At the end of May, the question was whether anyone could catch perpetual Tout Mixed Draft leader Rudy Gamble, but a disastrous month for Rudy didn’t knock him from the top spot but it made the question more of a question.
June 2019 standings
Ray Murphy’s machine of a team kept purring, and unsurprisingly Adam Ronis stepped forward. The result is Rudy still in charge, but the threats are closer.
Midseason 2019 standings
All the categories are tight, all the contenders are mixing it up across the board. Give Rudy props for hanging in there, but we have ourselves a race.
At the end of May Bret Sayre had a slim, slim lead over Eric Karabell in Tout Mixed Auction. Bret went on to win the June standings and hold onto a slim lead over Scott Swanay and a handful of teams.
June 2019 standings.
The big story here is the disaster of a month Karabell had, and Tim Heaney had a strong enough month to climb into the hunt.
Midseason 2019 standings.
Tim has a ways to go, but this race will be worth watching.
A month ago, Clay Link was cruising along, winning 80 percent of his games, looking back at the high-achieving (but not that high) likes of Jake Ciely, Ian Kahn and Ryan Bloomfield.
H2H June 2, 2019 standings.
Since then, Link has cruised along with an .800 win percentage while Kahn and Ciely have fallen back.
H2H midseason 2019 standings
No worries, however. The top six teams make the September finals, with the top two getting a first-week bye.
At the end of May the Tout Draft & Hold race was Mike Sheets and everyone else, though there was still time for other to catch up.
June 2nd Draft & Hold standings.
A month later, however, and Sheets is adding military corners. Sheets is tightening, the race isn’t.
Draft & Hold Midseason Standings.
There is still plenty of time for one of the three challengers, or more, to make a move, and Sheets himself has small leads across the categories, so nothing is settled. Not yet.
It’s the second week of Period 4 with another three Golden Tickets on the line. Here are some of the players the Touts are counting on to reach the halfway point of the period in good shape.
Todd Zola (Mastersball, @toddzola)
Pitcher: Matt Strahm – In full fledged WTF mode. Strahm and Reynaldo Lopez. Stacking Coors, nothing to lose at this point.
Hitter: Yasmani Grandal – Not a fan of the Coors catchers, but am a fan of a guy batting leadoff in another great hitter’s venue.
Phil Hertz (BaseballHQ, @prhz50)
Pitcher: Joe Musgrove – Kind of a gamble, but the price is really right.
Hitter: Trea Turner – I’m not buying the Gallen hype and Turner could run wild.
Howard Bender (Fantasy Alarm, @RotobuzzGuy)
Pitcher: Reynaldo Lopez – With a Coors game on the slate, I like to really pay down for my second starter. Lopez may get beaten up by the strong lineups, but he’s thrived against the weaker ones this year and the Tigers definitely rate. He’s faced them twice this season and only allowed two earned runs over 12 innings with a whopping 22 strikeouts. I’ll give him a shot at such a low price.
Hitter: Max Kepler – I dig a lot of the lefty bats for the Twins, but Kepler definitely stands out against Daniel Mengden. He got a precautionary day off yesterday with a minor ankle sprain, but is expected to be fine and return to the top of the order Tuesday. His numbers against right-handed pitching look delicious — .927 OPS with a .381 wOBA — and had a pair of two-hit games right before the day off.
Gene McCaffrey (The Athletic, @WiseGuyGene)
Pitcher: Patrick Corbin – According to my data, the Marlins have MLB’s worst OPS vs. groundball pitchers at .601
Hitter: Mike Zunino – Pairing Corbin with Charlie Morton, I need to save salary. Zunino has a decent chance to pop a homer @ $2600.
Derek Carty (RotoGrinders, @DerekCarty)
Pitcher: Reynaldo Lopez – Lopez isn’t a good pitcher, but he’s in a great spot tonight with one of the cheapest salaries on the board. He faces a terrible DET offense that is the best in baseball for pumping up a pitcher’s strikeouts, and Lopez will have an extreme pitchers’ umpire to further help in that regard. There’s blow-up risk, but he’s easily the top point-per-dollar SP on the slate
Hitter: Austin Meadows – Coors will draw the most attention, and for good reason, but the Rays face Asher Wojciechowski and project for the third most runs on the slate. THE BAT projects Woj as the worst SP in a current major league rotation. He projects for a 6.00 context-neutral ERA, just slightly worse than Josh Rogers, who got obliterated by San Diego in a spot start recently. It’s a tough hitting environment, but a good offense against the worst pitcher with solid prices should do more than enough.
