The Ottoneu Surplus Value All-Stars

With the All-Star break and a four day break from the regular season right around the corner, I’ve decided to skip the Ottoneu Starting Pitcher Planner this week. Many teams will take this opportunity to reorder their starting rotations as they head into the second half of the season, which means the probable pitchers listed on the Roster Resource Probables Grid will likely change between now and next Friday.

Instead, I’ll take this opportunity to celebrate some of the players who have made the biggest contributions to our Ottoneu teams during the first half of the season. The highest scoring player so far has been Shohei Ohtani — no surprise there since he’s scoring in both pitching and hitting categories. If you look past the two-way sensation, Ronald Acuña Jr. and Kevin Gausman are the highest scoring players behind him. But not everyone can afford to roster an Ohtani ($54 average salary), Acuña ($54), or Gausman ($17). (Okay, Gausman is a little more attainable, but bear with me). If you’re rostering any of these top scorers, you’re probably towards the top of the standings in your league.

Instead, I want to celebrate the guys with tons of surplus value — the players who are rostered with low salaries but who are producing big numbers for your team. After all, the key to winning in Ottoneu year-after-year is identifying those players who can produce like superstars but cost a fraction of an Ohtani or Acuña. I pulled surplus value data from the FanGraphs Auction Calculator and then calculated the surplus value per dollar of salary to get a list of players who have produced the most value for the lowest cost. Let’s celebrate the Ottoneu Surplus Value All-Stars!

Above are the 20 most valuable hitters plus two catchers. Corbin Carroll leads the way as the seventh highest scoring batter this year. Spencer Steer and Luis Arraez are right behind him at ninth and tenth overall and their multi-positional eligibility has been a boon for the teams who are rostering them. The biggest surprise on this list has to be Jeimer Candelario, who is still shockingly available in nearly a quarter of all Ottoneu leagues.

The majority of this list is players in the middle of breakout seasons or bounce back seasons. That’s pretty unsurprising since those kinds of players are able to be rostered for cheap in the hopes that they hit it big. But just because they show up on this list doesn’t necessarily make them a shoe-in to be a keeper next year. Guys like Justin Turner and Andrew McCutchen are veterans in the middle of fantastic seasons but there’s no guarantee they’ll keep up the production next year.

On the pitching side of things, the story is largely the same. Nathan Eovaldi is the second highest scoring pitcher behind Gausman and Marcus Stroman and Mitch Keller are sixth and seventh overall. For the relievers, it’s essentially a list of the top scoring relievers with Félix Bautista and Alexis Díaz leading the way and Yennier Cano, Tanner Scott, Tyler Rogers, and Scott McGough all sitting inside the top 10.

The surprise inclusion on this list is probably Nick Martinez. He’s bounced between the rotation and the bullpen but he’s been productive no matter where he’s pitched. There are a number of pitchers on the list who are also shockingly under-rostered. Rogers is the sixth highest scoring reliever this season and he’s available in more than a third of Ottoneu leagues. I’m sure that roster percentage is being pulled down by 5×5 leagues that only value saves, but he’s clearly been one of the best relievers in baseball this year.