Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Tout Wars N.L. 2012 Recap (Spoiler Alert: It Did Not Go Well)


For me, 2012 was a bummer of a year from a Rotisserie/fantasy perspective.

For the first time since 2008, I didn't win a single one of my leagues. Even worse, I tanked in both of the expert leagues I play in: the CBS Analysts A.L.-only League and Tout Wars.

Today, I'll start by flagellating myself in Tout Wars.

2012 Roto Think Tank, N.L.-Only Tout Wars
#
Player
$
Sal
+/-

AVG
SAL
C
$11
$21
-10
$21
C
Yasmani Grandal
$9
$1
8
$1
1B
Aubrey Huff 
$0
$10
-10
$11
2B
Orlando Hudson
$1
$6
-5
$5
SS
Rafael Furcal 
$14
$10
4
$4
3B
Placido Polanco
$4
$12
-8
$8
CO
Scott Rolen
$6
$12
-6
$7
MI
Stephen Drew
$0
$9
-9
$10
OF
Yonder Alonso
$13
$11
2
$11
OF
Jason Bay
$2
$13
-11
$12
OF 
Michael Bourn
$28
$29
-1
$29
OF
David DeJesus
$14
$9
5
 $7
OF
Carlos Quentin
$11
$9
2
$11
UT
Bryce Harper
$24
$4
20
$6
P
Roy Halladay
$10
$29
-19
$30
P
Cole Hamels 
$26
$23
3
$23
P
Jon Papelbon
$22
$19
3
$19
P
Carlos Marmol
$8
$15
-7
$15
P
Chad Billingsley
$11
$6
5
$8
P
Edwin Jackson
$12
$6
6
$6
P
Dillon Gee
$7
$3
4
$2
P
Antonio Bastardo
$4
$2
2
$2
P
Henry Rodriguez
$2
$1
1
$1
Total
$241
   $260
-19
   $254

Needless to say, it did not work out well. Buying a $241 team isn't going to win you any titles even if all of your free agent pick-ups and your trades work out, and I certainly didn't do well in that regard either. But this team didn't lose because of lost opportunities once the season was underway; this team was destined to lose at the draft.

I went into this auction the way I go into every auction: with an emphasis on pricing as opposed to philosophy. While some owners to try target categories or certain types of players through a tiered approach, I simply try to buy the best team possible based on what the market is willing to give.

Coming into this auction, I suspected it was possible that I might wind up spending more on pitching than the $80-85 per team that auction-format Rotisserie teams spend on pitching. Tout Wars typically spends even less (about $75-80 per team) and while I do try to adjust my pitching bids downward, I decided it didn't make sense to push the best pitchers so far down that I was letting another owner get Clayton Kershaw for $25.

The result is the imbalanced team you see above. I spent $156 on offense and $104 on pitching. And the pitching staff turned out to be quite good...even with the bath I took on Halladay. Billingsley and Jackson did about what I expected them to do and were the mild bargains I thought they would be. My hunch was dead on about Gee; obviously, his numbers would have been even better had he stayed healthy.

The challenge with the team I bought wasn't the pitching, though, it was coaxing enough points out of the offense to be competitive.

I wasn't naive. I knew this coming out of the auction, as you can read in my recap here. I had purchased an old, rickety team, and while I did buy 12 everyday players (if you include injured Drew and Quentin), I needed nearly all of them to stay healthy, stay productive and keep their jobs.

In the best case scenario, Drew and Quentin were going to come back in May, the ancient infielders and Bay were all going to bounce back to 2010 levels, and Alonso was going to be serviceable. But I knew that all of that wasn't going to happen. Realistically, what I was hoping for was that some of these things would happen and that there wouldn't be too many worst-case scenarios playing out on my team. In this mid-range level of expectations, my hope was that Harper would come up at the All-Star break and put up $8-10 worth of stats in the second half.

Line A: 4811 AB, 1245 H, 590 R, 119 HR, 577 RBI, 121 SB, .259 BA
Line B: 5206 AB, 1452 H, 785 R, 141 HR, 648 RBI, 127 SB, .279 BA

Line A was what these hitters produced in 2011. Line B was what these hitters produced in 2010. As I noted in my recap, 2011 doesn't include Harper or Grandal and 2010 doesn't include either one of those hitters or Alonso.

Line A would have produced a 23.5 point offense in 2011's context. Line B would have produced a 35 point offense in 2010's context.

And that's what I thought I needed to have a realistic shot to win: a 35-point offense to go along with a top shelf pitching staff. Ninety-five points might not be enough, but drafting a 90+ point team would have put me in position to make marginal improvements during the season that might have allowed me to win.

Instead, the worst-case scenario happened. Bay, Drew, Hudson, and Huff all crashed and burned, while Rolen and Polanco weren't much better. DeJesus and Alonso did what they were supposed to do (yes, I know you mixed league readers are wistfully shaking your heads at us N.L.-only masochists), but when you have six of your 14 hitters fail you need more than just mild wins on earnings versus salary. Along those lines, Harper was terrific - and produced far more value than I thought he would - but overall the offense earned a paltry $138. You don't need to crack into the dollar valuation formulas to know that this sucks royally.

(For the record, I bought a 19-point offense).

Oddly enough, though, the season didn't really feel lost until Halladay got hurt. Up until that point, it seemed like I still had an outside chance. I had traded McCann for Carlos Ruiz and Nick Hundley to Todd Zola before the season even started and Ruiz's performance made that deal look like a coup. Then Harper was called up super early and it looked like I was in a decent position. On the day Halladay went down in late May, I had 80 points and was only eight points out of first. I was soft in the power categories but across the board it looked like I might have a chance to compete.

The Halladay injury put me in a position where I had to trade for pitching and I spent the rest of the season zigging and zagging, robbing Peter to pay Paul ad infinitum. I'm not going to waste your time going through every sad/pathetic move I made, but after attempting to build up my offense with an ill-advised blow-the-budget FAAB bid on Alex Presley, I wound up deciding to dump power in an ill-advised attempt to maximize my pitching points.

Almost every move I made after the Ruiz trade didn't go well. Emilio Bonifacio got hurt and my opportunity to maximize stolen bases disappeared. Jon Niese and Matt Cain were both solid but not enough to make up for Halladay's injury and then sudden ineffectiveness. And my offense continued to sink into the swamp. And there was plenty of bad luck. Dillon Gee's injury didn't impact me because I flipped him to Phil Hertz...but I also tossed him Paul Maholm right before Maholm went on that ridiculous run.

So another year, another failure in Tout Wars. There was some bad luck but I simply have to do better. No excuses on my end.

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