Back in February of 2015, I wrote the first edition of this article – I Don’t Get It: Avisail Garcia. Three seasons later, that article has held up really well. Avisail Garcia has posted less than four WAR over his last 1,615 plate appearance. However, since his 2017 campaign checked in at 4.2 WAR with strong four category production, fantasy owners are going to jump back onto the Avisailwagon. I’m here to advise caution.

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Once upon a time, we basically knew who everybody was prior to the season. Sure, that’s not a foolproof statement. Pitchers are always inconsistent. Some hitters decline due to age or injury. Others rebound due to a dead cat bounce or better health. Rookies are random number generators. But the point stands – players mostly played within the confidence intervals of their projections.

We’d talk about finding the Ben Zobrist or the Jose Bautista as your big opportunity on the waiver wire. You basically had a couple chances at rostering a waiver wire savior – plus some of those random rookies. In recent years, supply has increased. The 2017 campaign featured more free studs than I care to list. We had a new toy every week.

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The winning formula for 2017 was exceptionally simple. Here’s a bullet list guaranteed to finish second or better. Every single one of us had the opportunity to execute this plan – even most rebuilding owners in keeper formats.

• Acquire a few stud hitters with stolen base potential – think Jose Altuve or Paul Goldschmidt. Use the Stars and Scrubs meta in auction leagues.
• Pick up two or more stud pitchers from the Kershaw, Scherzer, Sale, and Kluber bucket.
• Make value gambles on players like Jose Ramirez.
• Work the waiver wire. In most leagues, Aaron Judge was (very briefly) free. Lesser sluggers like Tommy Pham were cheaper than free. Arms like Alex Wood, Jimmy Nelson, Zack Godley, and Charlie Morton also cost nothing and were exceptionally obvious additions.
• Buy low on Craig Kimbrel in-draft, churn waiver wire closers for the rest of your saves.

While you may not have had access to a specific player like Altuve or Kershaw, the general approach still holds true. And you could have gotten even more bang for your buck by selecting Bryce Harper and Giancarlo Stanton for a relative bargain.

Now that we know how to win in 2017, how do we apply this information to next season?

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In what has become an annual tradition, today I will hold myself accountable to you the reader by publishing the results of my 2017 fantasy season.

This year, I finally feel like I finally whittled down to a manageable number of rosters – one dynasty, two ottoneu leagues, two keepers, one redraft, and one sim league (mostly played over the winter). While I did woefully under-manage my ottoneu rosters – especially on the trade front – I gave nearly all my teams the attention they deserved. That wasn’t happening when I played in over 10 leagues.

On the Daily Fantasy front, I was able to rebound from a bad start to the year to post only a slight loss – less than the amount of money I spent on rakes. That’s… something. Although I didn’t manage to land any big scores, I did go on a nice streak of more modest wins in late-August. Overall, I lost about $75. I plan to reinvent my process next year.

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I’m a little late to the Bold Prediction review party due to taking a brief hiatus this October. It’s time to play a little catch-up on end-of-season content.

This year, I decided to try a little experiment, I made 10 predictions using positive language and 10 more using negative language. It’s always been my impression that it’s easier to get a negative prediction right. Let’s see how I did this year. I’m going to organize this in the most confusing way possible, bundling by number. You’ll see what I mean.

Typically, I aim for a 20 percent success rate with these picks.

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Ottoneu arbitration began on October 15 and runs through November 15. This omnibus is a one stop shop for all the strategy and tactics you need to get through the process. The following omnibus is a recreation of the one I published the last two years. We’ve mostly said everything there is to say over the course of more than 10,000 words. But first, some background.

Perhaps I jumped too quickly into the details. Ottoneu is the award-eligible fantasy platform hosted by FanGraphs. Think of it as dynasty-lite. You get a 40-man roster, a $400 payroll, and way too much freedom to manage your team your way.

Over the offseason, the price of every major league player increases by $2. Minor leaguers increase by $1. Then there is an arbitration process that can be done one of two ways. Most leagues use the allocation process which ultimately adds an additional $11 to $33 per team. This omnibus is intended for both forms of arbitration, but the allocation process does open more possibilities for strategery and thus has more words dedicated to it.

As I mentioned, there are two systems of arbitration: voting and allocation. An asterisk indicates that the article is intending for voting leagues. I’ve organized the omnibus into sections: intro, intermediate, and advanced. Read the rest of this entry »

~This is the end, my only friend, the end~

AGENDA

1. Closing Shop
2. Weather Reports
3. Pitchers to Use and Abuse
4. SaberSim Says…
5. TDG Invitational Returns!

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This title would have been fantastic tomorrow. But it’s today.

AGENDA

1. Walk Off
2. Weather Reports
3. Pitchers to Use and Abuse
4. SaberSim Says…
5. TDG Invitational Returns!

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Ad nauseam is a fun term. Let’s discuss some DFS picks at less than nauseam.

AGENDA

1. New High Score
2. Weather Reports
3. Pitchers to Use and Abuse
4. SaberSim Says…
5. TDG Invitational Returns!

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Here’s the transcript from my final chat of 2017. See you again next year!

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