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Are auctions a lot more variable than 'normal' drafts? (1 Viewer)

aimlessgun

aimlessgun

Footballguy
When players are evaluated on this board, or in fantasy articles or podcasts, the discussion will always touch on their cost. And that cost is always, always quantified by what round they're going in, and their cost in an auction format is never, ever, brought up. Why is this?

Are auctions too variable to talk about something like average cost? Or are there other reasons?

-Are auctions still not popular enough for there to be decent data on this? (I somewhat doubt this, there are tons of auction drafts going on at the big sites)

-Has everyone quantified cost in terms of ADP for so long that we're too lazy to add on more work to our analysis?

I do feel that auctions are pretty variable but not so much more than a normal draft that you couldn't talk about someone's average price. I can pretty confidently say that Adrian Peterson will cost you about 30% of your cap and Fitzgerald will cost you about 15% of it, for example. Number of teams is going to mess with that, but the effect is likely the same as for snake drafts. Sometimes a group of people will overvalue a whole position in an auction and throw off expectations, but in snake drafts you have things like runs on positions that also mess with values.

 
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'aimlessgun said:
I do feel that auctions are pretty variable but not so much more than a normal draft that you couldn't talk about someone's average price. I can pretty confidently say that Adrian Peterson will cost you about 30% of your cap and Fitzgerald will cost you about 15% of it, for example. Number of teams is going to mess with that, but the effect is likely the same as for snake drafts. Sometimes a group of people will overvalue a whole position in an auction and throw off expectations, but in snake drafts you have things like runs on positions that also mess with values.
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The auction leagues I've been a part of typically have more complicated rules than serpentine. The people in them are more hardcore so they like rules a little out of the ordinary which makes it difficult to give a %. One big thing I've noticed in auctions is there are more flex positions, the scoring is more complicated, rosters are often bigger either per team and/or by having more teams in a league, and generally they embrace IDP more often. Any one of those rules radically changes the % of the cap you should spend on a certain player. Also, part of the beauty of an auction leagues is the strategy to assemble the best roster is completely up in the air. With a serpentine draft each team starts with a similar pool of draft picks but in an auction you always have THAT GUY who spends 70% of his cap on three guys and THE OTHER GUY that waits and waits and gets good value for all his players but doesn't usually have many or any stars on his roster. Which one is smarter? Depends on the three players that took the majority of the cap. If you guess right and those three guys all have MVP seasons the first guy is golden. It also depends if you are in a casual league or expert league. In a casual league the second guy is probably better off just assembling talent and taking less chances on a couple of boom or bust players imo.
 
'Dr. Awesome said:
'Sudoku_in_the_Bathtub said:
Auctions aren't that popular. After an exhausting experience trying one with a group, never again. More trouble than it's worth :2cents:
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If your group was that much of a problem I'm sure they would be just as annoying in a draft.Folks who go with an auction format rarely switch back.
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Often times the format of the auction is as much to blame as the participants. For instance I really like slow auctions online which are not for everyone. Spending hours and hours on a single day after coordinating everyone's schedule for a single day is a much less enjoyable experience to me. I'd rather just spend a few minutes throughout the day checking the auction. If people have frustrating experiences with one type of auction I'd suggest they try a different format which may be more enjoyable to them.
 
We switched to auction 10 years ago, there will never be a change again. We all LOVE it!

To answer OP's question, just less popular and dollar amounts vary based on your cap space.

I have $150 in my draft day dollars while other leagues might have $50 or $300.

 
There are a couple of reasons auctions are discussed less:

1) Easier to evaluate talent in terms of rounds. It's simple to determine that such and such is a first round talent, or that another player is a third-round talent. But how much is each round "worth?" Is a third-round player worth 50% of a first-round? 75%? 30%? It's one more level of evaluation that's required. And we all know that most fantasy analysts are lazy. :) But in all seriousness, it does add a further level of complication and I suspect it's affected more by scoring systems than a simple draft is.

2) Online drafts are easier, and lots of people play in "faceless" leagues where they don't actually know all the players or are otherwise unable to all get together in person.

3) Auctions require more thought when putting together a team. Not to disparage serpentine drafts because I enjoy them too, but when you're drafting, you know that if you take a stud RB, you're not going to get one of the stud WR's, so it's a little less to think about. But when you can put together a team like Rodgers/AJ/Calvin versus a team like CJ3/Rice/Gates, it requires a whole different level of analysis.

