Let’s continue reviewing last year’s teams to see if there are any global lessons to be learned, both positive and negative, and to see where are our missteps were. Previously I covered the results in NL LABR, today let’s hit up AL Tout Wars. Going into this draft, I had more focus and a better sense of my game plan – the oh-so edgy, revolutionary plan of building an offense around Mike Trout. In Tout Wars, as with most “only” leagues, my best teams have been strong offensively, and my worst teams have been when I cut corners there. I think that the equation is different in mixed leagues, where most often the bats are plentiful – at the very least, the playing time is – and elite pitching is more at a premium.
I was able to accomplish that at Tout, though I had to pay very close to my projected price on Trout, and I could have spent even a little bit more to bully the hitting categories. Still, at $189/$260, that’s over 72% of my budget allocated towards the hitting categories.
Did it work? As Gene McCaffrey (and Scott Pianowski) often says, any plan can work, but it has to have the right players. As with NL LABR, I finished in a distant fourth place, this time behind the dynamic duo of Rick Wolf and Glenn Colton. The difference was that the entire league finished distantly behind them – they ran away with a 21-point margin over second place. Full results after the jump, where we can break down whether player selection or general strategy was the greater shortcoming.
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