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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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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