wars most years, but pitching is one area (especially in regard to starters) where a little extra research and preparation could finally get me over the top. So, part of my prep this offseason will be looking at winners from this year and previous years to see their roadmap to success and see if I can glean anything from it. Granted, this was a weird year for SPs, but trying to draw conclusions from some of the brightest minds in the industry is never a bad idea.

Ray Flowers (Fantasy Guru, @TheRayFlowers): I think more of the same. I always look inward first to see what I can improve with my analysis. I will be looking more into head-to-head as the feedback I get from folks is that they are tilting away from roto, to my dismay. I try to take October off to focus fully on football, but I usually fail and start looking ahead to the coming year of baseball before Halloween.

Dr. Roto (DrRoto.com, @DrRoto): I turn my complete attention to football at least through the end of the year. Then I love to do a draft champions league which helps me know the player pool much better. Drafting 50 rounds makes for lots of catching up in short order!

Carlos Marcano (Triple Play Fantasy, @camarcano): I’m already looking at pitchers because I’m obsessed about them, like, unhealthily obsessed, to be honest. And I believe that’s the reason I tend to underperform with hitting so I will need to come up with a better plan to balance my attention and valuations towards hitting.

Mike Podhorzer (Fangraphs, @MikePodhorzer): Several years ago, I paused projecting player performance, as it became too time consuming and led to burn out. I have no plans to revisit those manual forecasts, so the offseason is finally a chance to relax and enjoy stressless days, no longer ruined by bullpens blowing my starting pitchers’ wins! I still follow player movement, but don’t truly get back into the swing of things until Spring Training begins.

Vlad Sedler (FTN Fantasy, @rotogut): First, a two-week siesta. When I awaken, I will comb through the copious amount of data I’ve collected from this season, run the accuracy of our 2024 projections, and begin the process of 2025 projections. I’ll also revisit notes I’ve made to myself throughout the season. Documentation in-season is key since there is so much we forget. It’s something new I’ve integrated into my process this year.

Erik Halterman (Rotowire, @erik_halterman): I’m going to add more columns to my rankings spreadsheet. Will that lead to more accurate rankings? No idea. Will it lead to a more cumbersome spreadsheet? Definitely.

Garion Thorne (DraftKings, @GarionThorne): As much as I’d like my offseason prep to begin as soon as the last out of the World Series happens, I have professional commitments to fantasy football and fantasy basketball that take up a lot of my Fall and Winter. I tend to think that a little time away from baseball helps refresh and reset. It can even help cleanse you of carrying over unnecessary ideologies from last season. That being said, I’ll be on FanGraphs and Baseball Savant as soon as that first free agent signs. Sweet, sweet addiction.

Frank Ammirante (The GameDayHQ, @FAmmiranteTFJ): I’m planning to start offseason prep much earlier. Usually, I wait until January because I’m heavily involved in football, but that won’t be the case this year. I had a pretty good season, but it could have been much better. Looking to dive in on each player as soon as the season ends.

Phil Hertz (Baseball HQ, @prhz50): Not going to change much, if at all. For the first couple of months, I’ll try to enjoy the postseason and follow player movement news. Sometime in mid-December , I’ll start organizing my players into tiers. In January and February, I’ll refine those lists and eventually try to “pick” my team.

Rick Wolf (SiriusXM Fantasy, @RickWolf1): This time of year, I promise myself that I will go to First Pitch Arizona to make sure I have to stay with baseball. When I was doing the radio show for the last 12 years, I was all football – all the time. Now, I can stay close to the September call ups and plan to spend MUCH more of the fall with baseball reading and watching at bats for pitching and hitting. Need to also understand better how to identify the rookies and breakout candidates. It is on the fringes that championships are won. Our core system is strong but we have been missing on the prospects and breakouts badly lately. Looks like another 2nd place finish this year. If you’re not first…

Matt Cederholm (Baseball HQ, @TheBigHurtHQ): First Pitch Arizona! Draft prep starts NOW. Admittedly, after the Baseball Forecaster whirlwind and FPAZ, I’ll wait until after the holidays. As I usually do, I’ll do a “what went right/what went wrong” assessment. This year, I’ll be focusing on why I consistently struggled to find starting pitching in almost every league. Maybe it was a fantasy-wide trend, but I think I went beyond that trend. I’m usually very good at identifying emerging pitchers, so maybe overconfidence?

