Rudy Gamble Wins Tout Wars Mixed Draft League for the Second Year in a Row

Rudy (Still) Can’t Fail
by Jeff Erickson

We’ll delve into Rudy Gamble of Razzball’s hegemonic-like dominance of the Tout Wars Mixed Draft League momentarily, but first, a song:

I know that the spelling is different, but any excuse to include a Clash song has to be taken.

For the second year in a row, Rudy Gamble of razzball.com has won the Tout Wars Mixed Draft League. Once again, he had to hold off Adam Ronis of Scout.com for the title. I wanted to say that Rudy and Adam are the Red Sox and Yankees of the Mixed Draft League, but that wouldn’t do justice to the size of the field they are besting each year, and the comparison fails because there’s no carryover from year-to-year. Moreover, Rudy made a better analogy in his write-up of his victory—they are Federer and Nadal, with a combined four firsts and three second-place finishes over the last four years.

With the win, Rudy vaulted into third place on the All-Time Tout Wars leaderboard, behind only Fred Zinkie and Larry Schechter, despite having played only four years. Thus, Rudy will get another meal named after him at our annual Tout Wars get-together at Foley’s. It’s a good bet that if you ever have leftover Tout Wars currency from that meet-up and it has Rudy’s visage on it, you should keep it so that you can use it the following year.

It’s worth noting that Ronis isn’t that far behind on the list, sixth all-time and fifth among active participants, and fellow Razzballer Grey Albright has demonstrated similar strength, following up his 2017 win with another “cash” finish in 2018.

If you’re looking to see where I’m on the list, don’t bother. Seriously, it’s embarrassing. Having me write this article is like having Anders Jarryd or Manuel Orantes compare themselves to Federer or Nadal.

So … how did Rudy do it? Let’s take a quick look at the standings first:

The first thing that jumps out is Rudy’s utter dominance of the pitching categories. He won four of five categories outright and finished third in saves. He did this despite getting only 25 starts from his first pitcher, Noah Syndergaard, who he took at the 2-3 turn. Unlike many of his competitors, he backed up Thor with a second ace, getting Aaron Nola at the 4-5 turn. Two great starters aren’t enough to dominate the starting pitching categories, however – he had to hit on the slippery mid-round starters to succeed, and he did that in spades by getting Charlier Morton in the 13th and Blake Snell in the 15th rounds.

One might be tempted to dismiss those picks as windfalls – but I think that’s underselling the skill in picking in the mid-tiers. Moreover, because he had that second ace, he was less reliant upon ‘hitting’ with all of his mid-tier SPs. Obviously, there are so many landmines that he could have gone with (and in one case, in Round 12, did go with, in Jon Gray) instead of Morton and Snell – just looking at the draft grid, some disastrous alternative picks in that range included a lot of injuries (Danny Salazar, Garrett Richards, Taijuan Walker, Dinelson Lamet) and underachievers (first-half Cole Hamels, Chase Anderson, Aaron Sanchez, Jake Odorizzi). Rudy was able to combine all that top end starting pitching with quality contributors late in the draft, too – getting significant contributions from Eduardo Rodriguez, Hyun-Jin Ryu and Tyler Skaggs, the latter two in the reserve rounds of the draft.

Rudy might not have won saves, but he got two solid closers in Felipe Vazquez and Raisel Iglesias that weren’t ever a threat to lose their jobs. 2018 was a really frustrating year to chase saves – plenty of closers lost their respective jobs, but often their replacements weren’t all that stable, either. Iglesias was Rudy’s first “value pick” at 9.1 – and it had the added bonus of preventing a disaster in Delino DeShields.

Turning to the hitting, once again most of Rudy’s value came from the draft rather than through trades or the waiver wire. Starting out with Mike Trout is great, especially in an OBP league, and then he hit perfectly at 3.1 with Christian Yelich. After that, he had a number of solid players but few breakout hitters (at least compared to the year before, when he nailed Tommy Pham and Whit Merrifield), though he got great values with Shin-Soo Choo (16.15) and Michael Brantley (19.1).

