Auction draft - how to handle absent owner (1 Viewer)

[WampusCat43]

We've got an owner that's going to be out of the country for the draft this year. We do an auction until every team has five players, then switch to serpentine (weird, but we're easing in to this auction thing). Even if he had Internet access, he wouldn't be able to hear the bids. We suggested he put a cap on the key players he's interested in and we'd bid for him, but he could end up with five RBs that way. The other alternative would be to let everyone else buy their first 5, then give him the best of what's left (which, considering how dumb some of the nominations were last year, might end him up with a good team).

Any other ideas?

 

[Neil Beaufort Zod]

I think giving him the best of what's left is the fairest way. Auctions are about timing as much as dollar amounts, so unless you have someone who can fill in for him, I think taking his bids out of the auction keeps it smoother for everyone else.

If you really hate that, the only other thing I can think of is asking him for five guys he wants and the most he would pay for them (has to be an amount that would allow him to field a competitive team with the remainder-- can't bid all your money for Peterson, for example). On those (and only those) five, the commish bids up to the amount he stated for him. If he gets them, great. If not then it's one more pick he gets after everyone is done. Maybe he actually gets two or three of them and he's happier with his team.

 

[Nate]

We've done full-roster auctions with absent GMs over MSN messenger, skype, etc. It's not as good as being there but it works. All he really needs to know is the last bid on a player when nobody else is bidding. Give him a couple seconds to beat it.

 

[~OMM~]

Since the owner is "out of the country" it does make it more complicated or expensive potentially. We run an auction in Oregon with a guy in Washington state and another guy in Texas. We put them on speakerphone with 2 different cell/smartphones, so they can kind of hear what is happening at the auction. Although we still have to speak up when talking to them and everybody has to be quiet when they are making a bid. Maybe your guy can get a world phone...like a blackberry tour, bold or 88xx series or some other international smartphone. If not, it seems like he will be at a disadvantage and perhaps should sit this season out...if he is traveling around the world w/o a decent phone. Good luck, it sounds like you need it...and I thought my leagues had issues.

 

[Nate]

Auctions are about timing as much as dollar amounts

Please explain this...

 

[stickboy]

We've got an owner that's going to be out of the country for the draft this year. We do an auction until every team has five players, then switch to serpentine (weird, but we're easing in to this auction thing). Even if he had Internet access, he wouldn't be able to hear the bids. We suggested he put a cap on the key players he's interested in and we'd bid for him, but he could end up with five RBs that way. The other alternative would be to let everyone else buy their first 5, then give him the best of what's left (which, considering how dumb some of the nominations were last year, might end him up with a good team).Any other ideas?

Skype to Skype is free so you should be able to do phone. As someone else said, instant messaging is also very effective. What you need is someone on your end either asking him to bid at the end, or typing it into IM. We've generally had a buddy tell them over the phone the name and current bid, and the guy can make a quick bid or not.As others have mentioned, you may want to consider closed bids vs. open bids after the first 5, it goes a lot faster. Everyone writes down a number for the nominated player, and then we quickly go around and announce the written bid (usually only if yours is higher). It is a lot faster than an open auction, but you only get to guess once at the price.

 

[Defending Champs]

We require the owner to be responsible with finding a viable replacement. I have seen co-owners work the phones before, but there is always someone present.

Our draft is auction all the way through and is time consuming, an owner not present will just drag things along.

Timing and emotions are important, just like poker, you work facial expressions on whether or not someone is bluffing. Are they simply trying to run the $$'s up or do they really want MY player?

This is one way inner division rivals are ignited!

 

[Go Pack]

A replacement using values that the missing owner has established for players would be best. If not possible, have him submit a max for any players that he wants and also a max number of players for each postion to avoid getting all players at one position. How are you handling the serpentine draft part or is that not held right after the auction? I would thinka replacement with a cheatsheet from the missing owner would be best for that also.

 

[WampusCat43]

A replacement using values that the missing owner has established for players would be best. If not possible, have him submit a max for any players that he wants and also a max number of players for each postion to avoid getting all players at one position. How are you handling the serpentine draft part or is that not held right after the auction? I would thinka replacement with a cheatsheet from the missing owner would be best for that also.

