Welcome back to the SP Drip. My goal for this bi-weekly column is to comb through the upcoming schedule each week to find a few under-owned pitchers (less than 50% ownership across Ottoneu) who could be used to help you hit your games started cap in head-to-head leagues or to make sure you’re hitting your innings pitched cap in points leagues. Tuesday’s article will cover the weekend (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) and Friday’s article will cover the upcoming week (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday). That way, you’ll have time to start your auctions in time to actually drip these pitchers into your lineup.

Upcoming Schedule:

Teams with favorable schedules over the weekend include the Braves, Diamondbacks, Giants, Marlins, Mets, Nationals, Rays, Rangers, and Red Sox.

Teams with tougher schedules include the Angels, Blue Jays, Cubs, Mariners, Orioles, Padres, Phillies, Reds, Rockies, Twins, and Yankees.

Highlighted matchups:

There’s a couple of recommendations in that Nationals-Tigers series. I’ll talk about Irvin below, but Patrick Corbin deserves some more attention after holding the Mets to just two runs in six innings yesterday. The strikeouts weren’t there — just one in the outing — but he’s now strung together four good starts in a row.

James Paxton came off the IL over the weekend and looked pretty good in his first start in more than two years. He struck out nine, walked one, and allowed just four hits in five innings. His velocity looked good and his stuff looked as good as it did back when he was a frontline starter for the Mariners. He’s lined up to start against the Padres which feels like a pretty risky matchup, but San Diego’s offense is mired in a season-long slump and you have to hope that Paxton is up to the challenge of shutting down their star studded lineup.

Carlos Carrasco is scheduled to come off the IL on Saturday and gets a nice easy matchup against his former team to ease him back to the big leagues. He wasn’t pitching very well before hitting the shelf with his elbow injury and I’d usually recommend waiting a bit after a pitcher is activated off the IL to let him settle back into their routine. The matchup is just too good to pass up and he’ll be extra motivated since this is the first time he’ll be facing the Guardians since coming over to the Mets a few years ago.

Hot Starters:

Since being called up at the beginning of the month, Jake Irvin has made a couple of good starts against the Cubs and Giants but was blown up for six runs in his last start against the Mets. The good news is that he struck out six and walked just one in that outing. He wasn’t a highly regarded prospect in the Nationals organization with the profile of a back-end starter. He’s got a nice matchup against the Tigers on Friday and that’s a good opportunity to see if he can bounce back from his last start and continue building on the success he saw in San Francisco.

Zack Greinke is still hanging around pitching for the Royals in his old age. His crafty approach to pitching worked well for him in his return to Kansas City last year and he’s back at it again this season. Over his last three starts, he’s allowed six runs in 15.2 innings with a 10:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio. He’s lined up to face the White Sox this weekend and then the Tigers next week.

Recap: May 12–14

Another rough round of recommendations as Ryne Nelson, Matthew Boyd, and Adrian Houser just didn’t have it last weekend. J.P. France looked pretty good against the White Sox, lasting into the seventh inning with just a single run allowed on three hits and one walk.

Much like Hot Right Now, Cold Right Now will be a weekly Ottoneu feature with a focus on players who are being dropped or who maybe should be dropped in Ottoneu leagues. Hot Right Now will focus on players up for auction, players recently added, and players generally performing well. Cold Right Now will have parallel two of those three sections:

1. Roster Cuts: Analysis of players with high cut% changes.
2. Cold Performers: Players with a low P/G or P/IP in recent weeks.

There won’t be a corresponding section to Current Auctions because, well, there is nothing in cuts that correspond to current auctions.

Roster Cuts

Tyler Mahle, Leagues with a Cut (7 days) – 31.41%

Mahle’s injured elbow is going to require Tommy John surgery and it seems that many Ottonue managers are not interested in hanging on long-term. Mahle was off to a really nice start in his age-28 season but will be out of commission for the rest of the season and most of next.

Michael Brantley, Leagues with a Cut (7 days) – 17.31%

Sadly, Brantley has gone through some setbacks as a result of shoulder surgery forcing many Ottoneu managers to abandon their optimistic rostering of the 36-year-old outfielder.

