2018 is here, and the dawn of a new year is the best time to reevaluate your overall fantasy strategy.  But before digging into the finer points of roster construction, auction value calculations, and post-post-hype sleepers, January is also the perfect time to step back and ask whether it might be time to trade in your entire fantasy experience for one of the more advanced, up-and-coming fantasy platforms around.

This is a shameless plug for Ottoneu, a fantasy sports platform so addicting that it has also launched a community of more than 1,000 hardcore baseball fans that sleep and eat baseball year round.  But don’t take my word for it.  There are many reasons why you should try Ottoneu (including some exciting new features launching in 2018), but today I want you to hear from some of the “rookies” who just finished up their first full year of Ottoneu in 2017. This growing community of raving fans is a big part of the Ottoneu experience, and their Season One feedback may help you make the final decision to drive your own league to Ottoneu in 2018.

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“… pros were more likely to ride a wave of irrational exuberance than to fight it. One reason is that it is risky to be a contrarian. ‘Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally’” – Richard Thaler in Misbehaving

At the root level, fantasy baseball is about acquiring more undervalued assists than your opponents. Everyone wants a first-round talent for a last round price (e.g. Aaron Judge). With teams clamoring to acquire every advantage, they are insistent on wasting away an early draft advantage. In early 2018 drafts I’ve participated in, an early emphasis on middle infielders is inflating their value way beyond their projected production. Is the observation wrong? If so why? If not, how can an owner take advantage of this mispricing?

Note: For this article, I will lump second basemen and shortstops together into one middle infield position. Neither position has more talent than the other and the bottom players will be used to fill a middle infield position.

For those who have recently created mixed-league valuations, positional scarcity doesn’t exist besides with catcher. I use the method outlined in Larry Schechter’s book, Winning Fantasy Baseball to determine my values. I’m not going to go into the process’s exact details but it’s the standard procedure used by fantasy experts to prep for auctions. Even a couple years ago a small amount of positional scarcity existed but a huge influx of good middle infielders has raised the group’s overall talent level up to the other positions.

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The Japanese sensation Shohei Ohtani is finally coming to MLB (and more specifically to the Angels), and in doing so will become the trailblazer that sets a new expectation for the future of the (possible) “two-way” player.  Because salaries and injuries continue to escalate in the game, a true double threat major leaguer is still hard to imagine in baseball, but if the 23 year old Ohtani does become the first player since Babe Ruth to make a regular impact on both sides of the ball, he will change the landscape of fantasy baseball, too.

Ohtani 😱 pic.twitter.com/YXJJ8954Hs

— Vladimir Guerrero (@VladGuerrero27) December 8, 2017

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About a week ago, I compared rankings with some actual ADP. One player which stood out was Rougned Odor. He ranked 47th overall (AVG vs OBP league) and it’s tough to rank a person so high who hit only .204 last season. Steamer projections currently have him back up to a .255 AVG. Acceptable but not great.

Additionally, Odor comes to the plate hacking and rarely walks (4.2% for his career) so almost all of his value comes from his BABIP. If his batted balls don’t fall for hits, he’s not getting on base. Since his value is so BABIP driven, I decided to see what the BABIP bounce-back chances were for low-walk hitters.

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In my last article, I examined the potential value differences between the top-50 rank players and their average draft position (ADP). Today, I will examine the next 50. While the first list contained quite a few players moving up, today’s list is a little more balanced with over and undervalued players.

One of the biggest takeaways from the first article was the extra replacement value catchers receive in a 2-catcher format. To simply explain the idea, I will turn to Joe Bryant who goes through a fitting example but with football.

The league’s bottom catchers are so bad so any catcher who can hit has good value. Evan Gattis being ranked #17 got most of the scrutiny in the rankings. As was pointed out, the projection may be high on the plate appearances but the process was still sound. Here is how Gattis compares to the last catcher ranked (Yan Gomes) and Francisco Lindor compared with the last middle infielder (Kolten Wong).

