Ahh, one of the most debated topics in fantasy baseballdom. Does position scarcity exist or is it just a myth? Hell, what the heck do you even mean by position scarcity to begin with? Earlier in the week, RotoGraphs’ Howard Bender published his thoughts on the issue using catchers as the focal point. He concluded that it was unwise to spend an early round pick on a catcher because you could get better production elsewhere. I disagree with this opinion and feel that the top catcher is absolutely worth the price he is paid. Here’s why…

Read the rest of this entry »

This past week, Brent Morel was named the starter at third base for the Chicago White Sox, to the absolute delight of White Sox pitchers. While his glove is definitely a plus, fantasy baseball mavens want to know about the bat, and although Morel isn’t going to do an Evan Longoria rookie campaign impersonation, his bat isn’t something to completely ignore.

Read the rest of this entry »

As we get to the final stretch of fantasy prep before the season starts, I wanted to update everyone on some changes over at ottoneu Fantasy Baseball, as well as a few leagues that need a couple more owners for drafts over the next few days.  First, for those of you who might not know, ottoneu Fantasy Baseball is the FanGraphs fantasy baseball game.  You can read the introduction here, or you can send me an email with any questions you might have.

Technical Updates

Wednesday, a relatively large number of leagues wanted to draft at the same time, causing my server to eat itself for about 3 hours.  We’ve done a couple of things to ensure this won’t happen again, such as doubling the capacity of our server and examining all the database code line by line.  Long story short, it was unacceptable, and I’ve spent a lot of time Wednesday night fixing it up so that going forward we won’t have these issues.  Yesterday, we had a couple of leagues draft with no issues reported to me, so I think the changes have helped.

Open Leagues Still Available

We have a few leagues actively looking to fill out their ranks.  Here are a couple that reached out to me:

Halpin’s League – Run by John Halpin at foxsports.com, still needs 7 players.  It’s a 5×5 for those of you more interested in a traditional set of stats.  John knows his stuff and I imagine this league would be a pretty good challenge, if you fancy yourself as a fantasy expert.

RBP Blog League – Another 5×5 league, only needs 3 more players, and they are drafting tomorrow starting at 2pm PT.  Short lead time, but having talked to the guys running this league, it’ll definitely be a fun time. (corrected the draft time for this one from 2pm ET)

Money League Baseball – Finally, for those of you that want FanGraphs Points and some cash prizes, we have a $49.99 prize league that needs 8 owners still.  Highly recommend this league, as I know one of the participants is one of the original ottoneu owners playing in a points league for the first time.

Beyond these leagues I’ve mentioned here, there are a few more public leagues looking to fill out, as well as some private leagues that are very close.  Check out the list here and if you have any questions about a particular league or getting in touch with a commissioner, shoot me an email or tweet @ottoneu.  I will get back to you as fast as I can with whatever information you might need.  Since I like giving away teams, how about the best tweet about ottoneu today will get the winner a free $9.99 team for this season.  Include @ottoneu so I see it!

Earlier this month we ranked relievers with a heavy emphasis on saves, since that’s their primary role on a fantasy team. Lots of leagues use holds as well, so here’s a ranking of the top fantasy options for holds going into 2011…

Read the rest of this entry »

Continuing this series of comparing FanGraphs Points league scoring to traditional scoring, we’ll begin looking today at pitching.  To start, I decided to look at a traditional points scoring system compared to the ottoneu points scoring system.  There is no apparent “standard” fantasy points system, but I chose the points scoring used at CBSSportsline as my comparison, as it seems fairly typical of systems you see out “in the wild.”  Let’s start with a list of the top-10 pitchers by their system in the 2010 season:

For reference, I also included their rank according to total FanGraphs Points.  Overall, it doesn’t look that different, right?  The top three are identical, and most of the top-10 are ranked similarly in both systems.  There are two pitchers who had a ranking disparty of at least 10 spots, however: David Price and Tim Hudson.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been said that the good ones copy and the great ones steal. With that in mind, I’m stealing a cue from Mr. Podhorzer, who looked at a pair of players owned in less than 10% of leagues earlier this week. But since my two fantasy beats this season are Deep-League Waiver Wire and American League Outfielders, I figured, Why not combine the two?

What was that they say about those who steal again?

Read the rest of this entry »

We’re splitting the outfielder and starting pitcher rankings into two leagues so that your positional correspondents can handle the workload. But you’re in a mixed league and drafting this week. So, for your use, we smashed the outfielder rankings together this week.

Now it’s time for the pitchers.

Read the rest of this entry »

When you look at something like the Empire State Building from afar it’s hard to get a full appreciation of just what you’re seeing. You understand it’s a big building, and hey, that’s cool, but it isn’t until you take a closer look that you can really stand back and say “Wow”. The same can be said of shortstops not named Hanley Ramirez or Troy Tulowitzki this season, just in an opposite sense.

The “Wow” refers to just how bad the position is.

Read the rest of this entry »

Some quick injury updates at fantasy’s most productive position…

Read the rest of this entry »