A spreadsheet of the draft results and eventually, hopefully, transcripts of the chat room, are available at http://www.toutwars.com/?p=2446.
Tout Wars
In The News: Lord Zola Proclaims 2-20-14
Todd Zola and I were members of the alt.rec.fantasy.baseball usenet group back when George Clinton was president. We knew what was coming.
And now, today, umpteen years later, we both published charts linking draft order to auction prices, which seems to be the new orange. Make of it what you will.
I think Todd’s story does a fine job pointing out that using ADP for your mixed draft analysis is not enough. And I’m happy to embrace Todd’s perfectly independently concluded idea that draft value is akin to auction value.
FWIW Todd and I are talking about sharing data and working on some new ideas, too.
Doings Over at Tout Wars
If you missed them, Doubt Wars final standings are posted over at ToutWars.com.
Perhaps more importantly, the Leaderboards have been been updated to include the 2013 results. Larry Schechter has increased his wide lead in lifetime earnings. I decided to make the default sort the career earnings, since that is the goal all of us aspire to.
Jeff Erickson says the Leaderboard page is the best argument for reading Schechter’s book. I agree, but can also say while in the midst of reading the book that the book recommends itself. He’s done a really great job of being informative, straightforward, sophisticated and clear. You can order it here:
The Overachievers (or are they?): What to expect from the first half’s most surprising hitters
The challenge on draft day is to buy a guy at his price, what everyone expects him to earn, and then get all the production that comes with a breakout season. In other words, much more than you paid for. This year, the biggest breakouts on offense have been Jean Segura, Chris Davis, Josh Donaldson, Nate McLouth, Everth Cabrera, Daniel Nava, Manny Machado, Domonic Brown, Matt Carpenter and James Loney (with honorable mention to Yasiel Puig and Carlos Gomez). What should you expect from them going ahead?
Jean Segura. He cost $15 in Tout Wars and earned his owner $41 in the first half. After a hot start hitting with power his SLG has declined each month, but his July BA is .314 after a .277 June. It was expected his wheels would earn him his pay, and they have, but it was the power surge that bumped him to the top of this list. He’s got 24 steals with only four CS. Given our expectations going into the season versus his red hot first two months, it seems reasonable to expect about a .300 BA with four homers and another 15 steals. That’s a very good shortstop.
Chris Davis. Cost $20 in Tout Wars, and earned $45 in the first half. After a couple of promising seasons in Texas, Davis failed for long enough that just about everyone became skeptical about him, but now after proving himself as capable last year, he’s pushing into new territory for just about everyone this year. He was on pace for 62 homers at the midway point, and has hit six more since. The big issues here are gravity and opportunity. Can he remain aloft for much longer? And will he get fewer chances to hit, as teams work around him? He’s hitting more fly balls than ever, and hitting homers on 36 percent of his fly balls. That’s not sustainable in the long run. Still, even if his homer per rate falls to last year’s rate he’s got something like 20 homers coming the rest of the way. (Note: He tore a callous during the HR Derby, an event which has a history of messing up power hitters. The injury isn’t supposed to be a big deal, but anything that affects a hitter’s hands shouldn’t be ignored.)
Josh Donaldson. Went for $10 in Tout Wars, was earning $22 at midseason. Expectations were low because he really didn’t produce last year and with the addition of Jed Lowrie playing opportunities appeared to be limited in Oakland. Instead, Donaldson has confidently established himself as a power hitter, with an increased walk rate and a decrease in strikeouts. His BABIP and HR/FB are higher than ever before, and it seems likely he’ll end up hitting .280 rather than .310, but it also appears he’s made the adjustment to big league pitching. Now it’s up to the pitchers to block him back. Unless they succeed, look for 12 homers and a .275 BA the rest of the way.
Nate McLouth. Only $3 in Tout Wars, at the midway point he was earning $25. For those who noticed his strong September in 2012 and picked him up for a song this spring, April was very sweet. Since then, he’s been a bargain for the price, but not one of the best offensive players in the game. That’s the player you should expect the rest of the way. His past history has a $30 and $20 season in it, but those were a long time ago. Expect him to hit less than .260 with four homers and 14 steals.
Everth Cabrera. He went for $17 in Tout Wars, and was earning $33 on July 1 despite spending time on the DL. Last year he had a low BA with a high BABIP, which seemed to be a warning, but this year he has the same BABIP and a good BA. His basestealing skills are for real and are rare. He still led the league in steals after missing three weeks with a hammy strain. He’s stolen three bases in the week since he returned, so all seems to be okay on that count. Expect 25 to 30 steals and a BA somewhere between .250 and .300.
