Category: AL

We Have a Race!

A week ago Larry Schechter seemed to have reestablished his lead over Jeff Erickson in Tout Wars AL. Larry dominant lead in the first half had withered in August but grown in September, but now, with four ML games left, Jeff has clawed back into striking distance. Maybe. Here’s what the leaders are thinking on the night of September 29th:

JEFF ERICKSON: My quest to become the one Mike Trout owner to not win an AL-only league is going quite swimmingly tonight. Seeing Max Scherzer’s start get scratched wasn’t pleasant.

LARRY SCHECHTER: This is unlike any other time of the year, in that I am paying attention to where ever anything in the standings is close for me or Jeff.  i.e., if Ron has a starter going, I hope he gets a win but not too many K’s.

The highlight last night was Infante hitting a HR, which my offense desperately needed, and which blew a possible win for Diamond and knocked him out of the game…which was good because Diamond is owned Mike Siano, who is just one win behind me.

My offense is limping to the end here, with tons of injuries.  Besides Big Papi and Markakis, who really hurt me, lately Asdrubal keeps missing games here and there; and Gutierrez and Molina just got hurt this week.

Two Sundays ago I FAAB’d Bourgeious instead of Endy Chavez, and that was the wrong choice.  Endy played almost every day and did better.  So this past Sunday I FAAB’d Endy and benched Bourgeious, and all of a sudden Endy’s on the bench.  He’s only started once so far this week.

 

TOUT AL’s Larry Schechter Talks About It

For much of the season Tout AL’s 2011 Champ has been leading the league again, but during the summer Jeff Erickson closed the gap and at times has been in the lead. Larry answered…

What are your chances of winning as a percentage?   48%  (Jeff 47%, others 5%)

What percentage of your success this year was based on your draft?  90%

What percentage was based on trading?  0%

What percentage was based on waiver pickups?  10%

What was the best thing that happened to your team this year.   That I happened to have Soriano, which minimized the loss of Rivera.

What was the worst thing? And how did you get over it? 

#1 worst)  after trading Hamilton, Big Papi went down immediately and hasn’t come back–and probably won’t come back.  That has really hurt my HR/RBI, which were in great shape when I made the trade.  I haven’t gotten over it, and it’s a big reason my lead disappeared.

#2 worst) Romero was a distaster.  Picking up Miguel Gonzalez and Guthrie has helped…(hopefully in 4 weeks I can still say that they helped.)

Any other comments, stories, observations, jokes you would like to tell about this year’s Tout Wars season? I wonder if Wolf/Colton would have taken Big Papi instead of Hamilton?  That would have helped me immensely.  One of the reasons I offered Hamilton instead of Papi is because I felt Hamilton was a bigger injury risk; and being in 1st, I wanted to be risk averse.