How OF Depth has Made OF Shallow for Ottoneu

Sunday morning, at 7 am (which felt like 6 after springing forward), I sat down at my computer, started the auction for Ottoneu league 1199 and immediately dropped $88 on Juan Soto. Spending $88 on one player isn’t something I would typically do and (as much as I would like to) I can’t blame the early hour. When prepping for the draft a couple of days earlier, I had put $90 as a target price for Soto…and then upped it to $95. $88 wasn’t me panicking, sleep-bidding, or just going all out to get my guy – it was very much the plan. And it’s all because OF has become so deep that it’s shallow.

That sounds non-sensical and maybe it is, in fact, non-sensical, but it is a pattern I have noticed in all of my drafts this spring.

I don’t do many re-draft leagues, but I am doing one this year and I did a mock draft for a redraft league in the winter and it has stood out to me how deep OF feels. There are guys going 10th-20th among OF that I am happy to have as my best OF.  There are guys going outside the top 50 OF that I really like. Throughout drafts, I have found I can wait and get guys I like later.

But then I get into an Ottoneu auction or a keeper league draft in year 2+ of a league and the OF situation feels dire. This is what happened on Sunday, where I needed top-end OF talent and my choices were Juan Soto, Seiya Suzuki, Luis Robert Jr., or Brandon Nimmo. It only got worse from there.

And so I paid up to get Soto.

So what gives? Why is OF so deep in redraft and so shallow in keeper formats? Obviously the keepers are the why, but typically speaking if a position is deep, it is deep and if it is shallow, it is shallow. This is true at shortstop (there are plenty in redraft and even in keeper leagues I have no issue getting one when I need one) and at catcher (barren everywhere), but not outfield.

Let’s look at last years top scoring OF by total FanGraphs Points:

• Aaron Judge – high priced, but did what we wanted and then some and is probably being kept most places
• Juan Soto – same as Judge
• Yordan Alvarez – same as Judge and Soto
• Jarren Duran – breakout player who vastly outperformed his salary and was likely kept most places
• Brent Rooker – was a breakout the year before but still way to inexpensive to be cut most places
• Kyle Schwarber – Falls into the Judge/Soto/Alvarez category but is typically a lot cheaper than those three, too
• Jurickson Profar – another breakout
• Teoscar Hernandez – not exactly a breakout, but saw a big salary correction after 2023, so he was mostly a keeper this year
• Anthony Santander – put up his best season so his price is likely lower than his value

Jackson Merrill broke out, Riley Greene is still cheap, Corbin Carroll rebounded, Brenton Doyle broke out, Jackson Chourio broke out.

I am going to stop there but the list goes on and on. The OF bats that made the top tier at the position so deep were basically all keepers in many leagues. And this continues down the list. Some of my favorite mid-to-low-tier targets – Matt Wallner, Tyler O’Neill, Parker Meadows, Heliot Ramos, among others – are low-price players already likely rostered by managers who like and planned to keep them.

Then look at the most disappointing OF in 2024 – Fernando Tatis Jr. missed time, struggled, but then rebounded late and a lot of managers (myself included) are in on him for a big 2025. Kyle Tucker missed a ton of time – possibly enough that he was cut and re-auctioned last year, lowering his salary – but I don’t think people’s expectations for him are lowered. Christian Yelich lost the end of the year to injury, which meant there was time for him to be cut and re-auctioned at a keeper price.

Basically, every category of OF that makes me excited about the position overall is filled with guys who were probably keepers.

And that is what I have seen in my leagues. I started auction season thinking OF would be among the easiest positions to fill, because there are so many names I like, but every auction I prepare for, I find the depth I expected just isn’t there.

So I have changed my tune on OF. In my more recent auctions, I have set high prices for my OF targets and tried to ensure my budget allowed me to react to the market. Because, at least in my leagues, the market for OF reflects the lack of depth – everyone is paying high prices to get their guys and there aren’t that many guys available to go get.

Plan accordingly – expect big prices for OF, even your sleeper and late-auction flyers – and be ready to pay up if you need help at that position.