Sometimes in this game of ours, you make a mistake and it comes back to bite you almost immediately. The pitcher you should have benched who gives up a first-inning HR. The trade you make for the injury-prone pitcher who hits the IL the next day.

Sometimes, however, those mistakes are a slower boil, taking their time to show you what you did wrong. This is a story of one of that kind of mistake – with the advice that you just can’t worry about it.

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Question: What’s the most important thing to remember when drafting in any fantasy baseball league?

Wise-Guy Answer: The type of beer you have on deck.

Wise-Guy’s Friend’s Answer: Making sure you have snacks that don’t grease up your keyboard!

Serious Answer: Your league’s scoring system.

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On Tuesday, just hours before I dove into the auction for league 1199, I laid out the challenge I faced for the brilliant minds that read this site, and promised to return with news of how things played out. This is my foretold return.

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This post won’t be long. And it has more questions than answers. But it’s the most immediately relevant thing I have ever written (at least to me). What do you do in auction where you have a choice between getting a star or building a balanced team and you can’t realistically do both?

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It’s always good to remind yourself of your league’s scoring system before you start a re-draft for the season. If you’re like me and you play in multiple fantasy baseball leagues with multiple scoring systems, things can get a little blended together. Here are some really important points to remember when comparing Ottoneu points and standard roto Read the rest of this entry »

The Starting Pitcher episode (Part 2) of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Eno Sarris

Pitching+, Stuff+, Command+

Strategy Section

• Effects of new MLB rule changes on pitchers
• Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week
• Risk
  • Valuing pitchers returning from injury
    • Chris Sale
    • Jacob deGrom
    • Tyler Glasnow
  • Valuing older pitchers with lots of mileage on their arms
• Shohei Othani
  • Is there extra risk asscociated with rostering the two-way player?
• Starting pitcher strategy
  • General landscape
  • Do you need to draft an ace pitcher in fantasy?
  • Should we avoid the waiver wire for starting pitchers?
    • Should we avoid streaming SPs?
  • Should we tilt the Hitter/Pitcher % split more towards pitching?
  • Should we use more bench slots for starting pitchers this year?
  • Should we be chasing any of the following?
    • Wins
    • Innings
    • High IP / GS
    • Pitchers on good teams

ATC Undervalued Players

• Starting Pitchers
  • Aaron Nola
  • Shane Bieber
  • Kevin Gausman

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The Starting Pitcher episode (Part 1) of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Nick Pollack

Pitch Level Value (PLV)

Strategy Section

• Role changes
• New pitches
• Pitch mix changes
• Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week
• What can we learn about pitchers from spring training?
• Valuation of foreign pitchers
  • Kodai Senga

ATC Undervalued Players

• Starting Pitchers
  • Luis Severino
  • George Kirby
  • Jeffrey Springs
  • Drew Rasmussen
  • Chris Bassitt
  • Pablo Lopez
  • Alex Cobb
  • Alex Wood
  • Steven Matz

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Last week, after powering through two live auctions and starting a slow one, I wrote about the differences between the two approaches to auctions, focusing on how they are structurally different. I also promised to come back with more about strategy in both formats. And here I am!

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The Auction Strategy episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Steve Gardner

2023 LABR Auctions

Strategy Section

• General Auction Preparation
  • How does it differ from snake drafts?
• Position scarcity in auctions & punting
• Live auctions vs. online auctions
• Mono league auctions
• How does auction strategy and future FAAB spending tie in together?
• How should you prepare yourself mentally for the auction?
• What should you do during auction breaks?
• Scouting other league members
  • How does this affect the way that you should auction?
• How to create auction values & strike prices
  • When should you bid over your values?
• How much should you spend on hitting vs. pitching?
• Stars & Scrubs vs. Spread the Risk
• In-draft adjustments
  • In-draft inflation
• Nominations
  • How do you determine who you should nominate next?
  • Controlling a room with nominations
• Money Management
  • Pacing yourself throughout the auction
  • Having the hammer at the end
• Bidding
  • How often should you bid on players?
  • Price enforcing
  • Starting bids
  • Freeze bids
  • Bid on the ‘9’s?
  • Timing of bids
  • $2 bids
  • Sneaking $1 players in early

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It’s Ottoneu auction season, and while most auctions won’t happen for a few weeks, there are plenty of leagues auctioning right now. I have already finished one auction and I am in the middle of a second as I sit here writing. How am I writing while mid-auction? Am I the world’s best multi-tasker?

No. I am in the middle of a slow auction. And this has me thinking about something that is important in Ottoneu but not specific to Ottoneu: the differences between slow and fast auctions.
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