Trevor Larnach, Leagues with a Cut (7 days) – 16.67%

Skip over this part if you recently dropped Larnach:

“RotoWire News: Larnach went 2-for-4 with a home run, a double, four RBI, one walk and two total runs scored in Sunday’s 16-3 win over the Cubs. (5/14/2023)”

Regardless, Larnach’s .167 vs. lefties may just have him platooning with any of the right-handed hitters on the Twins bench. In addition, Larnach really needs to improve his O-Contact%, Z-Contact%, and Contact% overall as they are all below league average. He’s striking out 34.1% of the time and that number is way too high.

José Leclerc, Leagues with a Cut (7 days) – 15.70%

It’s possible that some envisioned Leclerc fighting for a spot as a closer in Texas, but Will Smith has been holding down the position so far. Setup men Jonathan Hernández and Brock Burke stand in the way of Leclerc collecting holds and saves and Leclerc’s xERA of 4.86 is well above his actual ERA of 3.00. In addition, a .222 BABIP further suggests his 12 innings pitched have been supported by luck.

Jose Miranda, Leagues with a Cut (7 days) – 13.78%

After being sent back to AAA some managers are dropping Miranda. I don’t think it’s the right move given his young age and power potential. It’s possible that managers were too high on the youngster as his average price in Ottoneu points leagues is $6. Yes, he has been slumping but here’s a funky chart that gives some hope:

Miranda’s K% is decreased from last season, and his BB% is increased from last season, but all of his outcomes are declining. The point is, he’s showing skills improvements without the results. With Kyle Farmer the only man realistically playing 3B in Minnesota, you have to figure Miranda will be down in AAA for as long as it takes to get his bat going again. I like Miranda as a buy-low candidate at this point.

Cold Performers

Alek Thomas:  109 AB,  .202/.261/.339, 2.4 P/G

Thomas continues to hold down the center-field position in Arizona, having played 37 games at the position this season, but that low .202 batting average is being brought down by struggles against left-handed pitchers. He’s hitting .280 against righties, but only .029, one hit in 34 at-bats, against southpaws. He’s right around league average when it comes to most of his plate discipline metrics, but he’s not producing at the plate. While he is a fast player, he only has three stolen bases this season in four attempts. Thomas needs to start getting on base for his value to increase.

Myles Straw: 127 AB, .228/.313/.268, 2.88 P/G

Here’s a busy chart that should explain a lot about Straw’s season:

His quick and hot start was fueled by patience, decent hitting, and luck. His wOBA is now going up thanks to an improvement in BB% after a slump, but BABIP and batting average are not following. Straw has come back down to earth.

Alek Manoah, 2.31 P/IP

Manoah’s four-seamer is his only pitch with an above-average swinging strike rate (SwStr%). His sinker, slider, and changeup are all below average on swinging strikes compared to major-league starters, leading to a career-low 16.8% K%. He’s using his changeup and slider more than ever yet they have produced negative pVals so far this year. Manoah doesn’t have a lefty/righty problem, his numbers are distributed somewhat evenly when facing batters from either side. The scary part is that his xERA of 6.30 is way higher than his actual ERA of 4.83. He may just need to work out his pitch mix and there’s hope when you look at how his BB% is coming down and his K% is going up:

Lance Lynn, 2.40 P/IP

Let’s start with the good stuff. A .364 BABIP, a 10.96 K/9, and a near two-point difference between ERA (7.51) and xERA (5.43), all point to a rebound. Now, the bad stuff. His 8.5% walk rate is the highest it’s been since 2018 and a 2.23 HR/9 is not helping his ERA. If we had to boil it down to an obvious and unhelpful sentence, perhaps, “He’s walking too many hitters and then giving up home runs”, would work. If you look at Lynn’s average velocity charts, all of his pitches are trending down:

But if you look closely you can see a game in April where he was really low and that one outing is dragging his season average down. Statcast is now identifying a sweeper that has been thrown five times in which opponents hit 1.000 against it. If you need more to be hopeful about, Lynn’s four-seamer, cutter, sinker, and curveball all have a swinging strike rate (PitcherList) above the league average for starting pitchers proving the reason for the high K/9 that Lynn has displayed.

