Auction League with Keepers Going into Second Year (1 Viewer)

[Lehigh98]

Looking for advice from folks with experience in auction leagues with keepers.

My question is around the extra dollars in play due to players being kept at salaries below their value.

Here's an example:

12 Team League with a $200 cap per team and 18 man rosters and a 3 keeper max

Most teams keep between 2 and 3 players because they are cheaper than their real 2007 value.

(For example, Frank Gore being kept for $20 when he would go for $50-$60 if in the draft pool)

The constants are:

- 216 players will end up being on rosters and removed from the pool

- $2400 will be spent across those 216 players

My presumed effects on year #2:

About 30 players that would have gone for a total of $900 will instead be retained for $500.

This leaves an extra $400 on the table that will be spread across the remaining 186 players.

Additional players cannot be taken, so this extra $400 will inflate the cost of the remaining players in the pool.

Looking at it another way:

The 186 other players would go for about $1500 if the kept players went for their true value ($900).

But since the kept players will only cost $500, there will be an additional $400 for a total of $1900 to be spent on these 186.

This accounts for a "keeper inflation" of $1900/$1500 or about 26%.

How will this effect the bidding?:

And here's my question to those of you that have experience with these, is the following true?...

That 26% inflation is assuming its across the board and applied to every player equally.

BUT, for the tean owners in the league that don't realize this, they will bid non-inflationary amounts.

These owners will get halfway through the draft or more before they realize the inflation of values.

Because of this, stud players can be picked up at discounts in the early rounds.

For example:

Ladainian Tomlinson is nominated to be bid on first.

Last year the #1 RB went for $73

People would assume that number should be about the same and stop bidding around $73

BUT due to the 26% inflation from the extra dollars out there, LT2 is actually worth about $90.

So you would be able to get him at about a $15 discount before the other owners catch on.

There are some other effects I'm expecting from this inflation and would like to discuss those too but I have to go run and pick up my son now.

Please let me know what your thoughts are on my analysis above and what your actual experiences have been in this situation.

TIA!

 

[stevegamer]

I've dealt with this extensively in baseball.

A couple main points:

1. The inflation is actually more than you think. A $1 player is still a $1 player - completely fungible reserve PK's & DT, and other scrubs.

2. I don't think you will see the top studs go at a discount - lots of people will be bidding on those guys and will want them, and are more liekly to overpay.

3. Where bargains can often be had is just after a lot of teams spend big $, and also on mid-grade players if you nominate them early enough.

 

[Unlucky]

I agree with Steve. You'll find that those teams with a cheap stud RB will be willing to overspend on Tomlinson so they have a fantastic combo. They won't have to spend on RB2 since they have a cheap good one.

If you don't have undervalued players, you are in trouble, since you'll be playing catch up.

 

[TerZilla77]

Looking for advice from folks with experience in auction leagues with keepers.My question is around the extra dollars in play due to players being kept at salaries below their value.Here's an example:12 Team League with a $200 cap per team and 18 man rosters and a 3 keeper maxMost teams keep between 2 and 3 players because they are cheaper than their real 2007 value.(For example, Frank Gore being kept for $20 when he would go for $50-$60 if in the draft pool)The constants are:- 216 players will end up being on rosters and removed from the pool- $2400 will be spent across those 216 playersMy presumed effects on year #2:About 30 players that would have gone for a total of $900 will instead be retained for $500.This leaves an extra $400 on the table that will be spread across the remaining 186 players.Additional players cannot be taken, so this extra $400 will inflate the cost of the remaining players in the pool.Looking at it another way:The 186 other players would go for about $1500 if the kept players went for their true value ($900).But since the kept players will only cost $500, there will be an additional $400 for a total of $1900 to be spent on these 186.This accounts for a "keeper inflation" of $1900/$1500 or about 26%.How will this effect the bidding?:And here's my question to those of you that have experience with these, is the following true?...That 26% inflation is assuming its across the board and applied to every player equally.BUT, for the tean owners in the league that don't realize this, they will bid non-inflationary amounts.These owners will get halfway through the draft or more before they realize the inflation of values.Because of this, stud players can be picked up at discounts in the early rounds.For example:Ladainian Tomlinson is nominated to be bid on first.Last year the #1 RB went for $73People would assume that number should be about the same and stop bidding around $73BUT due to the 26% inflation from the extra dollars out there, LT2 is actually worth about $90.So you would be able to get him at about a $15 discount before the other owners catch on.There are some other effects I'm expecting from this inflation and would like to discuss those too but I have to go run and pick up my son now.Please let me know what your thoughts are on my analysis above and what your actual experiences have been in this situation.TIA!

