Tag Archives: American League

2019 AL Tout Wars Recap

Uncategorized, , , ,

This past weekend I made my 19th annual pilgrimage to Tout Wars.

For the second straight year, it was a bittersweet event after Steve Moyer’s passing last we lost my friend and former colleague back in my Mastersball.com days, Lawr Michaels. I met Lawr at the Arizona Fall League in 2000 and in 2001 we both participated in our first Tout Wars event in Steve Moyer’s basement, in Bethlehem, PA. I always looked forward to seeing him and catching up with him at events and certainly drafting against him, talking about our families, discussing our Strat league and music. His presence was missed even more so after having sat next to him at last year’s auction as we chatted throughout it.

——-
Ok, you came here for what, why, and the how of what I did. Overall, I am reasonably pleased with the results.

Pre-Draft Strategy:  After finishing last season, I am keen to redeem myself. To that end I budgeted $180 to $190 on hitting with the remainder on pitching with the idea that I would anchor my staff with an ace and closer and to draft a corps of hitters that were balanced in categories across the board. Mostly I just wanted to be patient and strike wherever I felt bargains were to be found. I’ve found in recent years that prices on players have been going higher than bid price more frequently and that even more discipline is required to stay true to your game plan. I also, per usual, but budgeted out my roster slots with the expectation that they would change and vary depending on where I could unearth value.

Draft Day Results: (Full Draft Day rosters can be found here.)

C: Mike Zunino $8
C: Jonathan LuCroy $7
1B: Edwin Encarnacion $24
2B: Dee Gordon $21
3B: Carlos Santana $25
SS: Jonathan Schoop $15
CI: Albert Pujols $5
MI: D.J. LeMahieu $9
OF: Aaron Hicks $23, Brett Gardner $15, Jacoby Jones $2, Willie Calhoun $1
UT: Nelson Cruz $25
Swing: Steve Pearce $3

Starters: Justin Verlander $36, Tyler Skaggs $9, CC. Sabathia $3, Mike Minor $7, Jamie Barria $2, Gio Gonazalez $1, Adam Ottavino $2, Blaine Hardy $3.

The Rundown
I didn’t purchase any players until the 21st player – Justin Verlander was nominated, rostering him at $36 which I felt was right around value. In retrospect, I could be have been more aggressive with my bids on Cole or Kluber who went for $35 and $34 respectively earlier and saved myself a $1 or two if I got to those numbers first, but on the other hand pitchers below this tier ended up being pushed higher than expected with both Ian Snell and Trevor Bauer hitting $30 and Jose Berrios hitting $25.

Closers: The upshot of spending $36 on Verlander backed me off a bit on going over $20 on a closer, though, spending $14 on Cody Allen. No closer is what I would define “a rock of stability” and Allen heads into the season as the Angel’s closer though I regret not having then highlighted $3 or so to target Buttrey later to lock down the save situation there. Allen, at least, has saved no fewer than 24 games the last five seasons and is still posting strikeouts well more than 10 per nine innings pitched. His walk rates, however, were well out of context with the rest of his career. Provided there is no hidden injury, I am banking on him rebounding to his career norms and mid 3’s walk-rates. If that happens, 30 to 35 saves is very attainable. The only other reliever I selected was Adam Ottavino who could have been a closer had he chosen to sign with a team looking for one, but instead opted to join the Yankees to win and is now quite some ways down on the pecking order despite his talents. He could still get a few saves, but I am mostly here for the extra strikeouts and good ratios. Blaine Hardy meanwhile will start the year in relief but was effective as a starter and I selected him with the potential to pick up innings in a swing capacity.

Catchers: I came in to this draft budgeting $5 and $3 for my two catchers., but once the early push for catchers and spending was over, they started to fall at reasonable prices, and I rerouted $8 to Grab Mike Zunino who I would’ve gone as high as $10 at the time on and Jonathan LuCroy at $8. While it is difficult to get excited about either player, I do not have two empty roster slots thought I’d be nice if either of these two gentlemen would make more consistent contact or draw a few more walks.

