Month: September 2012

We Have a Race!

A week ago Larry Schechter seemed to have reestablished his lead over Jeff Erickson in Tout Wars AL. Larry dominant lead in the first half had withered in August but grown in September, but now, with four ML games left, Jeff has clawed back into striking distance. Maybe. Here’s what the leaders are thinking on the night of September 29th:

JEFF ERICKSON: My quest to become the one Mike Trout owner to not win an AL-only league is going quite swimmingly tonight. Seeing Max Scherzer’s start get scratched wasn’t pleasant.

LARRY SCHECHTER: This is unlike any other time of the year, in that I am paying attention to where ever anything in the standings is close for me or Jeff.  i.e., if Ron has a starter going, I hope he gets a win but not too many K’s.

The highlight last night was Infante hitting a HR, which my offense desperately needed, and which blew a possible win for Diamond and knocked him out of the game…which was good because Diamond is owned Mike Siano, who is just one win behind me.

My offense is limping to the end here, with tons of injuries.  Besides Big Papi and Markakis, who really hurt me, lately Asdrubal keeps missing games here and there; and Gutierrez and Molina just got hurt this week.

Two Sundays ago I FAAB’d Bourgeious instead of Endy Chavez, and that was the wrong choice.  Endy played almost every day and did better.  So this past Sunday I FAAB’d Endy and benched Bourgeious, and all of a sudden Endy’s on the bench.  He’s only started once so far this week.

 

TOUT AL’s Larry Schechter Talks About It

For much of the season Tout AL’s 2011 Champ has been leading the league again, but during the summer Jeff Erickson closed the gap and at times has been in the lead. Larry answered…

What are your chances of winning as a percentage?   48%  (Jeff 47%, others 5%)

What percentage of your success this year was based on your draft?  90%

What percentage was based on trading?  0%

What percentage was based on waiver pickups?  10%

What was the best thing that happened to your team this year.   That I happened to have Soriano, which minimized the loss of Rivera.

What was the worst thing? And how did you get over it? 

#1 worst)  after trading Hamilton, Big Papi went down immediately and hasn’t come back–and probably won’t come back.  That has really hurt my HR/RBI, which were in great shape when I made the trade.  I haven’t gotten over it, and it’s a big reason my lead disappeared.

#2 worst) Romero was a distaster.  Picking up Miguel Gonzalez and Guthrie has helped…(hopefully in 4 weeks I can still say that they helped.)

Any other comments, stories, observations, jokes you would like to tell about this year’s Tout Wars season? I wonder if Wolf/Colton would have taken Big Papi instead of Hamilton?  That would have helped me immensely.  One of the reasons I offered Hamilton instead of Papi is because I felt Hamilton was a bigger injury risk; and being in 1st, I wanted to be risk averse.

 

Tout NL Contenders Speak!

I asked the Contending and Out of It Tout owners some questions, and got back some answers. Here are the answers from the Contenders in Tout Wars NL:

TRISTAN COCKCROFT

What are your chances of winning as a percentage? 45 (keeping in mind that I’d say at least four teams are still very much “in it” — or have a 10+ percent chance of victory).

What percentage of your success this year was based on your draft? 90, maybe more. Eleven of my 12 most valuable individual players this season were original draft picks, and two other current starters were also draftees.

What percentage was based on trading? 8. Juan Pierre was a critical pickup, and Shane Victorino and Ryan Dempster have (so far) proved important, but I can’t forget that all three were acquired for players who were original draftees.

What percentage was based on waiver pickups? 2. I can’t entirely discount the contributions of Erik Kratz, D.J. LeMahieu, Andrelton Simmons, Brad Lincoln, Jonny Venters or Mitchell Boggs, but does any one of those names really drive a team? I say no, being that not a single one has contributed more than 125 useful AB or 60 useful innings (so far).

What was the best thing that happened to your team this year. Aroldis Chapman discovered his command. There probably hasn’t been any one more important piece of my team than Chapman; he has stabilized my ratios and his emergence at closer afforded me the ability to trade two closers, Santiago Casilla and J.J. Putz, to fill other needs.

What was the worst thing? And how did you get over it? If it’s not Vance Worley’s elbow problems, then surely it’s the revolving door I’ve had at the middle infield spots. How did I get over it? Well, Martin Prado gained 2B eligibility, which helped, and LeMahieu has been a serviceable pickup. But consider that this season, I’ve used Prado, LeMahieu, Matt Downs, Freddy Galvis, Ronny Cedeno, Jack Wilson, Alex Gonzalez, Jean Segura, Simmons and Emmanuel Burriss between 2B/MI. That’s right, 10 different players for two spots. It’d sure be nice if Simmons could return this weekend at anything close to the form he showed before getting hurt!

