Strategory for auction draft? (1 Viewer)

Thanks for the help in advance. My league is switching to an auction draft this year. $260 for 16 players including a defensive team. At first I was considering looking to get as many above avg. guys for good price, letting everyone else go high on the LT's and LJ's etc. But I have been thinking of going big for two or three studs and filling in with whatever after that.

Any advice from someone who has been there?

Thanks!!

Beef Ravioli?

Develop a really good spreadsheet using your salary cap and projected values. Try to land most of you players for significantly less than the projected $$$ that you have developed. Use Footballguys overvalued and undervalued articles to nominate players that you want to go for for more than they are worth or to land the bargains.

Know your scoring system. Know your league mates & players that they want. Play some poker, so that you get good a reading people. I find that I can tell when a league owner in our league wants a player bad, and when they are trying to bid somebody up.

Get LT and enjoy the rest of the night while with some friends.

Don't pay more for a guy that you don't really want trying to drive up the price. If you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar it can really alter your plan.

Also want to add that this should stay in the shark pool as a overall stategy discussion.

eta in my very very humble opinion.

Target your guys. Have an idea about knowing what amount they'll go for. Get them, even if it means overpaying a little.

Unlike baseball auctions where if you save your money, you are guaranteed bargains; football auctions are different.

From my auctions, it seems that QBs are always overpriced. You can get a servicible QB at low money and a decent #2 RB for the price of Peyton.

Beef Ravioli said:

Thanks for the help in advance. My league is switching to an auction draft this year. $260 for 16 players including a defensive team. At first I was considering looking to get as many above avg. guys for good price, letting everyone else go high on the LT's and LJ's etc. But I have been thinking of going big for two or three studs and filling in with whatever after that. Any advice from someone who has been there?Thanks!!

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I think it's a pretty good strategy to take the risk. It has worked for me in the past if you have a decent idea of the late-round guys and they pan out.

Prices are usually fair at the beginning, spike to unreasonable in the middle, and then drop to bargain basement at the end. But don't get caught waiting for bargains. You'll end up with extra cash, and unless you can take it home with you, that's bad. Make sure you spend the money. And if you're in wacky league where every player at a position is going for more than what you think is fair, don't get caught without anybody at that position.

pigskin pimp said:

Target your guys. Have an idea about knowing what amount they'll go for. Get them, even if it means overpaying a little.Unlike baseball auctions where if you save your money, you are guaranteed bargains; football auctions are different.From my auctions, it seems that QBs are always overpriced. You can get a servicible QB at low money and a decent #2 RB for the price of Peyton.

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That has been my experience as well, QB's are usually overpriced when most of them put up comparable numbers, except for Peyton. Make sure you target and get a couple of studs and save some money for the later part of the auction. If you know all the players, you can get some real bargains towards the end that can make your season.

Draft Day, as we all know, can be a pretty fast-paced, chaotic ordeal. The auction drafts I've participated in are the craziest of all. Owners are flipping mags, tracking names/rosters and constantly evaluating the current bid. You can do yourself a HUGE favor by creating a solid pre-draft plan before you ever get there.

This includes:

1) Create a Budget. Even if you find yourself scrambling to re-arrange your budget 5 minutes after the draft starts by winning the services of LaDanian Tomlinson you should have a solid plan of what you're willing to spend (and on who) ahead of time. Be sure you know your leagues rules ahead of time - how many roster spots will you need to have filled at the end of the draft? Let's say your league makes you start 1QB, 2RB, 3WR, 1TE, 1K and 1Def. The beginning of your sample Budget may look like this...

QB ($25)

#1) ____________________ ($18) #2)_____________________ ($7)

RB ($45)

#1)____________________ ($25) #2)_____________________ ($13) ETC. ETC.

And you would do this for your entire roster. Notice you are not just creating a budget for QB, another budget for RB, another for WR, etc. You should have a pre-determined amount you are wanting to spend on EVERY roster spot. Once you win the bidding for a certain player, you should plug him into the appropriate spot and put a note regarding how far over/under budget you are. This is useful because in a snake style draft, the first RB you select will ALWAYS be your #1 RB, but in an auction, the first player I successfully bid on might be Daunte Culpepper for $6. I know Daunte is my back-up QB so that's where I'd plug him in.

