The winner of the FanGraphs Staff Two Ottoneu League (1327) won by a minuscule two-tenths of a point. With 18,670.7 total points, “Roy Donk?” outlasted “Trial By Drury” by sheer force, maximizing all of his positional games played and missing his innings mark by only two. What a feat! Could it have been different had “Trial By Drury” maxed out on their OF and UTIL games played? We’ll never know.

I certainly can’t pass judgment on any team’s ability to maximize their points. My team, “The Ghost Runners” missed positional game maximums for 2B, SS, MI (by a lot!), OF, and UTIL. Oh, yeah, and I missed my IP totals too. I had a lot of injuries, played in too many leagues, dealt with cap space issues, yada, yada, yada! Yet somehow, I finished fifth. Luck? Probably. This season in our little free league, teams that reached their maximums were much more likely to finish higher in the standings, and that brings me to my first lesson of 2023…

Reach your maximums!

In FanGraphs Points Leagues that do not have playoffs, teams are allowed 1,500 innings pitched (soft-max) and 162 games per position with a higher 810 games allowed total for OF slots. This is a free league and it’s very possible that some of my league mates are playing in other, paid and possibly high-stakes, leagues. But, I should have used that to my advantage. Take a look at how teams finished, on average, when they reached their max compared to when they did not:

It’s illuminating to see how many teams did not get to their max. My MI situation was a mess all season long, but I still should have put a player, any player, there more often. I noticed it was an issue mid-season, and tried to trade away one of my extra outfielders for a middle infielder, but couldn’t find any takers. Being left with low points-per-game (P/G) targets on the waiver wire sucked the motivation right out of me and I continued to ignore the missing slot in my lineup. Shame! Lack of effort is to blame, but I also hit maximums too early last season and may have been too conservative this season because of it.

Home runs hurt your pitching, but accumulation is more important

You’ll notice in the scatter plots below that the best teams in this league hit the most home runs. Though the first-place finisher did not hit the most home runs, they finished in the top five. On the other side of things, teams that gave up fewer home runs than everyone else didn’t necessarily show tremendous gains. That’s mostly due to the fact that when you accumulate innings, you accumulate home runs given up. Those teams whose pitchers aren’t giving up home runs are likely avoiding them because they are starting pitchers less often.

Each day matters

Total all your points and divide them by all of your games started among your position players, and you have your season-long points per game (P/G). Do the same with your innings pitched (P/IP) and then add the two together. The sum of P/G and P/IP is telling of how your team did on not only a daily basis but also a decision basis. Obviously, having good players is what you’re after, but scoring points each and every day throughout the season is the name of the game:

Teams that finished in the top three spots had the highest sum of P/G and P/IP. That generally translates to good, quality players, but as we’ve seen, it also translates to accumulation. This season, teams that had a handful of everyday hitters and regular pitchers above six points per game were much better for it. Here are all pitchers and hitters placed into decile groups by P/G and P/IP:

This reflects all players regardless of games or innings pitched or whether they are a reliever or a starter. In upcoming posts, I’ll build out these decile ranks with more specificity, but for now, this will do. It gives us a clearer picture of how P/G and P/IP relate to your team as a whole. We all want decile one and two players. Heck, I’ll take decile three players any day. Those are the quality players that contribute to your daily points at a high level.

Taking stock and analyzing your league as a whole is an important step to improving. I, personally, have a long list of things that I need to do to win this league next season. Now, sadly, I have six months to think about it.

The month of June was an interesting time for the playoff-bound Orioles. When the month concluded, two of their brightest stars, Adley Rutschman and Anthony Santander, had wRC+ marks below 100 for the month. But the story of the Orioles in 2023 isn’t isolated to a few stars. In fact, it’s the opposite. The story of the Orioles 2023 regular season, is a combination of stories from rookies, to established everyday contributors, to veterans who all performed well at various points in the season. When one player was off, another one came out of nowhere to lift the team. Interact with the graph below by clicking on each player’s name to turn their data on and off and visualize the O’s wRC+ production in June:

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The 2023 version of Ottoneu Hot Right Now will include three different sections:

1. Current Auctions: A closer look at players being auctioned at a high rate.
2. Roster Adds: Analysis of players with high add% changes.
3. Hot Performers: Players with a high P/G or P/IP in recent weeks.