PETER KREUTZER

What percentage of your success this year was based on your draft? 55 percent

What percentage was based on trading? 35 percent

What percentage was based on waiver pickups? 10 percent.

What was the best thing that happened to your team this year. My pitchers for the most part worked out, and if I’d executed on draft day and taken a closer instead of Jurrjens and Wandy Rodriguez, maybe I would have a lead at this point. The other big plus this year were some Rockies taken on reserve or during waivers. Tyler Colvin, Chris Nelson and Josh Rutledge didn’t cost me anything but some aggressive claiming, and have bolstered an offense that misfired from the get go.

What was the worst thing? And how did you get over it? My hitting draft was awful. I hit on Jason Hayward and Buster Posey, but everyone else (Gaby Sanchez and Chris Heisey particularly) either stunk or got off to a slow start. Eventually Aramis Ramirez and Drew Stubbs came around, and I was able to add Bryce Harper and Carlos Quentin in a trade, and the team banged in August. If it keeps it up in September maybe I can get to 95-97 points.

The other issue was a trade I made in June. There wasn’t much of a power market for Juan Pierre, but I had such a lead in steals I knew I had to trade him or Emilio Bonifacio. Unfortunately Bonifacio was on the DL, so I eventually traded PIerre to Tristan Cockcroft for one of the best closers in the NL to that point, Santiago Casilla. Unbelieveably, after two and a half years of excellent relief work (I didn’t care about saves so much as clean ERA and WHIP) Casilla began crashing from the first game he was on my team. And Pierre ran and ran for Cockcroft. The difference in that deal may end up being the difference between first and second, if that’s the way we finish.

DEREK CARTY

What are your chances of winning as a percentage? 30%

What percentage of your success this year was based on your draft? 30%

What percentage was based on trading? 60%

What percentage was based on waiver pickups? 10%

What was the best thing that happened to your team this year? Either Ruggiano’s breakout or being able to find tons of trade partners to retool my team for the stretch run

What was the worst thing? And how did you get over it? Injuries. Lots of injuries leading to either lots of missed time or loss of PT/role upon return (Morse, Storen, Stauffer, Helton, Hernandez etc)

PHIL HERTZ

What are your chances of winning as a percentage? Less than 5 percent.

What percentage of your success this year was based on your draft? 65%

What percentage was based on trading? 10%

What percentage was based on waiver pickup s? 25%

What was the best thing that happened to your team this year. A very good reserve round draft! I took Aoki, Lombardozzi, Parnell and Arredondo. While I eventually cut Arredondo, the other three made significant positive contributions. That’s among my best reserve round draft ever – I’d say best, except in one league a long time ago, I drafted some guy named Pujols in the reserve round.

What was the worst thing? And how did you get over it? Pitching injuries – my three most expensive starters coming out of the draft were Luebke, Lilly and Nicasio, all of whom wound up out for the season (although there are a few noises that Lilly may resurface briefly this month). I tried trading, but eventually gave up when I traded for Gee two days before he wound up in the hospital. For the last few weeks, I’ve been going more and more with just relief pitchers – I’d probably have gone even more in that direction, but for the league’s minimum innings requirement. So far I’ve netted 4-6 points by sacrificing wins – I was already last in strikeouts – for whip and ERA improvement.

Assessing the Odds of Winning: Tout NL

At the start of the year we all like our chances, and even if we think someone else did a better job in the auction, our trading and waiver skills can make up the difference. Plus, if one or two of our coveted sleepers come in, we’re golden.

But in early September the scales have fallen from our eyes. Most teams know they don’t have a prayer. In Tout Mixed Cory Schwartz says he’s got a 90-percent chance of winning, but when he describes how he might lose he can’t. His lead is too big. A loss is impossible to imagine, though not impossible to happen. Another team or two claim a slim chance of prevailing, but all know that realistically the door has closed.

In Tout AL Larry Schechter says it’s a tossup between him and Jeff Erickson at this point. Responding to the question of what bad thing happened to hurt his team this year, Schechter says it was Erickson owning Mike Trout.

