Month: August 2016

Tout FAAB Remarks for the Week of August 29th!

Mastersball hits on four cylinders (Rotoman skipped out on H2H comments, but Todd wades in gracefully) about this week’s FAAB moves right here!

If Rotoman had remembered to send Todd Zola copy, he would have said: Stephania Bell grabs the only prize that mattered this week: Gary Sanchez, the greatest catcher of all time. Rotoman is terrified of not making his innings and decided to load up on starters this week, in hopes he can get back to running out relievers in the two two-week H2H contests coming up in September.

Mike Gianella’s comments on Tout NL and AL (plus LABR Mixed) at Baseball Prospectus may blow your mind.

Patrick Davitt Wins the Tout Daily Title in 2016!

davittx-large
Patrick Davitt

It took 21 weeks, 21 daily lineups, more than 949 points, before podcaster extraordinaire, Patrick Davitt, won the Tout Wars Daily title for 2016.

Tout Wars Daily is a cumulative contest sponsored and hosted by RTSports.com in 2016.

Davitt is the host of the popular and award-winning BaseballHQ Radio podcast.

The 2015 Tout Wars champ was Charlie Wiegert.

Screenshot 2016-08-27 09.56.53Davitt scored two strong pitching performances, from Gio Gonzalez and Justin Verlander, monster nights from Gary Sanchez and Josh Donaldson, and solid performances from Daniel Murphy, Brandon Guyer, Robbie Grossman and Mike Napoli.

Tristan Cockcroft’s second place team shared Sanchez, Napoli, Murphy, Donaldson, Grossman and Stephen Piscotty, but couldn’t overcome a poor night from David Phelps (despite the night-high scoring start from Chris Sale).

With so many shared players, Davitt clinched a slim victory over Cockcroft before the night’s games were over, as he and Cockcroft shared their final innings.

That did not guarantee victory on the night, however, as Eno Sarris and Brian Walton were each getting a terrific performance out of Jeff Samardzija in San Francisco. Sarris needed nine innings and eight strikeouts from Samardzija to pass Davitt after the eventual champ’s night was finished. But with a 7-0 lead Samardzija was pulled from his game after the seventh inning, ending Sarris’s challenge.

You can see the complete standings at RTSports.com.

The full season leaderboard is here.

 

 

Tout Daily Finals: The Race.

They started playing at 7:05. Now, three hours later, the top teams are running out of innings.

Challengers, with pitchers and more innings coming, lurk.

At 10:15, here are the Top 5.

Screenshot 2016-08-26 22.16.31

That’s Patrick Davitt, Tristan Cockcroft, Rick Wolf, Mike Gianella, Eno Sarris.

NOTE: Gianella (KingFolderol) has more innings left. Sarris’s second starter, Jeff Samardzija, hasn’t yet begun.

NOTE: The Top three teams all rostered Gary Sanchez, who has put up 14 points for just $2,600 in salary.

NOTE: At 11:15, Patrick Davitt has a miniscule lead over Tristan Cockcroft. Davitt has one inning of Mike Napoli and one inning of Brandon Guyer left to go. Cockcroft has one inning of Napoli. Absent a major rush from Eno Sarris, Jason Collette, or Mike Gianella, it looks like Davitt has this thing wrapped up.

NOTE: At midnight, the paths to beat Patrick Davitt are limited. Eno Sarris gets there if Jeff Samarzdija pitches a complete game shutout with eight strikeouts. He’s got five K through five IP, with a six run lead, so it isn’t impossible. Brian Walton also has Samarzdija live, but is 1.66 points behind Sarris. He needs a double from Addison Russell to pass Eno, plus Samarzdija to be good to pass Davitt.

NOTE: 12:21. Another scoreless inning, another strikeout for Samarzdija. Sarris and Walton are stalking:
Screenshot 2016-08-27 00.21.20

 

 

The Tout Daily Championships Are Friday Night on August 26th!

This is what they’ve been playing for: The Championship Game!

All baseball season long, though five qualifying periods, more than 40 Tout Wars members have been competing for tickets to the final game, when a champion will be crowned. That happens on Friday night!

The challengers (ranked by total points for 2016):

Todd Zola X 2: He has two tickets.
Brian Walton X 2: He has two tickets.
Mike Gianella
Jeff Erickson X 2: He has two tickets.
Tim Heaney
Tristan Cockcroft
Rick Wolf
Jason Collette
Eno Sarris
Patrick Davitt
Rob Leibowitz
Patrick Mayo

Zola has to be considered the favorite. He has two tickets, and earned them in the last two periods, meaning he has momentum, but as we’ve seen all season long, daily fantasy is a game of swings.

Last year Charlie Wiegert won the first Tout Daily championship by rostering Clayton Kershaw, something no one else thought to do. Imagine that.

Check back on Friday night at RTSports.com/tout-wars for the latest action, and look for the #toutdaily hashtag on Twitter for chatter from the padrticipants.

It’s Full Moon on a Full Moon This Week! Plus, Tout Daily Finals Field Is Set!

