Ray Flowers reviews his leagues. He’s accountable, even when his teams don’t turn out as well as expected. Here’s his review of his Tout Wars club.

THE DRAFT

Here are the results of the initial draft held back in January.

13 team mixed league

The league included 29 rounds with 14 hitters and nine pitchers starting (six bench spots). Here is the team I put together (round taken in, in parenthesis).

 

C: Matt Wieters (9), Nick Hundley (28)

1B: Eric Hosmer (13), Adam LaRoche (15)

2B: Robinson Cano (1)

3B: Anthony Rendon (2), Brett Lawrie (14), Pedro Alvarez (17)

SS: Jose Reyes (4)

OF: Carlos Gonzalez (3), Jay Bruce (6), Shin-Soo Choo (8), Melky Cabrera (15), Adam Eaton (17)

SP: Adam Wainwright (5), Alex Cobb (7), Tyson Ross (10), Chris Archer (12), Derek Holland (20), Matt Garza (21)

RP: Jonathan Papelbon, Addison Reed (18), Francisco Rodriguez (22)

Bench: Curtis Granderson (23), Shane Greene (24), Sergio Romo (25), Tyler Clippard (26), Josh Rutledge (27), Addison Russell (29)

TRADES

None. Experts don’t trade

WAIVER MOVES

Week 1: David Freese, Kyle Gibson
Week 2: Tim Lincecum
Week 3: Freddy Galvis
Week 4: Ryan Howard, Carlos Ruiz, Chad Qualls
Week 5: Joe Mauer, John Axford
Week 6: James McCann, A.J. Ramos
Week 7: Jace Peterson, Keone Kela
Week 9: Mark Reynolds, J.J. Hardy
Week 11: Erasmo Ramirez
Week 12: J.J. Hoover, Jose Iglesias
Week 13: Chris Iannetta, Marco Estrada, Yonder Alonso
Week 15: Joe Smith
Week 18: Hector Rondon, Jesus Montero
Week 19: James McCann, Tommy Kahnle
Week 21: Domingo Santana
Week 22: Christian Bethancourt, Brad Hand, Tom Wilhelmsen
Week 24: Wilin Rosario
Week 26: Eduardo Escobar, Brandon Finnegan
 

BREAKDOWN
Wieters was a total mess.

Ditto LaRoche, who finally broke down after a decade of production.

Cano was solid with his massive second half, but he wasn’t remotely a first round performer (.287-21-79-82-2).

Rendon was drafted at a point, January, that he was supposed to be fine well before Opening Day. He didn’t play his first game until June 4. #Liars

Bruce was OK but nothing strong (.226-26-87-72-9).

But it was the hurlers, and the injuries, that killed me. My top-two starters – Cobb and Wainwright – did NOT make a single start. You can’t win with that.

Holland made only 10 starts because of injury.

Garza was awful. Actually, let’s go with hideous (6-14, 5.63 ERA, 1.57 WHIP).

Reed was awful out of the pen (four saves).

Oh, and the unspeakable… Mr. Greene.

There was some good though.

Granderson was my sixth outfielder. He had his best season in years (.259-26-70-98-11).

CarGo (.271-40-97-87-2), Choo (.276-22-82-94 with a .375 OBP) and Eaton (.287-14-56-98-18) were really strong. Melky did his normal thing and was solid (.273-12-77-70-3).

Archer in the 12th round? Yeah that was pretty good value (12 wins, 3.23 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, 252 Ks in 212 IP).

K-Rod (22nd round) and Clippard (26th) combined to give me 57 saves (K-Rod 38, Clippard 19).

FINISH

Last in steals, last in wins. First in saves. That pretty much tells the story. This team was all over the place. It just wasn’t very good. Injuries played a huge part, but we all have to deal with that so it’s just how it is.

9th out of 13 teams

 
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