The just completed 2024 fantasy baseball season was excruciatingly long (it wasn’t just me, right?). On a daily basis there were injuries, odd lineup decisions and general mayhem across the league. You had to grind it out to have success in 2024, there was no way around it, so keeping an eye on those weekly decisions was paramount to having success. Given the nature of the turbulent baseball season, my fantasy teams ran the gamut from a terrible 13th place finish in LABR (out of 15-teams) and an 8th out of 14-team finish in the FSGA Champions League (despite rostering Shohei Ohtani). Then there was my Tout Wars team. This article will review how the season played out in Tout Wars in what was my best finish in an expert’s league in 2024. Just how well did the team do? Read on to find out.
LEAGUE SETUP
15-teams, 5×5 roto scoring.
Hitting Categories – OBP, HR, RBI, Runs, SB
Pitching Categories – IP, ERA, WHIP, K, SOLDS
This league did not use AVG, Wins or Saves as are used in traditional 5×5 leagues.
ACTIVE ROSTER: 2-C, 1-1B, 1-3B, 1-CI, 1-2B, 1-SS, 1-MI, 5-OF, 1-UT, 9-P
RESERVES: Six spots
DRAFT RESULTS
Here is the initial writeup talking about the draft and how the team came together.
From the 11th spot out of 15 teams…
*Round taken in parenthesis.
Catcher: Salvador Perez (10), Elias Diaz (22)
First Base: Yandy Diaz (6)
Second Base: Brandon Lowe (20)
Third Base: Alex Bregman (4)
Shortstop: Trea Turner (2)
Middle Infielder: Luis Rengifo (17)
Corner Infielder: Justin Turner (14)
Outfield: Riley Greene (7), Brandon Nimmo (9), Lane Thomas (11), Kris Bryant (13), Brandon Marsh (21)
Utility: Shohei Ohtani (1)
Pitchers: Framber Valdez (3), Joe Ryan (5), Jose Berrios (8), Robert Stephenson (12), Nick Lodolo (15), Marcus Stroman (16), Max Scherzer (18), Lance Lynn (19), Aroldis Chapman (23)
BENCH: Alex Lange (24), Joc Pederson (25), Paul Skenes (26), Kyle Finnegan (27), Nick Martinez (28), Brendan Rodgers (2)
HOW THE DRAFT DAY ROSTER PERFORMED
The bold/italics quotes below are taken from my writeup in February…
“Love the way I was able to get OBP as well as overall counting category stability.”
I finished second in OBP at .3325 to .3328, so my initial thoughts with the category were spot on.
“Ohtani/Turner/Thomas could all go 20/20 this season.”
Ohtani went 54/59.
Turner went 21/19.
Thomas went 15/32.
That’s 90 homers and 110 steals.
The trio averaged 30/36.
“Skenes could make 15-20 starts this season, right? Once promoted, people will blow their FAAB budget on guys like Skenes.”
He exceeded my expectations, made 23 starts, and was flipping dynamic (1.96 ERA, 0.95 WHIP, 170 Ks in 133 IP).
“Finnegan isn’t quite as skilled as Hunter Harvey, but he’s still pitching high-level innings though. The last three years, here are his solids marks: 24-25-36. Another 30+ is totally doable.”
Finnegan had 38 saves and just five blown efforts.
But, oh no, things did not go right across the board.
Elias Diaz, my second catcher, went from 14 homers and 72 RBI to 6-39, was released at one point and played for two teams.
Yandy Diaz had a .341 OBP, after two years in a row over .400, while losing eight homers, 13 RBI and 40 runs from 2023 (14-65-55).
Alex Bregman went from 28-98-103 to 26-75-79. Worse his OBP, .350 or higher for 7-straight years, fell to .315.
Luis Rengifo was great with 24 steals and a .347 OBP… but he only played 78 games.
Justin Turner had a strong .354 OBP, it was .352 the previous three years, but he went from 23-96-86 to 11-55-59.
Kris Bryant – never again.
Robert Stephenson never threw a pitch and had TJ surgery after posting a 38 percent K-rate and 0.88 WHIP in 2023.
Nick Lodolo made 21 average-ish starts (4.76 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, 25 percent K-rate).
Marcus Stroman posted a 1.47 WHIP after coming in with a 1.18 mark the previous three years. He also had a career worst 16.7 K-rate.
Max Scherzer made nine starts with a 1.15 WHIP. He was hurt about 321 times.
Lance Lynn had a solid 3.84 ERA, but his WHIP (1.34), K-rate (21.3) and IP mark (117.1) were all below expectations.
So, you might be asking, how did this team do better than 8th place?
I had Ohtani, which was massive, but recall from above that I finished middle of the pack in the FSGA league with Ohtani. So maybe the waiver-wire was deftly handled by yours truly leading to a bunch of stellar additions?
