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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.

 

THE FINAL WEEKEND: The Tout Wars NL Race

Going into the final three days of the 2016 season, three Touts are battling for first place in Tout NL, separated by just three and a half points. The Standings:

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We took a look at how many points were in play for the three teams this weekend.

On the hitting side:

Zola could gain a point in Runs, Home Runs, and On Base Percentage, and has one point to lose in OBP. (+3/-1)

Carty can gain a point in Runs, Home Runs and OBP, and gain half a point in Stolen Bases, while losing a point in Runs and half a point in SB. (+3.5/-1.5).

Wilderman can gain half a point in SB, lose two points in OBP, lose one point in Runs and HR, and half a point in SB. (+.5/-4.5)

On the pitching side:

Zola can gain one point in WHIP and can lose one point in Wins and Strikeouts, and perhaps lose half a point in Saves. He has three starts left, and the guy who is chasing him in strikeouts, Steve Gardner, has only two. (+1/-2.5)

Carty can gain one point in Strikeouts, and can lose one point in WHIP and Strikeouts and a half point in Wins. He has five starts left and is five strikeouts behind Wilderman and eight Ks behind Phil Hertz, who has only three starts left. (+2/-2.5)

Wilderman can gain one point in Wins and one in Strikeouts, and could lose points in ERA, WHIP, and Strikeouts. He has five starts left and is three Strikeouts behind Phil Hertz, who has only three starts left. (+2/-3)

Put it all together:

Zola has 92 points. If everything went right he could end up with 96. If everything went wrong he could end up with 89.5.

Carty has 89 points. Right? 95. Wrong? 85.5.

Wilderman has 88.5 points. Right? 91.5. Wrong? 81.

While anything can happen the final weekend, games can be cancelled and not made up because of the weather, or a scheduled starter might no make a start (or make an abbreviated start) because of the coming playoffs, it appears that Zola doesn’t have a big lead but is in a strong position. Still, if he falters he is vulnerable if either Carty or Wilderman has a good final weekend.

 

 

 

 

Zimmerman Dominates in Tout Head To Head!

As we draw to the end of the penultimate series of the 2017 Tout Head to Head season, Jeff Zimmerman is soundly beating Jeff Boggis, and is poised to go 6-0 for the week.

Brent Hershey’s second-place team is being edged by Peter Kreutzer’s team in both hitting and pitching, and is in danger of going 0-6 for the week. But this has been a see saw battle all the way, so there is certainly a fair chance that Hershey’s team will pull it out. There are four days of major league games left to play.

Here are the current standings for head to head play.

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But Tout Daily isn’t just about the head to head. Wins and Losses are also applied based on roto 5×5 standings for the first half, second half, and whole season. We’ve had a hard time introducing this novel system into the automated scoring our stat service provides, but here are the standings for the various periods to date.

The first half standings:

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The current second half standings are:

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We’ll hold off on the end of season standings until the season is over, but it seems pretty clear that there will be no dramatic surprises. The first and second half Top 3 are the same, if slightly resorted.

And here are the combined first and second-half to date standings:

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It’s going to take some major reversals for Brent Hershey to overtake Jeff Zimmerman in the race for the first Tout Head to Head crown.

Who Is Winning Tout Wars, September 9 Edition: Trachtman, Carty, Zinkie, Ronis

There are just a little more than three weeks left in the season, which seems like a good time to check in on the Tout Wars pennant races.

TOUT WARS AL

On August 28, Larry Schechter had a slight lead over Seth Trachtman, 82.5 to 80.5, but since then Schechter’s team has tanked (only Jeff Erickson’s team has played worse, and Jeff’s in last place on the season). As a result, Trachtman now has an eight point lead over Lawr Michaels, and an 11 point lead over Schechter.

Any lead that can be opened up that quickly, especially since Trachtman’s team has been a middlin’ performer the last two weeks, can be closed just as quickly. See the standings here.

TOUT WARS NL

Earlier in the season, Derek Carty had a 10 point lead in this league, but Todd Zola caught up to him more than a month ago, and the two have been going back and forth ever since. Today Carty has a two point lead over Zola, and a 10 point lead over Scott Wilderman.

Since August 15th, the leagues best team has been Phil Hertz’s, but he’s stuck in fifth place, 13.5 points behind the leader. Zola has had the second best team, continuing to do what got him there, while Carty’s team has ranked sixth as his hitting has lagged.

This looks like a two-horse race between Zola and Carty, but watch out if any of the Brian Walton-Phil Hertz-Scott Wilderman troika who trail them get hot. See the full standings here.

TOUT WARS MIXED AUCTION

What was a tight five-team race at midseason has turned into a battle, for now, between Fred Zinkie and Zach Steinhorn, with Zinkie one point ahead of Steinhorn. But don’t count out Cory Schwartz, whose team has struggled recently but is just seven points behind Zinkie, and Joe Pisapia, who is 11.6 points behind and playing well.

Zinkie has won the Mixed Auction league three times, and Schwartz has won once. Steinhorn and Pisapia are looking for their first Tout Wars victories. See the full standings here.

TOUT WARS MIXED DRAFT

Since August 1st, Adam Ronis has gained 23 points and climbed from fifth to first, while Anthony Perri has lost 15 points and dropped from first to fifth. Ronis leads Rudy Gamble by 9.5 points, and Rudy is just points ahead of Rick Wilton and Tom Kessenich.