Andy Andres (BaseballHQ, @sabermetrics101): Trying to figure out the right way to take advantage of the bat swing data for evaluations and projections — just used the tip of the iceberg this year. I also want to reflect on the right weight to put on pitching at the draft/auction — my thinking about this is all over the place.

Corbin Young (Baseball HQ, Rotowire, @corbin_young21): In the heart of football season, it will be minimal baseball prep beyond contributing to the Baseball Forecaster and maybe an occasional leaderboard/filter data pull. Once football season is over, then I do some deeper dives based on the filters and data I look at to see what’s going on. And of course, use some projections to see which players stand out based on the early draft market because there are a ton of sickos drafting during football season (only kidding).

Jason Collette (Rotowire, @): The exact opposite of what I did this past offseason. I did far better with individual player work than I did with team construction work and had another disappointing Tout finish despite a better year in LABR. I’m frustrated with my lack of success in recent seasons in this league and need to figure out how I continue to screw things up.

Alan Harrison (The Fantasy Fix, @TheFantasyFix): Preparation for the upcoming season typically starts in mid-November. Most of the process will remain the same: building out my spreadsheets, sorting out position eligibility, identifying timetables for injured players to return/when players will be promoted to the league and developing tiers/ranks.

Anthony Perri (Fantistics, @Anthony_Perri): One of the first things I do is look back and see if any new trends have emerged. How accurate were my projection models on a global scale, how accurate were they by position, by player? What indicators did I rely too heavily on or fade, and was there relevance? Are there new indicators that can be deployed moving forward.

Jeff Zimmerman (Fangraphs, @jeffwzimmerman): It’s tough to do anything new with so much on the table. One item I want to accomplish is to automate more items especially if I use the process in season. Shaving a few minutes here and there will help a ton.

Andy Behrens (Yahoo Fantasy Sports, @andybehrens): I will be meeting with the members of my Research Department individually and firing everyone who was tasked with forecasting pitchers. Also, I’m firing anyone who said Ohtani would just clog my Utility spot.

Derek VanRiper (The Athletic, @DerekVanRiper): I will take a longer break between the seasons. Playoff pods will fill up the calendar in October until First Pitch Arizona, so I won’t spend much time thinking about the 2024 regular season until the conference gets underway.

Todd Zola (Mastersball, @toddzola): I know my drafting needs improvement, but my in-season management requires more. Both Rotowire and the NFBC platform offer fabulous tools to facilitate weekly roster maintenance, but I need to design something more tailored to my personal weaknesses. I don’t know if I’ll make it commercially available as that depends on the ease of automation. As for drafting, I am wholly embarrassed by my public facing teams (TGFBI, Tout, NERF, Beat TZ RW OLC), but I am having a solid season in a few private leagues, so it’s not like I completely forgot how to draft, so I will dig in to try to develop more consistency. My offseason schedule will afford me more of an opportunity to achieve this than past years. Why? Because I am leading the relaunch of Fantasy Index baseball magazine, so the deadline for profiles is MUCH earlier. Up until this year, I always was knocking off some stragglers in January and February, but 500-plus profiles will be in the hopper by December 15.

Michael A. Stein (Fantasy Judgment, @FantasyJudgment): I need to focus on accumulation of quality depth with pitching because I have been burned severely the past few years in Roto leagues. Rather than targeting a couple ace starters in the first few rounds, I want to be more flexible and creative in drafts by considering taking the best hitters available and focus on building pitching staffs later on. I plan on doing more mock drafts with different rules, formats and number of teams so I can test out some theories and scenarios. For my H2H points leagues, I will make my spreadsheets with 2024 stats and 2025 projections and set my tiers at each position. I probably won’t start doing this until after Thanksgiving, but if there is a flurry of early off-season free agent/trade action then I may be more inclined to start prepping earlier.

Shelly Verougstraete (Fantasy Feud Podcast, @ShellyV_643): I plan to take time off and enjoy playoff baseball! This was my worst season to date, so after the World Series, I plan on doing a deep dive to see if there were any trends or just ‘one of those years’.

