Well, it’s Friday. As we head into the weekend, I wanted to take some time to address some ottoneu thoughts and tactics I’ve been ruminating on over the past week. If you’ve read any of my buying generic series, you likely know that I try to entertain all possibilities and look for value when consensus seems to move in one direction. I’m also constantly on the hunt for ways to operate more efficiently. So these are my current thoughts as I consider the ottoneu landscape. Let’s discuss these in the comments. If I’m missing anything, or these tactics seem off, please let me know.

Might David Price present a buying opportunity?

When we released our starting pitcher rankings a week ago, each of Chad, Justin, and myself had David price between $24-$25 as we head into the 2017 Ottoneu season. This was around the same time that a news of a potential injury broke. According to Jim Bowden, there is concern that Price might need tommy john surgery. If he has tommy john, Price will not be a $25 pitcher. However, Price will be reevaluated today and, according to John Farrell, could play catch again tomorrow.

Well it seems like opinions are all over the map on this one.

Let’s start with what we know. Price injured his elbow, leading many to think Tommy John surgery was necessary. However, even though he has received multiple opinions on his elbow from Dr. James Andrews and Dr. Neal ElAttrach,  it doesn’t appear that he is in any hurry to have surgery, and may be on a quicker recovery time than we realize (based on Farrell’s comments). So what does this mean for Ottoneu?

From the Ottoneu Rules Sec V:
Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, those of us at Rotographs who share a specialized interest in Ottoneu released our dollar values for 2017. We finished this process last Friday with our rankings of SP and RP. Today I thought it would be interesting to see where I diverge from Chad and Justin, both in optimism and pessimism. Our values are different in that I ranked everyone based on what I believe their value to be for 2017, accounting for the trade value prospects posses. Neither Justin or Chad ranked prospects, however, so I have excluded them from this analysis. Beyond prospect, I knew there would be some divergences.

I did not expect to be the high man on Aaron Sanchez. I like him just fine, but wouldn’t consider myself to be a strong supporter. I guess I’m more optimistic than I thought. I want to focus on him today. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve been rolling through our ottoneu FanGraphs points league rankings. This year the rankings will include values from myself, Justin Vibber, and Chad Young. We are presenting our individual dollar values, the average of all three individuals, plus the ranking of that average. In addition the tables below include Ottoneu eligibility (5 games started/10 games played in the prior year). Players are ranked at their most valuable position, and the hierarchy we are using is C/SS/2B/3B/OF/1B (with 3B and OF being a coin toss in terms of replacement level, we chose to include 3B/OF eligibles at 3B).

Prior Rankings: C/1B/3B, 2B/SS, OF

Key:
Split – Difference from highest to lowest $ value
Otto.– Average price across Ottoneu FGpts leagues
AVG. – Average $ value from the four of us
(+/-) – Difference between Ottoneu average price and our average $ value

Read the rest of this entry »

Champions League B, an Ottoneu league in which all owners must have previously won an Ottoneu league, had its inaugural auction draft last weekend. First-year auction drafts are compelling and informative, especially when the league is made up of skilled and experienced owners. Theoretically, in first-year auctions, all players should be purchased at or near their actual value. There shouldn’t be too much obvious surplus or too many colossal overpays.

Bargain hunting is a delicate endeavor in a first-year auction. Owners can hunt for potential bargains by targeting players coming off down seasons. Andrew McCutchen comes to mind. So does Yasiel Puig. Buying such players can be risky, because their recent poor play may be indicative of future performance. However, it can also be rewarding, because if the player bounces back he may return more value than his price warrants. Having so-called surplus assets is one of several keys to success in Ottoneu.

McCutchen and Puig saw their value decline because of uncharacteristically poor performance on the field. Another type of player to target when searching for surplus is players coming off injuries. Two specific examples are among the most compelling and potentially undervalued fantasy assets in the game. They’re the same age (29), and they play on the same team. They have remarkably similar career numbers and both had season-ending injuries in 2016. Below are the career totals for underrated co-stars A.J. Pollock and David Peralta: Read the rest of this entry »

It’s officially ottoneu auction season, and with it comes the auction preparation process. I’m in more ottoneu leagues than I can count on two hands, so I’ve developed a sort of system to help me get ready for my auctions. Part of that system is the ottoneu surplus calculator to get a league wide view of teams and keepers, another part is manually creating dollar values using projections, but the final piece of that system is collecting actual auction results to get a sense of how the market of ottoneu owners is valuing players. I’d rather not spend $12 on a player I think is worth $15 if I know I can get a similar player for $10, so having average auction price data is akin to using draft ADP to decide when to wait on (or reach for) a certain player. Let’s take a look at the ten best hitter “bargains” and “reaches”.

Read the rest of this entry »

Two weeks ago we kicked off our ottoneu FanGraphs points league rankings. This year the rankings will include values from myself, Joe Douglas, and Chad Young. We are presenting our individual dollar values, the average of all three individuals, plus the ranking of that average. In addition the tables below include ottoneu eligibility (5 games started/10 games played in the prior year). Players are ranked at their most valuable position, and the hierarchy we are using is C/SS/2B/3B/OF/1B (with 3B and OF being a coin toss in terms of replacement level, we chose to include 3B/OF eligibles at 3B).

Prior Rankings: C/1B/3B, 2B/SS

Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this month, we took at a look at starting pitcher replacement levels for 2017. Today, we will continue this process for relief pitchers using the same methodology. Please refer back to that post as a primer on how I put my replacement levels together, though I’ll recap some of the methodology here.

2017 Replacement Levels: SP

There are two ways that replacement levels can be defined. This is either as a specific point per game (P/G) or point per inning total (P/IP) or as the nth player ranked at a position. For example, I could say, replacement level for RP is about 6.67 P/IP, or I could say that replacement level for RP is about the 70th RP.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last Friday we kicked off our ottoneu FanGraphs points league rankings. This year the rankings will include values from myself, Justin Vibber, and Chad Young. We are presenting our individual dollar values, the average of all three individuals, plus the ranking of that average. In addition the tables below include ottoneu eligibility (5 games started/10 games played in the prior year). Players are ranked at their most valuable position, and the hierarchy we are using is C/SS/2B/3B/OF/1B (with 3B and OF being a coin toss in terms of replacement level, we chose to include 3B/OF eligibles at 3B).

Prior Rankings: C/1B/3B

Key:
Split – Difference from highest to lowest $ value
Otto.– Average price across Ottoneu FGpts leagues
AVG. – Average $ value from the four of us
(+/-) – Difference between Ottoneu average price and our average $ value Read the rest of this entry »

As much fun as it is to take over an existing team and rebuild it, there’s no better fantasy baseball experience than a first-year ottoneu auction. Spending seven or so hours assembling a 40 man roster takes preparation, focus, and flexibility, but it’s also an exhilarating experience filled with triumph and surprises. I just wrapped up a two night first-year auction earlier this week (my first auction of the season!), and I wanted to review some of the average auction prices based on that league and two other first year leagues that have already drafted (ottoneu FGPts format).

Read the rest of this entry »

Today we are kicking off our series on ottoneu FanGraphs points league rankings. This year the rankings will include values from myself, Joe Douglas, and Chad Young. We are presenting our individual dollar values, the average of all three individuals, plus the ranking of that average. In addition the tables below include ottoneu eligibility (5 games started/10 games played in the prior year). Players are ranked at their most valuable position, and the hierarchy we are using is C/SS/2B/3B/OF/1B (with 3B and OF being a coin toss in terms of replacement level, we chose to include 3B/OF eligibles at 3B).

Read the rest of this entry »