Daniel Nava. Was taken in the reserve round in Tout Wars, by Larry Schechter, and at midseason was earning $20. When he was pressed into action in 2012 he impressed at first, but then inevitably slumped some and his season ended in injury. Nava, who is 30 years old, was forgotten after the Red Sox signed Victorino and Jonny Gomes. We would do well to remember that when teams sign someone like Gomes, a power platoon player, they also create an opportunity for someone else. Nava got his chance and ran with it this year, with additional chances because of Victorino’s injuries. Nava has been much the same player this year as last, a mature hitter without special skills, who will hit with a little power (figure six homers) and post a .765 OPS (and .265 BA).
Manny Machado. He cost $14 in Tout Wars last March, and was earning $32 after the first half of the season. Promoted aggressively last year, he’s bloomed this year as a hitter. He’s a free swinger who makes plenty of contact, which thus far has led to a high BABIP and nice BA. The danger here is not that he isn’t capable of making contact and running for a good BA, at least for a while, but it’s a hard thing to pull off for an extended period because pitchers are always looking for a way to exploit your aggressiveness. He should hit another 6-8 homers, with a batting average that could range from .250 to .300 or so, though I would plan on the lower end of the range and hope to be pleasantly surprised.
Domonic Brown. He went for $14 in Tout Wars, and had earned $31 at the halfway point this season. He was a can’t-miss prospect, the scouts said a few years ago, but to those of us who saw him hit (and didn’t see the projectability), he looked like a looming bust. And that’s the way he continued to look the last two years, with dismal stints in Philadelphia punctuating not-great stints in Triple-A. But when I saw him in spring training early in March he struck me as a different hitter, with a shorter stroke and a willingness to go the other way. Others saw the same thing, and though his role was entirely clear he went for a decent price for a guy who had lost his prospect luster. A slow start got everyone doubting, but when he exploded he blew up and by the end of May he was earning $28. He’s improved that in June, and though July has been quieter one senses we’re simply waiting for the next hot streak. If has just one more, look for 14 or so homers the rest of the way, but he’s a prime candidate for a huge September when rosters expand in September.
Matt Carpenter. Tout Wars went to $14 for him, and in the first half he’s earned $25. Questions about playing time kept his price down a little, and had some of us thinking his Tout price was an overbid. Wrong. Carpenter was rightly given the job at second base (when David Freese is able to play) and he’s pretty much performed as he did last year, only with middle infield eligibility. He’s got a higher batting average and a smidge more power, but that should be expected with more experience, shouldn’t it? Figure the BA will come down to .290-.300 the rest of the way and otherwise expect more of the same.
James Loney. Tout Wars price: $8, with midseason earnings of $25. Please indulge my personal grouse here: The last two years I bought Loney for what seemed like discount prices given his history of earnings, and he failed me. This year I let him go for cheap to the Tampa homer, and Loney’s back to being the dude he always was (and the Tampa homer is in first place by a lot). I hate that. Actually, Loney has been more than he’s been in the past, showing more power in Tampa than he had in LA all those years. He’s actually hitting fewer fly balls and more line drives this year, but his percentage of balls leaving the yard is up to a healthy 11 percent. My guess is that this reflects a better more aggressive approach, and as long as he stays focused and motivated earnings in the $20-25 range are sustainable. That means another six or seven homers, but probably with an average closer to .290-.295.
Two Short Notes:
Yasiel Puig‘s hot start is an illusion. It’s fantastic fun, but obviously he’s not going to hit .391 while striking out 24 percent of the time. It’s really hard to tell where he’s going to land, however, and how hard he’s going to fall. Based on the strikeouts and ground balls, I’d expect him to hit .270 the rest of the way, with 10-12 homers, but that’s really just a WAG. If the pitchers figure out the swing sooner he could be in the minors just like that.
Carlos Gomez has added power the last two years, is still fast, and is way over his head right now in BA. Line drive percentage suggests he should perhaps be hitting for a slightly higher average, but he’s currently got a BABIP .040 points above his career number. The power and speed are real, but his batting average should come down closer to .260 the rest of the way.
The Solid, the Shifty and the Fungible
[Cue Ennio Morricone music here.]
The long and fun Tout Wars weekend is over. Drafts were held, summaries will be written (and posted at toutwars.com), and eventually games will be played. At no other time will more people write the words, “I like my team,” more often.
