Ottoneu: These Players Are More Valuable In Points Leagues

It’s always good to remind yourself of your league’s scoring system before you start a re-draft for the season. If you’re like me and you play in multiple fantasy baseball leagues with multiple scoring systems, things can get a little blended together. Here are some really important points to remember when comparing Ottoneu points and standard roto:

Standard 5×5 roto leagues:
– Home runs are always going to come along with a hit, a run, and an rbi, making home runs especially valuable.
– You get itchy when you don’t have enough base stealers on your team as the draft goes by.

Ottoneu points leagues:
– Home runs are still very valuable given the points you accumulate for a hit (5.6) plus a home run (9.4) minus an at-bat (-1.0), giving you 14.0 points per home run.
– There are no runs or rbi.
– There’s no need to analyze team offense productivity.
– Walks matter.
– A walk is considerably more valuable than a steal and a caught stealing is hurtful (-2.8 points).
– Doubles and triples matter, but are not easily projectable (especially triples).

With this simple knowledge in mind, you may have an advantage in your draft. While other managers may be targeting based on roto-scoring skills, you know to target players with good OBP, slugging, and home run totals. I must point out that I am not writing this in order to promote drafting each of these players. Instead, I hope this article allows you to think differently about them.

For this analysis, I took the outputs of the auction calculator on Ottoenu points settings (SABR and FanGraphs points are identical in scoring for offense) and compared them to standard 5×5 roto settings, both with 12 teams, and looked at the largest differences in dollar value. Given the huge roster size in Ottoneu leagues compared to standard roto leagues, the Ottoneu values will naturally be higher for some players simply because they are rosterable and value is spread across a larger player pool. However, you’ll see why values are higher in Ottoneu leagues for certain players as it applies to their projected BB% and slugging percentages. All comparisons us steamer projections.

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Let’s put these players into “why” buckets:

Bucket #1 – They walk more (2022 MLB average BB%=8.2%):
Brendan Donovan (Proj BB%=10.8)
Riley Greene (Proj BB%=8.8)
Michael Conforto (Proj BB%=12.3)
Mark Canha (Proj BB%=10.8)

Bucket #2 – They SLG more (2022 MLB average SLG=.395):
N/A

Bucket #3 – Special Blend: A combination of buckets one and two:
Juan Soto (Proj BB%=20.3, Proj SLG=.452)
Brandon Nimmo (Proj BB%=11.9, Proj SLG=.425)
Mitch Garver (Proj BB%=10.9, Proj SLG=.401)
Christian Yelich (Proj BB%=13.3, Proj SLG=.415)
Mike Trout (Proj BB%=13.0, Proj SLG=.522)
Carlos Correa (Proj BB%=10.4, Proj SLG=.465)
Masataka Yoshida (Proj BB%=11.7, Proj SLG=.479)
Yandy Díaz (Proj BB%=12.8, Proj SLG=.421)
Jake Cronenworth (Proj BB%=9.7, Proj SLG=.399)
Bryan Reynolds (Proj BB%=10.0, Proj SLG=.453)
Rhys Hoskins (Proj BB%=11.8, Proj SLG=.448)
Luis Arraez (Proj BB%=8.4, Proj SLG=.401)
Ji-Man Choi (Proj BB%=13.2, Proj SLG=.400)
Freddie Freeman (Proj BB%=12.0, Proj SLG=.487)

Bucket #4 – Ottoneu rosters are simply that much deeper and players become more valuable by positional adjustment:
Shea Langeliers, J.P. Crawford

Most players in this group have a higher slugging percentage than the 2022 average. But, most players in this group have a higher slugging percentage than the 2022 average and a higher BB% than the 2022 average. Remember that a slugging percentage considers the number of bases a player records per an at-bat. It’s a perfect metric for Ottoneu points leagues because it awards triples and doubles and home runs all at once. But in truth, if a player has an above-average slugging percentage they will be good in roto leagues and ottoneu leagues. However, consider a player like Luis Arraez. He is more valuable in Ottoneu because he is awarded for doubles. In roto leagues, he is a projected 7 home run hitter with a lot of hits. Viewing him as a one-category player may be fair in roto leagues, but he is more productive in Ottoneu leagues. Care for some more?

Bucket #1 – They walk more (2022 MLB average BB%=8.2%):
Carlos Santana (Proj BB%=13.2)

Bucket #2 – They SLG more (2022 MLB average SLG=.395):
Josh Naylor (Proj SLG=.453)
Ty France (Proj SLG=.438)

Bucket #3 – Special Blend: A combination of buckets one and two:
Josh Bell (Proj BB%=11.7, Proj SLG=.438)
Taylor Ward (Proj BB%=10.5, Proj SLG=.438)
Jesse Winker (Proj BB%=13.4, Proj SLG=.422)
Luis Urías (Proj BB%=10.1, Proj SLG=.406)
Corey Seager (Proj BB%=9.4, Proj SLG=.476)
Triston Casas (Proj BB%=12.7, Proj SLG=.427)
Alex Bregman (Proj BB%=13.1, Proj SLG=.458)
Gavin Lux (Proj BB%=9.8, Proj SLG=.402)
Nathaniel Lowe (Proj BB%=10.2, Proj SLG=.458)
José Abreu (Proj BB%=8.4, Proj SLG=.445)
Ian Happ (Proj BB%=10.4, Proj SLG=.421)
Steven Kwan (Proj BB%=9.8, Proj SLG=.404)
Jonathan India (Proj BB%=9.0, Proj SLG=.404)
Austin Meadows (Proj BB%=9.3, Proj SLG=.432)
Vinnie Pasquantino (Proj BB%=10.8, Proj SLG=.469)
Joey Votto (Proj BB%=11.8, Proj SLG=.396)
Paul Goldschmidt (Proj BB%=11.1, Proj SLG=.481)

Bucket #4 – Ottoneu rosters are simply that much deeper and players become more valuable by positional adjustment:
N/A

Ok now, including Paul Goldschmidt probably isn’t fair. He’s going to be good everywhere, he always has been. But including players like Votto, Santana, and Bell help us to see that there are players who could sneak onto your team for a price that would be considered a bargain. While non of these players are ones you hadn’t even considered before, they are players you should keep an eye on in drafts. Flag them, highlight them, tag them, do whatever you need to do to take advantage of lower prices. Don’t think about the productivity of the team the player plays on. Carlos Santana will get on base just like he always has and that is valuable.