Archive for OttoGraphs Podcast

The Ottoneu Standings Dashboard

If you’ve been following along you’ve probably discovered that the game of Ottoneu is a mathlete’s dream.  It’s an advanced economic system built for fantasy baseball that only gets better over time.  And while the Roto options will feel very familiar, the “points” scoring options (FanGraph Points and SABR) have become popular to the point where they are almost synonymous with the game itself.

Ottoneu is especially designed for the FanGraphs audience, but even the most sabermetrically-inclined fantasy players will find their first season or two of Ottoneu “points” to be a (worthy) challenge.  Navigating a full auction draft, understanding the relationship between player scoring and player values (salaries), and trying to build a roster flexible enough to maximize games and innings over the course of a long season are just a few of the early lessons that need to be learned quickly.  But few things are more puzzling to new owners than interpreting early season league standings, so today we’ll review the Standings Dashboard, a custom tool built to dig deeper into your league’s standings so you can properly evaluate whether you’re a contender or pretender.

Ottoneu Standings Dashboard

Using a first year Ottoneu league (“Brinksmanship“) as our benchmark, here’s a glance at the league standings through May 12th, 2016:

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OttoGraphs Episode 10: Ottoneu Power Rankings

In this episode of OttoGraphs, Tom, Justin, and Trey discuss some early results in the Ottoneu Power Rankings, particularly what those results can tell us about the state of ottoneu strategy across the various types of leagues.

Feel free to comment with any questions or suggestions you may have about this episode or future topics. We can be reached individually on Twitter:

@OttoneuTrades

@JustinVibber

@TomHasOpinions

@Fazeorange

Lastly, special thanks to Treemen who provided our intro and outro music. If you like what you hear, please check out their other work at http://treemen.bandcamp.com/


OttoGraphs Episode 9: Player Value Changes

In this episode of OttoGraphs, Tom and Joe discuss some players who have changed their value in the early going, specifically with respect to the Ottoneu FGPts format.

Feel free to comment with any questions or suggestions you may have about this episode or future topics. We can be reached individually on Twitter:

@OttoneuTrades

@JustinVibber

@TomHasOpinions

@Fazeorange

Lastly, special thanks to Treemen who provided our intro and outro music. If you like what you hear, please check out their other work at http://treemen.bandcamp.com/


OttoGraphs Episode 8: The Standings Dashboard

In this episode of OttoGraphs, Tom, Trey, and Justin discuss the Standings Dashboard, a tool that helps you analyze your team’s performance and compare it to the league. Later, we talk about how to handle a hot or cold start from your team, and our strategies for buying and selling in April.

Here’s a link to the standings dashboard. Save the file to your own google drive, then open it up, enter your league number and check out how your team stacks up against your competitors! Right now the standings dashboard only works for Fangraphs Points leagues, the most common format – we’ll be sure to let everyone know when we have an upgraded version that works for SABR points as well.

Editor’s note: We’ve gotten some good feedback about the audio quality, and I hope it’s been getting noticeably better the past couple episodes as we improve our on-air and editing skills. Thanks for bearing with us as we work to get better (and sorry in advance for a little audio hiccup in this episode)! Feel free to continue letting us know how we’re doing, and to comment with any other questions or suggestions you may have about this episode or future topics.

We can be reached individually on Twitter:

@OttoneuTrades

@JustinVibber

@TomHasOpinions

@Fazeorange

Lastly, special thanks to Treemen who provided our intro and outro music. If you like what you hear, please check out their other work at http://treemen.bandcamp.com/


OttoGraphs Episode 7: Early Season Advice

In this episode of OttoGraphs, we discuss some common questions new owners have early in the season, including lineup strategies and how to value free agents in 48-hour auctions. We also talk about some notable performances from the past two weeks, and what they mean for ottoneu owners, before finishing up with a quick guessing game about some of 2016’s worst performers to this point.