The FanGraphs Ottoneu team plans to run this feature weekly, updating fantasy managers on the biggest movers in Ottoneu leagues with an analysis of how these players could or could not help your roster.

Read the rest of this entry »

The 2023 version of the Bullpen Report includes five different sections, as well as the closer chart, which can be found at the bottom of the page.

We will always include a link to the full Closer Depth Chart at the bottom of the Bullpen Report each day. It’s also accessible from the RosterResource drop-down menu and from any RosterResource page. Please let us know what you think.

1. Notable Workloads: Primary closers or valuable members of a closer committee who have been deemed unavailable or likely unavailable for the current day due to recent workload.
2. Injury News
3. Outlier Saves: Explanation for a non-closer earning a save during the previous day.
4. Committee Clarity: Notes on a closer committee that clarify a pitcher’s standing in the group.
5. Losing A Grip: Struggling closers who could be on the hot seat.

The “RosterResource” link will take you to the corresponding team’s RosterResource depth chart, which will give you a better picture of the full bullpen and results of the previous six days (pitch count, save, hold, win, loss, blown save).

Click HERE to view the full Closer Depth Chart.

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It was in 2021 that John Means threw a no-hitter, striking out 12 batters along the way, matching his career-high single-game strikeout total. Were it not for a runner making it to first base on a dropped third strike, Means would have been the only Orioles pitcher in history to have thrown a perfect game. But, that was all back in 2021 and besides only eight innings pitched in 2022, John Means is back on the mound for the first time since April of that year. Is Means valuable this season, next season, and beyond? Let’s take a look at where he was and where he is currently in an attempt to answer that question.

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Much like Hot Right Now, Cold Right Now will be a weekly Ottoneu feature with a focus on players who are being dropped or who maybe should be dropped in Ottoneu leagues. Hot Right Now will focus on players up for auction, players recently added, and players generally performing well. Cold Right Now will have parallel two of those three sections:

1. Injuries: Players who are being cut because of IL stints.
2. Roster Cuts: Analysis of players with high cut% changes.
3. Cold Performers: Players with a low P/G or P/IP in recent weeks.

There won’t be a corresponding section to Current Auctions because, well, there is nothing in cuts that correspond to current auctions.

Roster Cuts

Parker Meadows, Add% (-) Change (7 days) – 17.63%

The 23-year-old Tigers outfielder has gone cold after a hot start. In his first 10 games, he went 10 for 34 (.294) with a home run and a stolen base. In his last 10 games, he has gone two for 26 (.077) with zero home runs, but three stolen bases. This is what we should expect from a young hitter who entered the MLB with a career (MiLB) K% in the mid-to-high 20s. I don’t think it’s a reason to drop Meadows in keeper leagues like Ottoneu unless you got all excited and paid too much for him during the hot streak.

Geraldo Perdomo, Add% (-) Change (7 days) – 8.33%

Perdomo is in a slump. He hasn’t had a hit in his last 22 at-bats and only has four walks in that time. He’s been a streaky hitter all season long, but he’s currently in his worst 15-game wOBA dip this season:

Perdomo’s plate discipline statistics are very interesting. He strikes out only 17.1% of the time, makes great in-zone contact, swings outside of the zone less often than average, and has a BABIP near .300. In September, however, his BABIP is a low .111 and his September K% (22.9%) is the highest it’s been month-by-month this season. He has dropped down into the nine spot in the batting order and his playing time is in jeopardy as Jordan Lawlar will start to get more and more time at the SS position.

Jose Siri, Add% (-) Change (7 days) – 6.41%

Sadly it appears that Siri’s 2023 fantasy campaign is over, though he may be able to return from a fractured hand injury for the playoffs. His 25 2023 home runs outperformed every projection system though his 12 stolen bases underperformed every projection system. In addition, the average and on-base percentage marks he posted in 2023 were in line with most projections, but his slugging percentage outperformed. Clearly, Siri developed some unexpected pop in 2023. He finished the regular season with a fantasy-relevant, but not award-winning, slash line of .222/.267/.494.