4) Auction prices are heavily dependent on the flow of the auction. Players named in the middle of the draft typically go for less than someone named when everyone has extra cash. The last player from a stud tier is typically more expensive once everyone realizes he's the "last" one available. So hard and fast "values" aren't necessarily useful.

5) Varying cap sizes, as mentioned above.

 
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Very true regarding the timing of the player being brought up. If the last player in a tier is brought up and two teams like him with enough money, his value will be WAY over inflated. Sometimes 20% higher than his like player just one or two picks ago.

 
Everyone should play in at least one of both types. For max fun, I'd say you should go one redraft, one keeper/dynasty draft, one "re-auction", one auction keeper.

 
I wonder how much less popular auction is at this point. I get the impression it's becoming more common due to the tendency that once people try an auction they get hooked. Is there a way to get the data on # of auction leagues vs. snake from the big fantasy sites?

'BoltBacker said:
The auction leagues I've been a part of typically have more complicated rules than serpentine.
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Ah interesting. Hadn't considered that. Places like yahoo and ESPN run tons of 'standard league rules' auctions every minute though.
'SelenaCat said:
There are a couple of reasons auctions are discussed less:

1) Easier to evaluate talent in terms of rounds. It's simple to determine that such and such is a first round talent, or that another player is a third-round talent. But how much is each round "worth?" Is a third-round player worth 50% of a first-round? 75%? 30%? It's one more level of evaluation that's required. And we all know that most fantasy analysts are lazy. :) But in all seriousness, it does add a further level of complication and I suspect it's affected more by scoring systems than a simple draft is.

2) Online drafts are easier, and lots of people play in "faceless" leagues where they don't actually know all the players or are otherwise unable to all get together in person.

3) Auctions require more thought when putting together a team. Not to disparage serpentine drafts because I enjoy them too, but when you're drafting, you know that if you take a stud RB, you're not going to get one of the stud WR's, so it's a little less to think about. But when you can put together a team like Rodgers/AJ/Calvin versus a team like CJ3/Rice/Gates, it requires a whole different level of analysis.

4) Auction prices are heavily dependent on the flow of the auction. Players named in the middle of the draft typically go for less than someone named when everyone has extra cash. The last player from a stud tier is typically more expensive once everyone realizes he's the "last" one available. So hard and fast "values" aren't necessarily useful.

5) Varying cap sizes, as mentioned above.
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Nice thoughts. For #5, varying cap size is a bit annoying, referring to values in terms of "Percent of cap" is rather awkward. Though the 'standard' for cap seems to be 200$.

For #1: It would be hard to try to convert rounds to dollar values, but that doesn't make much sense. You'd just get the data from auctions, like we get ADP data from snake drafts. For example, would it be so hard for Mathew Berry to say on his podcast "in ESPN standard leagues XXX player is going in the 5th round or 15$ in an auction" instead of just giving the round number? That data is out there.

For #2: Online auction interfaces are really good and easy to use, IMO. Whole thing takes about 2 hrs, which is not that much longer than a snake draft. I think the idea that you need everyone in a room for an auction to work is completely false.

For #3: I think that's an argument for including a player's average price in analysis. It gives you a tool with which to craft your strategy, finding which guys are undervalued and then figuring out a way to combine their costs to form a team. Of course once the plan hits the draft things get thrown off, but that happens in every draft, no matter the format.

For #4: That does happen often, but not in every single case. And I would argue that it happens just as often in snake drafts if someone notices there has been a bit of a run on a position, they'll make sure to grab the end of a tier even if its higher than the ADP.

 
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Unless you have a wealth of technology resources at your disposal, I would highly suggest running auctions online versus in person. Makes it so much easier with automatically adjusting budgets, viewing which players can still be auctioned, which teams' roster spots are filled, etc. Have an auction on Sunday night, we'll run it through ESPN but a bunch of us will be in a room together. Best of both worlds.

 
'aimlessgun said:
I can pretty confidently say that Adrian Peterson will cost you about 30% of your cap and Fitzgerald will cost you about 15% of it, for example.
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If we happy few in the trenches start having "percentage of budget" discussions the powers that be will follow suit. I prefer money league auctions in great part because there's so little % data out there for others to use like a cheatsheet.
 
