Thoughts on 2011 Tout Wars Mixed League Auction (Tue 3/22/11)
Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011I had the privilege of participating in my first Tout Wars auction this past weekend as one of the 15 participants in the mixed league. Sitting in that room felt a bit like being invited to sit at the big kids’ table for the first time, and the excitement I felt was comparable to how I feel as the Christmas season approaches.
It’s a tradition of sorts for Tout Wars’ participants to post a blog entry in the days following their auction in which they share their thoughts about their team. Since it’s my first year in the league, I’m going to start my own tradition and refrain from doing that. Such a recap would be as painful for me to write as it would be for anyone else to read. If you’re interested in seeing the gory details of the 15 rosters, they’re available in this Google doc. If you’re suffering from Tout recap withdrawal and want to read others’ thoughts, they’re available via the Tout Wars’ website.
Instead, I’ll offer a few general thoughts on the proceedings. First off, as you would expect in a league like Tout, everyone in the room is extremely well-prepared. You’re not going to sneak any players past people (unless you’re defending champion Andy Behrens, who purchased Scott Baker, Anibal Sanchez, Marlon Byrd, Michael Brantley, and Jim Thome for $1 apiece). To add to the challenge your player projections are highly unlikely to be significantly more accurate than those of anyone else in the room.
So, given that, how can you still make yourself stand out from the rest of the field in a Tout Wars auction (he asks rhetorically)? There are actually a number of reasons why your roster and results may vary greatly from those of your competitors:
- Roster composition - do you focus on players’ overall fantasy value? Do you buy stats with little or no attention paid to the name that’s attached to them? Do you take a “stars and scrubs” approach (which generally works better in a mixed league than in “only” leagues), or do you try to diversify your risk by spreading money more evenly across the best available second and third-tier players at each position? Does position scarcity factor into your overall player rankings and associated fantasy values?
- Auction budget - do you follow the more-or-less standard split of $180 for hitters/$80 for pitchers, or do you plan to deviate from these norms? Do you use your league’s history as a guideline for prices, or do you rely solely on your own judgement? Do you include slots for $1 players in your budget, or do you save a bit of money earlier in the auction so that you have $2 per roster spot to spend at the end and can trump the $1 bids?
- Philosophy re: spending money - do you want to spend your money earlier in the auction on the marquee players, or do you want to exercise restraint so that you have more of a say in determining which players you purchase for your roster later in the auction? If your well-thought-out plan goes awry due to unforeseen circumstances, are you flexible enough to move to Plan B (or Plan H) on the fly, or do you stick with your original plan despite the bumps in the road?
- Auction style - how predictable are you during the auction? Do you follow a consistent pattern in your bidding (e.g. - always raising the current high bid by $1), or do you vary your bidding style from player-to-player or stage-to-stage during the auction?
- Nomination philosophy - do you nominate only the players you want, only the players you don’t want, or a mixture of the two? If you sense that one of your opponents is running low on funds and needs to buy a player at a specific position, do you nominate someone at that position in hopes they’ll overspend? If the previous nomination generated a bidding war over a specific player, do you follow by nominating a player at the same position as a consolation prize for the person who ended up with the short end of the stick in the bidding for the previous player?
- Monitoring player news - almost everyone in the room has a laptop - do you check the player news and transactions during the auction hoping to gain an edge on your opponents (or at least stay even with those who also have laptops), or do you view that as an unnecessary distraction?
So, as you can see, even in a league as competitive as the Tout Wars leagues, there are plenty of ways you can still distinguish yourself (for better or for worse) from the competition. Don’t kid yourself - many of the participants are friends, but while the auction is on, we all want to put together the best fantasy squad possible. One competitor, J.P. Kastner, summed it up beautifully: “I wish everyone else in the room could finish tied for second!”It’s said that you can’t win a fantasy baseball league during your auction, but you can certainly lose it make things more challenging for yourself once the actual season begins if you have a less-than-stellar auction. Of course, there’s some good fortune involved - I doubt any of our rosters could withstand the loss of a star player or two for the season and still have a good shot at capturing the championship.Now comes the fun part. Owners will spend time assessing the strengths and weaknesses of each roster, including their own. Once you determine your roster’s weaknesses you have several choices:
- Stand pat and hope you were overly pessimistic in assessing your roster (not likely).
- Propose trades to other owners whose strengths match up nicely with your weaknesses, and vice versa (difficult to do in this league - no one wants to get “taken” publicly).
- Work the free agent pool with the $100 Free Agent Acquisition Budget (FAAB) we’re each given. In a league like this it’s better to shoot first and ask questions later (e.g. - Jose Bautista in 2010). I’m guessing that once they participate in Tout Wars most owners also start paying more attention to minor league players than they did previously.
I’ve promised myself that I’m going to enjoy my first year in Tout Wars. Like everyone else, I’d love to win, but I also realize that it’s quite an honor just to be invited to sit with the big kids. Among the roughly 10 million fantasy baseball players in the US, I’m sure many would happily trade places with me in order to have the opportunity to match wits with the best-know experts in the fantasy baseball industry.I’m sure I’ll make some mistakes along the way, but most importantly, hopefully 2011 is the year that I finally learn to spell Ryan Madsen’s Madson’s name correctly.The SherpaFantasy Baseball SherpaThe Fantasy Baseball Sherpa’s BlogThe Fantasy Baseball Sherpa’s fanpage on Facebook@fantasy_sherpa on Twitter