The merry band (and Rotoman) joust about improving the fantasy game, aggressively, passively, or just right, pleasing the average fantasy player, and incorporating better metrics, at KFFL.
In a group email list among Tout Warriors, a spirited discussion breaks out. Steve Gardner’s story in USA Today does a good job of explaining some of the issues involved.
Tristan Cockcroft doesn’t mention Tout Wars, but he does propose changing the roto categories. His idea? 6×6 roto, with OBP and SLG replacing BA, IP and K/9 replacing Strikeouts, and Quality Starts replacing Wins. You can disagree and appreciate his thoughtfulness on the subject.
In a story that may be behind the paywall at Rotowire, Jason Collette looks at the game’s declining Batting Averages in recent years, and the fantasy implications. In the comments a spirited discussion breaks out about the pros and cons of replacing BA with OBP. In sum, lots of support for the idea of it. Some skepticism about the receptiveness of the general fantasy public to the change.
Two rules are being changed in Tout Wars this year:
1) The threshold below which the FAAB Bidding is not treated using the Vickrey rules (winning bid is reduced to $1 more than the second-highest bid) has been reduced from $10 to $5.
2) In Mixed League only this year, the BA (batting average) hitting category is being changed to OBP (on-base percentage).
The general consensus is that Vickrey is a good thing when there is real competition for a player, but in the week-to-week FAAB contests too often one team will really value a player and no one else will. Reducing the price down to $1 is like a gift to those teams. The $10 threshold has worked well to force thoughtful bids, but it is the goal to find the best balance, and so we’re trying $5 this year. If there are no other bids than the winning bid of more than $5, the winning bid will be reduced to $5.
Sabermetrics tells us that a walk is nearly as good as a hit, and many leagues are using OBP rather than BA because it values the base on balls. One of Tout Wars’ mission is to adopt new rules that improve the game. The member of the LLC have all played with OBP as a category for 10 years now in the XFL, and can honestly say: Try it, you’ll like it!
Did you know we keep track of Tout Wars records? Yep, you can see which teams scored the most runs in AL Tout and which Mixed Tout team has the best ERA ever on our Tout Records page.
Highlights in 2012:
Mike Siano bested Keith Law’s old old Tout AL stolen base record, with 174.
Peter Kreutzer pushed past a NL Strikeout record shared by Ben Brown/Mark Elliot in 2001 and Tristan Cockcroft in 2011, with 1272.
Most impressively, Cory Schwartz destroyed the Total Mixed Tout Points total (15 team league), held by Andy Behrens in 2010 and Fred Zinkie in 2011, with 128.5. Congratulations Cory!
Larry Schechter repeats in Tout Wars AL, Tristan Cockcroft wins Tout Wars NL, and Cory Schwartz is showered in yoohoo to celebrate his Tout War Mixed championship. Well played fellas!
I’ve got “All I Need is a Miracle” by Mike and the Mechanics playing in my head, and that’s just not a good place to be.
It turns out, I have absolutely no upside in the pitching categories, only downside, and not even much of that. I’m up one win on Ron and two wins on Liss, but neither have a starting pitcher going for them today. The only way they end up with another start is if the O’s & Yanks tie and have to have a tiebreaker game for the AL East title, as both have Orioles pitchers on their roster.
So, I’m left to look elsewhere to try to find how to gain 2.5 points or more in the last full day of the season. Larry and Ron are tied in saves – so go Royals and M’s, let’s hope Greg Holland and Tom Wilhelmsen notch saves! And Larry should definitely root for his Red Sox to play spoilers against the Yankees, so Rafael Soriano doesn’t get a save and the Yankees don’t win the AL East. I call that a win-win.
Alas, the lack of starts for Ron and Chris hurt me, too, as they are behind Larry six and seven strikeouts respectively. Rick and Glenn are just two K’s behind Larry, but they also have no starters today. Hopefully their high-K relievers get plenty of action. Unfortunately, Larry has Jered Weaver going tonight, so that’s not looking so good. I can’t emphasize enough how much those starts from Jeremy Guthrie and Miguel Gonzalez meant for him last night. Without them, Larry is three points to the worse and needing a command performance from Weaver.
