Auction Value Strategy (1 Viewer)

[Terpfan]

When setting up your auction cheatsheet, should it reflect your expected league market value or each player's "real" auction value? I am just making this up as an example, but based on projected points and the team budget Brady is worth $40 (for illustrative purposes only). I know in our league that Brady will go for about $48. Should my auction cheat sheet show his value at $40 so I see they are overpaying or show him as $48 as his market value?

 

[brett5673]

I don't know exactly what to say, but Id make sure to have a limit of what you are spending on each player regardless if you are overpaying. I know I want one of the big 4, or maybe 2 of them, and if theres only one left, i may spend the extra 5-7 to get him this year.

 

[Terpfan]

When setting up your auction cheatsheet, should it reflect your expected league market value or each player's "real" auction value? I am just making this up as an example, but based on projected points and the team budget Brady is worth $40 (for illustrative purposes only). I know in our league that Brady will go for about $48. Should my auction cheat sheet show his value at $40 so I see they are overpaying or show him as $48 as his market value?

I understand positional budgeting and overpaying your budget, but I want to know when I am overpaying for value. In this example, if you paid $45 for Brady did you save $3 or overpay $5, based on value, not budget?

 

[mdlane]

I assign VBD points to each player based on their projected performance over the worst starter for that position given the league's positional requirements. Then, I take my available $ and subtract the # of positions I need to fill. That is discretionary auction $. Then, if I am in a 12 team league, I multiply the discretionary $ by 8, and then divide that figure by the total VBD points for all players. Finally, I multiply that result by the VBD points for each player.

If I can stick with that $ amount or less for each player I buy, I will ensure I end up with 1/8 of the VBD points in my league with 12 teams playing, which is about as good a result as I can expect.

I also run the same numers, but multiply the discretionary $ by 10 or 12. If I spend more than the 1/12 figure, then I affirmatively know I am overpaying.

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

When setting up your auction cheatsheet, should it reflect your expected league market value or each player's "real" auction value? I am just making this up as an example, but based on projected points and the team budget Brady is worth $40 (for illustrative purposes only). I know in our league that Brady will go for about $48. Should my auction cheat sheet show his value at $40 so I see they are overpaying or show him as $48 as his market value?

I understand positional budgeting and overpaying your budget, but I want to know when I am overpaying for value. In this example, if you paid $45 for Brady did you save $3 or overpay $5, based on value, not budget?

Both, kind of. In your example, the $40 inherent value and the $48 expected market value are both relevant.It is definitely true that some leagues as a whole tend to overvalue or undervalue some positions as a whole. In your example, your league tends to overvalue quarterbacks. That doesn't mean that you should avoid drafting any of the top twelve QBs just because they are all overvalued. You still need to get a worthwhile starter — and to do so, you may need to overpay compared to what the Draft Dominator is telling you. That's okay — go ahead and overpay. But try to overpay by a lesser amount than your leaguemates are doing.

So in your example, you overpaid for Brady by $5 compared to his inherent value, but you overpaid by $3 less than you had expected to based on the way your league tends to value QBs. That's still a good deal for you.

If it's possible to have both numbers ($40 and $48) on your cheetsheet, that would be a good idea. If you stick with only one number, I'd go with the $40, but I'd keep in mind during the draft that it's worthwhile going over that price to get a worthwhile fantasy starter at each position — just try to go over it by a lesser amount than your leaguemates do when they grab their starters.

 

[Donny Loved Bowling]

I assign VBD points to each player based on their projected performance over the worst starter for that position given the league's positional requirements. Then, I take my available $ and subtract the # of positions I need to fill. That is discretionary auction $. Then, if I am in a 12 team league, I multiply the discretionary $ by 8, and then divide that figure by the total VBD points for all players. Finally, I multiply that result by the VBD points for each player.If I can stick with that $ amount or less for each player I buy, I will ensure I end up with 1/8 of the VBD points in my league with 12 teams playing, which is about as good a result as I can expect.I also run the same numers, but multiply the discretionary $ by 10 or 12. If I spend more than the 1/12 figure, then I affirmatively know I am overpaying.

Your post is of particular interest to me, as I am looking for some type of simple formula to follow for setting accurate player values before my league auction. I have played in an auction league for several years now, and I believe several of my leaguemates have used a formula like yours to determine pre-auction values. I have tried using DD, but I just can't seem to set the values properly because the resulting numbers never seem to come close enough to the actual auction results from previous years. I'm not very math-oriented, putting me at a definite disadvantage compared to my other leaguemates. (several of whom are engineers!) In reading the formula above, I'm sure I can do these calculations, but I admit to not understanding how the numbers actually relate to player performance and auction pricing. While I'm a pretty knowledgeable football fan, it bothers me that I'm always one step behind other FF players because of my math deficiencies.

