For years, Valentine’s Day meant one thing to the rest of the world (hearts and love and such things) and another to me: the final few days to prepare for my annual ottoneu auction. Then I met my wife, and suddenly those “such things” took precedence…but this year, she is in China for a couple weeks and so I returned to my roots, and spent the last few days preparing for ottoneu.

My first auction of the year commences on Sunday, as we kick off season one of the Better FanGraphs Staff League (not to be confused with the Other FanGraphs Staff League). With $400 to spend on 40 roster spots, having a solid plan in place for Sunday is going to be crucial, so at the risk of my competitors seeing what I have in mind, I am going to lay out my plan here – and next Thursday we can see how well I stuck to it.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the comments to my keeper round-up last week, reader/commenter LuckyStrikes wrote:

I’d like to see an Ottoneu article highlighting the top 10 players whose value far exceeded their salary from 2011 and those players primed to do so in 2012.

Well, I can’t quite do that, but I am going to try to give you something (sort of) close (I think). I’ve taken the keeper data for points leagues and the 2011 point totals for each player to calculate the points/dollar for the average price at which each player was kept, and I am going to take a look at the best and worst values out there.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tuesday night was the ottoneu keeper deadline and every owner was busy deciding who had earned a roster spot for 2012 and who was being tossed back into the pond. While I was debating a $40 Matt Holliday and a $26 Pablo Sandoval, others were wrestling over a $42 Roy Halladay or a $27 Mat Latos.

The kept players can provide some great insight into where the ottoneu owner universe stands on the ottoneu player universe as we head into auction season.

Read the rest of this entry »

On MockDraftCentral.com, there have been more than 450 drafts completed to date, while there is plenty of disagreement on who should get taken when, there is a clear break between the top five and everyone else. The five guys atop the list are the only five to have garnered a number one overall pick (other than an over-aggressive Robinson Cano selection) and the only five who haven’t fallen outside the top 10. All five have an average draft position (ADP) below 4.75 and no one else is below 8.5.

Matt Kemp, Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, Jose Bautista, and Troy Tulowitzki have established themselves as the top options in the minds of the populace. I am not one to argue with the populace, and if I had a top five pick, I would use it one of these five – but I do think the masses have drafted these five in the wrong order.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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?

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »