Auction Draft Issues (1 Viewer)

[fosterisactive]

Our 10 team league had an issue in this year's live auction draft with a few weaker team owners (who consistently miss the playoffs) colluding against three stronger team owners (who consistently make the playoffs). First, they were excessively bidding and overpaying for players that a strong owner showed interest in. So every time they nominated or bid on a player, these other teams ganged up to block them from getting a reasonable price for a player. Second, near the end of the draft, they were bidding up some $1 players that a strong team owner nominated. These are players that the majority of leagues would never draft and that the weaker owner has no idea about. Ex. C.J. Anderson 2014 and Karlos Williams 2015. This owner watches college tape and does a lot of research to identify players, so the weak owner is essentially piggy backing off all their hard work. Third, these weaker owners kept urging middle of the road owners to also bid up the stronger owners on certain players. This really ruined the fun of the draft for the targeted owners and makes it into an all out war. As commissioner, I need to make some rule changes to curb this poor behavior such as making some of the later draft picks anonymous, but was curious about specific changes that you guys would make?

 

[TheAssassin]

If I think someone is running up the price on someone they really don't want, I stop bidding.

 

[The Kerminator]

I'm not sure what the problem is here. So they bid up a player to keep another owner from getting a player at a reasonable price? So they bid on the players nominated for $1? The "smart" owners shouldn't have nominated them so early then until they could control the price of the player. That's the nature of an auction. Switch to a draft.

 

[AcerFC]

Sounds like the owners in the league werent prepared for what an auction is

 

[Hankmoody]

That's how an auction is supposed to go. A truly "strong" owner would have laid wood to the chumps.

 

[Daywalker]

To curb this the "stronger" owners should bid on as many players as possible to hide who they like. It's easier said then done but enough to throw weak owners somewhat off the scent.

I play in a decent sized money league. Fish league though. Several owners will rarely trade with me. Somewhat the same philosophy as described by op. Just the breaks of the game. Just be satisfied enough that they are weak.