Category: AL

Really FAAB: Hound Dog or Heartbreak Hotel?

(Read the Mastersball FAAB REPORT here.)

The big fight in this week’s NL FAAB showdown was Alex Presley. As a player with some major league success last year, demoted after a slow start this year, and off to a good start since he was promoted last week, he’s the ultimate cojones test. How good is this guy? Or, more importantly, how good will he be the rest of the way this year?

I bid $18 in Tout NL, not expecting to get him, I didn’t actually have a hole to fill, but I didn’t want anyone to get him cheap. I shouldn’t have worried. The bids, from least to most:

Walton 4, Wilderman 5, Gardner 9, Kreutzer 18, Peterson 18, Ravitz 19, Cockcroft 31, Pianowski 38, Carty 53, Gianella 60

Carty has a woeful offense right now, and his bid was an attempt to fill a hole.

Gianella’s team is also lacking offensively, but is somewhat better poised to strke, so his bid is an attempt to add a real offensive player to his team. Both big bidders had a big need for some hitting.

The interesting thing is that both Carty and Gianella basically bid all they had (each bid $5 less than their budget) on Alex Presley.

Which one do you think will wind up In the Ghetto?

Rotowire on Sirius XM: Vickery and Hector Santiago in Tout AL

Jeff Erickson (85), Andy Behrens (51) and Chris Liss (45) talk about their bids this week on Hector Santiago, how Vickery changed them, and just how good Santiago might be. Plus a bonus: A theory that other White Sox closers manque have lost all their lustre.

Rotowire on SiriusXM…

The Bidmeister!

Tout Wars uses the onRoto stat service, and you can follow along with each league via the public page links in the right navbar here at toutwars.com.

At onRoto you’ll find the standings and rosters for each league and all team. You’ll also find the weekly Bidmeister logs, under Transactions Logs in the League Pages.

The Bidmeister is onRoto’s exemplary automated FAAB system. Each week team owner’s enter blocks of bids, starting each by designating a player on the active roster to reserve, release or disable, then listing free agents and bid prices for each. Of particular interest this week was Jeff Erickson’s approach in Tout AL. Of his $100 annual FAAB budget Jeff bid $85 in block 1 and $15 in block 2.

Because Tout Wars uses a modified Vickery bidding system, Jeff actually paid $52 for Hector Santiago ($1 more than Andy Behrens’ bid), and $10 for Vicente Padilla (the floor for bids of more than $10 that aren’t challenged by a bid of $9 or more.) Jeff now has a bullpen.

Lawr Michaels snuck through Fernando Rodney for $16.

Jeff Erickson:

  1. dis DMcGowan Tor:
    1. pur HSantiago CWS 85
    2. pur FRodney TB 23
    3. pur VPadilla Bos 15
    4. pur FMorales Bos 5
    5. pur LMendoza KC 1
    6. pur TWilhelmsen Sea 1
    7. pur JHowell TB 1
    8. pur JMcGee TB 0
  2. rel CRuffin Sea:
    1. pur FRodney TB 15
    2. pur VPadilla Bos 15
    3. pur FMorales Bos 5
    4. pur LMendoza KC 1
    5. pur TWilhelmsen Sea 0
    6. pur JHowell TB 0
    7. pur JMcGee TB 0
  3. res KFukudome CWS:
    1. pur JHannahan Cle 0
    2. pur RBrignac TB 0

Tout Owners Write (and sometimes talk) About Their Teams

AL: Matthew Berry and Nate Ravitz talk about Berry’s Team, Lawr Michaels recap, Jeff Erickson’s recap, Chris Liss’s recap, Mike Siano’s recap, Andy Behrens’ recap, Jason Collette’s recap, Jason Collette compares his LABR and Tout Wars teams, Rob Leibowitz’s recap, Ron Shandler’s fanalytic recap,  Lawr Michaels on strategy,

MIXED: Corey Schwartz recap, Fred Zinkie recap, Derek Van Riper’s recap, Zach Steinhorn’s recap, Lawr Michaels offers mixed league players some advice, Nando Di Fino’s notes, Eric Mack’s recap, David Gonos’s recap, Nick Minnix recap, Tim Heaney recap (strategy), Tim Heaney draft reactions, Paul Singman’s recap, New York doesn’t stay open late enough for Ray Flowers,  Ray Flowers recap,

NL: Derek Carty recap, Peter Kreutzer Recap, Peter Kreutzer Precap, Scott Pianowski recap, Steve Gardner writes a NL survey with some AL bits, and reviews his own NL team, Mike Gianella’s recap, Nate Ravitz and Matthew Berry talk about Nate’s team, Todd Zola’s recap,

The Tout Wars Market

Derek Carty writes for Baseball Prospectus and has been a Tout Warrior since 2010. He is part of a startup called FantasySquared, which is a new game that creates small stock markets that allow fantasy team owners to trade shares in their fellow owners’ teams, perhaps backing the winning team in their league as their own team fades.

The website has just launched, and one of the first leagues available for public trading is Tout Wars. You can sign up at the site and start building your portfolio right away. Rotoman bought a couple hundred shares of his team to win, because he’s confident, and 100 shares of Lenny’s team, because he bid up Rotoman’s prime stud hitter target, Hunter Pence, until he was out of reach.

Derek shared the implied odds thus far for all three Tout Wars leagues. Is there really wisdom in crowds? We’ll find out better once a critical mass has joined the site. But here’s the results of a small sampling: Continue reading “The Tout Wars Market”