 

[Ray_T]

When setting up your auction cheatsheet, should it reflect your expected league market value or each player's "real" auction value? I am just making this up as an example, but based on projected points and the team budget Brady is worth $40 (for illustrative purposes only). I know in our league that Brady will go for about $48. Should my auction cheat sheet show his value at $40 so I see they are overpaying or show him as $48 as his market value?

I understand positional budgeting and overpaying your budget, but I want to know when I am overpaying for value. In this example, if you paid $45 for Brady did you save $3 or overpay $5, based on value, not budget?

Both, kind of. In your example, the $40 inherent value and the $48 expected market value are both relevant.It is definitely true that some leagues as a whole tend to overvalue or undervalue some positions as a whole. In your example, your league tends to overvalue quarterbacks. That doesn't mean that you should avoid drafting any of the top twelve QBs just because they are all overvalued. You still need to get a worthwhile starter — and to do so, you may need to overpay compared to what the Draft Dominator is telling you. That's okay — go ahead and overpay. But try to overpay by a lesser amount than your leaguemates are doing.

So in your example, you overpaid for Brady by $5 compared to his inherent value, but you overpaid by $3 less than you had expected to based on the way your league tends to value QBs. That's still a good deal for you.

If it's possible to have both numbers ($40 and $48) on your cheetsheet, that would be a good idea. If you stick with only one number, I'd go with the $40, but I'd keep in mind during the draft that it's worthwhile going over that price to get a worthwhile fantasy starter at each position — just try to go over it by a lesser amount than your leaguemates do when they grab their starters.

Actually this post makes a lot of sense. I am in full agreement.

 

[ctt8410]

I like to set relative values of the starters using DD and then make a spreadsheet with an empty cell for actual cost. Taking the ratio of actual cost to projected, the spreadsheet then recalculates price based on whether players are going above or below my market value. This method works better for RB and WR where I can sit tight and let the market establish a price before I jump in. This makes it much easier when I'm trying to "overpay" less than everyone else.

 

[Terpfan]

When setting up your auction cheatsheet, should it reflect your expected league market value or each player's "real" auction value? I am just making this up as an example, but based on projected points and the team budget Brady is worth $40 (for illustrative purposes only). I know in our league that Brady will go for about $48. Should my auction cheat sheet show his value at $40 so I see they are overpaying or show him as $48 as his market value?

I understand positional budgeting and overpaying your budget, but I want to know when I am overpaying for value. In this example, if you paid $45 for Brady did you save $3 or overpay $5, based on value, not budget?

Both, kind of. In your example, the $40 inherent value and the $48 expected market value are both relevant.It is definitely true that some leagues as a whole tend to overvalue or undervalue some positions as a whole. In your example, your league tends to overvalue quarterbacks. That doesn't mean that you should avoid drafting any of the top twelve QBs just because they are all overvalued. You still need to get a worthwhile starter — and to do so, you may need to overpay compared to what the Draft Dominator is telling you. That's okay — go ahead and overpay. But try to overpay by a lesser amount than your leaguemates are doing.

So in your example, you overpaid for Brady by $5 compared to his inherent value, but you overpaid by $3 less than you had expected to based on the way your league tends to value QBs. That's still a good deal for you.

If it's possible to have both numbers ($40 and $48) on your cheetsheet, that would be a good idea. If you stick with only one number, I'd go with the $40, but I'd keep in mind during the draft that it's worthwhile going over that price to get a worthwhile fantasy starter at each position — just try to go over it by a lesser amount than your leaguemates do when they grab their starters.

Thanks Maurile. Your post makes sense to me. To help me with the positional budgeting I setup DD with the auction values reflecting the expected market values. Now I want to setup DD to show the real value ($40 in this case). Do I do this by setting the auction.csv values to 1? Would you recommend setting those values to 1, or your original default settings, instead of the values I entered to reflect our league. Thanks again.

 

[Jeff Pasquino]

There's another school of thought that becomes a "rule of thumb" - always bid a player (at least early) up to 80% of their value. That means you will get some players on the cheap and you'll also force others to pay at least close to market price.

