The Ottoneu Champions League was established in 2015 and brings together some of the best FGPTS champions among all Ottoneu leagues. You can see a full breakdown of the standings during last year’s inaugural season here (as well as our recent podcast review), but the purpose of this post is to take a very quick, very premature look at which teams might be best positioned to win the league in 2016. And since it’s not even December yet, we’ll do this using just a handful of useful tools available to us today:
- Current Champions League rosters
- 2016 Steamer Projections
- 2016 Vibber Dollar Values (based on Steamer 2016)
Based on this limited information we’ll take a very rough approach at identifying some of the best Champions League teams heading into 2016, and we’ll do it simply by estimating how much surplus value each roster is currently carrying. Keep in mind we’re months from the keeper deadline and auction, trades will cause players to change hands, and this attempt says nothing about lineup efficiency or in-season roster management. Instead, we’re simply just trying to identify which teams might have an early, advantageous foundation from which to build on going forward. In other words, the assumption during this very early look is that teams with the most surplus value and the most projected points above the (replacement) baseline (“POB”) are probably in a pretty good position heading into the annual auction draft.
Again, we’re acknowledging the elementary process here based on loose assumptions and raw, early projections, but here’s a summary of what stands out in the Champions League for 2016:
You can find a full version of the spreadsheet here and can unfilter to identify specific players (or to customize for your own league rosters), but here’s are some quick notes and takeaways:
- Rosters are filtered by total surplus dollars (Vibber projected $’s less current salary for each player) for the entire roster, not just a starting lineup. Total values reflected here are negative simply because so many teams own players with negative value compared to projected value (for instance, I own a $48 Jose Abreu, with a projected value of $37, so net of -$11).
- Rosters haven’t yet been trimmed below the $400 salary cap (and won’t be for months), so Salary reflects current day total roster salaries exiting the 2015 season.
- PancakeJones has a sizable value advantage (-$37.10) to the next closest team (Lucky Strikes, -$55.00), and that advantage is even greater than it appears considering Strikes is currently sitting $135 over the salary cap compared to just $42 over for PancakeJones. The big takeaway here is that PancakeJones looks like he is in a very good position heading into 2016, and this makes perfect sense when you review the roster itself as Machado ($26), Sano ($15), Correa ($23), Bryant ($32), and T. Ross ($18) make up some of the best surplus contracts in the league.
- It shouldn’t come as a surprise that both Chicago Whales and Lucky Strikes have a large advantage in POB considering their bloated roster salary, but as you can see, PancakeJones looks strong on POB as well, which clearly supports the surplus $ advantage entering the off-season.
- Splendid Splinters has a total value projection (-$97) that sits better than the average here, but that’s with a total salary of just $334. This bodes well for another well positioned team heading into 2016.
- The low POB total for Kershaws of Sunset is ravaged by some albatross contracts that are very likely to be cut this off season.
- The early value numbers here indicate an uphill climb for both How Sweep It Is and Dottie Hinson; we’ll rerun another version of this after the keeper deadline and auction to see how much ground they can make up over the next few months.
This is about as quick and dirty as it gets this time of season, but the early look shows PancakeJones (Dan Weaver) with a sizable roster advantage and as very likely 2016 Champions contender. We’ll see how the off-season shakes out for this team and make a comparison in a few months when more projection systems are available. Have you run similar projections for you league? Let us know in the comments your process for evaluating your place in next year’s Ottoneu standings this early in the off-season.
Updated view:
Tableau: http://cl.ly/1E3G3L0B2i0m
Ottoneu Trade Rumors 
PancakeJones eats baby sea lions every morning for breakfast. His success has come at the horrible cost of their numbers.
Rumor on the street this year is that Pancake is going to get Sano to do his dirty work clubbing all those baby sea lions. We’ll see how it plays out but it’s pretty clear his roster is a danger to the environment.
As the owner of the Whales, I officially denounce Pancake’s villainy against marine wildlife.