My leagues are mostly comprised of guys in their mid-30's who love fantasy football, but who also have families and careers. These guys love fantasy football, but not to the point that they'll spend an exorbitant amount of time preparing. The beauty of the serpentine draft is that it DOES reward those who do their homework, but those who don't won't be totally screwed either if they have a respectable cheat sheet. People like what they're familiar with and for those who have done serpentine for years and have limited time, it's by far the best option.

 
'cheatsheetwarroom said:
My leagues are mostly comprised of guys in their mid-30's who love fantasy football, but who also have families and careers. These guys love fantasy football, but not to the point that they'll spend an exorbitant amount of time preparing. The beauty of the serpentine draft is that it DOES reward those who do their homework, but those who don't won't be totally screwed either if they have a respectable cheat sheet. People like what they're familiar with and for those who have done serpentine for years and have limited time, it's by far the best option.
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Bit of a chicken and egg problem we have then :D I want there to be more auction analysis so that those guys CAN easily get a respectable cheat sheet for auctions, but those cheat sheets might not be available until more people play auctions.It is true that you can screw yourself more easily in auctions though. It's not something you can just walk into and do right the first time.
'Chaos Commish said:
If we happy few in the trenches start having "percentage of budget" discussions the powers that be will follow suit.
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I'll have to try deliberately shoehorning auction analysis into my posts about players :)
 
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'cheatsheetwarroom said:
My leagues are mostly comprised of guys in their mid-30's who love fantasy football, but who also have families and careers. These guys love fantasy football, but not to the point that they'll spend an exorbitant amount of time preparing. The beauty of the serpentine draft is that it DOES reward those who do their homework, but those who don't won't be totally screwed either if they have a respectable cheat sheet. People like what they're familiar with and for those who have done serpentine for years and have limited time, it's by far the best option.
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I don't think an auction requires more preparation. You could print out a cheatsheet right before the draft, be unprepared, and get a sense from the flow of the bidding who's hot & who's not. In fact, you could probably "wing it" easier in an auction than a serpentine draft as the auction at least gives you a feel how other owners rank a player by the amount of their bid & the number of owners bidding.
 
'cheatsheetwarroom said:
The beauty of the serpentine draft is that it DOES reward those who do their homework, but those who don't won't be totally screwed either if they have a respectable cheat sheet.
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I think this is true as well. A bad owner can still ruin a team, but there's a lot more parity in a serpentine draft. An auction tends to have much clearer "winners" and "losers" as it can sometimes be hard to recover from a mistake (getting "stuck" with a high-priced player when you were trying to drive the price up, for instance).However, I think the greatest factor of an auction is that everyone has a shot at the top players, you're not at the mercy of your draft position.
 
I play in both for years.

Auctions don't have to take forever, with a good auctioneer it can be done in ~4 hours

Strongly disagree that auctions are better on line than in person.

I bring only a tiered cheat sheet to the draft and do just fine every year.

The in person aspect combines knowledge and auction tactical dynamics that are lost on line or when spread out over days, quick decision making and the ability to adjust on the fly are key

Many, many leagues are anonymous long distance leagues that don't lend themselves to auctions. Plusall of the "expert" pre season drafts are much easier for them to bang out vs an auction

 
Another reason it's more difficult to prepare for auctions (and gather reliable data) is that the dynamics change with each player awarded. Unlike in a draft, sometimes the third best RB might not even be nominated until the back end of the "first" round. At that point in time, plans have been dashed and budgets have already been busted.

I think my league could hold its auction, dump all the players back, re-do it all again the next day and have completely different results.

 
'Wilbur Wood said:
I play in both for years.Auctions don't have to take forever, with a good auctioneer it can be done in ~4 hoursStrongly disagree that auctions are better on line than in person.I bring only a tiered cheat sheet to the draft and do just fine every year.The in person aspect combines knowledge and auction tactical dynamics that are lost on line or when spread out over days, quick decision making and the ability to adjust on the fly are keyMany, many leagues are anonymous long distance leagues that don't lend themselves to auctions. Plusall of the "expert" pre season drafts are much easier for them to bang out vs an auction
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I've done baseball and basketball auctions for year, only recently started doing football ones. I agree with this analysis alot. A properly run in person auction (like that provided by Roadkill) is much more enjoyable than the online offerings I have experienced.
 
Yes they are more variable. Manipulating prices is so commonplace, any number you place on a guy will fluctuate as your estimated dollar distribution changes.

