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.
Category: Links
Solds: Steinhorn and Schwartz on a new category proposal
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.
To Make A Trade: Michaels and Erickson Swap in Tout AL
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.
Tout Wars NL: Rotoman’s Pitching Staff
Oh, the problems when everything goes right. Rotoman explains.
Fred Zinkie Makes a Trade! Scott Pianowski Writes About It!
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.
The April 28th Transactions Report, courtesy of Mastersball.com
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.
Mastersball FAABxtravaganza for April 21
See this week’s FAAB results, with commentary from Mastersball.com writers, here.
Swanay Song: Does Lawr Hear a Melody?
Lawr Michaels ventures into dangerous territory, giving Scott Swanay advice how to handle the FAAB he gained by cashing out Brandon Beachy.
His advice is here.
Scott cannot actually redeem the extra dough until after this weekends claims, with the money being added on April 13. That shouldn’t change much.
Here at team Tout Wars we’re rooting for Scott to find a path to, well, if not victory, respectability. Go Scott.