Category: About Tout Wars

Same Strategy, Different Results

Lawr Michaels notices a certain reciprocal nature extending across expert leagues, in the Bed Goes Up, Bed Goes Down column at creativesports.com.

Mixed, One Third of the Way

by Perry Van Hook, www.fantasybaseball.com

As we start Week 9, I just made my first trade in this league, sending Roy Oswalt to Paul Petera for Jermaine Dye. Part of my rationale was that I was doing very well in the pitching categories without Oswalt contributing much and I had Chris Carpenter back from the DL and looking and feeling great, with a very good spot starter in Nick Blackburn. While I could have traded either Derek Lowe or Carpenter for Dye, another part of my rationale was that Oswalt was supposed to be my ace SP on both my NFBC main event and online leagues as well as in the FB.com staff league. If in fact Oswalt turns his season around like he did in the second half of last year, he will help those teams immensely and I won’t mind the fact he is doing well here for one of my opponents. OTOH, if the WBC did in fact get him off to a start he can’t recover from or he is traded to the White Sox or some other poor pitching ballpark, or he just keeps scuffling, I will be glad I translated the extra starting pitcher for the power I need from Dye. Especially with Joey Votto now on the DL for at least a couple of weeks.

Currently the lineup is:
C – Pierzynski and Y. Molina
CI – Atkins, Mora, and Beltre
MI – A. Ramirez, Barmes, and J. Lopez
OF – Ellsbury, N. Cruz, Werth, Juan Rivera, and Dye
UT – L. Scott
Reserve – Spilborghs and R. Santiago

For the first eight weeks they have generated 43.0 points (roughly 9th), falling from last month
BA=.2710 for 9 points; HR=68 for 6 points; RUNS=303 for 4 points; RBI=301 for 7 points; and SB=70 for all 17 points

On the pitching side I now have 57.0 points (now fifth) with ERA=3.98 for 13 points; K=359 for 9 points; S=11 for 4.5 points; W=33 for 14.5 points; and WHIP=1.25 for 16 points

SP – Carpenter, Lowe, Lohse, Saunders, Zimmermann, Washburn, Gaudin, and Blackburn
RP – Broxton
Reserve – Medlen and Hanson

Blackburn is reserved when on the road (except this week for a start against the Mariners); the others only when they are pitching in Texas, Colorado, or Yankee Stadium. I have Chad Gaudin now available for starts in San Diego or other friendly matchups. I added Kris Medlen just before he came up (allowed in TOUT but not in most leagues). Perhaps swayed by his fantastic Triple-A numbers and the two start week he was schedule to have in his first week I made a heavy bid – $33 on him. Fortunately it only cost me $15 as the underbid using the Vickerey system was $14. That didn’t work very well in his first two starts, but yesterday he got his first win giving up only one run and striking out nine. I will likely reserve him to start Week 9 with the likelihood that Tom Glavine returns to make a start late in the Week.

Here are the TOUT standings after Week 8:
Rank     Team        Points
1)         Jason Pliml, MDC                   131.0
2)         Michael Salfino, SNY.tv        113.0
3)         J.P. Kastner, CreativeSports   113.0
4)         Chris Liss, Rotowire               110.0
5)         Perry Van Hook, FB.com       100.0
6)         David Gonos, OpenSports       98.5
7)         Alex Patton, pattonandco        97.5
8)         John Hoyos, rotojunkie            90.5
9)         Brendan Roberts, ESPN          90.0
10)       Paul Petera, HQ                       90.0
11)       Larry Schechter, Shrink           88.5
12)       Eric Mack, CBS                       80.0
13)       Eric Karabell, ESPN                77.5
14)       Andy Behrens, Yahoo.com     76.0
15)       Doug Dennis, HQ                    67.5
16)       Alex Cushing, mlb.com           62.0
17)       Will Carroll, BP                       45.0

AL Free Agent Pickups June 1

MOYER
Activate Ryan Perry.
Release Okajima
Release D Barton

BERRY
Rel Omar Vizquel.
$Claim R. Choate. ($12. Next: Walker $11. Shandler $7. Siano $1. Vickery: $12)

GREY
nada

COLLETTE
DL Johjima. $Claim R Castro. ($16. Next: Colton $6. Shandler $1. Siano $1. Vickery: $7)
Rel C Miller. $Claim B Pena. ($4. Next: $0. Vickery: $1)
DL Sizemore. $Claim Wilkin Ramirez ($8. Next: None. Vickery: $1)
Rel Jonathan Van Every. $Claim Joe Dillon ($8. Next: $0. Vickery: $1)
Rel Joe Nelson. $Claim Dan Bard ($5. Next: Shandler $3. Vickery: $4)
Res Sonnanstine. $Claim B League ($2. Next: none. Vickery: $1)

PETERSON
Rel Dellucci. Activate Cunningham.
DL Harrison. $Claim Berken. ($4. Next: Shandler $1 (superceded). Vickery: $1)
Rel Edgar Gonzalez. $Claim Sowers. ($4. Next: none. Vickery: $1)

SHANDLER
Rel Moeller. Claim R Chavez.
DL Bartlett. $Claim Sean Rodriguez. ($5. Next: none. Vickery: $1)
Rel Carmona. $Claim Vin Mazzaro. ($5. Next: none. Vickery: $1)

WALKER
Reclaim Iwamura $10. Claim L Hernandez.

