TOUTDOWN! Your Guide to Tout Wars Week!

March 11: Tout Wars Mixed Draft. Results. (Click tabs to select a spreadsheet page)

March 22, 9am: Tout Wars NL Auction. Follow on SiriusXM radio, the spreadsheet, the chat.

March 22, 3pm: Tout Wars Mixed Auction. Follow on Sirius XM radio, the spreadsheet, the chat.

March 22, 8pm: Tout Wars Party! Foley’s Bar, 18 West 33rd Street, NYC. Meet the Touts!

March 23, 10am: Tout Wars AL Auction. Follow on SiriusXM, the spreadsheet, the chat.

March 24: Doubt Wars! Beat the pros, win prizes!

I Like My Draft! Notes from the TW Mixed Draft 2014.

I woke up the day after the TW Mixed Draft to a curious email. It was addressed to me and said that my team had won the draft because my team had taken Mike Trout (duh) with the first pick in the previous night’s draft. Okay.

The issue was I was the live blogger, not a participant, but then I realized that in order to observe the draft I made myself a coowner of Tom Kessenich’s team. Tom had the first pick by virtue of having finished second in the league’s inaugural season and last year’s champ, Mike Podhorzer, moving to play in one of the only leagues this year.

So, I read on. CBSsports, who hosted the draft, went on to say:

Draft Recap

Thanks to players like Mike Trout, Tom Kessenich are the team to beat

It’s a long way to October, but you have won the first round, winding up with the top ranked draft. Your squad, led by Mike Trout, are projected to wind up with 96 category points. That’s 39 more points than Ray Murphy are projected to come up with. Coach Murphy will have all year to prove us wrong, but for now, Ray Murphy are slated to finish in last place.

Another team that will have some struggles is Tim McLeod, who have the worst infielders in the league. Coach Mcleod will have to trot out Corey Hart, Howie Kendrick, and Cody Asche into the starting lineup. Perry Van Hook, meanwhile, are the class of the league in that area, with infielders Miguel Cabrera, Mark Trumbo, and Jose Altuve.

Your strength is mainly in your pitchers, who project out to be the 2nd best in the league. That outstanding group is the reason why you are expected to wind up in 3rd place in the wins category.

Turning to individual picks, we tapped charlie wiegert as having made the best pickup with Robinson Cano in the 18th slot. He was projected to be off the board a full 11 picks earlier. On the other hand, Ray Murphy made the worst move of the draft. Coach Murphy selected Shin-Soo Choo with the 20th pick, which we pegged as a serious reach.

Your best pick up of the draft was Max Scherzer, who was expected to have been selected in the 24th slot, but who you got with pick #30. However, you mixed in some (minor) duds as well, the worst of whom was Zack Greinke, taken 12 spots ahead of what his average draft position suggests.

Paragraphs in italics are unique to your version of your league’s Draft Recap.

Now let’s return to some more human commentary.

Perry Van Hook’s draft review runs at Mastersball. He makes an astute point about reserve and DL list use in Tout, and lists the rookies taken and when they went.

Nick Minnix writes about forgetting that Tout Wars uses On Base Percentage rather than Batting Average, which led him to take Adam Jones instead of Joey Votto with the seventh pick. Remember Touts! All Tout Wars leagues are OBP this year! AL touts are hoping Larry Schechter forgets.

The introduction to Paul Sporer’s piece about his team, picking from the 14th slot, before it hides demurely behind the Baseball Prospectus paywall. For subscribers only.

Inside the Mind of a Tout, is a radio clip featuring Adam Ronis talking about his team.

Lots of recaps were heard on the radio, which is a little harder to link to, but send clips if you have them!

 

Tout Wars Mixed Draft Live Chat!

The Tout Wars Mixed Draft was held the evening of March 11th. Particpants battled in a CBSsports draft room for three hours, making more than 400 picks. 

You’ll find two different versions of the draft on a spreadsheet here. One is in pick order, the other in team order.

Thanks to Ryan Carey for tracking on the spreadsheet.

There was a live chat of the event, but a software error seems to have broken that. We’re looking for a way to restore it.