You can find the spreadsheet with all the leagues’ results here.
I spoke on Sirius XM after the auction and was asked about some of the players I bought, and while I was talking I couldn’t help thinking that this was for the most part a boring draft. Relentlessly and with few exceptions players (even starting pitchers this year) went for something close to my bid price. I, for the most part, bought the guys whose price stopped at or below the price I’d put to paper for them. My strategic goal was to buy stats and to acquire risky guys who might make an impact.
The goal for every fantasy team is to establish a powerful enough base that the breakout guys put you in contention to win. That’s what might happen out of the draft, but the real work is massaging the roster all season long to maximize in each category. Some combo of work, good timing and utter luck are what puts teams over the top. But first, they have to get into contention.
Here are my purchases with some notes on the players and their prices. As you’ll note, mostly boring, but I like my team.
THE SOLID
Rob Brantly ($7, $6) He’s the cleanup hitter! On a really crummy team! He’s got some power and shouldn’t crush my BA, and has the potential to do more.
Joey Votto (My Bid Price $37, I paid $37) Hey, he’s Joey Votto. Is he not a power hitter anymore? I don’t believe that, but if it’s true he will then be the most awesome hitter for average ever. There is the chance for profits here, he earned in the 40s in 2010, but mostly I want him to stay healthy all season.
Ryan Zimmerman ($27, $27) Third base is a ghost town once you get past the top five, and with Headley’s injury even he’s suspect. So, a solid producer at his price is a win. Every other third baseman who cost more than $10 exceeded his bid price, demonstrating the league’s sensitivity to getting shut out at the hot corner.
Zack Cozart ($12, $14) Having three $25+ guys at the time, I didn’t feel comfortable pushing Starlin Castro and extra buck. He went at my bid price. And Jimmy Rollins went for one under. As I pushed Cozart $2 past my price I regretted not going the extra dollar for the much better players, but he was the last full time SS available. His job is secure and even if he isn’t the best hitter in the world he has a bit of power/speed production. A bit.
Hunter Pence ($22, $21) One of the places where the Touts try to save money is in the midlevel outfielders, the guys who are not dominant either in power or speed. Pence is one of those guys, and capable of having a bigger year than this bid pays for.
Angel Pagan ($21, $19) Another Giant outfielder? Yes, but one who runs a lot. Guys like Cameron Maybin went for $25. Maybin’s like Pagan but younger with a worse batting average.
Denard Span ($15, $14) Another boring outfielder at the slightest of discounts, but Span has never had a season like the best he seems like he might be capable of. On a new team, despite a weakish spring, one hopes for more than what he’s done in the past. But if he does just that, I’m okay with it.
Scott Hairston ($7, $4) Once the prices drop below $10 the comparison doesn’t mean much. Hairston earned $18 last year in 350 AB. It wouldn’t take a lot to get him more playing time in Chicago (or released for that matter), so consider him cheap and likely to earn a bit of a profit with the chance of something more.
Yorvit Torrealba ($1, $1) A catcher in Colorado backing up a guy who is a bad catcher. Yorvit has some productive years behind him, and having taken a catcher who will start the year in the minors, I was looking for a puncher’s chance with a catcher in dollar days. Hello son.
Cliff Lee ($28, $26) I’ve knocked my starting pitching bids down quite a bit in prep for this draft, and was glad to see that pitcher prices were generally on par. Any of the top six or seven starters will earn out, unless he gets hurt. I chose Lee for no particular reason.
Zack Greinke ($21, $19) Maybe he was a little cheaper because of injury concerns, though he appears to be healthy at this point. He’s in a good ballpark in a lineup that costs a lot. Irresistible.
Mike Minor ($14, $12) I would have gladly gone to $14 on Minor, who seemed to put it all together in the second half last year. CBS and LABR landed in the $12 range, so I’m not claiming this is a bargain, but given the potential upside I was happy.
Marco Estrada ($10, $11) He’s a guy for whom my projection outpaces my bid price. He throws strikeouts and homers and if he can rein in the one he could have special upside.
Lance Lynn ($11, $11) Like Estrada, plenty of strikeouts. He’s kind of the opposite of Minor, in that he stumbled in the second half, but was overall just fine. While it would be great if all three of Minor/Estrada/Lynn were solid this year, you have to figure one will fail. But which one? That’s why I have three.
