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Rotoman’s FAAB Story: Cue Tiny Violins

On Saturday Brian Walton published his tale of FAAB Woe in Tout NL the week of August 4. I didn’t read it until after I posted the following, but the two stories are of a piece.  

Sometime around the beginning of July my Tout Wars NL team was in second place, about five points behind Seth Trachtman’s team. At least for a few moments. But since then things have gone terribly wrong.

My Stars and Scrubs squad was built on seven $20+ dollar players. Since the beginning of July Hanley Ramirez, Troy Tulowitzki, and Ryan Zimmerman have gone on the DL, and Andrew McCutchen has been sidelined for more than a week with injury, though he may avoid the DL.

Earlier I lost Joey Votto to injury, in June, but was able to swap him for Jay Bruce. Otherwise things would be worse, though Bruce continues to be a shadow of his former self.

As does Martin Prado, the last of my $20 hitters, who along with Madison Bumgarner (who has been exactly fine) rounds out my tale of woe and fifth place team of injured stars.

With all these injuries, one would think there would be replacements available. And this week in the NL there were.

Jake Lamb is Arizona’s third basemen until he proves otherwise. Hardly a star but maybe a viable regular, he will get at bats for a while, at least.

Rhymer Liriano is being called up to the Padres tomorrow. He’s been a fine minor league hitter who has some pedigree.

Michael Fiers had a great ML season in 2012, bombed last year and has been excellent in Triple A this year. I rostered him early this year, but he was passed by a phenom. Now, with Matt Garza tanked, he has a shot at a few starts. His first one was wonderful. Alas, I let him go in June, so I bid on him.

I also bid on Brad Penny, he’s been pitching well in New Orleans, and Alfredo Marte, who is getting (weak) at bats in Arizona’s outfield.

I had a total of $36 FAAB to spend. The outcome this week?

In Tout Wars we use the Vickery bidding system, which gives the bid to the highest bidder, at $1 more than the second highest bidder. This week’s results are personally painful:

Jake Lamb: Trachtman $36. Next: Rotoman $18. Result: Trachtman $19.

Rhymer Liriano: Walton $50. Next: Trachtman $26, Rotoman $13. Result: Walton $27.

Michael Fiers: Hertz $50. Next: Rotoman $14. Result: Hertz $15.

Alfredo Marte: Trachtman $7. Next: Rotoman $5. Result: Trachtman $6

Brad Penny: Wilderman $8. Next: Rotoman $3. Result: Wilderman $4.

At least I’m enforcing.

August 4 Mastersball.com FAAB report

Lot’s of action in the post-trading deadline FAAB period. Todd Zola and the lads at mastersball.com have all the bids and commentary about what went down.

To Make A Trade: Michaels and Erickson Swap in Tout AL

Lawr gave up Perkins and Rodeney for Carlos Santana, with some other bits involved. Lawr wrote it up, quoting from Jeff’s extensive analysis.

This past week in Tout NL Rotoman traded Rafael Soriano to Brian Walton for Eric Young Jr, using a similar calculation. (Not many points to lose in Saves, Rotoman said to himself, and a lot of need for a hitter and steals particularly. Plus the next three guys ahead of Brian in saves are ahead of Rotoman in the standings.)

The bottom line is that at this time of year the value of closers is diminished, because at least a few teams have no need for them, and a few others can’t afford to swap anything away. But finding a good match is an an important part of maximizing your team’s points.

Mastersball FAAB Report July 28, 2014

As they do every week, the masters at mastersball.com compile and annotate an authoritative report on the week’s bidding in all four Tout Wars Leagues.

This week? Lots of bidding in the NL, where three full time players arrived from the AL.

July 21, 2014 FAAB Report from Tireless Mastersball.com.

When only three days pass between FAAB sessions, as happened in Tout Wars this past week, the reports come fast and furious, though the bidding is weak and limpest.

Mastersball.com’s latest details all of this week’s fun. You can read it here.

One play from out of left field that the Mastersball crew missed was Rotoman’s bid on Cuban free agent Rusney Castillo, who isn’t even signed to a US team at this point! And this isn’t a keeper league! We spoke with Mr. Man, who says the following explains his bidding:

1) To compete for first he needs more hitting, and can’t afford to trade Madison Bumgarner to get it. At the same time, when he proposes to deal his next best starters, Alfredo Simon and Tanner Roark, to owners for mediocre sluggers like, say Adam LaRoche, they laugh and say they’ve been offered good pitchers for, um, LaRoche. Lenny Melnick today traded LaRoche and Drew Storen to Mike Gianella for Cameron Maybin and Tim Hudson. Fair enough, it’s a tough market.

