“Death, taxes and fantasy baseball ADP attrition.” — Benjamin Franklin, probably

In his infinite, albeit cryptic, wisdom, Ben sagely alluded to a particularly critical truth: about 40% of the rosters you draft this March will turn over during the season.

Indeed, whether it’s by poor performance or injury, about two in every five players will be bad (or injured) enough to warrant being replaced by another. Some will generate enough value to justify owning but not doing so at their respective costs. It’s inevitable, unavoidable — no one drafts a perfect team, period. The only thing you can hope to do is (1) maximize your return on investment (ROI), and (2) minimize your risk.

For this exercise, I compare FantasyPros’ composite average draft positions (ADP) to their end-of-season (EOS) rankings for 2015. (If you happen to know where I can find historical ADP data, or if you happen to have some on hand and are willing to share, please let me know!)

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Am I keeping too many players?  This is a question I am constantly asking myself as the Ottoneu keeper deadline approaches. Typically, Ottoneu leagues keep over 200 players (around 230-240) but what is the optimal amount?  Certainly it’s extremely league dependent, but is there a general way we can get an idea of how many players actually should be kept? First, we need to answer a couple questions.

Why does it matter if I keep too many players?

 Ottoneu championships can be difficult to win. If you want to increase your odds in the offseason, the main way to do so is to acquire players who are underpaid via offseason trades. These surplus assets allow you to enter the auction with more flexibility, often allowing you to purchase more talent at market value than your rivals. However, trading for surplus assets is only half the battle. Throughout my 4 years playing Ottoneu, I have witnessed many teams trade for surplus talent only to “waste” the benefit they receive from these players by keeping overpaid or marginal players.  The two often negate each other.  We want to trade for underpaid players, but we also want to be conscious of the impact of keeping overpaid players.

Let’s say that you currently own Francisco Lindor at a $10 salary and you believe he is worth $15 (a $5 underpay).  On the same team, you also own Salvador Perez at $8 and Brandon Phillips at $6 (both of whom you think are worth $3). Perez and Phillips combine to be overpaid by $8. This a simple example for convenience, but the net impact of owning these 3 players is to overpay the group by $3.  Each non-surplus asset owned counteracts the surplus assets you have worked hard all offseason to acquire. Owning a $10 Lindor is fun, removing the benefit you receive from a $10 Lindor before the annual auction even occurs is far less fun.

How many players should be kept?

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So, what is Ottoneu?

Ottoneu is a smarter, better brand of fantasy baseball.  By design, it’s a fantasy platform engineered for the hardcore baseball fan that doesn’t enjoy the term “off season”.  Ottoneu is the perfect fit for FanGraphs readers looking to join a competitive fantasy baseball league with a lot of cool features, a sabermetric-economy, and a massive community of raving fans.

You can read first-year feedback from Ottoneu players here.  You can also learn a lot more about the game from the FAQ, but here are the top 10 reasons you should consider joining or moving your fantasy baseball league to Ottoneu this year:

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Looking over some recent real and mock fantasy drafts, one name which is coming up as a potential sleeper is Jose Reyes. His fantasy value is unknown with his projected value being quite a bit different than the position he is being taken in fantasy drafts. Dan Swartz had him ranked 34th using Steamer projections while he was actually going 151st in NFBC drafts. The reason for the huge difference comes down to his pending criminal charges for domestic abuse. While the legal, ramifications may take a while to go to court, MLB has enacted a new domestic violence policy which has yet to be tested. I can see why people are reluctant to draft Reyes. Well, here is an attempt to put a reasonable fantasy value on him for 2016.

Estimating games missed

To get the expected games suspended, I went with two methods to find the answer, asking the crowd and asking the expert. Both sources generally agree with the time missed.

For the crowd, I asked my Twitter followers how much time they expected Reyes to be suspended. Most people put the value between 25 and 50 games with an average value near 35 games.

Then I moved on to FanGraphs legal expert Nathaniel Grow. When I asked him how he expected the situation to play out, here is his response.

While Reyes’ status remains uncertain, a suspension somewhere in the 25-50 game range would probably be a reasonable, conservative estimate of the punishment he is likely to face from the league.

So somewhere between 25 and 50 games, which is around where the crowd put the number. I will take the view of a conservative owner and go with a 50 game suspension to figure out his value. If an owner wants to take a chance, they could assume fewer days missed.

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The ottoneu Slack community continues to be a great place to discuss strategy, get feedback, and more. One of the more active channels is Trade Review, where you can talk about ongoing trade discussions and get feedback from the crowd, and on that channel, there tend to be two camps in this off-season window – those who only care about player values and those who care about roster construction.

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That headline is not the slogan for Twitter, but it could be!

I got home from softball last night and really wanted to draft a baseball team. I wasn’t sure if anyone else was feeling the same, but figured I’d see if Twitter could fill up a mock draft over at CouchManagers and I was surprised when it filled in minutes. I was just doing their default setup which I didn’t realize was a non-standard roster construction of 18 rounds: C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, OF, OF, OF, UT, P, P, P, P, P, and Bench x4. To be honest I was a little bummed by that because I don’t play in any leagues with that format making it tough to draw much from the exercise.

So I decided to set up a second draft to run concurrently that ran a standard 23 rounds with the usual C, C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, CI, MI, OF, OF, OF, OF, OF, UT, P x9. I figured the first draft would be just a feeling out of where players are going very generally while the other draft would offer a better idea of team construction and give a bit more info about the market. By the way, I’ll be doing more evening (and even some midday) mocks over at CouchManagers during the winter so stay tuned on Twitter for info.

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If you don’t have an issue with position scarcity adjustments, then I already furnished 2016 Fantasy Baseball Rankings with Steamer Projections and highlighted sleepers last week.

Naturally, position scarcity remains an argument, but there is one solid way around the argument: find the best value (projections relative to average draft position) within the scarcer positions and prebuild a roster with options heading into the draft; then you can focus on best available value and not position scarcity. I will explain and provide options below.

Below, is an embedded file of updated (1.5.2016) NESN NFBC Average Draft Position and Rotochamp Composite projections (Rotochamp & Steamer). This time, I did not adjust the rankings for position scarcity. Everyone is ranked simply by their relative value (hitters to all other hitters and pitchers to all other pitchers). That value is then compared to ADP. I also included the sorting capability so that you can manipulate the file:

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My ottoneu rivals are conspiring against me. Not really, it just feels that way because several have reached a conclusion that is not beneficial to me. Luckily, I have some options. And if those don’t work, I have one final spiteful course of action available.

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Before agreeing to join Chad Young in the management of his dynasty franchise, I had never really co-managed a team. There were a few situations in which I drafted a team and handed it over (and vice versa) but never a true collaborative process. In a properly deep league (like dynasty), having an associate is an enjoyable experience.

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It was a busy Tuesday at the Winter Meetings. Starlin Castro and Shelby Miller were traded, Ben Zobrist signed with the Cubs, previous signings were officially announced, and other talks progressed closer to the finish line. So, here’s the question, what can the hot stove teach us fantasy baseball aficionados?

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