Sometimes you'll get these players - that's a good thing. It tells you that your league is undervaluing that particular position and overvaluing others. Good info to have.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen the first WR, TE or QB off of the board be a relative value. (i.e. Gates for $20 when lesser TEs go for $21+ later in the auction).

Good luck.

 

[SelenaCat]

Thanks Maurile. Your post makes sense to me. To help me with the positional budgeting I setup DD with the auction values reflecting the expected market values. Now I want to setup DD to show the real value ($40 in this case). Do I do this by setting the auction.csv values to 1? Would you recommend setting those values to 1, or your original default settings, instead of the values I entered to reflect our league. Thanks again.

One thing to note is that the DD formulas multiply the top positions by some value (I think 1.3 for #1, 1.25 for #2, etc.). I've found that if I get rid of those multipliers, the results are much closer to our actual auction results.What I've found useful is to actually have three different values for each player. For the first value is the "calculated" value based on the VBD, as others have suggested before (discretionary budget divided by total of starter's VBD). Secondly, I take the average of previous years' auctions and write them down in order from most to least expensive (e.g. the most expensive RB price to my projected RB1, the second-most to my RB2, etc.)., which is how much I'd expect to pay based on league history if everyone has the same rankings I do. And finally, I use the ADP rankings and assign them from low to high as well (e.g. the most expensive RB price to the ADP RB1, the second-most to the ADP RB2, etc.).

Using these three numbers, I can tell several things: 1) If a position is over/undervalued by my league by comparing the calculated value with historical/ADP values. These can also show "sweet spots" where the actual values are close to calculated values or where owners typically overpay based upon actual value. 2) What I can expect to pay, and how much they're "worth" by comparing the historical data with my rankings versus the ADP values. Much like in a standard draft, these show players of value that are worth targetting as you may get them for less cost than a similarly-ranked player.

 

[SelenaCat]

I can't tell you how many times I've seen the first WR, TE or QB off of the board be a relative value. (i.e. Gates for $20 when lesser TEs go for $21+ later in the auction).

I've found this time and time again as well. Folks are gunshy at first, so they tend not to bid as heavily. But as the players in a particular tier start to fly off the board, players get more desperate and tend to overpay for them, at least relative to the higher-caliber player. I've also found that mid-tier players nominated early tend to either be incredible bargains because owners are still saving their money for marquee players, or else go for much more than they're worth, handicapping those owners for the rest of their draft.

 

[mdlane]

I assign VBD points to each player based on their projected performance over the worst starter for that position given the league's positional requirements. Then, I take my available $ and subtract the # of positions I need to fill. That is discretionary auction $. Then, if I am in a 12 team league, I multiply the discretionary $ by 8, and then divide that figure by the total VBD points for all players. Finally, I multiply that result by the VBD points for each player.If I can stick with that $ amount or less for each player I buy, I will ensure I end up with 1/8 of the VBD points in my league with 12 teams playing, which is about as good a result as I can expect.I also run the same numers, but multiply the discretionary $ by 10 or 12. If I spend more than the 1/12 figure, then I affirmatively know I am overpaying.

Your post is of particular interest to me, as I am looking for some type of simple formula to follow for setting accurate player values before my league auction. I have played in an auction league for several years now, and I believe several of my leaguemates have used a formula like yours to determine pre-auction values. I have tried using DD, but I just can't seem to set the values properly because the resulting numbers never seem to come close enough to the actual auction results from previous years. I'm not very math-oriented, putting me at a definite disadvantage compared to my other leaguemates. (several of whom are engineers!) In reading the formula above, I'm sure I can do these calculations, but I admit to not understanding how the numbers actually relate to player performance and auction pricing. While I'm a pretty knowledgeable football fan, it bothers me that I'm always one step behind other FF players because of my math deficiencies.

The $ numbers relate to the projected performance because the VBD (value based drafting) points are based off projected performance. So if AP is projected by your favorite rankings to amass 310 fantasy points this year, that is going to be over 200 fantasy points more than the 36th ranked RB (the worst starting in a start 3 RB league). A formula like the one I'm using turns AP's expect VBD points into a relative dollar value based on the total available VBD points and the total available auction $ to spend. I like using static figures because what other people do in an auction does not change a players projected VBD. And if people are truly overspending, as in paying more $ for a player's VBD than the player is worth relative to total VBD, then you ARE GOING TO GET VBD DEALS. Guaranteed, if people are truly overspending on top RBs, you are going to get RBs - or value at other positions - later with more VBD for your buck than the top RBs. It just works out that way. That said, IMO, the best values at RB are tending to be the top 3 - because by most projections, they are going to outscore lower RBs by 60+ fantasy points. It's difficult to "overpay" for these top guys - although to some extent you're putting your entire season into their hands (hoping they stay healthy AND meet their projected totals).One problem I have with expert advice on auction values is that I have not seen a set of recommended values that realistically reflects an auction. For example, I have never been in a $200 auction where Chris Johnson goes for under $60, and Frank Gore goes for under $40. And yet there are several expert sites out there with recommended values this low for both those players. So IMO the expert sites' recommended values are worthless unless they tie into VBD or otherwise a player's projected performance relative to other players of the same position somehow.

