Here’s today’s chat transcript which includes a wide range of topics and a lot of focus on dynasty strategy.

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A fantasy baseball roster is an exercise in educated gambles. There are some players, like Clayton Kershaw, who are capable of singlehandedly delivering your team to the promised land – especially in a format like ottoneu FG points.

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Never rebuild – that’s my mantra. As a hard and fast rule, it’s a little too rigid to work in reality. However, as a rule of thumb, it’s a useful code of conduct. I have six leagues that can be described as a dynasty format. Occasionally, I do rebuild. Rosters break. We’re here to talk about those scenarios as well as why I believe rebuilding is for suckers.

Perhaps I should begin with a caveat. Avoiding rebuilds works for me. It’s a battle tested strategy that maps to my strengths and weaknesses as a fantasy player. Not every owner is like me. It’s possible that you should rebuild because it better fits your personal approach.

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Here’s today’s chat transcript which started very heavy on Joey Gallo then shifted into a bunch of dynasty topics.

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I recently received an invitation to join Dave Cameron’s Screw Cancer league on ottoneu (I’m A New Owner To Exploit). It’s been in existence since 2012. Any time one joins a longstanding dynasty league, you’re likely to inherit a steaming pile. In this case, former owner Joe Douglas was kind enough to hand me some very solid assets as part of an incomplete roster. He didn’t leave the league due to the usual reasons – poor performance, rigged rules, and/or frustration. Instead, he was hired by an MLB team. Congrats to him.

My new ottoclub includes plenty of players I don’t want to keep. When considering the current state of the roster, it’s tempting to pursue a complete rebuild. My advice, resist the temptation to rush into a remodeling job. Take this opportunity to learn how to use players you don’t like. At the very least, make sure you maximize your trade returns. Let’s take a closer look at my situation.

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Yesterday, I mused about rule changes in dynasty leagues. My point was pretty simple – league health is the number one priority. A healthy league is one with many contenders and few rebuilding owners. Unfortunately, rule proposals rarely focus on health. Instead, there is a tendency to “fix” non-problems, often to the benefit of the top performing owners.

In that linked column, I referenced a few rule changes we’re considering in my 20-team dynasty league. Let’s look at those in more depth here while considering unintended consequences.

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From now until the end of the calendar year, overeager fantasy baseball enthusiasts will be discussing potential rule changes for the 2018 season and beyond. We’ve just begun the process of voting on a couple subjects in my 20-team dynasty. We keep 560 of 900 rostered players (including amateur teenagers). It’s a deep format. We have a bit of problem with owners getting stuck in rebuild mode.

Up for debate at this time are two issues. I suggested moving the trade deadline back from August 10. Another owner wants to add a fifth outfielder slot. We also always talk about increasing the quantity of keepers too. No matter what’s on the table, it’s important to be wary of how new rules will affect competitive balance.

When designing a league or tinkering with an existing one, I seek to accomplish the following:

• Maximize the number of owners with a legitimate shot to win/place
• Maximize the number of owners attempting to win Read the rest of this entry »

Everybody makes a bad trade every now and then. I made dozens of trades during the 2017 season – most of which were very favorable to me. But two trades and one non-swap came back to haunt me when the season concluded. Let’s explore.

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Guess what? Your ottoneu arbitration allocations are due today!

For those of you living in a hole or a shoe or wherever it is people have to live to be utterly ignorant of important world events, FanGraphs hosts a unique fantasy platform called ottoneu. It’s a 12-team, semi-dynasty format with a $400 budget. A key part of the experience is this concept of “arbitration” wherein your rivals can make your team more expensive. If you’d like to know more about arbitration and way too many related strategies, we have an ominbus for that.

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Humans are kind of a mess. One of our many failings as a species is a tendency to oversimplify complex issues. I think of it as the “good versus evil conundrum.” I’m sure academia has a better name for it. Basically, we prefer wholesome heroes and fell villains rather than the equivocating mess we typically find in reality.

Good guys sometimes do bad things. The venerable Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War to deal with dissidents. Most of the so-called evil folk in history were trying to make a better world for themselves. They were the good guys in their story. Our tendency to ignore the gray area between good and evil – i.e. the nuance – can be found in baseball (and fantasy baseball) too.

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