Lance Lynn, Add% (-) Change (7 days) –6.73%

In his last four starts, Lynn has given up 20 earned runs and nine home runs. His K/9 ratio in those starts was a dismal 2.45 and his BB/9 sat at 3.27. That’s bad. It has been a really wild season for Lynn as his command and strikeout statistics have been all over the place:

Many managers are likely dumping Lynn as they just can’t take the earned runs, especially the home runs in points leagues. However, Lynn is still accumulating wins. Since joining the Dodgers, Lynn has won five games. While his Dodger ERA stands at 4.60, his White Sox ERA stands at 6.47. He will likely get another two, maybe three, starts. One against the Tigers in LA and likely two against the Giants. The velocity on all three of his fastballs was down significantly on August 31, but in his two starts since that date, all three have risen back up to around his average. Certainly, as many have pointed out, his pitch mix has changed since being traded to the Dodgers:

The Tigers have the 28th worst wOBA in the MLB (28th against righties too) and the Giants rank 21st (jump to 20th against righties). Lynn has not been what he was projected to be before the season began in the case of WHIP and ERA, but his strikeout totals, IP, and win predictions were right on the mark:

Michael Lorenzen, Add% (-) Change (7 days) – 6.08%

Lorenzen has made five starts since his August 9th no-hitter. In that time he has a 7.96 ERA and has coughed up eight home runs. His K/9 of 4.85 in his last five starts is lower than his season average of 6.48 and his recent BB/9 of 3.81 is high compared to a 2.60 season average. His fastball velocities look stable, but his off-speed pitches have jumped in velocity in recent games. Perhaps the Phillies are tinkering with his mix and approach some, but even more problematic is the fact that the Phillies are planning to utilize Lorenzen in a relief role in their upcoming matchup with Atlanta. I’m not sure what that means for the future and if it’s a good idea to tell a team like Atlanta their plans way ahead of time, but it’s probably clear that Lorenzen won’t be much fantasy help for the rest of the season.

Cold Performers

To measure cold performers this week, I’m looking for players with low P/G or P/IP in the last 14 days.

Adam Duvall,  -2.00 P/G:

Duval is hitting .151 in his last 14 games, but he has hit three home runs and walked four times. His slugging and wOBA are dipping below average currently and time is ticking on the 2023 season.

Whit Merrifield,  -0.66 P/G:

In his last 14 games, Merrifield is batting .204 with 10 strikeouts. He has stolen two bags in that time but hasn’t hit a home run. His K% is on the rise and his wOBA is on the decline:

MacKenzie Gore,  -5.25 P/IP:

Gore was placed on the IL with blisters a little over a week ago as of this writing. He may make one last start, but that is not a guarantee as the Nationals have no reason to tack on more workload to the 24-year-old’s season. Gore threw a career-high 136.1 IP this season, increased his major-league K/9, decreased his major-league BB/9, and posted seven wins with a 4.42 ERA. While there’s no reason to hold on for this season, Gore certainly has long-term potential and shouldn’t be dropped if he’s rostered for a reasonable price.

Nathan Eovaldi,  -2.57 P/IP:

Since his return from injury, Eovaldi has not looked good. He has posted a 7.71 ERA and a 7.71 BB/9. He’s also given up three home runs. While his K/9 in that time (9.0) is better than his season 8.13, he’s given up too many walks and home runs, a terrible combination. As the Texas Rangers stagger at the end of the season, Eovaldi needs to rebound in his next start, likely on Tuesday against the Red Sox.

The 2023 version of the Bullpen Report includes five different sections, as well as the closer chart, which can be found at the bottom of the page.

We will always include a link to the full Closer Depth Chart at the bottom of the Bullpen Report each day. It’s also accessible from the RosterResource drop-down menu and from any RosterResource page. Please let us know what you think.

1. Notable Workloads: Primary closers or valuable members of a closer committee who have been deemed unavailable or likely unavailable for the current day due to recent workload.
2. Injury News
3. Outlier Saves: Explanation for a non-closer earning a save during the previous day.
4. Committee Clarity: Notes on a closer committee that clarify a pitcher’s standing in the group.
5. Losing A Grip: Struggling closers who could be on the hot seat.