The story in Tout NL is a little different. Tristan Cockcroft has opened up a sizeable lead over the last few weeks by climbing from the mid 80s to the mid 90s. He’s in good position, but a slump could drop him back into the 80s in a hurry. Peter Kreutzer (that’s me) is in second place, in the high 80s. In the middle of June, when I starting trading to maximize my points, I thought if I finished with 88-90 points I had an excellent chance of winning. Now the target has moved.

Third place is fluid, shared from day to day by Lenny Melnick, Derek Carty, Todd Zola and Phil Hertz. As I write this the standings are:

Cockcroft 97.5
Kreutzer 87
Carty 83.5
Hertz 83.5
Melnick 79
Zola 78

When I asked earlier this week what everyone thought their chances of winning were, the answers were:

Cockcroft 50
Kreutzer 20
Carty 30
Hertz 5

Which got me to thinking about what it means when we assign ourselves win percentages. I expected that we would be overly optimistic, but us NLers are barely over the threshold. Which doesn’t mean I think they’re right. I’m pretty sure that even last Monday, when Tristan’s lead was 96, 89, 81, 81, 79.5, he was better than a 50 percent favorite. If I could have bet a buck to make two on his team I would have done it in a second. And as the week has gone on his position has improved. With only weeks to go, every advantage multiplies. It is way better to have stats in hand than not.

But my team wasn’t/isn’t out of it. I’ve made all the right moves, I don’t think I’ve played the game better. I have three or four points to gain in homers and a less likely two or three to gain in RBI. If I got to 93 or 94, just a bad week or two for Tristan (and he hasn’t had many of those) might slip me past him. But realistically, I think his chances are more like 65 percent.

I like Derek Carty’s enthusiasm. He has points to gain, so I don’t feel that confident about beating him for second place, but a few places he might lose points there are points at that will go to Tristan. So, while Derek has done an amazing job changing up his team in ways that have been surprisingly effective, maybe he has a 10 percent chance of things breaking his way. That said, if I could get 10:1 on Derek’s team I don’t think I’d bet energetically.

And this is what it all comes down to: Our good analysis and where we would put our money. I may think Tristan is underselling his position, and Derek is overselling his, but the fact that our estimates add up to about 100 percent (as do the estimates in the other two Tout leagues), is a sign that at this point in September we’re not deluded. We just don’t know what’s going to happen.

And I’m hoping that Tristan is right, that his chance is about 50 percent.

What Happened? Cory Schwartz talks about Mixed Tout

With the season winding down we thought it might be interesting to see what our Tout Warriors were thinking. We’ll be posting their stories over the next few days.

I’m going to humbly answer the questions from the “contender” perspective, since I am leading in Mixed…

What are your chances of winning as a percentage? Barring a total collapse by my team down the stretch, the league is mine to lose. Even given some level of slumping I only have about 4-5 points at-risk, and the two teams battling for second place seem to be capped out at gaining about 5-7 points each, so even with a net loss of 12 points my current 16-point lead should still stand up. I’d put my chances at winning at better than 90% right now.

What percentage of your success this year was based on your draft? Almost entirely. I certainly did “miss” on some draft day purchases, but the core of my team was entirely obtained through the draft, and more importantly, the team I drafted has stayed extremely healthy. Even those who have been disappointments from an ROI standpoint – Kinsler, Hosmer and Montero, to name a few – have still been contributors.

What percentage was based on trading? None. I made exactly one trade this year season, and as of today, I’m quite clearly “losing” it, and it’s not even close. Sometimes the best trades are the ones you don’t make!

What percentage was based on waiver pickups? A fair amount. Other than Rajai Davis, my leading base-stealer, I haven’t found any blockbuster values on waivers, but I have made incremental improvements to a few weak spots via the wire. I’ve also used the waiver wire to help build and supplement my starting pitching depth with guys like Marco Estrada, Clayton Richard and – for a few well-timed spot-starts – Blake Beaven and even Justin Masterson.

What was the best thing that happened to your team this year? Edwin Encarnacion! I’ve been touting him for so long as a breakout player that acquiring him year after year was starting to feel like masochism, but all of the waiting and suffering has paid off this year, and then some. The man formerly known as E5 will forever have a place in my heart no matter where we go from here.

What was the worst thing? And how did you get over it? I was dead wrong about Alex Presley, thinking he’d be a draft-day steal at $4, and then spent $10 in FAAB to re-acquire him after his recall from Triple-A. And, my trade of Heyward and Hanrahan for Granderson has not worked out well at all. But, if that’s as bad as things get this year, that probably explains why I’m winning!