Im a little lost as to how you are doing this.... Well, more like trying to get a grasp as to how you are running it. Anyway, here is what we do. Feel free to use it if you would like. The auction keeper I run is fairly straightforward actually. We have a larger cap than most leagues, as we go with a $400 cap. We also have a 3 keeper max from year to year, keep those players for a max of 4 years (3 more in addition to the previous campaign) as well. We do this to encourage turnover. But we also use our own "competitive wage chart" to determine those players salaries if kept by that team for any of the following years. That money is taken out of their cap space before the draft even starts. We also use this tool to encourage player turnover in our league, as keeping a player has its so called "penalties". This is an example of how our system works (sorry if the formatting sucks)osRank Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 If NextYrSal<PosRankSalAvg1-5 - 20% 20% 15% +100%(Y2) +80%(Y3) +60%(Y4) 6-10 - 15% 15% 10% +80% +60 +4011-15 - 10% 10% 7% +50% +30 +1515+ - 10% 7% 5% +30% +20 +10This chart is used for all players. However, to determine the salary increase, we sort the players BY POSITION and rank them based on the previous years Fantasy Points using our own league's scoring. Cross reference their rank and what # year it is that they are staying with this team and add that % to the previous years salary. Lets use your LT example here. LT was taken for $73 last year. That team opts to keep him. His salary this year using the calculation above (+20%) is now $88. Take those $88 bucks away from that team come draft time. Lets say he dropped into our league's 6-10 bracket the following year. If this team decided to keep him, they would use the Year 3, 6-10 value given (15%) to add to previous years salary. So if he wanted to keep him it would cost him\her $102 to keep him leaving them with $98 left to spend at draft time. Is it worth it?? Those are the questions everyone has to ask themselves from year to year. The guys in my league seem to like this structure as you either have to pay a pretty hefty fine to keep the studs or drop them. Come draft time they can still be in the running to try and get them, but they will be Auctioning against all the other owners, where if they went for the salary increase, that player would be theirs, worry free of other owners picking them off. Im sure some of you may think that the salaries can get out of hand with a few of the stud players, but that is the point really. There needs to be some sort of compensation when doing keepers. If you really want that guy, you are gonna have to pay. If you dont want to pay, put him back in the pool. Some guys will kick themselves at the Auction because the guy goes for more money than you would have paid if you kept him. Other guys, yes, their salary will get out of hand, and more than likely they will get thrown back into the fracas. This usually happens with some of the over priced guys, but also gives the league some turnover and other teams a chance to nab a top quality player come the auction, not to mention that player could come back to you at a cheaper price. But another example using this - use your Frank Gore example - he was bought last year for $20. He was certainly in the top 5 in our League scoring. To increase his salary to offset the bargain basement price he was bought at last year and to bring his salary up to Top 5 caliber, we add an additional % to the already existing value to increase the price (more than) twofold. We only follow this rule if his next years salary will be LOWER than that Tiers, in this case the 1-5 tier, Average Salary. If it is, then we apply the additional cost to bring his salary up to market value quicker than if we just left it using the original chart. Naturally, his next years salary will be lower than the average, so, in this case, instead of it being $24, we would increase his salary 120%. So from $20, he increases to $44 for this year. And $44 is not a bad price for a guy like that. But he will soon reach market value in say another year if he continues to be a Top 5 back. If that were the case, His year 3 salary would be priced at $88. Not bad right??Not sure if this helps at all. Might spark some interest or some ideas possibly, then again it may not. But it works out quite well. Feel free to try it out, use your own %-ages, but all in all, I think it works pretty well. Might be more work than you hoped for, but the guys in my league love it. And its really not all that bad to maintain once you get the hang of it. sorry for the long post. But if anyone has any questions, feel free to drop me a line. Talk to you soon. Thanks.JT

 

[Lehigh98]

Looking for advice from folks with experience in auction leagues with keepers.My question is around the extra dollars in play due to players being kept at salaries below their value.Here's an example:12 Team League with a $200 cap per team and 18 man rosters and a 3 keeper maxMost teams keep between 2 and 3 players because they are cheaper than their real 2007 value.(For example, Frank Gore being kept for $20 when he would go for $50-$60 if in the draft pool)The constants are:- 216 players will end up being on rosters and removed from the pool- $2400 will be spent across those 216 playersMy presumed effects on year #2:About 30 players that would have gone for a total of $900 will instead be retained for $500.This leaves an extra $400 on the table that will be spread across the remaining 186 players.Additional players cannot be taken, so this extra $400 will inflate the cost of the remaining players in the pool.Looking at it another way:The 186 other players would go for about $1500 if the kept players went for their true value ($900).But since the kept players will only cost $500, there will be an additional $400 for a total of $1900 to be spent on these 186.This accounts for a "keeper inflation" of $1900/$1500 or about 26%.How will this effect the bidding?:And here's my question to those of you that have experience with these, is the following true?...That 26% inflation is assuming its across the board and applied to every player equally.BUT, for the tean owners in the league that don't realize this, they will bid non-inflationary amounts.These owners will get halfway through the draft or more before they realize the inflation of values.Because of this, stud players can be picked up at discounts in the early rounds.For example:Ladainian Tomlinson is nominated to be bid on first.Last year the #1 RB went for $73People would assume that number should be about the same and stop bidding around $73BUT due to the 26% inflation from the extra dollars out there, LT2 is actually worth about $90.So you would be able to get him at about a $15 discount before the other owners catch on.There are some other effects I'm expecting from this inflation and would like to discuss those too but I have to go run and pick up my son now.Please let me know what your thoughts are on my analysis above and what your actual experiences have been in this situation.TIA!

