by David Gonos, davidgonos.com

There are a few things I’ve come to realize in my eight Tout Wars seasons

1. I’m usually a very good drafter (especially in auction leagues).
2. Drinking the night before the auction is always good luck for me.
3. I usually lead the league – or hang out among the top group – in the first couple months of the season.
4. I usually fade back as injuries attack my roster and in-season studs get snatched up by other more aggressive owners.
5. I’m a bad in-season fantasy manager.
6. And I’m a horrible end-game player.

I tell you all of this because my Tout Wars team was a little different in 2013. I managed to hang around the top in the first couple months, and then ascend to the upper crust (just two or three of us in a 15-team league) in the second half of the league, and stay there.

My team managed to escape crippling injuries, although I had to wait quite a bit for Adam Eaton to make his debut on my team.

And I’ve made several very good trades at the right time.

But now, with one week to go, I’m four points back of the lead, chasing only MLB’s Fred Zinkie. It has been this way for about six weeks now, and I decided to take to Twitter to trash talk Zinkie into accidentally dropping three superstar players after putting his lineup in with a nervous twitch.

But, alas, he stayed strong.

So here’s what I need to happen:

I can lose points in the following categories:

• Runs – Can’t gain, but I can lose one point.
• Home Runs – Can gain 1.5 points, can lose two points.
• RBI – I can gain one point.
• Stolen Bases – Can gain a point (and make Zinkie lose a point) if I have eight more SBs than him this week. Very unlikely, but more on that in a second. I can lose one point here, too.
• OBP – Safe.
• Wins – I can gain 1.5 points, or lose one point here.
• Saves – I can gain one point.
• ERA – Safe.
• WHIP – Safe.
• Strikeouts – I can gain or lose 0.5 points here.

In this final week, I can realistically gain 6.5 points this week, and I can realistically lose 5.5 points.

It became apparent that I could use some power (who can’t?), some speed (always) and some wins and strikeouts.

I picked up Jordano Ventura for double starts, giving me 10 starts this week. I’m hopeful of picking up at least six wins from my starters, against weak teams like Houston, Colorado twice, Miami, San Francisco and the White Sox. This should also give me a nice boost in strikeouts.

As far as speed, I went all in on buying Billy Hamilton, hoping he can help make up that eight-SB difference between Zinkie and myself. Hamilton picked up seven steals all on his own this past week, so let’s see what the speedy part-timer can do for me in the final week. If he steals me seven more and I win the whole thing, I will become the fattest guy ever walking around in a Billy Hamilton jersey!

Unfortunately, adding Hamilton made me sit Michael Morse. When I grabbed Hamilton, I thought he would be SS eligible, but he’s only OF eligible. I’m a dope. (See Point No. 5 above.)

So here we go, it all comes down to the final week.  Over the past couple months, I’ve come close to Zinkie, and even tied him once last week, but I’ve yet to overtake him. He also owns the Roto tiebreaker over me, so I need to beat him outright.

Here goes nothin’!

Follow along with the fun on my Twitter account, @davidgonos, as I have the week long sweats (It’s like Thanksgiving all over again!)

 

On July 1st David Gonos was 23 points behind 2011 Tout Wars Mixed Auction champ Fred Zinkie, but since then Gonos has played on a top-ranked 116 point pace, while Zinkie has had the fourth best score in the league, with 97 points since July 1. The result is that Zinkie’s lead is down to two points.

A quick look at Gonos’ team shows limited upside. He’s in a three-way tie in Wins and seven strikeouts behind the first place team, but he’s vulnerable in Runs, HR and RBI.

And he’s been charging! Zinkie knows what needs to happen:

To win, I need my team to hit well down the stretch. I likely won’t move much in the pitching categories.  If my team hits well, I should be able to stay over 120, which gives me a good chance to hold David off.

So many things could go wrong!  The last week is so unpredictable! My pitching could totally blow up.  If that happened, I could lose a couple pitching points.  But the bigger problem would be if my team posts low hitting counting stats in the last week.  I could lose several points in that situation.

Throughout the season, I always avoid being emotionally affected by the daily success or failure of my team by using the theory “everything evens out”.  When my closer blows a save, no big deal.  Every closer blows a few saves per season, mine just happened to use up one of his today.  He may not blown one for the next month.  If my team bats .100 on a given day, no big deal.  That’s going to happen at times, and they may have a day later on when they bat .500.  But late in the season, everything doesn’t even out!  That’s what makes the last week so stressful.  There won’t be time to make up a blown save, .100 batting average day etc.

The best thing that could happen for me to win, would be for David’s team to really suck next week!