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The World Series is a chance to perform on a national platform like no other in the baseball world. Sure, the Red Sox have a ton of nationally televised games throughout the year and a nation of faithful fans, but the Cardinals don’t always get all of the hype they deserve. With a chance to prove themselves, players can see their fantasy value boosted up a couple dollars for the following year just by playing well in front of a large audience. With the 2013 season officially over, let’s take a look at some of the players who benefited from their run in the playoffs.

David Ortiz
68 PA, .353/.500/.706
Papi’s playoff performance wasn’t a breakout or anything, but it may have assured the world that the 37-year-old isn’t done yet. Although his regular season performance likely should have assured some owners, some are just waiting for signs that Big Papi will fall off the cliff and hit like his did in 2009. There are no signs yet, other than the age on his birth certificate.

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Well there was one rumor that Brandon Phillips would get traded to the Braves, but then the Braves insisted that Dan Uggla be a part of the deal and we haven’t heard that trade rumor again in a while. So no, the title isn’t about flocking south for the Winter or a trade rumor, the title is about the fact that Brandon Phillips is post-peak. Decidedly so.

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We are still a few weeks from the arbitration deadline, but owners are starting to get their allocations (and votes, where applicable) in. My three leagues all use the allocation system, and there are some interesting patterns emerging in the allocations so far.

So far, 16 teams have completed their allocations across the three leagues, while three other teams have allocated $11 of their $25 (those teams are all mine, actually, and I can explain why I did that).

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For the last few months, a debate has been raging at ottoneu headquarters* about how to handle the innings pitched cap. See, games played is relatively simple – if your 1B plays your 162nd game today, you cannot start him tomorrow.

But when you have 1495 IP and have multiple starters and relievers set to go the next day, things can get a bit hairy. We’ve landed on a decision to use a soft cap and I’d like to give some insight into a) why we made this call and b) why you shouldn’t really care all that much.

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Look backwards at the catchers this year, and you’ll notice that two of the top catchers will lose their catching eligibility this offseason. So move everyone up two slots before you even begin to project next year’s crop. Down in the teens, you’ll find a couple that are approaching 40, and a couple that struggle to hit at the Mendoza Line in a good year. And then, at number twenty despite only 428 plate appearances, you’ll find the Cubs’ catcher: Welington Castillo. He’s on the fringe, but he’s capable of moving up and the table is set for him.

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When tasked with choosing an MVP and an LVP, I decided to look at my own teams to see if there were any players in common on my good teams and any players in common on my bad teams. Of the six mixed leagues I played in, I had finishes of first, third, fourth, fourth, seventh and ninth. The only player that was on all four of my top four teams was Anibal Sanchez. While my two crappy teams had some similarities in terms of roster construction, one of the only players that was on both teams was Jarrod Parker. But it wouldn’t be fair if I failed to point out that my first round picks in those bad leagues were Matt Kemp and Albert Pujols. That definitely hurt me more than Parker did. Read the rest of this entry »

Francisco Liriano made $1 million for the Pittsburgh Pirates this year in base salary. He can earn up to $3.75 million more based on incentives he almost surely hit, but the fact remains that the Pirates paid less than the price of a win for a three-win pitcher.

In purely economic terms, he was one of the most valuable contracts in baseball, especially if rookie deals are excluded.

He also provided a massive value for fantasy owners who were risk-seeking enough to enlist his services late in drafts or early in the year on the waiver wire.
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Earlier this week, Zach Sanders shared end of year fantasy rankings, providing a position-adjusted view of who provided the most (Chris Davis) and least (Barry Zito) value among qualified players in typical 5×5 roto leagues. This is extremely helpful information for those in 5×5 roto leagues, still helpful but maybe not extremely helpful for those who play in other formats.

What I’d like to look at is how the ottoneu end of season player rankings compare.

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Thanks to Zach Sanders, we have a retroactive fantasy leaderboard for value last year. Which is cool. But what if we could take away the resources we had to invest in those players? A first-rounder who returns fifth-round value is, after all, still a loser.

Thanks to FantasyPros, we can actually do this. They have an aggregate ADP from last March. If we just take the ordinal rank from our retroactive value board, and subtract the average ADP value, we get a ‘net’ value. Pretty easy.

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With the fantasy baseball season coming to an end, we can all now sit back, relax and enjoy the MLB playoffs. If you’ve got a dog in this hunt, I wish you nothing but the best. If not, then pick someone you’ll at least enjoy watching should they win the whole thing. This should be a fun October. But in the meantime, it’s my turn to step up and review the 10 Bold Predictions I made back in late March. I felt pretty good about them going in, and here’s how they ended up coming out… Read the rest of this entry »