Category: AL

THIS is Tout Weekend!

A scene from the Tout NL 2015 auction.
A scene from the Tout NL 2015 auction.

Where will the best and brightest fantasy baseball writers and broadcasters be this weekend?

Many will be in New York City, for the annual Tout Wars weekend of drafts and parties.

This year’s drafts are being held in the studio at SiriusXM and aren’t open for the public, but you can follow along live on the SiriusXM fantasy sports channel, and on the live blog and spreadsheet at toutwars.com.

When are the drafts? Where and when are the parties?

The SCHEDULE:

Tout H2H: March 18, 7pm. Doors open at 6pm. Ron Shandler is auctioneer. Joe Pisapia has the spreadsheet. Mike Gianella is on chat.

Tout AL: March 19, 9am. Doors open at 8am. Brian Feldman is auctioneer. Paul Sporer is on spreadsheet. Al Melchior is doing chat.

Tout Mix Auction: March 19, 3pm. Doors open at 2pm. Jeff Erickson is auctioneer. Ray Murphy has the spreadsheet. Jason Collette is on chat.

Foley’s NY Party: March 19, 8pm. 18 West 33rd Street. Party with the pros!

Tout NL Auction: March 20, 10am. Doors open at 9am. Brian Feldman is the auctioneer. Steve Moyer is on spreadsheet. Jason Collette will chat.

The live blog for each auction will be available at toutwars.com, where there will also be a link to the live spreadsheet. You can access the live spreadsheet now at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12AvDtjmYjr-mlFHXIUkFRDK3EBs_Zy-iJzPZNqRONfQ/edit?usp=sharing. Until the weekend comes, nothing is happening.

Here’s the Menu of Champions at Foleys on Saturday night:

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2016 Tout Wars AL Lineup Announced

Chris Liss, the 2015 Tout AL champ will have first pick in the reserve rounds that follow the March 19th Tout AL auction in New York City (and live on SiriusXM radio). One newcomer to the league this year, as Patrick Davitt moves over from the Mixed Auction league.

The numbers in parentheses are the number of FAAB units each team starts with. Teams are penalized 10 units for each point they score fewer than 60 points.

2016 Tout Wars AL ONLY

Chris Liss (1000) 2015 AL Champion, 2009 Mixed Auction Champion
Mike Podhorzer (1000) 2013 Mixed Draft Champion
Rick Wolf/Glenn Colton (1000) 2014 AL Champions
Jeff Erickson (1000)  2007 AL Champion
Jason Collette (1000)
Ron Shandler (1000) 1998 and 2000 AL Champion. 1998 NL Champion.
Patrick Davitt (1000) Transfer from Mixed Auction
Larry Shechter (950) 2011, 2012, 2013 AL Champion. 2005, 2006, 2007 Mixed Auction Champion
Rob Leibowitz (930)
Seth Trachtman (930)
Steve Moyer (850)
Lawr Michaels (790) 2001, 2009 AL Champion

Tout Wars Post Season Analysis Links

Rudy Gamble, on finishing second in Tout Wars Mixed Draft.

Fred Zinkie, on winning Tout Wars Mixed Auction

Zach Steinhorn, on falling short in Tout Wars Mixed Auction.

Mike Gianella, on winning Tout Wars NL.

Mike Gianella and Bret Sayre’s Flags Fly Forever podcast, on Tout NL. Fred Zinkie is on this show, too.

Ray Flowers, on finishing in the middle of the pack in Tout Wars Mixed Auction.

Peter Kreutzer, on finishing last in Tout Wars NL.

Meet Your Tout Wars Champions of 2015!

Baseball-Glove-w-ballTOUT WARS AL: Chris Liss

TOUT WARS NL: Mike Gianella

TOUT WARS MIX DRAFT: Adam Ronis

TOUT WARS MIX AUCTION: Fred Zinkie

TOUT WARS X: Bret Sayre

TOUT WARS DAILY: Charlie Wiegert

The league names link to the final standings.

Congratulations all! See you in March!

The Tout Wars Races: Checking In

What's at stake? An item on Foley's menu in March, for one. (click to enlarge)
What’s at stake? An item on Foley’s menu in March, for one. (click to enlarge)

There are three days left in the season. Three games left for each major league team, though a massive storm plus a possible hurricane in the east may affect games in Baltimore (versus Yankees), Philadelphia (versus Miami) and New York (versus Washington). None of these series will matter in determining the playoffs, so rainouts on Sunday (or Saturday and Sunday) may not be rescheduled.

How are things looking in Tout Wars? Let’s start with the easy ones.

AL: Chris Liss leads Mike Podhorzer by 8.5 points. Liss’s volatility index gives him a range of 86-97 points. Podhorzer could finish with 79-88. The door is not completely shut, but everything has to go right for Podhorzer and completely wrong for Liss.

NL: Mike Gianella leads Tristan Cockcroft by 11 points. Gianella range is 87-95.5, while Cockcroft’s is 75-86. There is virtually no chance that Cockcroft can make up enough ground, no matter how badly Gianella’s team goes.

Mix Auction: Fred Zinkie leads Scott Swanay by 4 points, and Tim Heaney by 6. It’s good be Zinkie, for sure, but there are still lots of points in play. Zinkie has already gained three points in homers this week, but lost them in Runs, OBP, ERA and Saves, and is tied in Runs and Saves. There’s a lot of baseball left to be played here.

Mix Draft: Adam Ronis is 2 points ahead of Rudy Gamble, who is 3.5 points ahead of Grey Albright. Rudy has gained five points this week, which means he could give back five easily enough. He’s in a three-way tie in wins, with one ahead and one behind. One of the guys he’s tied with is Ronis. Crazy things could happen there. Gamble has five starts over the weekend, while Ronis has just two. There is also a four-way tie in saves. Gamble has Tolleson, Feliz and Robbie Ross(who has yet to get a save and wasn’t listed in the intial post), McLeod has Axford, Vizcaino, and Jepsen, Kessenich lost Huston Street and is left with Hector Rondon, and Paul Sporer has Andrew Miller and Cody Allen. Over three games, pretty much anything can happen in saves. Plus there are a mess of possibilities in ERA and Ratio. Keep your eye on this one folks! That said, Grey Albright doesn’t have much headroom, especially since Gamble and Ronis each stand to either gain or lose in the categories in which they’re tied, so it’s hard to see them both falling. Which makes Grey something of a spoiler, especially since he’s right behind Ronis in ERA and right behind Gamble in strikeouts, with his five red hot starters going.

The Final FAAB. Week 26 FAAB Comments from Mastersball and Baseball Prospectus.

It’s all in the headline. Mastersball.com has published their comments about the final week FAAB moves in Tout Wars. You can read it here.

At this point, it is highly probable that Mike Gianella will win Tout NL and Chris Liss will win Tout AL. But the mixed leagues both have compelling three man races for the top. Best of luck to Adam Ronis, Gray Albright and Rudy Gamble in the Mixed Draft league, and Fred Zinkie, Tim Heaney and Scott Swanay in mixed auction.

This is your time!

Mike Gianella’s FAAB comments are posted on Tuesday morning. That is his time.

 

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.