The No-Plan Plan: Prepping for a Year One ottoneu Auction
Many people believe that fantasy leagues are won prepping for the auction or draft. Having a plan, being ready to execute, and then following through can make all the difference.
But any time I have started a new ottoneu league, I have intentionally NOT planned. Well, that isn’t exactly true, but the No-Plan Plan is far less defined than how I approach any other league.
Going into most auctions or drafts, you have only 23-26 roster spots to fill and almost all of those players will be in your lineup daily. You can’t afford too many misses, you only get a flyer or two, and you need to make sure your lineup is set top-to-bottom, because it can be difficult to fill holes later in the season, unless you have depth somewhere to trade from.
But ottoneu is different, and 40 man rosters offer a ton more flexibility. In my experience, coming into a first year ottoneu auction, with 480 players set to get drafted, having too defined a plan limits that flexibility and denies you the opportunity to react to the landscape as it develops.
This is not to say that you should have nothing in mind when you sit down. Preparation is still the key, but you are prepping so that you don’t need a plan, rather than so you have one. I know many owners like to have lists or target players, a roster (or partial roster) they hope to fill out. But not me.
You want to start by deciding on projected prices for players, giving you a benchmark to see who is going over and under market price once the auction starts. Particularly in a new league, you never know how people will bid and if you show up thinking you want to target, for example, Prince Fielder, you may end up overpaying for your target when a Freddie Freeman or Paul Goldschmidt not only costs less but goes for less than your expected price.
Next, you want to identify lower-tier starters that you would be happy to run out everyday. For example, I am a big Ike Davis fan this year, and I am perfectly happy to use him as my 1B in most leagues. But his market price is likely to be that of a bottom-end starting 1B or perhaps a decent Util, rather than getting up there with the guys I mentioned in the previous paragraph. Guys like Davis allow me to pass on the big dogs if their prices get to high.
The idea here is not to target Davis (or your choice for that slot) but to allow yourself to be cautious in other bidding. If you think Prince is worth $40 and you can get him at $30 – go for it. But when all the 1B are coming off the board, you also don’t want to panic.
That said, another piece of prep work is to identify positions where you WILL want to panic. Maybe you look at the lower end 2B and don’t see anyone you are all the comfortable with (I, for one, think Dustin Ackley and Scott Sizemore could have good seasons, but not so strongly that I am willing to bank on them starting at 2B for me), and if that is the case, then you may in fact want to panic if the last 2B you like is about get bid higher than you expected. Part of the value of a $400 cap is that it gives you room for a reach or two, while still being able to fill out your roster. Maybe you have to pass on a prospect, or an over-hyped sleeper because of the extra $5 you spent on Robinson Cano, but you will still be able to build a lineup you’re happy with.
Deciding whether to spend the big bucks on multiple top players is another call that has to be made in auction. A stars-and-scrubs approach can work well in ottoneu, but it works better if the early bidding is tight and the stars are going cheap. If you can get a couple starts for $10 less than you expected, and another couple at $5 less than you expected, that opens up $30 additional to spend, giving you the flexibility to fill out your roster. But if people are spend-happy early and the bidding goes crazy on those stars, you may not be able to afford enough stars to win, and you may be passing on some great values on the second-tier players, who will go cheap if the stars use up too much cap space.
Finally, spend some time with two groups of players: Review the top 100 prospect lists and try to identify a handful of players in the middle of that list who could be in the top 20-25 next season. Those guys come at a huge discount ($1-$2) compared to the current top 20 ($8-$10) and considering they will only cost $2-$3 next year and will likely have high trade value if they develop as you expect, you are getting much more bang for your buck.
And look for part-time players with the potential to be valuable guys in a platoon. You won’t be used to having enough roster space to use these guys effectively, but ottoneu’s 40 man rosters make that possible.
Now, I am sure you are finishing this and thinking, “Chad, this plan is no plan at all.” True…but it will work.
A long-time fantasy baseball veteran and one of the creators of ottoneu, Chad Young's is the Managing Editor for RotoGraphs, and can be heard on the Keep or Kut Podcast. You can follow him on Bluesky @chadyoung.bsky.social.
So good you said it all twice…
Yikes, you’d think I would have noticed that ridiculous word count. Thanks for pointing that out – fixed now.
