Archive for Platooning

In ottoneu, most owners will implement some form of platoon among their outfield spots. While platooning in fantasy baseball is hardly sage advice, ottoneu is a little bit different in that the format specifically lends itself to platooning more than other fantasy platforms. First, you have 40 roster spots. Second, you have 5 OF spots and a 810 game cap at the position. Third, it’s a point format. Because of the 810 cap, you almost need to start a full slate of OF in nearly every game you can, as scheduled off days can make it very difficult to meet the 162 game cap at each of the 5 outfield spots. On top of that, the roster, because of it’s size, allows you to stash prospects or players you plan to use only in specific situations. However, you want to make sure you don’t depend on them too heavily, as scheduling can easily leave you below the cap.

Granted, if you’ve played ottoneu for any amount of time, you already know this. You know that platooning can be an extremely effective strategy. You probably know that strong side platoons are really what you want to acquire (more plate appearances) and you probably have a good idea of a couple names who fit this bill. You are looking for hitters who are likely to get 400+ plate appearance in their platoon role, so as not to be left missing starts with regularity. Today, I want to look at 3 (it’s a new year and I’m feeling generous) players who fit the bill of effective RHP mashers, but at varying costs.

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Entering the 2014 season I knew my fantasy team was setup to succeed.  After all, I had just spent the entire 2013 season tearing it down and building it back up again, so I had the benefit of a full year of preparation, collecting as many assets as I could along the way to ready myself up for another shot at the title.

Unsurprisingly, at least three other teams in my league also appeared to be possible front-runners, so I knew it was going to be a hard fought battle towards the top.  My roster looked great on paper, but what I really needed was an edge, a small but real advantage that would work in my favor and help me outlast some very savvy Ottoneu owners.  So, I decided I would be obsessive about daily roster management…and I built a spreadsheet to help me track my team’s performance (by player) over the course of 180 days of baseball.  If I was going to win a tight race, I would need more than just excellent players.  I needed to know that I was effectively managing those players, too.

I ended up winning the championship in 2014 and owe a ton of credit to the daily roster tool I built to help me track it.  You can view the tool here.  I’m doing the same thing this year, so here are four roster management lessons I’ve learned that might be helpful for anyone playing daily fantasy baseball.

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One of the useful things about Ottoneu is its integration with the Fangraphs leaderboards.  I’m on the leaderboards here constantly as is, so the ability to use them, while having data specific to a fantasy league is an added bonus of the format. One of the filter’s I find myself using often on the leaderboards is the “Last 14 Day” filter. This is admittedly a smaller sample than anyone should use to make significant decisions, but I like to use this filter to help isolate players – especially pitchers – who have had recent hot streaks.  Ottoneu uses large 40 man rosters, so often I will use the last few roster spots to preemptively buy some of these early hot streaks. Especially if you’re a first place team – or a team near the top of the standings – you are will lose any tie-breaks on free-agent auctions so being the first team to buy into a player (or auction a player) can be key to keeping reinforcements on your bench in the event of an injury.  Today, we’ll look at several pitchers who are near the top of the current “Last 14 Day” leaderboard and look at a couple lessons we can learn from this group.

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