There’s no prize money in Tout Wars. We tried that once and decided not to try it again. The league is about community, competition, bragging rights and getting your name on the Foley’s NY menu.
The cancellation of the 2020 Tout Weekend because of COVID-19 meant the cancellation of the Foley’s party that should have happened tonight. We hope the Touts in town visited Foley’s and partook of the Tout menu.
For those of us who didn’t, here is the highest honor a Tout Wars winner can get.
True story: Ian Kahn asked for the regular burger not only because that’s what he gets when he eats at Foley’s, but also because he thought that’s what the most people would order. He’s probably right.
Or visit Foley’s when you’re in NYC and prove him wrong.
And what follows is a transcript of the chat with Jason Collette.
[Mar 14, 2:50 PM] JasonCollette: I think it’s all set — back in my hotel now [Mar 14, 3:02 PM] JasonCollette: Joel……are you ready? [Mar 14, 3:03 PM] JasonCollette: I SAID, ARE YOU READY????!!!!!!! [Mar 14, 3:04 PM] DVR: LOL [Mar 14, 3:04 PM] DVR: I got my five minutes of backwards walking in, I’m ready! [Mar 14, 3:05 PM] rotoman: Doesn’t look like Joel’s ready! [Mar 14, 3:05 PM] JasonCollette: Peter — do I need admin access or anything or just chat in here? [Mar 14, 3:05 PM] DVR: Counting on you, Joel! [Mar 14, 3:05 PM] rotoman: You can just chat and that works fine for chatting. [Mar 14, 3:06 PM] JasonCollette: but what if I want to block DVR? [Mar 14, 3:06 PM] JasonCollette: I mean, that guy annoys me [Mar 14, 3:06 PM] JasonCollette: wait – is this not private? Shit [Mar 14, 3:06 PM] JasonCollette: 🙂
First off, no Tout Wars teams won Doubt Wars this year. (You’ll recall that Doubt Wars is the league in which players draft team using TW draft prices + $1 in the preseason, and then see how those teams measure up to real Tout War teams. You can see the stats here.
And here are the standings.
Doubt Mixed Auction Champ: Robert Franklin
Doubt AL: Brian Purseglove
Doubt NL: Gary Robinson
DOUBT MIXED AUCTION
Congratulations to all the winners, who should send webmaster@toutwars.com their snail mail addresses so they can get their prizes, which will include some mags and books and memberships from Rotoman, Pattonandco.com, Mastersball.com, Rotowire.com, BaseballHQ.com and BABSbaseball.com
Industry folks, if you’d like to provide some Doubt Wars prizes, please get in touch with webmaster@toutwars.com.
See you next year for another season of Doubt Wars!
BaseballHQ did a five part series featuring Brent Hershey, Patrick Davitt, and Phil Hertz in the final weeks of their respective (Mixed Auc, AL, NL). Read them here. Part one | two | three | four | five.
In Tout AL, Rob Leibowitz edged the team of Rick Wolf and Glenn Colton, last year’s winners, by one point.
In Tout NL, Phil Hertz opened up a decisive lead over Brian Walton in the last week.
In Tout Mixed Auction, Bret Sayre held off Scott Swanay for the title.
In Tout Mixed Draft, Ray Murphy passed Adam Ronis and Rudy Gamble, the league’s perennial winners, a few weeks ago and never looked back.
In Tout Draft and Hold’s first year, Mike Sheets rode to an easy victory. Or, if not easy, a comfortable one over the season’s last few weeks.
In Tout H2H, Ian Kahn rose from the playoff’s third seed to best Clay Link. (Edited because last year’s champ, Jake Ciely, fell to Kahn in the semi finals.)
All Tout Champions this year are first timers. Hail them for their fine seasons.
Just three days remain in the final weekly contest of the Tout H2H regular season, and while Clay Link sits safely atop the standings, earning a first-week bye, there is plenty of other action as teams scramble toward the playoffs.
The battles for second and sixth are close.
Ian Kahn and Jake Ciely are locked in a duel for second place, which earns the second place team a first week playoff bye. These standings reflect the current state of this week’s games (remember that each week a team can win 2 points for winning hitting, 2 points for winning pitching and 2 points for winning the overall points, or lose 2 points in each for losing hitting, pitching and overall).
Right now Jake Ciely is 2-4 on the week, while Ian Kahn is 6-0.
Coincidentally, Ciely and Kahn are playing the teams with the worst records going into this final week, but while Kahn has so far done what’s necessary, Ciely’s pitching has struggled. He has a bunch of starters with tough matchups this weekend, while Joe Pisapia is throwing mostly relievers. The bottom line is Ciely needs to hold onto his hitting Ws while also winning either the pitching or overall points to secure second place on his own. He otherwise needs Kahn to falter.
In the battle for sixth place, which is existential when it comes to playoff chances, Ryan Bloomfield is up 4-2 on the week over Alex Chamberlain, who is in fifth place on the season, while Paul Sporer is down 0-6 to Dan Strafford, who is overall fourth. This promises to be a fraught weekend for Bloomfield and Sporer, with Bloomfield having the bigger margin of error (if he takes the hitting points, too, from Chamberlain he should find himself in fifth place).
A reminder about the playoff format: The first week, teams 1 and 2 have a bye. 3 plays 6 and 4 plays 5.
The next week 1 plays the lower seeded remaining team, while 2 plays the higher seeded remaining team.
Weeks 3 and 4, the two remaining teams face off for two weeks. The winner is Tout Wars H2H champion.
Phil Hertz may have dominated the Tout Daily field in season, but Derek VanRiper topped the 10 team field in the weekend’s three day contest, earning the Tout Wars Daily 2019 championship.