The serpentine, we just make the picks for him. The commish hands out a cheatsheet (FFIndex, I believe) to everyone, and they work from that. Everyone's pretty cool about not screwing the guy.It's just this guy's second year (and he's my neighbor, and he helped us out by joining the league at the last minute last year), so we don't want to hammer him. Considering he's going to be in Ireland, doing the draft live at all might be a problem, given the time zone difference. We'll probably have to try to find a sub.

 

[Defending Champs]

A sub is really the best bet. He'll just give the sub a list of players he likes with max values and players to simply stay away from no matter the price. Put a bunch of possibles on another list with max values and he has a blue print for what his buddy wants.

The values may vary a tiny bit based on need at the time, but those needs can always be adressed in your serpentine portion.

 

[WampusCat43]

We're working on a sub, one of the guys that used to be in our league a few years back. Oddly enough, he left because he wanted to be in an auction league. So the sub is going to have more auction experience than any of us.

We, as a group, drafted a team for an absentee guy several years ago, back when we were serpentine-only. We giggled the whole way about how bad we were screwing him. He put in his starting lineup week 1, never changed it the entire year, and went 12-4.

 

[stugnut]

Have him send a friend that he can talk to live via Skype or Gtalk, or some other free chat client.

 

[Ray_T]

We've got an owner that's going to be out of the country for the draft this year. We do an auction until every team has five players, then switch to serpentine (weird, but we're easing in to this auction thing). Even if he had Internet access, he wouldn't be able to hear the bids. We suggested he put a cap on the key players he's interested in and we'd bid for him, but he could end up with five RBs that way. The other alternative would be to let everyone else buy their first 5, then give him the best of what's left (which, considering how dumb some of the nominations were last year, might end him up with a good team).Any other ideas?

Have him online for MSN or Yahoo messenger or something.when a player comes up. Just say he is up for bid. If he replies that he wants to bid, just have someone not interested in the bidding take the computer and bid on his behalf. He can communicate who he is bidding against and what the top bid is and ask how far he wants to go.or he can give a list of players he is interested in and what his max bid is with instructions such as: I want no more than 5 RB's on my roster and No less than 3. These are the ones I am interested in along with max bids.other options: If he has a friend who is not in the draft who wants to do this for him, that would be ideal.

 

[Chumpson]

If you still need a replacement, just let me know. I can help.

 

[WampusCat43]

We've got an owner that's going to be out of the country for the draft this year. We do an auction until every team has five players, then switch to serpentine (weird, but we're easing in to this auction thing). Even if he had Internet access, he wouldn't be able to hear the bids. We suggested he put a cap on the key players he's interested in and we'd bid for him, but he could end up with five RBs that way. The other alternative would be to let everyone else buy their first 5, then give him the best of what's left (which, considering how dumb some of the nominations were last year, might end him up with a good team).Any other ideas?

Have him online for MSN or Yahoo messenger or something.when a player comes up. Just say he is up for bid. If he replies that he wants to bid, just have someone not interested in the bidding take the computer and bid on his behalf. He can communicate who he is bidding against and what the top bid is and ask how far he wants to go.or he can give a list of players he is interested in and what his max bid is with instructions such as: I want no more than 5 RB's on my roster and No less than 3. These are the ones I am interested in along with max bids.other options: If he has a friend who is not in the draft who wants to do this for him, that would be ideal.

Drafting personally is going to be impossible. The draft won't even be starting where he is until 1am, and he's not a young guy. And he'll have his wife with him, who is NOT a football fan.***Just found out, we got the substitute I mentioned earlier, so he's going to end up smelling like a rose.***

 

[Balance]

I wouldn't want to play in a league if I couldn't do the drafting. Best part of the whole thing, and I wouldn't feel any personal satisfaction out of seeing it through..

 

[Neil Beaufort Zod]

Auctions are about timing as much as dollar amounts

Please explain this...

I mean that who you nominate (and who others nominate) and when you decide to move on a particular position is critical. It's as much or more of the strategy than looking at how much you spent at each position at the end of the day. "I spent $38 on player X" tells you very little about what happened. Was it after everyone else got players at that position, or did you get them early? Either answer affects how you could have spent the remaining dollars. Did it seem like a "reach" until you saw how much other similar players went for...making it look like "value" after all?

If the guy isn't there for the auction, he's missing out on the strategy (and fun) involved in choosing when to keep your powder dry and when to go all out to get someone. That doesn't even take into account trying to bump up a player's value so an opponent (who really wants them) pays more than they should, and hopefully hurting himself later in the process.