Also, bring a red and green pen along with you to signify how far over/under budget you are. In the Culpepper example I'd put "#2) Daunte Culpepper (+1)__ ($7)" signifying that I'm $1 under-budget and can now overspend somewhere else. After you succesfully bid on a player, you write the TOTAL amount you are over/under budget so you always know exactly where you stand. In fact, I would advocate creating a budget sheet like this for every team in your league and tracking each roster and how much $ they have spent. You can gain some valuable info. for the later rounds of your draft by thorough tracking in the initial stages. When everyone else is scrambling to figure out who they have, what players are left, etc. you'll know exactly where everything stands.

2) Target Players Ahead of Time. An exercize that I like to do to prepare for my draft is to target at least 3-5 players per position whose values in most of the major mags and online sources are well under what I have in mind for said player. Determine the max. you are willing to pay before your draft. It's also important to do the opposite as well. Identify players whose value seems to be much higher than you'd be willing to pay for him.

3) Bid on Players You Don't Want. Yes you read that right. Get in the habit of throwing out some bids here and there on players which you have no interest in acquiring. If you get in the habit of ONLY bidding on players you really want and almost always WIN the players that you do bid on, your opponents will start picking up on it and drive up the price on you whenever you get involved in the bidding. It's important to show your opponents that you are willing to bow out of the bidding at any moment. This will keep them from falsely driving up the price on you.

4) Do NOT Skimp on TE. Championship fantasy teams tend to have a stud TE. Whatever you feel you need to pay for a top 3 Tight End, do yourself a favor and just budget for it in advance. Typicly, 15-18% of your salary cap will land you a top notch TE. In fact, you can't go wrong by paying anything within a reasonable range for Antonio Gates and adjusting your budget elsewhere. Especially in point per reception leagues! Stud TE's can quickly spread the gap between the haves and have nots.

5) Drafts Are Won/Lost in the $5-$10 Range. These players are the equivilent of the 7th-12th rounders in a snake-draft (redraft league). The more sleepers you are able to identify that pan out, the better your team will perform.

6) Specifically for 2007, Do NOT Set the Bar at WR! For the first time in a LONG time, when I look at the WR rankings I do not see a clear top-tier of 2-3 studs. You could make a compelling case for every WR in the top 10 being the guy to end up #1 overall when the season ends. When the dust of your '07 draft settles, trust me - you don't want to be the owner that paid the most $ for a WR. The value just isn't there this year. I'm open to suggestions from others if you disagree with me on this, but right now I'm not seeing it.

7) Don't Get Cute Trying to Drive up the Price on a Player you Don't Want. Yes, you need to throw some bids out there EARLY on some players you're not interested in, but leave it at that. For the most part, when the bidding finally eclipses what you'd be willing to pay for a player you have little interest in, your efforts are better spent keeping track of your budget, current roster and who you'll be putting up for bid next.

8) A Tip Regarding Kickers. DON'T NOMINATE THE KICKER THAT YOU ACTUALLY WANT! Picture this: It's late in your draft, you have $9 dollars left and you still have K and two other roster spots to fill. EVERY dollar counts at this point. You nominate Josh Brown (the last kicker available that you have rated in the top tier). In most auction formats, the guy to nominate a player opens the bidding for at least a dollar. Now an opponent bids $2 for Brown...and you're sunk. Because I've never seen a kicker that's worth more than me spending $2 on. Again, the value isn't there. Do yourself a favor and let someone else nominate your guy, then you can swoop in with the $2 bid and force him into overpaying if he really feels like.

As a summary I'd just like to say a few words about my OVERALL auction strategy. In general, it's my goal to be one of the LEAST involved owners in the Top 25% of players auctioned off and the bottom 25% of players auctioned off. And I'm aiming to be the MOST involved owner in the middle 50% of players auctioned off. So if I'm in a 10 team league with 16 rounds - that's 160 total players/positions up for bid. I'm wanting to be one of the most quiet owners for the 40 most expensive players and 40 least expensive players and hopefully dominating the action for the middle 80 players.

