So the commish in my fantasy league just got the bright idea to change from a traditional snake draft to an auction draft, which I've never done before. I'm feeling all kinds of angst over it. Personally, I think it's going to be a disaster because I don't think most of the guys in my league are ready for an auction draft. My league settings are 5X5 H2H, 26 players on the roster. Budget of $260 on draft day. Salaries and salary caps do not carry over into trades and waiver pickups. I just have a few questions that some of you with a little more experience may be able to help me with:
Is it better to go Stars and Scrubs, or try to distribute the money evenly throughout the roster?
Is there an upper limit of how many $$ you are willing to pay for any player. It just seems to me that $50 for Matt Kemp, to name just one, is too big a hit on the budget from one player no matter how good he is. Am I right on that?
With 26 roster spots, that's an average of $10 per player. $10 often doesn't get you much of a player. For instance, Kelly Johnson is listed as a $10 value. Kelly Johnson?
Help! I need advice!!
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Never done one before, although I have presided over a hard core NL Only Auction draft where my word was final. Respect my auth-or-i-tay!
ReplyDeleteThis is your keeper league right? If that is the case, I would distribute the money evenly, with an eye towards spending more on any position you need to fill that also has scarcity. Can't remember your 3B, but Sandoval or Lowrie would be a good place to park some dough. 3B isn't as deep as other positions once you get past the big names.
And yeah, spending big money on five-tool threats might end in heartbreak.
Hi Dr. B! There are a number of nuances that make an auction draft more challenging and interesting than a snake draft. I assume your league hosting site has some drafting tools such as an auction value list. If not you can always check out the lists on major sites such as CBS and Yahoo. I use the auction value lists as a guideline in setting spending limits on players I am targeting. If it is a position of great need I am willing to go past my pre-set limit on certain players. If it is a thin position, I am also willing to surpass my limit. However, for deep positions and if I am drafting a CI when I already have a starting 1B and 3B I adhere strictly to my limits.
ReplyDeleteThere is also a certain amount of gamesmanship when it comes to auction leagues. Some owners will not nominate a player they really want but will rather nominate someone else who plays that position in hopes that the other owners will bid on that "decoy" player and spend their auction money, leaving less competition for the player they really want. You can tell this is happening when the sneaky owner nominates a player with an opening bid and then never makes another bid on the player. In some cases another sneaky owner will make numerous bids on a player he doesn't really want in order to run the price up. It helps to study the other owners' rosters to get an idea of what they need in order to get a hint if someone is just running the price up. It is a good idea not to get into a bidding war on a player especially if there are indications others are just running up the price.
There are some owners who save the closer position for last, since "a save is a save" regardless of whether the closer is elite or just a marginal talent. However, I personally like to have at least one elite closer locked up before the frenzy at the end just because the closers available at the end of the draft are also the closers who are more likely to lose their job during the season.
If you are in a keeper league some sites have the feature where you can analyze your roster to see what categories you are strong or weak in. You might even be able to analyze your opponents' keepers as well. That gives you an idea before the draft of how to wisely allot your money, knowing where you need to shore up your team, and also knowing which categories you have the most potential to make a move upwards.
Whether your league is a redraft league or a keeper league could determine how you approach prospects. You would not want to spend a great deal of money on prospects who are a long way from the majors and if your league makes you give keepers a raise each year it will eat into your auction money.
Finally, one strategy you may want to use is to check out players coming back from being injured the year before. Other owners may have forgotten about them or are a bit wary of them. You may get them for a low bid and get a great value.
These are just some of the auction tips that come to mind off the top of my head. I'll post more as I think of them and I'm sure other readers have other advice as well.
Thanks for this great blog, and good luck in your league this year!
Never had to auction, recommend buying Baseball Forecaster and absorbing what they have to say. Also, they have tables of auction value that you could use as guidelines, I assume. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteOh, and you probably should go online and practice some mock drafts once you have a strategy, you might like BFs LIMA strategy, and they have others.
