As many of you know, I was invited into the NL-Only Tout Wars live draft this past weekend that took place at the SiriusXM building in New York. The draft started at 10 AM EST on Sunday. I include EST because I roll like Rodney-O, Joe Cooley and Tupac on PST. EST is for grandmothers named Ester who die in the middle of spelling their name. I flew in the day before, which meant I would still be on Tupac time. I tell you this because I knew it would be a struggle to get up and to the building by 10 AM, so I stayed at a hotel that was literally — yes, I’m literally using the word literally — a block away from Sirius. I set my alarm clock on my iPhone — “Siri, could you wake me at 8:15 AM, I want to be a winner?” “Googling Steak Me restaurants for 8:15 dinner.” I told the hotel I needed a wake up call; I even set my in-room alarm clock. I was prepared to wake up late even with all of these safeguards. Well, I woke up on time. Actually, early. I did the three S’s and, at around 9:15 AM, with 45 minutes to spare, I ducked into a Starbucks right outside my hotel. I only needed to walk about 500 feet. I didn’t need 45 minutes for that even if I was lugging my suitcase. After dillying and dallying for about 30 minutes in the ‘Bucks, I headed over to Sirius. Well, that is, I got to about 100 feet away from the front door of my draft when I saw there was a half marathon running down the middle of the street that I needed to cross. I asked the policeman, “Can I cross here? I only need to go to that building that we are directly across from.” “Sorry, pal, you need to go up ten blocks to the subway and cross underneath the street.” DAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! I threw my suitcase up in my arms and began to run ten blocks against a marathon and then ten blocks back. Good times! Anyway, here’s my Tout Wars recap, it’s a 12 team NL-Only, 4 OF, two catcher, one UTIL and one swingman league:
C: Nick Hundley $12
C: Devin Mesoraco $13
1B: Anthony Rizzo $38
3B: Maikel Franco $23
CI: Chris Carter $15
2B: Dee Gordon $30
SS: Zack Cozart $4
MI: Orlando Arcia $2
OF: Scott Schebler $10
OF: Andre Ethier $9
OF: Matt Holliday $19
OF: Cody Asche $5
UTIL: Matt Adams $5
Swingman: Scooter Gennett $3
P: Patrick Corbin $11
P: Andrew Cashner $7
P: Gio Gonzalez $9
P: Jake Peavy $4
P: Jason Hammel $11
P: Jeremy Hellickson $1
P: Hunter Strickland $4
P: J.J. Hoover $7
P: A.J. Ramos $13
Bench:
Chase Anderson
Tom Koehler
Clint Robinson
Jose Pirela
YOU ARE HANDSOME WITH YOUR MUSTACHE, BUT I’LL BE DAMNED IF YOU’RE NOT ALSO GOOFY WITH THAT PITCHING STAFF.
Yup, the pitching staff is light on — how do I say this? — good pitchers. ‘Tis is true. There was no way around it with how the hitting went. Here was me in the draft: “Well, I have Maikel Franco on my NL-Only cheatsheet for $23, so I’ll go to $23 and that’s it. Wait, did I just get Maikel Franco for $23? Hmm, okay, well, you have to trust your values.” And, outside of Dee Gordon, that’s what I did for every single player I drafted. I trusted my values. Or if I were running for president, I TrusTED my values.
SO, YOU DIDN’T FOLLOW YOUR VALUES FOR DEE GORDON? WHY DO YOU GO AGAINST ALL THAT IS HOLY? DID YOU INTEND ON UPSETTING RUDY?
Rudy immediately texted me after my Dee Gordon purchase of $30 with “Well, I guess you’re not following the sheet. That’s cool, find a new BFF!” And then hung up. Metaphorically. You can’t hang up on text. I had my values that I linked to above, and I also had LABR’s values from two weeks back. Both on the same Excel spreadsheet. I glanced at my spreadsheet and I saw $32, so when someone else bid Gordon to $29, I went to $30 and expected someone to take him to $31, where I would’ve stopped. Unfortch, $32 was what someone spent on Gordon in NL-Only in LABR. It was not my value for him for Tout. Oopsie. Since I bought Gordon, I didn’t buy anymore speed. Though, I did ground up Sanka during a break and snort it.