Ray Murphy (BaseballHQ, @RayHQ)
Pitcher: Charlie Morton – Far and away HQ’s top-rated pitcher today, for just a shade over 10k. Quite reasonable.
Dan Strafford (FNTSY Radio, @DanStrafford)
Pitcher: Charlie Morton – While the Orioles have not been as bad as they were to start the year, their active roster still strikes out at 23.8% against right handed pitchers. On the year, Morton has been very solid, striking out batters at a 29.9% rate. The game taking place at the Trop is a nice added lift to Morton.
Hitter: Joc Pederson – Taylor Clarke has been allowing over two home runs per nine overall this year and 2.61 per nine against left handed batters. He has an xFIP of 6.52 against left handed battes as well. The Dodgers have a few lefty power hitters I’d be happy going to, but if Joc Pederson leads off, he’ll be my favorite. All 20 of his home runs on the year have come against right handed pitchers.
Jeff Boggis (Fantasy Football Empire, @JeffBoggis)
Pitcher: Patrick Corbin – Corbin seems back on track and the Corbin that we love to insert into our fantasy lineups. After 3 straight losses, he’s bounced back with 2 straight wins and 17 Ks.. He takes on the Miami Marlins at home tonight. I think that he’s priced right. Also rolling with Charlie Morton.
Hitter: Javier Baez – Over the past 5 days, Javier Baez has a Hard Hit Rate of 60%. The league average is 35.5%. Baez is a top 10 hitter over the past 2 weeks.
Jeff Erickson (Rotowire, @Jeff_Erickson)
Pitcher: Matt Strahm – Coming off a big strikeout performance last week, Strahm now gets a home start against the Giants. And as much as the Giants looked good against Logan Allen last night, I’ll keep taking my chances there.
Hitter: Fernando Tatis Jr. – Too bad we can’t used FanDuel’s pricing on Tatis, where he’s only $4,100. But I’m still going to roll with Tatis against Tyler Beede. It’s just might price me out of using Charlie Morton – which is a pretty big debate I’m having. (Narrator: … it did price him out of Morton and into … Joe Musgrove. Yikes.)
Derek VanRiper (Rotowire, @DerekVanRiper)
Pitcher: Reynaldo Lopez – Lopez has two 28+ point games in his last 10, but he’s failed to reach double digits in those other eight turns. While I think it’s possible that his ownership rate will get pushed up with a lot of lineups trying to maximize Coors exposure, my hope is that Matt Strahm will be the cheap pitcher of choice for the largest share of the entries in tournaments, leaving Lopez as a tournament-viable option.
Hitter: Michael Brantley – $4.5K in Colorado for Brantley is very cheap. He’s the most chalky bat in my lineup tonight, and it’s not even close. Overall, I think you can do well on this slate limiting your COL/HOU exposure and taking advantage of several hitter-friendly environments and damage-prone arms on this slate.
Clay Link (Rotowire, @claywlink)
Pitcher: Jack Flaherty – He’s really not “$7600 on DraftKings” bad.
Hitter: Jose Martinez – Matt Carasiti is getting the start but lefty Wade LeBlanc is expected to serve as the bulk reliever for Seattle. Martinez has been a bit of a letdown in season-long leagues but is batting .349/.391/.628 vs. LHP this season and .335/.405/.572 against lefties for his career.
That helped him climb past Jason Collette into first place. All the credit can’t go the Eric Sogard, Edwin Encarnacion, Mike Minor and Justin Verlander helped, too, but Sogard’s career month certainly didn’t hurt.
This is the latest of our weekly reports for 2019,
summarizing the top free agent bids in each of the five Tout Wars leagues, with
links to the detailed bidding action following our 8 p.m. ET deadline each
Sunday evening. All prices are on a $1000 base.
