Collette Calls: My 2024 AL Tout Wars Team

This article is part of our Collette Calls series.

This past weekend I made the trek up to New York City for the 17th time to participate in a Tout Wars draft. My first time in Tout Wars does not feel like it was that long ago, but the gray hairs on my beard remind me that time is indeed flying by these days. This Tout weekend began much like last season with me needing to take a work trip just before my travels to New York, but unlike last season, I didn't have the luxury of traveling by train from my work location to New York City. A quick business trip to Pittsburgh in the middle of the week was followed up by an evening with my wife to see the excellent Eric Hutchinson in concert, who just so happens to be a longtime fantasy baseball player himself. It was fun to catch up with him before the show — we both chose the excellent Goodyear House in NoDA as our place for dinner — and to help him make some plans for his own draft this coming weekend in his home league. 

Needless to say, I was a bit exhausted when I woke up Friday morning to head to New York after a busy week, which also included my draft prep machine deciding to prematurely terminate its existence on me Sunday evening before one of my other drafts. Thankfully, I leverage the cloud for for all storage and prep, so it was simply a matter of setting up a new machine to finalize my Tout prep. This is a long-winded way of saying I found myself in a different mental state heading into Tout weekend, which is normally my favorite draft weekend of the offseason for many reasons. I wasn't really feeling it this time around, even as late as the flight up to New York. 

This funk continued when I got to the hotel and wasn't able to even flex with membership status to get an early check-in. The hotel was completely sold out with the triple-whammy of St. Patrick's Day weekend, a planned marathon and, clearly, the millions and millions of people in town for Tout Wars itself. The funk quickly lifted once I was able to join my podcasting partner Justin Mason and his wife Danielle for lunch, because it reminded me of what is my favorite part about Tout Wars. The drafts are fun, but I get to do those anytime I want. However, I only get to see some of these people I have long called friends once or twice a year, so I try to make the most of this weekend.

In past years, that would include staying out way too late at different haunts around the city, ranging from a very late-night pursuit of donuts with Joe Sheehan and Jeff Erickson to once passing out on the 7 train from a mixture of absolute exhaustion and consumption after a 24-hour run of drafting, auctioneering, eating and drinking between Citi Field and the Tribeca area with Matthew Berry, Nando DiFino and others. These days, I have a Detective Danny Murtaugh mindset to evenings and quit while I am ahead, while still trying to enjoy every moment I can with the other participants of the weekend. Here are just two of the moments from this weekend; first a quick photo of two of my longtime buds Scott Gilroy & Steve Cozzolino:

and then a picture from Friday night (from left to right) with Justin Mason, Nick Pollack, Ellen Adair, Justin's wife Danielle, Erik Halterman, Patrick Davitt, yours truly and El Jefe, Jeff Erickson:

Of course, my primary event of the weekend was sitting down at the AL Tout Wars table for the 16th time and trying to get the Steve Young-like monkey off my back as I still seek my first league title. Tout Wars has long been a different type of league and Todd Zola broke down all the ways the league has led the industry. This season, we came into the auction with the following rule changes:

• Eliminating the MI and CI positions, replacing them with an INF spot and a second swing man, who can be a hitter or a pitcher
• Continuing to have no innings minimum

Doug Dennis of BaseballHQ has won the league in each of the past two seasons by taking advantage of the latter rule by punting wins and strikeouts and spending only on relievers who get saves and/or have excellent ratios, allowing him spend more on offense at the draft table. Dennis has won saves and the ratios in both years and has won at least 59 of the 60 available hitting points with his heavily-tilted roster. I recalled last season that despite his success from 2022, nobody else tried to mimic Dennis's approach in 2023, but I thought that with Doug shooting for a three-peat, perhaps another team or two would attempt a similar roster build. My other line of thought was to wonder whether teams would zag and allow Doug to do what he does while trying to prevent him from cleaning up in other areas, so I set my pre-draft values for a 67/33 split, with double the emphasis on hitting stars than pitching stars. 

It was not enough.

Unlike AL LABR two weeks prior, there was no new blood in the room. Joe Sheehan was missed, but he was replaced by Howard Bender, who has plenty of experience and may be my new favorite person to sit next to in an auction. The other 10 teams were all the same faces from the previous year, whereas we had three new teams to AL LABR including someone doing an auction for the first time. The experience in the room makes Tout Wars the toughest auction I participate in each year because we all know one another well and we can see in-auction trends developing like Neo in the Matrix. Early on, it was obvious the room was hot on hitting, and my planning had underestimated the environment.

The first trip around the table looked as such:

I purchased exactly zero of those players, although I was active in all the bids, including providing the penultimate bids on both Clase and Crawford. The two Yankees were discounted at varying levels based on their current injury status, but only Rodriguez truly came at any type of discount.

