The ottoneu keeper deadline has come and gone. The last week of January is always a frenzy of last minute trades and keeper decisions. I know I was up until midnight on January 31 negotiating a variety of swaps around the fringes of my rosters.

In recent seasons, I’ve developed a general approach to ottoneu FGpts formats – specifically with regards to offseason trading, the keeper deadline, and the draft. While I remain a huge proponent of zigging while others zag, I’ve also become rather predictable. This concerns me. However, the success rate and rationale behind my approach are air tight.

And so, what follows are three ottoneu rosters. I expect all three to finish somewhere around first place. Let’s use the comments to discuss the how’s and why’s.

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If you’re participating in an ottoneu league, chances are it’s reached a frenzied pitch over the last few days. The winter keeper deadline is tonight, January 31 at 11:59pm ET. All trades and cuts must be executed by that time.

For last minute keeper, cut, and trade advice, I recommend joining my personal BaseballATeam Discord server. Use the #ottoneu thread. The knowledgeable community of superfans loves to offer their opinions, and I’ll be around intermittently whilst tending to my own ottoneu decisions.

What follows are a series of deadline deals I struck earlier in the week. I’m updating this post as we speak with more trades! If you read this post on Tuesday, I’ve marked new deals with a snazzy —New Trade— logo.

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UPDATE: A co-manager has been selected. Thank you to all who applied.

I’d like to thank all those who applied in response to last Thursday’s talent search for the Screw Cancer ottoneu league. We raised over $300 for charity in the process. Unfortunately, we only had one open spot thus quite a few applicants were left hat in hand. Today, I have a fresh new opportunity to play fantasy baseball and battle cancer.

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UPDATE: Thank you for your applications. The position has been filled. Please be on the lookout for a new opportunity early next week.

Last year, Dave Cameron’s Screw Cancer ottoneu league required some help. Five new owners, including me, were needed. Instead of recruiting purely by fantasy chops, we decided to put charity at stake and raised $1,258 from the new entrants. Since its inception in 2012, the league has contributed over $30,000 to cancer related charities. Cameron has forsaken his responsibilities due to a silly little thing like joining the Padres front office. We’ll carry on without him.

Today we’re looking for one new owner. Read on if you’d like to apply. We’re also encouraging general donations.

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Ottoneu arbitration began on October 15 and runs through November 15. This omnibus is a one stop shop for all the strategy and tactics you need to get through the process. The following omnibus is a recreation of the one I published the last three years. We’ve mostly said everything there is to say over the course of more than 10,000 words. But first, some background.

Ottoneu is the award-eligible fantasy platform hosted by FanGraphs. Think of it as dynasty-lite. You get a 40-man roster, a $400 payroll, and way too much freedom to manage your team your way. For reasons unbeknownst to me, the platform is named after former St. Louis Browns player Otto Neu who compiled a whopping zero plate appearances over his “career.”

Over the offseason, the price of every major league player increases by $2. Minor leaguers increase by $1. Then there is an arbitration process that can be done one of two ways. Most leagues use the allocation process which ultimately adds an additional $11 to $33 per team. This omnibus is intended for both forms of arbitration, but the allocation process does open more possibilities for strategery and thus has more words dedicated to it.

As I mentioned, there are two systems of arbitration: voting and allocation. An asterisk indicates that the article is intending for voting leagues. I’ve organized the omnibus into sections: intro, intermediate, and advanced. Read the rest of this entry »

The following is the first in a series of probably two articles about my FanGraphs Staff League team on ottoneu. This was written during the season, prior to the start of the playoffs. Thus it contains no further reference to Nick Pollack’s heartrending defeat of me. That’s the topic of the next one.

Last winter, just before the ottoneu keeper deadline, our dark overlord (shh, don’t say his name) informed us that we would be switching to the new Head-to-Head format. I would say we didn’t have much time to adjust to the new settings, but, well, those settings were still very much in the design phase. At this point, my roster was set up as a back-end contender. With a little luck, I had a shot at first place. Maybe 15 percent? I wasn’t drawing dead, but I also wasn’t the odds on favorite.

The new format was a gift – manna from heaven – an unexpected opportunity to play a little Moneyball to get out ahead of the competition. And, after going 20-1 in the regular season, I’m comfortable saying I Moneyballed the crap out of my opponents.

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The All-Star game has come and gone, but the festivities are ongoing here at RotoGraphs. It’s time to rank the first half’s “All-Sell-High Team.” These are players who had big first halves, but who aren’t necessarily the best bets to repeat that performance in the second half. Without further ado, let’s get right to the list: Read the rest of this entry »

Contrary to popular belief, the secret to rebuilding (and winning) your fantasy league is not hoarding prospects. This season, you could be waiting patiently for the arrivals of Michael Kopech, Willie Calhoun, and Luis Urias to save your team, or you could have jumped on pop-up producers like Max Muncy, Jesus Aguilar, and Ross Stripling. Last year, Aaron Judge, Luis Severino, and Charlie Morton were universally available if your timing was right.

The thing about prospects is that sometimes they pan out, and sometimes they don’t. Even a “successful” one like Ronald Acuña has just a 114 wRC+, with a rest-of-season projection slightly below that. In real life, that’s fantastic for a 20-year-old and Acuña is a likely future star. But in the meantime his production is nothing special.

And again: Acuña is a success story. Owners might wait years for the likes of Byron Buxton, Dansby Swanson, and Alex Reyes to carry their teams to relevancy. All the while, players like the following four who are owned in less than 40 percent (well, actually, 43 percent) of Ottoneu leagues have been quietly carrying contenders: Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been entirely too long since my last post, as I was hit with a double whammy of a death in the family and an emergency appendectomy for yours truly, but I’m back in the saddle!

Before I get into the meat of this article, I’d just like to give an update on the status of the ottoneu power rankings. I had some issues with the scripts when I tried to run the rankings for April, and my intention was to post May rankings last week, but obviously life got in the way. At this point I think it makes the most sense to just wait until June is over, so expect the first power rankings to be published the first week in July. Thanks for your patience!

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I’ve long believed that ottoneu owners should essentially ignore the league standings through the first month of the baseball season, but that doesn’t mean teams should be resting on their laurels. The first couple months of the season are the best times to pounce on unexpected breakouts, and even if 75% of your pickups end up being duds the one or two studs you might find make the hunt fruitful. Let’s take a look at the players ottoneu teams are picking up and dropping most frequently over the past week:

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