Now don't get me wrong, you have to be somewhat active at the beginning of your draft and at least keep pace with the rest of the league by winning the services of 2-3 true studs that will carry your team - but I've made the mistake of going too top-heavy in the beginning stages of my auction (in fact it was just last year and the services of Tomlinson carried me to a 2nd place finish) but I would not recommend it as a blueprint for success in an auction league.

When you are able to pull off a "middle-heavy" draft like I described above, nobody will look at your team and leave the draft saying that it's your year to lose, but you'll have a sneaky good condender with plenty of depth with which to work your trade magic throughout the season.

Good Luck!

Good info here overall.

Some things to add:

-Auctions are the most strategic of all drafts. Everything's in play at once. Every move matters. You can't just take 20 picks off if you're at the end of a snake draft. Pay attention.

-There are distinct phases of every auction - (1) The Open, (2) The middle phase, and (3) the end. Sounds silly, but it happens. There's transitions between each phase as well.

(1) The Open - Lots of big names come out and big $ to boot. The key here is to not pay through the nose even if you love a guy (it'll cost you later) and also try never to nominate a guy you want. You want $$ to be burnt before your guy comes out.

A nice move is to toss out a clear handcuff (Rube / BJacobs, LamJ/Rhodes, LT2/Turner) after a big name comes out. Everyone knows who has the first guy, so they'll force him to pay.

Near the end of the open, which may be 40-50 guys or more, some tiers will start to thin out. Get a guy before you break a tier - meaning if you have 10 RB1 options on your list, try and get #9 because they'll be another owner in a similar predicament but worse when #10 is on the board. The guys that are shallow in depth will overpay to catch up.

(2) The middle. Here is where you throw out moderate guys (WR2/3s, TEs, RB2/3s, QBs) to get the $ in play. You want as many $10+ guys on the table to burn bank rolls. Buy one yourself (or two) if you see value, but keep the $ flowing.

If your turn comes up, try and throw out a Top 5 K or D as a changeup for $1 and see if it slips through. If it doesn't, someone will pay $2 for something they might not have wanted, and if you get them, great.

(3) The end. Last 3-4 spots (possibly 4-5) for each team to fill. Look and see what everyone has for $ (KEEP TRACK). You should always try and keep $2 for every roster spot left, so that you can always upbid a guy you want later if someone throws him out for $1.

Lots more to read and learn. Check our articles section.

Also look for a certain fantasy magazine to have some more auction focus this year

I've noticed that owners get more savvy as they experience more auctions. In your case, I expect significant early over-bidding. I suggest you save your money early & go for the later bargains.

WOW!! Great help!! Thank you all very much - would not have expected so much info, but am very grateful!!

Beef Ravioli, are we talking in this general discussion on a league that would carry over any players year to year or about a league that holds an auction of all the players each year?

Don't get married to guys. Every player has value. Assign every player you project to be drafted a value (this should add up to the total teams in your league's combined roster). The assigned value of all players added up should total the league's total cap. Keep these values handy when bidding.

Try to get guys for slightly under your value. If you spend your cap, and don't overpay, you're ahead of the game.

I usually try to nominate players for bid early that are players that I know will go for a large amount but I do not have interest in. Basically, get the other owners to spend a large chunk of their cash on the players you do not have much interest in.

Also take what you believe to be the best N players, where N = the total number of picks, and give them all a $ amount. Make sure it adds up to the total budgets for the league.

Example = 12 teams, 18 picks, $200 budget.

Spread $2400 around to 12x18 = 216 players. Any player that gets a bid that is NOT on your list means there is a value on your list.

Now you just have 216 guys to focus on and allocate to the teams.

There's some good math options to figure out who should get what $ amount, but you need to figure out your budget too. That said, if you have $ amounts next to everyone and you see that people are overspending, that means that there's less $ for later and there will be bargains. It also means you can overpay on a guy and still not get burnt (once, maybe twice).

Depends on how the auction format is. I have taken part in at least three different 'auction' style drafts. Each one, I changed my strategies to fit them.