Steve Gardner (USA TODAY Sports, @SteveAGardner): Nothing too different for me. Some possible postseason “real” baseball coverage could be in the works. Happily continuing my annual trek to the Arizona Fall League and First Pitch Arizona. Wish I had more fantasy baseball “work” to do, but otherwise I’ll try to get started on 2025 rankings.

James Anderson (Rotowire, @RealJRAnderson): The one thing I know I want to re-dedicate myself to is digging deep(er) on the mid-to-late round SPs. I did NFBC Gladiator drafts in fall of 2022 but didn’t do them in fall of 2023. I might get back to doing those this fall since it’s good practice for the 12-team formats that I struggled with this year. I think I’m also going to spread my draft champions leagues out better this offseason. I did a bunch of early DCs last year and fewer late ones, but I think the quality of the owners is better in the early ones, so I could do better (and be better prepared) if I did fewer super early drafts.

Larry Schechter (Winning Fantasy Baseball, @LarrySchechter): Last year I needed to streamline my process because I was crazy busy finishing my new book and this year I will be crazy busy promoting it so I am going to have to use the same streamlined process…hopefully with better results…because this year sucked.

Sky Dombroske (Fantistics Insider Baseball, @SkyDombroske): I’m less burned-out on baseball this year than I have been the past few, but I’ll likely still take a few weeks to decompress and enjoy the playoffs. After that, I really need to take a look at my traditional roto strategy. I was pretty unsuccessful in that format this year (1 1st, 1 3rd, 3 OOM), while in any other format I had a very solid year. It’s pretty common knowledge that I don’t prefer the format, but is that the reason for the lackluster performance?

Scott Swanay (FantasyBaseballSherpa, @fantasy_sherpa): I noticed some strange relationships between 2023 auction prices and final stats, both for Hitters & for Pitchers; I’ll be curious to look at the final 2024 stats and see if those relationships held true this year as well or not.

Dave Adler (Baseball HQ, @daveadler01): I’ll start by analyzing 2024 player stats to see if their performance was more fact than fluke; the goal is to identify under- or over-performers and adjust the 2025 outlooks accordingly. I’ll then track off-season transactions and determine the effect on 2025 playing time. now that I’ve played in the league for a year, I’ll figure out how I want to change my strategy for next year.

Ryan Bloomfield (BaseballHQ, @RyanBHQ): Break? What break!? Diving straight into writing/editing work for the 2025 Baseball Forecaster and continuing twice-weekly episodes of our Bubba and the Bloom podcast. Check us out!

Rick Graham (Pitcher List, @IAmRickGraham): I’ll take a week or two to enjoy the postseason before starting to look into 2025. I’ll be working on early closer/reliever rankings in October and look forward to attending FPAZ at the end of the month. One thing I plan on focusing on this offseason is looking at draft/auction strategy trends, as I feel like the shift towards spending heavy draft capital on hitting over pitching seemed to pay off this year. Was this season just different or is this here to stay?

Ryan Hallam (Fighting Chance Fantasy, @FightingChance): As someone who is also an analyst of sorts for football, I don’t normally take time to go over what I did right and wrong in baseball each season, but I definitely want to grade myself this season as it did not go my way. Injuries were definitely a factor, but everyone had that, so it is hard to make that a crutch. I also want to take a look at trends over the last two months of the season to see who I think can take that momentum into a much better 2025.

Peter Kreutzer (Rotoman.substack.com, @kroyte): I’m going to do pretty much the same: Write 1,000 or so profiles for Rotoman’s Fantasy Baseball Guide 2025 A-Z with prices and projections and update them all spring for the rotoman.substack.com newsletter. The goal is to know the player pool and identify players with potential who are being overlooked. I’ve got to get on it, the XFL draft is a month away.

Nick Pollack (Pitcher List, @PitcherList): I sprint through the finish line and publish a way-too-early Top 200 SP days after the season ends to ensure all my current interpretations of the season are on paper, while setting a baseline to update in February and March. The next four months involve livestreams of each team’s expected rotation, ensuring I’ve updated my baseline expectations for them entering 2025. If you want Abs in the summer, you have build them in the winter!

