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.
Competing in Tout Wars AL Auction in 2014
In order of reserve round pick (available FAAB in parenthesis)
* new to league this year
Larry Schechter (100)
Mike Podhorzer (100)*
Joe Sheehan (100)
Jeff Erickson (100)
Rick Wolf/Glenn Colton (100)
Lawr Michaels (100)
Andy Behrens (97)
Jason Collette (95)
Rob Leibowitz (91)
Steve Moyer (90)
Ron Shandler (90)
Chris Liss (89)*
Tout Wars AL Auction will take place March 23rd in NYC at 10am ET.
Competing in Tout Wars Mixed Auction in 2014
In order of reserve round pick (available FAAB in parenthesis)
* new to league this year
Fred Zinkie (100)
David Gonos (100)
Scott Swanay (100)
Eric Mack (100)
Tim Heaney (100)
Patrick Davitt (100)
Scott Pianowski (100)*
Ray Guilfoyle (100)*
Nando DiFino (100)
Al Melchior (99)
Zach Steinhorn (94)
Paul Singman (93)
Derek Van Riper (89)
Cory Schwartz (83)
Ray Flowers (76)
Tout Wars Mixed Auction will be held March 22 at 3pm ET in New York City, broadcast live on SiriusXM.
Competing in Tout Wars Mixed Draft in 2014
In order of reserve round pick (available FAAB in parenthesis)
* new to league this year
UPDATE: Corrected order and FAAB totals 1/20 at 4pm ET.
Draft order was selected by owners in the order of last year’s finish.
Tom Kessenich (100)
Perry Van Hook (100)
Eno Sarris (100)
Greg Ambrosius (100)
Tim McLeod (100)
Paul Greco (98)
Nick Minnix (95)*
Grey Albright (82)
Scott Engel (81)
Anthony Perri (72)
Ray Murphy (100)*
Adam Ronis (100)*
Charlie Wiegert (93)
Paul Sporer (100)*
Brent Hershey (84)
The draft will be held at 7pm ET on March 11, 2014. Join the LIVE CHAT and DRAFT TRACKING here.
Of the 633 players who had at bats last year (not counting pitchers):
Five earned $10 or more under OBP rules than Batting Average.
33 earned $5 or more under OBP rules than BA.
On the negative side, 28 lost $5 or more under OBP rules than BA.
Clearly, values are going to shift, especially for the hitters with especially high and low walk rates, but they will also much better reflect a hitter’s very real baseball skills. That is, his ability to take a walk is a reason hitters like Dan Uggla and Josh Willingham received as many at bats last year as they did. By getting on base a fair amount, they continued to have value even when they weren’t hitting very successfully. It is this aspect of the game that makes OBP a more valuable category than BA.
For the complete list in a spreadsheet visit RotomansGuide.com.
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. Â 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
All Time Top 10 Earners (these are imaginary dollars, based on a $100 buy in, standard roto payout to top four or five places)
Larry Schechter 9 years $3,020
Mike Lombardo 5 years $1,579
Jason Grey 11 years $1,380
Fred Zinkie 3 years $1,345
Ron Shandler 16 years $1,146
John Coleman 5 years $849
Sam Walker 6 years $840
Trace Wood 6 years $840
Tristan Cockcroft 7 years $713
See the whole list here.
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.