THE SHIFTY
Travis D’Arnaud (Minors, $5) One can argue that the money spent on D’Arnaud and Matt Adams could have been better spent buying Starlin Castro rather than Zack Cozart. I won’t argue with that, but once the barn door is open you have to adjust. I didn’t buy Castro. D’Arnaud isn’t a lock for the big leagues this year, but indications are he’ll get a chance come June or July. He’s a free-swinging power hitter, who may get off to a slow start offensively, but will quickly outearn his price here if he has any success at all. If he turns into Devin Mesoraco this year, I’ll be disappointed, and not all that surprised.
Matt Adams ($5, $5) He may or may not make the team at the start of the season, and doesn’t seem to have a regular job if he does, but they’re not going to let him languish. He’s too potent a hitter for that. Is he a big league star hitter? Borderline at that level, for sure, but he will hit for power if he gets the playing time. The other guys available at this price were Gaby Sanchez and Todd Helton. Either could be better, but neither could be much better.
Dee Gordon ($9, $8) As spring training winds down it looks like Gordon could end up marginalized despite Hanley Ramirez’s injury. My thought was that in 100 AB in the next month or so Gordon could steal 15 bases, but I paid too much given his shortcomings as a hitter and the possibility he’ll end up in Triple-A later this week. My fingers are crossed to ward off buyer’s remorse.
Jonathan Broxton ($5, $5) On my sheet I still had Broxton down at $10, his pre-Aroldys Chapman-as-closer price, but I didn’t pay up here out of confusion. He was my last buy and I had $5 left. He surely would have cost $3 if I hadn’t nominated at $6 (whoops, tiny print on the spreadsheet, adjusted down a buck) and spent my last $5. He was the best available pitching choice at that point by far, as a Closer in Waiting.
Kyuji Fujikawa ($9, $8) If I had bought Alfonso Soriano, who I dropped out too soon on because I wanted Carlos Quentin who was then bid out of my price range, I wouldn’t have had money for Fujikawa. But I did. I actually preferred Steve Cishek, but when he was bid up to his price I had to shift my sights to Fujikawa. Chris Liss spent $8 on Marmol (and bid $7 on Fujikawa, saying one of us is going to be glad he couldn’t bid more or didn’t have to). Given the situation, I’m fine with this, but it is no discount and is certainly risky. And I would have preferred Michael Fiers, who went for $7 (but might have gone higher because Derek Carty had the scratch at that point), but decided to get it settled earlier.
Drew Storen ($6, $2) Again, in the endgame the expected bid price doesn’t mean much. But Storen throws strikeouts and has a history as a closer, making him the Closer in Waiting (and likely to vulture a few as well).
THE FUNGIBLE
Daniel Descalso ($4, $3) I wanted Jordany Valdespin or Donovan Solano, but Valdespin’s price spiraled and when Descalso was nominated before Solano I pounced rather than being shut out. That’s how weak second base is. When Solano went for $2 I was full of regrets and remorse. Still am.
Tyler Moore ($2, $2) He was the best power threat (tee hee) on board at this point in the draft, with no clear path for any playing time at all except as DH during interleague.
Chris Capuano ($1, $1) Coming off a fine year, but lacking a clear role in the Dodgers rotation, let’s call him Best Available Arm and hope some team in a good ballpark that needs a pitcher trades for him.
THE RESERVES
Gregg Dobbs ($3, reserve) Because T’Arnaud is starting in the minors, and I drafted Torrealba, his replacement, into my utility slot, I wanted the best available hitter for some power with a big league job to fill that hole. That’s Dobbs, probably, which isn’t saying a lot. Can’t have too many Marlins.
Kolton Wong (minors, reserve) If he’s called up he’ll have more value than Daniel Descalso fer sure.
Alex Castellanos ($2, reserve) I was going for the best young hitter who might make an opening day team, looking for offensive options.
Freddie Galvis ($1, reserve) When I saw the Phillies play in spring training, Freddie led off the game with a sharp single to left field that he turned into a double. The crowd of Phillies phans went crazy. It turns out they love him after seeing him play sort of regularly last year. I was looking for another shot at 2B.
FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE (a conclusion)
When a league plays the game as tightly as this one does your options are limited. I’d targeted Domonic Brown after seeing him play in spring training, but his success meant everyone knew what I knew, and Phil Hertz bumped him a buck or two past my price. Early on I might have pushed, but at that point my budget was stretched.
Mike Gianella had the most interesting draft, spending just $34 on pithcing. The problem with that is that his pitching isn’t very good, but he does have a lot of hitters at decent prices. He’s got talent, now he needs to rearrange it.