CJ Kaltenbach (Fantasy Guru, @TheSeigeDFS): Focus more on the elite bats, the gap between the elite bats and the replacement level has gotten higher than ever so missing on early hitting can doom your season the way it hasn’t in the past so I’ll be spending more time at the top of the draft than I have in past off seasons. Other than that will do NFBC Cutlines to hone in on the player pool for next spring.

Zach Steinhorn (Steinhorn’s Universe on Substack, @zachsteinhorn): I don’t plan on changing much. Aside from participating in mock drafts for publications, I like to take a break from fantasy baseball thinking until after the new year. I’ll then read as many articles and listen to as many podcasts as I can with the goal of formulating my own lists of overrated and underrated players, also known as early-round avoids and late-round targets. I didn’t hit on as many late-round starting pitchers this year as in years past, so I’ll try to figure out what went wrong in that department.

Brendan Tuma (Underdog Fantasy, @toomuchtuma): This offseason, I’m interested in taking a deeper look at MLB as a whole. This includes 2024 as well as previous seasons to get an understanding of where the game is trending, and how we can use that to our advantage for fantasy purposes. League-wide stats I want to dive into include ERA, BABIP, homer-to-fly ball rate, etc. The Juiced Ball Era is over. Sticky stuff is gone. Stolen bases are up. Now that the dust is settling on a flurry of changes from the past 4-5 years, which positions and stats should we consider scarce? Which are readily available throughout the year? This will help shape an optimal approach heading into 2025.

Grey Albright (RazzBall, @razzball): I will watch postseason baseball and bask in the glory of my league winnings and pretend the leagues I lost never happened, then I’m going to Paris in November, while there I will tell them “je suis Raygun” and break dance. When I return, I will begin my 2025 rankings.

Michael Govier (Pallazzo Podcast, @mjgovier): Sigh…I have to reduce the amount & the variety of different league formats I am in. It’s just not working. Two straight years of ho-hum results has made that clear. 2022 was a great year with solid returns both financially & as far as placing in multiple leagues. I have too many dynasty leagues that I need to purge. I also want to focus much more on best ball leagues next year instead. I put in the time during the offseason last year, but I am going to start even sooner this time with more focus on pitching because I am falling short in K’s too often across the last two years. All I know is what I’ve been doing the last two years isn’t working, but most of all I want to be in-person for my Tout Wars draft in 2025. That’s my number one goal of the offseason because I love being in Tout! I am grateful for the opportunity & next year is my year!

Rudy Gamble (Razzball, @RudyGamble): Last year, I tried something new and put out a Beta version of the Steamer/Razzball projections in Oct/Nov. I did not think it was very productive and will likely go back to my standard practice of taking Oct-Dec off from MLB and spend Jan-Mar building and iterating on the Steamer/Razzball preseason projections where I focus mainly on player roles and playing time (AB/IP). I’ll also analyze 2024 projections vs actuals to see if there are any notable areas to try and improve upon.

Joe Orrico (Fantasy Pros, @JoeOrrico99): I plan to take the month of October (mostly) off from producing content, just to give the batteries a chance to recharge. Once the cold days start to come in November, I start to break down every team, player, position, and stat category to try and see if there are any trends or patterns I should be aware of. Then, I’ll start my initial rankings process, entering into some early drafts to battle test my initial gut feelings. Before we know it, it’ll be pitchers and catchers time

Greg Jewett (The Athletic, @gjewett9): Very different. I had a tremendous year in 2023 and rested on my laurels. I will get back to my roots and dive deeper into my off-season process of assessing players for the upcoming season. My closer work has increased, but it’s also prepared me for content this winter. I thank Tout for the opportunity to play in the H2H league for the past four years.

Joe Gallina (Fantasy Alarm, @joegallina): I’m hoping to be able to recharge my batteries, watch some Yankees playoff baseball, and I also plan on spending part of the offseason taking a deeper dive into learning more about the nuances of using Statcast in my baseball prep and content creation.

Bret Sayre (Baseball Prospectus, @BretSayreBP): Generally, I just enjoy watching the playoffs in October, level set my dynasty rankings/teams in November and then try not to think about it at all in December (to varying degrees of success). I don’t plan on doing anything differently this offseason in terms of that process, but I definitely feel like i had more success from a strategic standpoint on the hitting side than the pitching side in 2024, so I’ll likely dive into that a little more specifically come January.

