Category: Tout Daily

Tout Daily Picks for April 21!

Week 2 of Period 1 of Tout Daily. Twenty Six Touts are competing for the championship. You can see the leaders (Ray Murphy, well ahead of Lenny Melnick and Brian Walton, for now) here.

Would you like to play? The league is hosted by Draft Kings, who are offering a special to new signups. Deposit $5 and gain free entry to a $3 contest. Click here to for more details and to sign up.

And compare your results to the Touts. Here are their picks this week:

Phil Hertz like Jose Quintana (vs. Cleveland, $7,700) and Manny Machado (vs. Boston,$4,800).

Charlie Wiegert, 2015 Champ

Top pitcher…Jon Lester (@ Cincinnati, $10,600).  He’s been good but he’ll need to keep the running Reds off base!  Long Shot…Alex Meyer.  He has no business being in the majors, but against a scuffling Blue Jays team, he has that chance to pitch a gem and stay in Angels rotation.

Top hitters…Freddie Freeman (@ Philadelphia, $4,600) has been scorching, plus 3 Cubbies to back Lester and abuse Red starter Adelman, Contreras, Russell and Schwarber.

Rick Wolf

Joc Pederson (@ Arizona, $3,800) is tonight’s value pick for Tout Daily. He is facing an inconsistent RHP in Walker at a classic hitter’s park, Chase Field.  He will be extremely low owned as he is only 5 for 24 vs RHP, but he does have a HR, 6 RBI and 5 walks.  When select tournament values, you want a player with 2 HR power. Joc has that possibility tonight.

Lawr Michaels

Mike Fiers (@ Tampa, $7200): There are surely safer selections than Fiers today, but for his third start the Astros hurler gets to face the Rays. Tampa is a fun young team with some good hitters, and they are hitting .256 versus right-handers, but the team also leads the league in whiffs (actually tied with the Brewers), something Fiers can certainly exploit. Meaning, I am betting power pitching will prevail over power hitting.

Starlin Castro (@ Pittsburgh, $3300): The Yankees second sacker is not just smoking hot, hitting .439-3-9 over the past ten days, but Castro, who has proved his mettle after life in Chicago, faces struggling rookie Tyler Glasnow and his 0-1, 12.15 mark over 6.6 innings and two starts thus far.

Jeff Boggis

Jacob deGrom (vs. Washington, $10,200) deGrom takes on a hot Washington team tonight at home. If he pitches around Bryce Harper, he should be fine. Surprisingly, deGrom has yet to earn a win this season. He owns a 1.89 ERA and a 0.89 WHIP, but you are rostering him tonight for his strikeout potential. In his last outing at Miami, he had 13 strikeouts. He has a 10.4 K/9 on the season.

Eric Thames (vs. St. Louis, $3,800) Incredible value here at only $3,800 tonight. That ranks him as the 21st highest salaried first baseman, which is a steal. Thames is as hot as he is going to get this season, leading the league with 8 home runs. He also leads the National League in batting average at .415. Get him into your lineup if you want to beat Lawr Michaels this week! #BeatLawr

Peter Kreutzer

CC Sabathia (@ Pittsburgh, $7,400) is off to a good start this year, and the Pirates are not. The strikeouts were there in his last start, against the Cardinals, and he makes a favorable play as my cheaper starter.

Wilsson Contreras (@ Cincinnati, $4,000) is coming off a strong game after a dispirited start to the season. Tim Adleman cannot contain him.

Mike Gianella

Top hitter: Mike Trout (vs. Toronto, $5,300). Two relatively cheap pitching plays allowed me to go big on hitting this week. The Trout/Matt Latos matchup looks delectable

Top pitcher: Tanner Roark (@ NY Mets, $8,000). The Mets are banged up and Roark should benefit from Citi’s generous dimensions and the Mets B lineup this evening.

Brian Walton

Matt Carpenter (@ Milwaukee, $4700) is a man’s man. The St. Louis Cardinals’ first baseman suffered a split fingernail on a bad hop line drive last weekend and still refuses to wear batting gloves. Friday night, Carpenter faces Milwaukee’s Wily Peralta, against whom he is 19-for-41 (.463), including eight extra base hits. After a slow start to the season, Carpenter is batting .321 over his last 10 games.

The ageless Bartolo Colon (@ Philadelphia, $6900) is off to another fine start to the season. On Friday night, the right-hander pitches for the Braves against the Phillies, a club he handed regularly during his time with the Mets. If you need a second bargain pitcher to couple with your Kluber or Verlander, Big Bart could be your man!

