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Say Hello to On Base Percentage, Part 2.

While we’re putting the final touches on the 2014 Tout Wars league rosters, we wanted to make one significant announcement regarding the league rules. This year all four Tout Wars leagues will use On Base Percentage (instead of Batting Average) in their 5×5 scoring.

Last year’s experiment with OBP in the Tout Wars Mixed Draft and Tout Wars Mixed Auction leagues was a success. The patients survived, for one, and more importantly the owners in those two leagues adjusted without any obvious difficulty.

Expansion into the only leagues involves one further bit of business. The change means that Tout Wars will no longer be quite as good a draft price guideline as it was for leagues that use batting average. It was this issue that caused us to wait a year, and it was this issue that was forefront in our discussions this year about making the change. An online poll we ran in December, however, helped guide us to a decision.

Half the respondents who hadn’t played OBP thought we should make the change. And the vast majority of those who have played with OBP thought we should make the change.

We know the transition will be uncomfortable for some, but we feel strongly that having bases on balls count for hitters (as they count against pitchers in WHIP) is a very positive step in the evolution of fantasy baseball. We hope that our making the change now will make it easier for leagues that want to modernize their categories to make the jump sooner rather than later.

Tout poohbahs Ron, Lawr, Jeff and Peter all play in the XFL, a mixed keeper league that adopted OBP in 2003. We all feel that the tires have been kicked, any wrinkles have been pressed, and OBP is the stronger way to play.  And just as we did when we adopted 5×5 rather than the still (back then) prevalent 4×4, we hope you’ll come along if it makes sense for your league. As support service providers we’ll be including OBP in our materials this year, and we think you’ll start to see 5×5 (OBP) pricing become more common immediately and going forward.

Have a happy new year, and please welcome OBP!

Tout Wars

The Tout Wars Leaderboard Has Been Updated!

All Time Top 10 Earners (these are imaginary dollars, based on a $100 buy in, standard roto payout to top four or five places)

Larry Schechter 9 years $3,020
Mike Lombardo 5 years $1,579
Jason Grey 11 years $1,380
Fred Zinkie 3 years $1,345
Ron Shandler 16 years $1,146
John Coleman 5 years $849
Sam Walker 6 years $840
Trace Wood 6 years $840
Tristan Cockcroft 7 years $713

See the whole list here.

Your 2013 Doubt Wars Champions! (beta)

doubtwarslogo

Each of the winners will receive: A package of Ron Shandler’s 2014 Baseball Forecaster, the 2014 Mastersball Platinum Package , Rotoman’s 2014 Fantasy Baseball Guide, the 2014 Rotowire Baseball Guide and the 2014 Patton $ Software and Data.

UPDATED: Oct. 5, 2013 at 6pm, with additional teams in the spreadsheet, and the NL champ’s name spelled correctly. UPDATED January 17, 2014 Spelled AL Civilian Champ’s first name correctly.

DOUBT WARS AL: Glenn Colton/Rick Wolf.
Civilian Champ: Andrew Pappas.
Runners Up: Eugene Freedman, Noah Hirsch

DOUBT WARS MIXED: Tim George
Pro Champ: Paul Singman
Runners Up: Jon Hrobuchek, Brent Crossman

DOUBT WARS NL: Jeffrey Pelletier
Pro Champ: Tristan Cockcroft, Todd Zola
Runners Up: Scott Katz, Justin Dowling

Tristan Cockcroft finished second to Todd Zola in the Draft Day Standings for Tout Wars, but his strong ERA and WHIP elevated him past Todd in Doubt Wars. Tristan, however, finished 200 innings short of the Tout Wars minimum. We didn’t anticipate that in Doubt Wars, but it seems less an issue for a Pro team than a Civilian team. Tristan certainly wasn’t gaming Doubt Wars.

Here are the standings for each league (click to enlarge):

DOUBT WARS AL

Screen Shot 2013-10-05 at 5.42.40 PM

DOUBT WARS MIXED

Screen Shot 2013-10-05 at 5.42.56 PM

DOUBT WARS NL

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If you would like to download the spreadsheet compiling the final standings, please click here.

Check Out The New Tout Wars Records in 2013!

While everthing was a first and a record in the innaugural Tout Wars Mixed Draft season, new records were set in the other three Tout Wars Leagues.

In Tout Mixed Auction, Fred Zinkie of all people set new league records for ERA and WHIP, eclipsing David Gonos’ (2010) and Nick Minnix’ (2011) records, while runnerup David Gonos broke Tim Heaney’s strikeout mark.

In Tout Wars AL, Larry Schechter’s total of 100.5 points edges Sam Walker’s 2008 record by half a point, and Matthew Berry broke Jason Grey’s 2011 record for team strikeouts.

In the Tout NL, Champ Tristan Cockcroft set new record for WHIP, with a 1.151 WHIP, breaking Greg Rosenthal’s 2004 record of 1.16.