Thanks to all the Touts for high spirits and hungry hearts.

READY, SET, ALMOST GO! Tout Wars Mixed Draft is almost here!

The second annual Tout Wars Mixed Draft will be held Tuesday, March 11 at 7pm ET.

There are three newcomers in this year’s roster: Welcome Adam Ronis, Ray Murphy and Paul Sporer. Plus Nick Minnix moves over from the TW Mixed Auction.

Last year’s champ, Mike Podhorzer, has moved to the TW NL Live Auction, so it’s a wide open field. Last year’s second place finisher, Tom Kessenich, has this year’s first pick.

Join us here for a LIVE CHAT during the draft, and live DRAFT TRACKING of the results.

Find a complete roster of managers here.

Tout Wars Mixed Draft: The 2014 Owners Lineup

Competing in Tout Wars Mixed Draft in 2014

In order of reserve round pick (available FAAB in parenthesis)
* new to league this year

UPDATE: Corrected order and FAAB totals 1/20 at 4pm ET.

Draft order was selected by owners in the order of last year’s finish.

Tom Kessenich (100)
Perry Van Hook (100)
Eno Sarris (100)
Greg Ambrosius (100)
Tim McLeod (100)
Paul Greco (98)
Nick Minnix (95)*
Grey Albright (82)
Scott Engel (81)
Anthony Perri (72)
Ray Murphy (100)*
Adam Ronis (100)*
Charlie Wiegert (93)
Paul Sporer (100)*
Brent Hershey (84)

The draft will be held at 7pm ET on March 11, 2014. Join the LIVE CHAT and DRAFT TRACKING here.

 

Check Out The New Tout Wars Records in 2013!

While everthing was a first and a record in the innaugural Tout Wars Mixed Draft season, new records were set in the other three Tout Wars Leagues.

In Tout Mixed Auction, Fred Zinkie of all people set new league records for ERA and WHIP, eclipsing David Gonos’ (2010) and Nick Minnix’ (2011) records, while runnerup David Gonos broke Tim Heaney’s strikeout mark.

In Tout Wars AL, Larry Schechter’s total of 100.5 points edges Sam Walker’s 2008 record by half a point, and Matthew Berry broke Jason Grey’s 2011 record for team strikeouts.

In the Tout NL, Champ Tristan Cockcroft set new record for WHIP, with a 1.151 WHIP, breaking Greg Rosenthal’s 2004 record of 1.16.

Check out all the Tout Wars Records at the Records page.

What Went Wrong: Tout Wars Mixed Draft

Ray Flowers tells his story over at Baseball Guys.

Grey Albright reports:

What went wrong? What didn’t?

The 15th pick isn’t a death knell (14th pick is in top 2) but our draft board just didn’t line up well. We drafted a well-balanced offense in the first five rounds and ended up with two bombs (heyward, upton) and three disappointments (bautista, butler, sandoval). Missed out on Goldschmidt by 4 picks. ‘Depth’ over ‘ace’ SP strategy hurt by injury/underperformance by Niese, Beckett, and Edwin Jackson.

other notes

– Brutal first 5 rounds of draft with Bautista/Heyward/Butler/BJ Upton/Sandoval. Just a rough draft to be picking 15th – especially when our draft fave Goldschmidt goes off the board four picks before our 3rd and we end up with Billy Butler.
– We didn’t draft an SP until 7th round (Latos) but drafted a lot of depth. Shelby Miller and early FAAB pick Masterson were great but too many misses with Niese, Beckett, Edwin Jackson, and Volquez.
– We had some solid values on offense in later rounds (Cuddyer – 10th, Marte – 16th, Murphy – 19th) but not enough to recover from misses in 1st 5 rounds + disappointments like Josh Rutledge (8th) and Reddick (10th).

Tout Wars Mixed Draft: Mike Podhorzer is Crowned Champion in 2013.

In the league’s first year Mike passed early frontrunner Perry Van Hook at midseason, then withstood challenges from Tom Kessenich, Van Hook, and Gene McCaffrey to win comfortably the last week.

Welcome to Tout Wars, Mike!