Category: News

Want to Win Tout Daily? A Breather Helps Ring the Bell.

Screenshot 2016-07-02 08.56.37Stephania Bell didn’t play Tout Daily by RTSports any of the four weeks of Period 3. She was busy, work and life got in the way, one has to prioritize. But when she was ready to play, in Week 1 of Period 4, her team exploded, popping into first place late in the evening on Johnny Cueto’s win over the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Cueto wasn’t Bell’s best pitcher. Reserve that spot for Michael Fulmer, whose 10 strikeout winning performance against Tampa Bay was the biggest scoring game on the night.

And some of her hitters contributed, too, mainly James Loney, owned by one percent of RTSports owners last night, had a homer and a double on his way to 12 much-needed points. Having Mike Trout didn’t hurt.

Bell finished just two points ahead of Scott Engel, who had also taken a leave of absence in Period 3. Engel got a fine night from Jaime Garcia, who won his game versus the Brewers, and strong hitting performances from Kendrys Morales (playing right field!), Chase d’Arnaud (who cost only $1.6K), and Mookie Betts. Brett Lawrie, Carlos Correa and George Springer contributed four points apiece.

Speaking of Springer, his name is on the roster of six of the top seven finishing teams on the night, though his four points (at a cost of $5.7K) was not particularly efficient. Perhaps it is telling that he was also the night’s last-place finisher’s roster.

Three teams missed the unusual 6:05pm early start of the week’s contest. They were not allowed to play for the night’s championship, but were allowed to submit rosters before the 7:05pm regular start so they could compete in Period 4 overall.

Top 10 pitching performances (pitchers on teams that finished in the Top 10): Johnny Cueto (16), Michael Fulmer (21), Jaime Garcia (17), Ian Kennedy (10), Bud Norris (18!), Julio Teheran (7.66), Steven Wright (8), Jacob deGrom (15).

One final note: It looked like a good night to stack hitters from the Texas teams, but it was not.

One extra final note: Eno Sarris finished 10th and got no, zero, nada, nunca points from his outfielders, Ryan Braun, Adam Jones and Angel Pagan.

See the whole Leaderboard here.

You can play RTSports.com’s daily fantasy games for prizes or fun every day of the week. Click here to start!

 

FAAB Notes From Mastersball and Baseball Prospectus for June 27!

Lord Zola and company post on Tout AL, NL, Mixed Auction, Mixed Draft, and Head 2 Head at Mastersball.com.

Mike Gianella’s Expert FAAB Review appears at Baseball Prospectus and covers Tout AL, NL, and includes mixed prices. He also sometimes riffs.

Mike Gianella Romps, Doesn’t Quite Make Finals in Tout Daily!

Week 4 of each Tout Daily by RTSports.com period is all about the finals. Who made it? Who fell short?

Mike Gianella made a run for it, with an 84.66 point week, finishing solidly ahead of Ray Murphy and Chris Liss, but wasn’t quite able to close the gap. He finished fourth overall for the period.

Golden Tickets to the August 26th Tout Daily Finals go to Tristan Cockcroft, the three week leader, Rick Wolf, who finished first in Week 1, and Tim Heaney, who held on after tying Wolf in Week 1 and winning Week 2 all on his own. Wolf and Heaney were Top 10 finishers in Week 4, and they needed it.

Screenshot 2016-06-25 08.43.49
Click for a larger version.

Gianella rostered two of the game’s best pitchers, Max Scherzer and Danny Salazar, but it was outsized hitting from Jean Segura, Cheslor Cuthbert, Wil Myers, and Yasmany Tomas that carried him to victory.

Scherzer got the strikeouts against a Milwaukee team that produces strong winds by the lake, but wasn’t able to produce a victory.

Salazar was staked a nice lead against Detroit, but his command issues ran up his pitch count and cut his stint short. He took home a Win but struck out only three.

Other Top 10 pitchers on the week: Jake Peavy (13), Aaron Sanchez (8), Zach Davies (11), Jameson Taillon (2), Scherzer (11), Masahiro Tanaka (14), David Price (-2.67), Steven Matz (-1.67).

Scherzer was rostered by 80 percent of RTSports.com’s teams last night.

