As we move deeper into the season, teams are starting to ask themselves if it is time to buy or sell and, if so, what buying or selling looks like. How aggressively do I want to ship out potential keepers for a shot at a title? How far do I have to get in rebuilding my roster before the deadline so I am ready for 2027? In at attempt to dig into some of this, I have been looking at 2025 roster and results data. I have a long series of questions I want to look into – how much is too much to spend on top players? Stars and scrubs or balance? – and today I am going to start with this one:

If you are trying to build a strong 2027 team, is it best to do that via keepers you held through the off-season? Players you trade for during the off-season? Or the auction?

I think this is a pretty useful question to answer right now because it impacts sellers and buyers. Sellers are already thinking about 2027 directly; but buyers are trying to determine how willing they should be to break apart their core to win right now. So they are also wondering how they can/will build a 2027 roster if they are giving up keepers today.

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A couple of weeks back, I dug into how Ottoneu Prestige League rosters have evolved over the years. That was interesting, but not much more than that. In fact, my conclusion began:

Honestly, there isn’t a ton to take from this in terms of actionable next steps.

Great work, Chad. But I did say I would dig further and look at some other data to try to get a better sense of roster construction. I have a million questions I would like to answer for myself (I would very much like to win OPL, though I very much doubt I will), and with round three less than a week away, I started with this:

Given 40 roster spots, how do you balance hitters, starters, and relievers to maximize your scoring?

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This year marks the sixth edition of the Ottoneu Prestige League (OPL), a competition that pits 240 teams from across the entire Ottoneu universe in a best-ball contest for ultimate glory, exciting prizes, a one-of-a-kind t-shirt (the image above is the 2025 t-shirt art), and a fancy bat. Modeled loosely off the UEFA Champions League and other league-spanning competitions in the soccer world, OPL is open to any team that finished in the top half of their league the prior season. Like it’s counterparts in the soccer world, it forces teams to fight on two fronts. You are playing both your regular league and competing in OPL with the same roster, but different competitors and different rules.

The result is a unique roster building challenge. While your standard Ottoneu league will require you to set a lineup each day, OPL is best ball – your top scorer at each position, including up to two starting pitchers and five relievers, each day score points; everyone else doesn’t. Way back in year one, I dug into the data to look at how to build an offense and a pitching staff that could compete in OPL. With round two of the 2026 edition underway, I decided to look back at round one and re-evaluate what I found in 2021.

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Dylan Crews is back, baby!

On the Agenda: 

1. Closer Chaos
2. Quick Hits
3. Various News and Notes
4. Streaming Pitchers
5. Ottoneu Six Picks

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“Alright Keegan, just go out there and get us going – start things off with a stri…”

[Kevin McGonigle enters the chat]

On the Agenda: 

1. Closer Chaos
2. Quick Hits
3. Various News and Notes
4. Streaming Pitchers
5. Ottoneu Six Picks

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Just a good old-fashioned complete game shut out, including lucky strikeout number 13, a new career high for Cristopher Sánchez.

On the Agenda: 

1. Closer Chaos
2. Quick Hits
3. Various News and Notes
4. Streaming Pitchers
5. Ottoneu Six Picks

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The Marlins could spend the rest of the year trying to replicate this and they would never be able to.

On the Agenda: 

1. Closer Chaos
2. Quick Hits
3. Various News and Notes
4. Streaming Pitchers
5. Ottoneu Six Picks

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Last Monday, I discussed Fernando Tatis Jr.’s odd season and the possibility that his missing power output is related to a stance change that hasn’t had the intended effect. I noted the natural next question at the end: what other players have made stance changes and what are we seeing from them? We’ll dig into that today.

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Hitting homers is so nice, Miguel Vargas did it twice.

On the Agenda: 

1. Closer Chaos
2. Quick Hits
3. Various News and Notes
4. Streaming Pitchers
5. Ottoneu Six Picks

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Hey, look, Fernando Tatis Jr. finally created a HR!

On the Agenda: 

1. Closer Chaos
2. Quick Hits
3. Various News and Notes
4. Streaming Pitchers
5. Ottoneu Six Picks

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