While we have been really happy with the launch of ottoneu Fantasy Baseball, the launch of the prize leagues definitely left something to be desired.  So having taken your comments into consideration, we’ve taken our industry leading prizes and improved them.

First, we’re changing the prizes to all cash, both for simplicity and to give our winners a bit more scratch in their pockets for the off-season.  Second, we’re introducing a $49.99 tier, available immediately.  First place at the end of the season will receive $300, second place will receive $100, and third will receive $50.  We’re also increasing the first place prize at the $99.99 tier.  First place will now receive $650, with second place receiving $200, and third place receiving $100 in cash.

Finally, we’re dropping the $249.99 and $499.99 tiers to interest-only lists.  If you’re interested in playing at a higher tier for higher prizes, let us know.  We will work with you on a league by league basis to optimize the prize structure for what you and your league wants!

Of course the $9.99 tier is still available, with multiple public leagues looking for members today and drafts happening all the time.

Between a game we think is excellent and prizes that are better than any other prize league out there, I believe we have a really strong offering for all levels of fantasy players.  We hope that these revamped prizes will be more to your liking.  Please let us know what you think in the comments or by contacting us.  Of course, there is still plenty of time before the season, so you can start a league or join one today!

Rank the top-10 fantasy hitters from last year, by performance, in your head.  Does the list look like this?  Here is ESPN’s Player Rater’s Top 11, based on a traditional 5×5 roto league:

1. Carlos Gonzalez (#7)
2. Carl Crawford (#42)
3. Albert Pujols (#2)
4. Joey Votto (#4)
5. Miguel Cabrera (#3)
6. Josh Hamilton (#5)
7. Jose Bautista (#1)
8. Robinson Cano (#6)
9. Hanley Ramirez (#17)
10. Ryan Braun (#37)
11. Juan Pierre (below replacement)

You may quibble here and there (Pierre might seem out of place, for example), but my guess is that the list is reasonably close.

Things change a bit if you were playing using FanGraphs Points.  The number in parentheses above is my 2010 rank order of hitters based on FanGraphs Points, which are built on linear weights.  That ranking takes into account position, and gives incomplete credit for playing time because DL stints can be made up for with substitutions.  It’s not perfect, but it’s a pretty good ranking of value in our system.

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You requested, and we listened: today we are introducing 3 new tiers of ottoneu Fantasy Baseball, each with prizes for first, second, and third place.

$99.99 Tier

The team that finishes in first at this tier will receive $500, and second place will receive $100.  First, second, and third will all receive a free one-year renewal of their respective teams.

$249.99 Tier

The team that finishes in first at this tier will receive $1250, and second place will receive $250.  Again, first, second, and third place will all receive a free one-year renewal of their respective teams.

$499.99 Tier

The team that finishes in first at this tier will receive $2500, and second place will receive $500.  Just like the previous two tiers, first through third all receive a free one-year renewal of their respective teams.

Other than awarding cash prizes for the top 3 in each of these leagues, the game is the same as the $9.99 tier, which is now our permanent price for the basic tier.  Full dynasty league with auction drafts, FanGraphs leaderboard integration, and more.  Let us know what you think, and sign up today!

Well, here we are. It’s the beginning of March, the birds are chirping, baseball is being played, and it’s fantasy baseball drafting season for most of us. It’s also supposed to be the day that the FanGraphs Fantasy game, ottoneu, becomes more expensive. Well, as some of you may have already noticed, that won’t be the case. A new team will continue to cost $9.99, and we hope that helps you keep a few more duckets in your pocket while you have fun managing your new team.

We’ve extended the low-price early-bird special… and we hope to bring you even more exciting news about other ottoneu offerings in the coming days. Mysterious!

But that’s not the only fun thing we get to announce today. In order to add some value to the game, we’ve searched high and wide in order to find you some Guest Commissioners to play with. These players have agreed to attach their name to an ottoneu league – and you get to take them on. Hopefully, on this list, is a writer you’ve wanted to battle. Now you get to test your wits against:

