Chad’s Daily Ottoneu Routine

My wife asked me recently how much time I put into Ottoneu and I realized that a) I didn’t know and b) I didn’t want to tell her. So I took a few minutes to think through what I do each day and how long it takes me and realized that sharing my routine might help others think about how they manage their Ottoneu teams.

My Ottoneu day starts late at night. Being on the West Coast, I am typically awake when all the games for the day are over and I like to wait until everything wraps up to get started. When that is too late for me – say a game in California had a weather delay or went to extra innings or I just got tired early – I start first thing in the morning (or at least before the first game of the day). But sometime between 10 pm PT and 10 am PT, I go through the following:

1. Check out my live stats for the day. You can find this at the Today’s Stats link under your league name or team name. The image below is from a computer, where you see the name of your league (mine is Original Ottoneu) and team (Freeport Pretzels). On a smaller window or on a mobile device, it just says “League” and “Team.”
   
   On this page, you can see all your stats from the day – every hitter and pitcher, broken out by starters and bench. Its a great way to see how you did and who did well. It’s also a good first check to see if anything weird happened. Did someone unexpected not play? Did someone get pulled after 1 PA or 1 IP?
   This isn’t something I spend a lot of time on, maybe one minute per league just to glance and see if anything needs attention.
2. Check the standings. Now that I know how my team did, I need to see how that moved the needle, if at all.
   
   For my roto leagues, I can see not only big picture how things change, but category by category where did I gain or lose points.
   
   Most of the season, this takes almost no time – 10 seconds, just to see – but in August or September I might linger a little longer in my roto leagues, figuring out what categories need attention.
3. Set my lineups. Clicking on your team name will take you straight to your lineups page. If you do this in the evening, like I do, you need to click ahead to the next day. Once there, I set my lineups. This takes the most time. I am checking pitcher-hitter matchups, figuring out which of my pitchers I want to start, etc. If I have more than five relievers on my roster, I check who pitched that day and who didn’t, and make sure to prioritize starting relievers who haven’t pitched in a day or two, sitting anyone who has pitched multiple days in a row. This takes about 3 minutes per league. That might seem fast but most decisions are pretty easy. Sit your hitters facing Spencer Strider. Bench that lefty facing a tough lefty. Start most of your SP, but not the guy getting a start at Coors. And so on. I try to have a good sense of who I plan to use when so most days it’s just enacting decisions I already made, not doing research into specific matchups or anything like that.
4. Go to the roster page to check for cap penalties I can reset. Your lineup page is not your roster page and I click over to “Rosters” to look at one specific table.
   
   The “Cap Penalties” table.
   
   This table shows any cap penalties you are holding and the penalty and date will be bolded and green if the cap penalty is >30 days old. In that case, you can start an auction on the player to try to clear or at least cut down the cap penalty. I try to check that every night and, if there is a cap penalty I can clear, start the auction. This takes 10-15 seconds, maybe a bit more if I have a penalty to act on. If I am short on time, I skip this step.
5. Check the league page for auctions and waivers. I finally go to the league page by clicking “League” or the league name to see if anyone is on waivers or if any auctions have been started. If auctions have been started, I usually just make a mental note to find time to look at that player later – I should have almost 48 hours to act. If a player is on waivers, I make a decision quickly if I want to claim them or not and, if so, I put in the claim. This takes about 30 seconds. This step I also cut short if I am short on time (or tired). I just check to see if any auctions will end in <24 hours. If not, I move on and check the next night.

So there it is, my nightly routine, less than 5 minutes per league, usually a lot less.

But that isn’t the entire routine. The next day, I try to check my lineups 15-45 minutes before each set of games starts to see if someone needs to be benched or moved into the lineup. This is a quick check – 30 seconds per league if there is a move to make, less if not. Once the season is in full swing, this usually happens around 3:30, 4:30, 5:30, and 6:30 pm PT. More often than not, I don’t need to check all four times. If I wait until 3:45 pm for the first check, I can often skip the second. There are rarely Mountain Time games that require the third, so I can often get this down to 3:45 and 6:45.

And, to be honest, I don’t stress about these. I usually have the “Bench position players that are not in their MLB starting lineup” toggle flipped to green. If I get around to doing these checks, I make corrections. If not, I might leave an empty lineup spot here or there, but I get over that and get more aggressive about filling my lineups when I can.

And that is the end of my daily routine. There are other activities I do during the season – looking for interesting free agents, identifying who on my team can be cut, looking at the trade block – but I do these less routinely, instead checking in on these things when I find I have time.

But the rest of that stuff, I try to do daily.