 
My money league changed to auction 9 years ago and has done it online since our third year. The live auctions were more fun, but the online ones go quick enough- maybe three hours but I enjoy every minute. Wouldn't go back to drafting at all. Switching to auction is like going from tighty whiteys to boxers- more freeing. I love that I can get any player I want and not be locked into a draft spot.

But to the original question, I think auctions are still much less popular than drafts. So ADP is discussed a lot more than AAV, or % value. Simple supply and demand.

Other notes mentioned above are all true and add to the dominance of ADP- different leagues have different salary caps, and prices will change as players from a tier get snatched up. The last guy taken in a tier is normally more expensive than the first.

All of that adds to the fun and challenge of auctions. I always assumed they would become more popular than drafts, but until then I guess we just need to keep the conversation going.

 
My very unscientific survey of ESPN draft rooms shows auctions outnumbered by snake approx 7-1, so that's a pretty big gap.

I can't really tell on Yahoo, they schedule auctions on the hour vs. snakes on the half hour, but that doesn't necessarily mean the ratio is only 2-1.

 
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As mentioned, when talking auction $$ for players, you would really have to talk % of cap, and that kind of sucks, since we think in terms of dollars or round.

To answer your specific question, auctions usually are more variable than snake as well. Snake players usually fall in line with ADP, sure there are a few reaches here and there, or a player falling, but nothing crazy from league to league. Auction you can get crazy bargains based on ADP or waaaaay overpay if you have 2 owners just bidding the crap out of eeach other. So I could have my draft and post here that Vick went for 30% of someone's cap, when the norm is only 20%. 10% in auction dollars is HUGE. Drafting Vick in spot #10 compared to #15 is not much of a difference and gives you an idea where Vick is going in drafts.

Example last year A Bradshaw with ADP of 7th round auction price in my league of $9. Foster ADP of 7th round auction price of $18. These players were very similar in snake drafts, but one was double the other in auction. Both ended up being bargains, but draft day Bradshaw was a much bigger bargian in terms of $$ in relation to ADP.

 
'SelenaCat said:
There are a couple of reasons auctions are discussed less:1) Easier to evaluate talent in terms of rounds. It's simple to determine that such and such is a first round talent, or that another player is a third-round talent. But how much is each round "worth?" Is a third-round player worth 50% of a first-round? 75%? 30%? It's one more level of evaluation that's required. And we all know that most fantasy analysts are lazy. :) But in all seriousness, it does add a further level of complication and I suspect it's affected more by scoring systems than a simple draft is.2) Online drafts are easier, and lots of people play in "faceless" leagues where they don't actually know all the players or are otherwise unable to all get together in person.3) Auctions require more thought when putting together a team. Not to disparage serpentine drafts because I enjoy them too, but when you're drafting, you know that if you take a stud RB, you're not going to get one of the stud WR's, so it's a little less to think about. But when you can put together a team like Rodgers/AJ/Calvin versus a team like CJ3/Rice/Gates, it requires a whole different level of analysis.4) Auction prices are heavily dependent on the flow of the auction. Players named in the middle of the draft typically go for less than someone named when everyone has extra cash. The last player from a stud tier is typically more expensive once everyone realizes he's the "last" one available. So hard and fast "values" aren't necessarily useful.5) Varying cap sizes, as mentioned above.
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This is the answer. You can only talk about auctions in the abstract, because you could have two different leagues, with almost all of the same owners, and an auction will go drastically different, whereas a draft would go much the same, with some differences here and there. In a draft, just by knowing your draft position, you can have targets for each spot. It is easier to plan for alternate picks, if Player x is gone. In an auction, you adjust on the fly, you can have a strategy, but it needs to be fluid, if you see the bargains elsewhere, you have to have the discipline to deviate from your plan.
 
Here's a novel concept... Start an auction thread and see who comes. I bet you it would lead to decent discussion. Certainly gonna be more productive than starting a rhetorical thread on why there are no threads on X. :2cents:

 
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'aimlessgun said:
My very unscientific survey of ESPN draft rooms shows auctions outnumbered by snake approx 7-1, so that's a pretty big gap. I can't really tell on Yahoo, they schedule auctions on the hour vs. snakes on the half hour, but that doesn't necessarily mean the ratio is only 2-1.
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The ratio is probably significantly less than that on a site like this, but it is still far from being truly close. Simply just more people interested in participating in drafts than auctions (and I play in multiple auction leagues).
 
