Between Friday and Sunday in Boston, the Indians and Red Sox spurred a bunch of ottoneu auctions, but the ring leaders are two pitchers who, beyond their presence atop the auction list, have very little in common.

John Lackey is a starter in his 12th season (although he has only pitched in 11 of them after missing 2012; Cody Allen has only 52.1 career innings as a potential-back-of-the-bullpen arm in Cleveland. But both provide good reasons for ottoneu owners to bid on them.

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One of the most popular questions I get on Twitter is something along the lines of “Was just offered player X for player Y. Should I take it?” And I always do my best to answer, but the reality is analyzing a trade without a ton of context is really tough.

Where are you in the standings? Are you building for this year or next? Who else is on your roster? Are there other offers out there? Without answers to these questions, and quite a few others, any answer I give requires an asterisk: warning – trade advice woefully short of information. But, like I said, I still try to answer, so I thought I would provide some color on how I analyze ottoneu trades when presented without context.

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Last week, I sent out a tweet (Follow me! @chadyoung) asking readers & ottoneu enthusiasts what they wanted to see in this space this week. Amidst a handful of “should I trade this guy for that guy” responses, came this:

‏@ChikeErokwu: How/when do you know you’re a contender for the year? Is there a point/date benchmark? I’d like to see a story about that.

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Maybe I am alone in this, but it feels like MI is painfully thin in ottoneu leagues this year. I know MI is always a bit shallow, but this year just seems like we’ve taken things to another level. I have no explanation for that but, particularly in the original league, it seems our auctions of late have been a litany of MI we know provide almost no fantasy value (mixed in with the regular dose of reliever-chasing).

And one of the players on that list is currently the most auctioned player in all of ottoneu – Brandon Crawford. For those of you looking to add a MI – replacing an injured Jose Reyes, grabbing a backup to fill in a game or two here and there, or just desperate for games played at the position – Crawford’s torrid spring and only-slightly-cooler start look awfully appealing right now, don’t they?

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Another year has begun and, as always, ottoneu players are actively working the free agent pool, searching for that missing piece that can put them over the top. Or maybe we are all just busy trying to find replacements for those guys we really didn’t want but got stuck with at the auction.

With the auction-wire red hot right now, I thought I’d take a look at the six players who are in the most active auctions at the moment.

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I am currently the proud owner of two Ottoneu teams, both in their third year of existence. Of the 80 players between the two rosters, just six of them are prospects.

This is not, in my experience, the typical roster construction. Most teams in my leagues have been carrying anywhere from 5-10 prospects, with losing teams maybe carrying significantly more. Both of my teams are in their third seasons; one has been solid in both years (third in 2011, first in 2012), the other jumped from 10th in 2011 to second in 2012. In general, I’ll pick up a few prospects as the season goes on, but I particularly avoid prospects in the auction.

Questionable strategy? Perhaps. Prospects provide access to the cheapest talent money can buy in ottoneu. So here’s why I do it:

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A couple weeks ago, I covered C, 1B, 2B, and SS. Since then, I have also shared my rankings spreadsheet. Today, we cover 3B, OF, SP, and RP.

The lessons are going to remain pretty similar – guys with high walk rates rank higher, guys with a lot of speed rank lower – and will extend to the pitching sphere nicely – closers lose some value, guys projected for close to 20 wins lose some value, pitchers who keep the ball in the yard gain value. But it is still informative to look position by position and see where the differences manifest.

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Back when we launched FG+ earlier this year, I included a table that put dollar values on players for year one and future year ottoneu leagues. Since then, I have mentioned a few times that I wanted to refresh those values with new projections.

Well, I have auctions coming up the next two weekends and finally got my act together to get my spreadsheets in shape; today, I release them into the wild!

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Over the last few days, my compatriots four of my compatriots have begun presenting you with an extremely valuable draft tool: consensus positional rankings. But for those of you who play ottoneu, things differ a bit, especially if you are in a 4×4 or Points League.

Starting today, I am going to take a look at those rankings and let you know where ottoneu players should take a different stance.

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Sunday afternoon, the 12 members of the ottoneu FanGraphs Experts League gathered for our annual auction, bidding $1,210 on 174 players over 3 hours and 19 minutes. Thats about 69 seconds and $7 per player. And yet it didn’t take more than about five minutes for arguably the two best values of the day to come off the board.

The first two players tossed out both went for less than what I anticipated them costing – and yet I failed to pull the trigger.

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