What Went Wrong: Tout Wars Mixed Draft

Ray Flowers tells his story over at Baseball Guys.

Grey Albright reports:

What went wrong? What didn’t?

The 15th pick isn’t a death knell (14th pick is in top 2) but our draft board just didn’t line up well. We drafted a well-balanced offense in the first five rounds and ended up with two bombs (heyward, upton) and three disappointments (bautista, butler, sandoval). Missed out on Goldschmidt by 4 picks. ‘Depth’ over ‘ace’ SP strategy hurt by injury/underperformance by Niese, Beckett, and Edwin Jackson.

other notes

– Brutal first 5 rounds of draft with Bautista/Heyward/Butler/BJ Upton/Sandoval. Just a rough draft to be picking 15th – especially when our draft fave Goldschmidt goes off the board four picks before our 3rd and we end up with Billy Butler.
– We didn’t draft an SP until 7th round (Latos) but drafted a lot of depth. Shelby Miller and early FAAB pick Masterson were great but too many misses with Niese, Beckett, Edwin Jackson, and Volquez.
– We had some solid values on offense in later rounds (Cuddyer – 10th, Marte – 16th, Murphy – 19th) but not enough to recover from misses in 1st 5 rounds + disappointments like Josh Rutledge (8th) and Reddick (10th).

Tout Wars Mixed Auction: Zinkie Wins in 2013!

Going into the last game of the season David Gonos needed two of three things to happen to pass Fred Zinkie:

David Price gets the win.
His hitters (Pierzynski, Martin and Loney) to hit two homers
His hitters (Pierzynski, Martin and Loney) to score two runs

Zinkie’s only defense was Ian Kinsler. If he scored a run, Gonos’ hitters would need to score three.

But it didn’t happen. David Price was masterful, got the win, shutting down Texas hitters, and Loney didn’t power the Tampa offense. Fred Zinkie held on for his second championship in three year!

In other news, David Gonos did set a new league record for strikeouts, breaking Tim Heaney’s 2011 record.

While Fred Zinkie of all people set new league records for ERA and WHIP, eclipsing David Gonos’ (2010) and Nick Minnix’ (2011) records.

Congratulations!

Tout Wars Mixed Draft: Mike Podhorzer is Crowned Champion in 2013.

In the league’s first year Mike passed early frontrunner Perry Van Hook at midseason, then withstood challenges from Tom Kessenich, Van Hook, and Gene McCaffrey to win comfortably the last week.

Welcome to Tout Wars, Mike!

Tout Wars AL: Three Times the Charm for Larry Schechter, 2013 Champ

Schechter has won three straight AL titles and is now a six-time Tout Wars champion. Well done, Larry.

His total of 100.5 points edges Sam Walker’s 2008 record.

Matthew Berry broke Jason Grey’s 2011 record for team strikeouts.

Larry also won LABR AL this year. And he has a book about winning coming out, no coincidence.

Battle of the Touts Tonight on Twitter

gonosvszinkie2013One point, one game, one champion. Follow @davidgonos and @fredzinkie on Twitter tonight, for their reactions of their down-to-the-wire pennant race, on Twitter. Game time is 8:05 pm ET.

FOLLOW THE ACTION HERE OR ON TWITTER #toutwars

It’s Official: Tristan Cockcroft is your 2013 Tout Wars National League Champion

After the draft his team ranked with a handful of others (Zola, Pianowski, Walton, Gardner, Hertz) as the top teams in Tout NL this year, but if you look at his place of finish from week to week, it doesn’t seem that close:

1,3,8,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1.

Only the last one matters, of course, but the picket fence impresses. (Todd Zola squeezed ahead briefly following the All Star break).

Tristan also set a new record with a 1.151 WHIP, breaking Greg Rosenthal’s 2004 record of 1.16.

Congratulations to Tristan Cockcroft, repeat Tout Wars Champion in 2013.

Fred Zinkie and the Price Is Wrong.

Fred Zinkie writes:

As if 162 games wasn’t enough, my Tout Wars journey is going to last one more day!  After a full slate of regular season action, I lead David Gonos by one point.  This is the closest race I’ve even been a part of, and that includes when I won this league in 2011 at around10:00pm on the final day of the regular season.  If the Blue Jays had finished their comeback on the Rays this afternoon, I’d be bathing in Yoo-Hoo right now.  But they fell one run short, so I will sleep lightly for one more night.

No matter what happens in Monday’s game, I’m not moving.  I would take some surprising performances to push me off the 120-point mark.  I lead Patrick Davitt by one RBI, and he doesn’t have any hitters left.  I don’t have any pitchers to threaten Scott Swanay and his four-strikeout lead (well, I do have Chris Archer, but there’s no way he’s getting into that game).  And, I own the tiebreaker on David, as I lead him in six of the ten categories.  So, if David wants to win this thing, he’s going to have to come and get me!  The problem is, he might be able to do that quite easily.

ny_g_price1_sy_400David is the proud owner of another David — Price.  And as (his) luck would have it, Price lines up perfectly to make this start.  A win for Price would net David another half-point.

Gonos also has three hitters playing in the game — A.J. Pierzynski, Leonys Martin and James Loney.  He trails Zach Steinhorn (who owns Desmond Jennings) by one homer.  If will be hard to the two Rangers to get a homer off the stingy Price, but it could happen.  I would feel a lot better is this game was being played in Tampa Bay!

David also trails Cory Schwartz (the 2012 Tout champion) by one run scored.  Schwartz can counter with Ian Kinsler and David Murphy, but this might be the easiest category for David to gain a full point.  Murphy is unlikely to play in the game, and if Kinsler doesn’t score a run, Gonos would need just two runs from his troika of players to earn a full point.

In the end, I’m hoping for a 1-0 Rangers win!  But somehow, I don’t think Martin Perez is capable of that kind of performance at this time of year.  In the end, a low-scoring game with no homers and the Rangers coming out on top is best for me.  David will be hoping for a slugfest, where Price escapes with a win and one of his hitters knocks a ball out of the yard.

During the past month, David and I have moved up in down in points but my lead rarely changed.  He always kept me within sight, but he has never been able to pass me.  To be best of my knowledge, David hasn’t finished a day in the lead in our league all season.  It would be a crazy finish if Tuesday morning is the first time we see him atop the standings.  But, this is the time of year for crazy things to happen!