Category: News

Tout Wars AL: 2014 Owners Lineup

Competing in Tout Wars AL Auction in 2014

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

Larry Schechter (100)
Mike Podhorzer (100)*
Joe Sheehan (100)
Jeff Erickson (100)
Rick Wolf/Glenn Colton (100)
Lawr Michaels (100)
Andy Behrens (97)
Jason Collette (95)
Rob Leibowitz (91)
Steve Moyer (90)
Ron Shandler (90)
Chris Liss (89)*

Tout Wars AL Auction will take place March 23rd in NYC at 10am ET.

Tout Wars Mixed Auction: The 2014 Owners Lineup

Competing in Tout Wars Mixed Auction in 2014

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

Fred Zinkie (100)
David Gonos (100)
Scott Swanay (100)
Eric Mack (100)
Tim Heaney (100)
Patrick Davitt (100)
Scott Pianowski (100)*
Ray Guilfoyle (100)*
Nando DiFino (100)
Al Melchior (99)
Zach Steinhorn (94)
Paul Singman (93)
Derek Van Riper (89)
Cory Schwartz (83)
Ray Flowers (76)

Tout Wars Mixed Auction will be held March 22 at 3pm ET in New York City, broadcast live on SiriusXM.

Say Hello to On Base Percentage, Part 2.

While we’re putting the final touches on the 2014 Tout Wars league rosters, we wanted to make one significant announcement regarding the league rules. This year all four Tout Wars leagues will use On Base Percentage (instead of Batting Average) in their 5×5 scoring.

Last year’s experiment with OBP in the Tout Wars Mixed Draft and Tout Wars Mixed Auction leagues was a success. The patients survived, for one, and more importantly the owners in those two leagues adjusted without any obvious difficulty.

Expansion into the only leagues involves one further bit of business. The change means that Tout Wars will no longer be quite as good a draft price guideline as it was for leagues that use batting average. It was this issue that caused us to wait a year, and it was this issue that was forefront in our discussions this year about making the change. An online poll we ran in December, however, helped guide us to a decision.

Half the respondents who hadn’t played OBP thought we should make the change. And the vast majority of those who have played with OBP thought we should make the change.

We know the transition will be uncomfortable for some, but we feel strongly that having bases on balls count for hitters (as they count against pitchers in WHIP) is a very positive step in the evolution of fantasy baseball. We hope that our making the change now will make it easier for leagues that want to modernize their categories to make the jump sooner rather than later.

Tout poohbahs Ron, Lawr, Jeff and Peter all play in the XFL, a mixed keeper league that adopted OBP in 2003. We all feel that the tires have been kicked, any wrinkles have been pressed, and OBP is the stronger way to play.  And just as we did when we adopted 5×5 rather than the still (back then) prevalent 4×4, we hope you’ll come along if it makes sense for your league. As support service providers we’ll be including OBP in our materials this year, and we think you’ll start to see 5×5 (OBP) pricing become more common immediately and going forward.

Have a happy new year, and please welcome OBP!

Tout Wars

Your 2013 Doubt Wars Champions! (beta)

doubtwarslogo

Each of the winners will receive: A package of Ron Shandler’s 2014 Baseball Forecaster, the 2014 Mastersball Platinum Package , Rotoman’s 2014 Fantasy Baseball Guide, the 2014 Rotowire Baseball Guide and the 2014 Patton $ Software and Data.

UPDATED: Oct. 5, 2013 at 6pm, with additional teams in the spreadsheet, and the NL champ’s name spelled correctly. UPDATED January 17, 2014 Spelled AL Civilian Champ’s first name correctly.

DOUBT WARS AL: Glenn Colton/Rick Wolf.
Civilian Champ: Andrew Pappas.
Runners Up: Eugene Freedman, Noah Hirsch

DOUBT WARS MIXED: Tim George
Pro Champ: Paul Singman
Runners Up: Jon Hrobuchek, Brent Crossman

DOUBT WARS NL: Jeffrey Pelletier
Pro Champ: Tristan Cockcroft, Todd Zola
Runners Up: Scott Katz, Justin Dowling

Tristan Cockcroft finished second to Todd Zola in the Draft Day Standings for Tout Wars, but his strong ERA and WHIP elevated him past Todd in Doubt Wars. Tristan, however, finished 200 innings short of the Tout Wars minimum. We didn’t anticipate that in Doubt Wars, but it seems less an issue for a Pro team than a Civilian team. Tristan certainly wasn’t gaming Doubt Wars.

Here are the standings for each league (click to enlarge):

DOUBT WARS AL

Screen Shot 2013-10-05 at 5.42.40 PM

DOUBT WARS MIXED

Screen Shot 2013-10-05 at 5.42.56 PM

DOUBT WARS NL

Screen Shot 2013-10-05 at 5.43.18 PM

If you would like to download the spreadsheet compiling the final standings, please click here.

Tout Wars Mixed Auction: Zinkie Wins in 2013!

Going into the last game of the season David Gonos needed two of three things to happen to pass Fred Zinkie:

David Price gets the win.
His hitters (Pierzynski, Martin and Loney) to hit two homers
His hitters (Pierzynski, Martin and Loney) to score two runs

Zinkie’s only defense was Ian Kinsler. If he scored a run, Gonos’ hitters would need to score three.

But it didn’t happen. David Price was masterful, got the win, shutting down Texas hitters, and Loney didn’t power the Tampa offense. Fred Zinkie held on for his second championship in three year!

In other news, David Gonos did set a new league record for strikeouts, breaking Tim Heaney’s 2011 record.

While Fred Zinkie of all people set new league records for ERA and WHIP, eclipsing David Gonos’ (2010) and Nick Minnix’ (2011) records.

Congratulations!

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!

Tout Wars AL: Three Times the Charm for Larry Schechter, 2013 Champ

Schechter has won three straight AL titles and is now a six-time Tout Wars champion. Well done, Larry.

His total of 100.5 points edges Sam Walker’s 2008 record.

Matthew Berry broke Jason Grey’s 2011 record for team strikeouts.

Larry also won LABR AL this year. And he has a book about winning coming out, no coincidence.

Battle of the Touts Tonight on Twitter

gonosvszinkie2013One point, one game, one champion. Follow @davidgonos and @fredzinkie on Twitter tonight, for their reactions of their down-to-the-wire pennant race, on Twitter. Game time is 8:05 pm ET.

FOLLOW THE ACTION HERE OR ON TWITTER #toutwars