Category: About Tout Wars

Mike Gianella on Tout Wars NL and His Chances

Screenshot 2015-09-27 16.53.05We appreciate Mike Gianella’s weekly FAAB reports covering Tout AL and NL over at Baseball Prospectus on Tuesdays. The final one for this season will come this Tuesday, and don’t expect him to be making too many changes. We asked him some basic questions about the last eight days of his battle with Tristan Cockcroft, which we wrote about earlier today. He had this to say:

What does your team need in order to win?
At this point, I have probably done everything I can do in terms of what is in my control. I need to get a few wins to keep the clump of teams behind me from catching me and I need to avoid a disastrous pitching week to lose a point in ERA. But I don’t have much mobility in either direction. There is a path for Tristan to catch me, but he needs nearly everything to go right in the last week for him for it to happen. It’s not impossible, but it is fair to say it is a longshot.

Has anything changed for your team in the last week or two that is making a difference, for or against?
No, because thankfully (for me at least) a combination of strong hitting performances in August along with Tristan’s pitching staff unraveling has put me in a very comfortable position. Jose Reyes and Ben Revere have stopped running and I’ve had trouble procuring wins, but this hasn’t made much of a difference and most likely won’t.

The Tout Wars NL Race. Is It Over?

Here’s the first thing you need to know: In the Tout NL draft-day standings, those are the rosters each team left the draft with and no moves since, Mike Gianella would be ahead of Derek Carty at this point, 83 to 80.

In fact, in the real Tout world, where teams FAAB players weekly, and make trades, Gianella leads three-time champ Tristan Cockcroft, 92.5 to 81.5. Not only did Gianella have the best auction, but he seems to have had one of the best seasons, too. He’s gained 9.5 points over his draft, while Cockcroft has gained nine.

How much of a chance does Cockcroft have to catch up to Gianella? I toted up their potential positive and negative points, the volatility index, to see how much overlap there is between them. This is fairly easy in the counting categories, but harder in the qualitatives, where there are more moving pieces. So, there is some chance either team call fall outside this range, but this should give a fair idea of the possibilities of where they will end up.

Mike Gianella could gain or lose 4.5 points, which puts him between 97 and 88 points.

Tristan Cockcroft could gain 7.5 points or lose 8.5, which puts him between 89 and 73 points.

The chance for a fourpeat is still alive, but just barely. Is it over? Yes, you can put the YooHoo on ice.

Screenshot 2015-09-27 10.46.56

Chris Liss is a winner, FakeTeams.com declares!

Screenshot 2015-09-27 10.05.29Scoby Snacks, at FakeTeams.com, has posted a story called How Chris Liss Ran Away With AL Tout Wars.

Liss has a seven point lead over Mike Podhorzer today, with eight days left in the season, so Snacks is almost surely right. As Podhorzer noted yesterday, he has a lot of ground to make up, but he does have ways to do it. So let’s wait and see.

In the meantime, you can read Snacks’ article, which errs in one important detail. While Liss didn’t spend big bucks in FAAB during the year, he did make some big bids. When he bought Carlos Correa for a buck, he bid $34. Tout’s Vickrey FAAB bidding reduced it to $1 because no one else bid.

While he acquired Shawn Tolleson for $1 on April 13th, he actually bid $5. The bid was reduced to $1 because no one else bid.

Liss’s bidding in both cases was especially impressive when you look at the timeline. Correa wasn’t called up to the majors until five weeks after Liss bought him, and Tolleson didn’t earn a save until five weeks after Liss bought him.

I took a closer look at the standings and roughly added up the close points up and down for each player. Call this the volatility index.

Liss has five points to gain and nine and a half to lose. His range is 95.5 to 81.

Podhorzer has eight and a half points to gain, and eight points to lose. His range is 92 to 75.5.

Liss is in the driver’s seat, for sure, but there is a lot of overlap there.

The Pennant Races: Tout Wars AL

Over the next few days we’ll take a look at the state of the pennant races  around Tout Wars. 

