If you’ve for some reason been following my path as a fantasy baseball player closely, first thank you and secondly you might know I’m in the Fangraphs Ottoneu Staff League II. The league features some of your favorite writers from the Fangraphs family, including Scott Spratt, Brad Johnson, Jeff Zimmerman and more. David Wiers is in the league too.

For point of reference, here’s the league homepage.

As I’ve mentioned every now and then here and on Twitter, my fantasy baseball strategy is kind of bizarre. I guess I just get really weird about players I do and do not want, and don’t get into the politics in an auction of bidding a player up that I do not want just to price enforce. For me, with a finite number of roster spots and the odds you could wind up with a player you don’t want with just one false move, the risk just isn’t worth it.

For instance, if I’m totally out on Sonny Gray — basically just a name, so don’t read too much into it here — and he’s about to go for $15, I won’t bid $16 just to get him to $20, which I think is a more fair price. Instead, I think the strategy I employ is quite a bit less risky. Maybe it’s dumb, but I just throw guys out for the first number of rounds that I have no interest in, but I’m certain they’ll go for more than a buck. If I can get my league mates involved in spending dollars and using roster spots on guys I have no interest in, I might get a deal later. But even if I don’t get a deal, I at least get a bit more clarity as I clean up the draft board.

Read the rest of this entry »

You often hear fantasy analysts discuss the shares they have of a particular player, reducing them to the fantasy baseball equivalent of a financial instrument. The benefit of being in as many leagues as I am is that I can try to diversify my portfolio- owning at least one share of as many players that I like as possible, while limiting my risk of overexposure to any one hitter or pitcher. I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the players I own the most shares in across the ten ottoneu leagues that have already completed their auction drafts. These names represent the intersection of players I believe are primed for big seasons along with an auction price that I felt offered a good discount.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ottoneu founder/creator Niv Shah once described Ottoneu as an economic system that just happens to be built for fantasy sports.  The entire platform is finely tuned to bring the stats, rules, and interface together to provide an excellent overall gameplay experience perfectly suited for baseball nerds.

Nerds often like math (which is why baseball nerds love sabermetrics), so let’s spend some time digging into some of the math behind the game of Ottoneu.  This will be a blend of benchmarks and strategy, but overall the goal here is to create a reference for Ottoneu owners looking to win their leagues.

Ottoneu Basics

Read the rest of this entry »

Disclaimer: these projections are bold (at least they’re supposed to be), and most are made in the context of Ottoneu fantasy baseball.

1) Yangervis Solarte will outscore Rougned Odor in 2016.

Rougned Odor is an extreme talent.  His breakout last year has been well documented, and his .273/.313/.520 slash all but guarantees no one is sleeping on him in drafts this year (his hot spring hasn’t done anything but boost his stock).  But for all the fanfare surrounding Odor, we should remember that his breakout was mostly ignited by an insane June that included a .390 BABIP and a BB/K rate that looks like a big outlier (1.25).  Odor’s July was equally sizzling so this isn’t an attempt to pump the brakes on a great young player except to say that he’s not coming with much of a discount in new Ottoneu auctions this season (~$20).

Looking for another under-the-radar 2B that could really turn a profit in 2016? Enter Yangervis Solarte, one of the few players to rival Odor’s 2nd half breakout and his 80 grade name.  Solarte started 2015 white-hot with a .321/.387/.500 slash and .385 wOBA, but fell off the map in May/June.  Something clicked for Solarte in July, however, as he rolled off three straight months of excellent production (wOBA’s of .353, .348, and .362 in July, August, and September), finishing the 2nd half with a .292/.336/.470 line.  That line isn’t all that unlike what Odor dazzled us with last year, and there may be room for improvement for Solarte because of his excellent contact skills and slightly better walk rates (he also hit much better at home than on the road).

Read the rest of this entry »

1) Travis d’Arnaud will be a top-3 catcher in all formats

This prediction relies on d’Arnaud being healthy this season, but if he is I think we could see 25 home runs with 70+ runs and RBI with a .270 average. In 268 plate appearances last season d’Arnaud had a .355 wOBA, not far behind what Kyle Schwarber did (.364 wOBA) in his 273 plate appearances.