The “RosterResource” link will take you to the corresponding team’s RosterResource depth chart, which will give you a better picture of the full bullpen and results of the previous six days (pitch count, save, hold, win, loss, blown save).

Click HERE to view the full Closer Depth Chart.

Read the rest of this entry »

The final month of fantasy baseball, for those contending, should be about accumulation in small samples. If you need stats now, you have to go and find them. Yes, I’m talking about hot streaks. Many of you don’t believe in them and that’s fine. Some of you have tried to ride hot streaks in the past and have been burned. But, when you and the person holding down first place are neck and neck in a few offensive category races, you may have no choice but to continue accumulating by changing out your roster spots or at least filling spots when your main guys get an off day. Here are five players who may be available and are on wOBA hot streaks:

–

Jordan Walker, STL | RosterResource

Walker has been the DH or RF in the Cardinals’ last six games. He has gone 16 for 30 in his last eight games, creating an insane .533/.545/1.033 slash line for himself. Yes, Walker has been incredibly streaky this season, but he’s 21 years old and the Cardinals may just keep rolling him out in RF despite a -17.9 Def mark on the season. A projected 0% chance of making the playoffs makes the Cardinals even more likely to keep Walker in the lineup. Walker is only rostered in 33.5% of ESPN leagues.

Davis Schneider, TOR | RosterResource

The 24-year-old rookie has only played in 19 games, but he has a .381/.500/.810 slash line with six home runs and a stolen base. Beware! His BABIP is .500 and the only time he ever hit above .300 was in 2019 rookie ball. Even more of a warning sign is his 26.9% K%. Need yet another statistic to showcase how flukey this is? Look no further than the difference between his .381 batting average and his .273 statcast expected batting average. The only question is how long will this streak continue? I would pick him up if he’s available and sit him the day after he puts up a oh’fer.

Bo Naylor, CLE | RosterResource

Naylor has hit eighth and started as the Guardians’ catcher in three of his last four starts. He hit in the nine spot in the other start. Naylor does get consistent days off as a catcher, but he’s playing well above his average currently from a wOBA perspective. In his last eight games, he has gone seven for 21 with a slash line of .333/.444/.857 and two stolen bases.

Tyler Stephenson, CIN| RosterResource

Stephenson is riding a five-game hit streak that has his slash line sitting at .533/.588/.867. That is far better than his season-long slash line of .256/.335/.388, but when you’re hot, you’re hot. He has dipped above the average line once before this season:

Stephenson has mostly been batting in the seventh spot in a potent Reds lineup, but he gets regular days off being a catcher. If you have catcher spots to fill in your lineup, consider adding Stephenson while he’s mashing. Just pay close attention to pick up on when he starts cooling off.

Mitch Garver, TEX | RosterResource

What’s up with all these catchers boosting in wOBA in the last two weeks? Garver joins the list and is doing a lot of it from the DH spot. Beware, on September 6th (last night as of this writing), Garver went 0-4. Does that indicate the hot streak is over? Who knows? Prior to last night’s oh’fer, the 32-year-old righty had gone 14 for 40 making a .350/.480/.875 slash line and recording seven home runs. Despite injury issues, Garver has put together a strong season in only 66 games, showing a season-long line of .283/.375/.543 and posting 16 home runs, his highest mark since 2019 when he put up 31. Garver could be a really nice boost to your totals if you pick and choose the matchups accordingly. His batting average against lefties (.340) is significantly higher than against righties (.265), yet he has hit all 16 of his 2023 home runs against lefties.

The 2023 version of Ottoneu Hot Right Now will include three different sections:

1. Current Auctions: A closer look at players being auctioned at a high rate.
2. Roster Adds: Analysis of players with high add% changes.
3. Hot Performers: Players with a high P/G or P/IP in recent weeks.

The FanGraphs Ottoneu team plans to run this feature weekly, updating fantasy managers on the biggest movers in Ottoneu leagues with an analysis of how these players could or could not help your roster.

Read the rest of this entry »

NOTE: The stats for this article were pulled on August 18th. Everything in this article reflects that date.

We’ve all done it. Leaving players in your lineup in unfavorable matchups is something that happens for many reasons. Maybe you had to choose between player A and leaving that spot on your roster empty for the day. “Scared money don’t make money!” you screamed as you clicked Joey Gallo into your lineup. But then, Joey Gallo went 0 for 4 and subtracted four points from your hard-earned point totals on the season.