Lenny Melnick and Phil Hertz were the reason I stopped targeting guys. They both have their buys, and aren’t afraid to push their budgets to get them. When you collide you usually lose, one way or the other. I’d hoped to pick off Julio Teheran for a few bucks, but Phil took him all the way to $8. Playing agnostically, a phrase I think originates with Liss, let’s you find the bargains where they fall. For Gianella that meant on offense. For me, I worked to find them on both sides of the aisle.
The danger is that I will confuse bargains for my overreaches. That may be what happened with Dee Gordon, D’Arnaud and Adams, or those could each turn out to be a robust embrace of risk that pays off. I’m looking forward to finding out.
Rotoman on Baseballhq Radio!
Patrick Davitt invited me on to talk about Tout Wars and the Fantasy Baseball Guide and picks and pans (did I really diss Jordan Zimmerman, for no apparent reason except the, um, formula?). You can hear it here. Thanks for having me on Patrick.
Who Walks Most?
Tout Wars, you may have heard, is moving it’s Mixed Leagues to On Base Percentage this year, rather than that old standby category Batting Average. The reason, as described here, is because OBP measures a player’s ability to draw walks, which is a valuable baseball skill that the traditional fantasy stats undervalue.
Some Tout Warriors are arguing that OBP is a baseball metric that measures better baseball players, but that using it in the fantasy game will break the delicate balance of fantasy baseball’s categorical imperatives. Steve Gardner, in USA Today, summarized: “Dissenters pointed out that eliminating batting average gives far too much weight to sluggers, many of whom have higher than normal walk rates, when those power hitters already get additional credit in runs and RBI for every home run they hit.”
My first response was fear that this was true. That the guys whose value would jump most were already valuable guys. That wasn’t why we’d changed the rule. But the fact is that some players in every strata of the game, from homer hitters to speed merchants, show an ability to walk, while others with those same talents don’t show that ability. The adoption of the OBP rule was intended to value home run hitters who walked more than home run hitters who didn’t walk. It was intended to value stolen base guys who walked more than those who didn’t walk. It was intended to value guys who hit for a high average who walked more than those who hit for high average who didn’t. The bottom line was, walks are a valuable skill that fantasy baseball has valued only peripherally, and as I noted here the other day in the Derek Carty is Absolutely Right post: By giving up an at-bat when taking a walk, a player hurts his fantasy value overall while often improving his real baseball team. Guys who walk get fewer chances to homer, fewer changes to drive in runs, and can even end up with a low batting average while their high on base percentage helps their team win games.
My second response was to see if this claim that the guys who would be helped most actually were the supposedly already-overvalued home run hitters. Here are the top 25 hitters with 250 or more AB with the highest walk rate in 2012. These are the guys whose value would be most improved by using OBP rather than BA (in parens 2012 PA/HR):
- Joey Votto (475/14)
Adam Dunn (649/41)
John Jaso (361/10)
Chris Carter (260/16)
Dan Uggla (630/19)
Carlos Santana (609/18)
Jose Bautista (399/27)
David Ortiz (383/23)
Ben Zobrist (668/20)
Carlos Pena (600/19)
Bobby Abreu (257/3)
Alex Avila (434/9)
Joe Mauer (641/10)
Todd Helton (283/7)
Mark Reynolds (538/23)
Mike Napoli (417/24)
Jonny Gomes (333/18)
Edwin Encarnacion (644/42)
AJ Ellis (505/13)
Dexter Fowler (530/13)
Chris Snyder (258/7)
Miguel Montero (573/15)
Chipper Jones (448/14)
Josh Willingham (615/35)
Chase Headley (699/31)
There are a few sluggers on that list, many guys who hit home runs, but certainly not only the best home run hitters. Many of these are guys whose baseball creds are mocked by fantasy players, because they don’t hit for big power and have bad batting averages. Why do they even have jobs, the neophyte wonders? Because getting on base is a valued skill. It has real value that fantasy leagues that don’t use OBP aren’t capturing. It’s also a skill that a player like Joey Votto has when his power deserts him because of injury.
So, just for giggles, who are the guys with the lowest walk rate? Who will get hurt most by the change? Let’s go 10 deep:
- Miguel Olivo (323/12)
Alexei Ramirez (621/9)
Pedro Ciriaco (272/2)
Luis Cruz (296/6)
Josh Rutledge (291/8)
Delmon Young (608/18)
Ichiro Suzuki (663/9)
Josh Harrison (276/3)
Willie Bloomquist (338/0)
Omar Infante (588/12)
It’s true, not as many sluggers here. And a lot of marginal offensive talents, or special talents (Ichiro) whose ability to hit for BA while not taking bases on balls should be noted, not applauded, by fantasy players. Welcome OBP!
