Category: Article

Using Tout Wars to Gain an Edge in Your League

Tout Wars weekend will find many roto players checking in on the festivities for two main reasons. First are dollar values in auctions, and when players are selected in drafts. Second are draft strategies. Tout Wars, however, has more to offer than just strategies and values. This column will share that information with you this season.

Below is a preview of some of the topics that will be featured in upcoming columns:

An analytical look of Tout Wars Leagues using the statistical history of Tout Wars auctions, drafts, and results and what the numbers reveal.

A look at draft software projected standings and evaluating your rank.

A post draft analysis of the 2017 Tout Drafts.

Tips and words of wisdom from the touts.

Your questions are also welcomed as well as requests and suggestions for future columns, just post in the comments section of the page.

I look forward to helping you gain an edge on your opponents this roto season.

R. Gregory Scalf

 

R. Gregory Scalf is former Division I college baseball player and full time baseball enthusiast. Greg has spent time as an associate scout for the Kansas City Royals and spent 10 years coaching high school and American Legion baseball. He was the owner and webmaster at Fantasy Baseball Central which operated from 1997-2003. Greg participated in seven Tout Wars league drafts from 1999-2003. He began playing roto baseball in 1991 and still participates in his original house league.

Besides running Fantasy Baseball Central, Greg has written articles for Rotoball, John Mosey’s Fantasy Baseball, The Sandlot Shrink, MajorLeagueBaseball.com, RotoNews, BaseballHQ, Mastersball, and Sandbox Sports to name a few. He has also been a guest on CBS Sportsline’s Fantasy Fever, Talking Baseball, Rotoradio, and Fantasy Sports Weekly radio shows. Fantasy Baseball Central was also featured in several newspaper columns around the country as well as books and magazines including USA Today’s Baseball Weekly. Greg has also been one of the commentators for the Commissioner.COM coverage of the LABR drafts in the past.

Jonathan Pierce Wins Doubt Wars Mixed Too!

doubtwarslogoJonathan Pierce won Doubt Wars NL, and he won Doubt Wars Mix, too, the first time a single player has won two Doubt leagues in the same year.

Doubt Wars players put together dream rosters after the Tout Wars auctions are done, pricing players at $1 more than their Tout Wars price. Draft day rosters are held all season long, and then combined with the Tout Wars draft day roster to form one big roto standings.

The team with the highest average rank in the TW 5×5 categories is the champion.

The highest Tout Wars finisher in Doubt was Scott Pianowski, who finished third overall. He finished sixth in Tout’s full season Mixed Auction league.

See the results here.

Pierce’s team had four 20/20 hitters and a solid rotation led by Noah Syndergaard, Kenta Maeda and Anthony DeSclafani.

 

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For a second time, congratulations Jonathan!

Jonathan Pierce Wins Doubt Wars NL!

doubtwarslogoJonathan Pierce has edged out If You Build It They Will Come for the 2016 Doubt Wars NL championship.

Doubt Wars players put together dream rosters after the Tout
Wars auctions are done, pricing players at $1 more than their Tout Wars price. Draft day rosters are held all season long, and then combined with the Tout Wars draft day roster to form one big roto standings.

The team with the highest average rank in the TW 5×5 categories is the champion.

This year’s highest finishing Tout NL owner was champion Todd Zola, who finished fifth overall in Doubt Wars.

See the whole standings here.

Pierce’s team was built around big seasons from Wil Myers, Gregory Polanco, Wilson Ramos and Trevor Story, plus Tanner Roark, Noah Syndergaard and Anthony DiSclafani. (Update: This story was originally and incorrectly published with the roster from Pierce’s Doubt Mixed team. Sorry about that.)

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Congratulations Jonathan Pierce!

Look for the Doubt Wars Mixed results in the next day or so.

Tout Wars on the Last Day of the 2016 Season, Probably.

Today is the last day of the 2016 season, unless either or both St. Louis and Detroit win, in which case there might be a playoff and makeup game played on Monday. And then, if things go right (or wrong, depending on your perspective) there could be another playoff game on Tuesday. It’s all delineated in this story at mlb.com.

