Today, Ottoneu launched the 2023 edition of the Ottoneu Prestige League (OPL), a best-ball, overall competition open only to teams that finished top-six in their league in 2022. It has become one of my favorite aspects of Ottoneu, with unique rules that create a nice challenge for balancing competing in your “home league” and fighting through to the playoffs in OPL.

If you have an eligible team, I recommend joining, but I’m not here to convince you to join (you should join). I am here to complain about trade-offs.

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Last week, after powering through two live auctions and starting a slow one, I wrote about the differences between the two approaches to auctions, focusing on how they are structurally different. I also promised to come back with more about strategy in both formats. And here I am!

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It’s Ottoneu auction season, and while most auctions won’t happen for a few weeks, there are plenty of leagues auctioning right now. I have already finished one auction and I am in the middle of a second as I sit here writing. How am I writing while mid-auction? Am I the world’s best multi-tasker?

No. I am in the middle of a slow auction. And this has me thinking about something that is important in Ottoneu but not specific to Ottoneu: the differences between slow and fast auctions.
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Last night was the auction for the FanGraphs Staff League, going into year 13 and still going strong. My recap will focus on how things went for me and my co-manager, Niv Shah, who built and runs Ottoneu. The goal is to share a lesson you can learn from us so you don’t the mistake we did. But if you want to see the full draft, you can! Eli Ben-Porat streamed the auction, so you can see how this played out live.

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Transcript is now available

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This list is a little different than the others. First, RP in FanGraphs Points leagues, where saves and holds have value but are not a category, function fairly differently than in more traditional formats. You don’t need a closer, but having a middle reliever who never gets late-inning work isn’t ideal either. Role matters but it isn’t as simple as “go get the closers to pile up saves.” Second, I value RP differently than the market or any auction calculator. So we are going need a slightly longer intro before I just drop a table on you.
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When doing my rankings by position, I have to make decisions on who makes the cut to be ranked and who doesn’t. Based on projections, current roster percentages and other data, some players get ranked and others get left out. Before the cut deadline tonight, I wanted to provide an update on a set of players who missed that cut but maybe should not have. Six of these players are utility-only, and therefore didn’t go on positional rankings. Others just weren’t on my radar, so to speak.

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The first Ottoneu content appeared on RotoGraphs early in 2011, at the same time the at-the-time-new-to-the-world fantasy game lauched. That September, I became the first RotoGraphs writer dedicated to covering Ottoneu on a regular basis. Over the years, a number of writers have weighed in on Ottoneu strategy and a smaller number have regularly contributed Ottoneu content.

But we’ve never had a dedicated Ottoneu team – until this week.

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