Justin Mason (Friends With Fantasy Benefits, @JustinMasonFWFB): I always begin my prep for an upcoming season by looking backwards first. By examining the previous season, I am able to see why I did well or I didn’t do well to make sure if I have any gaps in my approach, I can fix that for the upcoming season.

Here are the results of this week’s FAB bidding. Remember, if you want to check out the standings, rosters and full transactions for particular league, just click in the section heading.

American League

PLAYER	TEAM MANAGER	BID
GCampero, LAA	Patrick Davitt	86
DLynch, KC	Chris Blessing	43
ESabrowski, Cle	Patrick Davitt	6
BBasso, Oak	Rick Wolf/Glenn Colton	3
JCannon, CWS	Rick Wolf/Glenn Colton	3
EWagaman, LAA	Rick Wolf/Glenn Colton	3
THerrin, Cle	Patrick Davitt	1
JBerti, NYY	Rick Wolf/Glenn Colton	0
FEllard, CWS	Rick Wolf/Glenn Colton	0
YaRodriguez, Tor	Mike Podhorzer	0
BLively, Cle	Mike Podhorzer	0
RGonzalez, Bos	Andy Andres	0

National League

PLAYER	TEAM MANAGER	BID
JJunis, Cin	Brian Walton	30
JKing, StL	Phil Hertz	20
TMiller, ChC	Phil Hertz	20
OAlbies, Atl	Derek Carty	17
BHoeing, SD	Phil Hertz	12
MBlack, SF	Derek Carty	0
CRea, Mil	Rick Graham	0
NNunez, Was	Erik Halterman	0
JYepez, Was	Peter Kreutzer	0
NYorke, Pit	Ian Kahn	0

Mixed Auction

PLAYER	TEAM MANAGER	BID
LAcuna, NYM	Dave Adler	191
OAlbies, Atl	Justin Mason	171
JKochanowicz, LAA	Dave Adler	98
AMartinez, Cle	Jeff Zimmerman	59
BPerkins, Mil	Jeff Zimmerman	59
JAranda, TB	Jeff Zimmerman	59
GHolmes, Atl	Kev Mahserejian	52
JSuarez, LAA	Alex Chamberlain	50
JCantillo, Cle	Todd Zola	18
BFalter, Pit	Doug Anderson – Mike Carter	12
MSpence, Oak	Doug Anderson – Mike Carter	11
MMcGreevy, StL	Doug Anderson – Mike Carter	11
JWestburg, Bal	Doug Anderson – Mike Carter	11
VCaratini, Hou	Scott Swanay	10
MAmaya, ChC	Doug Anderson – Mike Carter	7
EWagaman, LAA	Scott Engel	0
JAdam, SD	Andy Behrens	0

Mixed Draft

PLAYER	TEAM MANAGER	BID
YaRodriguez, Tor	Rudy Gamble	78
JCantillo, Cle	Ryan Bloomfield	60
APuk, Ari	Scott White	35
JKochanowicz, LAA	Adam Ronis	22
BBasso, Oak	Adam Ronis	20
SHalvorsen, Col	Tim McLeod	15
JBart, Pit	Mike Gianella	8
IHerrera, StL	Adam Ronis	2
VCaratini, Hou	Brian Entrekin	2
ElDiaz, SD	Tim McLeod	1
EWagaman, LAA	Brian Entrekin	1
KFarmer, Min	Brian Entrekin	1
KStowers, Mia	Brian Entrekin	1
GHolmes, Atl	Brian Entrekin	1
JTinoco, Mia	Scott White	0
LRoupp, SF	Mike Gianella	0
GUrshela, Atl	Mike Gianella	0
LAcuna, NYM	Mike Gianella	0

Head to Head

No bids, halfway through the finals.

Mixed Draft with Alternate Categories

PLAYER	TEAM MANAGER	BID
JWalker, StL	Geoff Pontes	41
PSmith, Ari	Ray Flowers	13
JDominguez, NYY	Zach Steinhorn	12
CSmith, Cle	Ray Flowers	10
JJimenez, Atl	Ray Flowers	9
MYastrzemski, SF	Geoff Pontes	9
JAranda, TB	Geoff Pontes	3
HGoodman, Col	Geoff Pontes	3

Here are the results of this week’s FAB bidding. Remember, if you want to check out the standings, rosters and full transactions for particular league, just click in the section heading.