I also came out of this round without rostering anyone, but I was once again the penultimate bid on Garcia, Bassitt and Trout (whose value is boosted in an OBP league). There are rarely bargains in an expert league, but these prices were too hot for my liking, so I continued to sit back and wait for the prices to come down because I still had multiple players lined up for each roster spot.

The third trip around the table finally saw me get into the auction, as I was the last manager to purchase a player:

My budget for second base and shortstop was 15 and 18 respectively, so I'm honestly not sure why I declined to bid an extra dollar on Altuve to see whether that would have been sufficient given that he was the first non-injured bargain of the auction. It would be a move I would regret later in the auction when I was pursuing speed at second base. After again finishing runner-up on Jimenez, I finally got into the fun by adding Luis Castillo, as he was at the top of the list for my $28 pitcher spot, with Framber Valdez the next option. I love Valdez and have drafted him just about everywhere else, but I went with the good price in Castillo given there had been very few good healthy prices to that point.

Through three rounds, this is how the market was playing out:

I felt like I was playing out the scene from Trading Places when Louis Winthorpe and Billie Ray Valentine use excruciating patience to execute their plan. The "now" moment for me was jumping in and purchasing four players from the 43rd to 53rd nominations:

I realized at this point that if I sat around and waited for every bargain, I would be putting myself in a tough situation at the first break and would spend the next stanza chasing players. I felt a lot better about the Romano purchase in the moment than I did on Tuesday when the news broke about him dealing with elbow inflammation. Kirk, like every other catcher to that point, went above my projected value, but he was the cheapest purchase of the bunch with Rutschman, Raleigh, O'Hoppe, Bo Naylor and Yainer Diaz all going for at least $17 before my purchase of Kirk. Bregman was the backup plan at third for Devers, who went higher than I was willing to go, while Springer was simply right at price. Now I had a starter, a closer, and a decent base of offense, while still being light on steals. 

I then waited 41 more nominations to jump back into the game, purchasing Trevor Story at the $19 I projected him to go for, which helped with speed. I then jumped in to grab a $9 Jose Leclerc, whose chances on gaining the closer role in Texas are improving by the day. I continued a purchasing run in the middle but got into some trouble in this phase when a few of us began chasing speed as we all saw it rapidly drying up:

Remember when I said I would come to regret passing on Altuve? This is where that happened. I ended up purchasing the two best options for projected steals at a price above their market value because I hadn't properly addressed steals prior to that point in the auction. Should Martinez sign with an AL team, I have a wonderful $5 bargain, but I get nothing should he join Blake Snell in the NL. I went over by a bit to get Rizzo's OBP upside but was thrilled to get Pivetta as my second starter (and primary target) at a projected discount no less. In retrospect, this is the part of the draft where my success or failure will be determined, as I need Caballero and Castro to reach their full potentials and need Martinez to end up in the AL. Otherwise, I'm staring at nearly 20 percent of my overall offensive expenditure being at risk.

The better bargains eventually arrived, even if the table below doesn't quite reflect that:

I know Stephenson is currently not 100 percent, but when he is, I have no doubt he'll be closing games for the Angels, and I loved this reduced price due to his early uncertainty. Abreu is in an outfield situation in Boston which has a lot of traffic, but as we've seen in Cincinnati, these things tend to work themselves out. Maeda was someone I was thrilled to get at a single-digit price given how well he pitched last year once he came back from his injury last season. The Stewart purchase mimicked what I did in LABR, and the news this week of Jhoan Duran opening the season on the IL could lead to some early save chances. Biggio's positional flexibility was the ultimate draw for me with him, while this particular Waters at-bat lives in my head, so I jumped in when someone nominated him for $1. Paddack and Singer were just two of the many starting pitching bargains which came about near the end as things finally began to settle down. I missed out grabbing more of them only because I was the first team to fill out their active roster, but both Paddack and Singer were at the top of my list for those planned roster spots.

My final active roster came out as such:

I am happier with the balance of my pitching staff than I am with my hitting, so I hope I haven't once again ended up with at team that will be chasing offense all season. I used three of my four reserve spots for bats, grabbing Richie Palacios, Miguel Andujar and Estevan Florial. I also added Cole Irvin as another pitching option given Stephenson is likely opening the season on the IL. Palacios could find some early strong-side platoon playing time with Josh Lowe out to start the season, while I mentioned in the bold prediction series that I believe Andujar has a chance to be this year's Brent Rooker for a beleaguered Oakland squad. Florial is out of options, and that may save him, as he's not exactly having a great spring but the recent demotion of Kyle Manzardo keeps hope alive. I hope this foundation is enough to get me started in my endless pursuit of a Tout Wars title. 

The full results of all the Tout Wars events from this past weekend can be found here.