2) Rusney Castillo is 27 years old and has been working out in Florida since being cleared to sign with a US team. He will have an open workout on Saturday and presumably sign shortly thereafter. He he signs with an AL club, Rotoman is SOL, but if he signs with a NL club, Rotoman will hope he is promoted quickly to the big league club.

3) Like Yasiel Puig and Jose Abreu, Castillo is a mature hitter, though more a speedster than a slugger. It is thought that if he signs fast enough he’ll spend a short amount of time in the minors and be promoted to the big club by the end of August. Regular at bats in September could be big for Team Rotoman.

4) The cost for all of this is $1 FAAB and a reserve slot, plus having to keep Castillo active for one fruitless week. If Castillo were to sign next Saturday, after the workout, with a NL club, his price would be much higher. And if Rotoman didn’t have Castillo active he would have Nate McLouth’s two AB instead. It seems worth the risk, he said.

Friday Edition: Mastersball FAAB Report, July 18, 2014

This year, for the first time, Tout Wars moved it’s transaction deadlines during the All Star break to Friday, with the FAAB Bidmeister running at Midnight on Thursday.

Although announced back in January, this led to some confusion (which Todd and Perry take on in their parts of the Mastersball FAAB Report) and some spirited opposition to the change in FAABing from a couple of owners.

The change was proposed for a few years running by the TW NL’s Phil Hertz, and adopted this past offseason. I think we all thought, Why not? It means that the week’s moves can be made after any information coming over the break has been processed.

The opposition seems mostly to be about making the break a real break, part of Week 17, not an extension of Week 16. There will be offseason discussion, but absent widespread opposition, it is likely to stay where it is.

Not so the FAAB redemption procedures. What we learned today was that the NL and Mixed Auction leagues have been releasing DL players immediately and then awarding the releasing owner his FAAB for the second Sunday FAAB run following the release. In TW AL, it turns out, released players have been held along with the FAAB until the second Sunday FAAB run following.

I doubt this has made any difference, since the reason teams release their DL players is because they’re either sad they ever bought them in the first place or they’re out for a long time. But that isn’t true before our Noon on July 17th deadline this year. At that point, the value of the redemption is cut in half (with odd totals rounded down). It was that deadline that put Phil Hertz on a point of decision.

After trying to deal Votto, unsuccessfully, he decided to redeem him. Phil gets $38 FAAB, which gets him up into the top group (not counting Gianella, who is out of this world), and Votto became a free agent. The fun thing is that no one knows if Votto is going to get back, or when. Bryan Price, his manager, seems to be saying he expects him back in a month, but when he got hurt again earlier this summer, going on the DL for the second time, there was speculation he wouldn’t get back at all.

For a team like mine, desperate for at bats and not in position to pick off any big guys who come over in the interleague trading, a bold play might help if Votto comes back at any point, and won’t likely hurt if he calls it a day at some point. But I hope not to find out if that part is true.

The July 7 FAAB Report

Mastersball does its usually fine job reporting and analyzing the moves this week in the four Tout leagues, as they do every week.

We had another transaction-deadline kerfuffle this week in the leagues. As you surely know, the Cubs and Athletics made a big interleague trade on Saturday. The trade was processed on Saturday and Jeff Samarzdija and Jason Hammel were available in the AL Bidmeister this week, and Dan Straily was entered into the minor league list of the NL.

Then, on Sunday morning, the Yankees and Diamondbacks made a trade of Vidal Nuno for Brandon McCarthy. Whatever the merits of the deal, it clearly took place sometime around noon ET Sunday officially. That’s when the Dbacks tweeted that the deal was done.

The wrinkle was that some enterprising Tout Warriors were able to find McCarthy’s and Nuno’s names in the list of “Minor Leaguers” that our stat provider adds in addition to our regularly eligible list, because Tout Wars allows teams to buy minor league players on waivers (provided they keep them on their active roster for one week afterwards). It turns out the minor league list is actually a list of all ineligible players, so other-league guys like McCarthy and Nuno were listed though they clearly weren’t eligible.

The claims were unravelled. A note has been sent to all Tout Leagues about who is legal and who is not.

Just to clarify one thing: The reason Tout Wars determines eligibility based on the previous day’s legal ML rosters is because these are reliable and vetted and available to everyone via the MLB website. In-day moves are subject to lots of interpretation, misleading tweets and timing issues that cannot be regularly and fairly applied.

We know that some leagues approach the transaction wire like a stream of info to be acted on immediately, which is great fun if you choose to play that way, but for Tout Wars purposes a more orderly process has been chosen instead. Alas, this means that Brandon McCarthy and Vidal Nuno are free agents all week, this week.