'Hipple said:
Here's a novel concept... Start an auction thread and see who comes. I bet you it would lead to decent discussion. Certainly gonna be more productive than starting a rhetorical thread on why there are no threads on X. :2cents:
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We've had some pretty decent auction threads in the past. In general, however, they've been fairly short and pretty generic in nature, which sort of illustrates the OP's point -- the fluid dynamics of auctions make it very difficult to discuss values and tactics in all but the most general terms.
 
'Dr. Awesome said:
'Sudoku_in_the_Bathtub said:
Auctions aren't that popular. After an exhausting experience trying one with a group, never again. More trouble than it's worth :2cents:
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If your group was that much of a problem I'm sure they would be just as annoying in a draft.Folks who go with an auction format rarely switch back.
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There is a small vocal minority of owners that love auctions, and they never shut up about it. Plenty of owners have experienced both drafts and auctions and simply prefer the draft. Auctions have their place, but it's ludicrous to suggest that drafts are going to be just as annoying as auctions. Drafts go pick by pick in an orderly fashion operating on a strict clock. Auctions have every pick challenged and bid on with limited ability to set time limit while bidding takes place. And the whole reason owners brag about how awesome they are, is because they get to mess with each other and take advantage of owners who know less than they do.Auctions by definition are annoying. That's why a minority of owners like them so much.
 
'ChromeWeasel said:
'Dr. Awesome said:
'Sudoku_in_the_Bathtub said:
Auctions aren't that popular. After an exhausting experience trying one with a group, never again. More trouble than it's worth :2cents:
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If your group was that much of a problem I'm sure they would be just as annoying in a draft.Folks who go with an auction format rarely switch back.
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There is a small vocal minority of owners that love auctions, and they never shut up about it. Plenty of owners have experienced both drafts and auctions and simply prefer the draft. Auctions have their place, but it's ludicrous to suggest that drafts are going to be just as annoying as auctions. Drafts go pick by pick in an orderly fashion operating on a strict clock. Auctions have every pick challenged and bid on with limited ability to set time limit while bidding takes place. And the whole reason owners brag about how awesome they are, is because they get to mess with each other and take advantage of owners who know less than they do.Auctions by definition are annoying. That's why a minority of owners like them so much.
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:lmao:
 
I've done auction drafts in the past, only a few times. They literally take 3 hours to complete, and they are pretty hard to plan out because you have no idea who's value will be how much

Also, it's always fun to have one of the first few picks and put up the OTHER Adrian Peterson and see people bid $50 for him :popcorn:

 
'Sudoku_in_the_Bathtub said:
Auctions aren't that popular. After an exhausting experience trying one with a group, never again. More trouble than it's worth :2cents:
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I agree that auctions aren't that popular because of the difficulty. We tried to convert to an auction league a couple of years ago and it was a huge flop. We still wanted to explore the auction format since we think it brings more to the live draft and involves more strategy than "normal" drafts. I am the commish, so I did a lot of research on the best way to set up the league. We decided to do a auction/serpitine hybrid. There's tons of info out there if you're willing to take the time to look. The best info I found on the cheap was an ebook called "The Art of Being a Commish" for about $5 on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Art-Being-Commish-ebook/dp/B005IA69ZM/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313893162&sr=1-5). An easy read with a bunch of useful info. A lot of stuff I already use or thought about, but some interesting ideas I look forward to using this year.The league setup was seemless and we have our draft next weekend. I will let you know if it goes as good as we hope or is just another auction draft failure with another face.

 
'aimlessgun said:
When players are evaluated on this board, or in fantasy articles or podcasts, the discussion will always touch on their cost. And that cost is always, always quantified by what round they're going in, and their cost in an auction format is never, ever, brought up. Why is this?Are auctions too variable to talk about something like average cost? Or are there other reasons?-Are auctions still not popular enough for there to be decent data on this? (I somewhat doubt this, there are tons of auction drafts going on at the big sites)-Has everyone quantified cost in terms of ADP for so long that we're too lazy to add on more work to our analysis?I do feel that auctions are pretty variable but not so much more than a normal draft that you couldn't talk about someone's average price. I can pretty confidently say that Adrian Peterson will cost you about 30% of your cap and Fitzgerald will cost you about 15% of it, for example. Number of teams is going to mess with that, but the effect is likely the same as for snake drafts. Sometimes a group of people will overvalue a whole position in an auction and throw off expectations, but in snake drafts you have things like runs on positions that also mess with values.
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Considering that fantasy baseball has existed much longer than football, and the classic mode is auction drafting, there's certainly no reason to think there couldn't be more analysis done on auction strategy and values. That said, we have had varying degrees of auction coverage (and our apps will convert player values to $$ values), it's never been something we've seen much demand to expand. As we track the metrics of which articles and types of data we provide, auctions are MUCH less popular than you (or we) might expect.
 
