Ottoneu Keeper Omnibus
We’re going to do two things today. First, I am gathering all articles about Ottoneu keepers into one semi-sorted place. This should give you plenty of resources to prepare for Cut Day on January 31. We’ll also delve into more keeper related decisions in the next two weeks.
Please use the comments for any ottoneu keeper or roster construction questions. I would like to keep things focused on ottoneu and keepers, but we can delve into other subjects too.
One last reminder: it usually behooves you to hang onto all of your players until sometime near the keeper deadline. I may want to dump my $7 Jason Grilli today, but what if a shark eats Craig Kimbrel’s foot tomorrow?
Past Results
Deadline day fallout: 2012 edition.
Deadline day fallout: 2013 edition.
Deadline day fallout: 2014 edition.
Using the Roster Organizer
FAQ
Chad answers a few common questions related to the keeper deadline and draft plans.
Chad offers a five step guide for making your keeper decisions.
Chad’s detailed, 2014 update to his keeper deadline guide.
Chad and I usually discuss the FG Points format, but that’s just one of four possibilities. In this post, Chad compares player value in the other three formats.
Roster Examples
Brandon crowdsourced his latest rebuilding plans. This is a good one for owners with a lot of minor league components.
Brandon’s original rebuild in part one and part two.
Prospect Keepers
There are different prospect classes in ottoneu (or any league). Your decision to keep a prospect depends on your team and the type of prospect.
Behavioral Strategy
Watch out for the endowment effect.
You can follow me on twitter @BaseballATeam
How much cap space is too little to have available for the auction/season? Based on projections, I have one of the top teams in my league again, but my current roster construction leaves me with only about $50 of flexibility for the rest of the season and I’m worried about that.
I don’t think space matters, what matters is value. Pretty much every decision I make in trades or cuts comes down to my projected dollar value minus actual salary. If I have a $20 player signed for $23, that’s a negative player, trade him or cut him. Because your valuation of him is $20, you would stop bidding at $20. Trade him for even a $10 player that has a $8 salary. If every player on your roster has positive value, then it’s ok that you only have $50 available, but I find that hard to believe.
fwiw, I’ve bid $30 on a $20 player plenty of times. Sometimes you have to pay a bad price because the alternatives just aren’t acceptable.
It’s unrealistic to think that a) every player on your team can or needs to have “surplus” value and b) you can both read the market and evaluate a player so precisely that you know that you should keep a player at $20 and cut at $22 or $23. Prices are fluid because markets are ever-changing (and often irrational).
Right, a common pitfall is this notion of firm prices. Our methodologies are imperfect, our projections are far from perfectly accurate, and “value” changes based on who is available and the composition of your roster.
Ok, I hear Ya… But assuming position scarcity is built into your projected auction prices, I don’t understand why you would bid 150% of what you think he is worth. Why bother evaluating players and generating auction dollars if you are going to ignore them? This is the complete opposite of strategy.
Obviously nobody has perfect projections. But I think if you start with a composite of trusted sources, and then adjust based on your own judgement, generate auction prices based on those projections and position scarcity, then iI think I have the green light to start trading and cutting based on these auction prices. I have a few guys on my roster that are a dollar overpriced, but not much more than that. I think I have 20 guys that are all extremely well priced and will walk into my auction with $275 to spend.
“Pretty much every decision I make in trades or cuts comes down to my projected dollar value minus actual salary. If I have a $20 player signed for $23, that’s a negative player, trade him or cut him.”
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This
….is completely false.
The reason that surplus value is important in fantasy is because it allows you to pay over market rate for some players. if you only roster players who cost below market value, then 1) your team is very likely going to suck, and 2) you probably wont even be able to fill out a roster.
Think about it – if you have an entire 25 player roster full of $10 players, who only cost $2 each, you have built a team with a ton of surplus value. Probably the most in the league. But your team stinks and you ar not going to in anything.
