Welcome back to the Ottoneu Starting Pitching Planner. Based on the Roster Resource Probables Grid, I’ve organized every starter slated to start next week into four categories: start, maybe, risky, and sit. The first and last category are pretty self-explanatory. Starters who fall into the “maybe” category are guys you could start if you need to keep up with the innings pitched pace in points leagues or need to hit your games started cap in head-to-head leagues; they’re good bets to turn in a decent start, but you shouldn’t automatically insert them into your lineup. If you’ve fallen behind on the innings pitched pace or you’re really starving for starts in a head-to-head matchup, you could turn to a “risky” starter or two.

I’ve also calculated a “Matchup Score” for each series using a straight combination of opponent’s home/away wOBA, opponent wOBA over the last 14 days, and the park factor for the ballpark the teams are playing in. It’s indexed so that 100 is average and anything above that is a favorable matchup and anything below is unfavorable. That matchup rating informs some of the sit/start recommendations I’m making, though the quality of the pitcher definitely takes precedence. To start the season, I’ll be relying on projected team wOBA until there’s sufficient in-season data to start calculating these matchup ratings.

A few general schedule notes:

• It looks like the Phillies have a pretty easy schedule this week; they’ll host the Rockies and White Sox. Citizens Bank Park is fairly hitter friendly, but both Colorado (outside of Coors) and Chicago have been punchless to start the season. Aaron Nola is the lucky recipient of a two-start week against these weak opponents.
• I’m also recommending you start everyone in the Giants rotation; they’ll start the week in Miami and then return home to face the Diamondbacks next weekend. Arizona could pose some problems, but the cavernous ballpark in San Francisco should prevent things from getting too out of hand.
• After their easy week this week, the Braves face both Texas teams next week. That will present some tough matchups, and after Max Fried’s blow up last weekend, it’s hard to trust anyone from Atlanta’s rotation next week.
• It’s possible we’ll see the season debuts of Walker Buehler, Jordan Montgomery, Edward Cabrera, Braxton Garrett, Michael Lorenzen, and Jameson Taillon next week. If you roster any of those guys, you’re probably already monitoring their rehab starts. Buehler and Montgomery both have pretty easy matchups if they stick to their schedule — those would be the only two I’d recommend starting so quickly off the Injured List.

The 2024 version of Hot Right Now will typically include three sections:

1. Current Auctions: A closer look at players being auctioned at a high rate.
2. Roster Adds: Analysis of players with high add% changes.
3. Hot Performers: Players with a high P/G or P/IP in recent weeks.

The FanGraphs Ottoneu team plans to run this feature weekly, updating fantasy managers on the biggest movers in Ottoneu leagues with an analysis of how these players could or could not help your roster.

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This column went through a journey last year. It started as a bi-weekly effort to try and find streaming targets for Ottoneu leagues. Due to the large roster sizes and difficulties lining up auctions with the right start dates, streaming wasn’t really a viable strategy for Ottoneu. After a few months, I pivoted to trying to find under-rostered pitchers who were performing well enough to get a second look. I’ll be following that model for this season except this piece will run once a month and it will cover both starters and relievers together.

With so few games played so far, it’s hard to get a gauge on who has actually made tangible improvements and who has simply started off hot. With so many injuries plaguing some of the best pitchers in baseball, at this point, you might just be looking for a warm body to fill some innings. Hopefully the pitchers highlighted below can be more than just filler. Let’s dive in.

The entire Royals starting rotation has been extremely impressive to start the season but lost amid the hype surrounding Cole Ragans and the post-hype surrounding Brady Singer were two solid starts from Alec Marsh. Marsh made his major league debut last year, bouncing between the bullpen and the starting rotation throughout the year. He was undone by a 11.4% walk rate and an 18.4% home run rate, both of which drove his ERA and FIP up close to six. Command was always an issue for him during his minor league career so to take a step forward in the big leagues, he’d have to figure out that problem. Through his first two starts of the season, he’s only walked two batters, his Zone% has increased by more than 10 points up to 57.8%, and his Location+ has improved from 94 to 101. His strikeout rate has dipped a bit as he’s filled the zone which bears monitoring, but if he’s managed to address his biggest weakness, he could be in store for a big breakout season.

Back in 2021, it looked like Spencer Turnbull was in the midst of a breakout until a UCL injury derailed his forward momentum and caused him to miss the entire following season. He returned last year and made seven forgettable starts for the Tigers. He managed to win a spot in the Phillies rotation out of spring training and has turned in two brilliant starts already. He’s allowed a single unearned run in 11 innings while striking out 13 and walking just a single batter. The biggest difference for him is a new sweeper that has become one of his primary pitches. His four-seamer also looks a bit different — I’m pretty sure it’s a classification error and the pitch is now more of a hard cutter — but it’s been an effective piece to play off the horizontal movement of his breaking ball.

