I’ve recently completed two deep Ottoneu minor league drafts and am reminded just how difficult successful “prospecting” can be.  Regardless of how informed you may feel heading into an MiLB draft, you’re often left selecting players based upon small sample sizes, second hand reports, maybe a few brief videos and, as much as we want to deny it, a bias towards “scouting the stat lines”.  At the end of the day you’re making a decision using limited information that could have serious long term consequences for your dynasty team.

Prospecting is actually a lot like another critical business skill: hiring good employees.  The inputs might be a little different (scouting reports might be job references, batting practice videos might be one hour interviews, and stats, however limited, might be the resume sitting on your desk), but the challenge is the same: make an important, timely decision based on limited information, first impressions, and gut feel.

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Over the weekend, I had my first normal(ish) keeper deadline. The roster was packed with useful players who could be kept right around cost. It made for quite the challenge deciding on cuts and auction strategy.

Here’s the background – 12-team 5×5 roto (OPS), standard deep rosters (2 C, 5 OF, MI, CI), $310 auction budget, unlimited keepers at previous auction price +$7. And here are my various keep/cuts.

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You’ve just signed up to play Ottoneu – now what?

Ottoneu is growing, and while you’re going to see a lot of ink spilled here on RotoGraphs about this premier fantasy game, the learning curve for rookies can be a little steep.  Below are ten critical tips you should consider when embarking on your first Ottoneu fantasy baseball season.  What follows is based on the assumption that you’ve either joined an existing Ottoneu league or are creating a new league and are now preparing to draft in your first spring auction.

1) Join the Ottoneu Community

One of the best aspects of Ottoneu is the massive contingent of game players discussing all things baseball (and football) 24/7/365.  You can find the most active Ottoneu gamers on the official community site and on Slack. Complementing the already feature-rich platform, the Ottoneu community brings all owners together in one place to crowdsource player information, trade feedback, auction tips, keep/cut decisions, enhanced league communications, and a forum for recruiting new league owners.  Even if you don’t play Ottoneu (yet), the community is a goldmine of daily baseball dialogue, strategy, and advice, and it also the perfect place to dip your toe in if you have any interest in learning more about playing and joining Ottoneu.  When you do play Ottoneu, you’ll want to get acquainted with the community as soon as possible, as it is an excellent resource for new Ottoneu players.

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Zig when others zag. That could be the RotoGraphs motto. It’s certainly a theme I pursue with gusto. Fantasy advice tends to fit in a one-size-fits-all vehicle. Articles haven’t learned to mutate to match their reader. I can tell you my ideas and strategies, but it’s up to you to decide when to apply them or twist them to your own devious needs.

Recently, I wrote about using major league talent to effect a rebuild in a deep dynasty setting. Traditionally, rebuilding is done by rostering as many top prospects as possible. Sometimes, too many teams are rebuilding at once, making fringy major leaguers with breakout potential the much more affordable asset class. In other words, try to find the next Jose Bautista, Ben Zobrist, or J.D. Martinez rather than Mike Trout. Today, I’ll add a useful tactical wrinkle to the plan.

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The answer to the question posed in the headline is yes, but with some caveats. Last month I wrote about the Ottoneu Surplus Calculator, and one of the takeaways at the end of that article was that post-keeper deadline the calculator could be used to calculate inflation. What I’ve done is gone through every Fangraphs Points league in ottoneu and ran those leagues through the Surplus Calculator to gather data on keepers and inflation, in an attempt to get a general sense of how auction keeper leagues (like ottoneu) evolve over time with respect to inflation. Before I present that data, though, I want to explain what inflation is and why you should care about it.

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So you’ve joined a new, established keeper league. Or maybe it’s a dynasty, ottoneu, or some other deep format. The team that was abandoned has a couple good guys on it. Or maybe it doesn’t. Clearly, it’s not ready to contend. You have some rebuilding to do.

I bet I know the very first thing you’re going to do – shop your best veterans. In fact, if my experience is any guide, you’re going to really rush into the trade market. Both feet in, taking the best offer on the first day without getting to know your leaguemates, shopping offers, or researching past trades. You’ll swing deals with the zest of A.J. Preller, except instead an ill-fated attempt to contend, you’ll probably acquire a bunch of prospects who are one to five years from any fantasy contributions. And we all know how heartbreaking prospects can be (oh, hello there Fernando Martinez).

