Prospect Classes In Ottoneu
Chad Young and I have written a couple times about our general disdain for prospects in ottoneu. It’s not that we dislike all prospects, they’re just rarely a cost effective means to build (or even rebuild) a team. It would be fantastic to own Kris Bryant for $3. Unfortunately, his average price is actually $10 – on par with Danny Salazar and more than Nolan Arenado. Of course, Bryant is a “can’t miss” star. Right? Right!? While prospects of his caliber don’t often fail, it does happen. Given that his owner has probably invested upwards of $20 over the last couple years, Bryant needs to do a lot better than “not fail” in order to be a profitable asset.
Because good ottoneu prospects often cost quite a bit – as much as $24 for Bryant – the superior strategy is often to target established major leaguers on cheap contracts. Not all ottoneu leagues are the same. Bryant is $2 in at least one league, which makes him an extremely valuable asset. Leagues can get trapped in their own form of group think, spiraling prices for certain types of assets in unexpected directions.
I touched on this topic last week when I discussed the value of Melky Cabrera and Julio Urias. In the league FanGraphs Staff Two, there are two teams who have put their (theoretical) money on developing prospects. A couple other teams view themselves as candidates to rebuild, so they’re also keen to acquire top prospects and youngsters. The result is an environment where a good, cheap prospect is worth a boatload in win-now talent. Alternatively, I’ve also viewed some leagues where very few teams are pursuing prospects. It can swing both ways.
All of which is a long winded way of introducing today’s topic – prospect buckets. Classic prospect analysis focuses on two dichotomies – ETA and overall upside. In the case of ottoneu, we’re left with four classes of viable prospect. I’ve created a handy visual below.
Ideally, we want prospects who fall into the upper-right quadrant. Prospects in the lower-left quadrant should be ignored in a standard ottoneu league (some leagues include an auxiliary roster, which could change prospect values.)
That’s the easy part, we keep or trade the best prospects and dump the mid-ceiling, long-term types. What should we do with the rest? Players in the other two quadrants can possess sneaky value because they’re less flashy than the ideal quadrant. Despite lacking an ideal profile, they possess utility via near-term opportunity or long-term ceiling.
After an offseason of wheeling and dealing, my roster has just three prospects – J.P. Crawford, Manuel Margot, and Jacob Lindgren. All three cost $2. Crawford and Margot fall into the bottom right quadrant while Lindgren fits the top-left quadrant. How I handle them is context dependent.
The further a team is from contention, the easier it is to hold prospects. For a weak team, the opportunity cost mostly amounts to a roster spot – one that probably can’t be used much more efficiently. However, my roster is geared towards contention in 2015. Roster spots are at a premium, and I may want to use Lindgren’s spot to draft a $1 reliever who is already in the majors. Including the prospects, I have 38 players on what I consider to be a keepable contract. I’d like to draft more than two players.
As you can imagine, the trade market is rather tepid for the trio. Lindgren profiles as a high strikeout reliever, but those float across the waiver wire multiple times a season. The only thing between Crawford and a major league job is Freddy Galvis, but he probably has years to develop before he’s ready. Margot is well-regarded in the prospect community, but he’s also a long-term asset with little name value.
With a competitive roster and plenty of budget, there’s little doubt I could put these roster spots to better use in 2015. It shouldn’t be too hard to find a deal for Crawford, but his profile could mark him as a top 25 prospect this time next year. As I demonstrated in the Cabrera-Urias article, a $3 top prospect can return a lot of value in trade. I’m inclined to develop him.
Margot didn’t even elicit interest from resident prospect guy Marc Hulet, so he’s seemingly an easy cut. However, he first crossed my radar when reading about a hypothetical expansion draft. His combination of power and speed as a 19-year-old in A-ball is intriguing. He’s a likely trade target for whenever the Red Sox get around to acquiring Cole Hamels, David Price, or another ace, which will further elevate his visibility. He presents a difficult cut or hold decision.
In some ways, Lindgren is the easiest and the hardest to evaluate. He’s a potential high strikeout reliever. It’s usually possible to spend $1 on an actual high strikeout reliever. The 2014 draft pick is on the fast track, having already shown small sample success at the Double-A level. High walk rates indicate a need for further development. On the other hand, he profiles as a better Will Smith, who happened to be the best LOOGY in 2014.
So, now it’s discussion time. How would you handle these prospects? Do you have prospects predicaments of your own that you’d like to air out? Let’s talk.
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In January, every Ottoneu team should be in contention for 2015. If a highly regarded prospect has a chance to play in 2015, i understand that. So many undrafted players breakout every year, that the cost of rostering these 2016 guys is more than just their salary. The only thing worse than holding Kris Bryant for 2 years at a starter salary is watching other teams pick up Josh Harrison and Keuchel and Blackmon and others for $1 off waivers.