COLTON
Res Lewis. Claim Herges.
Res Crain. Claim Vizcaino.
Res R Pena. $Claim T Crowe. ($16. Next: Erickson $10 (superceded), Siano $5, Berry $5 (superceded), Peterson $3. Vickery: $6)
DL Buck. $Claim Redmond. ($1. Next: $0. Vickery: $1)
Rel Melancon if necessary.

ERICKSON
Res Dotel. Rel Baez. $Claim D Hernandez. ($21. Next: Peterson $10, Berry $8 (superceded), Shandler $7, Siano $6, Colton $5. Vickery: $11)

MICHAELS
nada

SIANO
Res Green. Cut Arencibia. $Claim G Beckham. ($15. Next: Walker $6. Vickery: $7)
DL Quentin. Claim Gimenez. (Play at DH, move Hunter to OF)
Res Thayer. DL Bruney. Activate Zumaya.

SHEEHAN
nada

Your Favorite Fantasy Expert is…

lenny Lenny Melnick, of fantasypros911.com and Tout Wars, too!

That is according to Jon Williams’ Favorite Fantasy Expert poll at advancedfantasybaseball.com. In fact all Top 6 finishers play in Tout Wars, which raises an interesting question: Chicken? Or Egg?

Hammer and Tongs! (A Mixed League Rant)

by Doug Dennis, baseballHQ.com

My first year in Tout has been a total embarrassment so far.  To start with, I am not even listed among the players.  That is a good thing, because I’d rather be anonymous than associated with the team I drafted, currently riding in 16th place.  Who knew there even was a 16th place?  (I guess Will Carroll–he’s in 17th).  da dum dum!  I was a last second addition, got a cheapo flight at 6am (that’s get up at 4am!) from Cincinnati to Newark and back all within 24 hours (it was as if I’d never left!) and by the time I turned my attention to figuring out *how* to draft a mixed league roster with 17 teams in it, the plane was over Pennsylvania.  That’s not an excuse–that’s just the way it was.

Without a quick and ready way to calculate out a budget strategy for such a league, I figured that I needed something between a regular NL-only or AL-only budget and a mixed league where everyone owns nothing but all-stars.  But how?  I threw up my hands about two drinks in (was I over Latrobe?) and decided to just get offense and trade around later.  $251 of offense, $9 of pitching and then use my tiny 4-man reserve list (we really need a bigger reserve list!) for additional pitchers.

Flight arrived, bus to Port Authority, a short walk later and Glenn Colton is complimenting me on my Yankees hat while drafting AL-Tout.  Shortly thereafter, I was seated next to J.P. Kastner, (who laughed at me every time I bought a player) and Eric Mack (who was convinced that I was a Mets fan)–because–I spent some ungodly amount of money to roster David Wright and Jose Reyes.  At that point (in retrospect), my season was already over.  What–the Mets new park is a place where hits die on the track and its the Yankees who are in a band box?  Why did no one tell me this?  I coulda had Nick Swisher and Robbie Cano for far less.  But I digress.

Unable to stop myself, to Wright and Reyes, I added Dustin Pedroia, Adrian Gonzalez, Nate McLouth, Adam Lind (that was a good one!), but then (and apparently, this was bad) Mike Napoli, Mike Jacobs, Mark DeRosa, David DeJesus, Jose Guillen, Pat Burrell and Ryan Garko.  Oh, yeah, and that other Met, Brian Schneider–the one who has not played.  I ask you, should not this offense be good?  Well, it is just a bit above average in this mixed league.  If only I had this offense in NL-only!   Slightly above average offenses are not helpful when juxtaposed with a $11 (not $9) pitching staff.

Oh, I mean, I got my money’s worth with that $11.  I got Fernando Rodney.  I got Koji Uehara.  I got Dan Wheeler and J.P. Howell.  I got Dallas Braden.  It isn’t like these guys stink, but in a mixed league . . . ai caramba!  Middle relievers are so pointless.  Closers had better be top shelf.  Braden gives me his all, but without 8 Ks a game, he’s killing me.  I also got Brett Anderson, Kenshin Kawakami (Kamakaze is what I call him because he always destroys my ERA), Jeff Niemann, David Purcey . . . not good.  Especially with Clay Buchholz cluttering my reserve list.  What team keeps Buchholz in the minors and uses Brad Penny?  Seriously  . . .

I limped out of the Marriott knowing that this team was going to stink and stink big, unless I could rob Will Carroll blind.  I gave it a try once or twice.  Now he doesn’t return my calls.

After the draft, I went to some Soho bar with Steve Moyer, Michael Salfino and Ron Shandler.  Someone else came too that I liked a lot, but can’t remember who it was.  The bar was cool, and we stayed until I had to get a cab back to Newark Airport and catch my flight home.  Through my haze at 5 am, I did some quick calculations–with average luck I could finish 10th. I shook the calculator and did it again.  10th.

I had someone offer me the Orioles pitcher Guthrie for David DeJesus.  I suppose that my roster did make me look plenty stupid–easy pickings for the sharks at the table.  I made one trade recently–got Mark Buehrle for Pat Burrell and Ryan Madson.  Madson promptly gave up a 3-spot and Burrell got hurt.  Maybe things are looking up–maybe I can move up from 16th to 10th.  After all, in my read of the rules on the flight to Newark, I noted that complete stink bomb players get booted the following year.  I don’t want that to be me!  It is embarrassing enough as it is.  Watch out Karabell–I’m gunning for you!