I’m going to do something a little different today and step away from fantasy analysis and try to leave you with something that is simple, very practical, and hopefully helpful.  With a shout out to my fellow commissioners out there, I’d like to give you a template for creating a fantasy league charter.

I’ve been playing fantasy baseball for 20 years now and I’ve had the honor of commissioning for most of that time too.  It can be a fun job but for those that have done it you know that it can also be a little rough sometimes.  No one enjoys stepping into the middle of heated league debates, trade meltdowns, or finding replacement owners, but if you’ve commissioned a league in the past odds are you’ve dealt with a few issues here and there.  While there’s no way to foresee or avoid every issue that can derail a fantasy league (and since there’s no substitute for having great owners as your foundation), a rock solid league charter can go a long way in setting both the tone and direction of your league long term.  In my opinion, it’s a must-have.

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“The trade deadline is fast approaching.” – Hard to believe that time is here.  This season has flown by, hasn’t it? With just one week before rosters solidify for the final stretch, now is as good a time as ever to ensure new Ottoneu owners are fully prepared for the future, which is now fast becoming the off-season.  Joe recently outlined the mindset that’s needed to approach the trade deadline strategically, depending on your place in the standings, but since it’s also my job to cover Ottoneu on these pages, I’ll take a more mechanical look at what happens at this critical point in the season.

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Cardinals Pitcher Call-Ups: Reyes and Weaver

The Cardinals called up Alex Reyes and he made his first major league appearance for the Cardinals bullpen last light. Reyes is a talent pitcher and here is some comparable pitchers with similar grades to his 2016 Baseball America prospect grade.

The list is dominated by hard throwers with good curve balls which describes Reyes.

Moving onto his Triple-A production this year, the 21-year-old has been a strikeout machine with 12.8 K/9, but he has some issues with walks (4.4 BB/9). Last night he averaged 99 mph with his fastball and was 98 mph in the Arizona Fall League last year. Besides the fastball, he has an above average curve ball. He is a talented pitcher and should be a top 20 pitcher for years to come if his change up is serviceable.

But to put it simply, all the talent doesn’t really matter this season. Reyes will not be useful in most leagues since he will be relegated to the bullpen and is currently not in line for Saves. In redraft leagues, let others fight over him. In keeper leagues, understand his value is limited this season. Now, if I was a non-contender in a keeper league, I would look to see if one of the contenders has Reyes and would try to pick him up for a piece which could help them win a championship.

Luke Weaver is the pitcher owners should be targeting this season instead of Reyes. To start with, here are some comparables for Weaver using MLB.com’s 2016 grades.

The list of pitchers doesn’t bring a ton of excitement to Weaver’s debut on Saturday. The key when looking at these grades is if he can get his curve or slider to be his third league-average pitch. Weaver has been extremely productive in Double-A posting a 1.40 ERA and 10.4 K/9, but a pitcher can dominate the minors with just two pitches. If viewing his start on Saturday, watch to see how his curve and slider work. If he can’t get them going, he may struggle the second or third time through the order.

As for fantasy, I think he is worth a stash in all leagues to see how he performs. I think he could be in the Cardinals’ rotation until the season end because he has only thrown 83 innings this year after throwing 124 IP last year so workload may not be an issue.

Dylan Bundy: Quick Look

I have been intrigued on how Dylan Bundy looks since moving to the Orioles rotation in mid-July. With his injuries and starting the season in the bullpen, I wanted to get an idea of what to expect from him as a starter. For the game, I picked his last start on August 7. Here are my thoughts:

• His fastball was at 92-97 mph with sink at the lower velocities. He had good command of this pitch and seemed to constantly hit is spots with it. This will help him get ahead of hitters who are looking for a pitch in the middle of the plate. His fastball seems to have a couple different movements and I would not be surprised if he has a four-seam fastball and a slower two-seamer.
• His split-change was at 85-87 mph also with plus late sink. This pitch was the best pitch he threw.
• His final pitch is a classic 12-6 curve at 77-80 mph which he used as a chase pitch for called strikes.
• As with any pitcher, when he hung the curve or change, they got crushed.
• If he throws like he did during this game next year, he is going to be a strikeout machine.

For next season, I like the possible production from him and he could be a top-20 to 40 pitcher …. if he stays healthy which is a huge if. I think he will be more valuable in shallow leagues where the replacement level is higher. In deeper leagues, he may end up a wasted pick if he goes back on the DL again for the season. Right now I would put a 140 IP, 9 K/9, and a 3.50 ERA on him for a 2017 projection.

T.J. House: Back in the majors

Going into last season, I had a huge crush on T.J. House after he put up some great numbers at the end of 2014. I bragged him up over the offseason and picked him up where ever I could. Right out of the gate of the 2015 season, House stunk it up and ended up the DL with an injury.

The biggest key I took away from my House love affair, for non-prospect who break out, any kink in their armor will probably make them unplayable. In House’s case, his velocity lost 2 mph from the previous season. There was no way he could keep up his 2014 production with a batting-practice fastball.

His return to the majors is only to the Indians bullpen and his fastball, which he should throw harder from the bullpen, only sits at 90 mph. He is unplayable in all leagues right now, but I will always remember the bond we shared that one offseason.