Cody Bradford is one of the pitchers tasked with filling in until the Rangers get Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom, and Tyler Mahle back after the All-Star break. So far, he’s turned in two excellent starts, allowing just three runs in 12.2 innings. He doesn’t have overpowering stuff with a fastball that sits in the low 90s. He makes up for the lack of raw velocity with elite extension and tons of carry on his heater. He’s also added a slow, looping curveball to his arsenal this year, giving him a consistent breaking ball that he didn’t possess last year. With Michael Lorenzen’s ramp up time coming to a close soon, it’s possible Bradford will be bumped from the rotation within the next couple of weeks. That could pose a risk if you’re looking for a long-term solution for your pitching staff, but he looks good enough to add as long as he has a job in the near future.

With starters, you’re looking for longevity and real changes in talent. With relievers, sometimes riding the hot hand is enough.

Fernando Cruz is currently listed fourth on the Reds bullpen pecking order behind Alexis Díaz, Emilio Pagán, and Lucas Sims. Still, he’s earned three holds on the season and has struck out nearly half the batters he’s faced so far. His calling card is an unhittable splitter; that pitch is running a ridiculous 70% whiff rate and has been put in play just once thus far. Even though batters can’t hit his splitter, he has trouble locating it consistently and doesn’t have great command of his other pitches either. That’s led to a pretty high walk rate which could be his downfall. I’m betting he’ll be the number one setup guy behind Díaz in a month or two.

Justin Slaten is a rule-5 pick who is making a name for himself in the Red Sox bullpen. He’s already earned a save and a hold and has the highest average leverage index among the relievers listed above. He struggled with command while a prospect in the Rangers organization, though that hasn’t been a problem for him so far in his brief big league career; he’s struck out six and walked no one so far. Like so many relievers these days, he has a good, hard fastball and a sweeping slider that earns plenty of whiffs. If he’s actually figured out his command issues, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him creep up the pecking order in Boston’s bullpen.

Here’s my deep cut for this article. Hunter Gaddis was an up-and-down spot starter for the Guardians last year, struggling through seven starts and four relief appearances. He struck out just 13.2% of the batters he faced and relied heavily on producing weak contact for his limited success. Fast forward a year and he’s reinvented himself as a hard-throwing reliever. His fastball velocity is up nearly three ticks this year and he’s throwing his slider more than ever. The results speak for themselves: seven strikeouts and one walk in 5.1 innings with three holds. The Guardians are missing a handful of their established high-leverage relievers and Gaddis certainly looks like he’s stepped up to fill the gap.

Cold Right Now (CRN) is a weekly Ottoneu feature focused on players being dropped or who should be dropped in Ottoneu leagues. In this feature we will break down players into three sections:

1. Roster Cuts: Analysis of players who have been cut in a high percentage of leagues.
2. Recent Injuries: A look at the implications of recent injuries (not all, just some high-profile ones).
3. Cold Performers: Players with a low P/G or P/IP in recent weeks.

This article will typically run once per week and will help fantasy managers keep track of players that need to be given extra attention to improve rosters.

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome back to the Ottoneu Starting Pitching Planner. Based on the Roster Resource Probables Grid, I’ve organized every starter slated to start next week into four categories: start, maybe, risky, and sit. The first and last category are pretty self-explanatory. Starters who fall into the “maybe” category are guys you could start if you need to keep up with the innings pitched pace in points leagues or need to hit your games started cap in head-to-head leagues; they’re good bets to turn in a decent start, but you shouldn’t automatically insert them into your lineup. If you’ve fallen behind on the innings pitched pace or you’re really starving for starts in a head-to-head matchup, you could turn to a “risky” starter or two.

I’ve also calculated a “Matchup Score” for each series using a straight combination of opponent’s home/away wOBA, opponent wOBA over the last 14 days, and the park factor for the ballpark the teams are playing in. It’s indexed so that 100 is average and anything above that is a favorable matchup and anything below is unfavorable. That matchup rating informs some of the sit/start recommendations I’m making, though the quality of the pitcher definitely takes precedence. To start the season, I’ll be relying on projected team wOBA until there’s sufficient in-season data to start calculating these matchup ratings.

