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

You know it’s the dog days of free agency when Josh Donaldson is the most sought after free agent and the leaders in FAAB remaining are at $37 and $22 respectively. He is coming off a rather good weekend and is getting some starts at third base for now with Oakland.  His defense may not keep there for long though. The righty has actually had a very good Triple-A campaign, batting .335 with 13 homers and showing much improved contacted skills without becoming overly aggressive. I’ve always liked him as a potential starter or right-handed platoon player, perhaps he’ll finally break through and stick this time.

I do like Shandler’s grab of Christian Colon as a potential September call-up though I am not certain how much he will play given that the Royals are giving Johnny Giavotella another chance to claim the starting second base job. Colon, a former first round pick, has played at three levels this year and showed extremely advanced plate discipline skills in Double-A where he hit .289 .364 .392 with 12 steals and is making quick work of Triple-A. I like him as a long-term   .280 or better guy who might be able to reach double digits in homers and steals.  Keeper leaguers should take note especially if Giavotella flops.

Next week I suspect we’ll see teams try to make a few pre-September grabs before their FAAB price shoots up.

NATIONAL LEAGUE

PLAYERS AWARDED

UNAWARDED CONTINGENCY BIDS

Brian Walton's Commentary

A lot of money remains in NL Tout coffers with very little available on which to spend it. The biggest bid was a $12 offer (reduced to $10 Vickrey) on Houston outfielder Brandon Barnes by Scott Wilderman. Barnes did homer this past week, but also batted .211.

Washington’s Tyler Moore has been picked up and dropped several times this season. It is difficult to see how the outfielder-first baseman will see a lot of at-bats down the stretch for the first-place Nats, but league leader Tristan Cockcroft dropped $8 to find out.

The Mets’ acquisition of Kelly Shoppach seemed odd as the catcher is an impending free agent on a club destined to simply play out a disappointing season. Still, decent catcher at-bats are hard to come by, so Mike Gianella paid $7 for the privilege of owning Shoppach’s NL Tout rights.

ESPN’s Nate Ravitz, always on the eye for young talent, nabbed a promising player still in the minors for $3 – speedy Reds shortstop prospect Billy Hamilton. With Cincinnati in first, even if Hamilton is added in September, how much will he play though? Ravitz paid the same for Colorado outfielder Charles Blackmon and made a similar contingency bid not executed on St. Louis outfielder Oscar Taveras, who like Hamilton is still in Double-A.

MIXED LEAGUE

PLAYERS AWARDED

UNAWARDED CONTINGENCY BIDS

Zach Steinhorn's Commentary

Jon Rauch’s 0.71 ERA since the All-Star break combined with Frank Francisco’s erratic pitching of late was enough of a reason for Eric Mack to make Rauch this week’s most expensive FAAB pickup. Mack was actually willing to empty his entire remaining FAAB budget of $14 for Rauch’s services but, thanks to Vickrey, he was able to hang onto four of those dollars. At this late stage in the season, I’m expecting some aggressive bidding as the owners with money to spare will not want to miss out on the dwindling number of appealing waiver wire options. If Rauch collects just a handful of saves from here on out, which is no guarantee since Francisco is still considered the closer, Eric should feel good about his $10 investment.

Outside of Rauch, it was a fairly uneventful week, as Freddy Garcia ($4 to Paul Singman) was the only other player who went for more than $1. Garcia is actually on a very nice roll, having allowed three earned runs or less in each of his last five starts. He’s also in line for a two-start week, with one not so favorable matchup (at the White Sox) and one promising matchup (at the Indians). Singman is surely hoping that the strong Yankees’ lineup will provide Freddy with enough run support to pick up a couple of wins.

As for myself, I was one of the seven owners who did not place a single bid, opting instead to closely guard my remaining $11.