Last Wednesday, I explored the the fantasy market value of expensive stars like Mike Trout and Clayton Kershaw. My colleague Chad Young used a unique methodology to discover that Trout was most valuable to ottoneu owners when he cost $65 or less.

We both project Trout to produce more than $65 of value, but the data implies it’s hard to construct a full roster around him if he costs more. Personally, I think the case for contending with an expensive player depends upon finding bargains elsewhere. You just have to be the right owner for the job.

Today, I’ll cover my continuing efforts to trade at least two of Trout ($62), Kershaw ($64), and Zack Greinke ($36). Obviously, in terms of cost, one of those is not like the others. While, I view all three as possessing comparable overall value, I’ll be focusing on the two $60 guys today.

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ottoneu arbitration came to an end last weekend, with more than 25,000 allocations totaling more than $35,000 handed out to nearly 450 MLB and MiLB players. The results, as always are occasionally interesting, often expected and sometimes surprising.

You probably won’t be surprised, for example, to find out that Carlos Correa received the most arbitration dollars, but you might be surprised that Mike Trout and Joey Votto – neither of whom were particularly cheap in most leagues, were among the 35 leading targets.
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We’ve had our first big offseason trade in the ottoneu league FanGraphs Staff Two. Chad Young and prospect guy Marc Hulet combined for a doozy. In the aftermath of the trade, Chad and I discussed the relative value of his players versus similar guys I had available. While I’ll refer to our ottoneu league, today’s topic has implications for most keeper leagues.

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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.

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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:

1. Keeping/buying Trout and leaving the auction with him ties up too much money in one player, thereby hurting your chances to field a competitive team, and
2. Because of this, the team that does buy Trout is almost always looking to sell him, so you can get him later (with loans) anyway.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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 »