The Sweet Spot: At some point in every auction I tend to find a spot that seems me throw down quite a bit of cash in a short period of time. It comes as I start to find some bargains and players I have been waiting to be nominated finally come up. This happened between nomination 73 and 78 4 of the six players nominated. By this point I had decided that Edwin Encarnacion and Carlos Santana would be my 1B/3B combination and got them within moments of each other. Encarnacion I felt was a several dollar bargain, so it let me go a $1 or so over what I thought I wanted on Santana to secure the duo which I believe at the time were the last of the $20+ rated corner players available at the time. I chased John Hicks within that spot but couldn’t bring myself to go $7 on a part time player. I also grabbed Tyler Skaggs at $9 (valued around $11) and Aaron Hicks at $23 (valued around at $25). Both are players who enjoyed breakout seasons last year with Skaggs having an elevated BABIP despite superior strikeout and control skills and improvement to make him a $15 or more pitcher next year could be in the works. Meanwhile, always blessed with good OBP skills, stayed healthy and showed off his five-tools even though the 20-20 season once projected of him is no longer going to happen.

Thoughts on Dee Gordon
I went on air on SXM Fantasy Sports Radio while on break from the draft and thankfully I did as the draft board said I bought Justin Verlander at $38 and I got that corrected before running into issues in the end game. I also got heavily quizzed about Dee Gordon who I had just bought at $21 despite his OBP struggles the previous season. I put my faith once again in career context in this case. Gordon is still an elite base runner who puts the ball in play frequently, but his 1.5% walk rate was less than half his career average and he’s typically in the mid three-percent range. When he is healthy, his BABIP which was .304 last year, is typically in the .340 to .350 range. If he does indeed bat ninth, he’ll see fewer plate appearances, but 30-plus stolen bases are still within his capabilities.

Other Hitters: Tout Wars rules allow players to qualify at positions if they play at 15 or more games. I had roughly around $15 to budget for my shortstop slot with having taken D.J. LeMahieu for my middle infield spot already at $9, so I was pleased to include Jonathan Schoop in my shortstop hunt and hopefully a fourth year straight of 20-plus runs and another player whose BABIP was suppressed compared to his career norms (.261 compared to .296 career) who could bounce back given no other significant changes in hitting skills/stats from his previous seasons. Willie Calhoun and JacCoby Jones were both low-cost options on players with some upside. While Calhoun has no spot to play and will star the year in Triple-A, he’s just an injury away form a starting job. Jones, meanwhile, will be the Tiger’s opening day centerfielder. The 26-year old lacks plate discipline, but power/speed skills that should justify the price tag alone, but also remains fungible given the investment.

Pitching Bargains Begin to Fall

After the initial high-pricing of the pitching market, the prices on some pitchers began to come back to earth as I was particularly pleased to purchase Minor at $7 and Jamie Barria at $2 who I had pre-draft values of $12 and $6 on. Minor will once again be in the Rangers rotation showing swing and miss skills as well as above average control. His fly-ball ways in Arlington, however, hold him back from getting to the next level. Barria will be a full-season member of Angel’s rotation this year. Some regression will happen given his 82% left-on-base rate, but he still has inning eater potential.

Reserve Rounds:
Mark Canha – He’ll be in a backup role for the A’s. Drafted to serve as a short-term Willie Calhoun replacement until someone better comes along though to be fair Canha performed quite adequate in a part-time role with 17 homers and a .328 OBP for the A’s last year and has the skills for a repeat or better if called into service again.

Speaking of something better, I am hoping that Alex Kirilloff is one of those things. One of the top outfield prospects in baseball, Kirilloff is a left-handed hitter who can already hit for power and for average at just 21 years of age. He’ll begin the year in Double-A. He’s the type of talent that could move to the Majors if he does his part and his team is contending and looking for some extra fire power.

I got by far the most grumbles for my drafting of Clay Buchholz. He’ll start the season in extended spring training and is with an organization in need of his talents. I am not expecting last year’s results, but someone I can swap into the rotation to that could allow me to play whoever is the hot hand.