For a draft that you 'call out' a players name and then everyone either passes or bids higher than the previous bid until you have the last and highest bid. Players called out in the begining tend to go for higher bids because everyone is overly excited and have not spent money yet. So, instead of calling out the LT's or LJ's I would call out a lower tier guy like D. Rhodes this year and let them fight over him- the hope being other owners over spend on these guys. After the first couple of years, they did a new rule of min bids to begin for the first few rounds. So, this strategy was a bit harder to do but still possible. Just have to make sure that the guy you call out is actually worth as much as the min bid. This actually was fairly successful.

In another style, which is actually a 'blend' of regular drafts and auction style where you blind bid in each round to win the draft spot for each round. So, everyone starts off with $100 for instance. Round 1, everyone writes on a paper a bid and turns it in. Whoever bid the most gets the first pick and so on. Round 2, everyone bids again. I would bid very low in the 1st round and usually others who were trying to out bid everyone else for the top bid spend too much and do not have a lot to bid in the other rounds of which I would end up picking #1, 2, or 3 almost every time.

I did another one that had a twist on the auctions as well but only once.

Couple things I didn't notice being mentioned when I skimmed.

1) There is no substitute for experience. At the very least do some mock auctions. Try blowing a wad of cash early and see what you go through late draft. Try intentionally hanging on to your cash too long and see what you end up with.

2) Spent a lot of time in your mock auction learning how to dominate the end of the auction by having an edge in cap room at that point. Become used to watching other's remaining cap room and how many roster spots they have to fill. You need to always be aware which owners have so little cap room that when they bid a guy at $1 that you want, and you go up to $2, they can't afford to go to $3.

3) I think this is one of the most important rules of auction strategy. If you've overspent at some point, STOP SPENDING. The auction will come back to you if you resist the urge to go after that 10th ranked QB instead of waiting and getting the 15th ranked one at a price you can afford on what you have left. I learned this lesson auctioning against Dodds in Survivor II. I managed to stick him with a high priced RB he didn't need and he was in cap hell, but he stopped spending until we all had less money and he dominated the end of the auction.

4) Have an idea what strategy you expect may be best going in, but ultimately you need to be flexible. Every dollar spent over what you think the player is worth makes the players who come later a better bargain, and every dollar less than what you think a player is worth makes the players already auctioned off better bargains. In some leagues people may want to hang back so much that there are some good values near the top.

5) Be willing to take any player. Just have a firm idea of what amount you think every player is worth. I generally will bid a player up to at least within 10-20% of what I think he's worth. If I get the guy I got a good value, if not I at least made someone else pay close to what I think he's worth. I want to milk every dollar out of other owners that I can. The time to be careful about doing this is when you don't need the position, and someone could stick you with the player.

6) Following right on with what I said in #5... always be aware of other's rosters. There may be times that you can stick a team with a player they don't really need... even if it's a good bargain price, if the player is just a backup they may have a weaker team overall. The Survivor II auctio nI mentioned previously, I was really annoyed at a lot of the other owners for bailing Dodds out time and again, he had 3 very good RBs and kept bidding up every RB. Time and again I thought he'd get stuck with a guy and someone would always bail him out. Until the one time they finally didn't.

Jeff Pasquino said:

Also take what you believe to be the best N players, where N = the total number of picks, and give them all a $ amount. Make sure it adds up to the total budgets for the league.Example = 12 teams, 18 picks, $200 budget.Spread $2400 around to 12x18 = 216 players. Any player that gets a bid that is NOT on your list means there is a value on your list.Now you just have 216 guys to focus on and allocate to the teams.There's some good math options to figure out who should get what $ amount, but you need to figure out your budget too. That said, if you have $ amounts next to everyone and you see that people are overspending, that means that there's less $ for later and there will be bargains. It also means you can overpay on a guy and still not get burnt (once, maybe twice).