Earlier this season I introduced the Prospect Scorecard as a way of better comparing and identifying the best fit prospect value for your specific fantasy league.  Today I’ll get a head start on my own 2017 prospect rankings by using the Scorecard methodology to rank the current top 50 prospects for Ottoneu. Even if you don’t play Ottoneu specifically, the 4 x 4 and FGPTS prospect rankings can serve as a good proxy for most OPS or wOBA-centric fantasy leagues, and the traditional 5 x 5 prospect rankings should cover a large portion of the rest.

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I’m no artist, but as we enter August let me paint a picture of what I see happening in many fantasy leagues:

“My team started fast and I was optimistic in May, but since then I’ve fallen out of the race and am now looking only towards next season.”

“My league’s title chase appeared to be close in June, but just a month or so later it now looks like it’s really over – it’s a one (maybe two) horse race.”

“Our league trade deadline is still 30 days away but no one is really buying at this point.  It makes for a tough sell.”

“A lot of the owners in my league seem like they’ve checked out for the summer.  There’s just not a lot of activity from those teams lower in the standings.”

Familiar? Of course I’m using very broad brush strokes here but you get the point: it’s rare to find a fantasy league that has a hot race involving half your league’s teams in August (and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one in September).  But this isn’t really surprising, is it? Still, if you’ve ever won a fantasy league then you know the only thing better than winning is winning a competitive fantasy league.  We all want to win among the best, don’t we? That’s what bragging rights are all about.

My original intent for this article was to debate whether or not it’s possible to legislate competitiveness within your fantasy league, but we’ll just skip to the conclusion and say “it’s not”. This fact is probably obvious to you but in 20 years of being a fantasy commissioner I can tell you I’ve tried many times to drive competition up and down the standings each season, but in the end there’s no secret sauce.  Instead, I’ve come to the conclusion that attempting to build an active league is far better than trying to manufacture a competitive one, so today I’ll leave you with a few ideas that might help increase engagement in your league, and also ask for your feedback on what else might be working for you.

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As I sit watching some of the game’s best players battle between commercials in the one July game that really “counts” I’m reminded that the All-Star break is the natural rest period set aside to catch up on the baseball stats and facts that I’ve otherwise overlooked all season.  For instance:

Did you know that Ian Desmond entered the break as both a top five fantasy shortstop (#2) and top five outfielder (#5)?

Did you know that Dellin Betances has a lower xFIP (1.15) than FIP (1.20), and that if you added his xFIP to that of his lanky teammate Andrew Miller (1.09), you’d only find five other relievers in MLB with a better xFIP (one of which is also a teammate) than their combined 2.24?

Did you know there is a backstop on the Angels named Jett Bandy?

Did you know that the Diamondback’s new road gray uniform includes a snake biting a baseball on the sleeve?

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We don’t play in keeper leagues, for various good reasons, but right now, we’re kind of regretting that we don’t. As we look over our portfolio of leagues during the mid-season lull, we see a couple in which we’re doing quite well, and a couple more in which we are in contention to be in contention. But in one league—and of course it’s the one that cost us more to enter than all the others combined—we are hopeless. That would be our entry in the NFBC Auction Championship, in which we stand 12th of 15 in our league and 125th of 165 overall. Both of these, distressingly, constitute our high water marks in that league so far this season.

We won’t bother with a full post-mortem now. All you need to know is that we are fifth from the bottom overall in pitching, and all you need to know about that is that we’re midpack in saves, signifying that we are incapable of identifying good mid-priced and low-priced starters. If you want to visit the morgue and conduct an autopsy, go here. We got to wondering, though: if this were a keeper league, whom would we try to trade for? For at least some of you, this isn’t the moot question it is for us. Read the rest of this entry »

Successfully “rebuilding” your fantasy team into a contender is an epic challenge that requires vision, skill, patience, and a little bit of luck.  Since there is no perfect blueprint that ensures success (some people say never rebuild), it’s not surprising that owners take a lot of different routes to the same ultimate goal.

I recently polled a group of savvy, successful fantasy owners to get their advice for rebuilding in Ottoneu, asking five key questions that are related to the idea of effective rebuilding.  Regardless of whether you play Ottoneu, much of the (anonymous) feedback below should be relevant to a wide variety of fantasy baseball leagues and may be helpful if you find yourself in a rebuild this season.

What is the best advice you would offer an Ottoneu owner who is rebuilding their roster for the future?

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This is a topic I probably should have brought up earlier in the draft season when more owners could use the concepts to select their keepers. I’ve decided there’s still a reason to talk about keeper value and inflation as it could inform your trade talks or how you think about the game in general.

A couple of my auction keeper leagues included hefty inflation this year. We’re talking prices over $10 above retail. As I’ve said in previous posts, the best way to handle the craze is to join the fray for a few big names then position yourself to be the king of dollar days. But let’s take a further step back. How should we prepare for rampant inflation before the draft even begins?

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I stared at the two options for a long time.

Russell Martin as a 21st-round pick.
Dee Gordon as a 3rd-round pick.

I referred to my projections for each, the replacement level at their position, the surplus value over the expected return in each draft slot. I stared. I went for a run. I came back, stared.
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