Two Days, Four Auctions! Tout Wars Weekend is complete.

Check out the Draft Sheets here:

Tout Wars AL (Draft Sheet: Click here)

Mike Podhorzer writes about his auction.

Jason Collette on his auction.

Ryan Bloomfield’s review of his AL team is here.

Patrick Davitt and Doug Dennis talked at length about Tout AL and Doug’s weird strategy on the BaseballHQ Radio pod.

Patrick Davitt pivots to his own team at baseballhq.com ($)

Tout Wars Mixed Auction (Draft Sheet: Click here).

Alex Chamberlain’s recap.

Eric Karabell wrote about the auction for ESPN+($).

Scott Pianowski’s piece is here.

Scott Engel on his draft is here.

Zach Steinhorn’s draft review can be found here.

Scott Swanay’s team review is here.

Tout Wars NL (Draft Sheet: Click here)

Tristan Cockcroft wrote about his auction for ESPN+($).

Grey Albright hates his team enough to like it.

Tout Wars Head to Head (Draft Sheet: Click here)

Dan Strafford’s pod is here.

Ariel Cohen and Chris Welsh talk about the auction on The Beat the Shift podcast.

Todd Zola and Clay Link talk about Clay’s auction.

The more traditional spreadsheets are linked to in the sidebar later now.

Tout Wars Weekend is Coming! Here’s how to follow all the drafts.

For the third year in a row the Touts are gathering for a virtual Tout Weekend. No party at Foleys, no hanging out at the Stewart Hotel and SiriusXM talking baseball with friends. No intense, fast-paced in-person auctions led by savvy auctioneers pushing the pace ever forward.

For the third year in a row the Touts will be gathering in a draft room at Fantrax, some of them connected on a Zoom call, putting their teams together from the four corners of the US, from Florida to Hawaii, from Maine to the Columbia Valley. Here’s how you can follow along (note that the moderator will need to admit you to the public Zoom Rooms, which might take a moment):

Tout Wars AL (Saturday March 19, 2022 10 AM ET)

Radio broadcast on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports
Public Zoom Room can be accessed at 896 5031 8894, hosted by Tim McLeod and Eric Cross.
Draft Sheet: Click here

Tout Wars Mixed Auction (Saturday March 19, 2022 4 PM ET)

Radio broadcast on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports (The Lawr Michaels Zen and Now Award winner will be announced on SiriusXM in the 15 minute block before the auction starts)
Public Zoom Room can be accessed at 864 7710 5666, hosted by Clay Link.
Draft Sheet: Click here

Tout Wars NL (Sunday March 20, 2022 10 AM ET)

Radio broadcast on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports
Public Zoom Room can be accessed at 895 0366 4657, hosted by Derek VanRiper.
Draft Sheet: Click here

Tout Wars Head to Head (Sunday March 20, 2022 4 PM ET)

Radio broadcast on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports
Public Zoom Room can be accessed at 853 3504 2173, hosted by Adam Howe and Shelly Verougstraete.
Draft Sheet: Click here

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 Rocks. And Goes to the Movies.

Lawr Michaels and Justin Mason host the Tout Wars Hour on the FNTSY Sports Net each week. And each week Lawr, who runs Creativesports.com, asks the week’s guest, usually a Tout Wars member, about his favorite pop culture picks, including movies, music and TV.

Tim McCullough today takes a look at those picks, and finds that there is no shared aesthetic among the Touts. Take a look here.

Enjoy this Eno Sarris pick while reading:

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!

SiriusXM to Broadcast Tout Auctions

SiriusXM will cover all three Tout Wars drafts live, from the first bid to the last tout reaction, and will also host a Q+A session with the touts at 2pm on Saturday.

Showtimes:

AL=March 24, 2012, 9am EDT
MIX=March 24, 2012, 3pm EDT
NL=March 25, 2012, 10am EDT

Q+A with the touts=March 24, 2012, 2pm EDT

Tout Wars Auction Dates!

This year’s Tout Wars auctions will take place in New York City the weekend of March 19-20.

The drafts will be tracked as a live blog at www.toutwars.com, and at least some of the auctions will be covered over XM Sirius radio (details to be announced).

Dates and Times:

TOUT AL: Saturday, March 19, 9 a.m.

TOUT MIXED: Saturday, March 19, 3 p.m.

TOUT NL: Sunday, March 20, 10 a.m.

This year’s auctions are being hosted by MLB Advanced Media, in their offices, so there will be no onsite viewing, but we look forward to seeing you on the Internet and the radio.