Since I began Ottoneu positional rankings in February, Spring Training started and we have learned a lot more. Well, a little more. But between new data and feedback from others, my thinking has changed on certain players and I wanted to bring up a few names where my rankings need to change.

I’ll look at a couple of players from each position and three SP, focusing on players where my ranking changed due to performance or feedback from others, not injury. Yes, I would be lower on Carlos Carrasco today than I was on March 2, but you already know that and repeating injury information here won’t be super informative or useful. Some of these guys have had great (or awful) Spring Trainings, some had defenders (or detractors) hit me up in the comments, on Twitter or elsewhere.

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Having covered SP and the rest of the offensive positions, we are finishing up with OF ranks (I won’t be doing RP ranks, but keep an eye out for more on that). Outfield is the most strategically interesting position in Ottoneu, as there are so many options for how you approach the five OF spots. Go get two or even three big bats and stay cheap on the rest? Get five $10-$15 guys plus some depth? Load up on platoon bats? All viable options, and there are more.

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I ranked my 2B first, before turning to SS, expecting that – as is usually the case for me – there would be a bunch of 2B/SS eligible players who ranked slightly higher as SS than they do as 2B. That turned out not to be the case. For the first time in a while, it feels like SS both stronger at the top and deeper than 2B. Gleyber Torres is my top 2B and my number seven SS. And this continues down the list – Brendan Rodgers is #20 at 2B, #24 at SS. Dylan Moore was #35 at 2B, #40 at SS.

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Having completed C, the corners, and SP, we move back to the dirt to rank MI, starting with second base today and continuing with shortstop next week. The keystone is strange this year, as I really like a bunch of names at the top, but it falls off rather quickly. That said, you still need to fill out both 2B and MI in your Ottoneu leagues, so you may find yourself diving into the depths, whether you like it or not.
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In order to follow the same preview path as the Ottobot Podcast, we’re gonna pivot off of offensive ranks and jump to SP. I find this to be the most challenging list to create – there are so many relevant players, so many ways to evaluate them, and so little confidence in projections, at least compared to hitters. So in addition to my list, I am going to share a few notes on how to adjust rankings from your favorite pitching analyst.
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We’re onto the third installment in this series, which started with catchers and then 1B. Today, we move across the diamond and look at 3B.

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We started this series last week with catchers and you can go there to see the basic methodology and some notes on how I am handling these rankings. First base, as always, is a position where there is a ton of production available. In Ottoneu, it is also a position where a lot of players qualify. As a result, the table for 1B is pretty long – 89 players, though the majority aren’t interesting 1B options.

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With auction season upon us, it’s time to start looking closer at positional rankings and auction targets. Throughout February, I’ll be sharing my positional rankings for Ottoneu, focused on points leagues. We’re starting today with catchers, but first a few notes on my methodology and what to expect.

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In a previous post, we looked at Ottoneu head-to-head (H2H) leagues and how starting pitching values shift due to different rules. Because season-long points leagues use an innings-pitched cap, innings pitched are the scarce resource you expend (and need to maximize) during the season, putting a premium on SP who post high points per IP. But because H2H leagues use a games-started-per-week cap instead of IP, IP are no longer a scarce resource and the premium is on pitchers who score a high number of points per start, regardless of their points per IP. Today, we’ll see if we can identify pitchers to target or avoid based on that.
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The standard pitching metric of production in Ottoneu points leagues is points per inning pitched. With a 1500 IP cap, innings are currency and you need to maximize the return for every inning pitched. But in head-to-head leagues, innings are no longer the scarce resource managers have to manage. Instead, each team can throw an unlimited number of innings, but there’s a limit on games started per week. For Ottoneu head-to-head, or any other league with a games-started cap for pitchers, the pitching metric that matters for SP is not points per inning pitched, but points per game started. And that can swing values. The question is, how much does it matter?
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