Collette Calls: My 2026 AL Tout Wars Review

My annual sojourn to midtown Manhattan for Tout Wars happened this past weekend. It has now been 20 years since I was asked to be a very late fill-in by the powers-to-be running the RotoJunkie site, as both co-owners had late emergencies pop up but did not want to lose their coveted seat at the table. I showed up in time thanks to Delta Skymiles and Hilton Honors points, thinking I was prepared for the auction considering I had a few home league titles for the format under my belt. If I were retelling this story to my daughter, she would react with an emphatic, "Bruh!" because she could see the hole in my logic. I was nowhere near ready for the talent in the room, but I did avoid finishing last place in the league. The next season, I recovered and finished a solid if not distant second place behind the Tout Wars legend Mike Lombardo. 

The next year, I was asked to jump over to the American League, and my only memory of that first year was taking some guy named Ben Zobrist as my middle infield for $2 in the end game the season he busted out. I have also finished second in AL-only, but in the 18 years I've been in that league, I have never won it. I have gone heavy hitting in some years, heavy pitching in others, diversified my portfolio from AL LABR, matched my AL LABR team, invested in catching, invested in power; outside of an extreme Labadini 251/9 approach, I have tried everything to capture that evasive Tout Wars title since 2009. My failure in doing so bothers me more than the ending to the 2019 Duke/UCF second round March Madness game. I have left many drafts feeling good about my chances only to see misfortune and mismanagement derail any chances of winning. I have not even had a chance at an AL Tout Wars league title heading into the final two weeks of any season. 

I am, once again, hoping to change that this season. 

The Plan

You might recall from my AL LABR recap from two weeks ago that I planned to spend $177 on hitting and $83 on pitching and allocated dollar amounts to each roster position, and did end up within one dollar of those amounts. That plan involved buying one frontline closer, one frontline starter, and then swimming the middle lanes looking for values. I have seen similar approaches work out at the auction for successful players such as Ariel Cohen and Jeff Zimmerman, who show discipline by not going above their values to get the statistics they want coming out of the auction. I adjusted my AL Tout Wars plan to allow for $184 of hitting and $76 for pitching, because my recent seasons in the league have seen several of my offensive efforts underperform. I also decided to avoid pursuing a frontline closer and would instead embrace the risk of bargain shopping for relievers. 

The Results

* - players I wrote about in my Bold Prediction series

Mistakes, I made a few. The primary mistake I made was the embarrassing one of not adding the second swing (SW) spot to my roster sheet. AL and NL Tout use one infield (INF) spot rather than middle or corner and add a second SW spot which teams can fill with either a hitter or a pitcher. I had INF on the sheet, but I somehow forgot to ensure my sheet had two SW and the utility spot. This became an issue near the end of the auction when I ended up with one less dollar than I thought I had and ended up losing out on both Justin Sterner and Lucas Erceg to my nemeses Glenn Colton and Rick Wolf in the end game. 

Setting that matter aside, I feel I got better pitching than I expected to get with a $76 budget. I had both Cease and Gray valued over $20, so I was happy to get both at the prices they came at. Detmers, even though I faded him in the Bold Prediction series, was purchased because he was sitting at $7 and I had him as a $9 pitcher, so I said $8 and the room stopped. Getting the young guns in Leiter and Matthews is something I have tried to do in all my drafts as I love both their market price and their upside. Martinez is opening the season as the second starter for Tampa Bay, so I will make that $2 buy all day long. The bullpen is where things are very suspect.

I bought Jansen early because I liked the price. I am a firm believer in identifying a group of players and bidding on all of them until one is rostered. Jansen was that guy for me, and then I sat back and waited for the end game. In any draft or auction, it's rare that someone has the exact same end-game plan as you do. In snake drafts, you can do something about it and jump your guy up a round or so early if you really want that player. In an auction, that is not possible if the other team has more money than you, and I saw my fate coming about three hours into the auction as Colton and the Wolfman had three pitching slots open just like I did, but they had double my funds available, with only two catching slots still open to potentially spend some of that money. 

I looked at what was left of the catching pool and saw that nobody was worth more than $1, so I threw out Sterner and Erceg in my next two passes and lost both on max bids to them. The good news is I don't have two-thirds of the same pen I have in AL LABR, but if both guys work out as I expect them to, what buoys me in one league will doom me in the other. I went with Ferrer and Rogers as plans C and D for their skills and have to hope something derails Andres Munoz or Jeff Hoffman in-season for either to get more than a token save chance. I am already behind the FAAB eight ball, losing 13 percent of my available budget since my team finished 13 points below the required 60 last year, and now I have to chase saves on the waiver wire to help make up for the auction. Not great, Bob!

The offense came together as I had hoped it would. I supplemented the proven power of Alvarez and Rooker with the upside I see in Burger, Varsho and McNeil, the risks of the unknown with Okamoto, the roster flexibility of Gimenez, Smith, Rafaela and McNeil, and I could not help myself didn't want to allow Lewis to go for a single-digit price. After all, if Byron Buxton can have a healthy 2025, why can't Lewis have a health 2026 and show that what he did in September of last season is sustainable? 

I do not like having three one dollar players, but Wynns was at least a planned one. When in doubt, go with the backup catcher who has his home games in a launching pad and does not play enough to tank your on-base percentage. Melton was a small amount of exacted revenge because Colton and the Wolfman wanted him earlier but were out of roster spots, so at least I have my team's favorite prospect when he comes up. Ward may be a nothing burger in the grand scope of things, but he has had an amazing camp for Boston with their entire outfield in the World Baseball Classic and went 18-for-20 in steals while hitting .368 over 38 at-bats. 

Finally, I feel the reserves helped me cover some holes in the auction. I opened with Matt Vierling because he, too, has had a tremendous camp for Detroit and should re-gain positional flexibility in-season. For now, he moves up to the SW spot to replace Melton, as the Rays assigned him to minor-league camp on Monday. I next went with Simeon Woods Richardson, who I was surprised was not drafted coming off his hot finish to last season. I needed another starter if Matthews loses out to Mick Abel for a rotation spot and gets demoted to begin the season. Armstrong was the next selection, since he did share the lead for saves with Texas last season with Luke Jackson and Robert Garcia and would easily be a triple-digit FAAB purchase should something happen with Cade Smith. Finally, James Outman is out of options and is a lock to make the Minnesota roster, and I needed another bat early if Ward is sent to minor-league camp and is unable to win a roster spot as a super utility player for Boston.

I like the power and flexibility I accumulated, but OBP, saves and steals will need to be aggressively managed within the season to make up for what I was not able to do in the auction. If Burger, McNeil and Varsho can reach the heights I discussed in my Bold Prediction writeups for them this winter, all the better.

The entirety of the AL Tout Wars auction, including a $62 purchase of Aaron Judge, can be found here.