Sure, before the Monday transaction deadline, it was all NLers going to the AL, but next Monday the NLers will get their chance.
In the meantime, Todd Zola and the gang at Mastersball tell us what it’s all about.
And Mike Gianella surveys the various Tout and Labr formats he’s in touch with, with lots of puns for good fun (as well as astute analysis).
Patrick Davitt sat out the first two weeks of Period 4 of Tout Daily. If he had not his resounding Week 4 victory might have moved him into contention for one of the two tickets. Instead he has the satisfaction of a job well done.
Davitt scored big with the surprising Jaime Garcia, the red hot JT Realmuto, the red hot Jose Ramirez, the red hot Brett Gardner and former superstar Andrew McCutchen. Well done, Patrick.
But the two leaders going into Week 4 were in the lead leaving Week 4. Todd Zola had a big lead going in, finished fifth overall for the week and ended up with 60 more points than Andrea LaMont.
LaMont posted the 10th best score for the week, which was enough to keep her ahead of Phil Hertz and Mike Gianella, barely. Gianella was the Week 3 winner, but his second place finish last night was not enough to put him over the top.
Todd Zola now has two Golden Tickets to the September 1 finals, a night’s play that will determine this year’s Tout Daily champion. Previous winners were Charlie Wiegert and Patrick Davitt.
Other tickets won thus far belong to Derek Carty, Howard Bender, Lenny Melnick, Jeff Boggis and Jeff Erickson.
Two more tickets will be given out to the Period 5 winners, and another to the player with the highest point total on the season. Right now that’s Todd Zola, who has a 53 point lead over Derek Carty, followed by Howard Bender, Andrea LaMont and Phil Hertz.
You can see the whole leaderboard here.
Todd Zola has a huge lead. Andrea LaMont a nice one. Tonight they play the deciding fourth week of Tout Daily. At stake are golden tickets to the two top finishers, entry to the September 1 finals at Draft Kings.
But now, some picks:
PHIL HERTZ
Jose Quintana and Wilmer Flores.
JEFF BOGGIS
My top hitters for tonight’s #ToutDaily contest are: Marwin Gonzalez (HOU – 3B/OF) at Detroit $4,600 and Josh Reddick (HOU – OF) $4,700 at Detroit. Stacking any Houston Astros player makes a lot of sense tonight as they face Jordan Zimmerman and his 5.81 ERA and 1.56 WHIP.
My top pitcher for tonight’s #ToutDaily contest is: Alex Wood (SP-LAD) vs. San Francisco, but he is going to cost you the most to roster a pitcher at $11,700. Look for him to bounce back from his first loss of the season where he allowed 7 earned runs.
LAWR MICHAELS
Jaime Garcia ($6900): I’m a Bay Area guy, and I have some hope for the Athletics future at this point. But as of now, they suck against lefties (righties, too, as a matter of fact) and the first time they face Garcia, I give the advantage to him, especially in a pitcher’s park.
Chris Taylor ($4700): Pretty hard to ignore the smoking hot Taylor (.512-2-9 over his last ten games) facing the completely hittable Matt Moore, who carries a 5.82 ERA with 17 homers and 138 hits allowed over 111.3 innings. Ugh.
RICK WOLF
JOSE ALTUVE – Jose Altuve is the best player of anyone on the road. He has this incredible slash line .396/.463/.507/1.070 OPS on the road since the beginning of 2016 which is more than a year and a half of absolute domination. Throw in 46 SBs vs RHP in that time and you have a gem any time he is on the road.
DANNY SALAZAR – Salazar has been red hot including a one hit performance vs the Blue Jays just six days ago. Salazar came off the DL to immediately make an impact and playing the hapless pale hose makes me salivate for another big win from the Indians.
CHARLIE WIEGERT
Top pitchers…going on the cheap side with two guys with upside; Andrew Cashner at home vs Baltimore and Jeremy Hellickson at home vs Atlanta. Both are in a good spot to get a W, and could have 8+ strike outs.
Top hitters…with the $ saved on pitching, I can roster some top hitters; Harper, Stanton & Blackmon in the OF, plus hot hitters Contreras, Taylor, Dejong and Donaldson.
