Everyone loves a good MVP debate (actually, everyone might hate a good MVP debate, now that I think about it) and fantasy MVPs are particularly fun (or not fun, I guess) to debate because value can be tough to define. Because of the fixed budget in any fantasy league (either a set number of dollars or a set number of draft slots), a player’s acquisition cost has a real impact on their value. This leaves fantasy managers to debate if the most valuable players are the ones who produce the most, the ones who return the most value relative to cost, or something else. Today I want to consider “something else.”

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My colleague, Lucas Kelly, covered his keep or cut decisions at catcher yesterday and that was a good reminder that I should probably be diving deeper into my rosters to figure out my off-season plans.

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The day after arbitration ends is one of my favorites of the off-season because it feels like everything can start. Salaries are locked, rosters are set, trading is open and we are off to the races for the next couple of months, before we pause again to prep for auctions.

But before we get to wake up to newly updated salaries tomorrow, we have to get through the final day of arbitration today. And that means there are things to do!

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The season is barely over, but we are already on to 2025, and some of the most useful tools for Ottoneu managers are out to help us. Early Steamer Projections are out and Justin Vibber has pulled them into the first push of the Ottoneu Surplus Calculator (SC) which means we have some early, rough values on players for 2025.

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Sometimes, you set out on a journey, not knowing the destination and you wind up, well…nowhere. I think that may be what happened to me this week, but as the saying goes, “It’s the journey, not the destination,” so maybe there are some interesting nuggets to be gleaned from this somewhat aimless wandering.

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Some years just aren’t your year. Sometimes that is because you don’t get the breaks you need. Sometimes you just run into better teams in a bunch of leagues. And sometimes you load your rosters up with unproductive players and pay the price.

Each year, I take a moment before the season to review the players I roster most. And now, looking back that article…uh…yikes.

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One of the most common questions I get in the off-season is around how many players a team should keep. Do you want to keep as many as possible, limiting your dependence on the draft and its fickle nature? Do you want to keep only the very best keepers, and take advantage of the values that creep up at a draft? Does it not matter, because everything that matters happens in-season?

The answer I almost always give is that it depends. You should keep as many players as you have that are worth keeping. You should depend on the draft as much as you need to. You should work in-season moves, as well. How you balance those things, I have argued, should be based on a combination of your team, your league, and your preferences. But I never had any data to back that up. Now I do.

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Calling them the losers is kind of mean, isn’t it? These players are not losers. But they did lose position eligibility and so the word is pretty apt. I hope they don’t mind.

Yesterday we covered everyone who gained positional eligibility in Ottoneu this year and today we’ll look at the opposite: players who had eligibility from the 2023 season that carried over into 2024 but won’t be kept for 2025.

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As the calendar turns to October and we turn our attention to the playoffs, Ottoneu quietly moves on to 2025. Niv Shah will keep us updated on off-season activity in his annual MegaThread (which is also a great place to ask him questions) and you can see there that the first step includes positional eligibility being updated.

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Cold Right Now (CRN) is a weekly Ottoneu feature focused on players being dropped or who should be dropped in Ottoneu leagues. In this feature we will break down players into three sections:

1. Roster Cuts: Analysis of players who have been cut in a high percentage of leagues.
2. Recent Injuries: A look at the implications of recent injuries (not all, just some high-profile ones).
3. Cold Performers: Players with a low P/G or P/IP in recent weeks.

This article will typically run once per week and will help fantasy managers keep track of players that need to be given extra attention to improve rosters.

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