Since August 15th Ronis and Tom Kessenich have been in overdrive (Ronis in the top 5 in all categories, Kessenich in the Top 3 in seven cats). If that continues this thing is over. See the full standings here.

TOUT WARS HEAD TO HEAD

Look for a separate post soon, with updated W-L records based on the Roto cats. See the incomplete standings here.

TOUT WARS DAILY

Patrick Davitt is the 2016 champion. See the leaderboard here.

 

 

Patrick Davitt Wins the Tout Daily Title in 2016!

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Patrick Davitt

It took 21 weeks, 21 daily lineups, more than 949 points, before podcaster extraordinaire, Patrick Davitt, won the Tout Wars Daily title for 2016.

Tout Wars Daily is a cumulative contest sponsored and hosted by RTSports.com in 2016.

Davitt is the host of the popular and award-winning BaseballHQ Radio podcast.

The 2015 Tout Wars champ was Charlie Wiegert.

Screenshot 2016-08-27 09.56.53Davitt scored two strong pitching performances, from Gio Gonzalez and Justin Verlander, monster nights from Gary Sanchez and Josh Donaldson, and solid performances from Daniel Murphy, Brandon Guyer, Robbie Grossman and Mike Napoli.

Tristan Cockcroft’s second place team shared Sanchez, Napoli, Murphy, Donaldson, Grossman and Stephen Piscotty, but couldn’t overcome a poor night from David Phelps (despite the night-high scoring start from Chris Sale).

With so many shared players, Davitt clinched a slim victory over Cockcroft before the night’s games were over, as he and Cockcroft shared their final innings.

That did not guarantee victory on the night, however, as Eno Sarris and Brian Walton were each getting a terrific performance out of Jeff Samardzija in San Francisco. Sarris needed nine innings and eight strikeouts from Samardzija to pass Davitt after the eventual champ’s night was finished. But with a 7-0 lead Samardzija was pulled from his game after the seventh inning, ending Sarris’s challenge.

You can see the complete standings at RTSports.com.

The full season leaderboard is here.

 

 

The Tout Daily Championships Are Friday Night on August 26th!

This is what they’ve been playing for: The Championship Game!

All baseball season long, though five qualifying periods, more than 40 Tout Wars members have been competing for tickets to the final game, when a champion will be crowned. That happens on Friday night!

The challengers (ranked by total points for 2016):

Todd Zola X 2: He has two tickets.
Brian Walton X 2: He has two tickets.
Mike Gianella
Jeff Erickson X 2: He has two tickets.
Tim Heaney
Tristan Cockcroft
Rick Wolf
Jason Collette
Eno Sarris
Patrick Davitt
Rob Leibowitz
Patrick Mayo

Zola has to be considered the favorite. He has two tickets, and earned them in the last two periods, meaning he has momentum, but as we’ve seen all season long, daily fantasy is a game of swings.

Last year Charlie Wiegert won the first Tout Daily championship by rostering Clayton Kershaw, something no one else thought to do. Imagine that.

Check back on Friday night at RTSports.com/tout-wars for the latest action, and look for the #toutdaily hashtag on Twitter for chatter from the padrticipants.

It’s Full Moon on a Full Moon This Week! Plus, Tout Daily Finals Field Is Set!

Screenshot 2016-08-20 09.20.23Last night’s full “sturgeon moon” was anything but a fish for Rick Wolf’s Full Moon Tout Daily entry.

Launched by Cole Hamel’s dominant win and brought home by Masahiro Tanaka’s equally strong performance, Rick’s team danced in the moonlight to a 17 point victory.

Full Moon’s offense was powered by stalwart Joey Votto, the surprising Keon Broxton, this year’s biggest surprise Jonathan Villar, and youthful powerhouse Gary Sanchez.

full-moon-2Last night’s contest, the last of the Tout Daily regular season, determined the winners of the final three golden tickets to the Tout Daily finals, which will be held next Friday, August 26th, at RTSports.com/tout-wars.

Brian Walton finished 11th on the week and first for Period 5, winning his second ticket to the finals. He’ll have two entries next week, having also finished first in Period 1.

Todd Zola finished third on the week, and second for Period 5, winning his second ticket to the finals. He finished first in Period 4.

Mastersball partners Zola and Walton also finished first and second in Total Points over the 20 weeks of Tout Daily. There’s no award for that, apart from the special satisfaction of a job well done.

Eno Sarris finished 12th on the week, and third for Period 5, winning his first ticket to the finals. He finished 19th overall, demonstrating that there are many paths to the staging ground for the assault on the pinnacle (otherwise known at the 2016 Tout Daily Championship).

The estimable Charlie Wiegert is the reigning Tout Daily Champion, and he will pass his crown next week to one of these on the full roster of Tout Daily Finalists (sorted by Total Points on the season):

Todd Zola X 2
Brian Walton X 2
Mike Gianella
Jeff Erickson X 2
Tim Heaney
Tristan Cockcroft
Rick Wolf
Jason Collette
Eno Sarris
Patrick Davitt
Rob Leibowitz
Patrick Mayo

You may follow along live next Friday night, or check in on the results at RTSports.com/tout-wars. And check ToutWars.com for a preview of the night’s contest, and the game story on Saturday morning.

Use the RTSports.com/tout-wars link to sign up to play daily fantasy baseball games for free for fun or enter pay contests to win prizes.

The regular season final leaderboard can be found here.

The state of the moon on August 26th will be Waning Crescent.