AL Tout Wars Team - How I Dominated Jeff Erickson and Everyone Else

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Published on March 26, 2017

On Saturday, we had our annual Tout Wars auction, this year in Rock & Reilly's bar in midtown Manhattan. It's a basic 12-team AL-only, 5 x 5 format with some odd rule quirks. The main one is we use OBP instead of batting average, and the smaller one is instead of a fifth OF, there's a second utility spot we call a "swing man," and that swing player can be a hitter or a pitcher.

Here are the results:

Pos	Liss	$	Podhorzer	$	Wolf	$	Erickson	$	Collette	$	DiFino	$
C	Sisco	1	Zunino	11	Lucroy	25	Martin	17	Narvaez	1	Gomes	7
C	Vazquez	1	Soto	1	Ramos	5	Avila	2	Chirinos	1	D.Norris	6
1B	C.Davis	28	Mauer	12	Abreu	25	Hosmer	22	H.Ramirez	24	Park	6
3B	Cuthbert	1	Headley	10	Moosetacos	16	Donaldson	38	Valencia	11	Castellanos	19
CI	Mi.Cabrera	34	Bird	12	Vogelbach	1	Healy	10	Gurriel	8	Beltre	25
2B	Dozier	30	Saladino	7	Cano	31	Schoop	15	Altuve	45	Pearce	11
SS	Correa	32	Lindor	28	J.Polanco	10	Simmons	8	Andrus	23	J.Igesias	3
MI	Mondesi	3	M.Duffy (TB)	4	Pedroia	22	Colon	1	Beckham	2	Profar	11
OF	Mazara	17	Trout	47	Betts	40	Revere	6	Cruz	30	Buxton	21
OF	Moss	10	R.Davis	17	Pillar	12	Springer	29	Reddick	13	Sano	22
OF	M.Upton	9	Choo	16	L.Martin	14	Calhoun	19	Dickerson	13	Haniger	11
OF	Brantley	8	Judge	3	E.Rosario	6	Ellsbury	16	S.Smith	11	Soler	11
UT	A.J. Reed	2	Holliday	14	Asche	1	Carter	5	Beltran	10	DeShields	5
SW	Grossman	2	M.Joyce	6	C.Green	1	Aoki	1	Maybin	7	A.Garcia	3
P	Verlander	24	F.Hernandez	16	Darvish	28	Cotton	9	Stroman	16	Tanaka	23
P	Gausman	13	D.Price	13	E.Rodriguez	4	Piñata	13	Bauer	5	Bundy	8
P	Keuchel	13	Karns	4	D.Norris	5	Quintana	17	Snell	6	Odorizzi	12
P	McCullers	9	Shoemaker	11	Gregerson	1	Pomeranz	4	Triggs	4	Berrios	5
P	Kennedy	8	Skaggs	3	Hendriks	1	Tomlin	2	Andriese	3	Richards	8
P	Tillman	2	Severino	2	Madson	9	W.Harris	1	Devenski	5	N.Jones	5
P	M.Gonzalez	1	M.Bush	2	Dull	1	Pressly	2	Brach	2	Strahm	7
P	Vargas	1	Doolittle	3	Kela	1	Colome	16	J.Kelly	2	K-Rod	14
P	Bedrosian	11	Kimbrel	18	M.Feliz	1	Kintzler	7	Allen	18	Robertson	16
R	Marisnick		A.Hicks		Ma.Perez		Nolasco		De Leon		Gallo
R	Tellez		Perkins		Ad.Mejia		Orlando		Ja.Jones		Shields
R	Y.Diaz		T.Wood		A.Bailey		D.Barney		Hahn		L.Garcia
R	J.Mont.		Romine		G.Torres		B.Burns		Chargois		Lawrie

