Auction Values Nowhere Near Accurate or Useful (3 Viewers)

[Hot Sauce Guy]

It's absolutely bonkers and I don't understand it. I sought answers as to why this happens in another thread and got nowhere.

People making “dynasty value charts” are rational. They are thinking rationally, in the quiet comfort of their desk chair.

People bidding on players are irrational, sometimes on drugs/alcohol (no judgement) and are under pressure of building g a team with which to compete.

People making draft value charts don’t have favorite players in mind, nor do they have the context of team build or the pressure of bidding against other irrational people.

It makes perfect sense in that it’s nonsensical. Value chart makers are trying to square a circle.

But if you're sitting in a real auction with THOSE values sitting there to the left of each player, there is no way that doesn't affect the minds in the room.

I mean if we start getting in the 80s on that highest tier I just might piss myself.

If you think of each $ representing a certain amount of points a player is going to score; there should ultimately be a cap to how much you should logically bid on a player. For dynasty you have to factor in longevity, but otherwise Chase certainly has a cap value to pay for him. I think many would argue last year would correlate to that cap. And IME, people overpaying for those players are what opens opportunities for me (or you) in a draft. An overlooked factor in overspending on one guy, or even just acquiring too many of the max value guys, is all your eggs are now in one basket. You are getting 20% of your seasonal fantasy points from one guy, and if you lose that guy, you basically have no shot at competing.

If I was in 100 auction drafts tomorrow I'd be surprised if I walked away with even 10 shares of Chase. He's just too expensive and priced at his pinnacle; and odds are there will be at least one guy in every league willing to spend (what I would consider) way too much of their budget for one guy. I think the arguments people make about high profile players being must draft for the whole concept of "go big or go home" gets greatly reduced outside a fixed cost system like a snake draft. Snake drafts have a somewhat linear value tier system; higher are worth more of course, but it's all relative to position and then reversed rounds.

Agreed. I learned that the hard way - went hard on 3 top guys, went to a couple LCGs, then had to sell off to rebuild. Having that much budget tied up in a handful of players is a long-term loser in dynasty.

The key is getting *the next* Ja’Marr Chase at a reasonable cost. *The next* Bijan or Gibbs. *the next* Kelce.

Easier said than done, but with more evenly distributed assets, you’ll theoretically have more darts to throw at those players. More of them = more likely to hit.

Speaking of dynasty only here, of course.

 

[darksideofoz]

Can we say this for sure?

Add the "suggested value" of all players on whatever cheat sheet you're looking at. If that amount doesn't match the total dollars in the league, you know it's going to be unreliable.

12 teams x $200 starting budget = $2400 A perfectly customized cheat sheet for your league should add up to approximately 98-100% of this amount, allowing for some teams not using up their full balance. If there's a $1 minimum, there's obviously going to be a lot of undraftable or completely replaceable guys that can have their dollar ignored.

IF the above is true in a $0 minimum bid setting, do you agree approximately with the line the cheat sheet is drawing for the $0 guys vs the guys you would be willing to pay $1 or $2 to add to your bench? If the valuations on these guys seems too high, then you need to bump these values down to taste and allocate those dollars towards the top studs or whatever tier you feel is being undervalued.

This only works if the only players bid on are represented in the cheat sheet. There will typically be more players on a cheat sheet than get picked up in an auction.

 

[Nugget]

I used Draft Dominator and all the values on the top end were high. 14 team, PPR, 20+ years. Chase was the only player to go over 60, top 4 backs between 51-59, TE's went around 65% of value at the top (Brock for $30). WRs in general went for close to value, rookies and flavor of the week went to high.

 

[Hot Sauce Guy]

One more lump of coal into the oven to fuel the fire of why auction values are impossible to predict: the F U bidder.

I’ve been that guy. I’ve been burned trying to do it, but I’ve been much more successful bidding up players I didn’t want to unreasonable values.

There’s a lot of those guys out there. A couple in this topic have mentioned that they do it early and often. Nominate players buzzy that you have no interest in, throw out a couple bids to get the action going then sit back and watch others spend $ while you wait in the wings with a full budget & the players you want.

In a draft with a bunch of people doing that, the final auction values aren’t going to look anything like anyone’s chart.

 

[Hot Sauce Guy]

I used Draft Dominator and all the values on the top end were high. 14 team, PPR, 20+ years. Chase was the only player to go over 60, top 4 backs between 51-59, TE's went around 65% of value at the top (Brock for $30). WRs in general went for close to value, rookies and flavor of the week went to high.