Not to mention,yeah Kris Bryant comes on the scene and you get $30 production for half a season from a $15 salary, arbitration hits and now he loses all value. I would rather use those 5 spots on a waiver revolving door and hit on a few $1 guys that will give me $15 value. And arbitration will be more spread out.
While I agree with the sentiment, I disagree with the first sentence. When you get into year 3 or 4 of an ottoneu league, you’re going to have some owners at the extremes. In a balanced league, teams have a 8.33% chance to win. Some leagues, like FG2, are very unbalanced such that 4 owners have a combined 80% chance to win with the other 8 owners sharing the remaining 20%. That doesn’t mean you can’t play for third place while rebuilding (that’s what I did), but winning is sometimes statistically unlikely.
i have the following all at $3 each: tim anderson, jorge alfaro, raimel tapia. i’m not expecting to get anything out of them in 2015, but they all seem like they could be $20+ performers in 4 years.
i’m competitve for 2015. i won the league last year, but was dependent on high dollar semi-underperformers and large loans from other teams. my current thought is to keep all 3 and look to trade for big leaguers midseason.
also, what the heck do i do with a $21 manny machado? is there any value there at all?
Machado is a tricky one. I’d try to trade him – some people still think he can put up massive offense. I was never on that bandwagon, which is why I’ve never owned him.
I owned Tapia for $4 not long ago, but I managed to trade him. He would have been cut otherwise. In general, it’s good to have a couple prospects around to facilitate trades for win-now talent. They work well as throw-ins.
So I’m looking to get into ottoneu, but I’m curious about the arbitration process. Is it a $1 increase for all minor league players and a $2 increase for all major league players regardless of performance?
The $1/$2 increase isn’t arbitration. In most leagues, you’ll be given a small budget to spend $1-3 on all other rosters. So if you see a guy has a $12 Mike Trout, you can allocate $3 to make him $15. That’s what we’re referring to as arbitration.
Alternatively, there is another form of arbitration where owners vote one player off each team. The original team can then re-draft that player at a $5 discount. So if Mike Trout is bid up to $60 but is re-drafted by the original owner, he only costs $55. This form of arb is less common.
Awesome, thanks!
Crawford and Lindgren are, in my eyes, bottom left types that can easily be replaced. I don’t see enough upside in either player to roster them in Ottoneu as I can easily find dozens of guys that far away with similar upside. Easy cuts in my estimation, especially on a contender.
Margot is a bottom right eye to me and one who is absolutely worth holding. Could be something in a few years.
The Ottoneu replacement level for prospects is so high that ordinarily that I only concern myself with the right side of that axis. If you aren’t posting an ISO of .200+, throwing 95-97 or swiping 40-50 bags per season, I’m generally not interested. I will miss out on certain types of young players, sure, but I will avoid more busts by going after prospects with skill sets that could translate to elite tools at the big league level.
I’m surprised you like Margot more than Crawford. Scouts pretty much universally like Crawford more than Margot. Crawford’s already ranked in the top 50 on some lists while Margot is unranked. They’re a similar distance from big league ready.
Agree Crawford is bottom right as opposed to bottom left. I like him better than Margot, too. It sounds like both might not have big power, although not totally devoid like Juan Pierre or something. Limited power is more tolerable from a shortstop than an OF.
Isn’t much of Crawford’s upside based on his defense? As a hitter, to me he seems more like one of Carson Cistulli’s “fringe 5” guys – i.e. high BB%, low K%, but not much power. For OttoNeu purposes, I am not sure he has the kind of upside to warrant a roster spot for the next 3 years while he develops his skills.
Margot seems to have a lot more power and speed. Asn an OFer he might not enjoy the positional scarcity, but he seems like a better bet to become a productive hitter.
I really like the prospect value chart. It’s intuitive, and is a nice visual for making prospect decisions before the Ottoneu keeper deadline. However, it’s incomplete because it does not factor in “cost”. There have been some good recent discussions in the new Ottoneu Community (http://cl.ly/3L1J3T1P033b) about prospect valuations, and cost is a critical part of the analysis. There’s a big difference between a $5 Byron Buxton and a $16 Byron Buxton – how should that value be measured? Could it be added to the chart somehow? A cool idea would be to somehow create a shared (Google Docs?) graph for all Ottoneu readers to crowd source prospect values by placing them on the chart to get an aggregate perceived value per player…
With regards to JP Crawford specifically, it looks like he’s being undersold a bit here. He should already be an easy top 25 prospect heading into 2015, and as a “60” player he’s projected with 12 – 15 HR power and speed, with an upside of .280/.350/.440. His early OBP skills actually play up in Ottoneu, not down, as it’s important to understand the SS landscape, which is the weakest position by far. Only five SS had OBP of .350 or greater in 2015, and the a 12th place (starting) SS scored just 618 points. I wouldn’t put a 2016 debut past Crawford either as the position is wide open in PHI. It’s early, and he just turned 20 years old yesterday, but He looks like a future 700+ point player who is a lock for SS in a good hitters ballpark.