Pos	Davitt	$	Schechter	$	Leibowitz	$	Trachtman	$	Moyer	$	Michaels	$
C	Vogt	12	Castro	5	Gattis	16	B.McCann	16	Sanchez	25	Joseph	1
C	Castillo	13	J.McCann	5	R.Perez	2	Perez	15	Maldonado	1	Leon	3
1B	Encarnacion	31	Pujols	21	Cron	12	L.Morrison	2	Moreland	4	C.Santana	26
3B	J.Ramirez	23	Frazier	27	Bregman	20	Moncada	10	Longoria	20	Plouffe	10
CI	Napoli	12	Y.Escobar	6	Kung Fu Panda	7	P.Alvarez	6	Seager	24	Alonso	4
2B	Kinsler	24	Merrifield	1	Kipnis	16	Odor	26	Segura	26	Travis	15
SS	T.Anderson	21	Tulowitzki	16	Gregorius	6	Semien	18	Bogaerts	28	A.Escobar	11
MI	Espinosa	10	Rosales	1	J.Lowrie	2	S.Castro	16	Machado	35	B.Miller	19
OF	A.Gordon	15	Bradley	20	Bautista	26	Benintendi	19	Ad.Jones	21	Kiermaier	19
OF	Tilson	2	Gardner	16	Dyson	17	J.Upton	23	J.Martinez	21	K.Davis	23
OF	J.Marte	1	Trumbo	20	C.Gomez	19	M.Smith	5	Swihart	1	Kepler	17
OF	Chisenhall	1	Me.Cabrera	15	Souza	9	Rasmus	3	Heredia	1	Naquin	10
UT	Smoak	2	Morales	20	Vargas	3	Valbuena	1	Franklin	1	Refsnyder	2
SW	Hardy	2	V.Mart	14	Cain	20	Kim	1	O'Brien	1	E.Escobar	1
P	Porcello	17	Kluber	29	Fulmer	15	Sale	27	Hamels	16	Aa.Sanchez	14
P	Duffy	22	Salazar	14	Carrasco	20	Paxton	16	McHugh	6	Archer	22
P	Happ	10	Iwakuma	3	Musgrove	7	S.Gray	4	Morton	5	Cobb	7
P	Liriano	8	Chavez	1	Rodon	6	Boyd	3	Hammel	2	E.Santana	5
P	Manaea	11	Santiago	1	S.Wright	4	Fiers	2	Sabathia	1	J.Zimm.	3
P	Estrada	9	Casilla	1	Giolito	2	R.Lopez	1	K.Kendrick	1	Graveman	2
P	Smyly	11	Street	1	S.Dyson	11	T.Ross	1	D.Holland	1	Betances	13
P	T.Duffey	1	O'Day	1	Givens	2	Chapman	25	Thornburg	1	A.Miller	14
P	Gibson	2	Britton	22	Herrera	18	E.Diaz	20	Giles	18	Osuna	19
R	Ma.Gonzalez		Guyer		Barreto		Rua		Pagan		Holt
R	Carrera		Wendle		Davidson		Canha		Otero		Bourn
R	Cessa		A.Griffin		Gallardo		Warren		B.Rondon		Mengden
R	J.Jimenez		Miranda		Torreyes		B.Mitchell		Mancini		D.Paulino

My aim was to buy a few big name players I liked at reasonable prices, then save some money for the end game where I had a few targets as well. I wanted one ace pitcher, and I knew I would probably punt catcher. I also wanted to roster Dellin Betances, Aroldis Chapman and Andrew Miller, like I did last year when they were Yankees, but all three went for more than I thought. (I was the penultimate bidder on each.)

The first player I bought, Brian Dozier for 30, was an accident. I don't love Dozier or have him anywhere else, but in an OBP league he's worth closer to 35 in my opinion. Same with Carlos Correa - not a target, but the price was right. I went after two of my favorite AL players, Chris Davis - no average downside in OBP - and Miguel Cabrera, one of the greatest right-handed hitters of all time still in his late prime.

After that, I got Justin Verlander for $24, a price with which I was happy, given Masahiro Tanaka went for $23, Danny Duffy $22, Yu Darvish $28 and Corey Kluber $29. I had a little money toward the end and was able to snap up Kevin Gausman ($13), Dallas Keuchel ($13), Michael Brantley ($8) and Lance McCullers ($9). People seemed to think McCullers was the steal of the draft at that price which almost certainly means he was not.

I'm shaky on saves with only possible closer Cam Bedrosian. and I don't have much speed unless Raul Mondesi sticks and runs, and Melvin Upton has regular at-bats. But this isn't the NFBC - I can trade for steals if need be.

One mistake I made was Ian Kennedy for $8. I have no problem with the price, but it was during the end game when people had overspent, and that money would have gone a long way at that stage. Still, I like my pitching, and while my hitting is stars and scrubs, there are a lot of upside bats in the mix like A.J. Reed, Mondesi and Robbie Grossman in OBP.