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hey beef...Jeff brings up a great point hereI had a local $100/10 teamer last yrstart QB-2RB-2WR/TE-1flex-K-DI went into the thing w/values for players based on a $1000 "economy"....QB's are dirt cheap--I paid $2ea for Bulger and Rivers, after all the top guys went (Manning $16, Palmer $12 etc)...be the last to get a QBI didn't like Alexander after his TD record the yr before, so I wanted LJ or LT---I got Tomlinson ($34) and added Gore($11) and Parker($15)...I overpaid for Holt ($22), but I wanted 1 stud WR, then I filled the roster with the b/u's to the RB's (instead of having 5-RB2 types) and I had a bunch of $1 WR'sI took the Raven-D for $3...Chi also went for $3 (I nominated Baltimore and the guy that nominated Chi won them....GET either of these 2 D's, for sure)I took SD-K for a buck...my starting lineup was like $86 (86%), which some will tell you is too high, no bench and all that...I played w/1 D all yr (took the hit on the Raven bye week), 1 K(SD) and had every back up to the stud RB's I owned...QB's were on the WW all yr, next time I'll probably just go w/1you can't have a top 3 guy in every position, but GET 1 top 3-RB plus 2 more top 10-12's and their back ups...land 1 stud WR and D, and be the last to get your starting QB--you don't need to spend 15% on your QB's, let the other rooks do thatBTW...high score 7 of 13 weeks, and set the 10 yr old league scoring record---and SB champ!good luck!

Go to the articles forum:

http://www.footballguys.com/articles.htm

Dodds' Perfect Auction article of 8/24

Tremblay's Auction Pricing article of 8/23

Johnson's Auction Calcs article of 8/30 (this one is mine)

Gives you some insight into how value is determined for players. Once you know how to calculate the true value of players, some of the nomination tips above will come in handy.

Simple stuff, as you have gotten great ideas throughout this thread.

Don't get caught in "auction fever." Let the other guys spend too much effort worrying about your squad and money. keep watch on that stuff, but remember the goal is to fill out YOUR squad at the best possible prices, not stop someone from filling out theirs. Also, don't let anyone hook you into overbidding to "beat" this guy because he starts talking smack.

In most auctions, there is some part of the time that you will or should be sitting out on the heavy bidding. Stay patient and trust your evaluation of talent. If you have overspent, remember no matter how deep the league and how smart the owners, there will be players left in the dollar bin.

Beef Ravioli said:

Thanks for the help in advance. My league is switching to an auction draft this year. $260 for 16 players including a defensive team. At first I was considering looking to get as many above avg. guys for good price, letting everyone else go high on the LT's and LJ's etc. But I have been thinking of going big for two or three studs and filling in with whatever after that. Any advice from someone who has been there?Thanks!!

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This is pretty similar to the only auction league Im in. We have 300 dollars to field this roster (12 teams)2 qb's3 rb's3 wr's2 te's2 k2 defand thats the roster we have to have at all times. We start 1 qb, 2 rb, 2 wr, 1 te, 1 k and 1 def. Last year i spent $130 on LT2 and another $120 on LJ. It worked out very well and plan on doing it again. Got lee evans, terry glenn, maroney for hardly anything. Grabbed TJ Housh off waivers in week 3 after he was dropped and romo off the waiver wire as well. Go hard on 2 RB studs, you can find bargains later.

Just a few random thoughts about building a team. With a $260 cap I would spend a large majority of it on my starting lineup (read that as 3 RBs/2 WRs). My opinion has always been that it takes a lot of things going right to win the championship game, I like to start mine out assuming my team will be injury free for the most part. There will be 4 or 5 owners that will try to build depth, to me, that may get you into the playoffs but it won't often win it all.

When I rank my players, I also rank the points I predict for each player. I know how many points my league scores on average, if I can get 1700 points out of my lineup I will be at the top edge of scoring. You would be amazed at the ways you can get to that point total. Defenses & TEs can all be had for cheap because they are an after thought to many owners, but they give you a big advantage for a few bucks more on average. A top defense usually goes for $3-5 more thn your middle of the road Ds. I've been riding the Bears D for a 40 point advantage over the last few years. A 40 point advantage on a RB would cost $20. Same on TEs, get a top 3 - 4 TE & your cost per point advantage is huge. An extra $15 spent on these 2 positions can make up the difference between a W. Parker & L. Johnson.

I never pay more than the minimum on kickers. I can't predict them & can usually grab one off the waiver wire after the season begins. I never have a top QB, I usually grab 3 QBs that are ranked in most guys #12-18 for cheap. Last year I grabbed Bledsoe, Romo & Kitna for about 8% of my cap. Kitna & Romo worked out great & gave me great points per $$$. In a start 3 wr league, go dirt cheap on your 3rd WR, there is always 2 or 3 WRs that suprise at the beginning of the year. Be ready to pounce early on the waiver wire. M Furrey helped win a lot of leagues this season. Points per reception league? Bump up your top 2 WRs, they are usually undervalued by most of the owners.

