Ottoneu 101: 2016 Streaming Schedule

In recent articles, I’ve mentioned several times that Ottoneu uses a soft innings cap of 1,500 for the season. This allows you to go past the the cap on the day you reach it. (This is hardly specific to Ottoneu as Yahoo uses the same rules with innings caps). However, given the point structure many Ottoneu leagues implement there is an inherent advantage of pitching more innings that does not exist in 5×5 or 4×4 leagues. In 4×4 or 5×5 you could maybe boost your W, SV, or K (counting stats), but you could also lower your ratios if the stack of pitchers you employ have a sub-par outing. FanGraphs and SABR points leagues are a little different. In points leagues, as long as a pitcher doesn’t go negative (perform very badly) you will accrue points just by pitching more innings. As we enter the final week of the season I wanted to provide a list of all probable pitchers till the end of the year to help your schedule out those final 50-80 innings.

This is subject to change, as I’m sure several pitchers will have their start dates adjusted or pushed back. Currently, I have marked the unannounced starters as TBD (they are highlighted). This has been pulled from MLB.com and CBSsports probable pitcher lists. A couple things to note:

There are 142 remaining games, and the only days without a full slate of games are September 26th (10 games) and 29th (12 games). It will be harder to stream a stack of pitchers on these days if any matchups change.

Note the game times. Because of the 40-man rosters within Ottoneu, you probably have a couple players you could cut to pick up a pitcher. If you didn’t want to make a cut, you could start a pitcher at an earlier time slot. Next, schedule the pick up a pitcher with a game start time later in the day and cut the pitcher who has already started an earlier game. For example, I could start Tyler Duffy on September 30 at 3:30 ET, while having an auction for Brad Peacock ending at 4:00 ET the same day. I could pick up Peacock, and cut Duffy (who is already frozen into his lineup spot) and then start Peacock in his 10:10 ET game.

The scenario I mentioned above is not the most ideal, considering some owners will be hyper aggressive in trying to block streamers. Because of this you may want to pick up a couple of players a day or two in advance of their start times (which would require you to start an auction 3-4 days in advance).

If you can employ a stack of 5 SP on your last day, you’re probably looking at 100-250 extra points. That can make a big difference, especially if you can block pitchers from your rivals. I would keep a close eye on pitchers who go up for auction (see if you notice multiple guys pitching the same day put up for auction) and be prepared to use your remaining free agent budget to keep those innings away from those closest to you in the standings. If you have any questions on streaming to the end of the year, let’s discuss in the comments. Hope this helps and Happy streaming.

One Last note: The deadline to start an auction in Ottoneu is September 30th at 11:59PM ET. Auctions cannot continue into the offseason, so if you wanted to pick up anyone before rosters freeze, you will need to do it before October 1st.