I’d be interested to see Brad’s take, but IMO it depends on your roster. If you’re going in with 2-3 significant holes to fill in the auction, $50 probably isn’t enough. If you have players you like (at good prices) at every position and you just need roster filler and maybe 1-2 upgrades if the price is right, $50 is fine.
I disagree that it all comes down to value, though. Or rather, I think you need to look at a player’s value to your team, not just his value based on total stats. It’s great to have a $6 player you project for $10 of value, but if he’s your 7th outfielder and you’re probably only starting him 30 games or so, you’re really only getting $2 of use out of him. There’s value in keeping him around in case somebody gets hurt, but it’s also worth thinking about what else you could do with that money and that roster spot.
I wouldn’t worry too much about having money going into the season – in most leagues, anybody worth more than $1-2 is already rostered at the start of the year. So you only need more than a few bucks if you want to bid on newly-minted closers and April breakouts. By midseason, you’ll probably have some dead weight on your roster if you need to clear cap space.
It really depends on the specifics. I’ll probably be entering my own draft with about $50 and 6 or so spots to fill. I anticipate requiring only one substantial investment and a couple $1 relievers, the rest of my roster is full of depth. The remaining spots will be used for bargain hunting and accidental price enforcement wins.
If you find yourself needing a SS and a 2B and a OF and a C, then you might be in trouble. League type matters too. I suspect it’s harder to win a points league starting marginal talents than a 5×5.
As for in-season money, I enter the draft planning to spend every dollar (I usually don’t, but that’s the plan). You may miss a few early season bargains, but the supply of free cash tends to open up as soon as major players hit the DL. Then you can trade marginal talent for a couple bucks. For example, I traded Aaron Nola last season for something like $7.
For anyone who is interested. An ottoneu community has started on slack. The community has become a great place for all things ottoneu and has about 100 members currently. Here is a write up of the community with directions on how to join: https://ottoneutraderumors.wordpress.com/2015/01/08/ottoneucommunity-on-slack-com/
I believe valuation plays a part, but I think we give ourselves too much credit in a case where we are talking about three dollars over valued. At that point, the variables of supply at that position and limitation of resources has more influence in my opinion.
I agree wholeheartedly. Especially in a format like ottoneu where inflation can really hurt in the draft.
Ok, but wouldnt you agree that a player that is $3 overpriced is less valuable than a player that is $3 underpriced? Assuming they both have a positive auction price, and your valutation process is based on reasonable projections and adjusted for position scarcity?
If you hold all else equal, a $23 player worth $20 is less valuable than a $17 player worth $20. Let’s call both players Pablo Sandoval. I want to pay less than his projection.
But let’s say the next 3B on the board after Sandoval is Conor Gillaspie, and I can afford to roster a $23 player without hurting anything else on my roster. I would gladly pay the $3 premium in that event.
What you’re saying re: value is technically correct so long as we hold everything else constant. Since, in reality, nothing is held constant, a lot of additional variables are introduced into our decision making.
My issue I am finding is that in other leagues the question has always been, are you going to try for this year or next. In Ottoneu, you can look at a team and say, in two more years, they will be good. What is your strategy when you know you are that far away? When you have a bench full of promising studs, but you would have to dismantle that entirely to be competitive?
My first inclination is to say that you went about building your roster inefficiently. If you’re looking two years down the road, you’re prone to getting stuck in a development loop. See the Pirates and Royals.
Two teams in FG Staff Two are stuck in development mode. They need a lot of talent to click all at once to recover. Young players tend to have choppy production. If you do spike a stud but lack other pieces, arbitration will destroy his value.
My recommendation is to draft several extra-expensive players (Miggy for example) and then immediately shop them + cash for affordable, young, proven talent. Christian Yelich for example.
