May 1, 2017 FAAB Reports for Tout Wars

The Mastersball crew sifts through the week’s FAAB winners and losers in all five Tout Wars leagues every Monday.

Mike Gianella gives a closer look at the Tout NL FAAB process each week on Tuesday, as well as LABR AL and Mixed.

Week 3 Tout Daily: Carty Romps

Derek Carty won the week, and remains at the only Tout Daily player to finish in the Top 5 each of the first period’s three weeks.

You can see the complete leaderboard by clicking here.

Touts sent in their picks for the week, but yours truly was out of radio contact and failed to post them. Look for picks next Friday afternoon, and Period’s 1’s dramatic conclusion next Friday night.

Andrea LaMont Takes Week 2 of Tout Daily Period 1!

Riding the big nights of Cole Hamels, Joey Gallo, Corey Seager and AJ Pollock, Rotolady edged out a victory this week over Howard Bender.

Vlad Sedler finished third for the week.

Ray Murphy had the fourth best score for the week and remains atop the leaderboard after his Week 1 victory.

 

Tout Daily Picks for April 21!

Week 2 of Period 1 of Tout Daily. Twenty Six Touts are competing for the championship. You can see the leaders (Ray Murphy, well ahead of Lenny Melnick and Brian Walton, for now) here.

Would you like to play? The league is hosted by Draft Kings, who are offering a special to new signups. Deposit $5 and gain free entry to a $3 contest. Click here to for more details and to sign up.

And compare your results to the Touts. Here are their picks this week:

Phil Hertz like Jose Quintana (vs. Cleveland, $7,700) and Manny Machado (vs. Boston,$4,800).

Charlie Wiegert, 2015 Champ

Top pitcher…Jon Lester (@ Cincinnati, $10,600).  He’s been good but he’ll need to keep the running Reds off base!  Long Shot…Alex Meyer.  He has no business being in the majors, but against a scuffling Blue Jays team, he has that chance to pitch a gem and stay in Angels rotation.

Top hitters…Freddie Freeman (@ Philadelphia, $4,600) has been scorching, plus 3 Cubbies to back Lester and abuse Red starter Adelman, Contreras, Russell and Schwarber.

Rick Wolf

Joc Pederson (@ Arizona, $3,800) is tonight’s value pick for Tout Daily. He is facing an inconsistent RHP in Walker at a classic hitter’s park, Chase Field.  He will be extremely low owned as he is only 5 for 24 vs RHP, but he does have a HR, 6 RBI and 5 walks.  When select tournament values, you want a player with 2 HR power. Joc has that possibility tonight.

Lawr Michaels

Mike Fiers (@ Tampa, $7200): There are surely safer selections than Fiers today, but for his third start the Astros hurler gets to face the Rays. Tampa is a fun young team with some good hitters, and they are hitting .256 versus right-handers, but the team also leads the league in whiffs (actually tied with the Brewers), something Fiers can certainly exploit. Meaning, I am betting power pitching will prevail over power hitting.

Starlin Castro (@ Pittsburgh, $3300): The Yankees second sacker is not just smoking hot, hitting .439-3-9 over the past ten days, but Castro, who has proved his mettle after life in Chicago, faces struggling rookie Tyler Glasnow and his 0-1, 12.15 mark over 6.6 innings and two starts thus far.

Jeff Boggis

Jacob deGrom (vs. Washington, $10,200) deGrom takes on a hot Washington team tonight at home. If he pitches around Bryce Harper, he should be fine. Surprisingly, deGrom has yet to earn a win this season. He owns a 1.89 ERA and a 0.89 WHIP, but you are rostering him tonight for his strikeout potential. In his last outing at Miami, he had 13 strikeouts. He has a 10.4 K/9 on the season.

Eric Thames (vs. St. Louis, $3,800) Incredible value here at only $3,800 tonight. That ranks him as the 21st highest salaried first baseman, which is a steal. Thames is as hot as he is going to get this season, leading the league with 8 home runs. He also leads the National League in batting average at .415. Get him into your lineup if you want to beat Lawr Michaels this week! #BeatLawr

Peter Kreutzer

CC Sabathia (@ Pittsburgh, $7,400) is off to a good start this year, and the Pirates are not. The strikeouts were there in his last start, against the Cardinals, and he makes a favorable play as my cheaper starter.

Wilsson Contreras (@ Cincinnati, $4,000) is coming off a strong game after a dispirited start to the season. Tim Adleman cannot contain him.

Mike Gianella

Top hitter: Mike Trout (vs. Toronto, $5,300). Two relatively cheap pitching plays allowed me to go big on hitting this week. The Trout/Matt Latos matchup looks delectable

Top pitcher: Tanner Roark (@ NY Mets, $8,000). The Mets are banged up and Roark should benefit from Citi’s generous dimensions and the Mets B lineup this evening.

Brian Walton

Matt Carpenter (@ Milwaukee, $4700) is a man’s man. The St. Louis Cardinals’ first baseman suffered a split fingernail on a bad hop line drive last weekend and still refuses to wear batting gloves. Friday night, Carpenter faces Milwaukee’s Wily Peralta, against whom he is 19-for-41 (.463), including eight extra base hits. After a slow start to the season, Carpenter is batting .321 over his last 10 games.

The ageless Bartolo Colon (@ Philadelphia, $6900) is off to another fine start to the season. On Friday night, the right-hander pitches for the Braves against the Phillies, a club he handed regularly during his time with the Mets. If you need a second bargain pitcher to couple with your Kluber or Verlander, Big Bart could be your man!

April 17, 2017 Tout Wars FAAB Reports

Mastersball covers all of this week’s Tout leagues transactions and LABR, too.

While Mike Gianella at Baseball Prospectus tackles Tout AL and NL, and LABR mixed (which might be a little like Tout mixed).

Week 1 FAAB Commentaries

They’ve just started playing and already there are FAAB commentaries.

Mastersball writes up all the leagues here.

Mike Gianella’s AL and NL coverage at Baseball Prospectus is here.

Both Masters and Mike also write up some LABR leagues, if you want more!

The Doubt Is Set!

Ten Doubt Wars leagues set today, which will at the end of the season be combined into one Mixed, one NL and on AL contest.

Despite a record number of signups, the shortened time to complete rosters and a process that we probably should have explained better for newcomers, the overall number of teams is similar to last year’s contest.

Doubt Wars teams can check their standings all season long. Look for a public announcement of the winners at the end of the season.

Podhorzer and Schechter Lead Projected AL Standings! And the season doesn’t start until Sunday!

Using Clay Davenport’s projections applied to the Tout AL rosters, Mike Podhorzer is going to win Tout AL big this year, finishing 10 ahead of Larry Schechter and nearly 20 ahead of Rob Leibowitz. Here’re the projected results, thanks to onRoto.com‘s Toy Box.

But onRoto doesn’t project the standings based on rest of year projections using only one projection system. They also run them with the BaseballHQ rest of season projections. With BaseballHQ, Podhorzer and Schechter are closer, much closer, but there is also an alsoran, Patrick Davitt, who becomes a contender in a seriously tight race.

Guess we better let them play it out.