'BoltBacker said:
'aimlessgun said:
I do feel that auctions are pretty variable but not so much more than a normal draft that you couldn't talk about someone's average price. I can pretty confidently say that Adrian Peterson will cost you about 30% of your cap and Fitzgerald will cost you about 15% of it, for example. Number of teams is going to mess with that, but the effect is likely the same as for snake drafts. Sometimes a group of people will overvalue a whole position in an auction and throw off expectations, but in snake drafts you have things like runs on positions that also mess with values.
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The auction leagues I've been a part of typically have more complicated rules than serpentine. The people in them are more hardcore so they like rules a little out of the ordinary which makes it difficult to give a %. One big thing I've noticed in auctions is there are more flex positions, the scoring is more complicated, rosters are often bigger either per team and/or by having more teams in a league, and generally they embrace IDP more often. Any one of those rules radically changes the % of the cap you should spend on a certain player. Also, part of the beauty of an auction leagues is the strategy to assemble the best roster is completely up in the air. With a serpentine draft each team starts with a similar pool of draft picks but in an auction you always have THAT GUY who spends 70% of his cap on three guys and THE OTHER GUY that waits and waits and gets good value for all his players but doesn't usually have many or any stars on his roster. Which one is smarter? Depends on the three players that took the majority of the cap. If you guess right and those three guys all have MVP seasons the first guy is golden. It also depends if you are in a casual league or expert league. In a casual league the second guy is probably better off just assembling talent and taking less chances on a couple of boom or bust players imo.
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Ditto this.My main league is an auction league.While auction leagues are pretty common, the format of the bid increment varies significantly. I've seen some auction formats where you are filling 20 rosters spots with $200.00. But I've seen similar roster formats where your budget is $1,000.00. May main league uses a $1,000.00 salary cap for 53 man rosters (we start 11 IDP each week).It would be incredibly difficult to standardize a value for discussion purposes when bid increments, roster sizes and IDP significantly affect the pricing.
 
'roadkill1292 said:
Another reason it's more difficult to prepare for auctions (and gather reliable data) is that the dynamics change with each player awarded. Unlike in a draft, sometimes the third best RB might not even be nominated until the back end of the "first" round. At that point in time, plans have been dashed and budgets have already been busted.

I think my league could hold its auction, dump all the players back, re-do it all again the next day and have completely different results.
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There's some truth to that.Auctions aren't more popular because they take more work. Someone who is used to having a 60 second clock per draft pick and lacks in patience is going to be bouncing off the walls by the time the first 12 players are auctioned off.

Then there's the uncertainty and quick thinking that an auction requires. OMG, the RB I was targeting just went for 20% more than I thought he would. Who is my back-up plan and how much am I off on what I think he should go for? There's a fluidity that a lot of people are just uncomfortable with. And the nature of people is to blame others for their failures. So someone who watches their expectations go down in flames in their first auction tends to blame the format as the problem instead of acknowledging their shortcomings in their strategy. And since many of these people consider themselves sharks or at least veterans from their draft leagues, the idea of being a rookie at something new isn't that appealing.

If you think about how revolutionary VBD was as a strategy and how long it took the community in general to embrace it, I think those same hurdles are in place when it comes to switching from draft formats to auction formats. You couple that resistance with the logistical requirements of an auction...such as a longer time commitment, no auto-draft for an owner with a schedule conflict, etc...and it makes sense that auctions aren't as common.

It's a shame, though.

 
'RUSF18 said:
Unless you have a wealth of technology resources at your disposal, I would highly suggest running auctions online versus in person. Makes it so much easier with automatically adjusting budgets, viewing which players can still be auctioned, which teams' roster spots are filled, etc. Have an auction on Sunday night, we'll run it through ESPN but a bunch of us will be in a room together. Best of both worlds.
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What?
 