Patrick Davitt Wins the Tout Daily Title in 2016!

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Patrick Davitt

It took 21 weeks, 21 daily lineups, more than 949 points, before podcaster extraordinaire, Patrick Davitt, won the Tout Wars Daily title for 2016.

Tout Wars Daily is a cumulative contest sponsored and hosted by RTSports.com in 2016.

Davitt is the host of the popular and award-winning BaseballHQ Radio podcast.

The 2015 Tout Wars champ was Charlie Wiegert.

Screenshot 2016-08-27 09.56.53Davitt scored two strong pitching performances, from Gio Gonzalez and Justin Verlander, monster nights from Gary Sanchez and Josh Donaldson, and solid performances from Daniel Murphy, Brandon Guyer, Robbie Grossman and Mike Napoli.

Tristan Cockcroft’s second place team shared Sanchez, Napoli, Murphy, Donaldson, Grossman and Stephen Piscotty, but couldn’t overcome a poor night from David Phelps (despite the night-high scoring start from Chris Sale).

With so many shared players, Davitt clinched a slim victory over Cockcroft before the night’s games were over, as he and Cockcroft shared their final innings.

That did not guarantee victory on the night, however, as Eno Sarris and Brian Walton were each getting a terrific performance out of Jeff Samardzija in San Francisco. Sarris needed nine innings and eight strikeouts from Samardzija to pass Davitt after the eventual champ’s night was finished. But with a 7-0 lead Samardzija was pulled from his game after the seventh inning, ending Sarris’s challenge.

You can see the complete standings at RTSports.com.

The full season leaderboard is here.

 

 

Tout Daily Finals: The Race.

They started playing at 7:05. Now, three hours later, the top teams are running out of innings.

Challengers, with pitchers and more innings coming, lurk.

At 10:15, here are the Top 5.

Screenshot 2016-08-26 22.16.31

That’s Patrick Davitt, Tristan Cockcroft, Rick Wolf, Mike Gianella, Eno Sarris.

NOTE: Gianella (KingFolderol) has more innings left. Sarris’s second starter, Jeff Samardzija, hasn’t yet begun.

NOTE: The Top three teams all rostered Gary Sanchez, who has put up 14 points for just $2,600 in salary.

NOTE: At 11:15, Patrick Davitt has a miniscule lead over Tristan Cockcroft. Davitt has one inning of Mike Napoli and one inning of Brandon Guyer left to go. Cockcroft has one inning of Napoli. Absent a major rush from Eno Sarris, Jason Collette, or Mike Gianella, it looks like Davitt has this thing wrapped up.

NOTE: At midnight, the paths to beat Patrick Davitt are limited. Eno Sarris gets there if Jeff Samarzdija pitches a complete game shutout with eight strikeouts. He’s got five K through five IP, with a six run lead, so it isn’t impossible. Brian Walton also has Samarzdija live, but is 1.66 points behind Sarris. He needs a double from Addison Russell to pass Eno, plus Samarzdija to be good to pass Davitt.

NOTE: 12:21. Another scoreless inning, another strikeout for Samarzdija. Sarris and Walton are stalking:
Screenshot 2016-08-27 00.21.20

 

 

The Tout Daily Championships Are Friday Night on August 26th!

This is what they’ve been playing for: The Championship Game!

All baseball season long, though five qualifying periods, more than 40 Tout Wars members have been competing for tickets to the final game, when a champion will be crowned. That happens on Friday night!

The challengers (ranked by total points for 2016):

Todd Zola X 2: He has two tickets.
Brian Walton X 2: He has two tickets.
Mike Gianella
Jeff Erickson X 2: He has two tickets.
Tim Heaney
Tristan Cockcroft
Rick Wolf
Jason Collette
Eno Sarris
Patrick Davitt
Rob Leibowitz
Patrick Mayo

Zola has to be considered the favorite. He has two tickets, and earned them in the last two periods, meaning he has momentum, but as we’ve seen all season long, daily fantasy is a game of swings.

Last year Charlie Wiegert won the first Tout Daily championship by rostering Clayton Kershaw, something no one else thought to do. Imagine that.

Check back on Friday night at RTSports.com/tout-wars for the latest action, and look for the #toutdaily hashtag on Twitter for chatter from the padrticipants.

It’s Full Moon on a Full Moon This Week! Plus, Tout Daily Finals Field Is Set!

