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Tuesday, March 19, 2024

While the Tout Wars drafts in NYC are auction leagues, a 15-team mixed draft league was added last year, and I was glad to be back for my second year in the league.

My team faded to fourth place last year and I hope to do better in this year’s contest. To start, I drew the second slot in this year’s draft (the priority for slot selection given in order of last year's finish) which was held Tuesday evening (if you didn’t watch the draft live, HERE is a link to the completed rosters and the draft by rounds).

A few important notes before I give you my team or you inspect rosters – Tout leagues now use on-base percentage instead of batting average. In addition, there is only a four-man reserve squad. The other key difference is that when you FAAB a player, they must be in your active lineup for the upcoming week. Another unusual aspect to this league is that the first FAAB run will be run on March 23. Okay, onto my picks.

The good news was that I would get a stud contributor in four or five categories with my first selection – the bad news was waiting almost two rounds to see who they left me in the second round. After NFBC’s Tom Kessenich selected Mike Trout with the first pick, I took Miguel Cabrera and his massive OBP.

miggy

That made me much happier in the second round when strangely Carlos Gomez was available, and I readily clicked DRAFT. What I don’t understand is 13 other teams passing on Gomez and his counting stats just because his OBP might be lower than last year’s median .330. But pairing CarGo2 with Miggy would put me well above average.

Two picks later, I took my first pitcher, Marlins’ ace Jose Fernandez (fourth off the board after Kershaw 1.09, Darvish 2.06 and Scherzer 2.15).

On the 4/5 turn, I was looking for the best bats I could find and selected 1B/OF Mark Trumbo at 4.14 followed by C Carlos Santana and his projected .377 OBP balancing Trumbo nicely and giving me solid counting stats at C1.

I was planning on taking Everth Cabrera on the next turn but he went at 6.08, so I took Jose Altuve for my 2B slot and then took Detroit starter Anibal Sanchez at 7.02.

Readers of my earlier draft articles know I think Khris Davis of the Brewers is set to break out in a big way this year and I was happy to draft him in the eighth round and add my pick at 9.02, Dodger starter Hyun-Jin Ryu. A few interesting notes on trends in this draft and then I will list my full roster with draft slots at the end.

One thing you can count on if you are thinking about the next position to attack or player you want is that someone is likely to pull them off the board while you watch. That happened with several infielders and on the secondary closer run (Cishek 10.04, Papelbon 10.05, Rafael Soriano 10.06 and even Fernando Rodney 10.08 all disappeared from my queue in the tenth round). Then there was the final closer run, when Joakim Soria (22.09) and Josh Fields (22.10) were taken when I was going to take either one or both in that round/turn.

There was definitely a heavy discount applied to the starting pitchers who have injury issues this spring in this draft. Here are the four prominent examples with their Tout draft slot and NFBC ADP

Cole Hamels went at 12.02  (NFBC avg 6.12, latest 13.15)

Hisashi Iwakuma went at 11.12  (NFBC avg 8.10, latest 12.03)

Doug Fister went at 12.09  (NFBC avg 11.04, latest 13.10)

Kris Medlen went at 23.02  (NFBC avg 9.04, latest 23.10)

I was the one who took Medlen as my seventh starting pitcher with the outlook that if he has surgery, he will be my first drop (again an early FAAB run) or if he is on the disabled list I can DL him (unlimited DL slots in Tout leagues) and add a replacement.

That was also the reason I took Andy Dirks with my last reserve pick at 27.02. I will DL him and pick up either another hitter or perhaps a pitcher if I have a greater need there.

I did draft Javier Baez, the talented, young Cubs power hitter with my pick in the 22nd round. That was after other drafters had speculated on George Springer (16.09), Yordano Ventura (18.09), Taijuan Walker (19.08) and Noah Syndergaard (22.07) but ahead of Kevin Gausman (23.03), Jameson Taillon (24.09), Gregory Polanco (24.11), Tommy La Stella (25.03), Oscar Taveras (25.04), Byron Buxton (26.03) and Eddie Butler (27.09).

So here is my final roster with draft slots in parenthesis. I am glad to answer any questions here or in the Forums.

C – Carlos Santana (5.02)

C – Russell Martin (15.02)

1B – Mark Trumbo (4.14)

3B – Miguel Cabrera (1.02)

CI – Adam Lind (19.02)

2B – Jose Altuve (6.14)

SS – Jimmy Rollins (14.14)

MI – Martin Prado (10.14)

OF – Carlos Gomez (2.14)

OF – Khris Davis (8.14)

OF – Adam Eaton (13.02)

OF – Josh Reddick (17.02)

OF – Michael Brantley (20.14)

UT – Javier Baez (22.14) to be replaced with either Owings or Shuck or FA

SP – Jose Fernandez (3.02)

SP – Anibal Sanchez (7.02)

SP – Hyun-Jin Ryu (9.02)

SP – Jered Weaver (11.02)

SP – Wade Miley (18.14)

SP – Nathan Eovaldi (21.02)

SP – Kris Medlen (23.02)

CL – Casey Janssen (12.14)

CL – LaTroy Hawkins (16.14)

R1 – Chris Owings (24.14)

R2 – J.B. Shuck (25.02)

R3 – Tanner Scheppers (26.14)

R4 – Andy Dirks (27.02)

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