Reviewing Ottoneu Surplus Pre-Keeper Deadline
The concept of surplus is never far from my mind. Last week I had an article detailing surplus and inflation, and how the two are correlated. I created a tool (the ottoneu Surplus Calculator) to analyze league and team keeper quality through the lens of surplus. I also posted a retrospective analysis on the official ottoneu community detailing how well keeper surplus predicts final standings (spoiler alert- pretty well, considering the analysis doesn’t include auction results or in season management). Today, I wanted to take a look at some data relating to how much surplus the top team in each FanGraphs points ottoneu league has.
A few quick notes before I present the table. First, the surplus amounts are based on running every league through my own personal version of the Surplus Calculator. Second, these surplus figures are the gross surplus currently on the roster, once the keeper deadline is over these amounts will be lower as teams keep players with negative surplus. Third, I have excluded any league that did not have twelve teams. The average column represents the average surplus the top team in each league had (within the league group), and the high and low columns show the highest and lowest single team surplus (again, these represent the *best* surplus team).
| Age | Average | High | Low |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7th Year Leagues | 169.1 | 259.0 | 97.0 |
| 6th Year Leagues | 168.7 | 232.0 | 116.0 |
| 5th Year Leagues | 159.0 | 225.0 | 116.0 |
| 4th Year Leagues | 150.8 | 196.0 | 112.0 |
| 3rd Year Leagues | 143.6 | 206.0 | 81.0 |
| 2nd Year Leagues | 121.8 | 159.0 | 72.0 |
| All Leagues | 153.9 | 259.0 | 72.0 |
So, on average the teams with the most surplus across all FanGraphs points leagues have about $154 in gross surplus on the roster, with the highest being $259 and the lowest being $72. There is also a clear increase in average first place surplus as leagues get older, and typically the teams with the very highest surplus are found in older leagues.
Let’s take a look at the five teams with the most surplus, keeping in mind that these teams basically represent the best bets to be the highest scoring teams in 2017.
5. Smelly Pirate Hooker (#389) $225 total surplus
First, what an unfortunate name. Second, this team finished 2016 as the 16th highest scoring team in FGPts leagues. The team with the second most surplus in this league has $158, so even with having $200+ surplus SPH still has some competition. The top assets on this team include a $14 Noah Syndergaard, a $21 Mookie Betts, and an $8 Carlos Carrasco.
4. King Kang (#207) $226 total surplus
The second place team in this league has $151 in surplus, so just like the team above King Kang isn’t a sure thing to win their league. Kang’s top assets include a $13 Noah Syndergaard, a$13 Mookie Betts, and a $16 Nolan Arenado. King Kang finished as the 31st highest scoring FGPts team in 2016.
3. Vinegar Strokes (#120) $230 total surplus
Vinegar Strokes finished ’16 as the 11th highest scoring team in FGPts leagues, and is on track to finish in the top fifteen once again. The top assets on this squad include a $26 Josh Donaldson, $13 Carlos Carrasco, and $6 Rich Hill.
2. DL.O.A (#235) $232 total surplus
This should be a crazy league this season, as the second most surplus (Meat Tornadoes) has $213 (7th overall). The top assets on DL.O.A include an $8 Corey Seager, a $9 Chris Archer, and a $6 Rich Hill.
1. Smell the Glove (#81) $259 total surplus
There is no other team across all FGPts leagues that I think is more likely to win their league than Smell the Glove. The second most surplus in this league is just $90 (an otherwise respectable amount), a whopping $169 less surplus than StG. This team also finished as the second highest scoring team in 2016, with more than 21K points. The top assets include $17 Mookie Betts, $12 Corey Seager, and $8 Carlos Carrasco.
It will be interesting to see how frequently these five teams appear on the monthly ottoneu Power Rankings this season!
Justin is a life long Cubs fan who has been playing fantasy baseball for 20+ years, and an ottoneu addict since 2012. Follow him on Twitter @justinvibber.
5×5 old school?
I only looked at FGPts leagues, I will try to look at the other formats and post results here in the comments
Justin, thank you for your service. I’m just wondering, is there any difference how Ottoneu rewards surplus value than in any other league? Or is it just that the surplus concept is more of a focus. For example, even in the simplest yahoo auction league, isn’t the team who actually gets the most surplus value by the end of the year similarly likely to be successful?
Yes, the concept and impact of surplus exists in any auction keeper league and is not unique to ottoneu. I’ve used the same process the Surplus Calc is based on going back ten years for an old CBS auction keeper league I was in. And really, even in a non-keeper or non-auction league surplus still exists. For example, in a draft league surplus could be equated to drafting players well after their ADP.
And here I was worried that I’d never get to hear the phrase “Smelly Pirate Hooker” on Fangraphs.
Every time I do the Power Rankings I’m amazed at some of the team names. Fantasy team names seems to be an artistic outlet for some!
What, not a fan of Anchorman?!?! I thought for sure the Fangraphs folks would be. BTW, I own both the Smell(y) teams from above.
Hi Justin:
Do you not worry that these huge surplus amounts are indicative of imbalanced leagues in Ottoneu?
It definitely could be, but in any dynasty league you’re probably going to have long stretches of dominance by some teams while others are rebuilding and a few others aren’t sure where they are in the win curve. There’s been some discussion in the Ottoneu community that the best way to gauge the competitiveness and/or engagement level of any particularly league is probably some combination of both the number of teams competing and the overall activity (transactions, trades, messages) level of the league.
Justin – your surplus calculator is a true gift to ottoneu owners. Thank you for doing this. The articles analyzing surplus value and it’s application in our leagues are fun to read as well.
One thing to note, as the owner of a team mentioned here (Meat Tornadoes, second in my league in surplus value to DL.O.A.) is that this is a vote-off arbitration league, so I’m expecting to lose a lot of my $213 surplus value since Mookie Betts is now a a free agent and will command a large raise, if I can keep him, from his current $13 salary. (Unfortunately this isn’t the case for DL.O.A., who somehow had a $28 A.J. Pollock voted off instead of any of those mentioned above, like his $8 Corey Seager…sigh).
I wonder how many of the teams mentioned above are benefitting in the surplus standings from being in a vote-off league and how many will lose some of that come draft day.