Tout Wars AL Champion: Mike Podhorzer

At the end of April, Mike Podhorzer was in second place, a few points behind Jason Collette. By the end of May he was solidly in first. By the end of June his lead was pretty much insurmountable. In any case, it was never surmounted.

Podhorzer’s team was built on two big stars, Mike Trout and Francisco Lindor, and a solid closer, Craig Kimbrel, but his season’s success depended on a pair of young Yankees, Aaron Judge and Luis Severino, and the emergence of Matt Olson as a power hitter in Oakland.

Podhorzer built his pitching staff on the back of David Price, but when Price went down, he was able to sustain because of the continued excellence of Severino. The result wasn’t a ton of innings, but it was top finishes in ERA, Ratio, Saves and, surprisingly, a second-place in strikeouts despite only putting up 1100 innings. That’s thanks to Severino and Kimbrel.

 

 

 

Tout Wars Mixed Auction Champion: Jeff Zimmerman

His season started slowly. At the end of April he was in 11th place. But by the end of May he was in sixth, and in the week ending June 25th he’d climbed into first place. For good.

While a team built on Corey Kluber and Buster Posey, Ken Giles and Jose Ramirez, has talent, the difference came with the breakout season of Robbie Ray, the freakishly good season of Chase Anderson, and the Dodgers callup of Cody Bellinger.

In the end, Jeff won the league in his first season in Tout Wars Mixed Auction, and has finished first in both of his Tout Wars seasons (he won Tout Head 2 Head in 2016).

Who Is Winning Tout Daily? UPDATE: Derek Carty

It is almost midnight. Here is the top 10 in tonight’s Championship match:

It’s all Todd Zola and Derek Carty tonight, as it has been all season. We’ll update with the final results in the morning.

UPDATE: Derek Carty is Tout Wars champion.

At midnight Carty emailed the league: Man, we’ve really got a sweat going on here. Can we end the games now and just call it?

Todd Zola replied: No.
No.
And…No

It was that close between the three teams of Zola’s and two of Carty’s, but when the evening was done Carty had held on. Here are the final standings (and Carty is already working on the sandwich that will be named after in at the Foley’s NY dinner on Tout Weekend 2018).

Who Is Winning Tout Wars? Mixed Auction Edition

The current standings, on the morning of August 28th:

Jeff Zimmerman, last year’s Head to Head winner, has been in first place pretty much all season, and has a commanding lead. Who is winning Tout AL? Jeff Zimmerman is.

But Zimmerman’s dominance came in the first half. Since the All Star break Ron Shandler’s team has been a little better than Zimmerman’s.

A quick survey of the current standings shows that if everything broke incredibly well for Shandler, he could potentially add 16 points, and would pass Zimmerman in a few categories. That would put him just a few points behind.

It’s a long shot, for sure, but this isn’t over yet, at least not completely.

See the league’s rosters and standings here.

Tout Daily 2017 Finals Are Set!

The final night of the 2017 regular season went to Jeff Boggis, but as the night’s games finished two winners emerged in Period 5 of the contest: Derek Carty and Tim Heaney. Each adds a ticket to the finals, to be held next Friday, September 1 on Draft Kings.

Winning tickets belong to:

Todd Zola has three. He also won the Most Overall Points ticket by three points over Derek Carty.

Derek Carty has two tickets.

Howard Bender has one.

Andrea LaMont has one.

Jeff Boggis has one.

Jeff Erickson has one.

Lenny Melnick has one.

Tim Heaney has one.

Good luck to the finalists on September 1.

The full leaderboard is here.

Tout Wars Daily Period 5 Week 4 Tonight!

Derek Carty leads for a second golden ticket, but there is a crowd chasing him. See the leaderboard here, and look for the winners of the last three tickets in this space on Saturday.

 

This Week’s Tout Tip for the Daily Championships at Draft Kings

Tim Heaney is in the lead. Steve Gardner and Ray Murphy, Derek Carty, Derek VanRiper and Todd Zola are all within shot of a first or second place finish to earn a golden ticket to the September 1st finals, when this year’s Tout Daily champion will be crowned.

Derek Carty has a ticket to the finals already. Todd Zola has two, and those two are also the top two point scorers for the season on the whole, with Ray Murphy in third. The Top Scorer for the season will also win a ticket to the finals.

Tonight’s contest is Week 3 of Period 5 in this year’s season. The Tout are picking:

JEFF BOGGIS

My top hitter for tonight’s #ToutDaily contest is: Giancarlo Stanton (MIA – OF) at NYM $5,700. Giancarlo Stanton had his 6-game home run streak snapped yesterday, so it’s time to start a new one beginning tonight. He faces Mets pitcher Chris Flexen and his 7.02 ERA and 2.10 WHIP. Stanton is hitting .286 with 34 home runs and 69 RBI against right-handed pitching this season. Over the past week, Stanton has an OPS of 1.659.

My top pitcher for tonight’s #ToutDaily contest is: Max Scherzer (SP – WAS) at San Diego $14,100. He’s expensive, but good for 10 strikeouts, 0-2 earned runs, and hopefully a win. If we take a closer look at his last 10 starts, Max Scherzer is 4-1 with a 2.23 ERA. He is on the road tonight at San Diego where he owns a 1.79 ERA and 0.82 WHIP in away games this season.

PHIL HERTZ

Corey Kluber and Yoenis Cespedes. Kluber’s recent record speaks for itself; Cespedes is heating up and facing a lefty.

TIM HEANEY

Max Scherzer ($14,100), WAS at SD: I’ll keep this one close to the vest.

Jonathan Schoop ($4,400), LAA at BAL: Stack against my fourth cousin seven times removed, Andrew Heaney, who’s making his first start coming off Tommy John rehab.

TODD ZOLA

PITCHER No-brainer for me, Max Scherzer ($14,100) is the clear-cut choice for my SP1. I’m most interested in protecting  my 34 point lead for the overall points title so there’s no reason to take chances. The match-up and weather both favor Scherzer over Kluber. That said, I’m still flummoxed over my SP2. It may come down to lineups and late weather scenarios.

HITTER Because I don’t know where I’m going with SP2, my hitting roster is in flux. A couple names I’m strongly considering include Neil Walker ($4,500) facing German Marquez in Coors and Shin-Soo Choo ($4,300) squaring off with James Shields in Arlington. Both should be hitting second in great hitting environments, in contests with no weather concerns.

The Week’s FAAB Reports for Tout Wars, on August 14.

Mastersball always Looks FAABulous, and this week is no exception. Todd Zola and his masters weigh in on the weekly FAAB doings, with charts! Read it here.

Over at Baseball Prospectus, George Bissell is filling in for Mike Gianella on their FAAB report. The link is here. It was momentarily behind the paywall, but has been thankfully set free. Enjoy.