Maybe I should preface this article with the thought that through a couple of weeks of play, virtually every team I own sucks. As in lower-end of the standings sucks.
Of course, it is early, and a couple of bad weeks don’t mean a lot — and maybe my players are starting to break out a little. But, as I have often said, especially in deep leagues like both Tout Wars and LABR, one can absorb only four or five “mistakes.”
A mistake could be drafting A.J. Pollock, as I did a few years ago, when he gets injured and misses the entire season. It could be squandering $23 on a flop player like Marty Cordova, or simply just leaving the same dollars on the table (they both ultimately are the same error). It could mean missing a FAAB deadline or not activating a player. And it can mean just a really bad week of stats, like a team batting average of .205, ERA of 7.83, and WHIP of 2.025.
So, there is still time to catch up, but very little. For falling too far behind in categories like steals and runs early makes it tougher and tougher to pick up lost ground as the season progresses.
All that aside, I did try to draft a little differently this year, focusing a lot more on offense than pitching, as I usually find myself derelict in homers and related counting stats.
As for Tout and LABR, like most of us, I had a list of players I targeted, although I do try to mix my teams up so both have different rosters. Still, there are players common to both — J.D. Martinez, Khris Davis, Craig Kimbrel — and there were players I targeted for one that I missed in the other.
Of course, there is a two-week gap between the LABR auction (held March 3) and Tout (March 17), so things to change during that much spring training.
As documented, in the past I have targeted an ace hurler and a pair of closers as the core of my pitching staff in just about every league, but I tried to eschew that this season. Instead I was hoping to build around the likes of David Price and Blake Snell as core starters, with just Kimbrel in tow as a saves man.
But Snell went for $15 and Price $16, and that was enough more than I allotted for either, so I had to settle for the combination of Sonny Gray ($14) and Jake Faria ($10) as my core starters. Similarly, I targeted outfielder Aaron Hicks ($11) and Joey Gallo ($23), but Hicks went for $16 and Gallo $29, leaving me Matt Chapman ($22) and Max Kepler ($13) instead. And, though I should be fine with Chapman, that was $8 more than I targeted for him — but of course the joke is the each pair wound up with the identical $35 total price.
However, by the time Tout came around, dynamics and prices changed such that I did land Hicks ($16), Snell ($10), and Price ($17) by adjusting down at third, where I picked up Mike Moustakas for $18, reallocating accordingly.
What has been interesting to me, however, is over the past half-dozen years or so, I have struggled within LABR to actually land those players I targeted, but by Tout things fall into place, so it is almost like going through the early LABR motions help a lot with the latter Tout machinations.
Of course, I take drafting and playing in both leagues more than seriously and never think of one as a stepping stone any more than I think mock drafts set me up for the two prestigious in-season leagues.
As of now, while both squads are languishing in last, all of this is of little consequence. The question is how different will things be come October 1?
Tune into the Tout Wars Hour on the FNTSY network, hosted by me, with Justin Mason and featuring Lord Z every Thursday night at 9 PM ET and follow me @lawrmichaels.