Welcome back to the SP Drip. My goal for this bi-weekly column is to comb through the upcoming schedule each week to find a few under-owned pitchers (less than 50% ownership across Ottoneu) who could be used to help you hit your games started cap in head-to-head leagues or to make sure you’re hitting your innings pitched cap in points leagues. Tuesday’s article will cover the weekend (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) and Friday’s article will cover the upcoming week (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday). That way, you’ll have time to start your auctions in time to actually drip these pitchers into your lineup.

Upcoming Schedule:

Teams with favorable schedules next week include the Cardinals, Diamondbacks, Giants, Marlins, Nationals, Padres, Phillies, Pirates, and Tigers.

Teams with tougher schedules include the Astros, Braves, Mariners, Mets, Rangers, Reds, Rockies, Twins, and Yankees.

Highlighted matchups:

There are a pair of starters in that short two-game Pirates-Tigers series that make for nice targets. Rich Hill has put together a solid stretch of starts, particularly against some weaker opponents. Michael Lorenzen is a bit more of a risk against a Pittsburgh offense that’s been pretty potent to start the season. However, the Pirates have scuffled a bit over the last two weeks (.305 wOBA) and Comerica Park provides a friendly venue.

Nick Pivetta could also be a risky start, though the Mariners offense has been really struggling recently. He can’t stop allowing home runs, allowing at least one in every start save one (against the Rays of all teams). With a HR/9 over two, he’s been killing his Ottoneu value despite a passable strikeout-to-walk ratio.

Hot Starters:

Dane Dunning has been filling in for the injured Jacob deGrom and has put together two solid starts against the Angels — five scoreless with just two hits allowed — and the Mariners — six innings of two-run ball. His stuff isn’t overpowering, but if he’s hitting his spots with his command, he can be effective. So far, that seems to be what’s driving his success. His next start will be against the Braves which will be a pretty significant challenge. Monitor that start and see how he looks afterward.

Dean Kremer has turned in a pair of impressive starts against some very difficult opposition, holding the Braves to just a single run last week and keeping the Rays off the board in his start this week. Those are the two best offenses in the league and his ability to handle them feels like a pretty significant step forward for him.

Recap: May 8–11

Now that’s more like it. Even with the stinker of a start from Jhony Brito, Dunning, Lorenzen, Hill, and Battenfield carried a huge amount of points this week. The only nit to pick from that quartet of wins was the lack of bulk from Hill despite the great points per IP.

Visualizations can give us better insight into our team’s performance, showing us aspects of the fantasy season that we hadn’t noticed of before. If you find yourself isolated to the merry-go-round of benching, starting, and looking at current auctions when it comes to in-season management, you’re likely missing something. Ottoneu has so many moving parts, so many extra subtleties that play a role in putting together a successful season. In this post, I’ll remind you of the great pre-made visualizations Ottoneu offers and I’ll give a few examples of how to effectively use them.

Viz #1: Pace and Limits

The pace visualizations may be the simplest, yet most useful. Check in on this as often as you can. If you notice that your team’s line, in this example, the yellow line, is going over the top of the blue line, you’re in trouble. There’s nothing worse than sitting in the top three in your league because you’ve boosted your pitching stats, going over the limit, and then watching helplessly as your team falls down the ranking ladder. On the other hand, don’t make your line so far below the “Max Pace” blue line that you are leaving points on the table.

Viz #2: Hitting Production Comparisons

Go to your league page and click on standings. Scroll down and you will find lots of helpful visualizations. In the (hard-to-see, I know) GIF below, keep an eye on the light-blue line representing my team and my per day points by offensive category.

It’s not always clear to me what I’m doing right and what I’m doing wrong in Ottoneu points leagues since I don’t have traditional roto scores to easily evaluate. Using visuals to see how you compare to top teams in your league can help. In the example above, I isolated the chart to only show my team and the two top teams in the league to see where I stand in relation. You can do this by simply clicking on the check boxes of teams you want to display below the x-axis. Then, I simply clicked through the stats I’m interested in analyzing. From this I can see that my team remains strong in walks and doubles, two big points accumulators, but that Im lacking in home runs. From here I can start thinking about ways of finding more power in hopes of balancing out some of my stats.