If you’ve had Gallo hanging out on your roster all season long, he has tagged your team for negative points 39 separate times, bringing your team down by a total of 95 points. Now, if you’ve had Gallo on your team all season long, you should be considering changing that. His season-long points-per-game mark currently sits at 3.82, lower than what most would consider rosterable. But what if all of Gallo’s negative point games were taken away as if they never happened? He would technically be a 9.23 P/G player. That’s wild. Too wild. It would never happen. You would be more than a fantasy baseball player if you could predict every bad game and sit a player on those days. But, is there some edge that can be gained from this in a more practical way? Let’s find out.

A hitter can negatively impact your team by recording at-bats without a hit or a walk or a hit-by-pitch. They can also get caught stealing:

So who are the players that don’t look great from a P/G perspective or a total points perspective because they so often have negative point games? Or, perhaps, another way to look at it is, who are the really good players who could be even better with less negative point games? Well, here are the top 10 negative points scorers this season with what their P/G mark would be (Adjusted P/G) had they never recorded negative point games:

Note: In order to keep the P/G mark a little more realistic, I’m going to keep the game totals but zero out the negative games. 

Some of these players are actually excellent Ottoneu points league players despite their knack for dipping below zero with regularity. No one is questioning rostering Bobby Witt Jr. or this year’s version of Nick Castellanos. The table above attempts to forgive these players for all their negative impacts on our teams by replacing negative values with zero. The table tells us two important things. First, these players need to be managed more strictly than others. Javier Báez is over a P/G better when adjusted and that is the reason he is rostered in over a third of all FanGraphs points leagues while still showcasing such low regular/real P/G marks. Fantasy managers just can’t set him and forget him.  Second, the table shows us that a player like Luis García can score both a lot of positive and negative points.

Let’s now attempt an experiment that will help us see if paying that much attention can actually be beneficial to our teams. We’ll use Teoscar Hernández as our subject. You’ll never be able to sit Hernández for every good game and bench him for every bad game. But, what if you could get it right 20% of the time? When I randomly strip out 20% of Hernández’s negative point games, I get the following:

Total Points: 545.6, Games: 112, P/G: 4.87

That’s good. He’s worth about .4 more P/G and a little over 20 more points. But, we’ve also lost the 20% of his negative point games and left the roster spot empty in this situation. We benched him for seven games, 20% of the 35 negative-point games. However, this still assumes that we were totally accurate in choosing the right games to bench. To make this a little more realistic, I’ll also bench a random 10% (8 games) of his positive games (75 total). Here’s a more realistic view of Hernández under those conditions:

Total Points: 474.3, Games: 104, P/G: 4.56

Sadly, we’re worse off with this version of Hernández than if we had just kept him fully in our lineup. Keen observers will notice that we’ve taken 15 games away from our team. Maybe, just maybe, if we bring in a replacement for those 15 games we could do better than a full-time Hernández. You may argue with me about whether or not Adam Frazier is a replacement-level player. That’s fine. But he’s my guy and I’m the one writing the article so nah-nah-nah-nah-boo-boo. The cool part is Frazier actually played in 12 of the games that we benched Hernández for and we’ll just have to be ok with the missing three. Here’s our new version of Hernández. I’ll call him Fraz-nández:

Total Points: 505.1, Games: 119, P/G: 4.24

Dang. The 30.8 points that Adam Frazier scored while Hernández rode the pine did not help us get above the mark that Hernández made on his own, negative points and all. Fraz-nández isn’t cutting it.

Sadly this little experiment has exhausted itself and I’m sitting here wondering why I even started it in the first place. Maybe it sparked some ideas. Maybe it made you realize that you should probably do a better job of managing some of your players. But, maybe you’ll also give benching some of these players a try. And yet, the question of whose negative point games are most predictable does enter into the minds of real gamers and that may just be my next task. Finding out what is most predictive of an individual player scoring negative points could really turn this analysis into strategy. Stay tuned.

Here’s the list of players 11-20 who, like the table above, score a lot of negative points and should be managed with extra precaution: