Auction plus serpentine scheme (1 Viewer)

[the next level]

I am the Commish of a 16-team intensely competitive redraft league that has always used serpentine drafting. We considered switching to the Banzai method this year, but instead I convinced my league to try a scheme I invented called the "Blended Solution" which combines a short auction draft with a follow-on serpentine. I am soliciting here for feedback/constructive criticism, hoping to avoid the horror of discovering on draft day some ruinous scenario I hadn't thought of.

The plan is to start with a 32-player auction (FWIW, I'm hoping this scheme proves so popular that we up it to 64 next year), each team owner starting with $100 limit of auction money to invest. We'll draw from a hat to determine the order in which a team owner nominates a player to be auctioned. So each team owner will have the chance to nominate a player on two separate occasions. The nominating team owner will have to start the bidding with a $10 minimum. This prevents someone wasting our short auction action on a player of lesser caliber. At the end of the auction, we will start a regular serpentine draft for remaining players. The team owner who spent the least in the auction will have the first pick in the serpentine, and so on (there will probably be ties in the category of leftover auction money and we previously established a tiebreak order at the end of our '07 season).

It is permissible to "win" up to 3 players in the auction. If we capped it at 2, then it's certain the final player auctioned would be awardable only to a single remaining team owner. A team owner who drafts 3 players in the auction will get skipped in round one of the serpentine. It is also permissible to auction draft only 1 or 0 players. Woe be unto the team owner who does this, as they will certainly finish draft day with less total players on the roster than most of their peers. They will be able to "catch up", however, using free agency once the regular season begins. On the other hand, a team owner who winds up in this position because they didn't spend much in the auction will have the advantage of drafting early in the first round of the serpentine PLUS they will have leftover auction money added to the season-opening blind bid limit that we use for free agent pickups.

This scheme offers the most important traditional advantage of the auction format - everyone has a shot at LT on draft day. No more complaining about your serpentine lottery number. On the other hand, we intend to eliminate the major peril of a full auction draft - it takes so damn long. Noone in my league is interested in continuing the auction process to the point where one or two team owners are bidding $1-2 on a kicker or backup defense. As is, our serpentine draft was running 7-8 hours. I figure we'll add about one hour to the total draft time as a result of switching to this scheme.

The only other major problem I can think of is how much more critical attendance becomes on draft day. That hasn't been a problem in the past, as we establish draft day WAY in advance and did in fact have all 16 team owners present last year.

Perhaps the best part of this setup is that we are all equally disadvantaged going into draft day when it comes to forecasting how the chips are going to fall. It's going to be very difficult to prep for this beast, particularly considering there ain't no magazines out there giving advice on how to prepare for a Blended Solution or to determine a player's auction value in a limited auction setting. Everyone in my league is very excited about this, and I think understandably so.

Comments,suggestions,criticism?

 

[massraider]

The nominating team owner will have to start the bidding with a $10 minimum. This prevents someone wasting our short auction action on a player of lesser caliber

Just kinda skimmed the rest, but I hate the above rule. Takes a bit of strategy away, sort of forcing everyone to auction the big dogs.

 

[Kai's Hero]

The nominating team owner will have to start the bidding with a $10 minimum. This prevents someone wasting our short auction action on a player of lesser caliber

Just kinda skimmed the rest, but I hate the above rule. Takes a bit of strategy away, sort of forcing everyone to auction the big dogs.

You're only able to "auction" 2 players with a $100 limit. Why would you be bidding on any players that weren't the BIG dogs?

 

[roadkill1292]

I help out another league that does an auction/draft blend but they buy 8 players with a $100 budget first and then finish out the last 8 roster spots with a serpentine. Not my cup of tea but it seems to work for them. (I'm a full out auction guy.)

 

[Liquid Tension]

In reading what you wrote I do not see any pitfalls, although I wonder how effective it will be?

It interests me because we have a 14 team league that is a 4 man keeper league and we are looking to go down to 12 teams and we are trying to figure out the best way to divide up the players on the teams that are leaving. An auction format was discussed otherwise "Addai" becomes the 1st pick and that is a huge advantage (even for a weaker team)

Another option may be to do a hybrid like you have brought up where we auction for a few rounds and then continue to serpentine.

The final thought was to throw them back into the pool and then "penalize someone if they take a player from one of the teams with losing their next pick.

Not to hijack, but any suggestions would be appreciated and the combo may be the best method so i am interested in what others say.

 

[Captain Hook]

For the OP - my first question is "How are you going to break ties?"

IOW, if the first nominator brings up Tomlinson for $10 (or any amount less than $99), you will immediately have two or more teams scream $99! Who is the auctioneer who has to break "the tie" (and btw you absolutely need a non involved auctioneer - do NOT think that you can do it...or have a partner from one of the other teams do it)

And for those that believe that LT is the clear first choice, haven't you just transferred the "advantage" of the #1 draft pick to the first to nominate? He can just nominate LT for $99 and you are on to the second player. If the second nominator thinks Steven Jackson is the next best choice, he can nominate for $99

(again, if you have to nominate for $10 and you have to nominate twice, then the max bid would be $90 instead of $99 in the above examples)

I will return later with a couple of solutions for you to ponder, but let's see what else gets added or questioned.

 

[Liquid Tension]

I just started re reading and if you can only sign two guys then everyone would put $90 on LT and then 10 on any other player as an example. the auction would need to be more than only 2 players per team

 

[Tastes Like Chicken]

After reading the title, it got me thinking. Why not auction off the draft picks instead of the players. So instead of LT you are bidding on the #1 choice, there are many things that can happen here; if the bid "winner" shouts out "Tom Brady" then there will be a frenzy for the next pick; It would be easier than nominating players, and it would make it a faster process

 

[Uruk-Hai]

I haven't quite wrapped my head around this yet & I've never done auctions, but....

It appears the OP assumes that only top-line players will be nominated. Why is that?

Would it be worth it for an owner to nominate (& thus spend the least on) 2 lesser players so he gets the first serpentine pick?

 

[Grahamburn]

For the OP - my first question is "How are you going to break ties?"IOW, if the first nominator brings up Tomlinson for $10 (or any amount less than $99), you will immediately have two or more teams scream $99! Who is the auctioneer who has to break "the tie" (and btw you absolutely need a non involved auctioneer - do NOT think that you can do it...or have a partner from one of the other teams do it)And for those that believe that LT is the clear first choice, haven't you just transferred the "advantage" of the #1 draft pick to the first to nominate? He can just nominate LT for $99 and you are on to the second player. If the second nominator thinks Steven Jackson is the next best choice, he can nominate for $99(again, if you have to nominate for $10 and you have to nominate twice, then the max bid would be $90 instead of $99 in the above examples)I will return later with a couple of solutions for you to ponder, but let's see what else gets added or questioned.

Is there actually an advantage of paying $100 for LT though? You've now blown your entire cap on one player and will be filling out your roster with scraps after the draft has concluded. You will also then be picking at the end of the serpentine portion of the draft. I'm not sure about the tie thing. I think this is a genius idea and am already trying to spin my league to adopting this type of draft.

 

[Dr. Octopus]

For the OP - my first question is "How are you going to break ties?"IOW, if the first nominator brings up Tomlinson for $10 (or any amount less than $99), you will immediately have two or more teams scream $99! Who is the auctioneer who has to break "the tie" (and btw you absolutely need a non involved auctioneer - do NOT think that you can do it...or have a partner from one of the other teams do it)And for those that believe that LT is the clear first choice, haven't you just transferred the "advantage" of the #1 draft pick to the first to nominate? He can just nominate LT for $99 and you are on to the second player. If the second nominator thinks Steven Jackson is the next best choice, he can nominate for $99(again, if you have to nominate for $10 and you have to nominate twice, then the max bid would be $90 instead of $99 in the above examples)I will return later with a couple of solutions for you to ponder, but let's see what else gets added or questioned.

Is there actually an advantage of paying $100 for LT though? You've now blown your entire cap on one player and will be filling out your roster with scraps after the draft has concluded. You will also then be picking at the end of the serpentine portion of the draft. I'm not sure about the tie thing. I think this is a genius idea and am already trying to spin my league to adopting this type of draft.

If the $100 is only for two players (3 at most) how is he picking from scraps. He'll get a second round player for the other $10 - and there's no guarantess he'll pick last since I'd guess most people are going to spend their cap.

 

[ScottyFargo]

For the OP - my first question is "How are you going to break ties?"IOW, if the first nominator brings up Tomlinson for $10 (or any amount less than $99), you will immediately have two or more teams scream $99! Who is the auctioneer who has to break "the tie" (and btw you absolutely need a non involved auctioneer - do NOT think that you can do it...or have a partner from one of the other teams do it)And for those that believe that LT is the clear first choice, haven't you just transferred the "advantage" of the #1 draft pick to the first to nominate? He can just nominate LT for $99 and you are on to the second player. If the second nominator thinks Steven Jackson is the next best choice, he can nominate for $99(again, if you have to nominate for $10 and you have to nominate twice, then the max bid would be $90 instead of $99 in the above examples)I will return later with a couple of solutions for you to ponder, but let's see what else gets added or questioned.

Is there actually an advantage of paying $100 for LT though? You've now blown your entire cap on one player and will be filling out your roster with scraps after the draft has concluded. You will also then be picking at the end of the serpentine portion of the draft. I'm not sure about the tie thing. I think this is a genius idea and am already trying to spin my league to adopting this type of draft.

I'm starting up a 10 team up-to-3-player keeper and I really like the idea of a combined auction w/ serpentine to follow. Very interesting idea, quite a few details that need refined as have been pointed out so far.

 

[Captain Hook]

After reading the title, it got me thinking. Why not auction off the draft picks instead of the players. So instead of LT you are bidding on the #1 choice, there are many things that can happen here; if the bid "winner" shouts out "Tom Brady" then there will be a frenzy for the next pick; It would be easier than nominating players, and it would make it a faster process

BINGOThis is one of the alternatives. You start with auctioning off the 1-1 pick - winner names his selection and then you auction off pick 1-2; repeat, rinse etc. Minimum bid is $1 (usually last pick of the round, sometimes last two). Maximum bid is $99 (must have $1 for his spot in the second round).This way each team "buys" one pick in the first round and one pick in the second round; no team has three picks and no team has only one.Find another way to randomize your draft order for the 3rd round.BTW FWIW - this is exactly the method used in the "GridIron $10K League" at the WCOFF......Except that the bidding is in REAL additional monies that are put into the league's prize pool. In that league, the order for the third round mirrors the spots won for the first round and then serpentines in round four.

 

[ukshane]

Before the draft we do a serpentine draft for kickers and defenses based on last seasons record. Then hold a regular auction for the position players. We speed up the real draft by eliminating 48 auction picks that way and it gives a small advantage to the teams that sucked last season. We also don't have to wait for someone to think of a player to nominate because the commish distributes a randomized (but weighted) auction schedule of the top 108 available players. It contains a starting bid based upon 50% of their projected cost. Here were the top 8 players on last years schedule along with their starting bid.

Jason Campbell $1

Drew Brees $11

Reggie Brown $6

Lee Evans $15

Peyton Manning $30

Steven Jackson $46

Ladanian Tomlinson $52

Mark Clayton $5

etc...

I like the list because I don't have to cross off who's been selected on my cheat sheets, don't waste time nominating scrubs and can sorta plan out my auction.

 

[Grahamburn]

For the OP - my first question is "How are you going to break ties?"IOW, if the first nominator brings up Tomlinson for $10 (or any amount less than $99), you will immediately have two or more teams scream $99! Who is the auctioneer who has to break "the tie" (and btw you absolutely need a non involved auctioneer - do NOT think that you can do it...or have a partner from one of the other teams do it)And for those that believe that LT is the clear first choice, haven't you just transferred the "advantage" of the #1 draft pick to the first to nominate? He can just nominate LT for $99 and you are on to the second player. If the second nominator thinks Steven Jackson is the next best choice, he can nominate for $99(again, if you have to nominate for $10 and you have to nominate twice, then the max bid would be $90 instead of $99 in the above examples)I will return later with a couple of solutions for you to ponder, but let's see what else gets added or questioned.

Is there actually an advantage of paying $100 for LT though? You've now blown your entire cap on one player and will be filling out your roster with scraps after the draft has concluded. You will also then be picking at the end of the serpentine portion of the draft. I'm not sure about the tie thing. I think this is a genius idea and am already trying to spin my league to adopting this type of draft.

If the $100 is only for two players (3 at most) how is he picking from scraps. He'll get a second round player for the other $10 - and there's no guarantess he'll pick last since I'd guess most people are going to spend their cap.

If he spends his original $90 on LT and then nominates Marques Colston, for arguments sake, he only has his $10 left to bid. If another team owner hasn't spent their cap, then they can just bid $11 and "he" is SOL.You aren't required to get a particular amount of players. The OP simply said that there will be a structured amount of players nominated/drafted at this portion of the draft.

 

[Captain Hook]

I'm starting up a 10 team up-to-3-player keeper and I really like the idea of a combined auction w/ serpentine to follow. Very interesting idea, quite a few details that need refined as have been pointed out so far.

In most forms of "Drauction" you would have X$ for Y rounds of playersEach team has to roster the same number of playersSo for instance if you have $100 for four players, the maximum bid for any team is $97 (have to have $1 each for their other three players). Each team buys four and only players.PS - one variation if you are going to do a 3 player keeper league would be to auction off the first 30 players with each team having $100 for the three players......BUT, your keepers would come from the draft portion - all the players obtained in the three auction rounds would be returned to the player pool the following year.

 

[Bossman]

owners that won 3 players should not be "skipped" in round 1 but only moved to the end of rd. 1 imo.

Thus having pick #16 rather than a possable pick #32 as their first.

 

[TheFanatic]

My main league has a combination. First it's a contract league with a salary cap. For the first year everyone was drafted and they point total from the year before was multiplied by $10,000. So if a guy scored 100 points the year prior he was worth $1 million. $32 million cap. Players could be signed to 1 or 2 year deals each with an option.

The following year, the players that were not under contract became FA's. Each owner has a Franchise and Transition tag. Franchise tag requires two 1st rounder compensation for an unmatched offer (and the owner of the tagged player can resign him at 80% of the offer from the other owner). Transition players require a single 1st round pick as compensation (matching offers are made at 100% of the offer).

Bidding on tagged player or RFA's is done blind. Bidding on all other UFA is done in basic auction format using cap space each team has.

FA night is 4 rounds. Each round is the same order as the draft. So each owner can call out 4 players, pass or trade the callout to another owner. First couple of years the FA night is pretty slow, but after the 2 and 3 year contracts are up the market is flooded with FA's. All kinds of sign and trade deals. Signing bonuses that are taken off the top to discourage sign and trade deals that were set up ahead of time. It's really the best night of our league....

 

[Liquid Tension]

After reading the title, it got me thinking. Why not auction off the draft picks instead of the players. So instead of LT you are bidding on the #1 choice, there are many things that can happen here; if the bid "winner" shouts out "Tom Brady" then there will be a frenzy for the next pick; It would be easier than nominating players, and it would make it a faster process

Thumbs up for an interesting idea

 

[Liquid Tension]

I think from the OP that only doing 32 players is too little.

That being said, what are people using to run their auction. I know about fantasy auctioneer, but I also know that they do not seem to be doing well and there is a cost to use their software. How is everyone handling the auction manually?