Screenshot 2016-08-20 09.20.23Last night’s full “sturgeon moon” was anything but a fish for Rick Wolf’s Full Moon Tout Daily entry.

Launched by Cole Hamel’s dominant win and brought home by Masahiro Tanaka’s equally strong performance, Rick’s team danced in the moonlight to a 17 point victory.

Full Moon’s offense was powered by stalwart Joey Votto, the surprising Keon Broxton, this year’s biggest surprise Jonathan Villar, and youthful powerhouse Gary Sanchez.

full-moon-2Last night’s contest, the last of the Tout Daily regular season, determined the winners of the final three golden tickets to the Tout Daily finals, which will be held next Friday, August 26th, at RTSports.com/tout-wars.

Brian Walton finished 11th on the week and first for Period 5, winning his second ticket to the finals. He’ll have two entries next week, having also finished first in Period 1.

Todd Zola finished third on the week, and second for Period 5, winning his second ticket to the finals. He finished first in Period 4.

Mastersball partners Zola and Walton also finished first and second in Total Points over the 20 weeks of Tout Daily. There’s no award for that, apart from the special satisfaction of a job well done.

Eno Sarris finished 12th on the week, and third for Period 5, winning his first ticket to the finals. He finished 19th overall, demonstrating that there are many paths to the staging ground for the assault on the pinnacle (otherwise known at the 2016 Tout Daily Championship).

The estimable Charlie Wiegert is the reigning Tout Daily Champion, and he will pass his crown next week to one of these on the full roster of Tout Daily Finalists (sorted by Total Points on the season):

Todd Zola X 2
Brian Walton X 2
Mike Gianella
Jeff Erickson X 2
Tim Heaney
Tristan Cockcroft
Rick Wolf
Jason Collette
Eno Sarris
Patrick Davitt
Rob Leibowitz
Patrick Mayo

You may follow along live next Friday night, or check in on the results at RTSports.com/tout-wars. And check ToutWars.com for a preview of the night’s contest, and the game story on Saturday morning.

Use the RTSports.com/tout-wars link to sign up to play daily fantasy baseball games for free for fun or enter pay contests to win prizes.

The regular season final leaderboard can be found here.

The state of the moon on August 26th will be Waning Crescent.

 

Sarris Crushes Tout Wars Daily Field! Walton Takes Big Lead!

Screenshot 2016-08-13 10.13.58Eno Sarris got a monster game from Charlie Blackmon in Philadelphia (his three solo homers added up to 19 points on the night) and a solid game from Rajai Davis (his three steals were owned by just one percent of RTSports players), plus nice games from Dylan Bundy and Evan Longoria to lap all the Tout Daily by RTSports.com field except Todd Zola.

Zola finished six points behind Sarris, riding Yu Davish’s first 100+ pitch game since starting his recovery from TJ, Hanley Ramirez’s rout (two homers, six RBI) and Longoria’s nice game, plus solid contributions from Stephen Vogt, Jabari Blash, and Billy Hamilton (3 steals on one hit, one walk, three strikeouts).

Derek VanRiper led the rest of the pack, 13 points behind Sarris, with Brian Walton in fourth. Walton’s strong finish vaulted him to the top of the Period 3 standings, 19 points ahead of second place Steve Moyer.

Moyer’s lead after period two was erased following his weak performance in week 3 (Christian Yelich, for example, was 0-4 with four strikeouts), and he is now in a dogfight with VanRiper and Sarris for the final two golden tickets to the finals, about 15 points ahead of the next pack of contenders led by Zola, Adam Ronis, Jake Ciely and Lawr Michaels.

Ronis (fourth) and Ciely (sixth) have the most total points in the Tout Daily series in 2016, without earning a ticket to the finals. Next Friday’s contest is their last chance this year. Before the season Ciely was a strong advocate for giving the highest scoring team to not earn a ticket a ticket into the finals. What did he know then?

Walton and Zola are the only contenders who already have tickets to the finals.

See the complete leaderboard here.

Join us next Friday for the final week of the final period of Tout Daily by RTSports.com.

And join us August 26th, when 15 teams compete for the title of Tout Daily 2016 Champion!

Tout Daily Tonight! Third week of final period kicks off at 7pm!

Steve Moyer and Brian Walton have big leads going into the third week, but one stumble can erase those. Jake Ciely, Lawr Michales, Derek Van Riper, Adam Ronis, Scott Pianowski, Jeff Erickson, Jason Collette and Rob Leibowitz trail them, right now competing for the final ticket to the Tout Daily Finals on August 26th.

