Eno Sarris will be by at 1230 to chat-a-tat, but leave your questions if you want to get ahead.

Some ottoneu cats have to look to the future, just like the major league teams. How much more to the future can you look than signing 2011 draftees?

Of course, there’s a lot of attrition between now and then. So you have to focus on the top talent. The beginning of the first round boasted two such top talents, Gerrit Cole and Trevor Bauer. Cole, with super agent Scott Boras puling the strings, hasn’t signed yet. But the third overall pick, Bauer, has signed. How much might you pay for a recently drafted college pitcher? Let’s check in with ottoneu owner and FanGraphs writer Jack Moore, who recently won an auction for Bauer.

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Ryan Ludwick was traded from the Padres to the Pirates on Sunday. Once you get past the surprise that the Buccos were buyers, there are another three levels of analysis to go, at least. The prognosis for the player is not incredibly predictable.

The easy answer is that Ludwick will enjoy moving out of PetCo. Since moving to the Padres at last year’s deadline, Ludwick has enjoyed the worst ISO of his career. The drop, about fifty points, could be attributable to the home park. ESPN’s park factors have San Diego as suppressing home runs by 11.5% over the past two years. On first blush, this easy analysis makes sense.

But there are more than a few problems with this idea.

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Jason Catania and Howard Bender will be chatting with you today at 1:15. The chat will open at 12:15 so come on by and leave your questions!

Unless Keanu Reeves has been working on calling signs, you won’t be able to replace Brian McCann with a player off the wire with his upside. Now that the 27-year-old Brave has had his career year derailed by an oblique injury in the middle of a marathon game, fantasy owners will be looking for replacements. Let’s take a look at some possible pickups. In tiers!

Shallow Leagues
Jonathan Lucroy (38% owned in Yahoo)
Perhaps it was a dropping BABIP that has had Lucroy hitting closer to .250 over the last two months, but if batting average is important to you, he’s one of the better options available in more than half of Yahoo’s leagues. The good news is that the Milwaukee catcher has some upside left — this year. He’s showing a 21.5% strikeout rate, but also a 6.5% swinging strike rate. Last year, those numbers were 18% and 7.0% respectively. It’s possible that since his BABIP (.338) is so close to his xBABIP (.329), his batting average could even rise as his strikeout rate begins to look more like last year’s strikeout rate. His minor league strikeout rates were all much closer to 15%, so this outcome comes close to probable even. The question is his power. A .119 ISO is not going bring you McCann-like rewards. Not many batters have a ground-ball-to-fly-ball ratio above 1.41 and a home-run-rate-per-fly-ball around ten percent. Chipper Jones, Dustin Pedroia, Martin Prado and Melky Cabrera do, though. The nice thing is that all of them have ISOs above average. Lucroy might run into a few more home runs in the second half.

Mixed Leagues
Ramon Hernandez (23% owned in Yahoo)
Sure, you can go with the high-power, low-batting average guys like Miguel Olivo and and John Buck. Or maybe even Jarrod Saltalamacchia, who has resurrected his career and is mostly playable despite a bad contact rate. Instead it’s Ramon Hernandez that gets the call here. It’s taken the 35-year-old a long time to finally put up a .300 batting average, but with a .328 xBABIP and a .303 BABIP, it might just be sustainable. The way he did it was by sacrificing his fly balls. A career low in fly ball rate along with a career high in ground-ball rate makes him a different player these days, but don’t expect that 20.4% HR/FB rate to continue. He has a 11.7% career number and his power, as measured by ISO, has been dwindling for a while. Still, even if he won’t play as much as McCann or have the same power, he won’t kill your batting average.

Deep Leagues
David Ross (1% owned in Yahoo)
Well, now you’re just screwed. Just hope he won’t be out long. Ryan Doumit’s rehab has been moved to Triple-A, but he’s probably not back until the beginning of August. Josh Thole might be out there for you as long as you’re not in an NL-only with two catchers — don’t laugh, I am in the AL version — but the Mets catcher is all batting average because of his choked-up approach at the plate. And that approach is even limited in batting average upside. Instead, consider taking the same approach that the Braves might take and pick up Brian McCann’s replacement. If he’s out there, it’s because it’s obvious the lifetime .236/.325/.449 hitter is above his head at .293/.361/.507 so far this year. You don’t need xBABIP to know his .367 BABIP in 84 PAs is not sustainable. Ross has looked great in Atlanta mostly because he’s been limited to facing lefties, too. Interestingly enough, though, the 34-year-old righty has a .331 career wOBA against righties (.334 vs lefties). Everything but his BABIP is looks the same! Take advantage of perceived flaws and pick up the catcher with the .213 career ISO that has been hitting over .270 for the past three years.

As hard as it is to concentrate with our fearless leader’s struggles on our minds, we must soldier on. Today, we’ll take a break from the National League outfield (don’t drop Nate Schierholtz until you know where Carlos Beltran will end up and what the Giants will do to fit him into the gargantuan holes in their lineup, since he could end up with the bigger part of the platoon with Cody Ross) to instead have some fun with the new statistic on our site. Yup, it’s SIERA time.