Spa,
I’d say it’s more positional value than defense, which also holds for our purposes.
LS,
I agree, cost is an obvious third dimension, but that’s more variable. If you were very deliberately analyzing a prospect’s keeper potential, I would start with ETA and upside. If they passed that smell test, then I would consider cost.
I’m not sure Crawford is an “easy” top 25 prospect, which is why I said top 50. I think a a couple outlets might have him in the 20-25 range, but I could also see him in the 40-50 range just as easily.
With prospects that far away, I don’t know if putting so much emphasis on their current position or their current team/situation is a good idea. Young players get traded or move around all the time. It’s great that he’s coming up as a SS, but what if he moves off the position? What are you left with?
I find it more useful when comparing two young players to look at what they bring from a skills standpoint. One player looks like a perennial 10/15 guy with OBP skills. The other looks like a 10/30 guy with OBP skills. Given the choice, it’s almost always better to take the player with higher upside.
Waiting on JP Crawford/Francisco Lindor types isn’t my thing. I may be in the minority here and that’s fine, but I think that skillset just isn’t worth dreaming on in fantasy.
Crawford is definitely a bottom right quandrant guy. I just wonder how many $1 waiver guys will have big breakouts in the 2 years you are waiting on JP Crawford. The most valuable players in my league arent typically prospects that broke out. They are a $6 Dickers, a $3 Harrison, $4 JD Matinez, $5 Doolittle, $6 Calhoun, $4 Betances.. these are waiver wire stars. I think you will miss these guys waiting on a JP Crawford that has an average chance to be a star, and a microscopic chance to be a star in year one (which may be 2017).
This is absolutely a consideration. That said, there aren’t usually enough guys of this type to prevent a team from also rostering a Crawford type prospect.
Crawford is absolutely a bottom left type. I should clarify that I’m looking at him in the context of 5×5. He gets a boost in Ottoneu points, SABR or 4×4 for what he has show in regard to OBP.
In 5×5, I’m just not excited. The power isn’t going to be there and he can’t be relied upon to steal bases at a good rate. Without doing any research, it seems SB rate isn’t something that dramatically improves as a player advances up through the system. Maybe he suddenly develops into a capable baserunner, but to this point, he hasn’t shown anything that leads me to believe that will be the case.
2014 League winning team available in Ottoneu. The team is stacked and can be seen here http://ottoneu.fangraphs.com/335/team?team=2346. Email me at yankeegm@gmail.com if you’re interested.
I’d keep Crawford and Margot, and cut Lindgren. As you say, you can get the MLB-ready version of Lindgren for the same price. For a dollar or two more, you can get a similar skill set with the outside chance of falling into a closer job.
Crawford and Margot are both 2017 contributors at best, but they’ll have value to you well before that. Either one starts showing up on prospect lists with a good 2015, and the trade value of a $3 prospect in the high minors is apparently off the charts in your league. In a league that values prospects as highly as yours, the best use IMO is to trade them for the Melky Cabreras of the world as soon as possible. Don’t think of Crawford and Margot as being three years from contributing, think of them as being one year from being traded for immediate contributors.
As for opening up space to draft more than 2-3 players, I’d focus on dropping guys like Jesse Chavez – average-ish players at borderline-keepable prices. I think owners get too attached to these guys and start thinking, “he gave me $8 of value last year and he’d go for $6 at auction. I can’t drop him at $4.” But that undervalues the benefit of a free roster spot and a few dollars to take a stab at more surplus value from somebody else.
Bingo.
My hope is to be able to use a Crawford or Margot as part of a package for a major midseason addition. Like a Clayton Kershaw. Personally, I have no interest in debuting prospects, I’d rather trade for them after I have a better idea of their skill set.
So perhaps my decision comes down to the likelihood of both players taking the right steps forward.
I cant imagine that you dont have 3/40 roster spots available for prospects.
Holding, collecting, and paying for prospects doesn’t always have to benefit me, as long as others in my league value them more than I do. I’ll hang on to guys like Bryant and Bogaerts when they come up, but I also have four or five other prospects that I keep because they are great trade chips. I may not want to wait them out, but their POTENTIAL is viewed as very valuable and it will allow me to trade for a valuable asset midseason if I’m going to make a run for first place. It just takes one guy who loves prospects in a league for it to be worthwhile to gather a few.
There are basically two positions, IMO that win or lose a season in ottoneu. MI (meaning 2B/SS eligible players) and RP.
Prospects who can STICK at 2B/SS and project to be above average ML regulars should be valued much more than an OF prospect.
Ken Giles was rostered in a few leagues last year going into the season. He should be rostered in 100% of leagues this year and should command 5-10 bucks depending on where leagues fall on the $20 kimbrel scale.
It’s a hella lot easier to produce 5ppi upside on the wire in the OF than it is at MI.