Next Saturday at 11:59 pm ET is the ottoneu keeper deadline. It’s time to complete your trades and trim the fat from your roster. If you’ve followed my advice, you haven’t cut anybody since the end of the season. You can start making those moves soon.
We’re going to do two things today. First, I am gathering all articles about Ottoneu keepers into one semi-sorted place. This should give you plenty of resources to prepare for Cut Day on January 31. We’ll also delve into more keeper related decisions in the next two weeks.
Please use the comments for any ottoneu keeper or roster construction questions. I would like to keep things focused on ottoneu and keepers, but we can delve into other subjects too.
One last reminder: it usually behooves you to hang onto all of your players until sometime near the keeper deadline. I may want to dump my $7 Jason Grilli today, but what if a shark eats Craig Kimbrel’s foot tomorrow?
Chad Young and I have written a couple times about our general disdain for prospects in ottoneu. It’s not that we dislike all prospects, they’re just rarely a cost effective means to build (or even rebuild) a team. It would be fantastic to own Kris Bryant for $3. Unfortunately, his average price is actually $10 – on par with Danny Salazar and more than Nolan Arenado. Of course, Bryant is a “can’t miss” star. Right? Right!? While prospects of his caliber don’t often fail, it does happen. Given that his owner has probably invested upwards of $20 over the last couple years, Bryant needs to do a lot better than “not fail” in order to be a profitable asset.
If you’re reading this, there is a good chance you are familiar with my weekly ottoneu content. I base my advice and observations on my experiences in the league FanGraphs Staff Two. As a Twitter discussion recently highlighted, the league is not representative of all ottoneu leagues. This post will explore the idea of a player’s relative value based on league preferences.
Last week, I started a review of the players I am targeting to acquire and trade away, going position by position through the infield.
Today we look 12 more players – outfielders and starting pitchers who will factor heavily in my trade talks.
I have a couple of polar opposite seasons in my brief dealings with Ottoneu. In the first year, I was in the lead until the final week, ran out of innings, and finished third. This last year, I ended up with a team younger than Cespedes Family BBQ, and wound up near the back end of the standings.
I know as the writer I’m supposed to be the fantasy expert. But I’m human, and I like help. So today, I’d like to crowdsource my roster and see what you guys think I should do, what I did wrong, so on and so forth. This is a very young team in the middle of a rebuild of sorts, so please keep that in mind.
This is the Fangraphs Staff League II, a points league via linear weights, with 12 other owners. My team name is “Bang the Woodrum.” Heh. Read the rest of this entry »
Last week, I wrote about ottoneu trinkets and gobbledygooks. Specifically, I wondered what you, the reader, do with them? I also hinted that I had a plan, it’s not a great plan, but “great” isn’t really on the table when we’re talking about a $3 Alex Rodriguez. We’ll talk about said plan today. First, the comments.
The ottoneu off-season is well underway and I know many leagues have been wildly active, making the Padres and Dodgers look dull in comparison.
My leagues, however, have had slow developing trade markets, so rather than being able to report on what I’ve done, I am instead going to provide a list of players, by position, who I am targeting (or would be, if I had a need) in trade talks. For good measure, I’ll add in a player I am trying to trade away, too (or would be, if I owned him). We’ll hit the infield today and I will follow up with the OF and pitchers.
Are you ready to be shocked? I’m having trouble selling my $3 Alex Rodriguez. Also my $7 Billy Hamilton, $5 Shane Victorino, $4 Jesse Chavez, and $4 Neftali Feliz to name a few. Unsurprisingly, nobody is busting down my door to own my collection of down-roster bench fodder. Yet I’m pretty sure a guy like Victorino will go for more than $5 on draft day. Somebody will pony up for the latest shot at a Hamilton breakout. My inability to find back end starters has me ready to keep Chavez for myself. Essentially, I’m confident there is cause for somebody to keep these players, even if they possess a second order sort of value.
This puts me in a bit of a pickle. My latest roster tinker session has me at 29 roster spots (of 40) and $286 (of $400) committed to players I consider to be my core. I need a starting third baseman, some kind of middle infielder, and a couple starting pitchers. And then there are the gobbledygooks. I have something like 13 of them. Nine of them, like Victorino, are on what I consider keepable prices – in a fringy sort of sense. The others might still be somebody else’s keeper.
A couple weeks ago, I covered the ever-fascinating topic of rebuilding. The crux of my rebuild strategy is to target valuable major league talent rather than a boatload of prospects. Your season will be more fun, and you can trade your talent for the best building blocks during the season. Now it’s time to look at the opposite perspective of the rebuild – going for broke.