With that in mind, here’s a look at today’s action, with links to the onRoto pages where you can see the live standings (click Live Scoring in the left nav of each league’s page to see up-to-the-minute results):

Tout Head 2 Head: Jeff Zimmerman is up 3-2 in pitching over Andrea LaMont, and tied 2-2 in hitting. But it’s close! If Jeff wins a single “game” today, he is league champ. If he loses both pitching and hitting, Brent Hershey will likely win in a tie-breaker.

Tout Mixed Draft: While you would rather be Adam Ronis, up two points on Rudy Gamble, there are a number of tight pitching categories that could turn for both teams, depending on how they do today (and tomorrow, and Tuesday). It ain’t over, but Ronis, last year’s champ, is up, over Gamble, last year’s second place finisher, for now.

Tout Mixed Auction: Zach Steinhorn is up five and a half points over Fred Zinkie. If Zinkie were to pass Steinhorn in strikeouts (he’s only seven behind) Steinhorn could conceivably collapse his way out of the lead. The only problem? Steinhorn has three starters today, Zinkie none. Game to Steinhorn, probably.

Tout NL: This is one to watch. Todd Zola is ahead of Derek Carty by three points, but there are points to win and lose for one or both of them in almost every category. Todd, like Ronis in Mixed Draft, is surely glad to be up, but this one is too close to call.

Tout AL: It’s possible to conceive a scenario in which Patrick Davitt catches Seth Trachtman as Trachtman swoons on the final day to lose his five and a half point lead. There are enough points in potential play to see how it could happen, but the odds of such a perfectly awful storm for Trachtman are very slight.

THE FINAL WEEKEND: Tout Wars Head 2 Head

Done! Not really. Actually, it’s a squeaker!

Going into the last weekend, Jeff Zimmerman is nine games ahead of Brent Hershey in the Head to Head portion of the schedule, a seemingly insurmountable lead. But this week Zimmerman is losing to Andrea LaMont, 2-3 in hitting, 2-3 in pitching, and 4-6 overall, which would give him a weekly record of 0-6.

Hershey, meanwhile, has strong leads in eight categories over Paul Sporer, which would give him a weekly record of 6-0 if it holds up.

Here are the current standings:

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If the current results hold up, Zimmerman finishes the head to head part of the contest at 84-48, while Hershey will 81-51.

Of course, these teams are also competing in 5×5 roto contests, for the first half, second half, and full season. These are converted to W-L records.

In the first half Hershey was 12-0, while Zimmerman was 11-1. Uh-oh.

In the second half Hershey is in first place again (through Thursday’s games). Double uh-oh.

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That’s another 12-0 for Hershey and an 11-1 for Zimmerman. And it’s hard not to assume that the overall full-year standings will tell a similar story, which puts our projected finish at:

Jeff Zimmerman: 117-51
Brent Hershey: 117-51

You can bet that Zimmerman is rooting hard against Andrea LaMont this weekend, and Hershey is rooting for her.

(In case of a tie in total points, according to the Tout Wars Constitution, the team that wins in more categories is designated the winner. If neither team wins more categories, the glory—and the title—is shared.

In the second half, Hershey is up six cats to four, and in the first half Hershey led by five cats to four, so Zimmerman’s best bet to win is to edge LaMont over the weekend in at least one more category, to go 5-1 for the week.)

 

THE FINAL WEEKEND: The Tout Wars Mixed Draft Race

Entering the season’s final week, Adam Ronis led the Tout Mixed Draft league with 106.5 points. Rudy Gamble was a half point back, at 106, and Tom Kessenich had 104.5 points. Heading to the final weekend Ronis has opened up his lead, but Rudy Gamble has tried to keep pace. The Standings:

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On the hitting side, these leaders are mostly set. There are no hitting points for Ronis to easily win or lose.

