Auction Values for ottoneu leagues
The keeper deadline for ottoneu leagues is upon us (midnight on the night of 1/31 – tonight!), and that means it is time to start auction prep in earnest. As I have the past two years, I am going to help out with my auction values for all four ottoneu formats.
Also as per usual, I made a couple tweaks to the approach this year.
A few notes, though you can look back at past versions for further details.
- I initially set replacement level based on starters – 12 each of C, 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, MI, and Util, 60 OF – and then adjusted all values to make sure the right number of players were listed above replacement level. The replacement levels have been tweaked a few times thanks to feedback in the ottoneu Slack community (if you play ottoneu, you should check it out), and are probably still not 100% perfect.
- For pitchers, I assumed 60 RP, but also tried to account for teams in 4×4 and points leagues (particularly points leagues) generally trying to max out RP innings, which tend to be more valuable on an inning by inning basis. I then assumed all teams would fill out their 1500 IP with SP.
- Steamer does not project Holds, nor were HBP for pitchers in a useful format. For holds, I used an equation provided by Jeff Zimmerman to estimate. For HBP, I took a league average HBP/IP and used that. This should keep pitchers and hitters in a rough balance, however it does mean that pitchers who hit lots of batters are slightly overvalued and those who never hit batters are slightly undervalued. That said, we are talking about a matter of a handful of points in most cases, though in the most extreme cases we could be talking 30 points over the course of the year. Even so, on a per inning basis, I am comfortable with this simplifying assumption.
- Two years ago I tried to show inflated values based on who was being kept in my leagues. Last year I acknowledged that this was not a good approach and just left them off completely. This year I took a third approach – I have year one values in the $ column, and then offer 10%, 25%, and 50% inflation scenarios. In my experience, year two of a league is in the 10%-25% range, by year three or four, you are in the 25% to 50% range. These should be useful guideposts.
- As in past years, I am using un-adjusted Steamer projections (so don’t blame me if you think a player will hit more HR or give up fewer hits) and I am projecting values only based on a players expected performance this season. In your auctions, you should ratchet up or down your values based on what you expect from the player in the future or what your focus is. If you want to win this year, go ahead and grab John Lackey at his projected value. If you are focused on the future, over-pay for Marcus Stroman instead.
- Positions listed are the ones I projected the player at, even if they qualify in other positions.
And, with that, here is a spreadsheet with eight tabs – two for each format, one for hitters, one for pitchers.
Ok, that should get you started. Please let me know in the comments if you have questions. Good luck with your cuts and enjoy the countdown to Opening Day!
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A long-time fantasy baseball veteran and one of the creators of ottoneu, Chad Young's is the Managing Editor for RotoGraphs, and can be heard on the Keep or Kut Podcast. You can follow him on Bluesky @chadyoung.bsky.social.
Thank you– now I can check that I’m not crazy on some of my decisions.
Inflation should be Total League Cap Space / Total Dollar value of Free Agents with positive Dollar Values. For instance, in my league there is $1,062 worth of players available and only $960 of cap space to spend. 960/1062 = .90. So its a negative inflation, all players auction values should be discounted 10%.
I don’t have time to explore, but do you think it’s normal for there to be more player $s than cap $s? For example, I’m paying $324 for about $475 of players. I assume that’s a more common scenario, leaving most leagues with 10 to 50% inflation.
Inflation isn’t constant either. Certain players will be substantially more expensive than their value while others will under cost. If you know you need to a top 15 player and only 3 of them are on the board, you should plan to pay hefty inflation. If you just need some back end glue, then you can aim for values.
I would say it’s probably normal. Now that the cut date has passed, my league went from a $10 deflation (no, Tom Brady is not in my league), to a 3% inflation. $10 deflation is probably not normal, that means you have a lot of idiots in your league.
I meant 10% not $10
There will absolutely be leagues where enough owners make sub-optimal decisions on keepers, creating negative inflation, but it won’t be the norm. It has happened in a league I played in before, though, and Brad makes a good point about this – inflation is not constant. If I were you, I’d still expect serious inflation on the studs, but I’d also expect a bunch of lower- to mid-tier guys to go way below their value.
