NL Auction Chat Transcript

9:20
Jason Collette: Had some technical issues in here, but we should be good to go now.

9:20
Jason Collette: Billy Hamilton goes $22 to Gianella

9:20
Jason Collette: Reminder, this is an OBP league now and batting average has been killed!

9:22
Comment From Tim McLeod
Morning Jason.

9:22
Comment From Brian
Does Hamilton’s price vs LABR reflect that change?

   Jason Collette: I think his performance in the spring is more reflective

 

9:24
Comment From KeeperNewb
How are you this morning Jason?

   Jason Collette: Not hungover for a change, so that’s a start!

 

Continue reading “NL Auction Chat Transcript”

TOUTDOWN! Your Guide to Tout Wars Week!

March 11: Tout Wars Mixed Draft. Results. (Click tabs to select a spreadsheet page)

March 22, 9am: Tout Wars NL Auction. Follow on SiriusXM radio, the spreadsheet, the chat.

March 22, 3pm: Tout Wars Mixed Auction. Follow on Sirius XM radio, the spreadsheet, the chat.

March 22, 8pm: Tout Wars Party! Foley’s Bar, 18 West 33rd Street, NYC. Meet the Touts!

March 23, 10am: Tout Wars AL Auction. Follow on SiriusXM, the spreadsheet, the chat.

March 24: Doubt Wars! Beat the pros, win prizes!

Tout Wars NL: 2014 Owners Lineup

Competing in Tout Wars NL Auction in 2014

In order of reserve round pick (available FAAB in parenthesis)
* new to league this year

Tristan Cockcroft (100)
Mike Gianella (100)
Todd Zola (100)
Gene McCaffrey (100)*
Steve Gardner (100)
Seth Trachtman (100)*
Brian Walton (100)
Phil Hertz (100)
Peter Kreutzer (100)
Lenny Melnick (97)
Scott Wilderman (93)
Derek Carty (89)

Tout Wars NL Auction will be held on March 22 at 9am in NY, and broadcast on SiriusXM.

Say Hello to On Base Percentage, Part 2.

While we’re putting the final touches on the 2014 Tout Wars league rosters, we wanted to make one significant announcement regarding the league rules. This year all four Tout Wars leagues will use On Base Percentage (instead of Batting Average) in their 5×5 scoring.

Last year’s experiment with OBP in the Tout Wars Mixed Draft and Tout Wars Mixed Auction leagues was a success. The patients survived, for one, and more importantly the owners in those two leagues adjusted without any obvious difficulty.

Expansion into the only leagues involves one further bit of business. The change means that Tout Wars will no longer be quite as good a draft price guideline as it was for leagues that use batting average. It was this issue that caused us to wait a year, and it was this issue that was forefront in our discussions this year about making the change. An online poll we ran in December, however, helped guide us to a decision.

Half the respondents who hadn’t played OBP thought we should make the change. And the vast majority of those who have played with OBP thought we should make the change.

We know the transition will be uncomfortable for some, but we feel strongly that having bases on balls count for hitters (as they count against pitchers in WHIP) is a very positive step in the evolution of fantasy baseball. We hope that our making the change now will make it easier for leagues that want to modernize their categories to make the jump sooner rather than later.

Tout poohbahs Ron, Lawr, Jeff and Peter all play in the XFL, a mixed keeper league that adopted OBP in 2003. We all feel that the tires have been kicked, any wrinkles have been pressed, and OBP is the stronger way to play.  And just as we did when we adopted 5×5 rather than the still (back then) prevalent 4×4, we hope you’ll come along if it makes sense for your league. As support service providers we’ll be including OBP in our materials this year, and we think you’ll start to see 5×5 (OBP) pricing become more common immediately and going forward.

Have a happy new year, and please welcome OBP!

Tout Wars

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

Screen Shot 2013-10-05 at 5.42.40 PM

DOUBT WARS MIXED

Screen Shot 2013-10-05 at 5.42.56 PM

DOUBT WARS NL

Screen Shot 2013-10-05 at 5.43.18 PM

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

Check Out The New Tout Wars Records in 2013!

While everthing was a first and a record in the innaugural Tout Wars Mixed Draft season, new records were set in the other three Tout Wars Leagues.

In Tout Mixed Auction, Fred Zinkie of all people set new league records for ERA and WHIP, eclipsing David Gonos’ (2010) and Nick Minnix’ (2011) records, while runnerup David Gonos broke Tim Heaney’s strikeout mark.

In Tout Wars AL, Larry Schechter’s total of 100.5 points edges Sam Walker’s 2008 record by half a point, and Matthew Berry broke Jason Grey’s 2011 record for team strikeouts.

In the Tout NL, Champ Tristan Cockcroft set new record for WHIP, with a 1.151 WHIP, breaking Greg Rosenthal’s 2004 record of 1.16.

Check out all the Tout Wars Records at the Records page.

It’s Official: Tristan Cockcroft is your 2013 Tout Wars National League Champion

After the draft his team ranked with a handful of others (Zola, Pianowski, Walton, Gardner, Hertz) as the top teams in Tout NL this year, but if you look at his place of finish from week to week, it doesn’t seem that close:

1,3,8,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1.

Only the last one matters, of course, but the picket fence impresses. (Todd Zola squeezed ahead briefly following the All Star break).

Tristan also set a new record with a 1.151 WHIP, breaking Greg Rosenthal’s 2004 record of 1.16.

Congratulations to Tristan Cockcroft, repeat Tout Wars Champion in 2013.