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?
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
ATC Undervalued Players
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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
ATC Undervalued Players
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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!
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
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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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Last night was the auction for the FanGraphs Staff League, going into year 13 and still going strong. My recap will focus on how things went for me and my co-manager, Niv Shah, who built and runs Ottoneu. The goal is to share a lesson you can learn from us so you don’t the mistake we did. But if you want to see the full draft, you can! Eli Ben-Porat streamed the auction, so you can see how this played out live.
The Middle Infield episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.
Guest: Mike Gianella
Strategy Section
Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week
ATC Undervalued Players
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It is always odd to me how fantasy drafters come up with their auction values. “Oh, he’s a $10 SS at least!”. Ok, but, where did you come up with that number? If you load up the FanGraphs auction calculator with your league settings and Steamer projections, you will see exact dollar values that you can use to aid you in auction drafts. I write the word, “aid” because you will very rarely get the player you want for the price the auction calculator spits out. Sometimes you are lucky and get the player for under what the auction calculator thinks he’s worth, and sometimes you push the “Outbid By $1” button a little too much.
Regardless of whether your bid falls below the mark, above it, or right on the mark, the amount you paid cannot be evaluated until the end of the season. But, looking back at last season’s projections versus last season’s actuals can teach us a few things and if we were operating our fantasy team like we were operating a business, we’d all be sitting in the conference room drinking bad coffee and going over the fiscal year. Hopefully, someone brought in donut holes. In this post, I’ll look at 2022 steamer preseason projection values (hitters only) versus 2022 end-of-season values and make comparisons.
