Stars and Scrubs vs. Balancing a Roster in Ottoneu

This post won’t be long. And it has more questions than answers. But it’s the most immediately relevant thing I have ever written (at least to me). What do you do in auction where you have a choice between getting a star or building a balanced team and you can’t realistically do both?

In about four hours from publication time, I will be starting the auction for one of my favorite leagues: the 4×4 Ottoneu League 1199, the Food and Travel (FAT) League. I could tell you I love all my children leagues equally, but it would be a lie*. Ottoneu League 1 has been going forever and will always be special. I have a non-Ottoneu home league I have been in for more than a decade.

And then there is FAT. FAT is great not because of the people in the league**, but because of the buy-in/prize pool. The 4th-12th place finishers have to offer up a food and/or beverage prize and the top three finishers hold a draft to select what prizes they want. I finished third in 2022 and received a Chicago-style hot dog kit, a pound of coffee, a box of green tea, and a sampler of San Diego beer. It was awesome.

Anyway, let’s get back to the point. FAT drafts tonight and my team is in an interesting spot. The team was solid in 2022, but I also bought aggressively, adding Juan Soto, Clayton Kershaw, Max Fried, Ke’Bryan Hayes, Gavin Lux, Martin Perez, Chris Sale, Taylor Rogers, and Pablo Lopez all after June 1. Some of those players I flipped; some didn’t work out; some were great. But they used up a lot of my long-term keepers in a bid to get that food and beverage package. I have no regrets.

But I also have a team where I kept just 15 players and have just $166 to fill out the other 25 spots. Here is what I have so far:

That’s a strong rotation and some offensive pieces I really like, but I need at least one more starting MI, probably two. I need at least three more starting OF. I need a utility bat. I need a bullpen. I need a second C. I might need an upgrade at 3B. There are a lot of needs.

Which brings us to the Free Agent pool. Here are the biggest bats available: Soto, Fernando Tatis Jr., Bryce Harper, Xander Bogaerts, Francisco Lindor, Rhys Hoskins. Those are not the only big names but it goes down in production from there.

Soto sticks out like a sore thumb. Tatis has question marks. Harper is going to miss most of the season. The others are good but non-elite options. So I have a choice: Do I set aside the dollars it will take to get Soto and try to find cheap pieces to fill the rest of the lineup? Or do I split that budget among multiple guys in the next tier.

For example, Soto was $76 last season. If I assume he goes for the same here, I could pick him up and have $90 left for 24 spots.

Or, I could take that $76 and spend $45 combined on two OF who are not Soto, and still have $30 left over for a SS. Then, I would have $90 for 22 spots AND have filled out three starting spots instead of one. That’s a pretty significant difference.

What do I plan to do? To be honest, I haven’t decided. There are merits to both approaches and I am still weighing them. So instead you tell me – what would you do? If you check out the free agents for that league or use the Surplus Calculator to check who is available, you can share your plan.

I’ll report back tomorrow with what I decided and how it worked out.

*The lie is about my leagues, not my kids. I love my kids equally.

**Ok, I like the people, too.