Viz #3: Pitching Production Comparisons

You can do the same exercise as above but with pitching statistics. Again, keep an eye on the blue line, my team. You’ll notice that compared to my competitors I am comparable in my daily saves and holds, but really lacking in strikeouts.

Now, if I couple this with the fact that my IP pace is well below where I should be by now, I can start thinking of adding more pitchers to my roster and getting more starts on the board.

Viz #4: Pitching Production Comparisons

Lastly, isolate the points per day visual down to the teams that are two places above and two places below you. This will help you identify how close you are to either advancing or being overtaken. In the visual below, my team is in yellow and I can see that I need roughly 10 more points per day to start advancing over my closest competitors. But, I can also see that I’m not separating myself from the teams that I’m beating by very much. It’s time to step on the gas!

Take the time to dig into these visualizations on your league standings page and you’ll get a much better sense of how your points are being gathered and what you need to do to move up the ranks.

The 2023 version of Ottoneu Hot Right Now will include three different 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.

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome back to the SP Drip. My goal for this bi-weekly column is to comb through the upcoming schedule each week to find a few under-owned pitchers (less than 50% ownership across Ottoneu) who could be used to help you hit your games started cap in head-to-head leagues or to make sure you’re hitting your innings pitched cap in points leagues. Tuesday’s article will cover the weekend (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) and Friday’s article will cover the upcoming week (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday). That way, you’ll have time to start your auctions in time to actually drip these pitchers into your lineup.

Upcoming Schedule:

Teams with favorable schedules include the Angels, Cubs, Diamondbacks, Mariners, Marlins, Rangers, Reds, and Tigers.

Teams with tougher schedules include the Blue Jays, Braves, Cardinals, Dodgers, Guardians, Nationals, Padres, Phillies, Rockies, and Yankees.

Highlighted matchups:

Not a lot of recommendations for this weekend. There are a pair of starters in the Mariners-Tigers series who you could go after since both of those offenses have been sputtering and they’re playing in the cavernous Comerica Park. All three of the Tigers starters scheduled to start in the series fall below the 50% ownership threshold, but Matthew Boyd is clearly the best of the bunch. On Seattle’s side, Marco Gonzales has been solid if unspectacular this year. His last start was a gutty six inning outing against the Astros where he allowed three runs on six hits while striking out three.

Both J.P. France and Adrian Houser have made just a single start this year, though both draw a pretty nice matchup for their second start. France is a little bit more of a risky play since he’s pitching in the home run friendly Guaranteed Rate Field, but he looked solid against the Mariners in his major league debut over the weekend. Houser was activated off the IL on Sunday and made his first start against the Giants, throwing 4.2 innings with just two runs allowed and five strikeouts.

Despite allowing 13 runs across his last three starts, Ryne Nelson’s FIP during that stretch has been just 3.57 with a 4.23 xFIP. Six of those runs came in a start in Coors Field which is where the only home run he’s allowed over the last few weeks was hit. He’s lined up to start against the Giants at home over the weekend. San Francisco’s offense has been hitting pretty well, but Nelson’s home park is pretty home run friendly.

Hot starters:

I just highlighted a different Rockies starter in my last column and I’m going back to that well again. Kyle Freeland has been pretty decent over his last three starts including a seven inning outing yesterday against the Pirates. He was fantastic against the Brewers at home last week, throwing five shutout innings with five strikeouts and just three hits. The same warnings apply here as they did for Ryan Feltner: avoid starts at home while playing the matchups on the road.

Say it ain’t so! It looks like Patrick Corbin might be showing some signs of life after three miserable seasons. He pitched a solid seven innings against the Cubs last week, allowing just two runs on three hits while striking out six. He’s scheduled to start against the Giants in San Francisco today. We’ll see if he can continue building off that start against Chicago.

Recap: May 5–7

Ouch. Nothing good came from those recommendations last weekend. In the Brad Keller-Kyle Muller matchup on Friday, the A’s and Royals wound up scoring 20 runs combined. The only start that came close to being a win was Yonny Chirinos’s start against the Yankees, though he walked four and didn’t strike out a single batter in that outing.

