Archive for keepers

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?

Read the rest of this entry »

While 2017 was the year of the dinger, it also looks like it was the year of velocity. Has baseball changed (both the sport, and the physical ball itself)? The signs point to yes – but on the pitching from, the importance of velocity has never been higher. Exhibit A:

The slowest fastball the @Yankees threw tonight was 96 MPH… That is completely absurd.

— Daren Willman (@darenw) October 10, 2017

That’s not average. That’s not maximum. That’s … the slowest. Let’s borrow a little bit of math from the documentary “Fastball” to just put into context how crazy this is.

Read the rest of this entry »

I said that it wouldn’t happen again. I was wrong. I’m terribly sorry. Terribly, terribly sorry.

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” will not go live in this post. Eno Sarris and I talked about streamers for the weekend as well as potential keepers you might decide to drop for streamers or to meet other types of needs in the season’s final week and a half. Unfortunately, I had an issue with the recording. This post will give you the gist of the content we covered in what would have been Episode 168.

Read the rest of this entry »

As we make our way through these rankings, let me just add in one thing.  While relative value is something we have left for you to ultimately decide, there are certain players whom I consider keeper worthy and those that aren’t in spite of things like the Fantasy Value Above Replacement spreadsheet that we have been using.  Sure, Yadier Molina may have outproduced Wilson Ramos according to our 2011 retro value, but am I keeping a catcher who is moving into his ninth season and will turn 30 years old at the All Star break because suddenly, out of the blue, he doubled his home run production last year?  Probably not.  It’s very difficult for me to think that a player who put up near identical numbers for his first seven seasons, suddenly can double his ISO mark in his eighth year and maintain that as his future level of production.  I see it more as a statistical anomaly than anything else.  Therefore, like each and every year prior, I would not even consider keeping Molina and subsequently must leave him off these rankings.

So today, I’ll throw out a few names of players to continue what we’ve done and tomorrow will finish it off with a few honorable mentions.  There will be some players left off this list, but again, we’re calling them keeper rankings and not every player is worth keeping.

Read the rest of this entry »