American League

PLAYER	TEAM MANAGER	BID
KRocker, Tex	Andy Andres	29
JWinckowski, Bos	Jeff Erickson	24
AMarsh, KC	Rick Wolf/Glenn Colton	19
WWagner, Tor	Doug Dennis	16
AMartinez, Cle	Rick Wolf/Glenn Colton	9
JMeyers, Hou	Mike Podhorzer	9
JKochanowicz, LAA	Rick Wolf/Glenn Colton	6
ABarger, Tor	Eric Samulski	4
JCantillo, Cle	Jason Collette	2
DMartin, CWS	Eric Samulski	1
JAdams, LAA	Andy Andres	0

National League

PLAYER	TEAM MANAGER	BID
DMillas, Was	Phil Hertz	57
LAcuna, NYM	Grey Albright	24
JTinoco, Mia	Ian Kahn	2
TSaggese, StL	Rick Graham	1
EPerez, Mia	Phil Hertz	1
RAcuna, Atl	Phil Hertz	1
PWisdom, ChC	Erik Halterman	0
NPearson, ChC	Rick Graham	0

Mixed Auction

PLAYER	TEAM MANAGER	BID
JBeck, Col	Todd Zola	23
KRocker, Tex	Dave Adler	51
HGoodman, Col	Scott Engel	2
KMontero, Det	Scott Engel	2
KClemens, Phi	Alex Chamberlain	46
JFraley, Cin	Alex Chamberlain	46
JIrvin, Was	Andy Behrens	0
ARizzo, NYY	Scott Swanay	5
PSmith, Ari	Scott Swanay	5

Mixed Draft

PLAYER	TEAM MANAGER	BID
JDominguez, NYY	Seth Trachtman	150
GCanning, LAA	Adam Ronis	48
BDonovan, StL	Adam Ronis	44
KRocker, Tex	Scott White	35
JDeLuca, TB	Brian Entrekin	33
HGoodman, Col	Adam Ronis	32
PSmith, Ari	Mike Gianella	8
BFalter, Pit	Tim McLeod	6
AVerdugo, NYY	Dr. Roto	1

Head to Head

PLAYER	TEAM MANAGER	BID
TMegill, NYM	Lauren Auerbach	85
CSantana, Min	Lauren Auerbach	21
JIrvin, Was	Sky Dombroske	12
NSchanuel, LAA	Sky Dombroske	7

Mixed Draft with Alternate Categories

PLAYER	TEAM MANAGER	BID
KRocker, Tex	Derek VanRiper	57
CSchmidt, NYY	Zach Steinhorn	18
DMartin, CWS	Ray Flowers	17
PBailey, SF	Ray Flowers	6
THolton, Det	Ray Flowers	6

We’re not done yet. The Touts were asked:

What players are you especially interested in tracking down the stretch.

Scott Engel (The Game Day, @ScottETheKing): Young players in a playoff race, breakout types like Mark Vientos, and top targets such as Wyatt Langford. How they will continue to respond. Plus newer closer types such as Ryan Walker and Porter Hodge.

Derek VanRiper (The Athletic, @DerekVanRiper): I’m seeking out players getting their second or third opportunities as big leaguers — Parker Meadows, as one example — since we are seeing a lot of players go through longer adjustment periods against top-level pitching right now. Struggling for 300-500 PA might be completely normal for some good players, and with Meadows in particular, some of the 2024 sleeper hype has faded.

Erik Halterman (Rotowire, @erik_halterman): Young, early-round picks who have disappointed for most of the year like Corbin Carroll, Julio Rodriguez and Bobby Miller. If Carroll posts a third consecutive good month following three straight bad ones, that’s an entirely different narrative to evaluate over the winter than if his 2024 season winds up being two good months sandwiched between some extended rough stretches. Rodriguez and Miller can at best hope to show us one month of vintage form at the tail end of a lost season, but given their youth and pedigree, one great month could be enough to restore confidence in them going forward.

