I couldn’t agree with No. 1 more:
No One Looks Like Their AVI – Not that I can say much when mine is a logo, but the most common expression seen for Tout weekend is confusion. No, not because people are confused on who to pick or how much to spend… it’s because we all look at each other with that “I think I know this guy, but I don’t want to say something and look stupid, so maybe he’ll recognize me first” look. We need a fresh update across the board for owners’ Twitter AVIs. Read On
Zach Finklestein on the MLB.com teams (plus a video about Tout Wars) | Cory Schwartz | Al Melchior | Ray Flowers | Scott Engel| Derek VanRiper | Zach Steinhorn | Tim Heaney | David Gonos | Paul Singman | Joe Pisapia | Ray Flowers | 411Fantasy Podcast | Scott Swanay (polled the other touts in TW Mix) | Zach Steinhorn (How did that happen?) | Patrick Davitt | Scott Pianowski
The granddaddy of Fantasy Baseball Experts Leagues is USA Today’s LABR.
The LABR-AL auction is tonight, March 7, at 7pm ET. You can follow the draft here.
The LABR-NL auction is tomorrow night, March 8, at 7pm ET. You can follow that draft here.
Every fall we solicit rules change suggestions from the team owners in Tout Wars. Despite our recent move replacing BA with OBP, which some love and some hate, we’re generally more interested in tinkering with the procedures, making them more fair, easier, and hopefully innovative. A major rules change, like replacing Saves with Saves + Holds (or some permutation of such) will be considered seriously, but the default position, as with replay, is with the status quo. There has to be a good reason to make the change.
I bring this up because this year there has been a strong sentiment among some owners to switch from Saves to Saves + Holds (Solds, Ray Flowers called it), which led Zach Steinhorn to write a 411 post about some work Cory Schwartz put together yesterday. Cory gets at just what seems so dicey about Holds as a category, and makes a pretty good case for sticking with the closers.
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.
Oh, the problems when everything goes right. Rotoman explains.
Actually, Spianow wrote a story over at Yahoo! explaining why he sold low on Shin Soo Choo, by trading him to Jeff Erickson in the Yahoo Friends and Family League and to Fred Zinkie in Tout Wars Mixed Auction. So the headline here could have been:
Pianowski: Ah Choo!
Or ScottP: The Shin Soo Also Sets.
But we chose to go with the Dog Bites Man hed, though it would seem to foreclose on us using it again. Because Zinkie will make another trade. He also promises us his thinking about taking on a bum like Choo later, after he handles some personal business.
In the meantime, enjoy Scott’s Closing Time piece. There really is something good called Selling Low.
UPDATE: Fred’s angle.
As they do each week, mastersball.com has compiled the week’s Tout Wars transactions and added commentary. A pleasant way to keep up with this week’s moves.