Auctions are always better, not to mention much more fun and interesting than a draft. They keep you interested for pretty much the whole time (instead of the down time in between your picks at a draft), and they tend to reward the owners who do their homework and actually know what they are doing, as opposed to the clueless owner who falls ### backwards into the number 1 pick and gets a stud just like that.

 
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'rascal said:
'RUSF18 said:
Unless you have a wealth of technology resources at your disposal, I would highly suggest running auctions online versus in person. Makes it so much easier with automatically adjusting budgets, viewing which players can still be auctioned, which teams' roster spots are filled, etc. Have an auction on Sunday night, we'll run it through ESPN but a bunch of us will be in a room together. Best of both worlds.
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What?
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I don't like doing math on 11 other rosters. It's also nice, especially towards the end of the draft when strategic bidding becomes more important, to be able to see every team's maximum bid at any time.
 
The most widely touted benefit of auction drafts is equal access to Chris Johnson, A.P. Brady, etc. for every player in your league. But there is also a greater pride of ownership when you build a team in an auction draft. You can chase whatever player you covet and still maintain value-play goals.

Auctions are more challenging than serpentine, and so winning such a league is more meaningful. Serpentine drafts follow a much more predictable pattern. The auction league player who wins his league can turn to his peers and make a more legitimate claim on superior football expertise than the serpentine league player who is restrained by a cheetsheat that will limit options when their turn comes up. Serpentine leagues have greater exposure to luck as a factor in winning than do auction leagues. But serpentines are a more efficient and easier-to-understand contrivance, so they'll probably always dominate.

As to the OP's question about variability, there's no doubt that it does exist. And that's a very good thing from a competitiveness standpoint. When your leaguemates struggle to find viable auction values for your exact league designs and scoring rules they will be forced to (gasp!) think a bit more for themselves. This greater variability of inputs to draft strategies will also result in greater variances of outcomes. A greater spread in the differences of good and bad teams means a more satisfying trophy claim for the eventual champion. And it might also contribute to fewer ties in the final standings. In other words, variability equals "less predictable" and there are inherent benefits which flow from that arrangement. In the end, it only matters if your own league values these sorts of things more than it does the goal to keep it simple.

 
'the next level said:
...Auctions are more challenging than serpentine, and so winning such a league is more meaningful. Serpentine drafts follow a much more predictable pattern. The auction league player who wins his league can turn to his peers and make a more legitimate claim on superior football expertise than the serpentine league player who is restrained by a cheetsheat that will limit options when their turn comes up. Serpentine leagues have greater exposure to luck as a factor in winning than do auction leagues...
Click to expand...
Auctions have bid sheets just like drafts have draft sheets. It's not a real difference in terms of sheet preperation. Auctions are more challenging, but that's purely because you can bid up the value of every player and mess with other owners bids. That has NOTHING to do with football knowledge. Any auction guy that turns to any other fantasy player, and uses the fact that he won an auction league to trump his football knowledge is just being a knucklehead.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
'ChromeWeasel said:
'the next level said:
...Auctions are more challenging than serpentine, and so winning such a league is more meaningful. Serpentine drafts follow a much more predictable pattern. The auction league player who wins his league can turn to his peers and make a more legitimate claim on superior football expertise than the serpentine league player who is restrained by a cheetsheat that will limit options when their turn comes up. Serpentine leagues have greater exposure to luck as a factor in winning than do auction leagues...
Click to expand...
Auctions have bid sheets just like drafts have draft sheets. It's not a real difference in terms of sheet preperation. Auctions are more challenging, but that's purely because you can bid up the value of every player and mess with other owners bids. That has NOTHING to do with football knowledge. Any auction guy that turns to any other fantasy player, and uses the fact that he won an auction league to trump his football knowledge is just being a knucklehead.
Click to expand...
You're right, and I should have been more specific. The difference between auction and serpentine which allows you to more easily escape the clutches of cheetsheat OR bid sheet meditative chants with auctions is that it's so much easier to stray from common formulas. Just check the FBG cheatsheets. There is only one position mix combination and a short list of scoring designs, especially when compared with serpentine options. There's only two salary cap options, and no interpretations for small or large roster sizes - and those have major impacts in an auction where owners must plot to save enough for completing their own rosters. It's much easier with auctions to put owners into unmarked territory, and access the variability that can make them even more challenging. It would not be fair to generically say auction IQ's are higher than serpentine IQ's, it's just that auctions are a more ripe medium for the opportunity to pursue goals to make the competition more of a . . . . competition.
 
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