Auction Theory Question (1 Viewer)

[B-Dawk]

Trying to figure out keepers to declare for this season, but I have a problem.

As a result of low salaries for many keepers, player values are thrown out of whack. For example, in a $200 salary cap, Adrian Peterson can be kept for $30, Michael Turner kept for $33, Randy Moss kept for $31, just to name a few. There are many more cases like this. Most likely, 20 out of the top 50 players will go for a lot lower than their true auction value.

What does this do for the rest of the player values in the auction? Will they inflate? Should I be willing to spend more to get the remaining studs? Unfortunately, I am not in possession of many of the underpriced players. What should my strategy be going into my keeper deadline and auction?

 

[Rhino802]

Trying to figure out keepers to declare for this season, but I have a problem. As a result of low salaries for many keepers, player values are thrown out of whack. For example, in a $200 salary cap, Adrian Peterson can be kept for $30, Michael Turner kept for $33, Randy Moss kept for $31, just to name a few. There are many more cases like this. Most likely, 20 out of the top 50 players will go for a lot lower than their true auction value. What does this do for the rest of the player values in the auction? Will they inflate? Should I be willing to spend more to get the remaining studs? Unfortunately, I am not in possession of many of the underpriced players. What should my strategy be going into my keeper deadline and auction?

We use escalators in our league thus every keeper would be bumped up $10/year. Benefit of the system is that it promotes a balance between getting the available FAs and drafting some young guys on the cheap to tuck away. Sounds like this could be a tough year for you so my strategy would be to drive up the price on the studs, look to draft a lot of guys with upside value and mix with some mid to high rank talent that you could possibly trade mid season for younger guys to load up for next couple of years. Course that strategy depends on how many guys you can keep

 

[B-Dawk]

Thanks. We have a designated % increase in salary for each year a guy is kept, based on how many successive years he's been kept. My question was mostly about how I should approach this year since it seems as if I'm already behind.

 

[pollardsvision]

Trying to figure out keepers to declare for this season, but I have a problem. As a result of low salaries for many keepers, player values are thrown out of whack. For example, in a $200 salary cap, Adrian Peterson can be kept for $30, Michael Turner kept for $33, Randy Moss kept for $31, just to name a few. There are many more cases like this. Most likely, 20 out of the top 50 players will go for a lot lower than their true auction value. What does this do for the rest of the player values in the auction? Will they inflate? Should I be willing to spend more to get the remaining studs? Unfortunately, I am not in possession of many of the underpriced players. What should my strategy be going into my keeper deadline and auction?

It will increase expected prices on alot of players. The premium WR's/HB's available will go for much more than you probably expect.Those prices aren't that out of whack, though, for that type of league. Here are some keeper prices in my $200 keeper:-MJD $16-Michael Turner-$17-Chris Johnson $21-Roddy White $16-Derrick Ward $8-Brees $22-Slaton $12-Deagnelo $22There's really no guide for what might happen to auction prices in these type of leagues. You really have to go through figure out what your leaguemates need and what they might be willing to pay for it.

 

[Thorpe]

Thanks. We have a designated % increase in salary for each year a guy is kept, based on how many successive years he's been kept. My question was mostly about how I should approach this year since it seems as if I'm already behind.

What is the waiver-wire like in your league? If there are usually decent options available, I'd grab 2 or 3 top notch players and overpay. Then I'd try to find some bargains that you can have for peanuts for next year or cut for waiver wire pickups.

 

[B-Dawk]

our waiver system is pretty traditional, once you claim a player, you go to the bottom of the list, continues in that order, doesn't reset each week.

 

[Varmint]

You get rid of the Keeper Rule for your auction league.

IMEO...Keepers absolutely kill the entire premise of the auction league.

You left the DRAFT format because you didn't like the fact that you have to scratch names off of you cheat sheet even before the draft started.

Picking #7 and you could just about pick 6 players that you would not have on your roster this year.

You went to the auction so that every team could bid on ANY player...NOBODY in the NFL was "off limits".

