As Chad Young already spelled out in his piece earlier today, the two of us recently completed a trade in the second FanGraphs Staff League: Pablo Sandoval and Hong-Chih Kuo for Matt Thornton and Paul Goldschmidt.

I was on the end receiving Sandoval, and as far as overall trade analysis goes, I have to agree almost entirely with Chad. Due to the relative strengths and weaknesses of both our teams, I think this was one of those trades that — right now, at least — rates as a win-win. Both of us are dealing from depth; I get the third baseman I desperately need without destroying my bullpen or offensive depth, and Chad improves his bullpen considerably and gets a young, high upside first baseman without hurting his offense. Only time will tell exactly how this works out, but in the moment, both of us left feeling quite happy with our returns.

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Twice in the past few days, Howard Bender (whose name I cannot hear without imagining this) has provided a list of guys he will not draft in 2012.

I wanted to add my own list, but with an ottoneu twist. I’ll just add a note that I am very specifically saying I won’t draft these guys. At the right price, I would have held onto any of them as keepers, and I actually have the first one on one of my rosters because his price is so low. And so, without further ado…

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Last week the San Diego Padres locked up Cameron Maybin, signing the 24-year-old to a five year contract extension. In less notable news, I traded for him in the staff Ottoneu league last week in exchange for Martin Prado. There was some debate as to who got the better end of the deal, which is why we’re bringing it to you, the reader. In the coming paragraphs, both myself and my trade partner, Ben Duronio, will explain our side of the trade. Feel free to openly ridicule both of us.

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With Yu Darvish sufficiently crowdsourced, it’s time to look at this offseason’s other big international import: Yoenis Cespedes. Last week we asked you about his acquisition cost, specifically when you would be comfortable grabbing him in three formats…

1. 12-team mixed league, 5×5 scoring
2. $260 budget, 5×5 scoring
3. $400 budget, ottoneu points

We received a total of 325 responses, and the results are as follows…

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Two weeks ago, Eno Sarris ran a series of posts asking you, dear readers, to analyze some fantasy questions and offered you a subscription to the FanGraphs+ 2012.

Today, at the behest of Niv Shah – the Abner Doubleday of ottoneu (except, you know, without the doubts that he is actually the man behind the game) – I present to you an opportunity to win a free $9.99 ottoneu team for 2012. All you have to do is tell us who you think was the worst value in the original ottoneu auction that happened this past weekend.

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The results are in. After crowdsourcing Yu Darvish‘s expected 5×5 stats and ottoneu points production, last week we asked you about his draft round and auction value in three formats…

1. 12-team mixed league, 5×5 scoring
2. $260 budget, 5×5 scoring
3. $400 budget, ottoneu points

We received 248 total responses, with the results as follows…

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On Tuesday night, we completed a second FanGraphs staff league Ottoneu draft, and after eight long hours — spread over two nights — I had my very first squad. I thought it might be fitting to have my first ever Ottoneu draft coincide with my first post at RotoGraphs, so feel free to skewer my decision-making but please keep in mind I was a first-timer.

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The Nationals spent a good portion of the offseason trying to woo Prince Fielder to the nation’s capitol even though they already had a pretty good first baseman in place. That first baseman is Mike Morse, not the $16M man Adam LaRoche. LaRoche missed all but 43 games of 2012 due to a torn labrum and rotator cuff in his left shoulder, an injury that completely sabotaged him at the plate (.258 wOBA in 177 PA) during his first year in Washington.

The 32-year-old LaRoche is now close to nine months out from surgery and working his way back in Spring Training. He told Mark Zuckerman that swinging the bat is not a problem (though he has yet to face live pitching), but he still hasn’t cut it loose when throwing. Since Morse can play the outfield, the Nats will have no problem fitting both men in the lineup if they make it through camp healthy and deserving of regular playing time.

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After part one of the auction for the Second FanGraphs Staff League, I took some time to look back at the strategy I set up going into the auction, and to re-strategize for day two, based on where I was.

And looking back, I’d have to say I executed pretty well, although not always in the ways I expected.

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Last night, the FanGraphs Staff League II finished up its fantasy auction. Starting at 6:30pm EST, we plugged away until our eyes became blurry, our muscle coordination began to fail, and we became so delirious that even Chone Figgins and Ryan Roberts started to look damn attractive. Staring at a computer screen intensely for 5 hours — stressing out over fringe major-league players — is a recipe to make anyone go insane.

Now that our draft is done, I figured I’d share with everyone a nifty resource that I put together: a tiered ranking for every position, based on players’ projected points according to ZiPS and CAIRO. As I explained in my first post:

I took ZiPS projections for hitters (from the Baseball Think Factory) and CAIRO projections for [starting] pitchers (from RLYW), and then converted these projections into an expected point total for each player. I then broke these players up by position and tiered them, allowing me to see at a glance which positions were deeper than others and which might hold unexpected value.

Well, here is my spreadsheet (right-click, “Save As”). I’ve included the prices that players went for in our draft (minus some of the later round selections, when I couldn’t keep up). This is obviously most helpful for FanGraphs Points leagues, but it’s not a bad proxy for other leagues as well. I’ve included my tiers, and then also included the larger ZiPS and CAIRO projections so that you can find points projections for other players not included in the tiers.

Please keep in mind that these spreadsheets are far from perfect. The projections don’t account for issues like playing time or injuries — Notice how Victor Martinez is highly ranked? — and projection systems are notoriously rough when it comes to rookies. I have not tampered with these rankings in any way, though, because I wanted to present them to you relatively unbiased (you still have to deal with my somewhat arbitrary cut-off points for tiers).

Based on these rankings, there were a couple players that I targeted coming into the draft, since I thought they might be underrated by most people. I didn’t end up with all of these players, but they all did end up being pretty good bargains:

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