I'm going LIMA strategy this year. Love the idea and the thought process behind it. Will see how it goes!
DeleteDon't nominate guys you want to draft very early, people always spend like crazy at first. Example, if you put a guy like Jonathan Sanchez up and people will probably overspend on him. A good guy to nominate early would be someone over-rated like CJ Wilson and just sit back and watch people overspend like 30+ bucks on him.
ReplyDeleteI would also say not to set a limit on a guy that you want. For example, if you want Timmy and you set 35 bucks as your limit, don't feel bad to go at him for 40 bucks if you really want him. it is more frustrating having 5-7 bucks at the end of the draft rather then spending on someone you really wanted.
Good luck
Thanks for the tips, guys. Greatly appreciated. One strategy I'm thinking of is if I see everybody is making bogus nominations and holding back. Go ahead and nominate a Matt Kemp and underbid by about $5. If everybody is holding back not wanting to blow their wad early, I might be able to get him at a bargain. If bidding breaks out, well, that's OK to. Let someone else overpay. I think the key is to make sure you know your player values and not get caught up in a open ended bidding war.
ReplyDeleteI agree with OGC. Shandler's Forecaster is a great tool for fantasy use. I like it a lot more than Prospectus in terms of pure fantasy purposes, though I like Prospectus' writing and player profiles better.
ReplyDeleteShandler's book also has some very good strategies for Auction drafts, and just building a roster in general. I think the one thing to realize is to not get hung up too much on prices. You don't want to go overboard (people who do usually are just trying to F with people; one of my friends bid like 60 dollars on Felix Hernandez because the players were mostly M's fans; he didn't know anything about baseball, he was just trying to be a jerk and he was non-competitive most of the year), but it's not the end of the world if you overpay for a proven guy that you want. Like if you pay 40 for Ryan Braun and you wanted him for 30, well...his value would probably fluctuate from as high as 40 to as low as 20, so in the end, it really isn't that big of a difference. I think some guys get hung up on paying a certain "price" for the players they want and then they end up losing out.
I'm just going to say this per Shandler's book, but remember to auction and pay for "skills" not necessarily roles or stats. Some guys get hung up over who's gonna be the closer or think about wins and such. I think the most important thing is to look at stats which display skill sets that you know can be repeated. I am sure you do this already, but I ignore things like ERA and wins and look at BB/K ratios and contact rates for pitchers. I'm sure you probably have adapted this to your strategy already, but I found this very useful for fantasy play once I really stuck by it. It prevents you from overpaying, and if you can't get a guy you want initially, you can find someone else with similar skills, which makes drafting or bidding much easier.
I've found that I am better at finding pitchers than hitters in my fantasy league. I look at K's first and BB's second, third, I want to know something about their velocity. I let ERA and WHIP and wins take care of themselves after that. If a pitcher has had sustained success without necessarily having great K and BB rates, such as Matt Cain, I'll go ahead and draft them anyway, but for unproven talent I look for big strong pitchers with good velocity who get a lot of K's and keep their BB's reasonable. I had Jonathan Sanchez for awhile. He was a bit hard on the WHIP but he delivered in 3 categories.
DeleteI like you're thinking. I think K's and walks should be the first things anybody should look at when it comes to pitchers. I think when you look at those things, you can find good value on pitchers either for lower prices (in auctions) or lower rounds (in snake drafts). I like the idea of the velocity angle, and that's where I look at health when it comes to judging pitchers (and even position players). The one cool thing about Shandler's Forecaster is he has a health, PT/Experience and Consistency rating. Usually, velocity issues are usually associated with health (arm issues, fatigue, etc.), so I look at those heavy for pitchers. Anybody with any F issues, I stay far away from. It's one thing for freak injuries to happen, but players (especially pitchers) with consistent injury issues is something to stay away from for sure, because even if they do pitch, chances are it's not going to be very effective.
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