Ryan Ludwick was traded from the Padres to the Pirates on Sunday. Once you get past the surprise that the Buccos were buyers, there are another three levels of analysis to go, at least. The prognosis for the player is not incredibly predictable.

The easy answer is that Ludwick will enjoy moving out of PetCo. Since moving to the Padres at last year’s deadline, Ludwick has enjoyed the worst ISO of his career. The drop, about fifty points, could be attributable to the home park. ESPN’s park factors have San Diego as suppressing home runs by 11.5% over the past two years. On first blush, this easy analysis makes sense.

But there are more than a few problems with this idea.

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Now that the trade deadline dust has settled, let’s look at a pair of players with rising fantasy stock following moves that were made (and not made)…

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As you’re tweaking your lineup here and there, looking for a way to steal some points from your opponents, check out how adding some stolen bases to your squad can help you out.  It always seems to be a very movable category in roto leagues and an often disregarded category in head to head.  Adding an extra stolen base guy can give you a nice cheap way to to boost you in the category while also helping you out in areas like runs scored and even batting average.  Here’s a pair of speedsters that seem to be available in plenty of leagues. Read the rest of this entry »

Exactly one year ago today, Tigers outfielder Brennan Boesch was hitting .312/.376/.530 — good for a .907 OPS. What happened next is not for the faint of heart.

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As hard as it is to concentrate with our fearless leader’s struggles on our minds, we must soldier on. Today, we’ll take a break from the National League outfield (don’t drop Nate Schierholtz until you know where Carlos Beltran will end up and what the Giants will do to fit him into the gargantuan holes in their lineup, since he could end up with the bigger part of the platoon with Cody Ross) to instead have some fun with the new statistic on our site. Yup, it’s SIERA time.

The thumbnail about SIERA is that creator Matt Swartz found that strikeout rate interacted with a pitcher’s BABIP and HR/FB. He also found that elite ground ball rates lead to better BABIPs. Because of these interactions, some pitchers should be compared to other excellent pitchers in those categories instead of being tied to the league average. We might find some aces that look better with SIERA, for sure, but it’s worth running the list in order to see who SIERA likes best. Another weapon in the fight against the luck dragon. Expect fabulous FIP-SIERA and xFIP-SIERA posts later in the week.

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Young players all around today, three of ’em for your fantasy squad…

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It may have taken four months, and nearly 1,000 plate appearances at AAA, but the Tampa Bay Rays have finally called up Desmond Jennings. For owners in keeper leagues, it’s finally time to rejoice. Owners in year-to-year leagues will now need to decide whether Jennings is worthy of a pickup going forward. Jennings certainly has that top prospect shine — he appeared on Baseball America’s top 100 list the last four seasons — but will he contribute enough to make an impact on fantasy rosters?
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At this very moment, there are but four teams with all three starting outfielders ranking in the Top 40 among outfield WAR. When you’re done guessing — er, trying to guess — click below to find out which teams. (Hint: You might as well just click — you won’t get all four.)

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It’s really time to start looking deeper into your free agent pool these days.  Of course, it looks better when a player is owned in 40% of ESPN leagues, but does that really mean he’s outperforming a guy that may only be owned in 15%?  Not always the case.  It may just mean that fewer people are paying attention and don’t know as much about him to realize that he is the superior fantasy option at this point in time.  Here’s a pair of guys that just might fit that description. Read the rest of this entry »

Another week and another innovation at ottoneu headquarters. Now you can browse any ottoneu league you like, right here. A few recommendations include the FanGraphs Staff League, the original ottoneu league, Justin Merry’s league (for you linear weights players, since he’s the scoring system creator and all), and, yes, the Expert’s League. Use the feature to learn a little more about what you should do in your league.

For example. A little ride over to the commissioner’s team page in the Expert’s League can show you what our group of prognosticators decided Brian McCann was worth ($33). Or how many minor leaguers a seasoned ottoneu player owns (zero in this case). Lastly, since Commissioner Chad Young has his Amateur Hour team in seventh place, it can show you what another ottoneu team trying to decide whether to buy or sell looks like.

It’s an interesting team, you might find when you’re looking at his set lineups page. He’s got J.P. Arencibia and Brian McCann, two very good young catchers, both playing right now. And yet he only has 13 games left to play at the position. Is McCann going to be worth $35 next year? Will someone want Arencibia? This is a clear position of surplus for Young.

His team is not that old, though. Sure, he has Vladimir Guerrero ready to head to the bench for good, and of course no minor leaguers, but he also boasts Eric Hosmer, Hunter Pence, Domonic Brown and Mike Moustakas as position players. But the Vlad injury forces him to play Rajai Davis in the outfield. He could use an outfielder if he’s going to go for it this year.

His pitching is strong. Roy Halladay, Jered Weaver, Jeremy Hellickson, Shaun Marcum and Jair Jurrjens are the headliners, but Julio Teheran and Ryan Dempster make for a good bench. If he goes for it, a $10 Marcum might have great trade value without requiring him to sell his top pitching prospect. If he calls it quits on the year, a $43 Roy Halladay may not be keepable, as much of a machine as the Doc is.

The old adage is that “Nobody cares about your fantasy team.” The irony is that you can learn a lot from looking at other people’s fantasy teams. And before we get too up in arms about Chad’s team, we should go softly. He’s about to return from his honeymoon to discover that Guerrero broke his hand. As if returning from a honeymoon wasn’t difficult enough.

Oh, and the offer still stands! Fill an ottoneu league now, and the entire league is free. Contact ottoneu founder Niv Shah if that sounds interesting to you (on twitter or at help @ ottoneu.com).