Last season I kicked off April with some early trade reviews from the Ottoneu community, and today I’ll do the same, hoping to peek under the hood of some early player perceptions as transactions start to take shape across the fantasy baseball world.
As a quick reminder, Ottoneu is a keeper system by design that shifts the balance just short of traditional dynasty leagues, and offers a variety of scoring systems (including H2H).
Welcome to the Ottoneu keeper deadline, 2018 edition. Today (11:59 PM EDT) is the final day to make that difficult decision about your on-the-bubble players before rosters lock and you set your sights on your upcoming league auction. Per the rules:
Between the end of the Major League Baseball regular season and the end of arbitration, players may be cut. Between the end of arbitration and the keeper deadline, players may be cut or traded. After the keeper deadline and before the auction draft, teams may not cut or trade any players.
Since the keeper deadline also serves as a de-factor trade deadline, I’ve lined up a few final resources for you below and I’ve asked a handful of Ottoneu experts (Justin, Chad, Brad) to check your questions and comments periodically throughout the day to offer their input on your toughest decisions. You don’t play this game? You should, but even if your non-Ottoneu keeper deadline is still a few weeks away, feel free to fire your questions below and we’ll do our best to give you feedback (for context, don’t forget to let us know details about your league format).
2018 is here, and the dawn of a new year is the best time to reevaluate your overall fantasy strategy. But before digging into the finer points of roster construction, auction value calculations, and post-post-hype sleepers, January is also the perfect time to step back and ask whether it might be time to trade in your entire fantasy experience for one of the more advanced, up-and-coming fantasy platforms around.
This is a shameless plug for Ottoneu, a fantasy sports platform so addicting that it has also launched a community of more than 1,000 hardcore baseball fans that sleep and eat baseball year round. But don’t take my word for it. There are many reasons why you should try Ottoneu (including some exciting new features launching in 2018), but today I want you to hear from some of the “rookies” who just finished up their first full year of Ottoneu in 2017. This growing community of raving fans is a big part of the Ottoneu experience, and their Season One feedback may help you make the final decision to drive your own league to Ottoneu in 2018.
I once took an excellent training course on effective communication. At the beginning of the course, our teacher started with a game:
In my hand is an envelop with a $10 bill inside. I want one of you in this room to take the deal I’m offering you. I’m going to ask you a simple trivia question and, if you get it right, you get the ten dollars. But if you get it wrong, you owe me two dollars. However, if you don’t know the answer, you can ask one person in the room for help. Who wants to volunteer?
After a few moments of people looking at each other wondering what the catch might be, I volunteered. “How many states make up the United States?”, he asked.
I have made a lot of trades in my fantasy baseball “career”. It’s one of the parts of the game I enjoy most, but I’ve learned over the years that there is a wide range of comfort among owners when it comes to shaking up their rosters via trade. For some fantasy owners, the process and preparation required to put together a good trade is a burden, and for others the uncertainty of the resulting impact (“will this really help my team?”) and/or the feedback from their league (“did I win or lose this trade?”) is enough to cause anxiety.
Part of the reason I enjoy fantasy trades is because I’ve had the benefit of corporate negotiation training throughout my professional career. While it’s certainly true that my fantasy baseball experience has had a positive impact on my professional bargaining skills, there is no doubt my vocational training has made me more confident (and successful) in the fantasy “trade room”, too. Today I’ll share a little of what I’ve learned throughout my own trade history in hopes of offering something you can use as well.
How to Talk Trade
All too often it’s not necessarily what you say but how you say it that makes the difference. What follows are some alternative ways to phrase common trade responses that might make the difference between closing a deal or stopping one early in it’s tracks.
We all know that bullying is a major problem in social circles and the negative impact it has on the psyche of those at the wrong end of the conflict can be devastating at times. It happens everywhere we look and no matter what the circumstances are, it is a problem that needs to be addressed. There’s bullying in schools, there’s bullying at work and you know what…? There’s bullying in fantasy baseball.
That’s right. Ever been on the receiving end of an over-aggressive league mate who browbeats you to the point where the game no longer feels like a game? Trade negotiations become such a nightmare that you avoid the phone calls or face-to-face conversations to spare yourself the abuse that comes along with them? I’ve seen it happen and I’ve seen many a person drop out of a league because one guy, and in some cases multiple guys, feel that the only way to get what they want is by bulldozing. Well, they say that the only way to deal with a bully is to show strength and stand up to them, so this is me fighting the good fight and telling you trade bullies out there that this is your official notice. You think it’s a harmless tactic to get a deal done? I say it stops right here. Read the rest of this entry »
Whatever happened to the power of positive thinking? Obviously it’s a lost art form when you’re talking about a certain percentage of fantasy baseballers. If you recall a Kicking Rocks piece I did during the spring called Draft Characters, you’ll remember the outline I provided of the different types of people you’ll likely face in the war room on Draft Day. The first “person” discussed was the Know-It-All — the guy loaded with information and always willing to endow you with his wisdom. Well, what I didn’t tell you is what happens to this person once the season begins. The best way to describe it is to equate him to a petulant child who just learned the word ‘no.’ No player you like, does he like. No trade that you make, would he make, and heaven forbid you play with him in a league where you vote on trades. The transformation takes place shortly after the start of the season and your league know-it-all sadly becomes The Naysayer. Read the rest of this entry »
Come on, people. Take a moment here. Take a breath. Take a Xanax for all I care. You need to relax. We’re not even a week into the season and I’ve already seen more panic here than I did when Phish announced they were breaking up and the dirty, spun hippies woke up and realized they had no place to go. I’ve seen roster moves galore, bad impulse trades, people giving up on some players already and far too much faith being put into others who are undeserving. I truly wish this was just some strawman I decided to make up and treat like a punching bag for a while, but this is truth I’m speaking here and those of you who are guilty of this early obsession with the panic button need to pay attention. Read the rest of this entry »
Maybe the reference is lost on some here as the movie dates back to 1977, but during the original Bad News Bears movies, the second installment “Breaking Training”, the boys find themselves playing against some Texas Little League team at the old Astrodome. But the game gets called due to time constraints and little foul-mouthed Tanner, in protest, refuses to leave the field. The umpires chase him around in some Keystone Kop-like silliness while the entire stadium chants, “Let them play” until the higher ups finally acquiesce and the boys are allowed to finish their ballgame. I bring this up here because I am that Astrodome crowd. You are those higher ups. And your fantasy team is running around the field right now, cuttin’ and runnin’ and flinging bases at you just trying to finish the game. Read the rest of this entry »
To say that the closing situation in baseball has been a disaster this season would be a grave understatement. Of the 30 teams this year, 18 teams have had to make changes and/or adjustments due to injury or an outright lack of success. Some of the changes have been temporary while others have seen multiple relievers moved in and out of the role causing fantasy owners to spend far too much time playing the waiver wire in search of consistent saves. But what happens once the dust settles and there’s almost no more turnover? What happens when you can’t find saves on the waiver wire and you’re in need? The trade market can be a very unforgiving place to shop. Read the rest of this entry »