toxic
Footballguy
Wanted to start a little discussion of the strategies folks use in blind bidding. How do you manage your money? Overpay for the players you covet early in the season? Let others bid big and save up for the mid-season surprise injury replacement? Hoard so you get just about whomever you want near the playoffs?
In the past few years, I have noticed a few things and I'm curious if others have had the same experience:
1. It seems (I have not run the analysis to confirm this) that most of the impact players available on waivers during the season announce themselves rather early. After the first few weeks, we have a pretty good indication of who is going to produce. After that point, most waivers are for players replacing an injured player and minor additions for bye weeks, etc. Injured player replacements have the potential to be huge, but it seems that the fill-ins for studs often do not perform even remotely as well as the studs and that these huge value replacements are more infrequent than I expect them to be.
2. Leagues develop an implicit understanding of what a "big bid" is early on. If the largest first week bids are all under 10% of the cap, 15-20% of the cap becomes sufficient to get just about any player the rest of the year. However, if a few folks bid more in week one (say 25%) for marginal additions (e.g. Toomer or McDonald this year), then suddenly 30% becomes the target level for must-have additions. If you have played with the same set of players previously, this is critical information to have. The odd implication of this is that if you aggressively overbid in week 1, it can actually drive up the prices on players in subsequent weeks that you may have less interest in.
3. Bidding creep throughout the season. Each week, it seems that bids go up. I would guess this is partially due players trying to outspend previous market levels and partially due to some players finding themselves with too much money toward the end of the season. It is not uncommon to see players have 90-100% of their budget still available 8-9 weeks into the season. Suddenly, they're dropping 10% on a waiver defense that is playing Oakland that week simply because the budget has no value after the year ends, so why save it.
These factors have all led me to think that overspending on a player you really like early on is actually a sound strategy. You won't be able to get a superstar waiver midseason (the type of player that will require a huge bid at or near 100%), but often those players never appear. Thoughts?
P.S. Of course, every once in a while, we nail our drafts and have no need for waivers. It's happened to me a few times, but not nearly as often as I'd like.
In the past few years, I have noticed a few things and I'm curious if others have had the same experience:
1. It seems (I have not run the analysis to confirm this) that most of the impact players available on waivers during the season announce themselves rather early. After the first few weeks, we have a pretty good indication of who is going to produce. After that point, most waivers are for players replacing an injured player and minor additions for bye weeks, etc. Injured player replacements have the potential to be huge, but it seems that the fill-ins for studs often do not perform even remotely as well as the studs and that these huge value replacements are more infrequent than I expect them to be.
2. Leagues develop an implicit understanding of what a "big bid" is early on. If the largest first week bids are all under 10% of the cap, 15-20% of the cap becomes sufficient to get just about any player the rest of the year. However, if a few folks bid more in week one (say 25%) for marginal additions (e.g. Toomer or McDonald this year), then suddenly 30% becomes the target level for must-have additions. If you have played with the same set of players previously, this is critical information to have. The odd implication of this is that if you aggressively overbid in week 1, it can actually drive up the prices on players in subsequent weeks that you may have less interest in.
3. Bidding creep throughout the season. Each week, it seems that bids go up. I would guess this is partially due players trying to outspend previous market levels and partially due to some players finding themselves with too much money toward the end of the season. It is not uncommon to see players have 90-100% of their budget still available 8-9 weeks into the season. Suddenly, they're dropping 10% on a waiver defense that is playing Oakland that week simply because the budget has no value after the year ends, so why save it.
These factors have all led me to think that overspending on a player you really like early on is actually a sound strategy. You won't be able to get a superstar waiver midseason (the type of player that will require a huge bid at or near 100%), but often those players never appear. Thoughts?
P.S. Of course, every once in a while, we nail our drafts and have no need for waivers. It's happened to me a few times, but not nearly as often as I'd like.
this must be the next MJD