A few general schedule notes:

• It’s a great week to roster any of the Braves starters; they host the punchless Mets and then travel to Miami. Charlie Morton and Reynaldo López are the lucky starters to pull a double shift next week.
• If I had any confidence in their starters, this would also be a great week for the Nationals; they’re on a West Coast swing through the Bay Area next week and play six games in those cavernous stadiums. As it is, I can only recommend MacKenzie Gore wholeheartedly with the rest falling somewhere between “maybe” and “risky.” That’s a shame.
• The Astros and Rangers have a wrap around four-game series that ends on Monday before meeting up again over the weekend. That means Framber Valdez lines up to face the Rangers twice in one week. After a rough first start to the season he looked much better against the Blue Jays on Tuesday. Still, I don’t really have much interest in seeing if he can tempt fate twice against the Rangers high-powered offense.
• It’s a rough week to roster any of the Marlins starters; they travel to New York to face the Yankees and then host the Braves.
• There are a handful of starters who are slated to come off the injured list next week including Blake Snell, Nick Lodolo, and possibly Michael Lorenzen. Normally I wouldn’t recommend starting a pitcher coming off a stint on the IL but Snell and Lorenzen have pretty juicy matchups against the Nationals and A’s, respectively.

I wanted to refer to the Format Wars in this article, but they aren’t really wars. They are barely skirmishes. They are mostly friendly debates.

But there is debate! Head-to-Head vs. Seaon-long? Roto vs. points? If you pick roto, are you into 4×4 or 5×5? For points, do you go SABR or FanGraphs? I am happy to weigh in on all of these questions, but today we have a prime opportunity to discuss the two points formats and what makes them unique, so we are going to do that.

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The season is going full speed ahead and while it is still too soon to draw any grand conclusions from early performances, that won’t stop us from trying to find an edge here or there. Being quick to grab a potential breakout performance comes with risk. You have to make a cut to add that player. You have to spend budget.

But acting fast also comes with upside. A guy who looks risky now and therefore only costs $1-$2 may look less risky in a couple of weeks and cost you $5 or more. And so we, our first truly in-season Hot Right Now of 2024. Read the rest of this entry »

Cold Right Now (CRN) is a weekly Ottoneu feature focused on players being dropped or who should be dropped in Ottoneu leagues. In this feature we will break down players into three sections:

1. Roster Cuts: Analysis of players who have been cut in a high percentage of leagues.
2. Recent Injuries: A look at the implications of recent injuries (not all, just some high-profile ones).
3. Cold Performers: Players with a low P/G or P/IP in recent weeks.

This article will typically run once per week and will help fantasy managers keep track of players that need to be given extra attention to improve rosters.

Read the rest of this entry »

Honestly, I feel bad writing this. It’s been a day. Actually, not even a day – I am at my laptop hours before the first pitch of the first games of the year (yeah, Seoul Series, whatever, today is Opening Day) and I am already reporting on players who are being cut? Ouch.

But, whether we like it or not, players are being cut, and it is my duty to report on those players.

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome back to the Ottoneu Starting Pitching Planner. Based on the Roster Resource Probables Grid, I’ve organized every starter slated to start next week into four categories: start, maybe, risky, and sit. The first and last category are pretty self-explanatory. Starters who fall into the “maybe” category are guys you could start if you need to keep up with the innings pitched pace in points leagues or need to hit your games started cap in head-to-head leagues; they’re good bets to turn in a decent start, but you shouldn’t automatically insert them into your lineup. If you’ve fallen behind on the innings pitched pace or you’re really starving for starts in a head-to-head matchup, you could turn to a “risky” starter or two.

I’ve also calculated a “Matchup Score” for each series using a straight combination of opponent’s home/away wOBA, opponent wOBA over the last 14 days, and the park factor for the ballpark the teams are playing in. It’s indexed so that 100 is average and anything above that is a favorable matchup and anything below is unfavorable. That matchup rating informs some of the sit/start recommendations I’m making, though the quality of the pitcher definitely takes precedence. To start the season, I’ll be relying on projected team wOBA until there’s sufficient in-season data to start calculating these matchup ratings.

A few general schedule notes:

• The first week in the Ottoneu season runs from March 20 through April 7 (including the two games in Korea). If your head-to-head league has a games started cap, you’ll have four extra days of games to juggle with a cap that isn’t proportionally bigger. And if you started any of the four starters from those games in Korea, you’re already down a start. Make sure you’re really keeping track of the best matchups and plan out your starters accordingly.
• Most teams have either one or two off days over these first 11 days of the season. The Twins and Brewers have three off days which should give their starters an extra bit of rest.
• I think JP Sears has a particularly nice pair of matchups to start the season. He’s had a great spring training and he’s lined up to face the Guardians at home and then the Tigers in Detroit. He’s an under-the-radar starter who could get off to a quick start this season.
• The Astros have a particularly tough schedule to start the season with series against the Yankees, Blue Jays, and Rangers lined up. You could start Framber Valdez since he feels pretty matchup proof, but I’d fade Cristian Javier and Hunter Brown.