So...what to do some leagues do??

They allow everyone to keep two players!!

Good lord!!

NOW...instead of scratching 6 names off of your cheat sheet...you scratch up to 26 names off of your list!! (in a 14 team league)

In that same 14 team league...even if you allow even ONE keeper...you get ONE player...but you scratch 13 other names off...BEFORE THE AUCTION EVEN BEGINS!!

How the HELL does that make the auction better than the draft??

It doesn't...it makes it much worse.

If you want to keep players....join a dynasty league

Even if you stay in a draft league....keepers only make it worse!

Nope...IMEO....Keepers KILL the auction...

 

[CalBear]

Varmint, you've already got pages and pages of whining on that topic, couldn't you just post a link and/or get a clue?

Player costs will definitely be higher when you have keepers. Think about an extreme scenario; everyone has protected two QBs, four WRs, two TEs, a D and a K, all for $1 each. RB prices would be through the roof. That same effect is true any time someone protects or buys a player for less than expected auction cost; the pool of money available is larger, so the expected costs are higher. Draft Dominator calculates this for you on the fly (DynAuction), which is why it's even more valuable for auction leagues than for drafts.

 

[jbr69gto]

In my auction keeper league each team can franchise 1 player at their present salary. (12 teams) Then there is two rounds of sniping where teams nominate up to two players from each team and bid them up auction style to the highest bidder. The team who owned the player to start with, then decides if they want to pay the new salary or let them go to the new team. Under this format there are 24 undervalued players who will see a bump in salary and possibly change teams. There are only 12 franchise players which can be kept for an unlimited time.

Each team has a salary cap which changes each year based on the reverse order of finish. So we have a couple teams that have done poorly over the years with almost a $20 salary cap advantage over everyone else. Each year rookies and free agents are auctioned to highest bidder. It has worked out well so far. We are entering our 6th season.

 

[NorCal8]

Values will absolutley inflate. Especially at the positions most affected (looks like RB as usual).

I'd suggest doing a VOB analysis on every player in the pool, then adjusting it for the players you *assume* will be kept. Figure points in your league based on scoring, apply baselines, and determine value over baseline for every player in the pool. Sum the top X values over baseline (X being the number of players in your league) for the total points over baseline in your league (total player pool value).

Then determine availible salary in the total pool - teams x total budget minus teams x roster spots (assuming a $1 min salary).

Divide total salary by total player pool value and you'll have a dollar cost per point over baseline. If Tom Brady is 60 points over baseline, and the dollar cost per point is .90, Brady is worth $54.

Now make educated assumptions on who is coming back as a keeper. Highlight those guys and deduct their own VOB from the total player value pool, and deduct their keeper salaries from the availiable salary. Divide the new salary pool by the new value pool, and your dollar cost per point will likley go up. Multiply all the remaining players by that, and you'll have your adjusted values.

 

[Philo]

ESPN had a TMR article about this:

http://sports.espn.go.com/fantasy/football...DK2K9_Manifesto

If you are in a keeper league with a salary cap, I suggest doing keeper-league inflation. What the hell's that, you ask? Well, basically, keeper leagues always have guys kept well below their value. I'm proud to have Wes Welker for $1 in my keeper league (last year at that price, sadly). As a result, the prices of available players will go up in the auction, because there is less talent available but relatively more money to spend.

So you look at your handy ESPN wide receiver rankings and you see we list Welker at $18. OK, we say he will be worth $18 this year in a start-from-scratch-league auction.

But that's only in a start-from-scratch auction. A better judge of what to pay for Welker in your keeper league will come about if you spend a little time calculating draft inflation.

I cannot take credit for the formula and this has been written about elsewhere, but here's how you do it.

Let's say it's an ESPN standard auction league. That means a 10-team league with 16-man rosters and a $200 cap.

That means there is a total of $2,000 (10 x $200) of available money to spend in your league. Now, you add up how much each team has spent on keepers. For simplicity's sake, let's say each team has kept five players at $10 a piece. So each team spent a total of $50, for a total of $500 (10 x $50) spent.

