When you get around your friends and family who play in your fantasy baseball league and they immediately tell you how sorry they are for you, it means your fantasy team stinks. Hunter Brown had a really bad game and I won’t complain or write bad stuff about him because I’m sure he’s feeling bad enough about it as is. Our ERAs are bad, let’s leave it at that.

Did you see it coming? Did anyone? Apparently, someone in a Paul Sporer chat smelt a stinker coming just by paying attention to the underlying metrics. Brilliant! Making sit/start decisions with starting pitchers is an area of my game that needs improvement. I want to flag and bench a pitcher not because they’re heading to Atlanta or playing the Dodgers, but because I conducted sound analysis and noticed something wasn’t quite right. In this article, I will introduce PINE (Pitchers In Need of Extraction), a new and very basic model to flag starting pitchers who need to be given a little more scrutiny and possibly removed from your starting lineup, set to riding the pine.

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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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The 2024 version of Hot Right Now will typically include three 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.

As Chad Young has done in previous posts, I am also going to rate each player on the following scale:

• Don’t Bother – This means that even as auctions are started, other teams are adding this player, or he is on a hot streak, I am just not interested in adding this player. I don’t see them being worth a roster spot.
• Don’t Stress – I can see why you would add this player. I can totally understand placing a bid, but I am not super worried about winning this player. I would bid $1 for sure, maybe a bit more, as long as it doesn’t impact my roster at all.
• Don’t Go Crazy – I would like to add this player, but I am not willing to hamper my team to do it. I’ll look for cuts, and if I can clear money to make a big bid without losing players I’ll regret cutting, I will do it.
• Don’t Lose – These players rarely come up but they do, from time-to-time. These are guys that I am willing to make a difficult cut to add. Don’t expect to see this designation used often.

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The 2024 version of Hot Right Now will typically include three 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 »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

Think about where you were in September of last year. It feels like a long time ago, doesn’t it? Perhaps you’ve changed since then, just slightly. Maybe you were sitting at a baseball game. I remember sitting in the shade at Camden Yards because the summer’s sun was still beating down and, by that point, I had received my share of sunburns. The memory seems distant as the last blast of polar wind still cuts through March and my light, dog-walking, jacket. Wherever you were and whatever you were doing in September of last year likely seems like a distant memory. Now consider a pitcher like Blake Snell.
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The theme for the third base position in 2024 seems to be old vets and young guns. Certainly, there are plenty of options in between, but in the first three tiers, it applies perfectly. Beyond that, there are a lot of choices to make and as usual, it highly depends on your draft strategy and roster construction.

Tier four is kind of like a crane and claw game in the waiting area of a big chain restaurant. Pay $0.50, use the joystick to drop the claw, and hope and pray you bring something good back to the drop box. If you make it to Tier five you’re playing for real and if you make it to Tier six, well, you’re a roto-holic. I can’t wait to see how these players shift and change over as Spring Training comes near and draft season begins.

My process for this initial ranking leaned heavily on the auction calculator, which placed all players eligible for 3B due to a 5-game minimum appearance at the hot corner in descending order based on the value expected by Steamer projections. I then did some adjusting and I’ll point out the players that received the biggest positive and negative adjustments. If you’d like to see the raw, unadjusted auction calculator outputs, simply click this link. Let’s get to it, as we open with the best of the best.

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Did anyone leave their draft with a feeling similar to when you just picked up the family dinner check? Broke? It’s so exciting bidding and spending and clicking “+$5” in the draft room, isn’t it? It’s the best time of year and while we all celebrate spring by making fake baseball teams, we can go a little overboard. Take, for example, a winning bid for Jackson Jobe in an Ottoneu Points League of $16. That is, in fact, his max salary. Jobe is a 21-year-old right-hander with zero major league innings to pair with zero AAA innings and he has only recorded six innings as high as AA. Is he worth $16 in 2024? No. He’s expected to be good but not to start the year in the major leagues. He’s had one, that’s right, one inning of spring training. Albeit it was a good one, but $16?!

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There are a few players who are showing off this spring. First, the Orioles need to make room for Colton Cowser. This dude is slashing .478/.586/1.000 with four home runs and a spring training leading (qualified hitters) wRC+ of 307. How about Miguel Andujar? He has also hit four home runs and has 13 hits in 32 at-bats, good for a .406 batting average. Unlike most of the hitters who have high batting averages this spring, Oneil Cruz has a very low BABIP, .182. That, compared to Cowser’s .583 BABIP is night and day different. Yet, Cruz is still hitting for a very impressive slash line of .300/.440/.900.

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