Ottoneu Hot Right Now: March 31, 2025
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.
Author Archive
Ottoneu Hot Right Now: March 26, 2025
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!
Chad Young’s 2025 Bold Predictions
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.
Chad Young’s Most Rostered Players of 2025
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.
Auction Prep: Know Your Foe
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.
How OF Depth has Made OF Shallow for Ottoneu
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 Hidden but Crucial Playing Time Projection
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.
Chad Young’s 2025 Tiered Ottoneu Rankings: Starting Pitchers
This was exhausting. We have so much data we can analyze on pitchers and so many people are so good at doing that. And I find myself ranking pitchers and wondering what, exactly, I bring to the table. The biggest thing, to be honest, is my Ottoneu knowledge. There are a number of people out there who are great pitching analysts. There are great lists for re-draft. And for dynasty. But the combination of Ottoneu’s scoring systems, the keeper-but-not-dynasty nature, and the Ottoneu economics make this a bit of a unique list.
Chad Young’s 2025 Tiered Ottoneu Rankings: Third Base
If it feels like the balance between 1B and 3B is off this year, you can blame the Toronto Blue Jays. Giving Vlad Guerrero, Jr., 12 games at 3B was enough to give him eligibility for this year and move him off that list and onto this one. That doubled up the top tier here and pushed everyone else down a bit. And that, coupled with the degradation of the 1B position that I discussed yesterday, leaves 3B feeling deeper than 1B.
Chad Young’s 2025 Tiered Ottoneu Rankings: First Base (and Util)
I was looking forward to this list and it turned out to be pretty uninspiring. Even while merging in the utility-only bats like Shohei Ohtani and Marcell Ozuna, this group isn’t as exciting as 1B used to be. For years it felt like a necessity to have two 1B to fill 1B and Util, because those were the biggest boppers. It doesn’t feel as true today.