2019 Ottoneu Arbitration Targets

Ottoneu arbitration begins today, and it is one of the highlights of the fantasy season.  Much has been written about the various arbitration (usually via allocation) strategies available to owners over the past few winters, but if you’re entering your very first Ottoneu off season, or just researching how the game works before joining a new league, here is the official breakdown of how arbitration works:

In the interest of maintaining competitive balance, there are two distinct arbitration options:

Allocations

The allocation system gives a $25 budget to each team in the league.

The team must allocate this budget towards players on other teams.

Each team must allocate at least one dollar to every other team, and no team can allocate more than $3 to any other team.

At the end of the allocation period, all players have their salary increased by the amount allocated towards them.

Allocations take place after the initial offseason salary increase, so any allocations will be in addition to the $1 or $2 increase each player gets at the end of the season.

If a team does not allocate at least one dollar to every other team, none of their allocations will count and it will be as if they did not participate at all.

If a team does not allocate all $25, none of their allocations will count and it will be as if they did not participate at all.

Vote Off

The vote-off system gives each team in the league the ability to vote on a player on each other team.

The player that receives the most votes collectively on each team is turned into a restricted free agent that can be bid on by other teams during the auction draft.

In the case of a tie, the standings of all the relevant voting teams is examined. Whichever player has the team with the worst standings voting for them is the restricted free agent.

The team they were voted off from will get an automatic $5 discount towards that player, so if they get the player back, they will get the player for $5 under what they bid.

Players who have been voted into restricted free agency cannot be traded.

Players who have been voted into restricted free agency will not appear as free agents on the site.

The majority of Ottoneu leagues now use the Allocation system referenced above since it is the most engaging and usually the most disruptive.

As arbitration kicks off, I’ve provided links to a few strategic arbitration resources below.  However, taking it one step further this year, I’m releasing a list of players I expect will receive the most arbitration allocations across Ottoneu leagues.  Since player salaries are league-dependent, I’ve used average current salaries across all FGPTS leagues to estimate the attractiveness of these players and their likelihood to be hit with allocations from your league owners.  As a practical application of the list, you could say I see a $31 Anthony Rendon as more valuable than an $8 Marcus Semien, for example.  In this case, I think you should apply more of your allocations to Rendon instead of Semien.

If you own these players for salaries below the average salary listed, for example, expect their chances of receiving allocations to increase, moving them up the list compared to others.  Roto values (particulary 5 x 5) would be reflected differently, and I would recommend posting those specific questions to the community here.