(illustration adopted from bluejayhunter.com)
Derek Carty is Absolutely Right! Except that he’s wrong.
Todd Zola ran a Roundtable I participated in over at KFFL this week, about Tout Wars move to on base percentage instead of batting average as a category in the Mixed league this year. The support of the merry knights was fairly strong, which surprised me. We decided to ease into OBP in mixed only because we’d disrupted the AL and NL leagues last year introducing the Swingman.
Now, Derek Carty has laid out an argument against using OBP, at his blog.
I agree with him 110 percent that the object of the fantasy game is not to mimic the real game. The fantasy game is derivative of a real world game, but it has it’s own very distinct rules and strategies and calls on totally different skills to play. For me this is a major point of the thing. When I was young I played baseball on the diamond. If I wanted to keep playing that game I’d play it, or a computer version of it. To my mind the genius of the fantasy game was the establishment of eight categories that collect data about the skills and roles of players, allowing one to create a great or crappy team based on one’s ability to collect the categories efficiently. I begrudge the move to ten cats, we don’t really need more than that, and I have no desire to play with more (though many people do).
As Derek points out, these basic categories are not the ones that best represent a player’s skills. What I want to point out is that these trad cats collect players with a variety of talents into a team that can compete against other teams, ensuring that diversity and scarcity are valued. But that doesn’t mean these cats can’t be improved, and I think the obvious improvement we’ve been waiting for has been adopting OBP instead of BA. There are two reasons for this:
1) Taking a walk is a fundamental skill, and the only ways the original roto categories valued walks was in runs scored (guys on base more score more) and stolen base opportunities. So, walks weren’t nothing, but they weren’t much either. OBP gives real value to hitters whose game involves getting on base more, at the expense of less-talented hitters who don’t take walks.
2) When fantasy leagues use BA as a category, a player who takes a walk can help his major league team and hurt his minor league team. Every BB in standard roto is a miss, a lost chance to get a hit or (usually) drive in a run or hit a home run. In standard fantasy, if you draft a team of guys who walk a lot you’ll lose the at-bats race, and often (though not necessarily) lag in the counting categories. Shouldn’t fantasy value the better hitter more if it can?
I think OBP is an obvious improvement over BA, and maybe the knights of the roundtable did too because many of them have played in the XFL, which adopted OBP 11 seasons ago. The differences aren’t huge, but suddenly the .255 hitter with a .380 OBP becomes the stud he is in real life and it feels right. That’s the way it should be.
Tout Wars NL Draft: The Askrotoman Team
Ah, the best laid plans.
I really thought I had a shot at buying the team. No problem on Posey, Aramis Ramirez, Stephen Strasburg and the young and blooming starting pitchers, but either I didn’t play the auction right on Ian Stewart, Aaron Hill, Willie Bloomquist, and Jordan Schafer, or the dynamics of this particular auction doomed me.
What I know for sure is that Nate Ravitz spent a lot of money early and then repeatedly tried to pick off guys off the lower auction tiers by surprise, and thus I lost Jesus Guzman.
I thought I had Loney at my price for him, but then Phil Hertz blurted $17 and I let him go. Phil didn’t love the purchase. I would have been happy at $16.
And that was the point of this exercise. To try to identify soft spots and get players who play at prices below par. The problem was that I lost Hunter Pence to Lenny Melnick, who adopted a My Guys at Any Price approach. So I ended up with Drew Stubbs and Jason Heyward rather than Pence and Jose Tabata.
Getting Ready for Tout Wars: What I’m Going to Do.
I am participating in Tout Wars NL auction this Sunday. I think it’s my 13th NL draft and I’m sorry to say that I’ve never won. I’ve finished second once, fourth once and fifth five times. I’ve had a few very bad years, too, usually because of injuries, though it is fair to say that the good years were at least in part because of lack of injuries.
Tout Wars drafts are the toughest. The pace is unrelenting. Keeping up on the live blog, which you’ll find during the auctions on Saturday and Sunday at toutwars.com, is tough. But the pace actually makes the auction fun. It is go, go, go, time only for action, when your moment comes. And then you are brushed aside, like a newspaper in a strong wind, and the room is onto something new, and maybe you are, too.