Ottoneu Trinkets And Assorted Gobbledygooks

Are you ready to be shocked? I’m having trouble selling my $3 Alex Rodriguez. Also my $7 Billy Hamilton, $5 Shane Victorino, $4 Jesse Chavez, and $4 Neftali Feliz to name a few. Unsurprisingly, nobody is busting down my door to own my collection of down-roster bench fodder. Yet I’m pretty sure a guy like Victorino will go for more than $5 on draft day. Somebody will pony up for the latest shot at a Hamilton breakout. My inability to find back end starters has me ready to keep Chavez for myself. Essentially, I’m confident there is cause for somebody to keep these players, even if they possess a second order sort of value.

This puts me in a bit of a pickle. My latest roster tinker session has me at 29 roster spots (of 40) and $286 (of $400) committed to players I consider to be my core. I need a starting third baseman, some kind of middle infielder, and a couple starting pitchers. And then there are the gobbledygooks. I have something like 13 of them. Nine of them, like Victorino, are on what I consider keepable prices – in a fringy sort of sense. The others might still be somebody else’s keeper.

With a little over a month before cuts are due, I’m starting to fret. What should I do with these players? For the most part, they’re all some form of upside play. Several of them may be cut by the end of May. However, if you were to consolidate the list into an index and adjust for draft inflation, they’re a decent bet to outperform their cost. However, that’s a game plan best suited to a rebuilding roster. I’m very much poised to contend.

Now here’s the twist…and there is a twist. I’m going to end the post right here. What would you do with my ottoneu trinkets? Or your own if you prefer.

We’ll discuss what I’m doing about it next week.

You Aren't a FanGraphs Member
It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.
We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.
1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.
2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.
3. Dark mode and Classic mode!
4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.
5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.
6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)
7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.
8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.
9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.
10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!
We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.




You can follow me on twitter @BaseballATeam

19 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
CC AFCMember since 2016
10 years ago

I’m at a similar point with own roster. I say cut em if you need the money for other roster spots. If you can’t get those players back in the auction, you can probably find someone of similar value for a similar price. I’ve gotta figure there’s an outfielder or four available that you’ll be able and willing to roster for $3 at the auction if you cut Victorino and Hamilton.