While the pitchers struggled, the hitters feasted. Other 10+ point earners were Willson Contreras (10), Melvin Upton (15), Jacob Lamb (10), James Loney (13), and Matt Joycer (11).

Yasmany Thomas’s 18 points was the big score of the night. The Cubs catcher Willson Contreras was rostered on 25 percent of teams and scored 10 points. The Diamondbacks Phillip Gosselin was rostered by 36 percent of teams and scored no points, going 0-5.

The Touts will gather next Friday for the start of Period 4 of Tout Daily by RTSports.com, the fourth of five four-week contests to distribute 15 tickets to the finals.

In addition to Cockcroft, Wolf, and Heaney, tickets have already gone to Jason Collette, Jeff Erickson, Brian Walton, Patrick Davitt, Rob Leibowitz, and Patrick Mayo.

You can follow all the action on Friday nights at RTSports.com. Use the same link all week long to play for prizes or fun.

The complete leaderboard is here. Next week we start over.

Totally Buzzed! Bender Edges Moyer Inside on a Night Hitters Rule!

Pitchers on Top 10 Teams This Week and Points in Tout Daily by RTSports.com

  • Lance McCullers 10.66
  • Jose Quintana 11.66
  • Zach Davies 12
  • Matt Harvey 7
  • Joe Ross 13
  • Matt Shoemaker 12
  • Michael Fulmer 9.66
  • Jeff Samardzija 16
  • Jonathan Gray 8

This list, which we usually run at the end of the Tout Daily report, usually helps explains who won and who lost that week. This week is different. The only difference maker on the list, Jeff Samardzija, was rostered by only one Top 10 team, a team that finished tied for 10th on the evening.

Screenshot 2016-06-18 07.49.27The night’s winner, Howard Bender, had rostered two fine arms (McCullers, Quintana) who pitched two quality starts but didn’t earn wins.

The night’s second place finisher, 6.33 points behind, was Steve Moyer, who rostered Zach Davies (QS, no decision) and Matt Harvey (bad game).

What they had in common was Michael Saunders, whose three home run, eight RBI night was worth 23 points.

What Bender also had was three other double-digit earners on offense, in Peter O’Brien (owned by 30 percent of players), Paul Goldschmidt (13 percent), Saunders (16 percent) and Yasmany Tomas (3 percent).

Screenshot 2016-06-18 08.23.04Moyer also had Tomas.

Third place finisher Scott Pianowski owned O’Brien, Goldschmidt and Franklin Gutierez, whose two homers and six RBi was worth 19 points, the second biggest earner on the night (and owned by 11 percent of teams).

Sixth place Rick Wolf rostered Salvador Perez, who earned 11 points on the night.

Steve Gardner, in 10th place, unearthed a big night from Josh Donaldson worth 14 points. Donaldson was on 28 percent of rosters, but his huge price tag must have cost him some productive pairings.

This is how, on June 17th, the Tout Daily winners did it.

Bender’s big win, and Tim Heaney’s 26th-place finish on the night (he started with Matt Harvey and Matt Shoemaker, just like fifth place finisher Jeff Erickson, but was unable to find a complementary piece for Peter O’Brien) has stirred the Period 3 pot.

Tristan Cockcroft takes advantage of Heaney’s stumble to move into first place. Heaney is 14.33 points back in second, and six farther points behind are Phil Hertz, Howard Bender, and Rick Wolf.

A few points behind them are a bunch of teams who are going to have to have a big weeks to pass the many teams ahead of them. The Top 3 finishers in the period, after next week’s contest, win golden tickets to the August 26 final.

The complete leaderboard is here. (UPDATE: The board and story were corrected at 1:35 pm ET to reflect fixes to an editing error. Tristan Cockcroft and Scott Pianowski gained four points, and Brian Walton’s entry was entered.)

Follow the game each Friday here at ToutWars.com, where the touts reveal their picks on Friday afternoon, and at RTSports.com, where you can watch how the contest unfolds on Friday night.

You can also play for prizes or fun every day of the week at RTSports.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tout Wars June 13 FAAB Report Reports!

The fellas over at Mastersball survey the week’s moves in five leagues, and live to tell about it. Big purchases? Tim Anderson, Danny Duffy, Carlos Estevez, James Paxton, Matt Garza, Daniel Mengden, Zack Godley. Plus a Tout AL blockbuster trade involving first division teams. Teams are making their moves.