Yan Gomes is such a sink, especially with a total of 55 Runs+RBIs. It’s imperative to understand and value catchers correctly for each league formats. It’s a potentially huge advantage for those owners who spend the time. Read the rest of this entry »

“Long ago, Ben Graham taught me that ‘Price is what you pay; value is what you get.’ Whether we’re talking about socks or stocks,

… or fantasy baseball players

I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down.” –Warren Buffett

Collecting as much value (talented players) from as little possible resources (draft picks or auction dollars) is the key to starting off a winning fantasy season. From now until each draft, owners should be trying to calculate player values and the possible range of outcomes. With these value ranges in mind, owners can use their draft resources to get the best deals. It’s time to start finding those deals.

To find the bargains, player values first need to be calculated. To create the values, I will use the average final standings from the 32 leagues in the 2017 NFBC Main Event (15 team, 5×5 roto with AVG).

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Breakouts and busts. If there was a set procedure for finding both, it would have been found years ago and incorporated into projections. For now, all we have is the overall chances of either happening. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to put a simple value on these chances. I’ve completed the underperforming calculations and will now finish the overperforming metric. Additionally, I will compare both metrics to get an overall idea of the projection’s volatility.

In my last article, I found the breakout thresholds for plate appearances (222 PA) and wOBA (.040) and won’t change these values. Besides these two values, I determined who had both thresholds crossed and when both were partially achieved. The overperformance needed to increase near to the threshold values.

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The Auction Calculator is now loaded with the 2017 end-of-season data along with some 2018 projections. I’m sure the preceding comment will be sufficient to keep many readers busy for a while. I’m glad some came back. While its output can lead down several different discussion paths, I’m going to analyze what I consider to be the third starting pitcher tier. I feel many 2018 leagues will be won or lost by navigating this minefield.

So far this offseason, fantasy owners have placed four starters (Kluber, Kershaw, Sale, and Scherzer) in the top tier, After those four, I believe there are a dozen or so pitchers who would make acceptable aces, especially if they can be doubled up with another pitcher from this tier.

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My review of a recent Ottoneu dynasty prospect draft continues today with highlights from rounds 10 – 12.

Dynasty Prospect Draft Review: Rounds 1 – 3

Dynasty Prospect Draft Review: Rounds 4 – 6

Dynasty Prospect Draft Review: Rounds 7 – 9

This draft should help you “discover” a few prospect names to keep an eye on going forward.  If you have specific questions about players or the thought process of why they were selected, fire away in the comments section, as I’ve asked each owner in the league to be on standby to provide feedback as we review the rounds.

Before I review my own thoughts on the draft, you should know this Ottoneu league uses the “FanGraphs Points” scoring system based on linear weights, so offense is heavily slanted towards wOBA skills (and speed is almost a non-factor).  We also somewhat arbitrarily removed the Top 12 overall offensive prospects to save them for the standard 40-man auction next spring.  Otherwise, any minor league player without one (1) MLB PA or IP is eligible to be drafted. You can read more about the custom rules of this dynasty league here, and follow along with the draft here.

A few of the prospects below are also featured on the 2018 Top 100 Fantasy Prospects list.

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Happy Game 7 Day!

About a year ago I released my (2017) Top 50 Fantasy Prospect rankings using the Prospect Scorecard to weight a variety of important variables in the context of fantasy baseball.  Today I’m publishing an (early) expanded list of the Top 100 Fantasy Prospects for 2018 for both Ottoneu’s FanGraphs Points leagues (where wOBA is a key measure on offense) and Roto leagues (5 x 5).

A few quick notes before we begin:

• Since “Cost” is league-dependent (auction salary, keeper round, etc.), I’ve ignored it here for simplicity by keeping it constant for every prospect listed. Feel free to use the Scorecard to make changes that reflect true player costs for your league, which will impact these rankings.
• These rankings below are intended to represent the 100 most valuable prospects for fantasy leagues (depending on scoring format).
• It’s quite possible I’m missing an obvious player that should be ranked, so let me know in the comments.  We can discuss the specific rationale for player rankings in the comments, too.  Player ages are current ages.
• For a lot more prospect resources, check out the Ottoneu community.

Here are the (early) 2018 Top 100 prospects for the linear-weights-based FanGraphs Points scoring format (a good proxy for those in OBP leagues):

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