Zach Sanders (FanGraphs)
Chris Cwik (FanGraphs)
Michael Rathburn (RotoExperts)
The Common Man (Platoon Advantage)
Will Moller (ItsAboutTheMoneyStupid)
John Halpin (FOXSports)
Ben Jedlovec (Baseball Info Solutions)
Derek VanRiper (RotoWire)
Justin Merry (BeyondtheBoxscore, FanGraphs)
Jeff Gross (TheHardballTimes)
Josh Shepardson (TheHardballTims)
Sam Miller (The Orange County Register)
Craig Brown (Baseball Prospectus)
Matthew Callan (AmazinAvenue)
Tim Heaney (KFFL)
Eriq Gardner (Bloomberg Sports, FantasyBaseballJunkie.com)
Reggie Yinger (Baseball Press)
Justin Phan (Fantasy Baseball Cafe)
DJ Short (RotoWorld)

A few administrative things. The draft date set by our guest commissioners is final if they want it to be. Hopefully, they’ll list the draft time in the league title, along with their name and affiliation, so you can easily peruse draft times and commissioners when you search for a new league. This also goes for the league settings. We hope that you will be respectful of the commissioners, but bring your “A” game.

Because it’s a good list of fantasy players.

Interested in playing in my ottoneu league, using this scoring system?  See the bottom of this post for info on how you can join!

Last week we looked at hitter FanGraphs Points, which are built on linear weights.  A complementary pitching points system was more difficult to devise: you can’t just use linear weights, because then you’d be rewarding the pitcher who gave up the most runs!

Therefore, it was necessary to develop a system that had some objective basis, but would a) reward good pitchers for being better than bad pitchers, and b) have point totals that would correspond to those of hitters.  And, just as our hitting system doesn’t track statistics that are substantially affected by other players (like RBI or runs), our pitching system should reward pitchers for what they do as opposed to what their teammates (pitchers and fielders) do.  That means no wins, runs allowed…or hits.

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Your draft room.

The auction draft is the busiest single event in the ottoneu year.  Our first auction draft has started, and I know a few more are scheduled to start over the next week, including the draft for the original ottoneu league.  I thought it would be helpful, now that the very beginnings of draft season are upon us, to step through what the actual process is of conducting an auction draft using ottoneu’s custom software.

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We’ve been dissecting ottoneu one – the flagship league that spawned the FanGraphs fantasy game – and it seems we’ve been having fun doing it. Oh, and of course, someone usually ends up with a free team for the inaugural year. That might have something to do with why people find it fun.

One of the reasons that the game has resonated with so many players is the mix of valuation and keeping. Go into the auction like many have done before, go home with a value player as anybody worth their salt in auction leagues is capable of doing, and then at the end of the year, you are faced with salary inflation and arbitration. Now you have a new set of issues to ponder.

Was that player, who was a value at $x, worth $x+2 after a year of aging? Or does the risk put forward by his extra year of age eliminate that surplus value? You’re a general manager at the winter meetings pondering trade ideas. You’re examining your projections, and valuing the projected numbers. The advantage you have over your real-life GM is the fact that you, at any moment, can cut a player you don’t feel is performing up to his cost.

So we come to the keeper decisions made in ottoneu one – you can keep anyone you like, provided the price is right. Remember, the guys in this league are all FanGraphs readers like you, so let’s not get too snarky. They’ll be watching, and they’re all just trying to win their leagues like the rest of us. But, it’s still worth a discussion.

For a year of a free ottoneu/FanGraphs fantasy team, argue which hitter and which pitcher of the following actual keepers was the worst decision of this current offseason. Best argument wins.

Oh, and for context, I’ve added screenshots of the most expensive players in ottoneu one – this way you get to see how sweet the leaderboard looks, too. Pick one hitter and one pitcher in your comment:

Miguel Cabrera ($52)
Mark Teixeira ($46)
Jay Bruce ($30)
Andre Ethier ($26)

Justin Verlander ($44)
Johan Santana ($37)
Chad Billingsley ($28)
Ted Lilly ($17)

I love a lot of things about fantasy baseball.  But like many of you, when understanding players in real life, I have become increasingly immersed in the sorts of statistics that are commonplace here at FanGraphs: wOBA, FIP, WAR, etc.  And that created a problem for me as a fantasy manager: I just don’t enjoy leagues that reward managers for things like RBI, pitcher wins, etc.

Last year, I decided to do something about it.  Inspired by this post by Tangotiger, I created a custom Yahoo league that used a scoring system designed to more accurately reflect “real” baseball–or, at least, real player value.  It was a blast.  And on the basis of this success, FanGraphs adopted this scoring system as one of the ways that you can play the ottoneu fantasy game.

What makes it different from other points systems?  It is based upon those same, advanced statistics that we use to evaluate players in real life: linear weights for hitters and FIP for pitchers.

Let’s start with the point values for hitters:

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