Last year was my first attempt at making bold predictions here at RotoGraphs, and it didn’t go very well (1/10 correct, with Kyle Hendricks my lone win). This year things looked better at mid-season, but let’s take a look at the final results!
Dear Disengaged Owner,
This has been hard for you in the past, but please read carefully. Today, we are officially ending our relationship.
I wish I could say it’s been fun, but I think we both know this is long overdue. As good as your original intentions may have been when you first joined our league, this is no longer meant to be. But don’t worry, it’s not me, it’s you.
There are just six days left in the baseball season, and ottoneu owners are officially in crunch time in their quest for a title. As these final days play out, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the closest races across ottoneu FanGraphs points leagues as of this morning using the same standings pull that I run when creating the power rankings.
On Wednesday I reviewed the results of the first three rounds of a new dynasty league prospect draft. I’ll continue that review today with rounds 4 – 6, where some deeper, more interesting prospects appear.
Dynasty Prospect Draft Review: Rounds 1 – 3
This draft should help you “discover” a few names to keep an eye on going forward. If you have specific questions about players or the thought process of why they were selected, fire away in the comments section, as I’ve asked each owner in the league to be on standby to provide feedback as we review the rounds.
Before I review my own thoughts on the draft, you should know this Ottoneu league uses the “FanGraphs Points” scoring system based on linear weights, so offense is heavily slanted towards wOBA skills (and speed is almost a non-factor). We also somewhat arbitrarily removed the Top 12 overall offensive prospects to save them for the standard 40-man auction next spring. Otherwise, any minor league player without one (1) MLB PA or IP is eligible to be drafted. You can read more about the custom rules of this dynasty league here, and follow along with the draft here.
Many of the prospects below are also featured on the 2018 Top 100 Fantasy Prospects list.
Recently I created a new dynasty baseball league customized around the basic game of Ottoneu. The more you play Ottoneu the more you come to appreciate how deep the player pool really is, and the longer I play fantasy baseball the more interested I become in the minor league development process. While there is still plenty of luck involved, the satisfaction of “discovering” the next Rhys Hoskins before everyone else is a feeling that keeps me coming back to the game over and over.
In addition to the standard economics of Ottoneu where each league consists of twelve owners and 480 rostered players (minors and majors), our league will roster an additional 180 minor leaguers (15 extra per team) in an attempt to “develop” successful franchises for years to come. Since the regular MLB season is wrapping up soon and many fantasy owners are starting to look towards 2018, I thought it might be helpful to review our prospect draft over the next several posts to give you some insight into the valuation of these minor league lottery tickets. If nothing else, this draft should help you “discover” a few names to keep an eye on going forward. If you have specific questions about players or the thought process of why they were selected, fire away in the comments section, as I’ve asked each owner in the league to be on standby to provide feedback as we review the rounds.
Ottoneu, like most fantasy leagues, uses a soft innings cap. This is pretty standard. You have an innings limit of 1,500 IP, and the day that you go over that innings limit, you are able to exceed it by as many innings as possible. How can we use this rule in our pursuit of a league championship?
Looking at Ottoneu specifically, though easily adjustable to any league format, you would want to get as close as possible to your innings limit, then on the last day, fill out your pitching lineup with players who are pitching that day. For example, start the day you plan to go over with 1,499 IP and throw 5 starters that day, with 5 RP in your lineup as well. Practically, this could get you another ~25-40 innings. Even if these innings fell below replacement level, they are still valuable as they would not be points you would otherwise accrue. Even if your pitchers were terrible across the board you would be looking at a lower bound of around 50 points, with an upper limit in the 250 point range. That’s a big gain on competitors who may not deploy the same tactic.
This is the main reason I recommend pacing your innings at 1,550 to 1,600 all year. It allows the flexibility to wait a week or two to pick your last day to blow up your pitching totals. Read the rest of this entry »
We are nearing the homestretch in the baseball and ottoneu season, and this will be the last in-season power rankings. The next time power rankings are released, they will be final 2017 results, and I plan on releasing the full team/league standings files for each format at that time as well.
You can find prior power rankings here: July, June, May , April, 2016 Final
Read the rest of this entry »
This will be the last ottoneu most wanted report of the season, but there are still some hot unowned targets out there for contenders and rebuilding teams alike. Let’s take a look at the most added players over the past week:
It seems that since Yoan Moncada was signed by the Boston Redsox in March of 2015 for $31.5 million, he has been a staple atop MLB prospect lists. Top-5 by Baseball America in 2016 and 2017. Number 1 by Fangraphs’ Eric Longenhagen this season with KATOH+ also ranking him in the top-10. This list goes on. He is an elite prospect. If you play Ottoneu, you already know that.
However, given the pedigree (and the likely fact that he has been owned since his signing in nearly all leagues) it is likely that Moncada’s performance is viewed as a disappointment to Ottoneu owners. I mean this purely on a performance basis. With an average price across in all Fangraph Points leagues of nearly $12, owners are likely expecting production from a premier prospect. With the relative ease at which young players have transitioned to the major leagues over the past few seasons, who can blame them?
| Season | Team | Age | BB% | K% | ISO | wOBA | wRC+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Red Sox | 21 | 5.00% | 60.00% | 0.053 | 0.228 | 33 |
| 2017 | White Sox | 22 | 15.00% | 36.20% | 0.16 | 0.301 | 86 |
| 2017 | ZiPS (R) | 22 | 11.00% | 27.00% | 0.15 | 0.307 | 90 |
| 2017 | Steamer (R) | 22 | 11.30% | 31.90% | 0.139 | 0.299 | 84 |
| 2017 | Depth Charts (R) | 22 | 11.20% | 29.40% | 0.144 | 0.303 | 87 |
| Career Avg. | 13.60% | 39.50% | 0.144 | 0.291 | 79 |
It appears to me, that since Mike Trout became, well, Mike Trout, the standard that young players are held to has risen dramatically. Maybe I’m showing my youthfulness, or maybe it has always been this way.
In 2017, we can look at the performances of young hitters like Aaron Judge, Cody Bellinger, or Rhy Hoskins to see current versions of this phenomena, or we can look at Byron Buxton over the past few seasons to see how perceptions can change (either warranted or not) when a top prospect comes up and isn’t an immediately elite talent (though Buxton has been doing quite well recently).
Today, I want to take some time to look at another prospect who have recently debuted, and see what his initial 100 or so plate appearances can tell us.
| Season | Team | Age | G | PA | BB% | K% | ISO | BABIP | wOBA | wRC+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Mets | 21 | 28 | 103 | 1.90% | 28.20% | 0.190 | 0.299 | 0.290 | 79 |
| 2017 | ZiPS (R) | 21 | 16 | 66 | 5.00% | 24.30% | 0.114 | 0.297 | 0.267 | 63 |
| 2017 | Steamer (R) | 21 | 23 | 92 | 4.70% | 20.90% | 0.117 | 0.313 | 0.288 | 77 |
| 2017 | Depth Charts (R) | 21 | 24 | 100 | 4.80% | 22.60% | 0.116 | 0.305 | 0.277 | 70 |