 

[the next level]

Thanks for all the input thus far. I really like some of the other ideas I’ve read here – particularly ukshane's use of the serpentine for kickers and defenses with an auction for all the rest (not too crazy about having the Commish come up with a list of 108 players, however). In fact, I love that idea more than my own, and agree with the separate sentiment that a 32-player auction isn't enough. It's not easy, however, to convince 16 team owners to make this kind of drastic change to what was a well-established serpentine draft routine. I'm convinced that a taste of the auction format will result in a popular revolt demanding even more next year. But perhaps the biggest peril of the combo idea is simply the task of explaining it. It's got a lot of layers and rules to it, and attention spans drift about the time I get to the third or fourth layer. Now to answer some specific questions:

Uruk-Hai, I don’t assume top-line players will be nominated but I do assume that no one is going to nominate a mid-tier or lower player precisely because I’m making them enter a nominal minimum bid. But, I fully intend for the team owners (including me) to go a little bit crazy trying to strategize this thing in the runup to the draft. Is it best to try to get a marquee player or to try to squeeze 2-3 decent players out of this process? Will someone with only $10 remaining nominate a player for auction that he assumes noone else will bid on (such as a kicker) using the rationale that adding anything to the roster is better than leaving money on the table just for draft position when the serpentine starts? LT may or may not go for the full $100 and there’s just no way to know prior to draft day. Some will come with general ideas about what they’re going to do, but everyone comes in with the understanding that there are incentives both for being active/aggressive or being passive. It should prove to be a grand exhibit of free-market fundamentals.

Captain Hook, the tiebreaker problem vexes me more than anything else. And I'm looking for experienced auction players to enlighten me as to the potential chaos. Just how common is it for 2-3 team owners to shout out the same bid at the same time? For that matter, what's the likelihood of that occurring where the team owners shout out equal bids AND they both just threw every remaining dime they've got into the ring? I've already planned a tiebreaker for the one scenario for a bidding tie when it involves the maximum bid (e.g. two teams shout out "$100" the split second bidding opens for LT). And that plan is to let the tie be broken by bidding REAL money over and above the league ante which will be added to the league champion's take. But as for ties that occur in the middle of the process, I haven't come up with anything much beyond giving the player to the team who has thus far drafted less players and then perhaps going to the '07 standings in reverse order.

I should mention that I also had to plan for the scenario that a team owner spends over $90 before their turn comes to nominate a player. Because with less than the $10 minimum opening bid available, I plan to deny them their nomination and instead draw names from a pre-determined list of top 40 or top 50 players (Footballguys ratings, of course) to auction off instead when their turn comes up.

It has also crossed my mind to use some value other than $100 as the starting point for the draft. If I make it 1000 or 10000 or one million then I decrease the likelihood of two teams making equal bids don't I? Suggestions here from experienced auction players?

Thanks again for the great inputs.

 

[ScottyFargo]

Are there any examples of rules written out for the "drauction" style league? Also if anyone has some good examples of straight draft leagues to compare that'd be great. I've always done the standard serpantine.

 

[ruelvis]

scanning thru the responses briefly (sorry if i missed it) i didnt see anyone discuss the relationship b/w leftover auction money and the FA pickup money (see below).

On the other hand, a team owner who winds up in this position because they didn't spend much in the auction will have the advantage of drafting early in the first round of the serpentine PLUS they will have leftover auction money added to the season-opening blind bid limit that we use for free agent pickups.

I personally don't think the money should carry over into FA pickup money. I think its best if the auction $ stays in the auction. Perhaps it introduces another level of complexity & strategy, but i BELIEVE the intent is for this method to eliminate the bad luck draw of draft slot selection and give everyone a shot at the top players. IMO you can certainly achieve this goal WITHOUT carrying auction $ into the FA bidding arena.

Besides - the team who spent less $ is being compensated with an earlier pick in the next phase of drafting (a shot at player #33) so why give them more compensation?

One question regarding the low minimum bid - if someone spends most of their money early and still has enough $ for the $10 minimum bid do they still get to nominate a player for auction? consider this carefully cuz those who spend all their $$ but the minimum bid amount early could nominate david akers or troy smith for the minimum bid (now the top 32 players u anticipated being taken in auction arent really the top 32 players but the top 31 players and so on as many others may employ the same strategy) just so a better player falls to them in the next phase of drafting. for this reason u may want to consider raising the minimum bid to $100/3 max players = $33 or something just below that...

i hope that makes sense...