The top two spots in Tout AL are held by former Tout Mixed Auction champions, Chris Liss and Mike Podhorzer. Both think that Liss’s 10.5 point lead is probably safe. Here are the standings through Friday night’s games (if you want to dig deeper into the team’s rosters and transactions, click here):

Screenshot 2015-09-26 15.50.35

But both also know that Mike has a chance. Mike says:

My hitters need to actually be in the lineup and reverse my team’s second half offensive slide. Also, it would be wonderful if my starting pitcher’s teams scored some runs for them so they could earn wins. As I type this, just three wins gains me four points! A big week of saves would also be huge. With two closers, I have the potential to gain a couple of points in the category as well. It’s going to be a challenge to take back the lead for sure, but there still remains a sliver of a chance. I think Liss’ preemptive pickup of Correa was clearly the move of the season!

Liss picked up Carlos Correa for $1, reduced by Vickrey from $34. That’s right, nobody else bid. Liss had to bide his time, Correa wasn’t called up the Houston until a month later, but he has been well worth the wait. Note that on the day Liss bought Correa he was in second place, a few points behind Podhorzer. On the day Liss was finally able to promote him, he was a few points ahead of Podhorzer. Their standings had reversed. Liss hopes it stays that way.

My team needs simply not to blow it. Pitchers keep their ERA under 4.5, WHIP under 1.4, hitters show up and be okay. Hopefully Mike’s team takes the week off, just so I don’t have to sweat it.

We’ll see.

Bret Sayre: How I Won Tout Wars X.

Tout Wars X Champ Bret Sayre.
Tout Wars X Champ Bret Sayre.

Let’s let Bret set the scene:

“If the entire final month left me seasick, the final weekend made me schizophrenic. In fact, it almost made me jealous of the fantasy writers who cover both baseball and football, as I would have had a healthy distraction. Almost. By the halfway point, Pat had taken the overall lead and I was staring down the barrel of what would easily have been my worst period of the entire contest. A week later, my luck had turned and my offense started hitting–pushing me to a 5.5-point lead overall and a little more comfort, which would hold until the final lineups were set on Friday. From that point on, my team’s performance became irrelevant, as Pat’s team was absolutely firing on all cylinders. My lead was down to one at the end of the day Friday and gone by the evening games on Saturday.”

You can read Bret’s story at Baseball Prospectus. It’s on the free side of the paywall.

Tout Wars FAAB Reports for September 21!

Mastersball.com’s notes column on the four Tout leagues is here.

Mike Gianella looks at this week’s moves in Tout AL and NL, and analyzes the pennant races, too. He’s leading in the NL.

Tout Wars X: Bret Sayre is a Champion!

vikingposeGoing into the last four week set of Tout Wars X at Shandler Park, Bret Sayre had a 14.5 point lead over Patrick Mayo. But in the game’s final period, Mayo quickly jumped out to a lead, a lead he didn’t relinquish all month. On same days he moved into the overall lead and he won his second month of the competition, but in the end he fell short overall by three points.

Here are the final overall standings (click to enlarge):

Screenshot 2015-09-21 09.55.22

Mayo’s 62 points were the most for any one-month winner, but it was not enough to overcome Sayre’s sizable lead. Sayre and Mayo, notably, had no months in which they scored fewer than 40 points, the only players not to, and Sayre’s final margin of victory was also the difference between his worst month (5) and Mayo’s (1).

Congratulations Bret!

Bret says: “My goal was to shoot for a safe 45 points and if Pat scored 60, I’d tip my hat to him for a job extremely well done. It turns out he certainly earned that hat tip, but I was fortunate enough to squeeze out 50 points again, despite not having my SB safety blanket in Billy Hamilton.”

LINK Al Melchior Laments, and gives good advice

almelchiorEvery fantasy baseball season brings its own challenges. Al Melchior graciously shares his observation about his 2015 results, and how that might help him plan for 2016.

At CBSsports.com. With some references to FOMO, which I know about because I have a teenaged daughter, and TOFU, which I know about because my teenaged daughter is vegetarian. But I’m pretty sure Al means something else.