The SPLN Guy Strikes Back!

That was the theme of my draft going into Saturday's Tout Wars Mixed League Rotisserie Draft. For the past two seasons of this league, I've performed horribly, badly, sadly and any other -ly's you can think of.

I wanted redemption! I wanted to save face! I wanted to play in a one-team Tout Wars league and come in first!

Since I couldn't do the last, I had to work on making up for my poor performances. After all, the Tout Wars might be the most publicized group of leagues in the industry, thanks in part to Sam Walker's book FantasyLand that came out last season. And here I am stinking the place up!

2007 SPLN Tout Wars team
Pos Player Tm $$
C Russell Martin LAD 9
C Chris Iannetta COL 1
1B Albert Pujols STL 47
2B Dan Uggla FLA 7
SS Hanley Ramirez FLA 31
3B Chipper Jones ATL 9
MI Khalil Greene SD 2
CI Eric Chavez OAK 1
OF Vernon Wells TOR 31
OF Andruw Jones ATL 23
OF Corey Patterson BAL 13
OF Gary Sheffield DET 9
OF Curtis Granderson DET 1
DH Brad Hawpe COL 1
P Carlos Zambrano CHC 20
P Brett Myers PHI 12
P Todd Jones DET 9
P Barry Zito SF 8
P Andy Pettitte NYY 5
P Kevin Millwood TEX 2
P Anibal Sanchez FLA 2
P Bobby Jenks CHW 12
P Joel Zumaya DET 5
Total budget spent $260

After crying myself to sleep for the past six months, I examined my past two Tout efforts a little more closely. One thing stuck out more than anything else -- risk. I took too many risks on players that were either breakout candidates or coming off of injuries. In mixed leagues, there is too much talent out there to bank your team on risks. Two years ago, I gambled on Mark Prior, Carl Pavano and A.J. Burnett among others. Last season, I apparently didn't learn my lesson with Prior and I paid $6 for him. I paid $9 for Bartolo Colon and $6 for Ken Griffey Jr. Sprinkle in a total of $48 spent on Jorge Cantu ($17), Jhonny Peralta ($7), Dan Johnson ($8) and Jason Varitek ($16) and you'll quickly realize why my team finished 11th last season.

This year it's a whole new ballgame. Over the past couple seasons, I've gone out of my way to save cash for the mid-auction bargains. I knew I wouldn't allow myself to spend too much money on stars like Albert Pujols, Johan Santana, Alex Rodriguez and the like, only because I expected to get a ton of bargains later on. And that strategy worked to an extent. I was able to rake in a couple bargains, but not enough to convince me I could let superstars go once again this year.

So I said to myself, "Self, you're buying either Pujols or Santana and you are still going to be able to take advantage of a few bargains later in the draft because many positions in mixed leagues are so deep this year." I hesitantly won Pujols as one of the first players in the draft for an eye-popping $47 -- three more dollars than I had hoped -- but my foundation was set with the No. 1 player in every draft this season. What could I do with the rest now?

Here is where you'll find the results to all three Tout Wars drafts from this past weekend.

I pretty much sat back and watched the other stars go: Santana ($42), Jose Reyes ($40), Alex Rodriguez ($40) and Ryan Howard (a nice bargain at $36) for cheaper prices, but I was comfortable thinking that I would rake in quality players later. And I think I did -- but I still waited too long on some of the higher end stars, which forced me to pay more for a player like Hanley Ramirez ($31) and Vernon Wells ($31) than I wanted to.

I continually nominated players early that have been over-hyped this preseason (Daisuke Matsuzaka), injured or coming off an injury (Chone Figgins) or players I believe were better than the ones just won on the previous bid. With everyone having money early on, the bids were hot and heavy. Had these players gone later, when people's wallets were a little tighter, they likely would have been underpriced.

As I watched and waited for everyone to catch up to me in money spent, I bit here and there, picking up Andruw Jones ($23) at a quality number, as well as spending only $40 total on my top three starting pitchers (Carlos Zambrano ($20), Brett Myers ($12) and Barry Zito ($8).

I'm hurting in saves with only two true closers on my roster (Bobby Jenks ($12) and Todd Jones ($9)), but by pairing Jones with strikeout artist/setup man Joel Zumaya ($5) I get the tandem with what will probably amount to the most save opportunities of any same-team pairing in baseball because of their solid pitching staff.

In the end-game, I was able to wait on catchers, taking what ended up being the latest No. 1 catcher in the draft (Russell Martin ($9) with a cheap price tag. Pairing him with rookie Chris Iannetta ($1) should serve my batting average well -- especially compared to the catching duos of my competitors. Should Iannetta falter early on, he's one of my first cuts and there's little harm done. Meanwhile, I even get double-digit steals out of Martin most likely.

For my extra infielders, I was able to haul in both Eric Chavez and Khalil Greene for three dollars total -- worthwhile cash spent on guys that could combine for 50-plus homers and 180 RBI.

My ERA and wins categories should be fine in the hands of Zambrano, Zito, Myers, Andy Pettitte and Kevin Millwood. And Zumaya helps with Ks, which I should win outright.

My reserve draft went in the order listed (I had the No. 3 pick). Some of the players I wanted and barely missed out on include: Sammy Sosa, Ryan Shealy, Griffey and Jake Westbrook. Braun, Eldred and Owens were fliers obviously, but I was ecstatic to get both Scott and McCarthy for nothing. I've written plenty about each over the past two seasons for you to know how much I like these guys. Here are a few players that went undrafted that I'll be keeping an eye on early for a call-up or a change in status: Nick Adenhart, Rafael Soriano, Andrew Miller and Hunter Pence. Nick Johnson (broken leg) is still out until at least mid-May, but he could replace either Chavez or Brad Hawpe if one of them starts out slowly. I'll be allowed to place him on the DL once the season starts, so there was really no risk here, with 20-plus homers still a possibility.

Looking at my team as a whole, our projections say I would have won the league a season ago. But since our projections are obviously biased on players I deem draftable, I can't take those numbers as a whole. But even if you take off 10 percent of the stats from each of these players, I'd still come in third place. That's a nice foundation for me to start on entering the FAAB process next week.

I'll be posting most of the other owner's reactions and strategies to their drafts (mixed, AL- and NL-only) on Wednesday, so stay tuned.

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