Niv Shah, the developer of the popular fantasy baseball site, Ottoneu, discussed both fantasy and real baseball with the Cleveland Club on September 28

Niv Shah, the developer of the popular fantasy baseball site, Ottoneu, discussed both fantasy and real baseball with the Cleveland Club on September 28. Shah developed an attachment to the Cleveland Indians while a high school student. He watched the Indians at Jacobs Field and played crude fantasy baseball with his high school friends. After college and a stint as a software developer in Silicon Valley, he began a fantasy site that more realistically duplicated what Major League Baseball (MLB) general managers do to build a winning team over time. This means studying player statistics and then buying or trading for them – within a salary cap – with other GMs who are working just as hard to develop their own winning teams. Shah’s site – ottoneu.fangraphs.com – creates 12-, 14-, and 16-team leagues composed of real players with their attendant real statistics that update with every real game those players play. Teams have as many as 40 players and each Ottoneu GM creates a lineup for the day, including a pitching rotation and player positions. Teams rise and fall within their leagues based on real-time statistics of the players who compose the separate teams. An inspiration was the Michael Lewis book (and subsequent movie) Moneyball. Unlike some other games that dissolve their teams at a season’s end, Ottoneu teams trade and buy through the winter just as their real counterparts do in hope of emerging with a winning combination as the spring season starts. People who have played Ottoneu have moved on to front office jobs with MLB teams. Ottoneu now has 4,000 GMs playing in 370 leagues.

Shah told participants that a friend put him in touch with Indians’ GM Mike Chernoff, who has admired the site and given advice, as well as watched games with Shah.

Asked which real MLB teams Shah thinks will be strong in the post-season, he named the White Sox and the Astros, and called the Dodgers a great team.

Asked about this summer’s pitching substance abuse issue – MLB cracked down on substances pitchers sometimes worked onto the balls they were pitching in order to increase the ball spin rate -- Shah said it had an effect on real pitchers, whose statistics then sank and thus created consequences on Ottoneu teams as well. He surmised that pitching injuries would be on the rise in the coming year on account of trying to compensate by attempting to throw the balls faster.

Shah said in his opinion the Indians have been quite astute in their trades in recent decades, including moving on from Corey Kluber and Trevor Bauer at the right time. He also pointed out that the Indians use their farm system differently than, say, the Yankees -- the Indians try to develop talent for the long haul whereas the Yankees look to purchase super stars once they have developed.

You can learn more about Ottoneu at ottoneu.fangraphs.com and more about Niv Shah from the April 13, 2021 article in the Washington Post.