OKAY, I’LL BUY THAT EXCUSE SINCE THAT IS BASICALLY SAYING “I’M A DOPE,” BUT I WILL SAY I DO LIKE YOUR HITTING. DESPITE MYSELF.
Thanks, MR. AL CAPPS. I like my hitting too. According to my values, I’m ridiculously stacked on offense. I aim for a 33 in category money for all hitting categories (if you scroll to the bottom of our Preseason Player Rater, you see Point Shares explained. To avoid scrolling, do a FIND of FAQs.). For runs, RBIs, HRs, SBs, OBP respectively, I have 43, 41.2, 45.3, 32.8, 27. My worst category is OBP. It was like that for a while in the draft, which is why I paid for Matt Holliday, hoping he’d boost my OBP. Oh, by the way, I own Matt Holliday in two leagues. I will now read The Bell Jar while my head is in the oven.
CAN WE GO BACK TO YOUR AWFUL PITCHING FOR A SECOND? BECAUSE I LOOK AT IT AND IT DEPRESSES ME AND I’M ON HEAVY MEDICATION FOR DEPRESSION.
For pitching, I aim for a 14 in category money and I got 14.3 in Wins, 10.4 in ERA, 11.2 in WHIP, 15.4 in Ks and 14.3 in SAVES. This shouldn’t surprise anyone that has ever played in an NL or AL-Only league. I have some weaknesses, goes with the territory. If you were to look at other teams from the league, I’m one of the few that has ABs and IP in every spot. On one team, their pitching staff has Chad Qualls, Tony Cingrani and Seung-hwan Oh. Another team’s third baseman is Will Middlebrooks and their corner man is Josh Bell. Another team has Freddy Galvis and Ryan Raburn in their starting lineup. I have weaknesses, but everyone does.
OKAY, MY MATH MIGHT BE OFF HERE BECAUSE YOUR AUCTION TOTALS THAT YOU SPENT ADD UP TO ONLY $255. WAIT, MY MATH IS RIGHT. YOU LEFT MONEY ON THE TABLE?! MONEY. ON. THE. TABLE. I’M GOING TO GO INTO ONE OF THOSE PERSONAL KARAOKE BOOTHS AND SING NAT KING COLE’S ‘UNFORGETTABLE’ BUT SWTCH THE LYRICS TO UNFORGIVABLE.
I got some grief on a post-draft interview on SiriusXM for this too. I don’t get it. Like I keep saying, I have my own values. I got Hellickson for $1, I have him listed on my sheet for $6. I have Asche down for $10, I got him at $5. Technically, I could’ve spent another $5, but, according to Rudy’s values, I got $314 worth of value (easily the best, but, of course, these are our values). It’s not my fault everyone in the room thought Orlando Arcia wasn’t worth more than $2. Speaking of which…
YOU GOT ORLANDO ARCIA FOR $2?! IS HE HURT? DID I MISS A NEWS STORY ON HIM… THAT REMINDS ME, TREVOR STORY. YEAH, HE’S BETTER. YOU STILL SUCK.
Let’s just be as common sense about this as we can. Jose Reyes still plays for the Rockies. Will he return in May/June? Likely. Latest would be July. The Rockies are just going to cut Reyes? Won’t they try to trade him? Of course. To trade him, they will need a suitor. If they can’t find a suitor, in the meantime, they will give him ABs. So, are they going to promote Trevor Story to sit on the bench? To platoon with Reyes? Or have Story wait out the Reyes situation in the minors? Any of those are a possibility, none of them bode well for Story. Story went in the auction for $7. Arcia has Villar in front of him. Villar could play third and move Aaron Hill to the bench or platoon. Does it seem likely that Arcia will stay in the minors for long because Aaron Hill has to get at-bats? No, of course not. I got Arcia for $2! Story will be great, Arcia will too but also has an easier chance for ABs.
