Archive for keeper leagues

The Ottoneu keeper deadline is fast approaching (11:59 PM EST), but many leagues use this date to set rosters before the season really begins.  I polled several owners of the Ottoneu community recently for their keeper deadline advice, so hopefully you’ll find some application for the thoughts below. Consider this a keeper Q&A for new players, but even if you don’t play Ottoneu, feel free to post your most difficult deadline decisions in the comments and I’ll do my best to weigh in.

Brad recently covered some specific Ottoneu keeper deadline advice here.

Q: What process do you use to determine the best number of players to keep on your Ottoneu roster?

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Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is the best baseball prospect in the world. He’s better than most recent #1 overall prospects. He’s the best offensive prospect since at least Kris Bryant (ROY + MVP), and many would say you’d have to go back much further to Miggy or even Pujols to get a true comparison. For some scouts he possesses the seemingly impossible combination of both an 80 grade hit tool and an 80 grade power profile. His batter’s box skills have HOF lineage and yet somehow he has done nothing but exceed expectations (batting .402 in AA at age 19 helps). He already has the look and potential of an all-time great.  Best of all, Vlad, Jr. will debut in 2019.

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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).

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Recently I created a new dynasty baseball league customized around the basic game of Ottoneu.  The more you play Ottoneu the more you come to appreciate how deep the player pool really is, and the longer I play fantasy baseball the more interested I become in the minor league development process.  While there is still plenty of luck involved, the satisfaction of “discovering” the next Rhys Hoskins before everyone else is a feeling that keeps me coming back to the game over and over.

In addition to the standard economics of Ottoneu where each league consists of twelve owners and 480 rostered players (minors and majors), our league will roster an additional 180 minor leaguers (15 extra per team) in an attempt to “develop” successful franchises for years to come.  Since the regular MLB season is wrapping up soon and many fantasy owners are starting to look towards 2018, I thought it might be helpful to review our prospect draft over the next several posts to give you some insight into the valuation of these minor league lottery tickets.  If nothing else, this draft should help you “discover” a few names to keep an eye on going forward.  If you have specific questions about players or the thought process of why they were selected, fire away in the comments section, as I’ve asked each owner in the league to be on standby to provide feedback as we review the rounds.  

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“Winners never quit and quitters never win,” is probably one of those old adages you had shouted at you numerous times growing up. It doesn’t matter if you played a competitive sport, were in the math league or on the chess team (think I’ve covered our base demographic here, no?), you’ve heard it countless times. And if you haven’t, that’s probably because you weren’t paying enough attention and why you’re now living in your mom’s basement, working some dead end job, using a fake name and email to troll on the internet. But I digress. We’re here to talk about quitters — quitters in fantasy baseball leagues, obviously, not in life. Read the rest of this entry »

Before you go thinking this is just another mock draft column, read the next sentence — your mouse will practically click “more” by itself.

At a time when every fantasy owner and their sister is prepping for the upcoming season by doing mock draft after mock auction…what if we threw a curveball at that concept by selecting only prospects for a mock dynasty league?

That, friends, is what the fine folks over at Fake Teams came up with, and they so graciously asked FanGraphers Mike Newman, J.D. Sussman and me to participate as part of a panel of a baker’s dozen’s worth of prospect pundits. What comes next are the results.

But that’s not all! To help keeper and dynasty league owners everywhere who get to partake in the always-exhilarating, often-painstaking process of drafting prospects, I’ll present my approach and strategy to this enlightening exercise — which when you think about it, was really just a make-believe draft of non-major leaguers for this made-up fantasy game we all love to play.

Yeah, like you’re not gonna click.

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Right around this time of year I start to get that anticipatory giddiness that a six-year old gets in December when he starts counting down the days to Christmas. February 12 is the first day pitchers and catchers are allowed to report for Spring Training 2013 — just 27 days away. That’s less than a month. Calm, cool and collected on the outside; I’m doing back-flips on the inside. You feeling it too?  I thought so. This is our Christmas. Read the rest of this entry »

After Jeff Zimmerman busted out with the Bill James projections yesterday, I was inspired to bring back the Keeper League Would You Rather series from last offseason. Sure it’s not even Thanksgiving yet and sure, we’re still more than two and a half months away from pitchers and catchers reporting, but it’s never too late to start thinking about your keeper league protects for next season. Obviously, there are a number of factors that go into determining who you keep and who you release — cost, position scarcity, the type of players your league seems to always covet most, just to name a few — so we’re going to stick to comparison within the positions and while we can’t really neglect potential costs, we’re going to focus more on the players’ statistics and expectations. So without further ado, let’s get to our first comparison — Would you rather keep Yoenis Cespedes or Justin Upton? Read the rest of this entry »

There is always such a fuss made up over small sample sizes that often times a player is overlooked from year to year as fantasy owners in keeper leagues become hesitant to protect a player with merely a half a year’s experience in the majors. However, despite the increased depth at the catcher position, due to a heavy influx of young talent over the last few seasons, protecting Salvador Perez at this time might just be a shrewd move you can’t afford to pass up. Read the rest of this entry »

As the calendar gets ready to flip to August, it’s time for those of you that have fallen out of contention in your keeper league to start making plans for the 2013 season.  You’re probably sitting on a number of players that can help the contenders in your league make that final push for a championship, so it’s time to turn those guys into a little something for your efforts this year.  The catcher position is not usually long for guys you’re dying to protect from year to year, but that doesn’t mean you can’t grab yourself some quality options for cheap that can be fruitful components to next year’s championship squad. Read the rest of this entry »