Three weeks ago, fellow rotographs contributor Trey Baughn looked at some ways to approach discussing trades. At the time, your league may not have entered the selling/buying stage of the season, but as we move into June, it is likely that some teams who labeled themselves “competitors” for 2016 have begun to change their tune. So much can change in three weeks – with the line between a competitive and non-competitive team being more clearly established. Several teams in your league(s) have probably made the move to sell (or buy) already. As a fellow owner of a competitive team, it can be very frustrating to watch your rivals scoop up top talent while you’re left sitting on your hands. In these circumstances, you can be best served to take some initiative, act quickly, and not second guess yourself.

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In this episode of OttoGraphs, Tom and Trey discuss some players who have had notable seasons so far, for good and bad reasons! On the positive side, players like Jonathan Villar, Aledmys Diaz, Derek Dietrich, and Rich Hill have all provided a big bang for very few bucks, but some more expensive players like Bryce Harper, Andrew McCutchen, and Matt Harvey have not quite lived up to their auction salaries at this point in the season. Plus, we talk about Evan Gattis and how his value has changed now that he has added catcher eligibility; and Clayton Kershaw, whose average salary of $57.34 has, incredibly, represented a discount on his otherworldly production in 2016.

As a reminder, OttoGraphs is now available on iTunes! Subscribe using this link or the one below, and if you like what you hear, we’d happily accept ratings or reviews to help us reach new listeners, and potentially recruit some new ottoneu players!

Feel free to comment with any questions or suggestions you may have about this episode or future topics. We can be reached individually on Twitter:

@OttoneuTrades

@JustinVibber

@TomHasOpinions

@Fazeorange

Lastly, special thanks to Treemen who provided our intro and outro music. If you like what you hear, please check out their other work at http://treemen.bandcamp.com/

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With another month of the baseball season gone, it’s time once again to present the ottoneu power rankings. Much of the history and methodology of these rankings was explained with last month’s post, so be sure to read that if you haven’t already.

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I’ll pick up on the prospect theme that Justin and Tom touched on in this week’s podcast: helium watch.  In other words, here are a four somewhat under the radar prospects that have caught my eye this year that could have increasing value over the second half of the season and turn into real assets in the near future in Ottoneu (and other deep leagues).

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In this episode of OttoGraphs, Tom and Justin highlight some prospects who are gaining value this spring, with a specific eye towards ottoneu’s unique prospect landscape. We also give a brief pitch for ottoneu football, the brand new ottoneu format that recently wrapped up a successful first season. If you’re interested, you can find out more about ottoneu football by checking out OttoGraph’s sibling podcast, Gridiron Geeks, also hosted by Tom and Justin.

Feel free to comment with any questions or suggestions you may have about this episode or future topics. We can be reached individually on Twitter:

@OttoneuTrades

@JustinVibber

@TomHasOpinions

@Fazeorange

Lastly, special thanks to Treemen who provided our intro and outro music. If you like what you hear, please check out their other work at http://treemen.bandcamp.com/

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Entering the 2014 season I knew my fantasy team was setup to succeed.  After all, I had just spent the entire 2013 season tearing it down and building it back up again, so I had the benefit of a full year of preparation, collecting as many assets as I could along the way to ready myself up for another shot at the title.

Unsurprisingly, at least three other teams in my league also appeared to be possible front-runners, so I knew it was going to be a hard fought battle towards the top.  My roster looked great on paper, but what I really needed was an edge, a small but real advantage that would work in my favor and help me outlast some very savvy Ottoneu owners.  So, I decided I would be obsessive about daily roster management…and I built a spreadsheet to help me track my team’s performance (by player) over the course of 180 days of baseball.  If I was going to win a tight race, I would need more than just excellent players.  I needed to know that I was effectively managing those players, too.

I ended up winning the championship in 2014 and owe a ton of credit to the daily roster tool I built to help me track it.  You can view the tool here.  I’m doing the same thing this year, so here are four roster management lessons I’ve learned that might be helpful for anyone playing daily fantasy baseball.

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As I did last month, I’m once again going to take a look at the Depth Charts rest of season projections for hitters, and compare them against the preseason projections. Once again, all points per game figures and positional rankings are shown using ottoneu points scoring.

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I have made a lot of trades in my fantasy baseball “career”.  It’s one of the parts of the game I enjoy most, but I’ve learned over the years that there is a wide range of comfort among owners when it comes to shaking up their rosters via trade.  For some fantasy owners, the process and preparation required to put together a good trade is a burden, and for others the uncertainty of the resulting impact (“will this really help my team?”) and/or the feedback from their league (“did I win or lose this trade?”) is enough to cause anxiety.

Part of the reason I enjoy fantasy trades is because I’ve had the benefit of corporate negotiation training throughout my professional career.  While it’s certainly true that my fantasy baseball experience has had a positive impact on my professional bargaining skills, there is no doubt my vocational training has made me more confident (and successful) in the fantasy “trade room”, too.  Today I’ll share a little of what I’ve learned throughout my own trade history in hopes of offering something you can use as well.

How to Talk Trade

All too often it’s not necessarily what you say but how you say it that makes the difference.  What follows are some alternative ways to phrase common trade responses that might make the difference between closing a deal or stopping one early in it’s tracks.

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One of the useful things about Ottoneu is its integration with the Fangraphs leaderboards.  I’m on the leaderboards here constantly as is, so the ability to use them, while having data specific to a fantasy league is an added bonus of the format. One of the filter’s I find myself using often on the leaderboards is the “Last 14 Day” filter. This is admittedly a smaller sample than anyone should use to make significant decisions, but I like to use this filter to help isolate players – especially pitchers – who have had recent hot streaks.  Ottoneu uses large 40 man rosters, so often I will use the last few roster spots to preemptively buy some of these early hot streaks. Especially if you’re a first place team – or a team near the top of the standings – you are will lose any tie-breaks on free-agent auctions so being the first team to buy into a player (or auction a player) can be key to keeping reinforcements on your bench in the event of an injury.  Today, we’ll look at several pitchers who are near the top of the current “Last 14 Day” leaderboard and look at a couple lessons we can learn from this group.

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In this episode of OttoGraphs, Tom, Justin, and Joe break down the latest big trade out of the Ottoneu Champions League, and then discuss some of the implications and general trade strategies at play that are relevant to all leagues.

Here’s a look at the trade in question. Tom’s team is “Greg Burned,” while Justin is “Chicago Whales.”

Feel free to comment with any questions or suggestions you may have about this episode or future topics. We can be reached individually on Twitter:

@OttoneuTrades

@JustinVibber

@TomHasOpinions

@Fazeorange

Lastly, special thanks to Treemen who provided our intro and outro music. If you like what you hear, please check out their other work at http://treemen.bandcamp.com/

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