Ottoneu Cold Right Now: Most Cut Players

I regularly check in on the players who are being auctioned in a large number of leagues, but of course, there is the other end of the spectrum – players who are being let go in high numbers. Today, we’ll look at some players being dropped widely and determine whether there is any reason to try to buy in while others are jumping ship.

To start, the most common set of players being dropped are injured players. The five position players with largest decreases in roster percentage over the last seven days are all recent additions to the IL: Josh Naylor, Willie Calhoun, Freddy Galvis, Taylor Walls, and Adam Eaton. As is typically the case, these players are not being dropped merely for injury reasons, as none are performing particularly well. Galvis leads the group with a paltry 4.0 points per game on the season, but there are players in this group worth watching as they heal.

Naylor’s injury was particularly bad and may mean his season is over, but there were some really positive signs before he went down. Since May 28, roughly his last month before the injury, his wRC+ was 106; nothing spectacular, but very good, particularly for an inexpensive OF-eligible bat. Since May 14, his last two weeks, he has a 141 wRC+, which is kinda spectacular. His last eight starts, he put up 56 points, or 7 points per game, in Ottoneu. There is no guarantee he comes back soon or strong from this injury. And there is no guarantee that what he was starting to put together in June will continue when he does come back, but I thought he was a good upside play in April and I still think that is true today. Especially if he goes on the 60 day IL and can be rostered without using a spot, I would consider picking him up for $1 or $2, if I can.

The same can’t really be said of Willie Calhoun. While he is also young, also highly-regarded, and may also have a bright future, his last month he had a 77 wRC+ and his last two weeks, it was 78. That doesn’t mean he’s done as a useful fantasy player, but he wasn’t showing the progress you’d like to see. He controls the zone well, and his contact quality is decent, as shown by a .339 xwOBA, so there is still a lot to like, but that contact quality was going down, not up, as the season went on.

Galvis and Eaton sort of are what they are – neither is going to win you a title, both are perfectly adequate bench depth, and there is no reason to go get either of them right now.

Walls is perhaps the most interesting. He wasn’t widely rostered before the season, had a really nice start in Triple-A, got picked up in a ton of leagues when he was called up, really struggled, and now got hurt. If you were high on him before, there is no reason to write him off over 95 plate appearances, but you have to wonder where he fits in long term. With Wander Franco up, Vidal Brujan coming, Xavier Edwards killing Double-A and Greg Jones doing the same in High-A, Walls may not have a better shot than the one he just had. I am out for now.

Danny Santana, Yermin Mercedes, Brad Miller, and Jurickson Profar are the three most-dropped position players who aren’t on the IL, and honestly, I don’t see a lot of reason to grab any of them. Santana’s 2019 looks more and more like a fluke and his playing time is sporadic at best. If he starts playing every day, I can see a case for him as an end-of-the-bench guy for an Ottoneu Prestige League team, due to his positional flexibility, but otherwise, there is nothing there.

As good a story as Mercedes was to start the year, he’s not a regular part of the Sox lineup anymore, and he isn’t doing anything when he does play. He hasn’t hit a HR since May 27, and his wRC+ since then is 8. That is not a typo. It is not 78 or 58, or even 18. Just 8. I was skeptical of Mercedes when he came up, so maybe this is just confirmation bias, but I see no reason to roster him.

Miller and Profar, meanwhile, are playing most days, thanks to being on National League rosters where they can occasionally take some cuts as a PH for the pitcher spot, but they aren’t doing much more than that, and they aren’t scoring when they do. Dating back to June 18, about two weeks, they have a combined 6.3 points. Total. If either of them got an everyday job, you could see them turning things around, but I’ll wait to see it – I am not rostering them now.

Among pitchers, again the injury bug strikes, as the top six most-cut players includes four on the IL – Mike Soroka, Zack Britton, Michael Fulmer, and César Valdez. Soroka is not only done for the year but quite possibly most of next year, as well, which makes him hard to stash. He’s on the 60-day IL, but at an average price of more $10, it’s hard to see holding him. As his price comes down and we get clarity on his timeline, I could see holding him at $3-$5, but he’s risky and you likely won’t learn much until after you have to make a decision to keep him for 2022. I’m not going to buy.

Britton was not particularly good after coming back from the IL the first time, but this is still a reliever with elite stuff and an extreme ground ball rate that boosts his value in Ottoneu, where HR are so costly. If you can grab him when he returns for less than $5, I think you can get a very good reliever at a very good cost.

Fulmer doesn’t have Britton’s track record but looked pretty solid this year, before his latest IL stint. There isn’t a lot of clarity on his timeline yet, but Fulmer is going on a lot of my watchlist. I want to see how he pitches when he comes back before using up a roster spot on him.

Valdez was never a great Ottoneu play, given the lack of strikeouts, and he was already losing save opportunities before he was hurt. I wasn’t in before, and I am definitely not now.

The pure-performance drops among SP include Garrett Richards, Dylan Bundy, and Carlos Martinez. The first and the third are guys I am not sure anyone ever trusted, so it isn’t surprising to see managers bailing at signs of struggle. Martinez has simply not taken to starting the way the Cardinals had to hope he would, and I wonder if a return to the pen could be in the future. I would be more inclined to pick him up if he were in a high leverage bullpen role.

Meanwhile, Richards appears to be struggling badly since MLB started the crackdown on “sticky stuff.” Whether that is related or whether he is simply going through a rough stretch isn’t something I want to comment on, but given his struggles, his injury history, and the relatively unexciting ceiling he was producing before this bad stretch, I don’t think I would jump on him just yet. If he puts a good start or two together, I might grab him as a spot-starter in good matchups, but that is about it.

Bundy is different, as his talent combined with a stellar 2020 had a lot of people buying him as a reliable SP near the top of a fantasy rotation. Instead, he has been terrible. There is some evidence of an injury that may be hampering him, and maybe that is all that is holding him back. If he is being dropped in my leagues, I would be picking him up. I might not start him immediately, but in Ottoneu, you have should have the depth to wait him out. And the payoff could be big.