Eric Samulski (Rotoballer, @SamskiNYC): It’s DL Hall for me. He was my most-rostered player coming into the year and obviously that didn’t pan out, but he looks great in his recent outings. Building off that, I like to track players who will I think will have some draft fatigue attached to them next year. Guys like Jordan Walker, Parker Meadows, Matt Wallner, MacKenzie Gore, etc. where there was some excitement this year and it didn’t pan out. You can find lots of value there by sticking if you believe in the talent.

Ray Flowers (Fantasy Guru, @TheRayFlowers): It’s been a rough year, but Pete Crow-Armstrong sure is producing for the Cubs at the moment. He has a 28 percent K-rate the last 14 games which isn’t ideal, but he’s killing it slashing .392/.458/.647 with three homers, three steals, 15 RBI and 16 runs. The offense has finally caught up to the defense. He’s one of many youngsters who have holes in their overall offensive game but could still end up being 20/20 plays in 2025.

Doug Dennis (BaseballHQ, @dougdennis41): 1) players who have been hurt most of the year–want to see them return and prove health. 2) players who have (seemingly) been playing over their heads–correction or continued success? 3) decision-making by the teams themselves, particularly as they anticipate the playoffs, free agency–who do they want to see, etc.

Frank Ammirante (The GameDayHQ, @FAmmiranteTFJ): I’m interested in tracking Wyatt Langford because he seems to have finally found his footing in the big leagues. I’ll be heavily targeting Langford next season, so I want to see how where his 2025 price will end up.

Ryan Bloomfield (BaseballHQ, @RyanBHQ): For me it’s the injured starting pitchers and how their Septembers will affect 2025 ADP. Jacob deGrom is the obvious example, but what if Yoshinobu Yamamoto finishes strong and has a good postseason? Top-30 pick next year? On the flip side, what if we don’t see Justin Steele again, and his last news blurb is that he couldn’t finish the season because of an elbow injury? These types of “show me if you’re healthy or not” outings over the last couple of weeks could be major market movers next season.

Mike Alexander (Razzball, @Roto_Wan): I’m mostly interested in the types of players whose performances are going to go unnoticed by a portion of fantasy managers. That could be young guys that are getting more leash and showing they deserve it. It could also be veterans who haven’t had the season we expected but are getting right in the playoff hunt.

Howard Bender (Fantasy Alarm, @RotoBuzzGuy): My MLB world is dead. Football has crushed my soul and taken over my entire life. At least I still get to watch Judge & Soto on TV

Andy Behrens (Yahoo Fantasy Sports, @andybehrens): Apparently the Marlins are really gonna let Deyvison De Los Santos hit 45 homers in the minors without ever calling him up, huh? I’ll keep tracking him because he was the power source who was supposed to boost several of my squads. Miami is simply too focused on the Wild Card race to give him a look, it seems. Makes perfect sense.

Patrick Davitt (BaseballHQ, @patrickdavitt): The young guys, for sure. I’m especially curious about young guys on poorer teams, because the path to PT could be easier. So how Wood and Crews finish in WAS, how Caden Dana and Samuel Aldegheri start in LAA, what kind of run the CHW give to Thairo Iriarte, how Rhett Lowder fares in CIN, Jace Jung in DET…

Justin Mason (Friends With Fantasy Benefits, @JustinMasonFWFB): I want to see some of the young pitchers and how they perform down the stretch. Rookie like Rhett Lowder and Nick Nastrini don’t have a ton of value now, but if they can show some good skills, they could emerge as sleepers for next season. I also want to see how other young or inexperienced starts handle themselves as they pass previous highs in innings.

Corbin Young (Baseball HQ, Rotowire, @corbin_young21): A mixture of young pitchers performing well in smaller samples like Bowden Francis, Davis Martin, and Ryne Nelson. Plus these young hitters, including Jose Tena, Xavier Edwards, and Heliot Ramos since they have garnered deep and shallow league attention.

Phil Hertz (Baseball HQ, @prhz50): I’ll be watching the young hitting callups like Crews. I tend not to pay tons of attention to young pitchers in September. I’ve been fooled too many times by pitchers who don’t pitch well and turn it around the next spring and vice versa.

Greg Jewett (The Athletic, @gjewett9): My niche (closers) requires attention to usage patterns and performance down the stretch. How some relievers finish may determine their roles for next year. Also, monitoring closers who have lost their job (Camilo Doval and David Bednar), can they finish strong or will they need a change of scenery. Next year’s prep never ends.