Read the rest of this entry »

Successfully “rebuilding” your fantasy team into a contender is an epic challenge that requires vision, skill, patience, and a little bit of luck.  Since there is no perfect blueprint that ensures success (some people say never rebuild), it’s not surprising that owners take a lot of different routes to the same ultimate goal.

I recently polled a group of savvy, successful fantasy owners to get their advice for rebuilding in Ottoneu, asking five key questions that are related to the idea of effective rebuilding.  Regardless of whether you play Ottoneu, much of the (anonymous) feedback below should be relevant to a wide variety of fantasy baseball leagues and may be helpful if you find yourself in a rebuild this season.

What is the best advice you would offer an Ottoneu owner who is rebuilding their roster for the future?

Read the rest of this entry »

Each year, before the season, I try to run a set of projected standings for my leagues. It’s not super difficult, though you do have to set aside probably about one hour per league to set it up. But once you have these projections, they can be extremely useful in figuring out your strengths and weaknesses, and giving yourself a realistic outlook for your team.

The specifics below are based on ottoneu, but the theory can be applied to any format.
Read the rest of this entry »

As with Joe’s earlier post, these ottoneu predictions specifically reference the FGPts scoring system. Let’s get down to it!

1) No catcher will score 800 points, and two or fewer will score over 600 points.

At face value, this one might not seem so bold, but keep in mind that at least one catcher has scored over 800 points each of the past few seasons, and several over 600. The position is always on the verge of falling under these thresholds, though, and this prediction is a bet that this could be the year. Perhaps Buster Posey underperforms a bit, Jonathan Lucroy doesn’t play such a heavy schedule of games, and some of the middle-tier options split playing time more than expected. We’ve talked before about how catching is a deep but very flat position in ottoneu, and this would be further proof of the fungibility of a position where a dozen players can all give you similar production.

2) Zack Cozart will be a top 10 shortstop in FGPts.

If Cozart keeps up his 50 game breakout, he could make this happen, no problem. But that’s a huge “if,” considering he nearly doubled his career ISO, and jumped 70 points in wOBA from 2014. Here’s hoping Cozart’s short-lived mission to “crush the inside part of the ball” pays dividends in 2016!
Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 3 of OttoGraphs is here and we have a special guest- Chris Mitchell, creator of KATOH! We discuss the development of KATOH and the types of players the prospect model prefers, and Chris was also gracious enough to answer some questions we had about some specific prospects including Alex Verdugo, Clayton Blackburn, Blake Snell, and Joey Gallo.

Feel free to comment with any questions or suggestions you may have about this episode or future topics, and 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/

Podcast (ottoneu-podcast): Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

These predictions are specifically based on Ottoneu FGpt scoring. Perhaps “Bold” isn’t defined clearly enough, but my hope is that this is structured in such a way that my thought process can provide some benefit (even if the predictions seem a little extreme at face value.)

1. Domingo Santana will be a top 15 OF.

Nelson Cruz, Yasiel Puig, Carlos Gonzalez, Charlie Blackmon, Starling Marte, Adam Jones…  If you looked at our FGpt OF rankings, these are the 15-20^th ranked outfielders. Which is to say, I think Domingo Santana could be better than all of them (and the rest of those listed below him in our rankings) in 2016. The Brewers do not look like a good team (yet…) so – unless he gets injured – expect a full slate of playing time, a great home park, and lots of power (three things that are gold in linear weights scoring.) The obvious hole in his game is the strikeouts (34% in 2015), but if he can reign that in at all, the upside is tremendous.

2. John Jaso will be a viable 2nd OF

The obvious issue has been playing time (70, 99, 70 games played over the past 3 seasons), but given that he slated to play 1B, I feel fairly confident he will play more games than he has in any of the past 3 seasons.  If he does, he could easily produce value which is expected of many #2 OF in FGpts. The Pirates’ outfield is set, so don’t expect him to retain eligibility for 2017, but he should be incredibly useful for this season. Alex Gordon, Starling Marte, Adam Jones, Christian Yelich, Charlie Blackmon, and Yoenis Cespedes are all projected to be within 5 points of wOBA of Jaso. Those players will cost $18-$25 apiece. If he can stay on the field, Jaso has a good chance to be in that tier, and you can get him for about a third of that price.

Read the rest of this entry »