While it’s true that Ottoneu never sleeps, some are often surprised to know that January and February are among the busiest months of the year for this growing fantasy sports platform. This winter frenzy period for baseball is refreshing because it keeps owners engaged even as they await free agent signings, and it is highly active because so many new leagues are forming. If you’re thinking about playing Ottoneu this season, here are some key resources for review:
Welcome to the Ottoneu keeper deadline, 2018 edition. Today (11:59 PM EDT) is the final day to make that difficult decision about your on-the-bubble players before rosters lock and you set your sights on your upcoming league auction. Per the rules:
Between the end of the Major League Baseball regular season and the end of arbitration, players may be cut. Between the end of arbitration and the keeper deadline, players may be cut or traded. After the keeper deadline and before the auction draft, teams may not cut or trade any players.
Since the keeper deadline also serves as a de-factor trade deadline, I’ve lined up a few final resources for you below and I’ve asked a handful of Ottoneu experts (Justin, Chad, Brad) to check your questions and comments periodically throughout the day to offer their input on your toughest decisions. You don’t play this game? You should, but even if your non-Ottoneu keeper deadline is still a few weeks away, feel free to fire your questions below and we’ll do our best to give you feedback (for context, don’t forget to let us know details about your league format).
Hard to believe January is already half finished. Maybe even harder to accept that there are a significant number of talented MLB free agents left unsigned. As we wait through the long winter days, I’m looking forward to seeing these players in action in 2018.
As somewhat of an ode to the will-be-missed Mr. Swydan, I want take a page out of Paul’s book to highlight a number of players I’m excited to watch in 2018 (this is part one).
Having fun with some random comparisons, Justin Smoak finished a terrific 2017 with a career-high .371 wOBA (.270/.355/.529). Freddie Freeman also finished the summer with a .371 wOBA (.291/.378/.513)…after spending six weeks on the DL with a broken wrist. Before that DL stint, Freeman was arguably the best hitter in baseball, slashing .341/.461/.748 (.485 wOBA) over the first six weeks of the season. He was essentially unstoppable during that stretch, and at the age of 28, armed with one of the most consistent batted ball profiles in the game and a full season of health (plus 3B eligibility in some leagues), Freeman has all the ingredients for a truly special season in 2018.
2018 is here, and the dawn of a new year is the best time to reevaluate your overall fantasy strategy. But before digging into the finer points of roster construction, auction value calculations, and post-post-hype sleepers, January is also the perfect time to step back and ask whether it might be time to trade in your entire fantasy experience for one of the more advanced, up-and-coming fantasy platforms around.
This is a shameless plug for Ottoneu, a fantasy sports platform so addicting that it has also launched a community of more than 1,000 hardcore baseball fans that sleep and eat baseball year round. But don’t take my word for it. There are many reasons why you should try Ottoneu (including some exciting new features launching in 2018), but today I want you to hear from some of the “rookies” who just finished up their first full year of Ottoneu in 2017. This growing community of raving fans is a big part of the Ottoneu experience, and their Season One feedback may help you make the final decision to drive your own league to Ottoneu in 2018.
The Japanese sensation Shohei Ohtani is finally coming to MLB (and more specifically to the Angels), and in doing so will become the trailblazer that sets a new expectation for the future of the (possible) “two-way” player. Because salaries and injuries continue to escalate in the game, a true double threat major leaguer is still hard to imagine in baseball, but if the 23 year old Ohtani does become the first player since Babe Ruth to make a regular impact on both sides of the ball, he will change the landscape of fantasy baseball, too.
Ohtani 😱 pic.twitter.com/YXJJ8954Hs
— Vladimir Guerrero (@VladGuerrero27) December 8, 2017
I once took an excellent training course on effective communication. At the beginning of the course, our teacher started with a game:
In my hand is an envelop with a $10 bill inside. I want one of you in this room to take the deal I’m offering you. I’m going to ask you a simple trivia question and, if you get it right, you get the ten dollars. But if you get it wrong, you owe me two dollars. However, if you don’t know the answer, you can ask one person in the room for help. Who wants to volunteer?
After a few moments of people looking at each other wondering what the catch might be, I volunteered. “How many states make up the United States?”, he asked.
It’s probably been awhile since you’ve read a traditional “buy low, sell high” article. In today’s golden age of baseball analytics where complex physics and statistics can be boiled down to a few simple indicators accessed instantly using one hand, it’s not very often that we (readers, fans, fantasy players) find ourselves in possession of knowledge before the masses. For example, try “selling” Avisail Garcia and his recent .375 wOBA around your league without getting some type of response that includes “yeah, but he had a .392 BABIP”.
Thankfully, despite all the data available at our fingertips, the one ingredient that will always play a critical role in the mixture of value is the human element of perception, which can swing wildly in different directions depending who you’re dealing with. Today I’d like to isolate a few players who’s perception may be suppressing their actual value a little more than it should be, which may represent a buying opportunity for savvy fantasy owners prepping for 2018. The good news is you don’t have to stand in line to land these deals, but you will still need to get them early.
My review of a recent Ottoneu dynasty prospect draft continues today with highlights from rounds 10 – 12.
Dynasty Prospect Draft Review: Rounds 1 – 3
Dynasty Prospect Draft Review: Rounds 4 – 6
Dynasty Prospect Draft Review: Rounds 7 – 9
This draft should help you “discover” a few prospect names to keep an eye on going forward. If you have specific questions about players or the thought process of why they were selected, fire away in the comments section, as I’ve asked each owner in the league to be on standby to provide feedback as we review the rounds.
Before I review my own thoughts on the draft, you should know this Ottoneu league uses the “FanGraphs Points” scoring system based on linear weights, so offense is heavily slanted towards wOBA skills (and speed is almost a non-factor). We also somewhat arbitrarily removed the Top 12 overall offensive prospects to save them for the standard 40-man auction next spring. Otherwise, any minor league player without one (1) MLB PA or IP is eligible to be drafted. You can read more about the custom rules of this dynasty league here, and follow along with the draft here.
A few of the prospects below are also featured on the 2018 Top 100 Fantasy Prospects list.
Happy Game 7 Day!
About a year ago I released my (2017) Top 50 Fantasy Prospect rankings using the Prospect Scorecard to weight a variety of important variables in the context of fantasy baseball. Today I’m publishing an (early) expanded list of the Top 100 Fantasy Prospects for 2018 for both Ottoneu’s FanGraphs Points leagues (where wOBA is a key measure on offense) and Roto leagues (5 x 5).
A few quick notes before we begin:
Here are the (early) 2018 Top 100 prospects for the linear-weights-based FanGraphs Points scoring format (a good proxy for those in OBP leagues):