Ottoneu is a year-round fantasy baseball platform developed by Lord of Shadows Niv Shah. You probably know that. The arbitration period ended on November 14, and trading began the next day. In the writer’s league, FanGraphs Staff Two, a pair of blockbuster trades were consummated on the very first day of trading. Today, we’ll discuss those trades and the perspective of each owner involved.
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Melky Cabrera has been many things througout his career – prospect, bust, deadbeat, star, cheater, and injured are a few words that describe different phases of his career. After rebounding from a 2013 season that included a scary growth on his spine, Cabrera is now wafting through free agency as a top outfielder. His 81/16/73/6/.301 fantasy line was worth $19, according to Zach Sanders. While he wasn’t a fantasy monster, he was certainly an excellent acquisition for those who drafted him for $1 or picked him up off waivers.

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If you hadn’t heard of 27-year-old David Peralta entering the season, you can be excused. The left-hander pitched briefly for the Cardinals organization back in 2005 and 2006. He promptly left professional baseball after a couple lousy seasons. After dominating the Indy leagues, the Diamondbacks gave him a call in 2013 with an offer to join their system. He quickly rose through the ranks.

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In many ways, Yasiel Puig was sensational this season. His .296/.382/.480 line in 640 plate appearances marked him as one of the best hitters in the game. He posted a 92/16/69/11/.296 fantasy line worth $22 per Good Man Sanders. Puig averaged a $26 draft price according to FantasyPros, so he did represent a slight loss. That’s fine, you’re usually going to lose a few dollars when you purchase top talent.

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If I had my way, I would field a team of hitters who can play a variety of positions and contribute steadily across all five fantasy categories. Carlos Gomez meets the second of those conditions. His 95/23/73/34/.284 line made him the seventh most valuable outfielder and 12th ranked player overall per Zach Sanders’ accounting. FantasyPros says he cost $24 on draft day, and Sanders’ method has him returning $30 of value. That’s a nice profit on a high value player.

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The ottoneu offseason is great simply because it’s an actual offseason. All other popular fantasy platforms fall into a winter coma unless the commissioner moves the league to a spreadsheet. While other leagues are snoozing, ottoneu arbitration season is over and trade season has just begun. Today’s lesson isn’t about the trade market, it’s an exhortation to avoid an ottoneu faux pas.
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Entering 2014, A.J. Pollock was seen as a league average hitter with excellent center field defense. The combination ensured that he would see plenty of action with the Diamondbacks. His ability to steal a few bases marked him as a useful, if unexciting, fantasy option.

Pollock looked like a fantasy monster early in the season. He posted a healthy .316/.366/.544 line in 177 plate appearances through the end of May, when a broken hand sidelined him for three months. A .370 BABIP and .237 ISO buoyed his numbers. Upon returning from injury, he hit .273/.326/.386 in 95 plate appearances which is more in keeping with his career numbers.

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I remember walking into a Phoenix area bar to meet my FanGraphs colleagues last spring. It was a convergence of baseball nerdery rivaled only by the SABR conference across town. Someone started talking about J.D. Martinez. He had changed his swing over the offseason and could tap into his latent power with a clean, easy stroke. The Astros were going to be pleasantly surprised.

It turned out that the Astros had already moved on internally. They weren’t willing to give Martinez another shot, but they were nice enough to grant his release rather than force him to drown at the bottom of the depth chart. And that’s how he latched on with the Tigers.

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For those rare few of you who follow me personally, you may have noticed that I’ve written an ottoneu topic about once a week. This is, in fact, by design. Presently, the topic du jour is “arbitration,” which ends on Friday, November 14.

However, I appear to have exhausted all topics related to arbitration – at least those that interest me. Fortunately, I am a fan of omnibuses (omnibi?), and it seems like the perfect time to create one for ottoneu arbitration. If you still need to make or tinker with your arbitration choices, the following content should prove educational.

There are two systems of arbitration: voting and allocation. Most leagues use allocations. An asterisk indicates that the article is intending for voting leagues. I’ve organized the omnibus into sections: intro, intermediate, and advanced.

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Writing on the subject of Charlie Blackmon, Carson Cistulli once quipped, he’s “neither black nor Jamaican.” Our own FG+ player cap described him as “unlikely to ever be better than a fourth outfielder in real life.” Fantasy owners agreed and passed on drafting him according to FantasyPros. So how then did he provide a $25 season, ninth best among all outfielders?
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