Despite the Seattle storm (not to be confused with the Seattle Storm) that has me snowed in, baseball is actually just around the corner. Pitchers and catchers are due to report in about a month, fantasy auctions are on the calendar, and all ottoneu players are fretting over their keeper decisions.

With that in mind, there are three topics that readers have been asking about that deserve some attention today: 1) Keeper decisions, 2) Filling abandoned teams, 3) Starting new teams and leagues.

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Back in July, the man behind the scoring system for ottoneu FanGraphs Points leagues made a modest proposal for an update on pitcher scoring. Justin Merry was generally happy with the scoring system but found that the scores for a few random games made no sense.

To fix those, he recommended adding hits as a category, penalizing pitchers for each hit they allow, and reassessing the value of each of the other stats in accordance with that change. As we head towards 2012, the decision was made to accept his proposal and update scoring for pitchers. By looking back at 2011 stats, we can see the impact this scoring change will have.

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The Cubs shipped off a pitcher yesterday, but it wasn’t Matt Garza. Instead, the sent Carlos Zambrano to Miami in exchange for Chris Volstad. Neither player provided much fantasy value in 2011, but could a change of scenery provide a boost to one of the two right-handers?

Zambrano was a fantasy asset as recently as 2010, when he posted a 3.33 ERA and 11 wins while striking out 117 in just 129.2 IP. Of course the season wasn’t perfect, by any means. The sparkling ERA was well below Zambrano’s 3.71 FIP and his 1.45 WHIP was pretty weak. Not to mention the fact that you aren’t typically happy with less than 130 IP out of a starting pitcher. And 2011 was much worse – the ERA blew up to a rotund 4.82, the strike outs and wins dropped, and that was before Zambrano had a clubhouse explosion and threatened to retire.

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In the FanGraphs mock draft, the first three second basemen off the board were exactly who you would expect: Robinson Cano, Dustin Pedroia, and Ian Kinsler. The fourth was Dustin Ackley, the soon-to-be 24-year-old second basemen of the Seattle Mariners. Ackley was a top prospect prior to the 2011 season, and didn’t disappoint in his first taste of the big leagues, posting a .765 OPS with six home runs and six stolen bases in just 90 games.

Fast forward six rounds, and Jason Kipnis became the tenth 2B selected, grabbed with the second pick in the tenth round. Kipnis tore apart the American League in his first 36 games, posting an .840 OPS with seven home runs and five stolen bases. So why did he go 69 picks later than Ackley in the mock draft?

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In the (very, very early) Rotographs mockdraft on Sunday night, Bryce Harper went in the third round. Dustin Ackley went in the fourth. Neither of these players has a Major League track record – Harper doesn’t even have a strong track record in Double-A – yet they went before Matt Holliday or Ben Zobrist, both of whom have solid track records and seem quite likely to outperform the youngsters this year.

Now, this is a dynasty league draft, and clearly having that youth on your roster will pay off in future seasons. But the focus on youth in these drafts leaves some great values on the board much later than you’d expect.

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C.J. Wilson is headed from the 2011 American League Champs to the 2011 American League West Division Runners-up (somehow, I don’t think they will be raising that last banner in Anaheim any time soon). This has huge implications for the division – the Angels finished 10 games out in 2011, with Wilson producing a WAR of 5.9. Move those 6 wins off the Rangers and put even half of them on the Angels, and you have yourself an awfully tight race.

But there are rather large implications for fantasy owners, as well. Wilson’s ERA, WHIP, K, and Wins — the traditional Roto stats — will all be impacted by the move, as will stats like HR, 2B, 3B, and BB, which impact many leagues, including most ottoneu leagues. There are a few things a fantasy player should look at in evaluating this type of change, and Wilson to LAA presents a unique change where some of the changing factors are easier than normal to isolate. Of course most of you can probably predict that a move to Anaheim will help Wilson’s value, but that isn’t really the point — this is also a chance to look at how to evaluate the impact of a scenery change on a pitcher.

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The past couple weeks have been the start of hot stove season in the original ottoneu league, with not one, not two, but seven trades going down, involving seven owners and 21 players, some of whom changed teams multiple times.

Towards the end of the article, I will post a couple charts showing all the deals for any interested parties, but what was most intriguing was the approach taken by Gerbils on Speed. The Gerbils were involved in three of the seven deals and almost all of their moves were focused not on preparing for 2012, but on 2013.
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In Part I, I looked at the offense on my FanGraphs Experts League team using the new ottoneu Roster Organizer tool. Today, I’ll finish up by reviewing my pitching staff and seeing where my team sits heading into trade season.

The pitching discussion should be interesting – I have choices to make on a legit ace (Roy Halladay), a bounce back candidate (Ryan Dempster), and more.
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A couple weeks ago, I mentioned that one of the first things you need to do in the off-season is set your roster for the next year and figure out who you should or should not keep. I am getting ready to do just that for my FanGraphs Experts League team, and I get to do it using a fun new toy.

For the past few years, I have been doing this in Excel, but today ottoneu released a new tool that will help players look at their roster and make tough calls in the off-season. It’s called Roster Organizer and you can find it on your league home page. I’m going to use it to evaluate my team and, along the way, explain why some tough calls are going the way they are.
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I hate closers. Despise them. Maybe this is a result of being an Indians fan. Jose Mesa tricked me into thinking he was lights out, then imploded at the worst possible time (although we all know Tony Fernandez deserves more of the blame). Maybe it is the endless stream of closing mediocrity I have had to watch since then. But since you are reading this on Rotographs and not an Indians blog, you have probably guessed that this really stems from fantasy baseball.

Before I dive too deep, let me begin by saying that if you are playing in a traditional 5×5 league, you can probably ignore this. If your league counts Saves but not Holds, you probably should not hate closers. I finished 4th from the bottom in saves in the lone 5×5 I played last year, and that is not where you want to be. However, if you are not playing in a league that places an extraordinary value on saves, this may be for you. It is mostly written from the perspective of the ottoneu FanGraphs Points scoring, but applies to any league where holds and saves are relatively equal (or both worth nothing).
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