For our second episode we discuss ottoneu auction tips and strategies.

Feel free to comment with any questions or suggestions you may have about this episode or future topics, and we can be reached individually on Twitter:

@OttoneuTrades

@JustinVibber

@TomHasOpinions

@Fazeorange

Lastly, special thanks to Treemen who provided our intro and outro music. If you like what you hear, please check out their other work at http://treemen.bandcamp.com/

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3/11/16

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

Follow us on Twitter

• @sporer
• @enosarris
• @jasoncollette

Moves/News/Rumors

• We spend the bulk of the episode discussing Eno’s findings at the camps he’s been to: Chicago, Cincy, San Diego, and Colorado.

Strategy Section: Tout Mixed

• Review of Eno’s team for Tuesday’s Tout Mixed Draft

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We’ve started our annual Depth Chart Discussions, re-branded as Playing Time Battles for 2016. You can catch up on every team we’ve covered in the Playing Time Battles Summary post or following along using the Depth Chart Discussions tag.

After an offseason marked with drastic change, it’d be hard to term the Padres 2015 season as anything short of a disaster. General manager A.J. Preller shot for the moon, and landed with a loud, crashing thud as the club finished 74-88, 18 games out of first and better than just six of its National League counterparts.

Flat out the Padres simply did not hit last year. They did show a little power, but ultimately ranked 15th in batting average and on-base percentage. Ranking 12th in slugging percentage and eighth in home runs probably helped the team finish 10th in runs scored, but being last in hits and 10th or worse in basically every other offensive statistic paints a pretty accurate picture of what was going on with the Friars.

The infield has been drastically re-worked, with three-quarters of the starting squad gone. Among those shipped off included the chronically underperforming Yonder Alonso and Jedd Gyorko. Alexi Amarista, who was allowed to take over 350 PA with a .544 OPS, has been rolled back to a more fitting utility role. Yangervis Solarte is basically the sole survivor of the infield, though that doesn’t mean there’ll be a shortage of familiar faces. Read the rest of this entry »

Co-ownership. In my 10 years of fantasy experience, it was something I’d never tried before, nor had I given it much thought. It always seemed like a chore, and (given that I tend to have strong opinions) I assumed that if I ever did co-own a team I would end up “running” the squad, while my counterpart would be left to sit on his hands. It just didn’t seem like much fun – for me or my counterpart – or like an experience that would be any different from Ottoneu leagues I had already participated in.

Until recently.

Fellow Rotographs contributor Trey Baughn and myself were paired up in a newly formed Ottoneu league. Neither of us are experts on the topic of co-ownership, but I wanted to talk through several observations we have quickly realized in our month long trial run.

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Everyone loves value, and paying down at pitcher is quite popular — even in writer/expert leagues. Waiting on pitchers puts some extra pressure on hitting on value plays to offset the lack of a “true” ace. That’s not to say the following pitchers will perform like fantasy aces, but they do appear poised to outperform their draft positions — some by a significant amount, in my opinion. Each of the five pitchers highlighted below is being selected outside of the top-50 starting pitchers in NFBC drafts, just one is being selected inside the top-200 picks on average, and three of the five are being selected, on average, outside of the top-250 players.

*NFBC ADP data current as of March 10th. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s time to move on to the starting pitching side of the ledger for our next set of Steamer and I entries. For the pitchers, I’ll be comparing my ERA Pod Projection to that of Steamer to identify who I am significantly more bullish and bearish on.

First, we’ll start with one of the pitchers I am far more optimistic on than Steamer is. But before we dive in, I wanted to note some of the pitchers I skipped over. Chris Young, Royals version, topped the list, for obvious reasons. He breaks all computer models and is a perfect example of why it is often better to rely on human forecasts than computer ones. After Young was the man that came back from the dead last year, Rich Hill. Obviously, a computer system is going to struggle with his projection and is also unaware of the work he did on his mechanics last season that may have been behind his improved control. He’s a total crapshoot though and a complete shot in the dark, so he’s not really worth discussing.

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A couple weeks back I wrote my first Excel-focused piece here at Rotographs. I was testing the water to see how it would go over and the results were pretty unanimous… More Excel please!

So I’m back today with a very practical tip to help you during the draft or while you’re conducting player research. In the instructions that follow I will show you how to add clickable player page hyperlinks to your draft spreadsheet.

Running out of time on the draft clock? Want to look up Dexter Fowler’s walk rate? Or Chris Davis‘ home run per fly ball rate for 2015? You’ll quickly be able to get to any player’s Fangraphs profile page after adding this to your spreadsheet.

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Spring has sprung and a number of prospects are already turning heads in their respective camps. Today, we’ll have a look at some of the early studs.

Ozhaino Albies, SS, Braves: Just 19, Albies has already appeared in eight spring training games with the Braves. And by all accounts, he’s turning heads and upping his value every day. Perhaps the most impressive part of the youngster’s games has been the amount of contact — he’s struck out just two times in 17 at-bats. It’s easy to see why he’s hit more than .300 in each of his first two pro seasons. Albies can’t legally buy a beer in the U.S. but he could reach Double-A at some point in 2016 and could be in the Majors as soon as 2017. With fellow shortstop Darby Swanson (the 2015 first overall draft pick) also in the system now after an off-season deal with Arizona, the future up the middle in Atlanta looks incredibly bright. ETA: Mid-2017

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We’ve started our annual Depth Chart Discussions, re-branded as Playing Time Battles for 2016. You can catch up on every team we’ve covered in the Playing Time Battles Summary post or following along using the Depth Chart Discussions tag.

Imagine having Mike Trout on your team. Seriously, just think about it for a second. An easy 30 home runs. Roughly a .300/.400/.600 triple-slash line, the baseball equivalent of basketball’s 50-40-90 club. Some stolen bases. Solid defense from a premium position. Kisses babies, shakes hands, frolics with puppies. All that good stuff.

Now imagine surrounding him – he of the four consecutive top-two finishes in American League MVP voting – with a supporting cast that still grades you as below-average on offense, with a 96 weighted runs created-plus and a pedestrian .307 OBP, after including Trout to bring the numbers up. Splitting his time between second and third in the order, Trout managed “just” 90 RBI, in part because the team’s lead-off hitters OBPd .280 (!!) and the team’s other regular No. 2 hitter, Kole Calhoun, struggled to get on base in that spot, too.

It has to be frustrating, having the best player in baseball and missing the playoffs because of the team around him. Not that the Angels were bad – they won 85 games despite getting outscored – and the nice thing about employing Trout is that you’re always going to project as “pretty decent” at worst. Still, it’s not exactly the most exciting lineup around him again in 2016.
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We are doing our March ranking updates. You can follow each position here:

• Outfielders
• Starting Pitchers
• First Base

We’re using Yahoo! eligibility requirements which is 5 starts or 10 appearances. These rankings assume the standard 5×5 categories and a re-draft league.  If we forgot someone, please let us know in the comments and we’ll make sure he’s added for the updates. If you have questions for a specific ranker on something he did, let us know in the comments. We can also be reached via Twitter:

• Paul Sporer
• Jeff Zimmerman
• Zach Sanders
• Mike Podhorzer
• Dan Schwartz
• Paul Kastava
• Justin Mason

There will be differences, sharp differences, within the rankings. The rankers have different philosophies when it comes to ranking, some of which you’re no doubt familiar with through previous iterations. Of course the idea that we’d all think the same would be silly because then what would be the point of including multiple rankers?! Think someone should be higher or lower? Make a case. Let us know why you think that. The chart is sortable. If a ranker didn’t rank someone that the others did, he was given that ranker’s last rank +1.

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