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.
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 MichaelsMike 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!
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).
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!
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.
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.
That could be the headline if the final Tout NL standings at the end of the season are the same as the projected standings heading into the season. The projected standings are based on the players taken in the Tout NL auction using baseballHQ.com‘s projections.
onRoto.com, the Tout Wars stat service, offers projected standings based on rest of the year stats from two sources. In the other standings, based on Clay Davenport’s projections, onRoto owner Scott Wilderman is projected to finish first, with Gianella in second, but we should disregard those. Wilderman uses the Davenport projections to make up his bidding list.
This is the place. The rules are the same as last year. Put together a $260 team paying what the Touts paid, plus $1. Compete against other Doubt Wars players, and at the end of the year we’ll add in the real Touts, too.
Winners win some small but nice prizes, like the Fantasy Baseball Guide, a copy of the Baseball Forecaster from BaseballHQ and a platinum subscription to Mastersball.com. But the real goal is to beat the Touts.
The AL and NL leagues are full, and there are just a few remaining spots available in the Mixed league.
FIll in the form and we’ll start adding names to leagues tonight. When you log in to onRoto.com you should see your entry listed. Draft your team and you’re on your way.
NOTICE: Make sure you’re drafting 23 players, 14 hitters and 9 pitchers, for $260 or less, just as they do it in Tout Wars. Note: The software doesn’t enforce roster limits, and if you have too many players or spend too much money your rosters will be arbitrarily cut on Monday, when we go live. So please get it right!
Your team must be completely entered by Monday morning, April 3rd.