2019 Ottoneu Arbitration Hitters
RK Name POS P/G AVG $ FPTS wOBA wRC+
1 Yordan Alvarez OF 8.36 $5 727 0.432 178
2 Juan Soto OF 7.39 $21 1,109 0.394 142
3 Peter Alonso 1B 7.14 $7 1,149 0.384 143
4 Ronald Acuna Jr. OF 7.15 $27 1,115 0.369 126
5 Christian Yelich OF 9.56 $40 1,243 0.442 174
6 Cody Bellinger 1B/OF 8.08 $28 1,260 0.415 162
7 Fernando Tatis Jr. SS 7.82 $10 657 0.398 150
8 Rafael Devers 3B 7.10 $14 1,108 0.377 132
9 Ketel Marte 2B/SS/OF 7.77 $8 1,119 0.405 150
10 Gleyber Torres 2B/SS 6.22 $14 895 0.358 125
11 Jeff McNeil 2B/3B/OF 6.69 $7 890 0.384 143
12 Anthony Rendon 3B 8.05 $31 1,176 0.413 154
13 Alex Bregman SS/3B 8.07 $36 1,259 0.418 168
14 Trevor Story SS 7.34 $25 1,065 0.380 121
15 Aaron Judge OF 6.98 $40 712 0.382 141
16 Xander Bogaerts SS 7.40 $29 1,147 0.390 141
17 Josh Bell 1B 6.97 $10 997 0.378 135
18 Max Muncy 1B/2B/3B 6.34 $11 894 0.372 134
19 Keston Hiura 2B 6.93 $6 582 0.388 139
20 Austin Meadows OF 6.91 $8 953 0.380 142
21 Marcus Semien SS 6.97 $8 1,129 0.373 137
22 Eloy Jimenez OF 5.65 $12 689 0.343 116
23 Mitch Garver C 6.96 $5 647 0.404 155
24 Trey Mancini 1B/OF 6.80 $7 1,047 0.373 132
25 Joey Gallo OF 7.44 $16 521 0.401 144
26 DJ LeMahieu 1B/2B/3B 6.90 $9 1,001 0.375 136
27 Nelson Cruz Util 8.19 $24 983 0.417 163
28 Jorge Soler OF 6.72 $7 1,089 0.378 136
29 George Springer OF 7.97 $34 972 0.400 156
30 Trea Turner SS 6.98 $33 852 0.356 117
31 Carlos Correa SS 6.92 $40 519 0.380 143
32 Shohei Ohtani Util 5.73 $29 607 0.352 123
33 Eugenio Suarez 3B 6.78 $15 1,078 0.381 133
34 Yoan Moncada 3B 6.78 $16 895 0.379 141
35 Miguel Sano 1B/3B 6.70 $12 704 0.378 137
36 Max Kepler OF 6.25 $10 838 0.355 121
37 Francisco Lindor SS 6.69 $42 957 0.349 114
38 Charlie Blackmon OF 7.42 $38 1,039 0.387 125
39 J.D. Martinez OF 7.41 $42 1,082 0.386 139
40 Hunter Dozier 1B/3B/OF 6.13 $6 852 0.360 124
41 Ozzie Albies 2B 6.29 $15 1,006 0.354 117
42 Jorge Polanco SS 6.31 $8 965 0.352 119
43 Tim Anderson SS 6.28 $5 772 0.363 130
44 Matt Olson 1B 6.63 $13 842 0.368 134
45 Vladimir Guerrero Jr. 3B 4.97 $18 611 0.329 105
HM Mookie Betts OF 7.52 $54 1,128 0.380 135
HM Freddie Freeman 1B 7.20 $46 1,138 0.387 138
HM Michael Brantley OF 6.32 $14 936 0.367 133
HM Josh Donaldson 3B 6.55 $29 1,016 0.377 132
HM Jose Altuve 2B 6.86 $47 851 0.374 138
Top 50 offensive arbitration targets (2019)
2019 Ottoneu Arbitration Pitchers
RK Name POS P/IP AVG $ FPTS IP FIP
1 Gerrit Cole SP 6.33 $32 1,343 212 2.64
2 Jack Flaherty SP 5.45 $11 1,069 196 3.46
3 Walker Buehler SP 5.50 $18 1,002 182 3.01
4 Shane Bieber SP 5.13 $9 1,099 214 3.32
5 Justin Verlander SP 5.86 $31 1,307 223 3.27
6 Lucas Giolito SP 5.34 $5 941 176 3.43
7 Mike Clevinger SP 6.20 $13 781 126 2.49
8 Mike Soroka SP 4.93 $7 859 174 3.45
9 Brandon Woodruff SP 5.34 $6 647 121 3.01
10 Charlie Morton SP 5.79 $11 1,125 194 2.81
11 Sonny Gray SP 5.45 $7 954 175 3.42
12 Jacob deGrom SP 6.04 $43 1,233 204 2.67
13 Patrick Corbin SP 5.03 $16 1,017 202 3.49
14 Luis Castillo SP 5.10 $11 970 190 3.70
15 Hyun-Jin Ryu SP 5.30 $7 965 182 3.10
16 Zack Greinke SP 5.28 $25 1,099 208 3.22
17 Kenta Maeda SP 5.03 $11 771 153 3.95
18 Chris Paddack SP 4.79 $7 671 140 3.95
19 Kirby Yates RP 10.98 $7 661 60 1.30
20 Josh Hader RP 9.02 $12 678 75 3.10
21 Lance Lynn SP 5.12 $5 1,066 208 3.13
22 Aaron Nola SP 4.41 $29 891 202 4.03
23 Stephen Strasburg SP 5.44 $36 1,137 209 3.25
24 Kyle Hendricks SP 4.61 $14 816 177 3.61
25 Max Scherzer SP 6.07 $55 1,044 172 2.45
HM Marcus Stroman SP 4.38 $7 806 184 3.72
HM Jake Odorizzi SP 5.05 $5 803 159 3.36
HM James Paxton SP 4.47 $22 671 150 3.86
HM Joey Lucchesi SP 4.24 $8 692 163 4.17
HM Brad Hand RP 8.46 $11 483 57 2.80
Top 30 pitching arbitration targets (2019)

Arbitration Resources

Which players not listed above are you thinking deserve arbitration increases this season? Make an argument for or against in the comments and we’ll debate it during the arbitration period (ends November 14th).





Trey is a 20+ year fantasy veteran and an early adopter of Ottoneu fantasy sports. He currently administers the Ottoneu community, a network of ~1,200 fantasy baseball and football fans talking sports daily. More resources here: http://community.ottoneu.com

13 Comments
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Bill
4 years ago

Allocation or vote off are the worst. Everyone gets a trophy. Two systems where all owners get to take shots at the other owners. Socialism at it’s finest. Where weak owners try to even the playing field. Who are the weak owners? If you don’t like this post…it’s you. No way do either of these systems mirror MLB. In the MLB owners don’t snipe at other owners players nor do they get tack on $$ to their contracts. $1 and $2 are already added to players salaries every year, which is more than enough. I would play in more leagues if neither of these systems were an option.

stockhfcrx2member
4 years ago
Reply to  Bill

Go back to yahoo

Dadpunchersmember
4 years ago
Reply to  Bill

In the MLB, there are lawyers and agents that handle the arbitration. Should we bring in a team of lawyers to decide ottoneu salary increases as well? I think that might cut into the prize pool.

Though it would be interesting to have an approach similar to MLB that only protects players from arbitration for the first 3 years of the league/their career. But then we would need to account for super 2s… 😀

Robertmember
4 years ago
Reply to  Bill

I am a strong Republican/anti socialist. I don’t like this post. Let’s keep politics out of Ottoneu.

mr_hoggmember
4 years ago
Reply to  Robert

If you don’t like what the mirror shows, don’t be like Yahoo guy, confusing regulation (actually crucial to capitalism, per Adam Smith) with socialism.

Robertmember
4 years ago
Reply to  Robert

Negative 14 for saying “keep politics out of OTTONEU”