So … back to hitting. There’s still a path, but it’s difficult. I’m chasing Rob (not “Fawn“) Leibowitz by five runs and Andy Behrens by three. I’m trailing Jason Collette by two homers. Larry is leading Lawr Michaels by just one RBI (but trailing Rick/Glenn by just one RBI). Larry is leading Matthew Berry by two stolen bases.
So let’s start cheering for Lawr and Matthew. Kyle Seager, take Jered Weaver deep, please. Nick Swisher, now is your time to shine and clinch that AL East title against Larry’s Red Sox. Just make sure the Yankees win by 7 or 8, please. Alcides Escobar, 34 steals are great – but wouldn’t 35 look like a better number in arbitration? Oakland, you want that AL West title badly enough? Put in Jemile Weeks as a pinch-runner and get that go-ahead run from first-to-third in a snap! Let’s do this!
Finally, in regards to Larry’s Jamey Carroll comment – the world needs ditch-diggers, too. We’ve all got those sorts of guys on our roster. Even though I got way more mileage than one could possibly expect from Elliott Johnson, it sure would be nice if the Rays let him pinch-run and score a run today.
LARRY SCHECHTER:
“All I need is a miracle”….I love that song!
I think Jeff’s chances are much better than a “miracle.”
Soriano threw about 40 pitches last night, so I don’t know if he’s even available today.
My Red Sox are truly pathetic.
Ambrosius and Childs have Trout in LABR AL and look like they may not win. There are three teams within a point of each other with one day to go. Now that’s a race!!!
LABR has a tie-breaker rule. Does Tout? If Jeff and I finish with the same # points, is it a tie? Do they give us each a trophy or do we have to cut one in half?
Maybe Jeff and I will finish tied today, and so will Bal-NYY, and it will all come down to Soriano getting a save Thursday after taking today off?
I feel like I’m hanging on by a thread. But that’s not bad, considering a few weeks ago I fell out of 1st place a few days here and there. My lead is down to two points, and I’m vulnerable in many categories. A bad hitting day could potentially result in up to 6 points losts (2 for RBI’s and one every other category).
Jeff should be able to maintain his wins lead over Shandler, because Jeff has 4 scheduled SP to just 1 for Ron. Likewise, I should stay ahead of Ron and Chris Liss for K’s, because I have 3 SP to their 1 and 2 SP, respectively. I’m expecting to pass Wolf/Colton, because I’m just 2 K’s behind, and have a 3-1 SP edge.
There are many conflicting situations, such as I’d like Wolf/Colton to hit a few HR’s (to catch Jeff, but only solo shots, because they’re right behind me in RBI’s).
Last night, there were times when I was thinking, “would I rather have Felix get out of this jam and get a K, or would it be better if Callaspo got a hit and an RBI?”……and “If Saunders knocks in Montero, the run by Montero (for Andy) would hurt Jeff, but the RBI (for Lawr) would hurt me.”
This is definitely a bit crazy. If I paid this much attention to every run, RBI, etc., the entire year, I’d have to quit playing this game. At least onroto.com makes it very easy to look up which player is on each team.
Sunday was a little nuts watching football, baseball (on the internet) and the Ryder Cup.
Jeff said he could be the only AL-only team that has Trout and doesn’t win. Could I possibly be the only AL-team that started Jamey Carroll all year and won? Jamey went 3-5 yesterday and missed a HR by a foot.
The highlight Monday was not baseball, it was the last scoring play of the MNF game. This might be a record…I won three different games for three different reasons on the last score.
The merry band (and Rotoman) joust about improving the fantasy game, aggressively, passively, or just right, pleasing the average fantasy player, and incorporating better metrics, at KFFL.