My final selection was Sean Murphy. Perhaps the best upper-level catching prospect now with Danny Jansen in a full-time job, I thought it was wise to grab Murphy given the state of catching in the American League. His plus glove and arm will get him to the big leauges, but he also features good contact making skills and 15 to 20+ raw homerun power potential. Not expecting that this season, but a good start at AAA could have him push Nick Hundley out of the job.

To wrap things up I think I have a very competitive, solid core of players. My lineup mostly consists of proven veterans and my pitching is likewise similarly anchored that should keep me anchored. Last year’s squad was not nearly as balanced statistically and incorporated a much higher level of risk. This year, my odds of being competitive and challenging for a possible title I believe are much better.

AL Tout Wars 2018 Draft Recap

Expert League, Projections, , , ,

This past weekend I made my 18th annual pilgrimage to participate in Tout Wars. The word pilgrimage seems appropriate as attending a fantasy baseball auction in person is probably as close as I often get to have a religious calling.

This year the experience was bittersweet due to the untimely passing of Steve Moyer. My first Tout Wars experience took place in his basement in Bethlehem, PA in March 2001. That event helped solidify many friendships which continue to the present day. I remember our dinner conversation fondly, where a group of us discussed Steve’s local extremely deep dynasty league. As many noted it was a strange experience not having Steve there going through his sheets of $1 endgame players and not having him correcting me on my butchery of player name pronunciations. I’ll miss his dry wit and the no bullshit way he always expressed himself. The Steve Moyer Memorial Home Run is being administered by Peter Kreutzer and Jeff Erickson to support his children.

This year’s event was held at a new venue – Richmond County Bank Ballpark, home of the New York Penn League (Rookie Ball) New York Yankees affiliate.

Pre-Draft Strategy:  After several years of moving towards a more-balanced hitting/pitching split, I opted to go back to my old ways with a more hitter heavy split of 195/65. On the pitching side of things, I opted to move away from my usual “ace anchor” approach and decided to spend my money on starters with upside in the middle teens to single digits range and to add a single closer. For the hitters, I focused mostly on value and used my spreadsheet to target each slot with a $ amount that I could easily shuffle on the fly as I purchased players.  I decided to try one new thing this year. In addition to my usual budgeting spreadsheet and tier-pricing sheet, I added a third party online software which I felt made it easy to look up players and track draft spending.

Draft Day: (Draft Day rosters can be found here.) So how’d it go? Well, let’s start with the positives. I drafted the pitching staff I set out to draft, though was subject to many jokes about its youth throughout its acquisition. I acquired Michael Fulmer for his “veteran presence”.  

In order of purchase: (Value in parentheses)
Jose Berrios $15
A.J. Puk $2
Dylan Bundy $11
Lucas Giolito $6
Michael Fulmer $9
Alex Colome $11
Danny Duffy $9
David Robertson $3
Seung Hwan Oh $1

As many of these players do not have long established baselines for performance at the MLB Level, projections of my pitching staff tend to vary quite a bit along the range from optimistic to highly skeptical.  This is not surprising at all. My strategy was to embrace skill and talent and to take a chance on that with the understanding that because of the uncertainty surrounding these pitchers, few if any, would go for full value and create an opportunity for s good return on the investment. Now it ’s time to cross my fingers, hope for good health and watch and see if they could build on the positives they have shown thus far in their young careers.

I consider every pitcher here a bargain, with the exception of Berrios who I bought at projected value and Puk who was a speculative play on the basis (and hope) that he might get called up to the Majors more quickly than expected depending on what goes on with the A’s MLB pitching staff and his own progress through Triple-A. I went over my budget by $2 to obtain Robertson in the end game at a bargain and speculative saves play. I originally planned to add no middle relievers and instead rack up as many innings as possible, but given what was available on the market, I went after value instead. In the reserve round, I was pleased to pick up J.C Ramirez as a possible source of innings as I have him valued at around $3. Though I believe Andrew Cashner owed his success to smoke and minors last year, I too a chance on him in the reserve round on the off chance that his swing and miss skills might return given and him worthy of activating. For now, he will stay firmly ensconced on the reserve roster.