Im a little lost as to how you are doing this.... Well, more like trying to get a grasp as to how you are running it. Anyway, here is what we do. Feel free to use it if you would like. The auction keeper I run is fairly straightforward actually. We have a larger cap than most leagues, as we go with a $400 cap. We also have a 3 keeper max from year to year, keep those players for a max of 4 years (3 more in addition to the previous campaign) as well. We do this to encourage turnover. But we also use our own "competitive wage chart" to determine those players salaries if kept by that team for any of the following years. That money is taken out of their cap space before the draft even starts. We also use this tool to encourage player turnover in our league, as keeping a player has its so called "penalties". This is an example of how our system works (sorry if the formatting sucks)osRank Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 If NextYrSal<PosRankSalAvg1-5 - 20% 20% 15% +100%(Y2) +80%(Y3) +60%(Y4) 6-10 - 15% 15% 10% +80% +60 +4011-15 - 10% 10% 7% +50% +30 +1515+ - 10% 7% 5% +30% +20 +10This chart is used for all players. However, to determine the salary increase, we sort the players BY POSITION and rank them based on the previous years Fantasy Points using our own league's scoring. Cross reference their rank and what # year it is that they are staying with this team and add that % to the previous years salary. Lets use your LT example here. LT was taken for $73 last year. That team opts to keep him. His salary this year using the calculation above (+20%) is now $88. Take those $88 bucks away from that team come draft time. Lets say he dropped into our league's 6-10 bracket the following year. If this team decided to keep him, they would use the Year 3, 6-10 value given (15%) to add to previous years salary. So if he wanted to keep him it would cost him\her $102 to keep him leaving them with $98 left to spend at draft time. Is it worth it?? Those are the questions everyone has to ask themselves from year to year. The guys in my league seem to like this structure as you either have to pay a pretty hefty fine to keep the studs or drop them. Come draft time they can still be in the running to try and get them, but they will be Auctioning against all the other owners, where if they went for the salary increase, that player would be theirs, worry free of other owners picking them off. Im sure some of you may think that the salaries can get out of hand with a few of the stud players, but that is the point really. There needs to be some sort of compensation when doing keepers. If you really want that guy, you are gonna have to pay. If you dont want to pay, put him back in the pool. Some guys will kick themselves at the Auction because the guy goes for more money than you would have paid if you kept him. Other guys, yes, their salary will get out of hand, and more than likely they will get thrown back into the fracas. This usually happens with some of the over priced guys, but also gives the league some turnover and other teams a chance to nab a top quality player come the auction, not to mention that player could come back to you at a cheaper price. But another example using this - use your Frank Gore example - he was bought last year for $20. He was certainly in the top 5 in our League scoring. To increase his salary to offset the bargain basement price he was bought at last year and to bring his salary up to Top 5 caliber, we add an additional % to the already existing value to increase the price (more than) twofold. We only follow this rule if his next years salary will be LOWER than that Tiers, in this case the 1-5 tier, Average Salary. If it is, then we apply the additional cost to bring his salary up to market value quicker than if we just left it using the original chart. Naturally, his next years salary will be lower than the average, so, in this case, instead of it being $24, we would increase his salary 120%. So from $20, he increases to $44 for this year. And $44 is not a bad price for a guy like that. But he will soon reach market value in say another year if he continues to be a Top 5 back. If that were the case, His year 3 salary would be priced at $88. Not bad right??Not sure if this helps at all. Might spark some interest or some ideas possibly, then again it may not. But it works out quite well. Feel free to try it out, use your own %-ages, but all in all, I think it works pretty well. Might be more work than you hoped for, but the guys in my league love it. And its really not all that bad to maintain once you get the hang of it. sorry for the long post. But if anyone has any questions, feel free to drop me a line. Talk to you soon. Thanks.JT

My post was more about how players kept at cost below their value (whatever your method to determine it) leads to inflation of the remaining player costs, not really how to implement a auction keeper league.

 

[Z-Dog]

It is true that there will be more money available that will inflate the costs of the remaining players. The worse your league is at correctly pricing players, the more players will be kept at significant discounts, and the more expensive players will be in the auction.

How it plays out in your auction is a matter of savvy. You may find yourself in a situation where owners are a little gun-shy, and you can get some deals, but I think that you're more likely to find that players, especially those few difference-makers that are available, go for higher prices relative to the previous year. Players at the top will command a greater proportion of the leftover money than players at the bottom though - don't assume that the 26% inflation from the example in the OP will happen across the board.

 

[Lehigh98]

Lets assume that you're in a league where just about everyone is new to an auction and keepers.

You don't expect them to realize this inflation factor (at least in the beginning of the auction).

You expect them to start off bidding at what players went for last year or from magazine values.

How do you best take advantage of this?

Try and get the early players (at a discount) before they notice the inflation?

Any other methods to maximize your knowledge advantage?