Tout Wars FAAB Report: Week of April 16

Welcome to the weekly Tout Wars FAAB report, on its new home right here on the Tout Wars site. Each week, we’ll review the free agent acquisitions from all five leagues, with commentary from a league member, as well as yours truly. We changed the timing of the weekly run to 1 PM ET every Sunday, with the report posted later that afternoon so you’ll have time to digest and apply to your own leagues. In addition, I’ll be joining Lawr Michaels and Justin Mason on the Tout Wars Hour on the FNTSY Network every Sunday at 3:20 PM ET to discuss the results.

You can find the complete list of Tout Warriors here. Everyone starts with 1000 FAAB units, less any penalty incurred by finishing below a designated point in the standings. This is a means of keeping everyone motivated to keep playing all season long. The minimum bid is $0. FAAB units can be traded as well as rebated for players released off the DL.

The report will list all winning bids along with unsuccessful tries and contingencies. This provides the maximum level of information to help gauge interest on the players.

The American and National League only formats are 12-team leagues, as is the new points-based head to head league, The Mixed Auction and Draft each have 15 clubs. All the leagues have four reserves with an unlimited DL, expect the head to head league, which allows six reserves.

The headings above each league are links to publicly accessible sites where you can see standings, roster and a complete review of transactions. The initial auctions and drafts can be found here.

AMERICAN LEAGUE

SUCCESSFUL BIDS

UNAWARDED BIDS

Seth Trachtmans’s’ Commentary

New Rangers first baseman Ronald Guzman was clearly the big prize in the AL this week, garnering bids from seven out of 12 teams. Jeff Erickson won him with impressive efficiency at $77, beating out Jason Collette’s $75 bid, as well as Lawr Michaels’ $73 attempt. The Rangers have been put in panic mode this week after losing both of their middle infielders, and it’s conceivable that Guzman will play the rest of the season on a team that has started the year 5-11, with two of the hottest teams in the AL in their division. That potential playing time volume is balanced out by limited upside, as Guzman has a career .334 on-base percentage in the minors and has never hit more than 16 home runs in a season.

With middle infielders Rougned Odor, Xander Bogaerts, Brad Miller, Elvis Andrus, and Jonathan Schoop all going on the DL in the last seven days, we also saw significant action in the middle infield market with names ranging from Rob Refsnyder ($16) to Ryan Goins ($1). I can’t speak for the rest of the league, but I claimed two new middle infielders this week (Goins and Tyler Saladino) and am hardly in the mood to brag about my purchases.

There wasn’t much pitching purchased this week, though Brian Johnson and Sergio Romo did fetch multiple bids. Romo has been effective early on as Tampa Bay’s setup man, while Rays closer Alex Colome has allowed at least a run in four of his six appearances. Johnson, meanwhile, made an excellent spot start on April 2 at Miami and has another spot start tomorrow vs. Baltimore.

Todd’s Take

In order to get this report posted Sunday evening, we moved the bid deadline to 1 PM ET/10 AM PT. Previously, it was Sunday at midnight ET. One of the concerns was not having Sunday’s action to help frame bids. While we knew it could occasionally hurt an owner, we obviously opted to run with the earlier deadline. Well, fellow Tout Wars board member Jeff Erickson was victimized by the change as Brian Johnson lost his only scheduled start next week due to the early postponement of the Patriot’s Day affair in Fenway Park. By rule, Jeff must keep Johnson active and with Drew Pomeranz expected to be back Thursday, Johnson will either head to Pawtucket or the bullpen.

NATIONAL LEAGUE

SUCCESSFUL BIDS

UNAWARDED BIDS

Brian Walton’s Commentary

A former National League Tout champion, Mike Gianella, was in the center of the bidding action this week – both in his successful offers as well as by sparking a bidding war won by another. The Baseball Prospectus writer was the most aggressive player in the Week 3 bidding, nabbing Colorado setup man Adam Ottavino and Milwaukee starter Junior Guerra for a total of $216.

Though former closer Ottavino is not a threat to current closer Wade Davis, the right-handed pitcher donning the uniform number “0” has been lights out in his defined set up role. Ottavino has a whopping 18 strikeouts against just one hit and one walk in 8.1 scoreless innings in 2018.

Guerra, who hit harder times after having been named Milwaukee’s Opening Day starter in 2017, did not initially make the Brewers rotation out of camp this spring. In fact, he was banished to Triple-A. However, given another shot after injuries and ineffectiveness has made a mess of Milwaukee’s staff, the 33-year old threw 5 1/3 innings of one-run ball at the hot-hitting Cardinals on Wednesday. In his two-start week ahead, Guerra draws two cupcakes at home – the Reds and Marlins.

How did Gianella impact others’ bids, too, you ask?