Looks like you still have two extra sentences at the end.
Great article, though. Pretty pumped for my first-year ottoneu auction this year.
got rid of those now, too. This is a lot of editing to have to do before 8 a.m.
i’m planning on joining an ottoneu league this year and was thinking that the auction will reward those who can be the most flexible in value hunting. It seems like a 40 man roster will make it much harder to leave money on the table.
One thing i’m not sure of, though, is how much thought I should be putting into the salary limits given the format’s restrictions on dropping players.If I’m value hunting this won’t be an issue, but if I overspend on a bust then it seems like ottoneu makes it much harder to drop a player. The flexibility in the auction seems like it translates to less flexibility in moving players around or picking up guys off FAAB during the season, since I assume any FAAB player I’d target would require a drop, and I’d have to eat the contract of the player I drop. This makes me feel like getting the 40 man roster right out of the auction is actually as or more important than in other formats that might have fewer roster spots but more flexibility in adding, dropping, and trading players.
First, a quick rules note: In-season you can trade cap dollars, so making trades work is almost never a problem. Sometimes getting cap space in a deal can be negotiated, but if I want to trade you my $5 [Insert prospect] for your $50 [Insert star] you can “loan” me the cap space to pay for the star. So trading in-season is rarely, if ever, held up by cap space.
As for FAAB – the key is to end the auction with some cash on the table. You want to make sure you have money available (not a lot, mind you – just some) to make moves in-season. If no one in your league does this (and in first year leagues, sometimes no one does this) one of two things will happen: 1) in-season free agents will be dirt cheap ro 2) people will start cutting reasonable players at higher than desirable salaries (say a player worth $18 but paid $12) to make room for signings, which ends up improving the FA pool. In either case, having cash free really helps.
You also only eat half (rounded up) of players you drop, so dropping any player who cost more than $1 will always free up space, just less than their total salary. It kinda sounds like you haven’t really read all the rules? Probably should do that.
it kinda sounds like you assume the same level of knowledge for everyone regardless of experience?
i understood that you only eat half the salary, but i’m used to owner personalities that have made salary rules really complicated and frustrating. Chad’s advice to actually leave some money on the table is a really smart way to build in payroll flexibility; and one I hadn’t actually considered.
I didn’t mean to be a jerk, but you were using the words “seem” and “assume” like there weren’t codified rules available for your use.
if you can’t be a jerk on the internet, where can you be a jerk?
i’m going to thumbs up your original jerkiness, but not your apology.
Nice article Mr. Young. I’m excited about my first ottoneu auction draft.
“You want to make sure you have money available (not a lot, mind you – just some) to make moves in-season.” – What’s a good number to have available?
I’d say anywhere from 5-20, ideally around $10, but it depends on a a couple things:
1) If you are planning to compete right now, you don’t want to miss out on a guy you need to hold FAAB dollars, so I’d likely be at the low end of that. If, on the other hand, you are not looking to compete, there is no reason to go the extra dollar now when in a couple months there will be breakout stars, emerging prospects, and newly signed draftees all of whom can be grabbed on the cheap and stashed for future years.
2) What are your fellow owners doing? I know this is hard to judge for ahead of time, but this goes into my No-Plan Plan – If the other owners are all spending all their money, you won’t need a ton available to outbid them. If they are all keeping a decent amount, you want to have a decent amount too, so that you can target and acquire the players you want. If, however, they are all leaving a ton of money on the table, you may want to put more focus on the auction, as that situation can lead to inflated in-season prices, and you may be better off improving via trade than FA in a league like that.
“having too defined a plan limits that flexibility and denies you the opportunity to react to the landscape as it develops.”
So this article could have been summed up with “Just don’t have a bad, restrictive plan”?
OK.
Not exactly. “Prepare yourself for the landscape of your league and then try and remain flexible” gets you closer, with reasons why this is better for this format, then examples of how to look at the landscape and what is meant by staying flexible, then specific information on cap space and prospects. Gosh, that almost sounds like an article, with paragraphs and everything.
Gosh, the “no plan” plan sounds a lot like “actually having a plan” in the first place.
Who makes up a plan and then follow it to the letter regardless of a changing landscape? Gosh, that sounds like a “bad plan”.
Gosh.