The thumbnail about SIERA is that creator Matt Swartz found that strikeout rate interacted with a pitcher’s BABIP and HR/FB. He also found that elite ground ball rates lead to better BABIPs. Because of these interactions, some pitchers should be compared to other excellent pitchers in those categories instead of being tied to the league average. We might find some aces that look better with SIERA, for sure, but it’s worth running the list in order to see who SIERA likes best. Another weapon in the fight against the luck dragon. Expect fabulous FIP-SIERA and xFIP-SIERA posts later in the week.

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Eno will be here at 12:15 EDT to take your questions, but you can begin leaving your questions now. If you like.

Another week and another innovation at ottoneu headquarters. Now you can browse any ottoneu league you like, right here. A few recommendations include the FanGraphs Staff League, the original ottoneu league, Justin Merry’s league (for you linear weights players, since he’s the scoring system creator and all), and, yes, the Expert’s League. Use the feature to learn a little more about what you should do in your league.

For example. A little ride over to the commissioner’s team page in the Expert’s League can show you what our group of prognosticators decided Brian McCann was worth ($33). Or how many minor leaguers a seasoned ottoneu player owns (zero in this case). Lastly, since Commissioner Chad Young has his Amateur Hour team in seventh place, it can show you what another ottoneu team trying to decide whether to buy or sell looks like.

It’s an interesting team, you might find when you’re looking at his set lineups page. He’s got J.P. Arencibia and Brian McCann, two very good young catchers, both playing right now. And yet he only has 13 games left to play at the position. Is McCann going to be worth $35 next year? Will someone want Arencibia? This is a clear position of surplus for Young.

His team is not that old, though. Sure, he has Vladimir Guerrero ready to head to the bench for good, and of course no minor leaguers, but he also boasts Eric Hosmer, Hunter Pence, Domonic Brown and Mike Moustakas as position players. But the Vlad injury forces him to play Rajai Davis in the outfield. He could use an outfielder if he’s going to go for it this year.

His pitching is strong. Roy Halladay, Jered Weaver, Jeremy Hellickson, Shaun Marcum and Jair Jurrjens are the headliners, but Julio Teheran and Ryan Dempster make for a good bench. If he goes for it, a $10 Marcum might have great trade value without requiring him to sell his top pitching prospect. If he calls it quits on the year, a $43 Roy Halladay may not be keepable, as much of a machine as the Doc is.

The old adage is that “Nobody cares about your fantasy team.” The irony is that you can learn a lot from looking at other people’s fantasy teams. And before we get too up in arms about Chad’s team, we should go softly. He’s about to return from his honeymoon to discover that Guerrero broke his hand. As if returning from a honeymoon wasn’t difficult enough.

Oh, and the offer still stands! Fill an ottoneu league now, and the entire league is free. Contact ottoneu founder Niv Shah if that sounds interesting to you (on twitter or at help @ ottoneu.com).

A pair of National League outfielders for your pleasure.

Ryan Ludwick (33% owned in Yahoo)
Ludwick is long-rumored for greener pastures, but it’s important not to overvalue the effect a move might have on his value. As a right-hander in PetCo, his home run power is only suppressed 5% according to StatCorner. If he moved to the Braves (-8% PF for HR by RHB), the Pirates (-17%), Rays (-7%), Red Sox (-7%) or Indians (-12%), he wouldn’t receive a boost in that category. The Giants (-1%) and Tigers (+11%) would be surprisingly positive destinations for him in this analysis. Overall, though, you’d think the Red Sox, the most recently rumored to be interested, would make for the best destination. Their park aids right-handed offense 6% overall while PetCo suppresses right-handed wOBA by 8%. A few more doubles would do Ludwick some good. At the plate right now, the current Padre outfielder is hitting more fly balls than he ever has, and showing the worst power. He could easily hit .260 with double-digit home runs in the second half, even if he joins a crowded contender. Other than BABIP (.270 this year, .304 career), most of his peripherals are in line with his career numbers. Sure, the 33-year-old is declining, and that’s a natural part of his three-year decline in HR/FB percentage, but there’s still enough punch there to be fantasy-relevant in deeper leagues. Especially with a tiny boost from change in parks.

Tony Gwynn, Jr. (2% owned in Yahoo)
Yeah, it’s a little strange to recommend a speed-only center fielder without a center field glove playing in a slightly pitcher-friendly park, especially right after his team traded for a veteran that plays his position. That said, Juan Rivera has been in town for a little bit of time by now and it looks like we can predict the playing time situation there. As a lefty, thin Gwynn is in line to play against righties. That works well given the fact that his OPS against righties is 6.4% better than his number against lefties. Lo and behold, the righty Rivera is 12% better against lefties by OPS. Play Gwynn against righties and you get a better walk rate (10.6% vs 6.4%) and ISO (.074 to .051). Both of those peripherals should help feed his batting average and keep it from slipping below neutral territory. Of course, you own him for speed, so it’s also good to see him play right-handers in that regard. He doesn’t have great upside, and you’ll have to manage him every day, but if you have room on your bench and a need for speed, Gwynn is still an option for you.

Eno Sarris will start you off at 115 and then Christopher Cwik will tag in later to give you all the fantasy chatting you can handle for the start of the second half. Get your questions in early!