Much like Hot Right Now, Cold Right Now will be a weekly Ottoneu feature, primarily written by either Chad Young or Lucas Kelly, with a focus on players who are being dropped or who maybe should be dropped in Ottoneu leagues. Hot Right Now will focus on players up for auction, players recently added, and players generally performing well. Cold Right Now will have parallel two of those three sections:

1. Roster Cuts: Analysis of players with high cut% changes.
2. Cold Performers: Players with a low P/G or P/IP in recent weeks.

There won’t be a corresponding section to Current Auctions because, well, there is nothing in cuts that correspond to current auctions.

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome back to the SP Drip. My goal for this bi-weekly column is to comb through the upcoming schedule each week to find a few under-owned pitchers (less than 50% ownership across Ottoneu) who could be used to help you hit your games started cap in head-to-head leagues or to make sure you’re hitting your innings pitched cap in points leagues. Tuesday’s article will cover the weekend (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) and Friday’s article will cover the upcoming week (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday). That way, you’ll have time to start your auctions in time to actually drip these pitchers into your lineup.

Upcoming Schedule:

Teams with favorable schedules next week include the Diamondbacks, Giants, Guardians, Nationals, Pirates, Rangers, Royals, Tigers, and White Sox

Teams with tougher schedules include the Astros, Blue Jays, Braves, Brewers, Cardinals, Mariners, Mets, Orioles, Phillies, Red Sox, and Reds.

Highlighted matchups:

I covered both Vince Velasquez and Rich Hill in my last column on Tuesday as two guys who have been particularly good recently. The former made a start against the Rays yesterday and left after three innings with elbow discomfort. He said he was optimistic about the injury after the game but his status is clearly up in the air. If he’s healthy, he’s scheduled to take the mound against the Rockies at home on Tuesday. Monitor his status closely.

In that A’s-Yankees series there could be a couple of starters you could call on to take advantage of some weak offenses. Jhony Brito is scheduled to start Wednesday and he looked a lot better in his last start against the potent Rangers lineup; he threw five innings of two-run ball with five strikeouts against just one walk. There are a bunch of A’s starters who you probably shouldn’t trust, even against the weakened Yankees lineup. Plus there’s the complication of Aaron Judge potentially being activated from the Injured List early in the week. If you had to pick an Oakland starter, I’d go with JP Sears; he’s coming off six innings of shutout work against the Mariners.

The Guardians-Tigers series features two of the worst offenses in the league going head-to-head. Michael Lorenzen and Peyton Battenfield draw starts in the series and both are worth considering simply due to the lack of offensive quality they’ll be facing. The former is a pretty known quantity at this point in his career, but the Cleveland rookie features some promise even if the early results haven’t been pretty. Battenfield features a cutter that possesses a 38.2% whiff rate, a weapon that makes him a far more interesting flier than a veteran innings eater.

Hot Starters:

I’d understand if you had completely missed out on the stretch of starts Ryan Feltner has put together recently. Over his last three turns in the rotation, he’s allowed just three runs while striking out 15 in 17 innings. Just one of those starts came at home in Coors Field and that’s really the sticking point with any Rockies starter. It’s a huge gamble to start them at home so you’re only really rostering them for half their appearances. At his peak, Germán Márquez was worth rostering; Feltner is definitely not at that point yet, but his stretch of solid starts makes him worth monitoring.

After tossing a seven-inning gem back on April 16 against the Padres, Wade Miley has followed it up with three solid starts including surviving Coors Field yesterday. The strikeouts aren’t there but he’s managing hard contact against him and isn’t walking anyone. He’s lined up to start against the Dodgers at home in his next turn through the rotation. If he can pass that test, he could be worth looking into to give your Ottoneu team some bulk innings.

Recap: May 1–4

A pretty good week with two clear wins, another solid start, and just one clear loss. Domingo Germán looked dominant against the Guardians and his ownership rate has skyrocketed over the 50% threshold we’re working with. Tyler Wells actually looked pretty decent against the Royals, but he was undone by allowing three home runs, the only hits he allowed in his start.

Tanner Bibee and Logan Allen are the primary characters in today’s story, but this article isn’t really about them. In fact, I am going to say very little about their value, production, or future performance. Instead, this story is about Ottoneu in-season auctions and how different auctions at different times can lead to different results.

Read the rest of this entry »

The 2023 version of Ottoneu Hot Right Now will include three different 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.

Read the rest of this entry »