Ottoneu Hot Right Now: March 31, 2026

Hot Right Now (HRN) is a weekly Ottoneu feature focused on popular players currently being auctioned or players who you should think about auctioning in your Ottoneu leagues. Even if you don’t play Ottoneu, we’ll be highlighting players you should be looking at in deeper and keeper formats. In this feature, we will break down players into two sections:

1. Current Auctions: A closer look at players being auctioned at a high rate.
2. Hot Performers: Players with a high P/G or P/IP over the last 14 days who are also rostered in 80% of leagues or less. (I won’t include this section until we’re a few weeks into the regular season.)

The RotoGraphs Ottoneu team plans to run this feature weekly, updating fantasy managers on the biggest movers in Ottoneu leagues with an analysis of how these players could or could not help your roster.

Current Auctions

Emerson Hancock — 146 current auctions — 12.8% roster%

Emerson Hancock threw the best start of his career to open the 2026 season, blanking the Guardians over six hitless innings while setting a career high for strikeouts with nine. Despite being the sixth overall pick in the 2020 draft and working his way through Seattle’s vaunted pitching development pipeline, Hancock has struggled across parts of three seasons in the big leagues. Coming into this season, his career FIP was sitting over five with just a 15.6% strikeout rate.

Hancock had a pretty good spring training as he worked on honing his pitch mix; he struck out 21 across 15 innings of work in Arizona. The improvements were evident in his performance on Sunday evening. The biggest difference for him was a four-seamer that featured nearly three inches of added IVB and a sweeper that featured more than an inch and a half of added horizontal break. We don’t have arm angle data yet in this young season, but I suspect that the new movement profile on Hancock’s pitches is thanks to a slightly lower arm slot. He’s lowered his arm angle pretty significantly over the last two years and his release height was a few inches lower in his start on Sunday.

The issue with Hancock is opportunity. He’s getting this shot in the starting rotation because Bryce Miller started the year on the IL with an oblique injury which will keep him sidelined into May. Of course, Hancock made 16 starts last year because four of the five Mariners’ starters spent time on the IL during the season. Hancock looks like he’s finally made the adjustments he needed to to become a successful big league pitcher, and for now, he’ll have a spot in Seattle’s rotation to prove that he can stick.

Cole Sands — 87 current auctions — 21.3% roster%

The first save of the season for the Twins went to Cole Sands on Saturday. He walked one and struck out two en route to closing out a 3-1 win over the Orioles. The ninth inning picture in Minnesota was very unclear this offseason and Sands was one of the primary candidates to pick up saves alongside Taylor Rogers and Justin Topa.

Like I said in this column last week, you don’t have to go chasing saves in Ottoneu leagues (non-5×5 leagues, anyway) which means we’re free to evaluate relief pitchers on their skills rather than their role. For Sands, the 29.1% strikeout rate he ran in 2024 definitely looks like the outlier; the 21.4% mark matched what he ran in 2023 and it was a few points lower than that in his debut year in ‘22. He’s got solid command but doesn’t have the overpowering stuff you’d normally see from a high-leverage reliever. I’m not sure there’s anyone better in the Twins bullpen right now, so Sands could definitely run away with the ninth inning job early this season.

Randy Vásquez — 64 current auctions — 11.7% roster%

The big story for Randy Vásquez this spring was a huge jump in velocity. We saw the effects of that extra oomph in his first start against the Tigers on Saturday; six scoreless innings with eight strikeouts. His fastball averaged 95.0 mph after sitting around 93.5 mph last year, and his sinker, curveball, sweeper, and changeup all saw similar jumps in velocity as well. The only pitch that wasn’t thrown harder was his cutter and that pitch had a completely different movement profile. It was a bit flatter with a couple of inches of added horizontal movement and Vásquez earned three whiffs on seven swings against that pitch (a 43% whiff rate). I’m also encouraged by the added velocity on his breaking balls; he earned a combined four whiffs off his curveball and sweeper.

The extra velocity is great to see, but batters will adjust to the added heat on his fastball. I’m interested to see if his breaking balls have turned into swing-and-miss weapons and if the cutter is going to be more effective now that it’s acting more like a hard slider. We could be witnessing a pretty significant step forward from Vásquez but you might want to wait a week to see if he can prove it against a tough Red Sox lineup this weekend. If you have to make a bid now, bid conservatively and be cautious in using him against Boston.

Jordan Romano — 55 current auctions — 42.0% roster%

Everything I said about Sands and high-leverage opportunities above could be copied and pasted here for Jordan Romano. At least with Romano, you have the long history of success in the ninth inning earlier in his career. Injuries derailed his career back in 2024 and he was pretty terrible in 2025 for the Phillies. His fastball velocity is actually a tick lower than it was last year at just 94.6 mph. It’s really early, but that isn’t encouraging. What is encouraging is the amount of carry he’s getting on his heater. The pitch is seeing nearly two inches of added IVB this year and a lot less armside movement. His release height is a few inches higher which seems to have given his four-seamer much purer backspin.

The Angels signed a bunch of veteran relievers this offseason — including Romano, Kirby Yates, and Drew Pomeranz — and that trio should be in the mix for saves until Ben Joyce returns from the IL. If Romano has truly turned back time and figured out how to make his fastball more effective despite his reduced velocity, he could be a solid pick up. The down tick in velocity worries me, however, and I’d want to wait to see if he’s really back to his old self before chasing him.

Luke Raley — 42 current auctions — 11.1% roster%

Luke Raley blasted home runs in three straight games to start the season, a very good sign for his health. An April oblique injury shelved Raley for two months last year and his swing was never right even after returning during the second half of the season. It’s pretty easy to diagnose what the underlying problem was. Even though his contact quality stayed relatively stable, his swing speed dropped from 75.0 mph to 73.8 mph after his injury. Through four games this year — a small sample to be sure — his swing speed is back up to 74.3 mph.

If you remember his breakout season in 2023 or his equally fantastic follow up in ‘24, you know that Raley can be a solid contributor in leagues with deep rosters like Ottoneu. The Mariners will utilize him in a pretty strict platoon so he won’t provide everyday at-bats for your fantasy team. When he’s in the lineup, he’s been productive, and it looks like his swing is back to normal after last year’s disaster.