Onward and forward we move with the Steamer and I series recaps, pitting my Pod Projection against Steamer! Today, I’ll review how we forecasted Yoenis Cespedes. Unlike Mike Trout and Yasiel Puig who I previously recapped, I was actually significantly more bullish than Steamer on Cespedes. Let’s find out exactly what each system was projecting versus how Cespedes actually fared.
Let’s continue with the outfielder Steamer and I reviews by checking in on an amusing player — Yasiel Puig. I was significantly more bearish on Puig than Steamer was, and while we know now that Puig has continued his offensive slide, let’s dive into exactly what we expected versus how he actually performed.
Today, I start my reviews of my Steamer and I series that happened to cover mainly outfielders (not by design). The series compared my Pod Projection to the Steamer projection, as I discussed the players I was either significantly more bullish or bearish on compared to the system. We start with Mike Trout, who I was far more bearish on than Steamer. It was an interesting exercise for me since I had no idea I was in that position to begin with. Diving it to determine why was an enlightening activity.
It’s outfield week! Let’s begin by recapping how my rankings compared to the consensus by reviewing my outfield Pod’s Picks and Pans.
Man, no one saw this coming. Didi Gregorius ended up finishing 11th in fantasy value this year, actually making him worthy of a starting shortstop slot in shallow mixed leagues! We certainly didn’t expect this. Our preseason rankings valued him as just the 22nd best shortstop, and the most bullish ranking had him at 16th. Although he only improved marginally on the offensive side from a real baseball perspective, he made enough small gains to push himself into fantasy asset territory.
For those following along, Ottoneu is at it’s busiest during these winter months leading up to the start of the next baseball season. It’s designed that way, and the year-round activity of Ottoneu is one of the features that help set it apart from other fantasy platforms. As Joe mentioned recently, there are plenty of reasons why you should give Ottoneu a chance this year, but today I want to assume you’ve already seen the light and are ready to sign up. So, what’s next? Here are a few practical ways to get started once you plug into this great game.
Select Your Game Type
First things first: you’ll need to decide which scoring format suits your interest. Ottoneu offers a nice range of scoring options that include:
Classic: This is rotisserie-style 5 x 5 built into the basic foundation of Ottoneu, which (like all formats) includes 40 man rosters, $400 salary caps, daily lineups, off-season arbitration, and auction-style economics. If you’ve been playing traditional Roto for years and have interest in Ottoneu, this is a great place to start.
Old School: This is considered the original Ottoneu (4 x 4) format, and was designed with a sabermetric bent and geared toward power hitters and power pitchers (OBP, SLG, HR, R and ERA, WHIP, HR/9, K). You can find an example of 4 x 4 standings here.
SABR & FanGraphs Points: Based on linear weights scoring, these two sabermetrically-inclined options are very popular, and it isn’t uncommon to see owners playing in multiple points leagues. Tons of resources and tools are available if you decide to try your hand in one of these advanced scoring leagues. Standings for a points league look like this.
New: Head to Head is coming to Ottoneu in 2018!
ICYMI, head-to-head will be an option in @ottoneuBaseball in 2018. https://t.co/UsTO21a9kE
— Ottoneu Fantasy Sports (@Ottoneu) December 18, 2017
I was bearish on Addison Russell heading into the 2016 season. It had far more to do with his likely placement in the Cubs’ batting order than his actual performance expectations. Because he recorded all his plate appearances from the bottom half of the order, he amassed just 598 of them, despite remaining healthy all season and missing nary a game due to injury. That hurt his counting stats, though aside from his mediocre runs scored total, were still fairly strong from a fantasy contribution perspective. They could have been better, of course. A spot in the bottom half of the lineup had something to do with his rank of just 16 in fantasy earnings among shortstops (17 if you include Jean Segura). So although his home run total jumped from 13 to 21 and ISO spiked from .147 to .179, he was still a disappointment to fantasy owners.
The growing game of Ottoneu has a ton of great features that set the fantasy platform apart from the masses, but few are more unique than the annual arbitration process. Now concluded across all leagues, arbitration (a 30 day process) unofficially launches what is a very busy off-season for Ottoneu owners.
As a quick reminder, Ottoneu arbitration enables each league owner to “correct” the market value of players whose salaries appear too low. It’s an economic counter-balance to traditional dynasty rules that often let owners dominate a league for years if they amass the right players at the right prices. Here is the actual arbitration rule:
Corey Seager recorded just 113 MLB plate appearances in 2015, but he made a big splash with his performance and the lack of a track record didn’t stop the RotoGraphs ranking crew from placing him fifth among shortstop in the preseason. I was even more bullish, as my projections valued him as the second best shortstop! Seager ultimately finished fourth according to our end of season dollar values (fifth if including Jean Segura), but that probably undersells him, as he was just as good as hoped for.
Let’s recap my 2016 Pod Projection and see how my forecasts compared to his actual results.
For some reason, I never published a Pod’s Picks and Pans for third base. Perhaps to save myself some extra embarrassment? These haven’t exactly gone so well this year. Putting myself back in the face of potential ridicule, let’s take a look back at my Pod’s Picks & Pans at shortstop. Yesterday, we published the shortstop rankings and dollar values, which the actual rankings are taken from.