Check out all the Tout Wars Records at the Records page.

What Went Wrong: Tout Wars Mixed Auction

Al Melchior writes about his first Tout Wars season:

Here’s what went wrong in my rookie season in Tout for my Mixed League auction team.

I normally go most aggressively after safe, consistent players at scarce positions, but I didn’t stick to that approach on auction day. I spent the most money on Ryan Braun ($40), Justin Verlander ($29), Mat Latos ($19) and Hanley Ramirez ($17). Braun and Ramirez were calculated risks, and they paid off in the sense that they produced when they played. They just didn’t play nearly enough. Starting pitching isn’t exactly a scarce position, but I did view Verlander as an elite, and I don’t think there was any way I could have seen his disappointing season coming. Latos, at $19, was one of my better buys.

With so much invested in my core, I didn’t have much to fall back on when Braun, Ramirez and Verlander didn’t produce as expected. David Freese, Josh Reddick, Marco Scutaro, Alexi Ogando and Shaun Marcum all fell far short of expectations, and a midseason buy-high on Mike Leake just did more damage to ERA and WHIP levels that hovered near the bottom of the standings. I did manage a timely early July swap of Jean Segura for Matt Holliday, and while Holliday provided much-needed help with runs and RBI, I never was able to replace Segura’s steals.

There may not be another spate of suspension risks going into next season, but I’ll certainly focus more on risks that fall outside of the realm of skill decline. And rather than pursuing steady players like Freese and Scutaro to fill out my roster, I’ll likely pursue higher-upside types, as some of my more “consistent” players had down years.

P.S. I’ve had a great time, even though I didn’t turn in a strong season. Thanks for bringing me aboard!

Fernando DiFino answered:

New rule starting next year: no more big free-agent signings on my team. Carl Crawford, Josh Hamilton, Albert Pujols — they’ve all kind of burned fantasy owners in their own special way their first year with a new team.

Rule 2: no more punting OPS. That strategy does not work.

Rule 3: take PED accusations seriously.

That’s pretty much all I learned from this year. I had some unexpected down years from a couple guys I thought could have a nice year (Axford, Cespedes, Middlebrooks), a couple injuries that didn’t help, and I think I actually did pretty well in FAAB. It was just a weird season spent waiting for bouncebacks that never came.

What Went Wrong: Tout Wars Mixed Draft

Ray Flowers tells his story over at Baseball Guys.

Grey Albright reports:

What went wrong? What didn’t?

The 15th pick isn’t a death knell (14th pick is in top 2) but our draft board just didn’t line up well. We drafted a well-balanced offense in the first five rounds and ended up with two bombs (heyward, upton) and three disappointments (bautista, butler, sandoval). Missed out on Goldschmidt by 4 picks. ‘Depth’ over ‘ace’ SP strategy hurt by injury/underperformance by Niese, Beckett, and Edwin Jackson.

other notes

– Brutal first 5 rounds of draft with Bautista/Heyward/Butler/BJ Upton/Sandoval. Just a rough draft to be picking 15th – especially when our draft fave Goldschmidt goes off the board four picks before our 3rd and we end up with Billy Butler.
– We didn’t draft an SP until 7th round (Latos) but drafted a lot of depth. Shelby Miller and early FAAB pick Masterson were great but too many misses with Niese, Beckett, Edwin Jackson, and Volquez.
– We had some solid values on offense in later rounds (Cuddyer – 10th, Marte – 16th, Murphy – 19th) but not enough to recover from misses in 1st 5 rounds + disappointments like Josh Rutledge (8th) and Reddick (10th).

Tout Wars Mixed Auction: Zinkie Wins in 2013!

Going into the last game of the season David Gonos needed two of three things to happen to pass Fred Zinkie:

David Price gets the win.
His hitters (Pierzynski, Martin and Loney) to hit two homers
His hitters (Pierzynski, Martin and Loney) to score two runs

Zinkie’s only defense was Ian Kinsler. If he scored a run, Gonos’ hitters would need to score three.

But it didn’t happen. David Price was masterful, got the win, shutting down Texas hitters, and Loney didn’t power the Tampa offense. Fred Zinkie held on for his second championship in three year!

In other news, David Gonos did set a new league record for strikeouts, breaking Tim Heaney’s 2011 record.

While Fred Zinkie of all people set new league records for ERA and WHIP, eclipsing David Gonos’ (2010) and Nick Minnix’ (2011) records.

Congratulations!

Tout Wars Mixed Draft: Mike Podhorzer is Crowned Champion in 2013.

In the league’s first year Mike passed early frontrunner Perry Van Hook at midseason, then withstood challenges from Tom Kessenich, Van Hook, and Gene McCaffrey to win comfortably the last week.

Welcome to Tout Wars, Mike!