Todd Zola asked the universe of Tout Wars participants to talk about “scarcity,” for this week’s Lord’s Roundtable at KFFL. Many spoke out.
Read Todd’s followup.
Category: Article
The Tout Wars Market
Derek Carty writes for Baseball Prospectus and has been a Tout Warrior since 2010. He is part of a startup called FantasySquared, which is a new game that creates small stock markets that allow fantasy team owners to trade shares in their fellow owners’ teams, perhaps backing the winning team in their league as their own team fades.
The website has just launched, and one of the first leagues available for public trading is Tout Wars. You can sign up at the site and start building your portfolio right away. Rotoman bought a couple hundred shares of his team to win, because he’s confident, and 100 shares of Lenny’s team, because he bid up Rotoman’s prime stud hitter target, Hunter Pence, until he was out of reach.
Derek shared the implied odds thus far for all three Tout Wars leagues. Is there really wisdom in crowds? We’ll find out better once a critical mass has joined the site. But here’s the results of a small sampling: Continue reading “The Tout Wars Market”
Suggested Rules Changes for Tout
by Perry Van Hook, mastersball.com
TOUT Wars has a unique but very well thought out set of rules for its esteemed combatants. But as any of you who have played fantasy sports or almost any other game for a while know that while no one wants to change the rules, there are things that eventually need updating. The provisions for players on the MLB DL is one that needs that update so the intent of the rules is upheld but loopholes or the opportunity for players to “gameâ€Â the rules are eliminated.
First let’s look at the rules as they currently stand:
DISABLED LIST
A player placed on the major league disabled list is eligible to be placed on his Tout Wars team’s disabled list. The DL will be considered an extension of reserve list; however, there is no limit to the number of players that may be on a team’s disabled list.
When a player on the DL is activated to his team’s major league roster, that player must be activated to his Tout Wars team active or reserve roster by the second transaction deadline following his activation. If an activated major league player is not activated to his Tout Wars team roster by this time, he will automatically be released to the free agent pool.
All DL activations are bound by the roster requirements for the active or reserve lists. Players must be released, traded, etc. to make room for the DL-activated player. Continue reading “Suggested Rules Changes for Tout”
Fantasy League Player Awards
Steve Gardner looks at the season’s top performers and biggest disappointments, from a fantasy perspective. And notes that one of his biggest plusses this year in Tout and LABR, arrived via his reserve list.
Tout Mixed: The abnormal, exceptional average
Nicholas Minnix of KFFL.com reports on the Tout Wars Mixed pennant race:
I hate Marco Scutaro.
I was ahead of Fred Zinkie in batting average by 0.004 points heading into the baseball regular season’s final full week of games. Marco Freakin’ Scutaro made my stomach turn at the very beginning of it when he collected six hits in eight at-bats in Monday’s twin bill between the Boston Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles. Continue reading “Tout Mixed: The abnormal, exceptional average”
Tout MIXED, Minnix says: “No better place to be than on top…”
Nick Minnix of KFFL.com reports on the Tout Wars Mixed pennant race:
There’s no better place to be than on top. In roto baseball, anyway. Unless you’re on top and you have a sinking feeling. It won’t take much for everything that my competition – Fred and Tim – needs to happen … to happen. I picked up five points this past week, not a bad time to do it, but I entered Monday sitting on the most precarious four-point lead you can imagine. I’m just hoping that each of these dudes is second-guessing himself (and experiencing an unsettled stomach) as much as I am. Continue reading “Tout MIXED, Minnix says: “No better place to be than on top…””
How the wheels came off…
Lawr Michaels looks at the many ways first-half hope turned into second-half pain, one of which is spelled G-I-O.
More FAAB Talk, by Steve Gardner
USA Today’s fantasy columnist follows up on past stories about the midseason FAAB spree and the perils of trading.
Of special note in Steve’s piece is Ron Shandler’s comment that by opening up FAAB bidding to minor league players, Tout teams have more options than just loading up for the big bear promotions of prospects and midseason league changes. In fact, the early poaching of minor league talent before promotion may be one reason there were few big ticket purchases during the season. Players like Cowgill, Goldschmidt, and Giavotella were picked up by savvy players well before their big league teams promoted them.
Last year, I picked up the Nationals’ Danny Espinosa the week before September callups. I was the only bidder, and was rewarded by a huge game right off the bat. If he had been a free agent at that point, some team would have spent all their FAAB on him. What a difference a week can make.
One other note: As for the problems with trading FAAB dollars, most if not all of them would be eliminated by ending FAAB dollar trading a couple of weeks before the major league nonwaiver trading deadline of July 31. I’m thinking the All Star Break makes sense. Such a change would muddy the waters and make it more difficult to see what the benefits of having the most FAAB would be and remove much of the asymmetricality of FAAB trades that give a team first position at the deadline. I like having as many different tools available to take a team from the start of the season to the end, but when we discover that a rule may lead to wildly different motivations by various teams for arbitrary reasons (that can be exploited to the detriment of third party owners), I think we have a good reason to make changes.