 

[Terpfan]

It occurs to me that what I am seeking is like an ADP for auctions. The ADP is the market value of each player in a "regular" draft. The DD allows you to use the ADP from various sources, including your own league history. We do not have those options available in DD for auctions, so we have to choose whether we want to inflate the costs. Does this make sense and help provide an answer for this question?

 

[Jeff Pasquino]

It occurs to me that what I am seeking is like an ADP for auctions. The ADP is the market value of each player in a "regular" draft. The DD allows you to use the ADP from various sources, including your own league history. We do not have those options available in DD for auctions, so we have to choose whether we want to inflate the costs. Does this make sense and help provide an answer for this question?

http://football.myfantasyleague.com/2010/aav

 

[Lombaowski]

Market value is not ADP and is not determined by something external to your auction. The market is the league and the drafters within the league, you need to adjust on the fly and not get caught up in bidding wars because you are the one determining the value when possible. But sometimes you will get 2nd tier RBs going for way over what you projected, which allows you to have three great WRs while they are worried about something else. QBs are always weird in one league I'm in, one guy always draft two of the top seven guys which usually tips the scales in the direction of chaos.

 

[Pip's Invitation]

I can't tell you how many times I've seen the first WR, TE or QB off of the board be a relative value. (i.e. Gates for $20 when lesser TEs go for $21+ later in the auction).

I've found this time and time again as well. Folks are gunshy at first, so they tend not to bid as heavily. But as the players in a particular tier start to fly off the board, players get more desperate and tend to overpay for them, at least relative to the higher-caliber player. I've also found that mid-tier players nominated early tend to either be incredible bargains because owners are still saving their money for marquee players, or else go for much more than they're worth, handicapping those owners for the rest of their draft.

Agreed. Tiering is very important for auctions as well as drafts. The worst overpayments tend to occur when there is only one player left in a particular tier at a particular position. If you group players into tiers, you'll be able to act before things get to that stage.

 

[aimlessgun]

When setting up your auction cheatsheet, should it reflect your expected league market value or each player's "real" auction value? I am just making this up as an example, but based on projected points and the team budget Brady is worth $40 (for illustrative purposes only). I know in our league that Brady will go for about $48. Should my auction cheat sheet show his value at $40 so I see they are overpaying or show him as $48 as his market value?

Definitely have both the expected value and what you think they are worth. Stick to your guns on your values unless you think that entire position is getting overpaid for.If you're looking for an ADP analogue, average prices from large sites can be a possible starting point, if the standard scoring/lineups from those sites is relatively close to your league. For example Yahoo and ESPN are running thousands and thousands of auctions if you want to pull some avg. prices from there. Another thing to think about when looking at value isn't just total cost vs projected points over replacement. You want to consider the cost over replacement as well: the difference between this guy's price and the expected price of the last starter at that position.

 

[LawFitz]

I can't tell you how many times I've seen the first WR, TE or QB off of the board be a relative value. (i.e. Gates for $20 when lesser TEs go for $21+ later in the auction).

I've found this time and time again as well. Folks are gunshy at first, so they tend not to bid as heavily. But as the players in a particular tier start to fly off the board, players get more desperate and tend to overpay for them, at least relative to the higher-caliber player. I've also found that mid-tier players nominated early tend to either be incredible bargains because owners are still saving their money for marquee players, or else go for much more than they're worth, handicapping those owners for the rest of their draft.

Agreed. Tiering is very important for auctions as well as drafts. The worst overpayments tend to occur when there is only one player left in a particular tier at a particular position. If you group players into tiers, you'll be able to act before things get to that stage.

Yes, exactly... this is akin to a run at a position in a snake draft where the last guy in a particular tier gets drafted one or two rounds to early, simply b/c someone panics after seeing the rest of the tier gone.