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.

TOUT Mortems: How Do They Like Their Drafts 2014?

Screenshot 2014-03-24 10.16.22

The Tout Wars auctions are in the books. The lobby of SiriusXM once again looks like a sophisticated and refined business space, rather than a Phi Epsilon Tout frat basement. (But what happened to the Keith Richards and Paul McCartney autographs on the wall?) All the partygoers made it home from Foleys safely, though there were close calls. And some people are writing about their teams.

The spreadsheet with all results is here.

NL: Gardner Kreutzer Gianella Zola Hertz || RotoAdvice

AL: Jason Collette Podhorzer Erickson Leibowitz Michaels Behrens Erickson and Liss Shandler || RotoAdvice

MIXED AUCTION: Swanay Gonos 1 Guilfoyle Flowers Singman Heaney Zinkie Steinhorn Davitt Gonos 2|| Michaels

MIXED DRAFT: Van Hook Minnix Sporer Ronis Murphy

The Baseball Prospectus Flags Fly Forever podcast Episode 12 has extended Tout Wars discussion about NL, AL and Mixed Auction, featuring Bret Sayre, Mike Gianella and Mauricio Rubio.

You can hear of more by following #toutwars on Twitter.

I Like My Draft! Notes from the TW Mixed Draft 2014.

I woke up the day after the TW Mixed Draft to a curious email. It was addressed to me and said that my team had won the draft because my team had taken Mike Trout (duh) with the first pick in the previous night’s draft. Okay.

The issue was I was the live blogger, not a participant, but then I realized that in order to observe the draft I made myself a coowner of Tom Kessenich’s team. Tom had the first pick by virtue of having finished second in the league’s inaugural season and last year’s champ, Mike Podhorzer, moving to play in one of the only leagues this year.

So, I read on. CBSsports, who hosted the draft, went on to say:

Draft Recap

Thanks to players like Mike Trout, Tom Kessenich are the team to beat

It’s a long way to October, but you have won the first round, winding up with the top ranked draft. Your squad, led by Mike Trout, are projected to wind up with 96 category points. That’s 39 more points than Ray Murphy are projected to come up with. Coach Murphy will have all year to prove us wrong, but for now, Ray Murphy are slated to finish in last place.

Another team that will have some struggles is Tim McLeod, who have the worst infielders in the league. Coach Mcleod will have to trot out Corey Hart, Howie Kendrick, and Cody Asche into the starting lineup. Perry Van Hook, meanwhile, are the class of the league in that area, with infielders Miguel Cabrera, Mark Trumbo, and Jose Altuve.

Your strength is mainly in your pitchers, who project out to be the 2nd best in the league. That outstanding group is the reason why you are expected to wind up in 3rd place in the wins category.

Turning to individual picks, we tapped charlie wiegert as having made the best pickup with Robinson Cano in the 18th slot. He was projected to be off the board a full 11 picks earlier. On the other hand, Ray Murphy made the worst move of the draft. Coach Murphy selected Shin-Soo Choo with the 20th pick, which we pegged as a serious reach.

Your best pick up of the draft was Max Scherzer, who was expected to have been selected in the 24th slot, but who you got with pick #30. However, you mixed in some (minor) duds as well, the worst of whom was Zack Greinke, taken 12 spots ahead of what his average draft position suggests.

Paragraphs in italics are unique to your version of your league’s Draft Recap.

Now let’s return to some more human commentary.

Perry Van Hook’s draft review runs at Mastersball. He makes an astute point about reserve and DL list use in Tout, and lists the rookies taken and when they went.

Nick Minnix writes about forgetting that Tout Wars uses On Base Percentage rather than Batting Average, which led him to take Adam Jones instead of Joey Votto with the seventh pick. Remember Touts! All Tout Wars leagues are OBP this year! AL touts are hoping Larry Schechter forgets.

The introduction to Paul Sporer’s piece about his team, picking from the 14th slot, before it hides demurely behind the Baseball Prospectus paywall. For subscribers only.

Inside the Mind of a Tout, is a radio clip featuring Adam Ronis talking about his team.

Lots of recaps were heard on the radio, which is a little harder to link to, but send clips if you have them!

 

Your 2013 Doubt Wars Champions! (beta)

doubtwarslogo

Each of the winners will receive: A package of Ron Shandler’s 2014 Baseball Forecaster, the 2014 Mastersball Platinum Package , Rotoman’s 2014 Fantasy Baseball Guide, the 2014 Rotowire Baseball Guide and the 2014 Patton $ Software and Data.

UPDATED: Oct. 5, 2013 at 6pm, with additional teams in the spreadsheet, and the NL champ’s name spelled correctly. UPDATED January 17, 2014 Spelled AL Civilian Champ’s first name correctly.

DOUBT WARS AL: Glenn Colton/Rick Wolf.
Civilian Champ: Andrew Pappas.
Runners Up: Eugene Freedman, Noah Hirsch

DOUBT WARS MIXED: Tim George
Pro Champ: Paul Singman
Runners Up: Jon Hrobuchek, Brent Crossman

DOUBT WARS NL: Jeffrey Pelletier
Pro Champ: Tristan Cockcroft, Todd Zola
Runners Up: Scott Katz, Justin Dowling

Tristan Cockcroft finished second to Todd Zola in the Draft Day Standings for Tout Wars, but his strong ERA and WHIP elevated him past Todd in Doubt Wars. Tristan, however, finished 200 innings short of the Tout Wars minimum. We didn’t anticipate that in Doubt Wars, but it seems less an issue for a Pro team than a Civilian team. Tristan certainly wasn’t gaming Doubt Wars.

Here are the standings for each league (click to enlarge):

DOUBT WARS AL

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DOUBT WARS MIXED

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DOUBT WARS NL

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If you would like to download the spreadsheet compiling the final standings, please click here.

Tout Wars Auction Weekend: The Results Are In!

The spreadsheet is here, with all four league’s results. (Look for the tabs on the bottom or top of the page.

Comments on the auctions by the participants:

NL: Rotoman * Liss * Gardner * Melnick * Liss on YouTube (with Erickson) * Zola * Carty * Gianella

AL: Collette * Erickson * Siano * Berry * Erickson on YouTube (with Liss) * Behrens * Leibowitz * Michaels * Shandler

Mixed: Sherpa * Cory Schwartz’s Tout Ahem Projected Standings * Mack * Schwartz * Zinkie * Flowers * Gonos * Steinhorn * Minnix * Heaney
* Davitt
By others:

AL: Faketeams

NL: Rotoworld * faketeams

Both: Faketeams Shadowdrafts AL and NL Tout

Mixed: Ryan Carey Shadowdrafts *

If you’ve posted about the Tout Wars auctions (or draft) and don’t see a link here, please send it to webmaster (at) toutwars.com. Thanks.