I love auctions.

Welcome to a much larger universe.

Not much to add as whats already here is very solid.

Great advice so far. I'll add my $.02. If you know that one of the people in your league are drunk on their teams, nominate players from that team and what them go nuts. Last year, in a $200 cap league, I got resident Steelers fanatic to overpay for Hines Ward & FWP.

Beef Ravioli said:

Thanks for the help in advance. My league is switching to an auction draft this year. $260 for 16 players including a defensive team. At first I was considering looking to get as many above avg. guys for good price, letting everyone else go high on the LT's and LJ's etc. But I have been thinking of going big for two or three studs and filling in with whatever after that. Any advice from someone who has been there?

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Congrats on your league growing up. The $260 is weird, my first suggestion would be make it $100 cap, but anyway.....Pardon any duplication, but IMO the 2 most important things are stay flexible during the draft and realize that "patience is a virtue" ie if you "panic" and overbid or players or reach for someone because you felt like all the talent was passing you by, you'll regret it. You'd be amazed at some of the talent that slips by to the latter part of the draft. That aside, I'd say:- nominate players you DON'T want - the idea being to get others to spend their $ so they're less likely to bid on the players you do want. However, be VERY cautious about bidding players up you're not really wanting on your team; this can backfire big time.- don't get wrapped up too much in getting "bargains" - it's great to save $ you can use later on another player, but that won't mean much if the talent pool is shrinking, and more than once I've seen guys sitting around w/money in the latter half of the draft that was essentially wasted. The idea is to field the best team; this aint grocery shoppin. - make a cheatsheet as (I assume) you normally would and assign your "not higher than" value that you're (probably) willing to bid. - never ever pay more than minimum for a PK. - scan the various web sites/mags/whatever for some ideas on expected value, generally. Not that you have to go by this, but some of your other owners will, esp being new to auctions. And it's still good for some ballpark ideas.- don't be afraid to spend a little more than expected, esp for players you really want. Odds are you'll be able to get some players towards the end that will fall thru the cracks and go for the minimum amount that you didn't expect would do so, so the fear of not paying an extra buck or 3 is generally unwarranted.- if you've never auctioned before, go to fantasyauctioneer.com and do some mock drafts, either with others online or vs computer opponents. Just to get a basic feel for it. It's a great site for that.- Unless you plan to target Gates, absolutely skimp on TE. Take it from someone who has tried the "don't skimp on TE" strategy more than once. I have had as much or better success from my bargain basement TEs than my "studs" generally - I can only wonder how else I could have boosted my team elsewhere. And there are some decent or even superior TEs who can be had pretty cheaply every year (at least in ours there always have been).- as for whether to draft a top stud or 3 and skimp on the rest or buy a lot of mid-priced players, there is no correct answer. I've seen success and failure using both strats.- don't do blind bidding. That's like drinking non-alcoholic beer.

One other thing I just thought of.

Sometimes the first or second player bid upon can be had at a bargain. So don't be afraid to jump on the first player if you see he's going for well under what you think he's worth. This may especially be true in a league of first-time auctioners as they may be leery of how much to pay for players, and especially if the first guy is not LT.

Of course, the opposite could also be true in a league of first-timers. They may go WAY overboard. In my dynasty league initial auction, LT went for $170 when I had him down on my sheet as being worth somewhere around $95. SA and Priest for $150-something, etc. You just need to be flexible and willing to bid on anyone.

Going back to what I said earlier, every time I see a player going for more than I had him worth, that means less money is left to spend on the remaining players than what I had budgeted for them, so there will be better values down the road. Though what I saw in my league was a pretty extreme thing caused partially by our using a non-standard setup that made the auction software's default prices way off.

Ideally I would love to have Excel set up with my prices for the players and then be able enter the winning bid and see a calculation of whether the total bids on all selected players are over or under the prices I set for them, so I know which way things are going, and by how much. Even better would be to have a second column that recalculates the non-selected players prices using remaining cash.

