With about a week of 2017 baseball data in the books, there are already thousands of innings, plate appearances, and batted balls to parse through. We’ve seen a perfect game bid, a cycle, multi-home run performances, and a huge lead blown in the ninth. Unfortunately, something else we’ve seen are injuries to key players. Like the crack of the bat and pop of the glove, injuries are a part of the spot. They’re bad for the player, the team, the fans — and fantasy owners.

When a key player on your fantasy roster gets injured, it often leaves you scrambling to fill the unexpected hole. The following exercise is designed to help you survive such situations. We’re going to look at viable players who are readily available in most fantasy leagues. To qualify for this list, a player must be owned in less than 50% of all Ottoneu fantasy leagues, based on the Ottoneu Average Salaries page. He also must be able to help your team right now (i.e., no prospects).

Getting right to the list, here are of five players worth a shot in an emergency who are owned in less than 50% of Ottoneu leagues, along with their positional eligibility, average salary, and owned percentage: Read the rest of this entry »

The season is less than a week old, but the ottoneu waiver wire is as busy as ever. The sample sizes of early performances are microscopic, but if you want to snag the next breakout or “popup” performer the early bird gets the worm. In what will likely be a recurring feature again this year, let’s look at the ottoneu most added (and cut) players in the early going.

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For fantasy purposes, ottoneu rosters are large. (40 rosters spots that can be split between hitters and pitchers, including all minor league players.) This leads to many platoon players and prospects being rostered as ways to fill our rosters. Many times, these back of the roster types end up being $1 plays on prospects who are many years away. However, what if we took a different approach and went with players who could have an MLB role entering 2017, while still offering some potential upside?

Certainly, the argument can be made that these prospects are really just trade chips for rentals in season, and I buy that argument. However, I don’t think that every prospect owned is a trade chip, or at least an enticing one. Generally, there are the prospects most teams want (the top-20 or so) then various options throughout the rest of most top 100s that appeal to different owners depending on their biases. Could we be better off going with uncertain MLB players to fill these spots in place of the less notable minor leaguers?

Today, I wanted to go through several players I am rostering as $1 plays in several of my leagues. Thought process being, that I will have a pretty good idea of if they are a $1 player, or useful piece some time within the next month or two. At that point, I can cut them if they don’t pan out, and pick up the prospect I would have drafted originally. Read the rest of this entry »

As I did last year, I went through the rosters of all eleven ottoneu teams I’ve drafted to see which players most frequently found their way onto my roster. These aren’t always the the best or most exciting names, but they are the ones I felt had more value than acquisition cost.

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This post was inspired by Trey Baughn’s Bargain Shopping: Five for $5 from December. With just days remaining before the start of the 2017 baseball season, most fantasy auctions and drafts are completed. However, since some will take place this week, and since most fantasy owners are always interested in making savvy moves to improve their rosters, now is as good a time as any to talk about fantasy bargains. To qualify for this list, players must simply cost less than $6 on the Ottoneu Average Salaries page (sorted by “All game types”) and be beyond rookie status. Getting right into the list: Read the rest of this entry »

Last year was my first attempt at bold predictions, and it didn’t go very well. I was happy about a couple of my calls (namely Hendricks and Story) but overall I was undone by injuries and some bone-headed hot takes. I’m not sure this year will be any different, but let’s see what my crystal ball shows for 2017:

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Below are my bold predictions for the 2017 season. As always, these are ottoneu fangraph points specific. I tried to add enough qualifiers to make each of them “bold” but feel free to ridicule in the comments if you think otherwise. It should be noted that, if I do this right, I should get 3 out of 10. I tried to frame them accordingly. The predictions are in bold (no particular order), followed by a brief synopsis. The synopsis is more important than the prediction itself. Some of these players may not meet my criteria for their specific prediction come year end, but this should give you a grouping of names that I like as we approach opening day.

Carlos Martinez becomes an ottoneu ace ($30+ SP)

When we released our SP rankings, we had 10 SP being worth $30+. Of those ten, seven are clear cut $30 pitchers (Kershaw, Syndergaard, Scherzer, Bumgarner, Sale, Strasburg, and Kluber), with six SP falling into the $28-$31 range (Arrieta, Archer, Lester, Carrasco, Cueto and Darvish). For 2017, I believe Carlos Martinez will vault into the upper tier of fantasy aces, returning $30 of value. For those wondering what $30 of value equates to, consider the upper bound of that second tier. Read the rest of this entry »

Drew Smyly has a unique fastball. Of pitchers to throw more than 1,250 four-seamers in 2016, Smyly’s fastball was second only to Marco Estrada in terms of vertical movement, meaning, the pitch has “rise”. If Wednesday’s WBC game between the United States and Venezuela was any indication, this pitch is becoming even more unique, as Smyly is now throwing harder than he ever has.

Jeff already wrote about this game on the main site, noting why the Mariners should feel pretty good about their pair of starters, and that (at least according to the telecast) Smyly was topping 94mph. However, today, I wanted to use Smyly as a branching off point to talk about another pitcher.

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Last night I completed my third straight ottoneu auction in as many nights, and sixth overall so far this draft season. Every year the auctions I’m a part of seem tighter and more difficult, but the massive hours I’ve spent participating in ottoneu auctions the past two seasons has given me a good feel for what to expect. Let’s take a look at the different auction phases, and the strategies for dealing with them.

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The 2017 World Baseball Classic has been riveting thus far. Many of the teams are loaded, and the players and fans have been wildly into it. Saturday’s game between the Dominican Republic and the United States was perhaps the greatest heavyweight match-up the game has ever seen. The lineups on both sides were absurd, and the game lived up to the hype. The Dominicans overcame a 5-0 deficit to win in dramatic style, 7-5.

The Dominican lineup could be the best ever, but the United States gives them a run for their money. Since the majority of FanGraphs readers are, presumably, American, and pulling for Team U.S.A., it struck me that it would be fun to analyze the roster from a fantasy perspective. Although many on the roster are undisputed stars, there are overrated players, players to avoid for other reasons, and potential bargains mixed in. Let’s get right into it, analyzing the starting position players on Team U.S.A.: Read the rest of this entry »