What I have in mind today is a review of everything I’ve done between the end of arbitration and last Saturday’s keeper deadline. I’ll begin with my 31 player roster entering the draft and include each trade that was made along the way. We can use the comments today for two purposes. Those who want to crow about their own accomplishments can do so. Others who have questions or concerns about why I did certain things should ask away. While there is an essence of humblebrag in this post, my purpose is to teach through example.

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With the cut deadline behind us, now is the time to start prepping for your auctions. One thing to do is identify your targets, but another is to suss out the competition. Who has cash to spend? How much? Who is building a new roster and who is filling just a couple holes?

I started by taking a broad look at my three leagues to see how much cash was kept and I was intrigued to see how different the three auctions are set to play out.

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The keeper deadline for ottoneu leagues is upon us (midnight on the night of 1/31 – tonight!), and that means it is time to start auction prep in earnest. As I have the past two years, I am going to help out with my auction values for all four ottoneu formats.

Also as per usual, I made a couple tweaks to the approach this year.
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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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