The Saber's Edge: Navigating a Unique Tout League

Last weekend I participated in Tout Wars' new H2H auction league with a live draft at the SiriusXM studios in New York City. The league has a new set of rules each year, and this year's settings were unique to say the least. As with any non-standard league, small rule changes can really change how a person approaches an auction/draft. With this auction, the one small category change was using K/9 instead of total strikeouts. I overestimated the change's effect on the auction, but feel I think the correct adjustment.

Let me start with the context of the league. The full rules are available here in the Tout Wars constitution, but here is a quick summary.

• 12 teams

• Weekly matchups with weekly lineup changes

• Pitching categories: W+QS, K/9, WHIP, ERA, net saves

• 9 pitchers with no RP or SP designation

• Hitting categories: OBP, RBI, runs, HR, net steals

• 14 hitters: 2 C, 1 1B, 1 2B, 1 SS, 1 3B, 5 OF, 1 MI, 1 CI, 1 UT

• In each of the 22 weekly scoring periods, six wins are handed out. Two wins for winning three or more pitching categories. Two wins for winning three or more hitting categories. Two wins for the most wins in all 10 categories. If there is a tie, wins are split.

• Also for scoring, there are three roto contests: first half, second half and full season. The first-place team in each roto season will get 11 Wins with the second-place team getting 10 Wins and so on down to zero wins for last place. For the half seasons, the minimum innings pitched is 475; 950 minimum for the whole season. If these levels aren't reached, the owners finish last in each of ERA, WHIP and K/9.

• In total, there are 22 weekly matchup generating a possible 132 wins (80 percent) and the roto part generating 33 wins (20 percent).

My general plan

The above rules were a little overwhelming at first, but I just needed to break down the data into segments I could use. First, I decided to concentrate on winning the weekly matchups, which has 80 percent of the points available. I am just going to have to roll with the league's roto aspect and hope to finish near the middle. Next, I decided to set a dollar split of 70 percent on hitters and 30 percent on pitchers. Let me start with how I set my hitter values.

Hitting

With hitting (and pitching) I like to normally use a Standings Gain Points approach, but this method goes out the window in head-to-head leagues. Since I was concentrating on winning just three of the categories, I decided to concentrate on three categories: home runs, RBI and runs, and take value when the auction prices were low. I didn't plan on completely blowing off steals and on-base percentage, but if I lost them, oh well.
To come up with auction values, I decided to go with the wisdom-of-the-crowd approach when generating the hitter auction values. I ran the auction calculators from ESPN, FanGraphs and here at RotoWire. I averaged the three values to get a composite value I used.

Pitching

For pitching, the three rate categories really threw a wrinkle into the auction. I could see a person completely ignoring starting pitching and just go for the wins in the head-to-head portion with K/9, WHIP, ERA and saves by just getting closers. These teams could also spend more on hitting. I decided the possible last-place finish in the Roto portion wasn't worth it. Instead, I aimed to get barely the required innings with a few stud starters and the rest being relief pitchers. I figured I would aim for the minimum innings pitched with three (3*200 (IP for a SP) + 6*60 (IP for a RP) = 960 IP) or four (4*200 (IP for a SP) + 5*60 (IP for a RP) = 1,100 IP) starters. I will go with three and, if need be, increase my number to four if my innings are falling behind. With this approach, I will be after the top starters and then find relief pitchers with good rate stats. Also, I figured I could aim for relief pitchers with the chance of closing sometime during this season to get some saves.

Results

Here is my team for reference and then I will go over the good and bad points.

Welington Castillo, C: 1
J.T. Realmuto, C: 2
Lucas Duda, 1B: 10
Matt Carpenter, 3B: 21
Mark Trumbo, CI: 2
Brian Dozier, 2B: 15
Jung-Ho Kang, SS: 6
Dustin Pedroia, MI: 2
Jose Bautista, OF: 36
Chris Davis, OF: 30
Yoenis Cespedes, OF: 16
Christian Yelich, OF: 12
Jason Heyward, OF: 23
Steven Souza, UT: 1

Max Scherzer, P: 32
Jose Fernandez, P: 28
Will Smith, P: 6
Kyle Hendricks, P: 3
Yordano Ventura, P: 3
Jason Grilli, P: 3
Roberto Osuna, P: 2
Silvino Bracho, P: 1
Shawn Kelley, P: 1

Reserves
Jonathan Villar
Lucas Giolito
Julio Urias
Aaron Hicks
Jumbo Diaz
Ben Paulsen

What I liked.

• Overall, I am really happy with the results and my overall plan worked fine. I was able to maintain my 70-30 percent with a 69-31 percent split.

• I only overpaid for one player from my auction values, Jason Heyward. I was a little surprised he was the only one as the initial auction values had a 10 percent premium on hitters. Some auctions will just have higher hitter prices as some owners will completely dump pitching. An owner has to be willing to go the extra dollar to ensure he doesn't have ton of money at the end of the auction and no good players to buy. I usually tier my players into groups with the tier's size equal to the number of owners. I try to get one player from each grouping to make sure I am not going to leave money on the table. Heyward was in my fourth group, but I ended up spending more on him than Carpenter, whom I had rated higher.

• After the catchers seemed to be going for a premium, I like getting Realmuto and Casilla for $3 total.

• I was happy to see Villar make it to the reserve round. I didn't want to count on him to play the whole season, but he should be a nice stop gap until Kang returns and fill in when Pedroia goes on the DL.

• Paulsen will be a nice play for his home weeks, and Hicks could get some regular playing time once the rest of the Yankees head to the DL.

• I am going to hit a lot of home runs. A lot.

• It seemed to the other owners that I overpaid for Scherzer and Fernandez, but with only targeting four starting pitchers, I needed/wanted two to be studs. Each was a $10 bargain with my values. The league didn't play along and took a ton of starters.

• I got the starting pair early in the auction and it put me with only $20 to spend on the rest of my staff. Starters were going for quite a bit more than I expected and I was closed out of the top closers. I ended up with some good relief pitchers. Each one could end up closing and helping me with Saves. Diaz in the reserve round also fits into this plan.

• I like the possible innings I could get later in the season from Urias and Giolito. I don't need them to be workhorses, just 150 good innings total would be great.

What I didn't like.

• I hate, I repeat HATE, leaving money on the table. The extra money showed up when half the catcher spots needed to be filled, and I got Castilla and Realmuto for $3 total within a few auctions. I tried to go a few extra dollars to get some of the top players left on the board, but no luck. It would have been nice to get Iglesias instead of Hendricks.

• I really expected owners to not roster as many starting pitchers with only two teams going with four relief pitchers, one team going with only one and the rest somewhere in between. Some pitchers taken will be lucky to post any good rate stats. With so many more starters getting taken, I had to spend my first break digging for other starters not on my auction list.

• I am worried that my hitters are too old and I may be shuffling my roster all season dealing with players on the DL.

• With my starters, I am probably going to have to use four starters as I am worried Fernandez and Ventura may not give me 200 innings.

• I am still not 100 percent sold on Kyle Hendricks, but he will do for now.

• I should have paid the extra dollar for Hunter Strickland. His strikeouts are insane and he could end up San Francisco's closer.

Overall, I am happy with my team and ready to get playing.