OK, here's where we get even nerdier. Take whatever price list you have decided to use and calculate how much "value" is being protected. For example, my Wes Welker is projected to earn $18 this year. So while I have him at a $1 PRICE, his VALUE is $18. Follow me?

So you add up all the VALUE on the teams. Again, for simplicity's sake, let's say every team is protecting $100 worth of value. So the total value being protected is $1,000 (10 x $100). And while the total value being protected is $1,000, the total price spent is only $500.

So you subtract both numbers from your starting values; $2,000 (total money available) minus $1,000 (value protected) equals $1,000 of value left.

Do the other one. $2,000 (total money available) minus $500 (total price protected) equals $1,500 of money left.

This means at the auction, $1,500 of money is chasing only $1,000 of value. So you now divide money left by value left. 1,500/1,000 = 1.5. This means every dollar in your league is actually worth $1.50.

This is your draft inflation price: 1.5. So let's say Maurice Jones-Drew comes up for auction. And your trusty ESPN draft kit has him listed at $56. You quickly multiply $56 by 1.5 to come up with $84. That's his value in this league.

The bidding gets to $70 and people, seeing $56, drop out. That's 14 bucks more than he's worth, people say. But you know that's actually a bargain for MJD. You're saving $14!

This is an extreme example, but it should clarify the point. Draft inflation calculation is a bit time consuming and can be a little confusing, but if you want those money lists to actually help, you need to do this. Every dollar counts! And where it really helps is with the superstars. Because the prices get so ridiculous, many folks drop out. Thus the stars end up becoming the biggest bargains because ridiculous bidding wars will break out for Tim Hightower or Ricky Williams near the end of the draft, when lesser players are left on the table and way too much money is left in owners' pockets. Now, I ask you, who'd you rather toss an extra 14 bucks on? MJD or your No. 2/3 running back?

 

[JamesTheScot]

You have to analyze your opponents' available money and their present needs.

In my main league earlier this month (auction-contract), there were about 5 teams that needed a RB1, and the only consensus RB1's available in the auction were Jones-Drew, Turner and Jackson. So we had 5 teams that each needed one of those 3 backs in a bad way. All three of those guys went for over $200 in a $1000 cap system (MJD went for $270). Considering that we have 53 man rosters and start 11 IDP's, that's a huge % of the cap devoted to one starter.

That crazy thing was, the guy who has Peterson and had significant WR needs came in unpredictably and won Turner even though the traditional wisdom said he was crazy to do so from a financial sense (he's rolling with Orton as is QB1 as a result). But that move then forced those teams "in need" to overpay on down the line for guys like Westbrook and Tomlinson...as their RB1's. The trickle down inflated prices all the way down into the RB2 ranks. But it created bargains in the backend for sleepers, backups, handcuffs, defensive studs, etc. if you still had a little cash left.

In that type of situation, you either have to plan to spend to get them, or target multiple "upside" guys and hope some of them pan out. There is always that turnover in the top 10 at each position every year. Paying WR2 prices for a guy that turns into a WR1 is good thing...thought if it were easy to do with regularity, everyone would be doing it.

The good thing about holding off on the studs is that you can become the "chip leader" shortly after the big names come off the board. You then get to bully people around to make sure you get the "value" guys you want by coming in and sniping them for $1 more from the guys that find themselves cash strapped.

Even if you plan to go full bore for the available studs, have a contingency plan in place. Prices may go even higher than you expect and you may simply not have the money to pull it off. If that happens, you may have to shift into a "rebuilding mindset" where you gobble up as much young talent knowing that you may not be that competitive this season...which is how some dynasties are built.

 

[jdoggydogg]

The best Salary Cap leagues have a cap that fluctuates every year. This makes it more challenging. You said AP is $30 in your league. He'd be $40 or $50 in my league. I think leagues that have low player salaries aren't as challenging.