Do strategies change with larger leagues??? 16 teams

bigreese82 said:

Do strategies change with larger leagues??? 16 teams

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No. I participate in a 32 team re-auction league (apart from being able to sign one rookie each year to a max 4 year contract). The fundamentals are the same. The difference is how deep your research has to be. for that paritcular league I have to look at top 150 WRs, top 200 LBs top 125-150 DLs etc, There are about 750-800 players to auction off but the fundamentals remain the same.I nominate both players I want and don't want - basically to throw my competition off - but I have a budget (which is obviously revised time and again) and I stick to that.

I'm participating in a startup auction league...16 teams, that drafts in 2 weeks

Do most of you guys have rules about how many players can be nominated at once by a team? Is there strategy in this? Our league does have any limits on how many players can be on the board at once...I would think it could get confusing

Too late to answer the question but general bump hopefully to generate some discussion.

pigskin pimp said:

Target your guys. Have an idea about knowing what amount they'll go for. Get them, even if it means overpaying a little.Unlike baseball auctions where if you save your money, you are guaranteed bargains; football auctions are different.From my auctions, it seems that QBs are always overpriced. You can get a servicible QB at low money and a decent #2 RB for the price of Peyton.

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Peyton's more valuable than any "decent #2 RB".A nice trick I've heard of is to constantly nominate players at the bottom of the current tier, or even at the top of the tier below. For instance, if you think Frank Gore is the 4th best RB in the league and there's not much difference between him and the top, a decent idea would be to nominate him first overall. The owners who are dead-set on getting the "elite RBs" (Tomlinson and SJax) aren't going to get too committed to Gore, because it hurts their ability to get their guys. The owners who have decided to not spend a lot on one player, but to look for bargains late aren't going to get too committed to Gore, since a big-budget RB would hurt their plans. The result is that you can sometimes sneak away with second-tier talent for way below the first-tier price.

Any new thoughts? Appreciate all that has been posted thus far!

Know your league members. Know the shark to guppie ratio and exploit it. Early on, id try to nominate high profile players you dont want. Noob guppies, homers, or owners who didnt do their homework can fight for players like Randy Moss & Michael Vick. The more they spend on those guys, the more you have to spend on the players you do want all through the draft.

Drafts also give you a much better chance of exploiting a week to week matchup of players who's schedules compliment each other. Youre much more likely to land that tandem of 2 mid range QB's where one has an easy matchup during the others tough weeks in an auction than in a draft.

This is a fantastic thread. I'm new to auctions, so these comments are great. Thanks for all the replies.

Do a mock.

Be prepared to be frazzled the first time you do one of these for real.

Minimize your notes / note-taking during the draft.

If you think you can have 4-5 sheets and/or a DD running, forget it. It goes way too fast to figure that out.

One DD to keep track and 1 sheet or list at a time. Keep it simple.

You're involved on every player - possibly. Pay attention.

Getting close to our draft. Any sites you would recomend for some mock auction drafts? Any other thoughts in general would be appreciated.

Here's my strategory. I've been auctioning for 9 years now.

Don't be one of "those guys" who thinks they are smart by passing on all the good players thinking they are going for way too much money. These are usually the guys who end up grossly overpaying for the scraps left at RBs at the end of the draft because they still have a ton of money, and there's simply no one left to spend it on. All it takes is 2-3 guys with this line of thinking and you end up with guys like Deangelo Williams or Fred Taylor going for the same price as Willis McGahee or Terrell Owens did 2 hours ago. These same 2-3 guys will keep outbidding each other all the while shaking their heads in disappointment over their situation. Happens EVERY year. Don't be afraid to spend your money.

Try to look at your lineup every so often and ensure that you have one caliber of player from each round if it were a snake draft. For example say you won Tomlinson, Steve Smith, and Tom Brady. I can look at that lineup and confidently say that I picked someone from round 1,2, and 3 if it was a snake draft. A lot of times you'll see someone win Tomlinson, then sit for an hour and then the next best player they end up getting is someone like Donovan McNabb. Compare this lineup to the same if it were drafted via snake draft and it looks like they had the first overall pick, then waited until round 5 to pick again. Very bad move.