As a general rule, do you feel too much is made of surplus value? It is an important part of any players value (I don’t think anyone deny’s that) but many times I see less experienced owners who treat every decision as if it only comes down to surplus value.) In short, I see this as a mistake because the majority of a time you can’t build a team that is entirely below market prices. Sometimes acquiring more total points at market prices is better than having players who have more “surplus” but less total points expected from them.
To go further, if you do build surplus value in some areas – for example if you own a $36 Goldy – it can make sense to overpay to ensure another position produces good value. I’ll probably be doing that at either 3B or 2B.
At the end of the day, it’s points that matter. It’s still worth prioritizing surplus value, since that is how you keep a roster sustainable over multiple seasons.
How long do you think a rebuild should take? I believe any team can rebuild to top 6ish in 1 year by largely ignoring prospects.
It took me one full year to go from Summer Anne’s deep last place catastrophe to what I consider the early front runner for next season. I finished fifth while trading my win-now talent for keepers. Granted, I targeted players like Goldy, Puig, and Springer (who never played for me), so I still got some good numbers.
So, finishing in the top half of the league should be possible at all times. Rebuilding to true contender status should take about a year. You’ll need some prospects, but the purpose isn’t to fully develop them. They’re the grease you need to get certain trades done.
Midway through last season, I realized I was not going to win and traded money and anyone overpriced away to the top four teams. It left me with a very lean roster with about 7 guys like Noah Syndergaard, Buxton, Bundy, etc. Seven good value current players (cheap Sonny Gray, Iwakuma, Bautista, Kipniss, etc) and 8 young filler guys. I have 20 rosters spots filled and 250 to spend at auction.
To the Question, sorry. Basically I feel like this is a team that is between years. I can eather sell high on the valuable current players, or sell low on future talent and maybe have a shot at this year when combined with overpaying for talent in the auction. Seen this before? What is the pitfall that I am not seeing? Strategy?
It’s a tough position. My recommendation is to try to contend via the draft while holding most of your future value. Be sure to grab an elite talent or two that can return a highly valuable piece in-season. You’ll have to decide mid-season if you want to contend or rebuild. You may wind up doing both if the right offers are out there.
If you do rebuild, focus on major league talent on cheap contracts rather than prospects. You already have a goodly batch of those. Don’t be too stingy about trading prospects if somebody is begging. Sometimes, saying no several times will lead a rival to offer a useful keeper who is already performing near the prospect’s upside.
I wouldn’t mind a little advice on whether I should keep Zobrist at $29. I have Aybar at $5 but no other middle infielders. I also have only 3 outfielders (need 3 more), and Zobrist is eligible for all 3 of those positions. Those are all of the holes on my team and I have $82 and 10 open roster spots for the draft and a ton of prospects I could move (Bryant, Seager, Correa, Buxton, T Walker, Bundy, A Bradley, and several more). I know that it is hard to be sure without knowing all the details of my team and my league, but I wouldn’t mind the first impressions of the crowd as far as Zobrist at $29. I’m leaning toward cutting him. He was worth 741 points last year.
With his flexibility, you should be able to find a decent trade. It sounds like you’re trying to rebuild this year. Zobrist could be good for you since his flexibility will help you survive punting 10 roster spots.
Your position prospects are impressive – I would keep them unless somebody made a very strong offer. Pitchers are always more fungible in a league of this depth, so they would be the first assets I’d try to trade if you want to compete this season.
I just took over a team with very strong pitching and not that great hitting. I’ve been going back and forth with another owner about a big trade. I’m okay with most pieces of it but there is one part I’m not sure about. In the trade I’d be giving up Chris Sale ($34), but getting back Cueto ($24). I’m curious to hear opinions on Cueto vs Sale at those values. Other parts of the trade, I’d be giving up an $18 Rusney Castillo, $40 Darvish and some bits and pieces and I’m getting back Ellsbury ($25), Derek Norris ($3) and Utley ($20- I have a big MI need). Overall the deal saves me about $30 in cap space. Curious to hear some opinions.