 

[DreadedParms]

Why all the hate on auction & keepers? It's a merely another wrinkle to add into strategy. I would think if you were able to keep the player forever at a certain price that would be a bit much, IMO, but as long as everyone is on board, I don't see what the big deal is.

 

[Varmint]

Varmint, you've already got pages and pages of whining on that topic, couldn't you just post a link and/or get a clue?

Thank you officer...God bless the Posting PoliceSaugen mich

 

[seatownfavorite]

In my $200 cap league we use

$1-20 +$5

$21-40 +$10

$41-60 +$15

$61&up +$20

Keeps most big names in the draft every year while rewarding those who find real bargains.

 

[GregR_2]

First, let's hit on a basic. In my contract/dynasty league, there are a lot of people who go into the vet free agent auction and are only willing to pay for a player what they would pay if we were auctioning from scratch with empty rosters. This is a mistake in this league. The players who were cut were overpriced. So teams almost always have more money available to bid than the group of free agents should be worth if it was a redraft.

If they bid like this against people who know what they are doing, they will end up with money left over as the rest of us budget prices that will use every dollar we have. That extra salary cap doesn't gain you anything. If you're paying $10 for Jake Delhomme and end the auction with $30 unspent because you think players were too expensive, that $30 is completely wasted. You'd have been better to get any QB who cost $40 or less who is better than Delhomme. Even in a dynasty league, you could always cut your $40 QB at the end of the year and get that money back available for use. Players should go for more than if it were a redraft, because in this case, there is more money available than the players available would normally warrant.

So the first principle is, do not treat player salaries like you are auctioning from scratch, unless you actually are. Base the player prices off of the pool of players who will be taken in the auction... and the amount of money that should be spent in the auction (which is generally all of it unless you have one pool of money for auction and waivers and you don't recoup cap by cutting players). This could mean prices or higher or lower than if it were a redraft... but normally it would be higher since few people would keep overpriced players.

Second is now that we know that first principle, we have to know how to calculate what people are worth. I'm going to walk through it. I suggest reading it just to have read through it once if you never have before. But I'll add that at the bottom I'll explain that Draft Dominator can do all the calculations for you... but it's good to understand the method so you can make sure the results fit your league, since there are parameters you can customize.

The bare basic steps of figuring out auction prices, no matter whether it is keepers or redraft or whatever is this:

1. Quantify the value of each player. A very good first pass is to use projections for all the players... find the player at each position who you think is the first one who should go for the minimum bid, and use him as the baseline, subtracting his fantasy points from everyone at his position.

2. Figure out how many total roster spots in the league will be filled in the auction.

3. Figure out how much total league money there is to spend by adding up the money each team has for the auction.

4. From that total league money, subtract the cost of filling each roster spot with a minimum price player. This leaves you with the discretionary amount the league has for bidding over the minimum bid.

5. Add up the values from #1 for all players who should find a spot on a roster.

6. Divide the total discretionary money from #4 by the total player value from #5. This tells you how much each money each value point is worth.

7. Each player should then be worth: minimum bid + (his value * result from #6). A 0 value player would just be worth the minimum bid.

Example: 10 team league, 20 roster spots, $200, no keepers.

1. I use Dodds or my projections and pick the baseline player, dump it in excel and calculate the value. Or I could use Draft Dominator and pick my baselines there and export my results. For example's sake, I'll make up a number and say that's 3000 total fantasy points of value.

2. 10 teams * 20 roster spots = 200 players.

3. 10 teams * $2000 = $2000 dollars.

4. Minimum bid is $1, so 200 players will cost $200 in minimum bids.

5. Total money $2000 - minimum bid money $200 = $1800.

6. $1800 / 3000 fantasy points of value = .6 dollars per value point.

7. According to my projections then, each player is worth 1 + (value * .6). So AP's 113 value points means he's worth 1 + (113 * .6) = $68.8 or $69. Hines Ward 11 value points means he's worth 1 + (11 * .6) = 7.6 or about $8.