It wasn’t the proverbial “perfect draft” for Rudy – he had to overcome injuries and suspensions from Kevin Kiermaier (10.15), Steven Souza (11.1) and Jorge Polanco (14.15), for example. But he avoided the critical early-round disasters, which is so important in a format like this. He also invested very little in scarce positions. Catchers were a disaster in 2018, but with his catchers coming in Rounds 17 (Mike Zunino) and 28 (Bruce Maxwell), any shortcomings there weren’t that damaging.

Can Rudy be stopped? All signs point to no, but you should tune in next spring and of course read up at Razzball to find out!

Tout Wars Mixed Draft 2018 is Finished!

It was a super fast draft, completed in less than three hours. Four hundred and thirty five players were selected. Todd Zola barely had time to spell the names right in the spreadsheet.

You can see the spreadsheet, by round and by position, here.

Round ups by: DJ Short | Scott White | Adam Ronis (podcast) and part 2 | Rudy Gamble |

Projected standings are in:

Davenport
BaseballHQ

 

Fantasy Pros

Read all the comments @toutwars on Twitter.

Tout Mixed Draft is Underway!

The Draft is underway. Somewhere out there SiriusXM has promo codes so you can listen in for free for the next three days without any sort of registration.

I’ll post if I can find them. But they’re out there.

And there is plenty of chatter on Twitter. Look for @ToutWars or #MixedToutDraft.

Follow the spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Lz06T4W8lkofWs3tcnWOvPIPV84QdSoU0lwD3YnuCgk/htmlview?sle=true#gid=0

Tout Wars Mixed Draft 2018 Is Tonight!

Meet the Touts! Participants listed by draft order.

1. Rudy Gamble (1st in 2017 Mixed Tout Wars Draft)

Affiliation: Razzball
Years in Tout Wars:4 (2017 Mixed Draft Champion)
Twitter: @RudyGamble

2. Ray Murphy (3rd in 2017 Mixed Tout Wars Draft)

Affiliation: BaseballHQ
Years in Tout Wars:7
Twitter: @RayHQ

3. Tim McCullough (9th in 2017 Mixed Tout Wars Draft)

Affiliation: Rotoexperts
Years in Tout Wars:7
Twitter: @Tim_Rotoexperts

4. Greg Ambrosius (10th in 2017 Mixed Tout Wars Draft)

Affiliation: NFBC
Years in Tout Wars:6
Twitter: @GregAmbrosius

5. Perry Van Hook (12th in 2017 Mixed Tout Wars Draft)

Affiliation: Mastersball
Years in Tout Wars:8

6. Tom Kessenich (14th in 2017 Mixed Tout Wars Draft)

Affiliation: NFBC
Years in Tout Wars:6
Twitter: @TomKessenich

7. Jeff Boggis (15th in 2017 Mixed Tout Wars Draft)

Affiliation: Fantasy Football Empire
Years in Tout Wars:3
Twitter: @JeffBoggis

8. Gene McCaffrey (8th in 2017 Mixed Tout Wars Auction)

Affiliation: Wise Guy Baseball
Years in Tout Wars:12
Twitter: @WiseGuyGene

9. Michael Beller (9th in 2017 Mixed Tout Wars H2H)

Affiliation: Sports Illustrated
Years in Tout Wars:3
Twitter: @MBeller

10. Adam Ronis (5th in 2017 Mixed Tout Wars Draft)

Affiliation: Scout Fantasy
Years in Tout Wars:5 (2015, 2016 Mixed Tout Wars Draft Champion)
Twitter: @AdamRonis

11. Charlie Wiegert (7th in 2017 Mixed Tout Wars Draft)

Affiliation: CDM Sports
Years in Tout Wars:10
Twitter: @GFFantasySports

12. Scott White (2nd in 2017 Mixed Tout Wars Draft)

Affiliation: CBS Fantasy Sports
Years in Tout Wars:2
Twitter: @CBSScottWhite

13. DJ Short (6th in Mixed Tout Wars Draft)

Affiliation: Rotoworld
Years in Tout Wars:2
Twitter: @djshort

14. Anthony Perri (8th in 2017 Mixed Tout Wars Draft)

Affiliation: Fantistics
Years in Tout Wars:6
Twitter: @Anthony_Perri

15. Corey Parson (4th in 2017 Mixed Tout Wars Draft)

Affiliation: FNTSY
Years in Tout Wars:2
Twitter: @TheFantasyExec

Follow along with the live spreadsheet here.

