The baseball season is just about two months old and early hot/cold performances are starting to stabilize, and “pop-up” waiver options are something every ottoneu owner should be keeping a very close eye on. Let’s take a look at the most added players over the last seven days and the last 30.
As I mentioned in last month’s version of this article, I’m no scout, but I do love looking at prospect performances as a key indicator for future call ups and prospects on the rise. I’m once again using the tool I put together that pulls from MLBfarm.com to show the top prospect hitting performances so far this season, and I’m also going to show the top pitching performances as well. Please note that only players currently in the minors and in the top ten prospects of their organization are listed.
Starting in July of 2015 I began posting monthly power rankings for ottoneu FanGraphs points leagues, taking up the mantle of work previously done by Nate Emmerson (who was gracious enough to share his process and python scripts with me). I’m posting this a little later than I meant to, but with April in the books, it’s time for the first edition of the 2017 power rankings for all four ottoneu scoring formats.
Last year around this time I posted an article taking a look at the hitters whose rest of season Depth Charts projections had changed the most, and even after just two plus weeks some players saw significant increases and decreases. I’m following up with the same analysis for this very young 2017 season, so let’s take a look at the players whose projections have moved the most in the early going (based on projected FanGraphs points per game):
Like many ottoneu owners (and baseball fans in general), I’m a bit of a prospect hound, always looking for the next Mike Trout or even the next Kole Calhoun. Unlike many of our writers, I have absolutely no scouting chops, so I prefer to take a more analytic approach to prospect evaluation. That includes looking at prospect reports from John Sickels and our own Eric Longenhagen, as well as reviewing projections from Steamer/ZiPS and KATOH. That’s only part of the story though, and with minor league games well under way we have some actual performances to add to our evaluations. Using the fantastic website MLBfarm.com, I put together a list of the top ten hitting performances in the minor leagues so far (using ottoneu FanGraphs points scoring, and filtering on prospects in the organizational Top 10s).
I’ve been a baseball fan as far back as I can remember, and for me that fandom didn’t end when the season did. I was always a numbers guy, so in middle school I made up the rules to my own baseball (and football) games using dice to simulate results, and latched onto fantasy baseball shortly after. When the baseball season ended and I still needed my fix, I turned to Strat-O-Matic, the much more advanced version of my simple dice game. As I entered college I discovered baseball sim games on the computer, starting with Baseball Mogul and ending with Out of the Park Baseball (OOTP). I’ve been playing OOTP to get me through the long baseball offseason for at least ten years, and every new iteration becomes more and more immersive. The newest version (OOTP 18) is out, so I decided to project the results for one of my ottoneu leagues (League #530) with an OOTP simulation of 2017 (hat tip to league-mate Brent Daily for the idea!).
The season is less than a week old, but the ottoneu waiver wire is as busy as ever. The sample sizes of early performances are microscopic, but if you want to snag the next breakout or “popup” performer the early bird gets the worm. In what will likely be a recurring feature again this year, let’s look at the ottoneu most added (and cut) players in the early going.
As I did last year, I went through the rosters of all eleven ottoneu teams I’ve drafted to see which players most frequently found their way onto my roster. These aren’t always the the best or most exciting names, but they are the ones I felt had more value than acquisition cost.
Last year was my first attempt at bold predictions, and it didn’t go very well. I was happy about a couple of my calls (namely Hendricks and Story) but overall I was undone by injuries and some bone-headed hot takes. I’m not sure this year will be any different, but let’s see what my crystal ball shows for 2017:
Last night I completed my third straight ottoneu auction in as many nights, and sixth overall so far this draft season. Every year the auctions I’m a part of seem tighter and more difficult, but the massive hours I’ve spent participating in ottoneu auctions the past two seasons has given me a good feel for what to expect. Let’s take a look at the different auction phases, and the strategies for dealing with them.