You can watch all the action at rtsports.com/tout-wars. Or play along for cash prizes or fun, just follow the link to get set up.

Of those competing for the final tickets, Brian Walton, Jeff Erickson and Rob Leibowitz already have tickets. Jeff Erickson already has two tickets!

Adam Ronis has the third highest point total for the season, but doesn’t not yet have a ticket to the finals.

We asked the Touts for their best picks in tonight’s games. Here’s what they told us:

PHIL HERTZ

Favorite Pitcher: Stephen Strasburg ($9,200 vs. Atlanta). Favorite Hitter: Neil Walker ($4,200 vs San Diego).

BRIAN WALTON

Yordano Ventura ($7,100 @ Minnesota) may not excite, but the Royals right-hander has allowed three runs or less in each of his last six starts while averaging almost 10 points per outing. On Friday evening, Ventura draws the last-place Twins, 23 games under .500 and coming off three straight losses during which they were outscored 32-14.

Neil Walker ($4,200 vs San Diego) is working on a nine-game hitting streak during which the Mets’ second baseman is 17-for-37 (.459), including three home runs and six RBI.  He will take on Paul Clemens of San Diego this evening.

LAWR MICHAELS

Going high and low with my pitching, riding David Price ($9,200 vs Arizona) and then Jonathan Gray ($6,000 @ Philadelphia), hoping both can twirl away from home.

For hitters I like Ryon Healy ($2,800 vs Seattle) on the low end facing newbie Southpaw Ariel Miranda, and Michael Saunders ($5,100 vs Houston) facing Joe Musgrove.

JEFF BOGGIS

I’m just playing the role of spoiler and need a DFS miracle tonight, so I am going to go with SP Joe Musgrove ($4,000 @ Toronto). He faced Toronto on August 2nd a and struck out 8 betters in only 4.1 innings pitched. For my top hitter, I am also going try to steal some DFS points with starting Billy Hamilton OF ($4,500 @ Milwaukee) for $4,500. If he gets on base and steals some bases, he’s good for 10-15 points. If he goes 0-4, then I will take the 0 DFS points for the night. High risk, high reward player.

HOWARD BENDER

Ross Stripling, SP ($4,400 vs. Pittsburgh) I love his ground ball rates, especially when he’s facing a team like the Pirates who have been mashing the ball in the dirt 49.2-percent of the time over the past week. On top of that, Pittsburgh has just a .292 wOBA which comes with a .095 ISO and 22.7-percent strikeout rate.

David Dahl ($4,600 @ Philadelpha) and Gerardo Parra ($4,500 @ Philadelphia) Stacking Rockies? Come on! How cheap can you get? Well, they’re not in Colorado tonight so the prices are a bit more reasonable. With Dahl and Parra batting fourth and fifth in the lineup tonight against Jake Thompson, I’m looking for a whole lot of BOOM and hopefully very little bust. Thompson’s MLB experience isn’t extensive but when I see lefties posting a .484 wOBA against him, I’m willing to overlook the sample size.

[We’ll update later if more picks come in. Good luck tonight!]

 

 

Tout Daily P5 W2: Pianowski Says It Loud!

Scott Pianowski led the field in Week 2 of Period 5 of Tout Daily by RTSports.com, five points ahead of Brian Walton, who edged Week 1 winner Steve Moyer.

Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge

He did it by rostering the day’s big pitchers, Stephen Wright, who was owned by just six-percent of teams, and a resurgent Justin Verlander, who was owned by a resounding 61 percent. The two combined for 39 points.

Second place Brian Walton paired Verlander and John Lester for 34 points, while Moyer continued the daisy chain, mixing Lester and Jameson Taillon (who pitched well, but didn’t win) for 28 points.

Pianowski’s offensive squad received significant contributions from newly-annointed Seattle catcher Mike Zunino, who hit a three-run homer, and Cubs outfielder Dexter Fowler, who also homered, but all his hitters contributed something to the win.

You can see the complete results at RTSports.com/tout-wars.

Halfway through the final tilt for the last golden ticket to the Tout Wars finals, Moyer and Walton have sizeable leads over Jake Ciely and Lawr Michaels.

Three tickets to the August 26 finals will be awarded to the Top 3 finishers in the fifth period.

View the entire leaderboard here.

Check in here at ToutWars.com next Friday, August 12, for a preview of the Week 3 contest and Tout picks.

And play every day for prizes (even New York residents!) and/or fun at RTSports.com.