Ottoneu Surplus Calculator (2017 version)

There is no doubt in my mind that surplus is the primary component of team success in ottoneu, but your point that surplus is only is as good as the player values used is exactly right. The teams with the highest surplus per the Surplus Calc may not have fared as well as expected last year, but that would be more an issue with the projections than with the concept of surplus. It’s one of the reasons I always harp on everyone to not treat the $ values included as gospel.

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A couple of additional items to consider. It isn’t just the values. It is also the distribution of the surplus across your roster. A $1 1B with $5 in surplus that is stuck behind 2 other 1B is not all that useful during the season but looks good in the calculator. Also, teams with zero prospect assets may appear stronger based on surplus despite the fact that those prospect assets allow teams to improve dramatically once the season starts.

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Absolutely right, and I’ve mentioned both those quirks in the past when discussing surplus and the calculator. A 100% literal focus on acquiring surplus (based on the default calc values) is probably not harmful for a beginner, but it’s not a good idea for veterans that know roster construction and in season management are very important for success.

My goals with the surplus calc were twofold:

  1. Share the framework of a system I personally used with all ottoneu owners, in case they might find it valuable

  2. Provide a baseline for ottoneu beginners that may be intimidated by the vagaries of how to calculate player values, and how to evaluate keepers/offseason trades/etc.

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This is a great point. Last season I attempted for the first time to put a value (in points) on prospects as trade chips for teams as I tried to project the final standings in my league. I think I came to the conclusion that a Top 15 prospect (on average) was worth about 150 points gained in the standings (I think I bumped it up to almost 300 for some of the Top 5). That may be too low or two high, but I do think you have to factor it in as you look at pre-season standings in your league, because prospects do hold actual point value as chips and are flipped often.

It’s worth repeating implications of these two points:

  1. Prospects are worth some sort of value as mentioned above, though generally they appear as 0 value in the calculator
  2. Replacement level then is probably somewhat higher than where it is set by projections alone…if you should be holding prospects due to 1, you should hold fewer marginal guys
  3. Higher level talent may be worth more than advertised…guys that actually produce points on your roster take on greater responsibility

Projection systems tend to push values towards the mean, but the implications above suggest mentally correcting values at each end of the curve.

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On your second point, my $ values already assume a certain number of roster spots and $ is used on prospects.

Fair enough! I remember discussing this with you via slack last year. Great tool, especially for beginners.

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When it comes to values, rather than look at individual players I do like to perform a basic “sniff” test by position and groups with similar characteristics, such as the really old or really young.

In the default FGPoints values, my nose suggests that RPs are undervalued as a collective. For example, any league where Zach Britton is valued $3 less than Alex Wood is a league I’d enjoy.

Exactly what I mean! Those who create their own values should play with positional replacement levels to address this.

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Do I enter 5x5 in league type to get the values to load? I tried and it just has the teams and zero’s.

@Ehanna Ehanna,
the league type automatically loads when you enter your league number (make sure you are working in a copy of the file). Read instructions on the first tab to make sure you see all your league’s teams.
RJ

Thanks. I didn’t realize it would load it automatically.

Took me a while too which field load automatically. Usually I just check the value of a field and if it has a vlookup, import… or function in it I won’t touch it. I guess it would be nice if those fields were protected but those things become a nightmare to manage.

I’ve honestly never done much with protected sheets/fields in Sheets, so I hadn’t thought to restrict the cells I don’t want someone to accidentally change. I just protected the league type field, can you check on your end that I did it correctly? If you have any other suggestions for areas I should protect or change to make things more user friendly please shoot me a private message. Thanks!

Just a heads up that I have updated $ values for all formats on the calculator

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Just added a sort option on the Team Roster tab per @robdohn suggestion.

One more big change, you no longer have to monkey with the filter in the Team Totals tab every time you enter a new league number (hat tip to @sakiehl), everything just works automatically once you enter the league number.

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Fantastic job @vibbot!

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I haven’t actually written about how I calculate the dollar values, and that is definitely something I should put together soon, but yes basically I’m just using a simple Points Above Replacement calculation.

Yes, you are absolutely correct. I’ve made the argument in other discussions recently that even with the same set of projections the calculated dollar values can have some significant differences. Running these values is as much an art as it is science.