Top pitcher: Danny Salazar
It’s feast or famine with this guy, but as the Tout Wars web site pointed out last weekend I need a near miracle to qualify despite winning last week. Salazar could flame out but the upside is too much to pass up
Top hitter: Freddie Freeman
He has tailed off post-injury…to the tune of a .315/.383/.562 line in 81 plate appearances. Freeman is a beast, and has a matchup tonight against the second worst starting pitcher in K% among qualifiers
Alex Wood ($11,700): I’m in protect mode, not only for the period but also for the overall points lead. It doesn’t get much safer than Wood at home versus the Giants.
Mookie Betts ($4,600): Though not as potent as last season, returning to Fenway Park after a road trip usually revitalizes the Red Sox offense. Regression has caught up to Vargas, at least in terms of homers, I’ll take Mookie with the platoon edge as one of my more expensive hitters, especially since he’s actually priced down a bit.
Todd Zola and the crew as Mastersball have lots to say about this week’s FAAB spending, and the charts to back it up.
Mike Gianella breathlessly charts the spectacle of Derek Carty buying JD Martinez in various Tout and LABR leagues, because he had the most FAAB to spend, plus all the other action for the week at Baseball Prospectus.
It’s never a bad thing to win a week in Tout Daily by Draft Kings, but winning the week and still being 50 some odd points out of the money–headed into the Period’s last week–describes Mike Gianella’s situation.
Gianella edged Andrea LaMont and Todd Zola on the week. You can see his roster at left, including two first-rate pitchers.
The problem is that Zola and LaMont were No. 1 and No. 3 after two weeks in the period. While Gianella gained a bit on them, a small bit, they gained on all the other teams in the hunt, namely Steve Gardner and Howard Bender.
Are Zola and LaMont locks? Far from it. It’s too easy in this game to have one’s pitchers go awry and suffer a devastating week to declare winners for Period 4, but if it is isn’t Zola and LaMont for the tickets, it will be because they failed.
After two weeks in Period 4, Todd Zola has 31 point lead over Andrea LaMont and a bunch of other touts who are right behind her. That is a nice lead, but hardly an insurmountable one.
You can see the leaderboard here.
Tonight’s Tout Picks:
TODD ZOLA
PITCHER Chris Sale ($13,400): Lock it in, figure out the rest
HITTER Bradley Zimmer ($3,800): Not a huge bargain, but still well worth the cost. Zimmer’s been hitting leadoff lately,a nice spot to be facing Marco Estrada, whose been quite generous with hits and homers this season.
LAWR MICHAELS
Chris Sale ($13,400): I like Sale versus an Angels team that ranks 28th in the Majors in OPS against southpaws (.668).
Jabari Blash ($3,200): Blash has hit in each of his last five games and gets to face the Shark, who has pretty good peripherals, but not much else.
PHIL HERTZ
Ian Kennedy ($8,100) and Bryce Harper ($5,500) are my picks.
TIM HEANEY
Aaron Nola ($8,400, vs. MIL): The Brewers have been mighty at the plate all year but strike out aplenty, and Nola is finding his peak form.
Josh Bell ($3,900 at COL): With the clash at Coors Field, Rockies and Pirates hitters will flow throughout many lineups, but this could be the best value. The switch hitter has smashed 12 of his homers against righties, and for as good as Jeff Hoffman has been, his home starts still put him at risk.
I didn’t write a piece this week for the Mastersball H2H transaction roundup, because there were only two purchases, but Todd Zola and his band of merry men take a look at all five Tout leagues. Read it here.
Mike Gianella made a big splash for Jose Quintana in Tout Wars NL, and has so far lived to tell about it and other transactions this week. Read his article here.
Week 1 of Period 4 of Tout Daily was a nailbiter, with Andrea LaMont squeezing out a tiny lead. Week 2 couldn’t have been more different. Todd Zola racked up the points and one the period by 23 points over Phil Hertz.
Zola’s team was powered by Charlie Morton, Josh Bell, Robinson Cano and Bryce Harper. Here is his team (click the image to make it larger):
Zola’s big win puts him atop the Period 4 leaderboard, well ahead of Hertz, Lamont, Derek Carty and Howard Bender, who may all be fighting for the second-place ticket to the finals on September 1. See the Leaderboard here.
Zola, Carty and Bender already have one ticket each to the finals. An extra ticket goes to the team with the most overall points at the end of the 20 week season. So far, Carty leads Bender by 36 points in that race.
The Tout will line up this coming Friday for Week 3 of the four-week Period 4.
