Category: Data

Doubt Wars AL! Who did you love?

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The Top 10 Most Coveted AL Tout Buys

Josh Johnson ($13): Twelve teams spent $13 on Johnson, making him the player taken most by far. He’s earned -$6 thus far. BUST

Jackie Bradley ($1): Ten teams spent a buck on Bradley, who was taken in the reserves in Tout AL. In large part this was a function of the news that Bradley had earned a roster spot in Boston after the Tout auction was over. At this price he was worth the flyer, even though he didn’t pan out. MEH

JJ Hardy ($12): Nine teams thought Hardy’s price, the same as he earned in 2012, was too low. And they were right. NICE

Yu Darvish ($25): Nine teams agreed with Tout Wars that Darvish would earn twice what he earned in 2012, and they were right. BOLD MEH.

Casey Janssen ($10): Eight teams thought the unproven closer was worth a shot, and they were right. Janssen has been just as successful this year as last, and was a bargain. VERY NICE.

Mike Trout ($41): Eight teams bought Mike Trout at a very healthy price, and while any profits will be slight, he’s earned just about every cent already. BOLD MEH

Aaron Hicks ($7): A nice spring and little competition for a job made seven teams pick up Aaron Hicks, but he’s disappointed them as well as Twins fans. BUST

Jed Lowrie ($8): There was some confusion about how the playing time would shake out in Oakland, and Lowrie’s price tumbled. Not unsurprisingly he’s played pretty much full time, and performed as he did last year in a season truncated by injury. NICE

Josh Hamilton ($26): He went for 20 percent less in Tout than he earned in 2012, and seven teams bought him expecting a lot more than he gave. Turns out the naysayers didn’t nay loudly enough. BIG BUST

The following players were claimed by six teams.

Chris Iannetta ($7): Tons of walks, but disappointing power and a bad BA make him a BUST.

Dayan Viciedo ($14): He was retooling his stroke in spring training, and while he’s added some walks and trimmed some strikeouts, most notable is the power drop. Maybe next year. MEH

Jose Altuve ($21): Doubt Warriors were perhaps hoping for improvement from the young speedster, but he’s put up nearly identical numbers to last year. MEH

Lance Berkman ($12): Tout Warriors thought Berkman could beat father time, and Doubt warriors thought they could beat Tout warriors. BUST

Leonys Martin ($10): Questions about playing time and how his stolen base speed would translate to the big leagues kept his price down. The steals have come and he’s proved a great bargain. VERY NICE

Wil Myers ($7): It was hoped that when he was called up in June he would hit, and he has. NICE

Do breakouts help?

I just posted a story on the Askrotoman.com blog called The Overachievers (or are they?): What to expect from the first half’s most surprising hitters. It occurs to me that maybe we would learn something by looking at who drafted the year’s monster offensive profit generators and see where they are in the standings:

The Top 12 Hitters By Profit, Their Cost, The Drafting Team, Its Place In The Standings

Jean Segura, 15, Steve Gardner, 4th
Chris Davis, 20, Wolf/Colton, 2nd
Josh Donaldson, 10, Jason Collette, 7th
Nate McLouth, 3, Andy Behrens, 11th
Everth Cabrera, 17, Scott Wilderman, 12th
Daniel Nava, R, Larry Schechter, 1st
Manny Machado, 14, Joe Sheehan, 4th
Domonic Brown, 15, Phil Hertz, 3rd
Matt Carpenter, 14, Steve Gardner, 4th
James Loney, 7, Wolf Colton, 2nd
Yasiel Puig, 1, Lenny Melnick, 10th
Carlos Gomez, 25, Tristan Cockcroft, 1st

One thing for sure is that it’s good to have two of these guys.

TOUT NL FAAB Survey

Last night Rotoman bid $5 on Jose Altuve and thought he had a chance. No way! Remembering similar debacles with Dee Gordon and Chase D’Arnaud earlier this year, Rotoman looks back at this year’s first-half FAAB results. Is aggression good? Read about it here.

If the Tout AL Teams Played Perfect…

STATS’ Dean Peterson’s first monthly look at which teams are using all their talent, and which have some in reserve…

The Second Scoop

Why is that guy on the bench?

The rules in Tout Wars allow each team to have up to four players on their bench.  These players can be major or minor leaguers who can be interchanged with active players each week, but do not include disabled players.

Naturally, one of the keys to success rests with teams that have viable options on their bench. Since only American league players are used, and few free agent players are available the bench is counted on to replace wounded players.

Continue reading “If the Tout AL Teams Played Perfect…”

Tout Mixed Round by Round

2011 Tout Wars NL Round by RoundFantasy sports are engines of information. There are inputs, what the players do, and there are outputs, how us players anticipate what is going to happen. The player who best understands the information flow wins. That’s all there is to it.

But as we all know, separating real information from the static is a challenge. Not least so because our data are pretty limited. For a game based on stats and numbers, most of the records of what actually happened from year to year have gone the way of digital dust. They’re not out there any more. And this is exactly the sort of stuff that might help us understand better the way the games we play work.

Toz, of Rotothinktank.blogspot.com, was in the room for last Saturday’s Tout Mixed auction, and offers up a round by round record of all that went down. This is raw data, we don’t know what can be made of it, except that we need more.

Toz also did the .

If you have someone collecting similar data in your auction, please pass it along.