Before I begin, I wanted to get something out of the way first. I have never played in a keeper league for more than a season (therefore never having the opportunity to make keeper selections), and so I might be wrong about my feelings on this strategy. But, I don’t think I am. On Saturday, I was asked to participate in an online auction for a FanGraphs reader who was unable to attend. Being the awesome person that I am and unwilling to pass on a chance to participate in another auction, the player selection format I enjoy significantly more than the snake draft, I said yes with little convincing necessary.

This was a 12-team 5×5 mixed rotisserie keeper league, where if an owner chooses to keep a player, his salary would increase $3. Standard roster size, except the league uses just one catcher instead of two. Oh, and you also use your auction budget ($270, instead of $260) to bid on your 5 reserves. Anyway, having had little experience in a keeper league auction to compare, this one seemed insane. Let me tell you how.

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Before you go thinking this is just another mock draft column, read the next sentence — your mouse will practically click “more” by itself.

At a time when every fantasy owner and their sister is prepping for the upcoming season by doing mock draft after mock auction…what if we threw a curveball at that concept by selecting only prospects for a mock dynasty league?

That, friends, is what the fine folks over at Fake Teams came up with, and they so graciously asked FanGraphers Mike Newman, J.D. Sussman and me to participate as part of a panel of a baker’s dozen’s worth of prospect pundits. What comes next are the results.

But that’s not all! To help keeper and dynasty league owners everywhere who get to partake in the always-exhilarating, often-painstaking process of drafting prospects, I’ll present my approach and strategy to this enlightening exercise — which when you think about it, was really just a make-believe draft of non-major leaguers for this made-up fantasy game we all love to play.

Yeah, like you’re not gonna click.

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The ottoneu keeper deadline was jam-packed this year, at least judging by the activity in my deadline chat, the questions popping up on Twitter and all the action in my leagues. Across the Original ottoneu league, the second FanGraphs Staff League, and the FanGraphs Experts League alone, 223 players were cut on January 31, and 29 more players changed hands via trade over the final couple days of roster action.

As you all recover from what I am sure was a similarly hectic deadline rush, I am going to try to provide some insights into what happened a) in my three leagues and b) across the universe of leagues to give you a sense of what the ottoneu-verse looks like today.

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Over the next three weeks, I am putting together three articles to help both existing and new ottoneu players (including one for those still thinking about ottoneu). Next week we’ll look at how the three scoring systems offered by ottoneu compare, and the week after I’ll offer some guidance for those venturing into their first ottoneu experience. In the midst of all that, expect to see a detailed breakdown of how I create projected auction values for my ottoneu leagues.

But this week, with just nine days until rosters freeze, I am going to focus on those of you in your second or third year in ottoneu, or those of you taking over abandoned teams. In many ways, the next nine days are some of the most important to your season – moves you make now can put you on the path to a title or start a downward spiral.

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Right around this time of year I start to get that anticipatory giddiness that a six-year old gets in December when he starts counting down the days to Christmas. February 12 is the first day pitchers and catchers are allowed to report for Spring Training 2013 — just 27 days away. That’s less than a month. Calm, cool and collected on the outside; I’m doing back-flips on the inside. You feeling it too?  I thought so. This is our Christmas. Read the rest of this entry »

This week the Mets exchanged Cy Young award winner R.A. Dickey for Blue Jays catching prospect Travis d’Arnaud (pronounced dar-no). The deal is logical for two teams moving in opposite directions. While the merit of the Blue Jays’ off-season moves are not above reproach, the Mets are in no position to compete in 2013 as evidenced by their attempt to field a team without a single outfielder. But, that’s of little consequence to us here at RotoGraphs. Here, we want to know who Travis d’Arnaud is and how this trade affects the prospect Comrade Newman called the best catcher prospect he has ever seen. Read the rest of this entry »

Andrew McCutchen is a toolsy Pittsburgh outfielder with a good eye at the plate that just put it all together and showed career bests in most categories in his age-26 season. He did it with a fraction of the flair of the last version of this Pirates phenomenon — unassuming dreadlocks replacing a the more ego-focused flash of the earring — but the timing and location of his breakout still lead to an easy comparison.

Yes, putting McCutchen up against Barry Bonds may dull his shine. As is usually the case with a player coming off a career season, a little scuffing up may do him some good.

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There are plenty of things that I am thankful for this year. Adam Jones’ breakout and Melky Cabrera’s PEDs bust which proved his 2011 was indeed unsustainable without a little illegal assistance — two articles and a bold prediction (found here, here and here) I took a mess of heat for in the comments section that still have me smiling at the haters — are two such examples. But what I am most thankful for in the fantasy baseball world is the mess of young, raw talent I own in my primary keeper league that has no contracts and a keeper structure that has a minimal inflation rate. Mike Trout, Brett Lawrie, Jason Kipnis, Jason Heyward, just to name a few. But I can’t keep them all and at first base I am left with a tough choice that I will turn to you for some thoughts: Would you rather keep Paul Goldschmidt or Anthony Rizzo? Read the rest of this entry »

After Jeff Zimmerman busted out with the Bill James projections yesterday, I was inspired to bring back the Keeper League Would You Rather series from last offseason. Sure it’s not even Thanksgiving yet and sure, we’re still more than two and a half months away from pitchers and catchers reporting, but it’s never too late to start thinking about your keeper league protects for next season. Obviously, there are a number of factors that go into determining who you keep and who you release — cost, position scarcity, the type of players your league seems to always covet most, just to name a few — so we’re going to stick to comparison within the positions and while we can’t really neglect potential costs, we’re going to focus more on the players’ statistics and expectations. So without further ado, let’s get to our first comparison — Would you rather keep Yoenis Cespedes or Justin Upton? Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a new and improved arbitration process in ottoneu this year. The deadline for your submissions is coming up. So if you want to think out loud about the decisions on your table, we’ll try to help. We’ll give ottoneu questions the priority, but if you’ve got a auction/keeper question in general, heave ho! You never know how many people are still out of power — thoughts to our brothers and sisters on the Eastern Seabord as they dig out from under the storm.