The fantasy baseball season has closed, but the game of Ottoneu continues long into the off-season (one of the hallmarks of its year-round appeal). Following Justin’s take on what happened with some of the best teams in Ottoneu this year, I’ll focus today on how one team mastered this game, presenting you with an interview from the of the 2016 Ottoneu Champions League winner, Brent Daily.
It was a very strange year at catcher. The top of the end of season catcher rankings don’t look too unusual with Jonathan Lucroy and Buster Posey at the top, but those full-season numbers do not capture the amazing impact three catchers who become starters midseason had. Gary Sanchez’s prospect star had faded a bit in recent seasons, but that reflected defensive doubts. Most scouts agreed that Sanchez would hit if he could field his position. Willson Contreras had become the top catching prospect, and he immediately delivered on that promise with the Cubs.
Sandy Leon was completely different. Leon made his debut with the Nationals all the way back in 2012, and Wilson Ramos was not the only reason Leon never played regularly before this season. In his 235 plate appearances from 2012-15, Leon slashed an abysmal .187/.258/.225. His .223 wOBA over that period made him roughly equivalent at the plate to Mike Leake. This season, Leon was tied with Lucroy for the third-highest wOBA of .362. He was nearly identical to Contreras in both plate appearances and production.
Yesterday, I reviewed the list of players my ESPN Home Run tracker analysis suggested had significant HR/FB rate downside this season. So today I’m going to check in on the group of players I identified as possessing serious upside. I would imagine this group would have done well simply due to the league-wide power surge. Let’s find out if that was indeed the case.
In addition to the analysis I conduct using my xHR/FB rate equation, I also still look at ESPN Home Run Tracker after the season ends. As usual, I identified a group of hitters before the 2016 season that based on the Home Run Tracker data, appeared to have serious HR/FB downside. Let’s find out how these hitters performed.
Yesterday, I review the five hitters with major HR/FB rate downside. Today, I’ll recap the list of hitters that would have been more actionable and beneficial for fantasy owners — the eight guys with serious HR/FB upside. As usual, I used my xHR/FB rate equation to settle on these names. Let’s find out how they performed.
In what has become an annual tradition, today I will hold myself accountable to you the reader by publishing the results of my 2016 fantasy season.
In the 2015 version of this post, I decided I did too many leagues to give any the proper attention they deserved. Even though I whittled down my total commitments, an increase in dynasty-type formats meant I had needier children.
The 2016 preseason recaps continue and we’re going to move to hitting for the rest of this week. In late January, I used my xHR/FB rate equation (which is likely to get an overhaul this offseason) to identify five hitters with major HR/FB rate downside. Let’s find out how the group performed.
September is Head-to-Head playoffs month. Just like the major league postseason, a lot is riding on tiny little samples of performance. If your team was anchored by players like Bryce Harper, Gregory Polanco, Sandy Leon, Travis Jankowski, and Michael Saunders, you likely suffered an ignominious defeat. That quintet would have gotten you to the playoffs, but they were conspicuously absent for the month of September.
Let’s talk about the players who played hero in the final month. There’s no analytical angle here. These guys simply stepped up (for your fantasy teams) when it counted.
Let’s finish up my preseason starting pitcher strikeout rate articles by looking at those I identified as possessing significant downside, as hinted at by my xK% equation. It’s a very different list than the one generated by the upsiders, as these tend to be the pitchers with high strikeout rates with seemingly the only direction to go moving forward is down.
Let’s continue the strikeout rate theme by reviewing my list of starting pitchers my xk% equation deemed holding strikeout rate upside in 2016. In the original article, I expressed that the list of names was rather boring, so let’s see if that turned out to be the case or if any gems were uncovered.