Screenshot 2016-08-20 09.20.23Last night’s full “sturgeon moon” was anything but a fish for Rick Wolf’s Full Moon Tout Daily entry.

Launched by Cole Hamel’s dominant win and brought home by Masahiro Tanaka’s equally strong performance, Rick’s team danced in the moonlight to a 17 point victory.

Full Moon’s offense was powered by stalwart Joey Votto, the surprising Keon Broxton, this year’s biggest surprise Jonathan Villar, and youthful powerhouse Gary Sanchez.

full-moon-2Last night’s contest, the last of the Tout Daily regular season, determined the winners of the final three golden tickets to the Tout Daily finals, which will be held next Friday, August 26th, at RTSports.com/tout-wars.

Brian Walton finished 11th on the week and first for Period 5, winning his second ticket to the finals. He’ll have two entries next week, having also finished first in Period 1.

Todd Zola finished third on the week, and second for Period 5, winning his second ticket to the finals. He finished first in Period 4.

Mastersball partners Zola and Walton also finished first and second in Total Points over the 20 weeks of Tout Daily. There’s no award for that, apart from the special satisfaction of a job well done.

Eno Sarris finished 12th on the week, and third for Period 5, winning his first ticket to the finals. He finished 19th overall, demonstrating that there are many paths to the staging ground for the assault on the pinnacle (otherwise known at the 2016 Tout Daily Championship).

The estimable Charlie Wiegert is the reigning Tout Daily Champion, and he will pass his crown next week to one of these on the full roster of Tout Daily Finalists (sorted by Total Points on the season):

Todd Zola X 2
Brian Walton X 2
Mike Gianella
Jeff Erickson X 2
Tim Heaney
Tristan Cockcroft
Rick Wolf
Jason Collette
Eno Sarris
Patrick Davitt
Rob Leibowitz
Patrick Mayo

You may follow along live next Friday night, or check in on the results at RTSports.com/tout-wars. And check ToutWars.com for a preview of the night’s contest, and the game story on Saturday morning.

Use the RTSports.com/tout-wars link to sign up to play daily fantasy baseball games for free for fun or enter pay contests to win prizes.

The regular season final leaderboard can be found here.

The state of the moon on August 26th will be Waning Crescent.

 

Who’s Winning Tout Wars: Mixed Auction

Today, Cory Schwartz and Fred Zinkie are tied for first place. You can see the standings and rosters here.

Note that Bret Sayre and Zach Steinhorn are within spitting distance.

If you apply Clay Davenport’s Rest of Season projections to the current rosters, Sayre comes out on top.

If you apply the BaseballHQ Rest of Season projections to the current rosters, Zinkie, Schwartz and Steinhorn finish within two points of each other. And Sayre not that far back.

Anything could happen! That’s certainly what fifth-place Joe Pisapia is hoping.

August 15 Tout Wars FAAB Reports Posted Now!

Mastersball weighs in on all five TW Leagues, plus Todd offers a nice hat tip to our friends at Baseball HQ.

Mike Gianella’s FAAB report at Baseball Prospectus covers AL and NL Tout, as well as LABR Mixed (with references to the Tout wars prices in mixed).

 

 

Sarris Crushes Tout Wars Daily Field! Walton Takes Big Lead!

Screenshot 2016-08-13 10.13.58Eno Sarris got a monster game from Charlie Blackmon in Philadelphia (his three solo homers added up to 19 points on the night) and a solid game from Rajai Davis (his three steals were owned by just one percent of RTSports players), plus nice games from Dylan Bundy and Evan Longoria to lap all the Tout Daily by RTSports.com field except Todd Zola.

Zola finished six points behind Sarris, riding Yu Davish’s first 100+ pitch game since starting his recovery from TJ, Hanley Ramirez’s rout (two homers, six RBI) and Longoria’s nice game, plus solid contributions from Stephen Vogt, Jabari Blash, and Billy Hamilton (3 steals on one hit, one walk, three strikeouts).

Derek VanRiper led the rest of the pack, 13 points behind Sarris, with Brian Walton in fourth. Walton’s strong finish vaulted him to the top of the Period 3 standings, 19 points ahead of second place Steve Moyer.

Moyer’s lead after period two was erased following his weak performance in week 3 (Christian Yelich, for example, was 0-4 with four strikeouts), and he is now in a dogfight with VanRiper and Sarris for the final two golden tickets to the finals, about 15 points ahead of the next pack of contenders led by Zola, Adam Ronis, Jake Ciely and Lawr Michaels.

Ronis (fourth) and Ciely (sixth) have the most total points in the Tout Daily series in 2016, without earning a ticket to the finals. Next Friday’s contest is their last chance this year. Before the season Ciely was a strong advocate for giving the highest scoring team to not earn a ticket a ticket into the finals. What did he know then?

Walton and Zola are the only contenders who already have tickets to the finals.

See the complete leaderboard here.

Join us next Friday for the final week of the final period of Tout Daily by RTSports.com.

And join us August 26th, when 15 teams compete for the title of Tout Daily 2016 Champion!