What Went Wrong: Tout Wars Mixed Auction

Al Melchior writes about his first Tout Wars season:

Here’s what went wrong in my rookie season in Tout for my Mixed League auction team.

I normally go most aggressively after safe, consistent players at scarce positions, but I didn’t stick to that approach on auction day. I spent the most money on Ryan Braun ($40), Justin Verlander ($29), Mat Latos ($19) and Hanley Ramirez ($17). Braun and Ramirez were calculated risks, and they paid off in the sense that they produced when they played. They just didn’t play nearly enough. Starting pitching isn’t exactly a scarce position, but I did view Verlander as an elite, and I don’t think there was any way I could have seen his disappointing season coming. Latos, at $19, was one of my better buys.

With so much invested in my core, I didn’t have much to fall back on when Braun, Ramirez and Verlander didn’t produce as expected. David Freese, Josh Reddick, Marco Scutaro, Alexi Ogando and Shaun Marcum all fell far short of expectations, and a midseason buy-high on Mike Leake just did more damage to ERA and WHIP levels that hovered near the bottom of the standings. I did manage a timely early July swap of Jean Segura for Matt Holliday, and while Holliday provided much-needed help with runs and RBI, I never was able to replace Segura’s steals.

There may not be another spate of suspension risks going into next season, but I’ll certainly focus more on risks that fall outside of the realm of skill decline. And rather than pursuing steady players like Freese and Scutaro to fill out my roster, I’ll likely pursue higher-upside types, as some of my more “consistent” players had down years.

P.S. I’ve had a great time, even though I didn’t turn in a strong season. Thanks for bringing me aboard!

Fernando DiFino answered:

New rule starting next year: no more big free-agent signings on my team. Carl Crawford, Josh Hamilton, Albert Pujols — they’ve all kind of burned fantasy owners in their own special way their first year with a new team.

Rule 2: no more punting OPS. That strategy does not work.

Rule 3: take PED accusations seriously.

That’s pretty much all I learned from this year. I had some unexpected down years from a couple guys I thought could have a nice year (Axford, Cespedes, Middlebrooks), a couple injuries that didn’t help, and I think I actually did pretty well in FAAB. It was just a weird season spent waiting for bouncebacks that never came.

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).

FAAB Helper: A Lesson

Tout NL’s and Mastersball’s Brian Walton says you can buy early with FAAB or hope to FAAB well later, or you can stretch your FAAB budget targeting injured guys. Read all about it here.

The Dark Arts: Handling Biogenesis, Injuries and the Trading Deadline

Steve Gardner’s latest in Sports Weekly looks at uncertainty and our fantasy fascination with it, with a little Tout Wars twist.

Mixed Draft: Touts Talking About Their Teams

Ray GuilfoyleMike PodhorzerGrey Albright (written by Rudy Gamble) –

Others talk too…

Mark “Dr. Roto” Bloom and new RotoExperts weekend host Gregg Sussman talk about Scott Engel‘s team.

TOUT AL’s Larry Schechter Talks About It

For much of the season Tout AL’s 2011 Champ has been leading the league again, but during the summer Jeff Erickson closed the gap and at times has been in the lead. Larry answered…

What are your chances of winning as a percentage?   48%  (Jeff 47%, others 5%)

What percentage of your success this year was based on your draft?  90%

What percentage was based on trading?  0%

What percentage was based on waiver pickups?  10%

What was the best thing that happened to your team this year.   That I happened to have Soriano, which minimized the loss of Rivera.

What was the worst thing? And how did you get over it? 

#1 worst)  after trading Hamilton, Big Papi went down immediately and hasn’t come back–and probably won’t come back.  That has really hurt my HR/RBI, which were in great shape when I made the trade.  I haven’t gotten over it, and it’s a big reason my lead disappeared.

#2 worst) Romero was a distaster.  Picking up Miguel Gonzalez and Guthrie has helped…(hopefully in 4 weeks I can still say that they helped.)

Any other comments, stories, observations, jokes you would like to tell about this year’s Tout Wars season? I wonder if Wolf/Colton would have taken Big Papi instead of Hamilton?  That would have helped me immensely.  One of the reasons I offered Hamilton instead of Papi is because I felt Hamilton was a bigger injury risk; and being in 1st, I wanted to be risk averse.