The Most Random Ottoneu League

They say necessity is the mother of invention. And they are right. But you know what else is the mother of invention? People saying seemingly weird things and then stopping and thinking, “Wait, maybe this is something!”

That’s where the latest Ottoneu innovation came from, and it’s a fun one. During the heat of draft season, when we run out of things to talk about other than the 10,000th debate over Edgar Quero’s auction value, a discussion about slow auctions (the 10,000th of those, too) resulted in people to start making outlandish suggestions about how to run drafts. And then Ottoneu creator Niv Shah commented:

What if players were randomly distributed?

He immediately got an “I would sign up for that” response. I half-joked, “Randomly assigned players with randomly assigned salaries.”

“Error bars around last 10 salary,” Niv replied. “So some variance, but generally market.”

And from that “a random league” was born. And while this sounds like a gimmick there is real interest in it and real value to it (which you can see from that thread). Niv and I will be co-managing a team in that league and I want to talk about a) why I think this is not just an interesting experiment, but a useful concept and b) what Niv and I need to do as managers of our randomly created team.

There’s more detail in the link above, but the basics are just what the original conversation suggestion – Niv created a program to (somewhat) randomly assign players to teams at salaries that vary around market value. There are some controls in place – players are divided into tiers by salary so every team gets a mix of players at different tiers and no team gets all the stars – but there is plenty of room for unusual outcomes, like Niv and I having no third basemen and only two middle infielders on our roster.

The reason this is generating so much interest seems to be a combination of factors:

1. Auctions, especially start-up auctions for new leagues, are time-intensive. For a lot of people (hi, it’s me), adding another long auction to their calendar in February or March is a barrier to adding another team.
2. Taking a flawed team and making adds, cuts, and trades to shape it to contend (or start a rebuild) is one of the more fun parts of any keeper/dynasty/long-term format. But post-auction, most managers have teams they like. They don’t necessarily want to make a bunch of cuts and trades. These rosters, however, demand that kind of movement and lessen or maybe eliminate the Endowment Effect – I am not as attached to players I didn’t pick.

By randomly distributing players, it’s suddenly quick and easy to start up a league and you dive right into a market that is primed for movement.

For now, this is only a test. Niv is going to randomly select managers to take over these teams and we are going to play out the 2026 season as a season-long FanGraphs Points league. If you are interested, you can throw your name in the hat. The league will kick off April 8, but there will be no lineups/points until May 13 (because, as noted, these teams are made up of randomly distributed players and need some work). But if this works, you may be able to do this in the future – create a league from scratch with randomly assigned players.

Which begs the question: what would a randomly assigned team look like and what might you have to do with it? Well, you can check out the league and see what the teams look like. They are really varied. Some have almost no cash to spend, while others are going to be ready to work the wire. Some have deep rosters without enough top-end talent. Some have the top-end talent but enough depth. This is what Niv and I are working with. And we have some work to do.

Starting with the offense, the bones are good, but there are gaps. Here is our offense, as it stands right now:

• Catcher: Shea Langeliers, Dillon Dingler
• First base: Spencer Horwitz
• Second base: Ozzie Albies
• Third base: Uh…well…no one?
• Shortstop: Gunnar Henderson
• Middle Infield: See third base
• Outfield: Wyatt Langford, Jackson Merrill, Mike Trout, Steven Kwan, Lawrence Butler, Wilyer Abreu, TJ Friedl, Nick Castellanos
• Util: Shohei Ohtani

So when I said the bones were good, I maybe should have mentioned that the bones are good except for the multiple missing bones? I think the outfield is pretty strong, though there is some dead weight there and we could use more depth to be safe. But Langford, Merrill, Trout, and Abreu is a great 1-4 and I like Kwan and Butler, as well. I think Albies/Henderson is a strong start to a middle infield, and Ohtani is Ohtani. But we need a third baseman and a middle infielder, and I don’t feel great about Horwitz as our only first baseman. And, of course, we have no bench.

The pitching, however, looks stronger:

• Starters: Ohtani, Logan Webb, Chris Sale, Tyler Glasnow, Jacob deGrom, Eury Pérez, Kevin Gausman, Nick Lodolo, Sandy Alcantara, Kris Bubic, Cade Horton, Steven Matz, Joe Boyle
• Relievers: Orion Kerkering, Tony Santillan
• Prospect: Cam Caminiti

Sure, we don’t have a bullpen, but who needs a bullpen when your starting rotation goes 11 deep and also has additional upside in Boyle? That rotation is world-beating. If I use Jake Mailhot’s starting pitching rankings from a couple of weeks back, Niv and I have numbers 4, 8, 10, 11, 14, 30, 36, 40, 45, 61, 72, plus Matz and Boyle outside the top 100. An average rotation in a 12-team league should have one top-12 SP (we have four), three top-36 SP (we have seven), and six top-72 SP (we have 10).

I suppose this makes our first move pretty obvious – we need to shop starters for those missing bones. What kind of third baseman can we get for DeGrom? Could we move Webb for multiple bats? Before we even ask those questions, we need to figure out which starters we want to move and feel out the market for what starters will net the biggest return. It’s also worth noting that we have eight open roster spots and only $8 to spend. We may want to acquire cap space in a trade, as well as the needed bats. The nice thing is, I think we can find a way to be a contender this year if we can trade away two starters for the pieces we need.

Regardless, I am intrigued to see how this goes. Is it as fun as I expect it will be? Do randomly “drafted” teams lead to a competitive league? Is this something I would recommend others to try? If this proves to be as exciting as I think it will be, I’ll consider that a win, even if the team finishes last.