When Niv Shah re-launched Six Picks as part of the Ottoneu family, I wrote both about what Six Picks is and how I play Six Picks. With another season underway, I wanted to talk about Six Picks again, but honestly, you should just go back and read those two pieces if you want that info. Instead, today I just want to talk about why I love Six Picks (with some thoughts on things you can do to make sure you love it, too).
We’re now more than a full week into the season, so clearly we have enough data to actually evaluate these auctions and adds and hot starts, right? Right?
Ok, we don’t, but we are going to try anyway!
Last year, Cold Right Now, included a section on injuries, one on players being cut and a third on players performing poorly. This year, I am not going to cover the “injuries” separate from the players being cut. If a player is injured and not being cut, he probably doesn’t need to be covered here. If he does, I can always make an exception.
Yes, we are going back to the Hot Right Now well, before we get to our first Cold Right Now. What can I say, it is still early even for us writers, and we are getting our rotation into shape.
Welcome to another season of Ottoneu Hot (and Cold, but not today) Right Now! I hope you are all excited for this! And if you are not – let me know what would be more useful. We are here to serve.
As with last year, Hot Right Now will cover players being added or auctioned, as well as players performing at a high level. We are always tweaking the format, so please provide feedback!
With the season nearly upon us (I refuse to count the Japan Series), it’s time for Bold Predictions. My goal here is for my predictions to be legimately bold – which means my end of season recap will be a bit depressing – but directionally useful – which means you can hopefully use these bold predictions to buy (or sell) on players and strengthen your teams.
As always, my bold predictions will be Ottoneu-focused.
Every year, before the season starts, I go through my rosters and see who I roster most (and poke around at players I wish I rostered more). And every year I learn something about my fantasy baseball management from the exercise. So every year, I end up deciding to share those results with you.
When preparing for a draft or auction, it is pretty typical to determine what positions you feel best about the deep options and therefore don’t have to spend big resources upfront. Love a bunch of shortstops you can get after pick 200/for less than $5? Then you don’t need to break the bank for Francisco Lindor.
In keeper auctions, that depth can shift unexpectedly (as we discussed earlier this week), so you need to now only know what positions are deep but what positions are deep among players actually available. But there is another factor that impacts position depth: what other teams need.
Sunday morning, at 7 am (which felt like 6 after springing forward), I sat down at my computer, started the auction for Ottoneu league 1199 and immediately dropped $88 on Juan Soto. Spending $88 on one player isn’t something I would typically do and (as much as I would like to) I can’t blame the early hour. When prepping for the draft a couple of days earlier, I had put $90 as a target price for Soto…and then upped it to $95. $88 wasn’t me panicking, sleep-bidding, or just going all out to get my guy – it was very much the plan. And it’s all because OF has become so deep that it’s shallow.
The other day, a discussion related to the Ottoneu Prestige League (which opens again this week) brought out the fact that Willi Castro was the only player with 3B/SS/2B/OF eligibility who was projected at over 4.5 points per game. That was a fascinating fact. Having broad eligibility is really useful, but it is only useful if the player produces and Willi Castro doesn’t produce – but he was projected to produce! Willi Castro over 4.5 P/G is pretty intriguing!
But something didn’t pass the smell test.