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Fantasy baseball season is upon us and interest will probably spike once Super Bowl L is over. Since I may be considered an expert in fantasy baseball, I get asked questions about this or that player. Who is a sleeper? And tons of keeper questions. With these questions, I follow three rules.

1. Take the younger player.
2. Take the more talented player.
3. Take the hitter.

Sometimes the questions are a little harder to answer and the answer can be a little fuzzy with so many possible inputs and outcomes. Quite a bit of the analysis I see and hear are people just making up values. I have found I can’t go with my gut and some semblance of an intelligent answer should be constructed.

I know I have a few more resources than the average fantasy owner and I would like to put those resources to work. I have taken various questions I have seen discussed and have come up with what I hope are some more intelligently constructed answers.

The two items I will use for most of the analysis is public opinion (from Twitter polls) and historical data. With the polls, I can use the information from the crowds to at least get a consensus of public opinion. The public could be wrong, but at least I have a reasonable anchoring point to start the discussion. With the historic data, the average and range of values can be known.

Here are some questions I have pondered this pre-season and my current answers.

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Hard to believe, but it’s almost February.  Almost all the top free agents have signed.  It’s almost prospect season, and it’s almost time for pitchers and catchers to report.  All these things add up to a baseball season that is almost here.

Patience.

But patience is a luxury we don’t have these days in fantasy leagues like Ottoneu that have a keeper deadline (January 31st) fast approaching.  Auction formats make player valuation even more complex, and now that it’s crunch time, tough decisions need to be made.  How comfortable are you hanging onto that $20 Corey Dickerson while the risk of a possible trade out of COL remains a real possibility in February or March? Despite the power and the incoming fences, how does Giancarlo Stanton’s unavoidable injury history influence your decision to keep at $56? How much value, if any, has Zack Greinke really lost moving to Arizona? Is he a $35 starting pitcher? Everybody loves Kyle Schwarber as the next best thing (C and OF!), but where’s the line? $20? $25? $30?

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Earlier in the month, I spent a week focused on your keeper dilemmas. One of the most popular formats is the Keep X league (if you recall your algebra lessons, X equals some number). There’s usually a cost associated with keepers. In a keep five league, either you lose your first five picks in the draft, or your keepers have an unique value assigned to them.

Both scenarios can leave you with head scratching trade offs. It’s common for two or more players to be on the keeper bubble. Based on current information, there could be more than one “correct” pick for your final keeper. This is when owners usually talk about which player they can reacquire in the draft.

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Am I keeping too many players?  This is a question I am constantly asking myself as the Ottoneu keeper deadline approaches. Typically, Ottoneu leagues keep over 200 players (around 230-240) but what is the optimal amount?  Certainly it’s extremely league dependent, but is there a general way we can get an idea of how many players actually should be kept? First, we need to answer a couple questions.

Why does it matter if I keep too many players?

 Ottoneu championships can be difficult to win. If you want to increase your odds in the offseason, the main way to do so is to acquire players who are underpaid via offseason trades. These surplus assets allow you to enter the auction with more flexibility, often allowing you to purchase more talent at market value than your rivals. However, trading for surplus assets is only half the battle. Throughout my 4 years playing Ottoneu, I have witnessed many teams trade for surplus talent only to “waste” the benefit they receive from these players by keeping overpaid or marginal players.  The two often negate each other.  We want to trade for underpaid players, but we also want to be conscious of the impact of keeping overpaid players.

Let’s say that you currently own Francisco Lindor at a $10 salary and you believe he is worth $15 (a $5 underpay).  On the same team, you also own Salvador Perez at $8 and Brandon Phillips at $6 (both of whom you think are worth $3). Perez and Phillips combine to be overpaid by $8. This a simple example for convenience, but the net impact of owning these 3 players is to overpay the group by $3.  Each non-surplus asset owned counteracts the surplus assets you have worked hard all offseason to acquire. Owning a $10 Lindor is fun, removing the benefit you receive from a $10 Lindor before the annual auction even occurs is far less fun.

How many players should be kept?

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