My experience is that when owners over index on keepers like that, it is because they can keep most of their team together and only need one piece, maybe two, to complete their lineup. In these cases, they have like $80 to spend on like 10 spots, but the plan is to spend $50 or so on one spot. When they identify that target (say they need an OF and set aside $50 for Stanton), the bidding gets intense because a few owners have the same target. Those players who get targeted go for way above what you’d expect (or what other owners budgeted for them). Then the owners who miss out go on tilt and overpay for a Heyward or a Cespedes or something. But then all the $10 OF go for like $3, because no on has cash left.
I’ve found that in an auction it is often the mid-tier plyrs who end up getting overpriced. Early in an auction, owners are scared to bid up the top-tier to their inflated value – and then owners panic when those guys are gone and there’s WAY too much money chasing no talent at all.
Does this overstate closers’ value relative to replacement RP baselines, because you don’t project for holds?
sorry—misunderstood, it looks like you did project holds. but do you really think the top RPs are that valuable?
The top RP’s in 5×5 can lower your ERA more than the top SP’s. If you run the math on projected ERA, projected IP’s, and projected fantasy relevant average ERA, relievers make up the majority of the top 10 in ERA scores. That being said, factoring in position scarcity, I think they should be slightly lower than these values, but not by much. Seems like most owners value relievers less than the math suggests they should.
I’ve come up with comparable numbers for my FGPts league. The reason top RPs don’t go for anywhere near those prices is simply that there’s so much volatility in the RP position. Too much risk in the top guys, and lots of opportunity to get good production at a discount. I usually price RP PAR at a bit over half of hitter PAR, just as a fudge factor to reflect how the market treats RPs.
If I were really smart, I’d then take that discount and put the money back into the hitter pool as a form of inflation. But then I’d also want to account for the fact that most teams have $10-$40 tied up in prospects, which effectively takes that money out of the PAR market.
yeah, that’s basically what i was thinking. thanks for the replies, Brian & Stranger!
I didn’t note it here, but as in past years, I assumed only $375 per team was spent on “production” with the rest set aside for “value” (prospects, flyers, etc.). So that $10-$40 should be accounted for.
Chad, I did something new to account for that that seems to have helped my auction value spreadsheet be more accurate, in cases when steamer projects less than 100 AB’s or 50 IP’s, I revert to the averages table provided by Ottoneu. For example, my auction dollars give Buxton a negative dollar amount, but he isn’t projected to have 100 AB’s, so it values him at $9 because that is his average salary in Ottoneu. I also make some manual decisions like for Kris Bryant, who is projected for more than 100 Ab’s but his steamer value doesn’t account for future value. You can also make a percentage owned criteria, just in case one owner spent $20 on a fringe prospect he won’t screw up your spreadsheet.
And, the averages data can be fed back into your normal valuation process, deducting total prospects worth owning and their price, based on the averages table, from your original spreadsheet, so that it gives you 480 total players with a total value of $4800, with every active player and prospect valued correctly based on steamer projectioms and average salary of prospects.
Where can we find this formula for estimating holds? Is it publicly available? I play in a holds league so it would really help
Trust me, you won’t have much success estimating holds with a formula. You need to do player-by-player analysis. Generally speaking, every holds-eligible reliever will earn 15 to 20 if healthy. So just pick any guy with an eighth inning role and maximize for ERA, K’s, and WHIP. The holds will follow.
There are a few outliers, most notably Tyler Clippard (temporarily a closer) and Joel Peralta (fell off last season). I wouldn’t assume any other reliever will exceed 20 holds with the possible exceptions of Wade Davis and Ken Giles (if Papelbon isn’t dealt). Might be a couple others, I haven’t completed my analysis yet.
Maybe I should say 15-25 holds, although 25 is close to 1.5 standard deviations above average.