So what went wrong? Well, things did not go wrong so much as resources got mis-budgeted and misallocated. I think I was done in by too much info in too small a space and should have utilized my one spreadsheet/one 11×17 sheet of paper approach instead. The upshot was thinking I still had more money in my hitting budget left than I did. I ended up reallocating dollars to additional $20-range players that should have been more evenly distributed along the rest of my hitting roster. The end result was yes, I still spent $193 on hitting, right around target. However, since I had accidentally distributed towards $20 players, I went after what was left on my desired players in that value range and ended up with a less balanced offense statistically than I had in mind. In other words, the value was good; the distribution will necessitate me being an active trader however and I’ve drafted a not quite-stars and scrubs offense.

Yan Gomes         $4
Bruce Maxwell   $1
Logan Morrison $14
Matt Chapman   $16
Mike Napoli        $1
Whit Merrifield  $21
Jean Segura        $22
Elvis Andrus        $24
Kevin Kiermaier $20
Bradley Zimmer $22
Colby Rasmus     $1
Jon Jay                 $1
Nelson Cruz        $26
Ian Kinsler           $20

I look at this roster and see a competitive team and one with leverage to deal.  My own projections, as well as others’, have shown it crushing in stolen bases, albeit well beyond the point necessary to achieve first in that category. On the other hand it’s somewhat deficient in power and overall in need of improvement and balance.

Immediately following the conclusion of the reserve round, which also included prospects with potential to get called up such as Kyle Tucker and Michael Chavis, I was being approached for deals by multiple league members for speed. Lawr Michaels and I on Monday quickly seized upon a deal that jumped off the page to both of us that had us exchange Jean Segura for Jonathan Schoop.  These two players of similar overall dollar value help to balance the projected stats of our teams. The trade should not cost me first place in steals but has the potential to move me up in home runs and RBIs, so I’m satisfied with the move. Since I still have leverage in the steals category, I suspect this will only be the first of several maneuvers I make this upcoming season.

Next year, the lesson I’ve already learned is to go back to my roots and simplify.  I’m not sure I’ll go all the way back to paper and pencil, but it’s possible!

Matt Chapman Takes Over at the Hot Corner

Diamond Exchange, Prospects, Transaction Analysis, , , , , ,

So, the A’s have decided to cut bait on off-season signee Trevor Plouffe as he struggled to produce and are ready to hand off the job to Matt Chapman. The move, from the beginning, was intended to serve as a stop-gap move, but the A’s perhaps didn’t expect it to the end this early and perhaps hoped Plouffe would at least play well enough to draw trade interest in mid-season. That didn’t happen so they jettisoned his remaining salary as a sunk cost.

So, Chapman will be a primary FAAB or waiver target in most league formats as soon as he becomes available depending on whether you play in weekly or daily play. The first thing you need to know is “yes, he is going to hurt your batting average” if you play in a standard 5×5 or other batting average related leagues. The righty has struggled to his keep his strikeout rate under 30% at the Double-A and Triple-A levels and is already an established .250s hitter in the minors. To expect improvement in that area, barring a change in approach is unlikely and it is entirely possible that he could struggle as much as his predecessor.

On the upside, Chapman at least has power upside, slugging over .500 with isolated power’s over .200 for much of his minor league career. His patience and all or nothing approach at least also serve to keep his OBP respectable and somewhat valuable even if he hits in the .210s to .220s in OBP based leagues. Owners of Oakland pitchers will be happy as well as he should represent an improvement in defense over Plouffe. Chapman has been long well regarded for his throwing arm, agility, and range. Like most all or nothing power hitters, however, Chapman is not a significant threat on the base paths.

If available in most AL-only leagues, starters do not come along every day so you will likely need to open your FAAB budget a bit to acquire him, despite the risk of potential failure he carries. He is unlikely to be available in AL-only keeper or dynasty leagues with minor league drafts, but mixed leaguers may be afforded the luxury of waiting and seeing depending upon the depth of the corner infield market and free agent pool of your league.