Roster Turnover in OPL

With the Ottoneu Prestige League about to hit the knockout rounds, there are about 40 teams still scrambling to figure out what to do ahead of the final OPL snap for the season. There are another 200 teams wondering what went wrong this year and thinking about next year. And perhaps there are many other managers looking forward to their first foray into OPL in 2023 and wondering how to prep.

One of the most debated topics among OPL managers is what changes to make ahead of each snapshot – do I bail on this injured player? Do I hold this prospect? Should I drop this underperforming player? I want to look into some of these questions over the next few weeks and into the off-season, but today we’ll start with a quantitative question: how much should my team turn over round-to-round?

I pulled the rosters and scores from round 1 and round 2. Taking the 170 teams that survived into round 2, I took a look at how many players each team kept and how many they swapped out for someone else. The median team, of those 170, kept 34 players from round 1 to round 2 and swapped out 6. There is, as you would expect, a fairly wide range with eight teams keeping their entire roster intact and 15 teams swapping out double the median or more.

The most any team changed out was Its Now or Devers, who swapped 19 players between rounds 1 and 2. That allowed the team, which finished 114th in round 1, to climb into the top 100 in round 2 (finishing 91st in the round) and advance to round 3. That team then swapped out 15 players between rounds 2 and 3 (tied for 7th most) and is currently sitting in 30th, with a real shot to advance.

That anecdotally suggests that making significant changes is a net positive, and the data seems to back that up. Fifteen teams made 12 or more changes between rounds 1 and 2, and those teams, on average, finished about 9 spots higher in round 2 than they did in round 1. Fourteen teams made no changes or just one change; those teams averaged a 22 spot drop between rounds 1 and 2.

That isn’t to say none improved – one team jumped 51 spots, another 46, and a third 35. But no team that finished outside the top 100 in round 1 and made less than two changes finished inside the top 100 in round 2. Three of the 15 teams that made 12+ swaps made that leap. In total, 31 teams that were outside the top 100 of round 1 were inside the top 100 of round 2, and those teams averaged 7.5 swaps per team.

On the other end of the spectrum, there were 30 teams that were inside the top 100 in round 1 and fell outside the top 100 in round 2 – those teams averaged 5.2 swaps per team.

This suggests to me that it’s important not to rest on your laurels. This shouldn’t be a huge surprise, but it is an important reminder – there’s a common sports cliche that you should “dance with the girl that brought you” and while that is good advice for weddings and other such dance-centered events, it is not great advice here. Being content that your team is set up for success and doesn’t need any changes is a good way to go from 9th in round 1 to 149th in round 2.

This isn’t one size fits all advice (and apologies to the team that finished 9th in round one if this doesn’t apply to you). Perhaps not surprisingly, the top ten teams from round 1 averaged 5.2 changes per team and nine of them still advanced to round 3. But those teams had a median drop of about 9 spots. The average drop was over 22 spots, but was skewed by that 9th place team falling 140.

From round 2 to round 3, the median number of swaps increased to 8, perhaps not a surprise due to survivorship bias. The teams that were most active in improving their teams from round 1 to 2 were most likely to advance, eliminating the less active teams over time. But even if we look at only the teams that survived round 2, those teams made a median of seven changes between round 1 and 2. So there is a pattern here that a) the most active teams were more likely to survive and b) those teams made more changes after round 2 than after round 1.

Those patterns seem to continue. As of the end of action on Thursday, July 14, the 12 teams that made 14 or more changes between rounds 2 and 3 were, on average, 20.7 spots better in round 3 standings than they finished round 2. The 14 teams that made three or fewer changes between rounds are sitting, on average, 2.6 spots worse in the standings than they finished round 2.

There is a lot more analysis to be done, but the big, actionable advice going into this weekend is don’t assume a team good enough to make it this far is good enough to win. Data on the season so far shows that teams that are most active are most successful, and I see no reason to think that won’t continue.





A long-time fantasy baseball veteran and one of the creators of ottoneu, Chad Young's writes for RotoGraphs and PitcherList, and can be heard on the ottobot podcast. You can follow him on Twitter @chadyoung.

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Davidmember
1 year ago

One thing I’ve really loved about OPL are the roster deadlines. I’ve felt hyper-motivated to hit those deadlines with my team in exactly the right position and it’s really stimulated wheeling and dealing in my home league. It’s agonizing to have to trade or cut injured or demoted players you’re high on, but your analysis seems to indicate the pain is worth it! Definitely good to know!