The All-Star break is a good time to talk a little bit about 2021 OPL so far and what to expect as we enter what I expect to be a very exciting playoff stretch.
First, congrats to everyone who made the playoffs. The difference between 32nd and 33rd ended at around 20 points after over half a season of baseball. You can also see that 31 and 32 were separated by less than 0.3 points. It was a very tight finish that ended up being tracked in the #opl Slack channel at-bat by at-bat, and I’m very happy that it was exciting and fun down the stretch.
For those of you that have cleared the last big red line, congrats! You have won a 2021 OPL t-shirt. The way I am going to distribute this prize is going to be a little bit different. The t-shirt is listed in the Ottoneu store for $1mil. The teams that have made it to the playoffs will receive one coupon that will reduce the price of this t-shirt to $0. They will also have the option to generate up to 3 more coupons for this item, though the subsequent coupons will reduce the price to $25 to cover getting the shirt and shipping it. This is so co-managers will be able to get t-shirts. This system will be live after the 2021 OPL season ends. I’m distributing this prize (and the bat, for that matter) through the store because it makes the logistics of inventory (ordering the right number of shirts) and shipping (where to send the shirt) way easier on me. We’ll try it out this year and I’m open to feedback on this system ahead of 2022 OPL.
Matchups will be generated on July 14th as part of the snapshot process. Matchups are totally random and each round is generated on the fly (no bracket). I’m excited to see what teams end up matching up. It should be a real sweat to get to the top 16!
Finally, I want to set some expectations for 2022 OPL. I’m pretty happy with how 2021 OPL has turned out - it has caused some teams to make some tough decisions, it has generated a lot of excitement, and I think long-term it is going to help incentivize finishing higher in home leagues. The only concern from my perspective has been the manipulation of the suspended list, 60-day IL, and COVID-IL statuses for roster spots. The handling of these statuses will change ahead of 2022 OPL, and I’ll have more details about this after this MLB season is over.
I hope everyone has had a ton of fun with the inaugural OPL. I welcome any feedback you have, either directly (help@ottoneu.com) or here in the forums, and I wish everyone who is still standing the best of luck going forward. Thanks as always for supporting Ottoneu Fantasy Sports!
For anyone who wants to follow along with the OPL playoffs, make sure to hit up the OPL site for the scoreboard and team/player details as they relate to the 2021 OPL.
Thanks Niv, it’s been a fun and challenging year learning the new obstacles teams face throughout the OPL season (learning how to construct a competitive OPL roster, navigating spontaneous tough roster decisions around deadlines (Acuna), and keeping the home league afloat for a chance at next year) but the Rocky Mountain Oysters are in to the Round of 32 and hope to get hot at the right time to win the championship bat!
Yes, thanks Niv. I echo mmaude here and feel fortunate to have Framber Comes Alive in the round of 32.
Just a quick note on the 60 day IL issue which you note above. I’ve given this some thought and here’s a suggestion for not throwing out all 60 day IL players in 2022. A complete ban would not allow an early season injured player like Eloy Jimenez or Corey Seager to come back into play after ASB. My suggestion would be to allow all 60 day IL players to return upon each snapshot who have a salary of say, $5. Your stars who get injured will surely qualify as they inevitably are priced higher than $5. That threshold will also stop the rampant 60 IL speculation going on where teams are adding 15 players for $15. At $5 per 60 IL player acquisition, the price for engaging in such speculation would be too steep. Obviously, this would require some extra coding on your part so that would play into any decision like this. Good luck on formulating new changes to the game for next year.
I already have a change in line for this and will announce it after the season. No need to speculate or make suggestions (to anyone else reading) as I already know what 2022 OPL’s change will be.
@nivshah glad to hear some 60IL/roster manipulation will be under control for next year, as it seems to have only gotten worse going into the round of 32.
My only other comment is have you considered scoring adjustments?
By reducing scores 75% twice, only 1/16 of the first round’s points actually count at the round of 32 cut; essentially meaning that, in the end, less than two games worth of a player’s first round stats actually count and in my opinion, renders the first round somewhat obsolete by the time the most crucial cuts are made.
I think a scoring of the following would better represent a team’s true performance over the course of the first half of the season; equally weighting the first two months, while still allowing teams to make up ground via roster improvements, scoring regression, etc.:
.25(Round 1) + .25(Round 2) + Round 3 = Score for Round of 32 Cut
Curious to your thoughts and looking forward to my t-shirt and hopefully a wooden bat!
I think this is a feature, not a bug. Teams aren’t buried after squeaking past the first round but good first round teams definitely get a benefit in the second round. I think the current scoring half-life worked quite well.
I guess to be a bit clearer: the goal is not to track the best team over the course of the whole first half. It is to track exactly what it tracked and should require teams to be relentless to make each cut.
That Google Sheet has a new tab added that breaks down the rosters for each of the first round matchups. The rosters are broken up by position grouping (C, CI, MI, OF, Shohei, SP, RP) and I’ve included rest-of-season The Bat projections for Games/IP and wOBA/FIP. Thought it would be handy to see how the matchups break down!
Hello fellow OPL’ers! I’ve created a quick Google Sheet showing cumulative score by day and lead by day for all matchups. A little rough around the edges for now, but this should automatically update throughout the playoffs, let me know if you have any questions!