That's the basic steps for finding value. You can take things further, and people like MT have some great articles on doing more, and there is great functionality in Draft Dominator that can do this for you.

So how does that affect a keeper league with keeper prices? You just take them into account when you run your numbers. If the player is already on a team, his roster spot is filled and doesn't contribute to the roster spots that will be filled in the auction. His salary should not contribute to the free money. And his points should not contribute to the total value points in the player pool. So instead of 200 players, if every team kept 2 I'd have 180. Instead of $2000, if the keepers total $450 then there would be $1550. If the keepers values total up to 1400, then there's only 1600 value points out there in the player pool rather than the 3000 I had... and the price per value would be $1550 / 1600 = .97 dollars per value. So AP, if he wasn't a keeper, would be worth about 1 + (113 * .97) = $110. The difference in price is solely because the keepers took out more value than they took out money. So if everyone is smart and spends all of their cap in the auction, players will go for more than they would have in a redraft.

Ok, so how can you avoid doing all that yourself? Let Draft Dominator do it for you. Setup your league to be an auction, and go to the VBD baseline tab in the Setup window. Either set your baseline by rank to whatever player you thought.... or use Maurile Tremblay's method, where you put in a multiplier by importance of the position, and it figures out the rank of the baseline player and displays it to the side.

Hit OK. Now it will generate the auction prices for you based on the general principles I mentioned before (or a similar enough method). Here's the great part. Go in and assign the keepers to their teams based on their keeper salary. You'll note there is both an Auction column and a DynAuction column for the player lists. The Auction tells you what the price would be in a redraft. The DynAuction column continually updates as players are taken, recalculating the available money and the pool of players who should be taken and the roster spots left, and then shows you what the players should now be worth.

So even as the auction is going on it continually recalculates this. If people overspend early, Draft Dominator will show you remaining player's prices dropping. If people pay too little early, it'll show you should expect to pay more if people do actually spend all of their cap money. If you have an owner you know will be dumb and not spend all of his cap, you could even adjust his cap down individually to account for this.

Hope that's all of some use.

 

[JKL]

The clear answer which everyone covered is that yes, it will inflate numbers, probably dramatically. GregR did a pretty good rundown on how to calculate, the ESPN article provided by Philo is simpler and gives you a good ballpark figure, though you do need to consider only discretionary money and not inflate the low salary players as much.

Now, to your strategy. I don't know your league scoring system, so you are going to have to adapt this to your specific league. I play in a similar league (we raise salaries differently, based on a VBD formula so players over baseline shoot up, but the concept is similar). Here is what I would do if I were in a position where I didn't have any keepers and lots of the other owners already had great value.

I would adopt a "Stars and Scrubs" approach at the draft. I don't think this is a bad strategy anyway, but in this case, I think it is the necessary strategy given the keeper rules.

How do you go from having no keepers to having good keepers within a year or two in a league like this? By having low dollar players who pan out.

How do you increase your chances of doing that? By drafting more low dollar upside players, so you can occasionally hit on the next Brandon Marshall or Greg Jennings, or Michael Turner.

What do you do with all that extra money since you are filling most roster spots for cheap? Spend it on two studs where don't just drive prices, you get the player despite your initial disadvantage.

I think the worst possible strategy is to do the opposite, wait for value on several guys who are each going to cost you 15% of your cap space, but are not among the clearly best at their positions. This gets you a bunch of guys who are okay now, but not the best, and it doesn't set you up for future success.

With a stars and scrubs approach, you have lots of upside to hopefully have 2-3 good prospects for next year who have panned out, you have 2 stars who give you something to build around this year if things go really well, and gives you trade bait to acquire other values for next year if you decide its time to build for 2010. I would target spending upwards of 60% of my cap on the top 2 players you acquire, probably a RB and a WR, then fill in with low price options around them. Then be willing to go a buck or two more than you think for a guy like LeSean McCoy, pick up a bunch of cheap young receivers (collect multiple NY Giants receivers and see who pans out, for example).