Feel free to comment with any questions or suggestions you may have about this episode or future topics. We can be reached individually on Twitter:

@OttoneuTrades

@JustinVibber

@TomHasOpinions

@Fazeorange

Lastly, special thanks to Treemen who provided our intro and outro music. If you like what you hear, please check out their other work at http://treemen.bandcamp.com/


OttoGraphs Episode 6: Interview with Niv Shah

In this episode of OttoGraphs, Tom and Trey interview Niv Shah, the creator of Ottoneu.

We discuss a wide variety of topics, including, but not limited to:

  • the brand new Ottoneu Community (You can find out more about the Ottoneu Community here.)
  • the first season of Ottoneu Football
  • the history and early development of the Ottoneu
  • Niv’s plans to expand Ottoneu
  • some of the changes and updates to Ottoneu over the past year

If you haven’t yet, be sure to check out Episode 5 of OttoGraphs as well, in which we’ve re-released an older interview with Niv from about a year ago. Joe and Trey covered some of the same topics that we’ve discussed in this episode, and it’s really fascinating to see how much Ottoneu has changed over the course of just one year.

Feel free to comment with any questions or suggestions you may have about this episode or future topics. We can be reached individually on Twitter:

@OttoneuTrades

@JustinVibber

@TomHasOpinions

@Fazeorange

Lastly, special thanks to Treemen who provided our intro and outro music. If you like what you hear, please check out their other work at http://treemen.bandcamp.com/


OttoGraphs Episode 5: OttoGraphs Time Capsule

In this episode of OttoGraphs, we take a trip back to spring 2015, when Trey and Joe interviewed Niv Shah, the creator of Ottoneu, for an early predecessor of this show. We’re re-releasing the bulk of that interview today for any Ottoneu fans interested in taking a look back some of the origins of the game, and how it has changed over the past year. Please pardon the audio quality – as you may imagine, this interview was recorded at a time when all of us in the OttoGraphs crew had limited experience with this sort of thing, but after a little editing magic to spruce things up your ears should come through the experience just fine. Then, get ready for a podcast double-shot, episode 6 is coming up later today, featuring a brand new interview with Niv!

Feel free to comment with any questions or suggestions you may have about this episode or future topics. We can be reached individually on Twitter:

@OttoneuTrades

@JustinVibber

@TomHasOpinions

@Fazeorange

Lastly, special thanks to Treemen who provided our intro and outro music. If you like what you hear, please check out their other work at http://treemen.bandcamp.com/


The Official Ottoneu Community

Regardless of whether you’ve been playing Ottoneu for several years or just a few short weeks, you’ve probably realized that a healthy community of saber-minded owners is just as much of a feature of the growing fantasy sports platform as 40-man rosters and annual player arbitration.  That feeling of “community” was strengthened this week with the launch of the “official” Ottoneu Fantasy Sports Community (on Discourse) by game designer Niv Shah.

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OttoGraphs Episode 4: Joe and Tom’s Bold Predictions

In this episode of OttoGraphs, recorded just before the beginning of the regular season, Joe and Tom talk about some of their ottoneu-specific bold predictions (Joe, Tom), and banter about a few questionably notable recent events in baseball.

Feel free to comment with any questions or suggestions you may have about this episode or future topics, and we can be reached individually on Twitter:

@OttoneuTrades

@JustinVibber

@TomHasOpinions

@Fazeorange

Lastly, special thanks to Treemen who provided our intro and outro music. If you like what you hear, please check out their other work at http://treemen.bandcamp.com/


The Math of Winning Ottoneu (2015)

Ottoneu founder/creator Niv Shah once described Ottoneu as an economic system that just happens to be built for fantasy sports.  The entire platform is finely tuned to bring the stats, rules, and interface together to provide an excellent overall gameplay experience perfectly suited for baseball nerds.

Nerds often like math (which is why baseball nerds love sabermetrics), so let’s spend some time digging into some of the math behind the game of Ottoneu.  This will be a blend of benchmarks and strategy, but overall the goal here is to create a reference for Ottoneu owners looking to win their leagues.

Ottoneu Basics

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