Archive for Keeper Strategy

Last week, Brandon Warne reviewed his FanGraphs Staff League ottoneu team, and noted my second place team (man, I hate typing that) was a hard-to-explain $295 over the cap, pre-arbitration.

A commenter wondered “how badly CY mortgaged the future with that payroll.” I responded that I didn’t, really – but the question is, how? Every year, ottoneu owners go for broke, swapping their farm for elite talent, assuming the next step is a rebuild. This is my look at how spent big but feel set to reload rather than rebuild.

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This past season may end up going down as the year of the prospect. So many good rookies got their promotion to the majors like Kris Bryant, Carlos Correa, Noah Syndergaard, and Lance McCullers. It is time to look at finding the next batch of rookies. By using just a handful of minor league stats, I have created basic prospect rankings for 2016.

I have played around with prospect rankings for a while and just recently publish my 2015 ZOBRIST rankings which looked at older potential hitter breakouts. I have had some personal player rankings using just the player’s stats, but nothing worth publishing. Well, I finally took the few step forward by stealing some ideas from a couple of my fellow writers. First, I was able to add position values to the rankings after helping Carson Cistulli work on his minor league WAR values. The final piece came after reading a recent article by Tony Blengino at ESPN where he gives credit to the player’s age compared to the level’s average age.

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Earlier today, we published my conversation with Joey Votto about aging, and within the post is a graph that didn’t necessarily fit the narrative but should contain an interesting tidbit for we fantasy players.

Take a look at this graph again, except instead of looking towards the end of the graph where the old guys are hanging out, look at the beginning of the graph. Under 25, it looks like hitters with pull percentages under 45% have a little more growth left in them than their pull-heavy counterparts.

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Flags fly forever, or so they say. And yet…not really. I mean, they kind of do, but how many Giants fans out there are like, “Eh, we had our run, good on the Dodgers!” Right.

So in fantasy, particularly keeper or dynasty leagues, you have to make a tough call when that title is in reach – how do you maximize your chances at that eternal flag without ensuring a collapse the next year? I am struggling with a situation right now that puts that balance to the test.

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As mentioned before in these digital pages, my home league is a mixed league keeper format with 12 teams. The 29-man rosters + 10 prospect list each makes transforms what would normally be a pretty shallow league into one where it’s nearly as deep as Ottoneu. With a 5 keeper maximum, the ability to trade draft picks and built-in keeper inflation, there are a lot of wrinkles to consider when building, or for me, more accurately rebuilding. As a refresher, it’s a 6×6 league with total bases and holds as the extra categories, and on-base percentage replacing batting average. For reference, my prospect list can be found here.

A quick run down of my season goes as following:

Step 1. Blow the draft (Passing on Josh Donaldson for Stephen Strasburg hasn’t exactly worked out)
Step 2. Burn a lot of picks next year attempting to build a roster
Step 3. Probably finish no higher than fourth
Step 4. Try not cry
Step 5. Cry a lot
Step 6. Look to see what I can do in 2016 Read the rest of this entry »

Dynasty leagues are great. In a time of year where standard leagues are losing interested members by the bushel, dynasty leagues have one last big question that keeps everyone at the table. Is it time to sell? Do I look to the future right now, or do I buy? What should the buying look like?

These things are hard to prove with numbers, but maybe some recent experience, and some help from our readers, can flush these out better for those of staring at that very decision. It’s really a look at two essential questions that face us when we’re not in the top three slots in our league, in the end.

For those of you not in dynasty leagues, the first part will still be useful — we’ll look at what sort of numbers you’ll need to show in your rate categories if you want to undo the terrible that you have done so far. If you can’t push that boulder, maybe you should re-focus on other parts of your standings.

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I participated in two drafts this past weekend. Both were 10-team auctions, one a season-long rotisserie keeper league (“LOWV,” henceforth), the other a head-to-head points redraft league (“Sandlot”). They are just home leagues, not renowned leagues such as Tout Wars or LABR or anything like that, but hey! Breaking down any draft can make for good insight, and if it helps just one person clarify his or her strategy, perhaps it did some good.

“So, Alex, how did you in your drafts?” Great, thanks for asking! I love both my teams. Love them. Except I made the same mistake in each draft: I left some money on the table. Like, $20 in one instance. It became a running gag: “Don’t question Alex — it’s all part of his master plan!” But here’s the catch: I arguably have the best team, per the projections, even after managing my budget so poorly.

So where did my strategy go wrong? Honestly, I’m not sure it did. (Or maybe I’m just trying to make myself feel better.)
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Last Sunday, the FanGraphs Ottoneu League #2 did our auction. Chad Young, Brad Johnson and Scott Spratt have each given their thoughts on it. It was a unique auction (most are in some way) and by making a few early adjustments I was able to come away from it better than I expected.

To begin with, I hate to start any fantasy season in complete rebuild mode. I want to have a chance to win if everything goes right. Before last season was half way over I had about zero chance of winning so then I started a rebuild. I had the most free agent dollars, I picked up some $1 players (Harrison, Petit, Boxburger, House) and waited for a team to drop a high dollar player to free up some cash. The plan worked great by getting Joey Votto and Brian McCann. Also, I like prospects, even if they have limited upside, near the majors and picked up players like Matt Wisler, Carlos Rodon and Ty Kelly.

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We’re living through an era where pitching is king. Nobody disputes it. A number of reasons have been cited. Velocities are increasing due to better training. Teams and players better understand the relationship between strikeouts, walks, and success.
One cause may stand above them all, the strike zone has grown in recent seasons. The zone has increased by 40 square inches in the last five years, according to Jon Roegele. The growth is in one direction, down. As this becomes common knowledge, the league may discover a simple solution to inject more offense into the game – shrink the strike zone. Read the rest of this entry »

With the cut deadline behind us, now is the time to start prepping for your auctions. One thing to do is identify your targets, but another is to suss out the competition. Who has cash to spend? How much? Who is building a new roster and who is filling just a couple holes?

I started by taking a broad look at my three leagues to see how much cash was kept and I was intrigued to see how different the three auctions are set to play out.

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