On the same note, you have the option to blow your cap on 2 players of first round quality, but I dont recommend it. It really forces you to make very, very good sleeper picks because you will be paying the minimum for the rest of your players. Chances are, one of those frist round caliber players wont quite pan out. In my league last year, the guy who used this strategy won the league. He had Tomlinson and Rudi Johnson. Of course Johnson didnt quite pan out as he had planned, but he drafted both Frank Gore and Drew Brees for bargain prices and THAT is what won him the league.

fantasyauctioneer.com

beto said:

Beef Ravioli?

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Strategory?

Great info here! The only thing that I can add (not sure if it was mentioned) is to nominate positions that you already have covered on your roster. If you already "bought" 3 RBs chances are you already have your starting 2 and you have less cap than most teams. At this point, some teams may be bidding on their 2nd RB, maybe even their first. You can really level the cap field by calling out positions that teams need and that you have. Some teams will probably overpay for players simply out of need. Another strategy, don't pay more than the minimum for Ks and IDPs. The point difference averaged out over the season isn't that great and you could use the extra $ to back up your studs. Good luck!

msommer said:

bigreese82 said:

Do strategies change with larger leagues??? 16 teams

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No. I participate in a 32 team re-auction league (apart from being able to sign one rookie each year to a max 4 year contract). The fundamentals are the same. The difference is how deep your research has to be. for that paritcular league I have to look at top 150 WRs, top 200 LBs top 125-150 DLs etc, There are about 750-800 players to auction off but the fundamentals remain the same.I nominate both players I want and don't want - basically to throw my competition off - but I have a budget (which is obviously revised time and again) and I stick to that.

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Of course it changes. Now you have more players being bid on and less (percentage wise) to spend on each.I would have thought that means everyone goes for a little less, but I have heard it causes top players to go for more. Can't say offhand.

BigRed said:

Of course it changes. Now you have more players being bid on and less (percentage wise) to spend on each.I would have thought that means everyone goes for a little less, but I have heard it causes top players to go for more. Can't say offhand.

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How does it affect the percentages you have to spend on each player? You still have the same cap, you still have the same roster reqs. If I say I'm going to spend 35% of my cap on RBs, that shouldnt have anything to do with how many teams are in the league. What probably happens in larger leagues is that middle round guys may go for more money. There will be a larger number of teams without any stud players so they will be frantically trying to get the best they can, even if they have to overpay. If I were drafting in such a league I'd probably go in with a stratgey of making sure I got a first round stud for 2 reasons. 1) for the same reason that it SUCKS being at the tail end of a large snake draft and missing out on a stud, it sucks to be in a large auction league and not have a stud, and 2) you'll end up overpaying for a mid-range player because there are more teams without stud players. This is speculation though.

I just signed up to take over an opening in a salary-cap keeper:

- $400 cap, 15 spots

- $10 minimum

- Keep players for a $10 raise from last year

I can keep as many players as I want, as long as I have enough ($10 x open spots) in cap space remaining.

As a starting point for my keepers, I'm loading our league into Draft Dominator to get a projected auction value for each player. My thought is, anyone that would cost more to keep than I'm projecting him to be worth at auction, I should drop, and focus on keeping guys I have for less than auction value. For guys that are very close, I'll have to decide how much I like them long-term vs. opening up cap space for the auction.

One thing I'm thinking to adjust this a bit is that DD is based on 1-year projections, so for a multi-year league, it will tend to undervalue younger players who may become studs in a year or two.

This is my first auction league, although I drafted for another guy in the same league last year when he was out of town. Used DD then, too, and he was pleased with the results, so I have a little knowledge of what to expect on draft day.

Anything grossly out-of-whack in my thinking here?

One note - don't try to be the "enforcer". Seen this happen a couple of times.

Player X has a set of values for, say, second tier RBs. If he sees FWP go for less than his value, he gets the notion that "nuh-uh, buddy, you're not getting a bargain like that!" So he bids up Parker and gets him. Then the same thing happens with Westbrook. And then Portis. And guess what? If Player X's values are a little skewed (not too hard to do), he's now got several players that are overpriced, that he probably didn't want in the first place, and he's doing bargain basement shopping the rest of the auction.

Don't worry too much about other people getting "bargains" - worry about who you want, and getting them at good price.