Dave Adler (Baseball HQ, @daveadler01): my keeper leagues are both AL-only, so I’m focusing on young starters to try to get a sense of their worth (if any) next year. Cade Povich, Caden Dana, Zebby Matthews, David Festa, etc. Some have been up longer than others, and some have had some success (or not). Even with ugly surface numbers, if there are signs of underlying skills, they’re worth monitoring in the pre-season to see if they’re worth a bid.

Scott Swanay (FantasyBaseballSherpa, @fantasy_sherpa): As a fan, I want to see if Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge can reach the milestones they’re nearing. From a fantasy perspective I’m interested in the following: (1) Yankees’ Closer situation – will they go the unconventional route and ultimately give the job to Luis Gil or Clarke Schmidt? (2) Will Jasson Dominguez get a shot once it’s clear he won’t surpass the rookie eligibility requirements? (3) Is Josh Bell still worth rostering? (4) Will any of the following hitters return from the IL to make an impact? Trevor Story, Carlos Correa, Jeimer Candelario (5) Will any of the following pitchers return from the IL to make an impact? Jacob deGrom, Grayson Rodriguez, Tyler Glasnow, Ryan Weathers

Vlad Sedler (FTN Fantasy, @rotogut): I’ll be tracking Alex Verdugo and praying for his roto demise so that Jasson Dominguez can swoop in and help cement glorious victories for my squads. But seriously, it’s Jacob deGrom in his couple of starts here.

Jeff Boggis (Fantasy Football Empire, @JeffBoggis): I want to see if Paul Skenes is shut down by the Pittsburgh Pirates before he reaches 200 strikeouts this season. He now stands at 151 strikeouts, making him the fifth pitcher since 1920 with 150 or more strikeouts in his first 20 pitching appearances.

Anthony Aniano (Rotoballer, @AAnianoFantasy): Jacob DeGrom. Now that he is coming off the IL and will pitch in September it will be must watch TV. Can he reclaim his spot atop the pitcher food chain? Baseball is better when DeGrom is at the top of his game. It will be fun to watch.

Joe Orrico (Fantasy Pros, @JoeOrrico99): I’m gonna be keeping a close eye on some young SPs who have shown some promising signs this season, including David Festa, DJ Herz, and Spencer Arrighetti. They are early targets in 2025 drafts for me, and particularly with Festa and Arrighetti, I want to see if they are able to make some improvements in their command. Like others have said, I’m also very interested in seeing if Jacob deGrom can reclaim his crown as the best pitcher in baseball

D.J. Short (NBC Sports, @djshort): Younger players, those performing in small samples. Trying to see what’s behind the production in hopes of securing values for next year. Pete Crow-Armstrong is really interesting going into next year, but how interesting? Does his speed give him a safe floor? Backing up what others said, I’ll also be watching Crews in Washington, Dominguez in New York, Dana with the Angels, etc.

Scott Pianowski (Yahoo! Fantasy Sports, @Scott_Pianowski): Jacob deGrom, for fun. Oneil Cruz, for more fun. Very curious to see where the Bowden Francisco story is headed. And is there a Jose Bautista reinvention tour in the house?

Joe Gallina (Fantasy Alarm, @joegallina): I’m interested in seeing how the Dodgers use Yoshinobu Yamamoto down the stretch and into the playoffs. They babied him early in the season limiting him to one start per week. I’m wondering if he can get stretched enough so that he can go seven innings for them in a playoff game. How many days off he gets in between starts this month and into October will determine if I roster him again next season. This season has been a bust for fantasy thus far.

CJ Kaltenbach (Fantasy Guru, @TheSeigeDFS): Young guys who have had good statistical seasons but have struggled generating walks, I look for late season progress that could be a sign of a leap coming next year

Chris Towers (CBS Fantasy, @CTowersCBS): I’ll go with a name that may not have been mentioned yet: Framber Valdez. He started throwing his curveball as his primary pitch in early July and has been a type of strikeout pitcher we’ve never seen from him before. Valdez has mostly been (rightly, IMO) pegged as a high-floor, low-ceiling pitcher, but if he’s actually going to be a ~10 K/9 guy moving forward, he might be an undervalued top-12 SP for 2025.