Mastersball

Each week, your friends at Mastersball will post the results of the weekly Tout Wars FAAB run, featuring the winning bid as well as the runner-up bids. There are three LABR leagues, a 12-team AL only, 13-team NL only and 15-team Mixed League. You can see the complete standings for each league by clicking on the appropriate heading, located just under each player photo.

Tout Wars uses a modified Vickrey system to award bids. For a complete description of the Vickrey system, click HERE for the Tout Wars constitution.

Included with each league report will be commentary from a Mastersball staff member participating in that league. We invite you to ask questions and post comments at the bottom of the report.

All contingency bids for awarded players are included. Sometimes, this is a bid tied to a player that the owner received, so at times the bid amount is larger than the winning bid. We are including it to provide as much information and context as possible with each report.

AMERICAN LEAGUE

PLAYERS AWARDED

UNAWARDED CONTINGENCY BIDS

Rob Leibowitz Commentary

Spoils from the trade deadline were at the top of the market again this week in the form of Ryan Dempster. The most significant hitter, however, was the surprise two-level promotion of Mike Olt by Texas to the Majors. The move was surprising not only because Olt was in Double-A, albeit crushing the hitter-friendly Texas League, but due to the logjam of veterans at the positions Olt is most likely to play. Nevertheless, his power and plate discipline earned him a $30 bid and a $21 claim by Shandler. Olt’s playing part time for now, but could force his way into the 1B/DH situation more prominently given the play of Mitch Moreland and Michael Young.

Jason Collette was once again in the forefront as the man with the second highest amount of money remaining. Rather than force Steve Moyer spend as much of his money as possible on Dempster, he bid a slightly lesser amount of $58, perhaps given Moyer’s inactivity on the Anibal Sanchez/Zack Greinke bidding, but more likely due to a desire to bid on multiple players including a winning bid on Jack Hannahan at $3.

NATIONAL LEAGUE

PLAYERS AWARDED

UNAWARDED CONTINGENCY BIDS

Brian Walton's Commentary

It was a big week for catching in National League Tout Wars. The trade of Chicago’s Geovany Soto out of the league plus the injury of Philadelphia’s Carlos Ruiz led to a scrum for their replacements. The move of Kurt Suzuki into the NL also drew considerable attention.

The top-money fight was over previously-disappointing outfielder Travis Snider, now a member of the contending Pittsburgh Pirates. Defending champ Steve Gardner made an aggressive $90 bid ($83 Vickrey), edging out Phil Hertz’ $82 offer. Hertz now carries a big hammer with $100 FAAB, but will need a big waiver trade into the NL for his bankroll to pay off.

Though the two are supposedly going to job share behind the plate in the Windy City, Welington Castillo drew far more interest than Steve Clevenger. The former drew six bids, the winner being $18 ($15 Vickrey), while the latter was had for a buck. Interestingly, the proven veteran Suzuki garnered comparable attention to Castillo at eight offers, but his sale price was less, with the victor paying $16 (reduced from $27 by Vickrey rule). Philly’s Erik Kratz, with four to six weeks of regular at-bats ahead, went home for $6.

Surprisingly, Jonathan Broxton, the Reds’ new set-up man, was generally ignored by the warriors. There were just two bids, though they were decent in size. League leader Tristan Cockcroft came out on top with a $15 bid, reduced to $10 by Vickrey. The other offer was $7. Ex-closers Brandon League and Chad Qualls, both traded into the NL this past week, did not receive any interest.

MIXED LEAGUE

PLAYERS AWARDED

UNAWARDED CONTINGENCY BIDS

Zach Steinhorn's Commentary

This week’s Mixed Tout FAAB period took on an Oakland A’s flavor as the two most expensive players happen to be members of the Athletics. Ryan Cook’s recent struggles have opened the door for Grant Balfour to return to his Opening Day role as Oakland’s closer. A switch hasn’t happened yet, but Cory Schwartz must believe that it’s not far away as he entered in a $16 bid, all but one dollar of his remaining budget. Vickrey reduced Balfour’s price tag to $10. Also going for double-digit dollars was Daniel Straily, who impressed in his big league debut and could stick around in the A’s rotation for awhile longer, especially if Brandon McCarthy, Dallas Braden or Brett Anderson suffer any further setbacks in their injury rehab. Fred Zinkie bid $12 on Straily and ended up snagging him for $10.

I was surprised to see Mike Olt go for only $5 in light of his strong showing so far, but playing time concerns was surely the main reason for the conservative bidding. I was really hoping to land the red-hot A.J. Ellis, as he would have been a clear upgrade over my current backstop duo of Jesus Flores and Ramon Hernandez , but of course I got outbid by one measly dollar. So my only two additions were of the $0 variety: Scott Hairston and Bronson Arroyo. I’m actually cautiously optimistic about Arroyo, as he is in line to make two road starts this week. Counting on Arroyo is always risky, but the numbers are in my favor. In 11 starts away from Great American Ballpark this season, Bronson boasts a 3.39 ERA and 1.10 WHIP. Hopefully, this trend will continue.