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

The Red Sox and Oakland trades sparked some life into the AL Tout Wars trade market. Not nearly as much excitement as the NL market, but something is better than nothing! Stephen Drew attracted 9 bids and was ultimately won by Collette for a Vickery adjusted $20 bid. Drew, now 29, was expected to enjoy a breakout season in 2011. Injuries and some ineffectiveness later, Drew is a very likely free agent at the end of the season and is in the heart of a pennant race, so perhaps he’ll at least get some inspiration, whatever that is worth. Overall he’s still a fairly disciplined hitter who probably hits too many fly balls for someone with limited power potential. Right now it looks like 2010 may have been his peak. He’s the A’s starting shortstop now, so mid-teens or low-twenties bids are to be expected.

James Loney is also a likely a free agent to be. Yes he makes quite a bit of contact and hits a ton of live drives which suggests he’s still a .280s hitter having a poor season, but there is no power upside here. I would not be surprised to see Loney having to fight for a back-up or minor league contract after this season. For now, if you need some help in the batting average department, Loney might be able to help you.

I decided with my $2 of extreme bidding power to focus on a minor leaguer this week. Given the rumors swirling around a possible September call-up for Orioles’ phenom, Dylan Bundy, I decided to go after him and see if I could possibly catch a little lighting in a bottle to move out of the back end of the league. Of course he would be on a heavy pitch count and might not go more than 5 innings any night, but there would be a chance for some wins and strikeouts. Skipping Triple-A successfully as a 19-year old though is no easy task. Joe Saunders will of course be taking over a rotation spot this week, but given the weak performances of others in the Orioles’ rotation, there are potential openings.

NATIONAL LEAGUE

PLAYERS AWARDED

UNAWARDED CONTINGENCY BIDS

Brian Walton's Commentary

The excitement over the Red Sox salary dump trade to the Dodgers manifested itself in NL Tout bidding this weekend. FAAB leader Phil Hertz of BaseballHQ topped the offers for Adrian Gonzalez with a $69 bid, $1 more than the most the team with the second-most cash could possibly spend. With Vickrey bidding, the final cost turned out to be just $41, a nice deal.

The warrior with the second-most FAAB, Scott Wilderman, avoided what he probably correctly figured would be the second-best bid for Gonzalez. Instead, he went in for $55 on the other major element of the trade with potential 2012 impact, Josh Beckett. A full $20 came off that offer due to the Vickrey rules.

Sadly, of the other new Dodgers, Nick Punto joined Carl Crawford with no bidding action. At least Carl is out for the year.

One interesting bid was Peter Kreutzer's offer of $11 for Mets pitcher Collin McHugh, reduced to $10. There were no other bids made on the right-hander, who is expected to be back up in September.

MIXED LEAGUE

PLAYERS AWARDED

UNAWARDED CONTINGENCY BIDS

Zach Steinhorn's Commentary

John Mayberry Jr. is batting .353 with three homers and eight RBIs over his last nine games. Combine that with the fact that he’s now playing every day, and it was enough of a reason for Fred Zinkie to shell out $6 for his services. I considered putting in a bid for Mayberry, but with a logjam at the corner infield, outfield and utility positions, I decided to pass and conserve my remaining 11 FAAB bucks.

James Loney, now of the Red Sox, also garnered a $6 winning claim, but I’m sure Ray Flowers is wishing he didn’t place such a high bid, as no one else even bothered to bid on Loney. As a former Loney owner, I don’t quite understand this one, as he really hasn’t done much of anything this year. But he is batting a respectable .271 since the All-Star break and maybe Flowers figures that a change of scenery will do him some good.

I was really hoping to get Justin Masterson, who despite his inconsistency is in line for a favorable matchup this week at home vs. the A’s. But I guess Cory Schwartz wanted him even more, as he snagged the Indians’ righty for $4.

This was a very frustrating FAAB week for me as I missed out on Masterson by two bucks and came just a dollar short on Tyler Skaggs and Frank Francisco. My one pickup turned out to be Phillies’ catcher Eric Kratz. He’s getting regular at-bats. He’s hitting .267 with four homers and 11 RBIs in August. And I paid nothing for him. But most importantly, he cannot possibly do worse than Ramon Hernandez!