I think the equation is valuable as long as you realize a couple things –
1) Holds, like saves are volatile and opportunity-based. If you think a manager is going to give player X a shot and player X is projected for few saves/holds, ratchet his price up. If a guy is projected for a bunch of holds and you think that is crazy cause he’ll be pitching mop-up duty, ratchet it down.
2) Having holds projected is key. If you don’t, all non-closer RP get undervalued, and this means that all other players get overvalued – there are dollars that should be set to RP that instead have to go somewhere else.
3) Most people are not going to hand-project holds, so using an equation is a short-hand way of getting a less accurate but more efficient picture.
As for sharing the equation itself:
.34-.165*whip-.0160*era+0.020 * K/9) * (G-GS) = Holds + Saves
In the steamer projections, which project saves but not holds, I used this as follows – run this equation for all players whose role is set to RP. If the outcome is less than the number of saves projected by steamer, use steamer’s save projections and ignore this. If the number is greater than the saves projection, keep the saves projection and add (outcome of equation – saves) as the number of holds.
I think it is actually more productive to estimate vultured wins from relievers. A lot more wins per season than people realize will always end up in the bullpen – and the setup/closers are usually the least likely to get those too. On an ‘efficiency’ basis (wins per IP), relievers are often near-elite and those wins are also more predictable short-term than people realize.
The only reason RP’s mostly have similar numbers at the end of the season is because their role changes during the season (eg they become a closer and lose win opportunities – or the rotation gets deeper – or the team starts clicking and producing runs earlier in the game)
Great insight. I really just wanted the formula as a starting point/placeholder so that I can accurately rate the RP pool. I’ll make plenty of adjusting.
Do* should replace make*. I changed the wording of my post and then didn’t proofread.
Huh, interesting that replacement level is considered the typical rostered backup at a position and not the typical non-rostered player available in FA at the position.
Keep in mind that injuries don’t happen and good players don’t ever play bad. We should not use non starters as replacement level, nor should you draft backups.
that’s why i spend all of my allotted money on starters only, and fill out the remainder of my roster with $1 tigers prospects
I disagree with that assessment though – replacement level in real baseball is a AAAA guy, someone i can just pick up and slot in. Someone another team already values enough to roster isn’t available to me. Same should be true here. my starting 3B provides X above replacement. His backup provides Y, the guy I acquire in a mid-season auction cause no one wants him provides replacement level production.
i actually kinda like it, with the 2nd step added in. i thought that the spreadsheet was literally going to have the 13th 2B, for example, being a $0 player. opened it up and saw it wasn’t the case. interesting approach.
Why do you set replacement level as you do?
Well, in part because the results looked good. But mostly because I think the relevant differences between positions should be based on starters, while the actual replacement level should be the best few players on the FA market at any time. This two-step approach lets me account for both.
Sorry, I misunderstood what you wrote. I thought you were setting bench players as replacement level instead of free agents.
Is the Wieters valuation for Sabr Points because of his TJS recovery? I don’t understand it any other way. He’s listed at 48 cents.
Steamer is just not THAT high on him. 476 PA, .311/.418 line. He’s fine, but C is actually relatively deep these days.
In ootneu Sabr points, steamer sees him as the 9th best catcher by total points, which is why I asked.
Yes, he is 9th in total points, but check out the next five catchers behind him –
Mesoraco – 4.5 fewer points, 41 fewer PA
Gomes – 5.2 fewer points, 19 fewer PA
Molina – 9.8 fewer points, 33 fewer PA
Ramos – 17.5 fewer points, 48 fewer PA
Grandal – 23.7 fewer points, 30 fewer PA
Further down the list Rosario, McKenry and Hundley all figured to be better on a per PA basis.
So if you combine any C with a replacement level second catcher, and get a full season of PA between them, there are 16 catchers who are better choices as your #1, which puts Wieters just above replacement level himself. He just climbs in total points because he is 9th overall in PA.
Thanks for the explanation. Makes sense to me now.