IN-SEASON MOVES
I made 43 additions throughout the year on waivers.
The next highest mark in the league was 38.
Here are the best moves I made, the date/cost of the addition and the numbers they posted while active for my team. The budget was $1,000 for the season to be spent once a week on Sunday’s.
March 28th: Brenton Doyle $56 – A huge addition for 128 games of impressive work (20-65-69-22 with a .322 OBP).
April 15th: JoJo Romero $17 – Posted 25 solds, a 2.91 ERA and 1.12 WHIP.
July 8th: Luis Ortiz $39 – Made nine starts with a 2.89 ERA and 0.93 WHIP.
July 19th: Xavier Edwards $24 – Played 49 games with a .416 OBP & 25 steals. #Star
August 5th: Ryne Nelson $12 – Six starts with a 3.38 ERA, 0.99 WHIP and 39 Ks.
August 26th: Edwin Uceta $11 – Seven solds over 10.3 IP.
Some nice moves indeed, but only a couple could be designated as difference making.
THE FINAL STANDINGS
We know the team was better than 8th since I mentioned that at the start of the piece, but how good was the team in the end?
The offense was – spectacular.
Runs: 2nd (32 behind first)
Homers: 1st (8 more than anyone)
RBI: 1st (26 more than anyone)
SB: 1st (five more than anyone)
OBP: 2nd (.0003 behind first)
That’s 73-of-75 points which is basically impossible.
The pitching?
Not.
So.
Much.
ERA: 8th at 3.841
WHIP: 8th at 1.2142
Strikeouts: 11th at 1,229
Solds: 4th at 84
Innings: 6th at 1,284
We started nine pitchers a week.
We ran waivers once a week.
We set our lineups each week on Monday.
How many pitchers were on my roster at one point or another?
THIRTY-FIVE.
It was a bloodbath of mediocrity on the hill trying to rack up punchouts and strikeouts. I was quite good with the bullpen arm management, but the starting pitchers, for the most part, kinda stunk. It was so bad that my final week of pitching was downright catastrophic. I would have been better if I had just pitched nine guys who didn’t throw an inning. I’m not exaggerating either.
Look at how bad the final week was. It was scary awful.
| ERA | WHIP | SO | IP | SOLDS | |
| Sept. 24th | 10 pts | 9 pts | 5 pts | 10 pts | 11 pts |
| Sept. 30th | 7 pts | 8 pts | 5 pts | 10 pts | 11.5 pts |
That last week… was awful. In a week’s time I lost three points in ERA and one point in WHIP. On the year my team threw 1,284 innings… and in 1/26th the season I lost four points in the ratio categories with an ERA of nearly nine with a WHIP approaching 2.00 for the week. Like I wrote… an utter catastrophe as my pitching staff was imploding like the Hindenburg. I was feeling nauseous most evenings. I was struggling to sleep, and I’m not saying that for effect. Nearly every night I would wake up around 4 AM, I’m getting old and need to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, grab my cell phone off the nightstand and check the standings to see my lead dwindling further. The news was just bad in the middle of the night. Don’t forget that mid-week we learned that there would be a double header on Monday for the Mets/Braves as well. When I heard that news, I was convinced I would lose on the final day of the season. Convinced. My brother helped to talk me down while remaining positive and I’d like to thank him for that because it kept me sane during the toughest week of fantasy struggles I’ve ever dealt with.
So where did the team end up? Did that final week of horrific pitching cost me a shot at placing in the top-3?
Amazingly
the
team
ended
the
year
in… FIRST PLACE.
My offense was historically good.
My pitching was completely average.
Yet I still managed to win Tout Wars.
Check out how amazingly close some of the categories were at the end of the sesaon.
*WK – includes just the Monday doubleheader.
In the end, I won my first Tout Wars title. I’m very proud of the results for a variety of reasons.
1 – Every week was a grind, and I was always there for it. No matter what was going on in my life, where I was or what I was dealing with personally, I worked the wire each week. I don’t think you can win in the modern baseball environment if you don’t do that.
2 – I built the team that I always talk about. Crush the offensive side of things and make it work on the pitching side.
3 – I preach all the time about the pitfalls of saves and wins, so the fact that I emerged victorious in the league that replaces the two categories warms my heart. I’ve also talked about removing batting average for OBP forever, sharing the story many times how my home league started using on-base percentage in the 1990’s.
Winning this type of setup means a lot, but I don’t know if my heart could take another similar ride in 2025.
Special thanks to Peter Kreutzer, Todd Zola, Ron Shandler, Jeff Erickson and Brian Walton for spearheading everything Tout Wars. I would also like to dedicate my win to my friend, Lawr Michaels.
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