Interestingly, Gianella had cashed in Miami’s Martin Prado for a FAAB reclaim of just $10 this past week. (Owners of injured players can receive a rebate of 10 times the initial price paid, on in this case, $1 x 10 = $10.)

That put Prado on the waiver wire, where Lenny Melnick won a bidding war that ended at $105 – despite the fact that the third baseman still has to complete his minor league rehab stint before being able to contribute.

Since Prado could have remained on Gianella’s unlimited-in-size disabled list until activated by the Marlins, it might initially seem surprising for Mike to give up on Prado for a relatively small take. However, while perhaps Gianella could have fetched more for Prado in trade, he ended up burning $105 from one his competitors plus securing $10 for a player in whom he obviously had invested almost nothing and did not need.

If Melnick gets the last laugh, it won’t be for a while, at least.

Todd’s Take

Sometimes a mistake can be serendipitous. I am playing with the short stack of FAAB, incurring a penalty for a low finish last season. As such, I vowed to aggressive in bidding, since I’m not going to be in the mix at the MLB trade deadline so why not make sure I get the guys I want early. I need a placeholder catcher until Steven Vogt returns. I don’t want to break the bank, but every stat matters so I wanted the best available backstop. While doing research, I read Kyle Farmer will be filling it at third while Logan Forsythe is out. The problem is, Farmer was incorrectly listed as catcher-eligible. So, while I should have bid more, I caught a break (pun intended) since I couldn’t use him. I’d have to activate Vogt and keep Farmer in my lineup.

This wasn’t the only mistake (I was scrambling to get bids in while tracking the rain outs and adjusting columns on Sunday and Monday’s slate, but that’s no excuse). I also was too conservative on Devin Mesoraco and completely messed up, bidding on Jeff Mathis instead of John Ryan Murphy. For my lack of effort, I am the not-so-proud owner of Mathis.

Good times.

Todd’s Take, Part 2

Okay, so I’ve been reminded of Tout Wars eligibility rules. Farmer is indeed eligible at catcher. Here’s the relevant clause:

If a player did not appear in 15 games at any position, or did not appear the prior season in the majors at all, he qualifies at the one position he played most frequently the prior season in any league(s) he played in combined. If a player sat out the previous year for any reason, his eligibility will be determined by the last season in which he played professional baseball in the United States.

Last year with the Dodgers, Farmer appeared at third base four times while catching three times. In some leagues, this leads to third base only. However, since Farmer failed to amass 15 games at the MLB level, we head down to the farm (fitting, in this case) to find 51 games behind the plate and 29 at the hot corner. Another way of saying that is Phil Hertz has a catcher and I have egg on my face.

MIXED LEAGUE AUCTION 

SUCCESSFUL BIDS

UNAWARDED BIDS

Todd’s Take

Wait, isn’t Greg Holland closing for the Cardinals? While it’s true St. Louis signed Holland, ostensibly to work the ninth, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Right now, Norris is crushing it, fanning 14 with just one walk in 7.2 innings, posting three saves along the way. Don’t drop Holland (unless you really need the roster spot), but for now, the gig belongs to Norris.

MIXED LEAGUE DRAFT

SUCCESSFUL BIDS

UNAWARDED BIDS

Perry Van Hook’s Commentary

Despite only 10 of 15 teams bidding Sunday, there was more than 1000 of FAAB used to acquire 16 players in Tout’s Mixed Draft league.

Todd’s Take

Adding to Zobrist’s allure is Tout Wars is an OBP league and the Cubs jack-of-all-trades has a penchant for getting on base. Though, keep in mind Anthony Rizzo is due back, but Joe Maddon will likely find a way to keep Zobrist in the lineup.

Nick Tropeano has always been interesting. He carries a decent strikeout rate without excessive walks. He’s put this on display at the MLB level in between injuries. Healthy, at least for now, Tropeano has cemented a spot in the Angels six-man rotation. He won’t get many, if any two-start weeks, but backed by a stellar defense and supported by a solid offense, Tropeano is certainly mixed-league worthy.

HEAD-TO-HEAD MIXED AUCTION

SUCCESSFUL BIDS

UNAWARDED BIDS

Todd’s Take

Talking with Justin Mason on this week’s Tout Wars Hour on the FNTSY Network, he noted two competitors, Michael Rathburn and Howard Bender have been very aggressive so far. This puts the bidders in a bit of a conundrum. Do they have to be equally as aggressive to secure players they want, or will Howard and Michael play it conservatively for a while? Writing these reports for as many years as I have, my guess would be Justin and his league mates are probably going to have to loosen the purse strings. Having 1000 to bid, with $0 bids allowed usually leads to aggressive bidders remaining as such. We’ll see.