Scoby Snacks, at FakeTeams.com, has posted a story called How Chris Liss Ran Away With AL Tout Wars.
Liss has a seven point lead over Mike Podhorzer today, with eight days left in the season, so Snacks is almost surely right. As Podhorzer noted yesterday, he has a lot of ground to make up, but he does have ways to do it. So let’s wait and see.
In the meantime, you can read Snacks’ article, which errs in one important detail. While Liss didn’t spend big bucks in FAAB during the year, he did make some big bids. When he bought Carlos Correa for a buck, he bid $34. Tout’s Vickrey FAAB bidding reduced it to $1 because no one else bid.
While he acquired Shawn Tolleson for $1 on April 13th, he actually bid $5. The bid was reduced to $1 because no one else bid.
Liss’s bidding in both cases was especially impressive when you look at the timeline. Correa wasn’t called up to the majors until five weeks after Liss bought him, and Tolleson didn’t earn a save until five weeks after Liss bought him.
I took a closer look at the standings and roughly added up the close points up and down for each player. Call this the volatility index.
Liss has five points to gain and nine and a half to lose. His range is 95.5 to 81.
Podhorzer has eight and a half points to gain, and eight points to lose. His range is 92 to 75.5.
Liss is in the driver’s seat, for sure, but there is a lot of overlap there.