We hope to see you on Twitter with the #mixedtoutdraft hashtag, on the Tout Wars Facebook page and the SiriusXM Fantasy Facebook page.

 

Mixed Tout Wars Draft Order Set

Tout Wars kicks off its season with the 15-team Mixed Draft league on Tuesday night, March 6 at 8:00 PM ET. The draft will be covered live on SiriusXM Fantasy by Glenn Colton, Rick Wolf and Jeff Erickson.

Tout Wars allows the participants to select their draft spot based on last year’s finish. The 2017 champion, Razzball’s Rudy Gamble opted defend his title from the top spot. The rest of the picks were far from chalk (last year’s finish in parentheses):

1. Rudy Gamble (1st)
2. Ray Murphy (3rd)
3. Tim McCullough (9th)
4. Greg Ambrosius (10th)
5. Perry Van Hook (12th)
6. Tom Kessenich (14th)
7. Jeff Boggis (15th)
8. Gene McCaffrey (8th, Mixed Auction)
9. Michael Beller (9th, Mixed H2H)
10. Adam Ronis (5th)
11. Charlie Wiegert (7th)
12. Scott White (2nd)
13. DJ Short (6th)
14. Anthony Perri (8th)
15. Corey Parson (4th)

Keeping in mind this is an OBP league, Gamble cited Mike Trout as his reason for wanting the first pick. Was he on the up-and-up? Scott White from CBS Fantasy hopes so, as he elected to slide to 1.12, wanting the option of an elite arm, depending on how things go.

Baseball HQ’s Ray Murphy was prepared to opt for the back end of the snake, but when the second pick fell in his lap, he decided not to overthink things and start near the top.

Tim McCullough from Rotoexperts and Greg Ambrosius from NFBC/SportsHubTech parlayed mid-pack finishes into Top-5 picks, saying they want a shot at the best available player left on the board.

After examining the results from the recent FSTA and Mixed LABR drafts, CDM Sports Charlie Wiegert used the 7th choice to slide to the 11th pick. One spot later, Anthony Perri from Fantistics/Insider Baseball chose to pick 14th, feeling the end of the round is optimal for OBP leagues.

While others were jockeying for early or late starts, Fantasy Football Empire’s Jeff Boggis was perfectly content to be left with 1.07, in a great spot not to miss out on a run.

So far in early drafts, the consensus top-two picks are Trout and Jose Altuve. However, after that, over ten players have been selected from the three-hole, helping to explain the motivation behind the Tout Mixed Warriors selections. This promises to be a wild 2018 campaign, with a myriad of approaches as everyone has their sights on wresting the championship from Rudy Gamble.

Next week we’ll introduce you to the 15 combatants, a day in advance of Tuesday’s festivities where you’ll be able to follow along and comment.

 

 

Tout Wars Mixed Draft Champion 2017: Rudy Gamble

He was in contention all year, in fourth at the end of April, in second behind Charlie Wiegert at the end of May, and in second behind Ray Murphy at the end of June, but by the All Star break Rudy Gamble was in first place all by his lonesome. By the end of July there was only dust in his rear view mirror.

After finishing in second the preceding two years, behind Adam Ronis, Gamble finally ended a season in Tout Wars in the driver’s seat.

The result was a bit of draft day magic (he finished first in the Draft Day Roster standings, slightly ahead of Corey Parson, behind a team that featured Bryce Harper, Giancarlo Stanton, Chris Sale and Craig Kimbrel. But it was some breakout years, from Mike Moustakas and Keon Broxton, plus late May trade for Dee Gordon that bumped Gambles team to slight favorite to monster.

How To Follow Tout Wars Mixed Draft Tonight, March 7!

The live spreadsheet is here.

Colton and the Wolfman are covering the draft from 8pm to Midnight tonight on SiriusXM.

Rotoman will be talking about the draft live on the Tout Wars Facebook page.

Tim McLeod will be chatting from inside the draft room on his Facebook page.

Come join us!