Idea: just like Baseball Prospectus used to run a competition called "HACKING MASS" ... what might an anti-roto look like?  The goal being to buy the worst players ... the pitchers who would give up the most hits and walks and runs and fewest Ks ... the hitters with the most PAs without hits or walks or RBIs or HRs or SBs ...

It occurred to me that part of why hitter values > pitcher values is because hitter's downside is zero and upside is unbounded ... whereas for pitchers, their upside is zero and the downside is unbounded ...

In anti-roto, this is reversed ... with the caveat that both hitter and pitcher downside is limited by the likelihood that if/when they are "too bad", then they cease to get playing time ... which, in anti-roto, is a bad thing.

I guess one can play anti-roto with standard roto web services ... and last is first ... is it that simple?

Or ... mixed-anti-roto ... where you want good hitters (ie. with unbounded goodness) and bad pitchers (ie. with unbounded badness) ... crazy talk?  :-)

Ottoneu, when I played it, did have an alternative to the toss back rule that was similar to what you are saying. Each team had $25 to add to salaries on the other 11 teams. They could add max of $3 to any one team and had to add $1 to every team (so the most unbalanced you could make your additions was $1 to 4 teams and $3 to 7 teams). Most people would allocate to the Tatis' of the world, I would usually allocate to players I thought might be close to being toss-backs to help incentivize people cutting more players.

I really don't like the toss back rule, but here's an alternative worth looking at:

At the end of the year, each team (starting with the last place team) can add $5 salary to a player on another team. Then, the team that just got the $5 added can add $5 to a player from a different team. You keep going until every owner has added $5 to the salary of another team's player, and every team has had $5 added to one of their players. Only one player per team. (so, if the first owner adds $5 to Tatis's salary, his owner wouldn't get any more added to any of his players.

You could even use this as an incentive for non-money teams to compete until the end. The top non-money finishers would only get $2 added to a player, the next finishers would get $3, etc. 

Some of the better rules I've come across in the past couple of years in dabbling in various NL Only leagues:

1) Founder's veto. Any new rule can be vetoed by the two founders who serve as co-commish.
2) Alternate contract approach: Only six keepers and all major leaguers salary increases by $5 per season. This has sort of the opposite effect of the Ottoneu rule -- Only the Tatis' of the world get kept long term. Some teams don't even keep 6 major leaguers (there are separate minor league keepers who salary doesn't age).

There are several pieces of Ottoneu that I enjoyed. I couldn't fully embrace because it was mix league and I don't do AL.

I do like the keeper mechanism though:

  1) No limit on # of keepers.

  2) Every major leaguer's salary increases +2 per season; every minor leaguer salary increases +1 every season.

  3) At the end of year each team votes to see which player from each team (one per team) will get tossed back into the pool. Tatis at 15? Sorry 8 of the 11 owners just voted him back into the pool.

Thx for the link, PK ... intrigues me also.  I know Kent has played Otto Neu ... but I'm too invested in traditional Roto ...

OT - Maybe "Stage Four" is when, after your Stage Three auction, you DON'T have a period of post-auction depression :-)

Eno Sarris wrote an appreciation of Ottoneu baseball for the Fantasy Baseball Guide some years back, and I was intrigued, but I didn't follow up. This story about the game's inventor and CEO has me intrigued again.

Lynchmob, I think zagging is the most effective way to play in a league of owners educated by all the current wisdom. Problem is, of course, that a zag strategy is best countered with other zags. I had a great freeze list and decided to keep all 7 hitters, planning to spend $90 or more on starters and join the 6-month scrum for saves. 

But within a couple of rounds it was clear that my closest competitors had the same zag idea, and they were bent on keeping any of the other top keeper list holders from garnering more than one expensive top starter. With all of us planning to spend big on starters, my zag plan turned zig. Lucky for me, I grabbed Berrios at $30 in round 1, but after that I was outbid, forcing me into buying secondary -- and lower -- starters. I bought hitters instead, overpaying of course, with nearly 30% inflation. From a well-researched list I had planned to buy maybe one or two starters cheaply, I bought much of my staff: Minor, Dunning, Boyd, Arihara, and Luis Garcia. The top closers, according to current wisdom, went way too expensively, so I bought Green, Mayers, and Romo. 

My auction was a double zag. Can't judge where I may finish. Talk to me in June. I"ve got Kelenic and Deivi Garcia in the minors. I like my club, but there's way too much hope in it.

$45 is exactly what I valued Yelich at with inflation. I think if you have a tendency to leave money on the table, I do, one approach is to buy the better players ie higher priced you want at or over par value, but not by more than a few dollars. So, that is an excellent buy, Mike.

We paid $45 for Yelich, so clearly we agree with Howard.  Our only
goal for PCL 2021:  not leave 10 or 12 bucks on the table like last
year, or what we call the Gregory Polanco Fiasco. 

Mission accomplished. So that's something.