With just over a month of the season complete, we’re starting to look at more current season data to make decisions on who to add and who to cut, who to target in trades and who to move on from. Before the season, projections are a great way to value players, set prices and find targets for auctions. And we don’t lose that tool once the season starts.

With the projection systems providing Rest of Season (ROS) projections, we are able to identify what players are projected to do moving forward, instead of simply relying on performance to-date. To identify potential sell-highs or buy-lows (or buy-highs or sell-lows), it can be useful to look at the comparison of the two – who has most over- or under-performed their ROS projections.
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Last week we looked at a group of hitters who were under 50% rostered, with 25+ PA, and over 6 points/game in Ottoneu FanGraphs points leagues. Today, we’ll turn our attention to the mound, and look at a set of SP who are under 50% rostered, have at least 2 games started to-date, and are over 5 points/inning.

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When searching for free agents in Ottoneu leagues, my first stop is the Ottoneu search page. On any Ottoneu league page, you can find search via the “Players” link on desktop or the baseball icon on mobile. It has some nice functionality, including filters, sortable results, etc., that you can use to find guys who might be a fit for your team. To find free agents in my leagues, I use the “Free agents only” checkbox and then sort by things like points per game, total points, or even roster percent to find guys who are valued in other leagues but not rostered in mine.

For this article, though, I need to know free agents in your leagues, so instead of starting with the “free agents” checkbox, I used the filters to limit my results to players with a roster percent below 50. I then added a filter to limit to players with 25+ PA, and sorted by P/G. That brought up a list of seven players rostered in less than half of leagues putting up more than 6 P/G in 25+ PA.
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There have been a number of unexpected, impressive performances so far this year. This is what happens when you take a few hundred MLB-quality players, look at a one-week sample of data, and mix in a dash of “last year was a mess with no minor league season and a strange big league season.” Ottoneu managers have taken notice and in the last week, we have seen players like Yermin Mercedes, Akil Baddoo, and Julian Merryweather go from practically unknown to rostered in almost all leagues. While those players are likely already rostered in your leagues, let’s take a look at the next set of players to leap to the upper tiers of Ottoneu roster percentage. As of Monday night, these five players had the most active auctions across all of Ottoneu.

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After a couple of years cutting back, I have a total of 13 teams this year – seven Ottoneu, one other keeper, one dynasty, and four redraft. I am running 10 of those on my own and three I am working with a co-manager. Across those teams, I have 471 players rostered, including 257 unique players. Of those 257 unique players, there are 12 who appear on at least five of the 13 rosters or at least four of my seven Ottoneu rosters.

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Bold prediction season is the best. Just a chance to lay it on the line and lean in on the guys I am most excited about (or most unexcited about). For my bold predictions, going to go with an Ottoneu focus. And let’s get right to it.

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Since I began Ottoneu positional rankings in February, Spring Training started and we have learned a lot more. Well, a little more. But between new data and feedback from others, my thinking has changed on certain players and I wanted to bring up a few names where my rankings need to change.

I’ll look at a couple of players from each position and three SP, focusing on players where my ranking changed due to performance or feedback from others, not injury. Yes, I would be lower on Carlos Carrasco today than I was on March 2, but you already know that and repeating injury information here won’t be super informative or useful. Some of these guys have had great (or awful) Spring Trainings, some had defenders (or detractors) hit me up in the comments, on Twitter or elsewhere.

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Having covered SP and the rest of the offensive positions, we are finishing up with OF ranks (I won’t be doing RP ranks, but keep an eye out for more on that). Outfield is the most strategically interesting position in Ottoneu, as there are so many options for how you approach the five OF spots. Go get two or even three big bats and stay cheap on the rest? Get five $10-$15 guys plus some depth? Load up on platoon bats? All viable options, and there are more.

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I ranked my 2B first, before turning to SS, expecting that – as is usually the case for me – there would be a bunch of 2B/SS eligible players who ranked slightly higher as SS than they do as 2B. That turned out not to be the case. For the first time in a while, it feels like SS both stronger at the top and deeper than 2B. Gleyber Torres is my top 2B and my number seven SS. And this continues down the list – Brendan Rodgers is #20 at 2B, #24 at SS. Dylan Moore was #35 at 2B, #40 at SS.

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Having completed C, the corners, and SP, we move back to the dirt to rank MI, starting with second base today and continuing with shortstop next week. The keystone is strange this year, as I really like a bunch of names at the top, but it falls off rather quickly. That said, you still need to fill out both 2B and MI in your Ottoneu leagues, so you may find yourself diving into the depths, whether you like it or not.
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