After you scan the detail below, please join our live chat,
starting at 9 p.m. ET Sunday evening, to discuss these results with Todd Zola
of Mastersball and other Touts.
American League
This week, 16 free agents were acquired via the FAAB process
in the American League-only league, however, per-player spending was low. Top
prospect Brendan McKay was not among them, having been owned by Mike Podhorzer
since June 10. This early speculation is typical for the highest-profile
prospects in the two “-only” Tout leagues.
Colton and the Wolfman bid $52 for Oakland’s Franklin Barreto,
topping the next-largest offer of $32. The long-time infield prospect was just
called up on Sunday, though his path to regular playing time is unclear.
Jeff Erickson of RotoWire dropped a pair of winning $11 bids
on Lone Star State free agents Logan Forsythe and J Urquidy. The veteran
Forsythe may be most valuable in this format due to his eligibility in all four
infield spots rather than his bat. Urquidy, 24, an Astros pitching prospect, is
an option to be called up to make his start Tuesday – in Colorado!
13 players moved onto NL Tout rosters this Sunday evening.
It was an oldie-but-goodie move for Lenny Melnick in
acquiring Fernando Rodney of the Nationals for $31. The 42-year old picked up a
save this past week, for his ninth team in his long career, but his role is
more likely to be a setup man ahead.
St. Louis’ Tommy Edman can do a little of everything – show
a bit of pop, steal a base and can play all over. The infielder is taking
advantage of Matt Carpenter’s prolonged slump, but will more likely settle into
a super-sub role. I expected more interest, bidding $20 when a buck would have
gotten the job done.
Alex Young was called up by Arizona and yielded three runs
over five innings to the Giants in his MLB debut. Scott Wilderman of onRoto
paid $14 to roster the lefty.
Mixed auction was busy this week with 18 players acquired.
Here, McKay was unowned and joined the roster of big-spending
Jeff Zimmerman for $178. The two-way player seems to have the most immediate
value on the mound. Zimmerman also posted a winning offer for starter Austin
Voth of the Nationals. The 27-year old is up for the second season and gets the
Royals this coming week.
With much of his pre-season prospect luster worn off,
Rockies infielder-outfielder Garrett Hampson is back with the big club and
should see time as long as Trevor Story’s thumb injury keeps him out. Yahoo’s Scott
Pianowski won the bidding at $41.
Another prospect who struggled earlier, St. Louis’ Tyler O’Neill,
is also back due to misfortune to another, this time Marcell Ozuna’s hand
injury. O’Neill can hit for power, but has major problems with the strikeout.
This may be his last big chance to show if he can replace Ozuna next season,
with Brent Hershey’s winning offer of $35 sealing the deal.
Mixed Draft is often a busy group at free agent time and
this week was no exception. A whopping 24 players were added.
Leading the way at $400 is new/former St. Louis closer
Carlos Martinez, acquired by Seth Trachtman. The ex-starter also filled in with
ninth-inning duties last season and may actually be more consistent than
hard-throwing Jordan Hicks, the injured player he is replacing. With his own
upper-90’s heat, Martinez can get the job done.
McKay fetched a winning offer of $222 from Greg Ambrosius of
the NFBC, with the next-closed bid having been $175.
Adam Ronis acquired Dylan Cease for $57. The White Sox
prospect is slated to make his MLB debut on Wednesday vs. the Tigers. The
timing is odd, as Cease had a strong April and May, but a rough June. Well, it
is a new month…
An even total of 20 players were picked up this Sunday in
the Head to Head format league. The top teams in the standings made the biggest
individual moves.
The top price was the $116 paid for McKay by league leader
Clay Link, a relative bargain perhaps.
Next at $103 is Justin Upton. The outfielder is finally
healthy again and back in the Angels outfield. He has yet to steal a base, but
has three long balls in his first 11 games this season. Upton’s new team is that
of second-place owner Ian Kahn.
Few if anyone thought much about Kevin Newman coming into
the season, but the Pirates infielder continues to be a steady performer. The
25-year old was red-hot this past week, with three home runs and nine RBI and his
second, short and third eligibility is a nice bonus. Kahn was again the high
bidder with his $37 offer.
