Arbitration season is over in all ottoneu leagues. It’s time to make some trades in preparation for the 2016 campaign. You’ll have until the end of January to finalize your swaps. As for today, let’s talk about two topics – arbitration results and preparation for the rest of the offseason.
On the ottoneu Slack community, this week featured an interesting debate on the merits of spending on Mike Trout at an ottoneu auction. There were two things posited about Trout:
I disagreed, arguing that unless the market was messed up, paying fair value for any player should not hurt you unless that player underperforms. Agreement was not to be found, so data needed to be found instead.
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There is just over a week left in ottoneu arbitration (11/14 deadline!) and rather than rehash what Brad Johnson and I have stated in the past, I thought I’d look at arbitration from the point of view of the allocation target.
I’ve gone ad nauseum about what I try to do when I make my allocations, but it can be valuable to relfect on my reactions to what my teams are getting hit with. If something causes me angst, it’s probably a good way to go after my opposition, too.
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Real baseball is over and ottoneu roster review season is in full swing. Brandon Warne and Chad Young have already revealed where their rosters stand in FanGraphs Staff Two, and I touched upon the challenges facing me while gloating about my championship win. It’s going to be a difficult offseason.
Last week, Brandon Warne reviewed his FanGraphs Staff League ottoneu team, and noted my second place team (man, I hate typing that) was a hard-to-explain $295 over the cap, pre-arbitration.
A commenter wondered “how badly CY mortgaged the future with that payroll.” I responded that I didn’t, really – but the question is, how? Every year, ottoneu owners go for broke, swapping their farm for elite talent, assuming the next step is a rebuild. This is my look at how spent big but feel set to reload rather than rebuild.
Last week, I re-introduced the ottoneu arbitration omnibus. It’s a one-stop shop for just about everything arbitration. Since then, Chad Young has chipped in with a few additional thoughts about this season’s allocations.
Arbitration runs through November 14. So you still have a few weeks to decide on your allocations or votes. Once the 14th rolls by, we can shift into offseason trade mode. Even though I don’t have much more advice to offer about the arbitration process, we can still discuss arbitration-adjacent topics.
You can’t trade yet. In fact, the trade wizard is completely disabled. However, nothing is stopping you from early negotiations. And, depending how those talks shape up, it can affect your (and your rival’s) allocation decisions.
I hesitate to call anything in Ottoneu a rebuild, especially in our Fangraphs Experts League II (linear weights) just because it hasn’t been around long enough for anyone to really “rebuild.” I finished third in the league’s inaugural year (2012), but had slumped to sixth the next season before bottoming out at 10th out of 12 teams a season ago.
I’ve long made youth a big part of how I conduct business — most certainly to a fault — but that really started to pay off in 2015. With a roster that appeared likely to finish in the middle of the pack with strong possibility of finishing strong, I was at least semi-enthused about my chances to make progress this season and perhaps a run in 2016. Read the rest of this entry »
Sometimes, there are only so many things that can be said about something. On the topic of ottoneu arbitration, that amounts to about 10,000 words. Below, I have republished (with some embellishment) the omnibus I created last year on this wonderful topic. But first, some background.
Perhaps I jumped too quickly into the details. Ottoneu is the award-eligible* fantasy platform hosted by FanGraphs. Think of it as dynasty-lite. You get a 40-man roster, a $400 payroll, and way too much freedom to manage your team your way.
Over the offseason, the price of every major league player increases by $2. Minor leaguers increase by $1. Then there is an arbitration process that can be done one of two ways. Most leagues use the allocation process which ultimately adds an additional $11 to $33 per team. This omnibus is dedicated to both forms of arbitration, but the allocation process does open more possibilities for strategery and thus has more words dedicated to it.
As I mentioned, there are two systems of arbitration: voting and allocation. An asterisk indicates that the article is intending for voting leagues. I’ve organized the omnibus into sections: intro, intermediate, and advanced.
*This particular asterisk does not indicate an article about voting leagues. I’m just noting that I can’t claim credit for this wonderful phrase.
Ottoneu Mondays return. Last offseason, I covered an ottoneu related topic on most Mondays. We’ll continue the tradition this offseason. Do look for more ottoneu content from Chad Young too.
One of the more unique parts of the ottoneu format is the arbitration process. It has a huge impact on the entire off-season (as it should), but far too often owners allow arbitration to cast a shadow on the regular season.
Owners considering acquisitions, particularly via trade, worry about what will happen to the player in the off-season arbitration process, rather than focusing on the player’s immediate value. When you do this, you are just hurting yourself.