Mike Gianella covers Tout AL and Tout NL moves, with some commentary about mixed pricing, too, over at Baseball Prospectus.

Hershey and Zimmerman Continue to Open Head 2 Head Leads!

Screenshot 2016-06-06 09.03.09Tout Wars Head 2 Head standings are in for the week ending June 5, and Brent Hershey and Jeff Zimmerman each went 4-2 for the week, increasing their leads over an increasingly jumbled middle-of-the-pack.

You can check out all the action and see this week’s matchups at onRoto.com.

Scoring rules: Each week teams face off with six wins/losses at stake in 10 categories. The team that wins the most hitting categories earns two wins, the team that wins the most pitching categories earns two wins, and the team that wins the most overall categories earns two wins. Ties split the two wins one and one.

Fit To Be Tied! Rick Wolf and Tim Heaney Deadlocked After Week 1 of Tout Daily 3.

Screenshot 2016-06-04 10.44.33Both Tim Heaney and Rick Wolf started with Noah Syndergaard and Drew Pomeranz as their pitchers. Nothing surprising there. Pomeranz was owned by 25 percent of RTSports.com’s daily fantasy players yesterday, and Syndergaard was owned by a whopping 69 percent, despite being the day’s most expensive pitcher.

Heaney then added Eugenio Suarez, Jonathan Villar, Ian Kinsler and David Ortiz to build his point total to 74 points. Heaney, notably, had two players (Jose Lobaton and Curtis Granderson) who scored zero points last night.

Screenshot 2016-06-04 10.44.43Wolf also rostered Ortiz and Villar, and got solid games from Stephen Vogt and Jose Ramirez. All his hitters scored points, and thus he climbed to 74 points, deadlocked with Heaney.

The two will share the lead for Period 3 of the Tout Daily by RTSports.com contest. The top 3 teams after the four-week period will win golden tickets to the August 26th final, the winner of which will be crowned Tout Wars Daily champion for 2016.

The only other pitchers to lead their teams into the Top 10 were Kenta Maeda, Danny Salazar (the day’s leading scorer), and Vincent Velazquez (who only scored 8.33 points).

Curiously, Mike Gianella and Todd Zola tied for seventh last night, with 66 points. Both rostered Pomeranz and Syndergaard, but shared no other players.

Look for DFS picks next Friday here at toutwars.com, but you can play DFS for prizes or fun at RTSports.com every day.

 

 

Who Is Winning Tout? June 1 Edition.

With nearly a third of the baseball season in the books, as it were, Tout Wars pennant races are starting to come into focus. (click the links in the right nav to see today’s standings in each league.)

In Tout Wars AL: Larry Schechter is working on a sequel to his book, Winning Fantasy Baseball, with a 23 point lead over Lawr Michaels. His secret? Across the board excellence, including brilliant pitching from Mat Latos.

In Tout Wars NL: A month ago, Todd Zola, Andy Behrens, and Phil Hertz (in that order) were within a few points of each other, well ahead of the pack. In the past month the best teams have belonged to Scott Wilderman and Steve Gardner, but the top three (with less of a cushion), are Phil Hertz, Todd Zola, and Andy Behrens (in that order).

In Tout Wars Mix Auction: Bret Sayre, a league rookie, climbed up from fourth place to first in the past month, getting a ton of power across the board. As he was a month ago, Scott Pianowski sits in second, 11 points off the pace, with Joe Pisapia just behind.

In Tout Wars Mix Draft: Last year Rudy Gamble finished second in the draft league, while Rick Wilton finished last, with one of the most horrible fantasy baseball seasons imaginable. Dealt new hands this year, Gamble sits in first place on June 1, nine points ahead of Wilton, who looks relieved to be out of the cellar. Anthony Perri and Craig Mish are lurking behind him.

In Tout Wars H2H: in the first year of Tout H2H no one knew how it would play, but now we do. The answer is all Brent Hershey’s way. Brent has posted a 34-8 record thus far. Jeff Zimmerman is keeping him honest, with a 28-14 record. The two played each other in Game 3 and tied.