Gamble could gain half a point in homers, or lose up to two and a half points, while he could gain a point in OBP, or lose two. Clearly a good weekend with the bat is important to him.

Kessenich has no offensive downside, and has the chance to pick up two points in OBP.

Things are considerably more complicated with the pitching.

Ronis and Kessenich are tied in wins, so either could gain half a point (or lose half), but they are just one win ahead of Tim McCullough, who has four starts this weekend. Ronis and Kessenich both have four likely starters, too, but one of Ronis’s is Noah Syndergaard, whose Sunday start will be limited to 25 pitches if the Mets have clinched the wild card slot.

Ronis can also earn a point in Saves and another in WHIP, but could lose have a point in Saves, three big points in ERA and another in Strikeouts. He’s up eight strikeouts over Tim McLeod, but McLeod is making five starts this week, so Thor’s short stint on Sunday could come into play here, too.

Gamble and Kessenich are fighting in Saves, tied with 69, and can gain or lose half a point, and within .0004 in WHIP. Gamble is the trailing team, and can add a point while costing Kessenich one.

Finally, Gamble could gain or lose one point in ERA, while Kessenich has a point to lose there. It looks like good pitching could be the differencemaker this weekend.

Where we stand going into the Final Weekend:

Adam Ronis, last year’s champ, has 110.5 points. With his best weekend he could end up with 113 points. With is worst? 104.5.

Rudy Gamble, last year’s runner up, has 108 points. His best? 112. His worst? 102 points.

Tom Kessenich, who finished near the bottom last year, has 104 points. Best? 107 points. Worst? 98 points. He’s got a tough job to pass two teams ahead of him.

 

THE FINAL WEEKEND: The Tout Wars Mixed Auction Race

Heading into the final seven days of this Tout Wars season, multi time former champion Fred Zinkie had a one-point lead over Zach Steinhorn. Now, as we enter the last three days, Steinhorn leads Zinkie by four. The Standings:

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The key battle is in stolen bases, where Steinhorn caught up with Zinkie this week. The two are tied, with 142, two ahead of Nando DiFino and three ahead of Bret Sayre.

Another race in which they’re fighting for the same points is strikeouts, where Steinhorn is five ahead of Zinkie. This might not be quite so close as it looks, since Steinhorn has eight starters this weekend, while Zinkie has only five.

The rest of the board looks pretty set for Zinkie. He’s lost two points in ERA since this past Monday, but is .04 points behind Nando DiFino and .07 behind Ray Flowers in that category. Could he regain those? Sure, but it isn’t likely.

The situation is much more fluid for Steinhorn, who could gain or lose one point in Runs, lose a point in RBI, gain a point in OBP, giving him a potential +2.5 and -3.5 in the hitting categories.

On the pitching side, he’s two wins behind Al Melchior and three behind Cory Schwartz, and two ahead of Scott Pianowski, who has only two starts this weekend. Probably set, but those eight starts this weekend make it unlikely he’ll lose ground, and it’s possible he could finish ahead of Schwartz. (For the record, Al Melchior has six starts this weekend, while Schwartz has only two.)

Steinhorn is also two saves ahead of Scott Swanay, which perhaps leaves him vulnerable to the loss of a half point. He’s got one closer (Britton), while Swanay has three (Ramos, Melancon, Bailey).

The final tally?

Steinhorn has 125.5 points. If things go right he could end up with 128.5 points. If things go wrong he could finish with 121.5

Zinkie has 121.5 points. If things go right he could end up with 124 points. Wrong? 119.

 

THE FINAL WEEKEND: The Tout Wars AL Race

Seth Trachtman has a 10 point lead in Tout AL going into the final weekend. The Standings:

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If you think that means he’s going to rest easy this weekend, not so fast.

A bad weekend could potentially cost him nine and a half points, and he doesn’t have many similarly easy points to gain to offset potential calamity.

Patrick Davitt has four points to gain, which could potentially put him into first, but also has four points to lose, so he’s going to have to have a good weekend with the bat and on the mound to have a shot. Trachtman just needs not to implode.