Fantasy Roster Building, Two Ways

Today, I’ve prepared for you a fantasy roster served two ways. The first is a reduction of ottoneu with a head-to-head sauce. For the second, I took advantage of the manager’s special on expiring meats to plate a premium meal on a budget. Enjoy.

Ottoneu H2H: New Meta Alert

Right before the keeper deadline, our insidious overlord David Appelman informed the FanGraphs Staff league of a change – we were switching to the new H2H format. Given that said format was still not finalized at the time, making last minute strategic trades was… challenging. I know I made a few mistakes such as trading Jordan Montgomery to patch my vacant shortstop spot with Tim Beckham. I panicked.

In this case, I’m not going to share my pre- or post-draft rosters. If you’re curious, click the above link and navigate to Brad’s Hand. Yes, my team name references a pitcher on my roster while invoking my actual first name. Additionally, depending on your perspective, you may or may not see it as a reference to Game of Thrones and/or masturbation. Layers!

Like basically all fantasy games, ottoneu FGpts formats are all about balancing volume and quality. In the classic, non-H2H version of ottoneu, I’m obsessed with avoiding average, high volume players. To win a 12-team league, one must patronize only the crème de la crème. Use CC Sabathia or Billy Hamilton too many times and you will lose. Sure, it’s absolutely necessary to hit all of your games played and innings pitched caps. You must also do it in style. I think of it as one part volume, three parts quality.

The H2H format forces me to consider a new approach. We’re limited to just two starting pitcher slots which means we have a maximum of 14 starts per week. While we’re still held to 162 games played per position, there is now no cap to innings pitched.

You see where I’m going, right? I want to make 14 starts every week, regardless of pitcher quality. Fourteen starts times six innings per start times three points per inning is 252 points. That’s basically the worst case scenario. A team making 10 starts at four points per inning only earns 240 points. Functionally, my scrublord rotation will earn well over 300 points per week. My offense, led by Mike Trout and Paul Goldschmidt should be competitive.

Here are the pitchers in question.

Everybody who cost more than $5 was kept. I opted to draft cheap pitchers who can average six innings per outing. A few even have some modest upside like Porcello, Nova, Williams, and McCarthy. I’ll supplement this group with more in-season additions. I kept $25 unspent to ensure I can adjust to unforeseen consequences of the new format.

Price Enforcement as Drafting Strategy

In my home league, I kept a number of well-priced assets. I was left with $99 to spend on 14 players. You can view my team and associated costs – I’m Benintendo 64. The “K” symbol indicates a keeper.

The original plan was to lock down a star like Clayton Kershaw then chew on whatever leftovers reached the end of the draft. A combination of early draft enthusiasm coupled with relatively small budgets led me to expect considerable mid-draft value. I quickly pivoted from seeking a star to a price enforcement approach.

We’ve all been in the spot where a +1 bid on an underpriced player turns into an auction win. Often, it’s somebody we didn’t intend to win. It’s easy to wind up rattled when our best laid plans are interrupted by accidentally winning a player.

However, in the right setting, price enforcement can be a useful strategy for acquiring under-appreciated talent. Here are the players I won, only a few of which were intentional targets.

I meant to acquire Fowler, Rosario, Winker, Belt, and Sanchez. The rest kind of just fell into my lap via price enforcement (and in the case of Soler, too much beer). One detail to note is the tiny quirk – it’s a two catcher 5×5 OPS league. Feeling better about Zunino now?

Surprisingly, the players landing in my lap are balanced talents. Puig shouldn’t steal bases, and yet, he does. Similarly, Braun can’t help running despite poor success rates. Fowler runs too. All three also exhibit power (HR and OPS) and have a valuable lineup role for run production.

On the pitching side, I was tickled to land a heaping helping of wins and strikeouts in the form of McCullers and Tanaka. The Toronto pitchers are a touch risky, but who can complain about this cost? Anderson will hopefully maintain velocity gains from last season while winning 12 or more games. Recent news about Claudio being used as only a part-time closer is a bummer. However, I kept three closers so this doesn’t sting… much. And nothing is set in stone in Texas.