Sounds like your league is full of sharp, shrewd managers.

 

[pinkstapler]

It's absolutely bonkers and I don't understand it. I sought answers as to why this happens in another thread and got nowhere.

People making “dynasty value charts” are rational. They are thinking rationally, in the quiet comfort of their desk chair.

People bidding on players are irrational, sometimes on drugs/alcohol (no judgement) and are under pressure of building g a team with which to compete.

People making draft value charts don’t have favorite players in mind, nor do they have the context of team build or the pressure of bidding against other irrational people.

It makes perfect sense in that it’s nonsensical. Value chart makers are trying to square a circle.

But if you're sitting in a real auction with THOSE values sitting there to the left of each player, there is no way that doesn't affect the minds in the room.

I mean if we start getting in the 80s on that highest tier I just might piss myself.

If you think of each $ representing a certain amount of points a player is going to score; there should ultimately be a cap to how much you should logically bid on a player. For dynasty you have to factor in longevity, but otherwise Chase certainly has a cap value to pay for him. I think many would argue last year would correlate to that cap. And IME, people overpaying for those players are what opens opportunities for me (or you) in a draft. An overlooked factor in overspending on one guy, or even just acquiring too many of the max value guys, is all your eggs are now in one basket. You are getting 20% of your seasonal fantasy points from one guy, and if you lose that guy, you basically have no shot at competing.

If I was in 100 auction drafts tomorrow I'd be surprised if I walked away with even 10 shares of Chase. He's just too expensive and priced at his pinnacle; and odds are there will be at least one guy in every league willing to spend (what I would consider) way too much of their budget for one guy. I think the arguments people make about high profile players being must draft for the whole concept of "go big or go home" gets greatly reduced outside a fixed cost system like a snake draft. Snake drafts have a somewhat linear value tier system; higher are worth more of course, but it's all relative to position and then reversed rounds.

Agreed. I learned that the hard way - went hard on 3 top guys, went to a couple LCGs, then had to sell off to rebuild. Having that much budget tied up in a handful of players is a long-term loser in dynasty.

The key is getting *the next* Ja’Marr Chase at a reasonable cost. *The next* Bijan or Gibbs. *the next* Kelce.

Easier said than done, but with more evenly distributed assets, you’ll theoretically have more darts to throw at those players. More of them = more likely to hit.

Speaking of dynasty only here, of course.

Heard that. All things being equal, my dynasty start ups skew towards youth as it is. Unless a draft unfolds where I'm catching solid value on vets, I shift pretty quick into what some would call a "productive struggle" where I'm really aiming to roll dice the first year and get a top 4 or so draft pick the next year and start competing either year 2 or year 3. I think in an auction draft, this would be the case even more as it's all down to the value proposition. The rosters that will be very competitive over the long term might take a couple years to get off the ground, but they'll be built on a foundation of hitting on those reasonable cost guys.

If it was a high cost buy in league, sure I might shoot my shot for a championship or two up front and know I now have the next 5+ years of buy ins covered. But otherwise, I think I'm taking the "slow and steady" route.

 

[Deranged Hermit]

One more lump of coal into the oven to fuel the fire of why auction values are impossible to predict: the F U bidder.

I’ve been that guy. I’ve been burned trying to do it, but I’ve been much more successful bidding up players I didn’t want to unreasonable values.

There’s a lot of those guys out there. A couple in this topic have mentioned that they do it early and often. Nominate players buzzy that you have no interest in, throw out a couple bids to get the action going then sit back and watch others spend $ while you wait in the wings with a full budget & the players you want.

In a draft with a bunch of people doing that, the final auction values aren’t going to look anything like anyone’s chart.

I've done this to great success as well. I usually try to stay in the bidding as long as possible to keep people from getting such steals. In 10 years, I probably only got burned twice by doing it, so I'll continue to do so.

 

[dkp993]

This is why I created my own sheet which I adjust each year with the previous year’s data. It’s actually quite accurate but I have the advantage of years of data and the same people in the league tendencies. No external app is going to be able to provide that kind of nuance. But I will say I am able to manipulate the draft dominator settings to get it relatively close.

Glad I'm not the only nerd that does this. I have 10 years of data on my league and can accurately predict auction values within a couple of bucks now in my league except the outliers that inevitably become overbids or underbids once or twice in the auction.

Yeah I’m the “spreadsheet guy” in the league. But, I have 6 titles over the past 11 years so must be doing something right. lol.

 

[TampaMike19]

After doing this years auction draft, I have concluded that nominations are the most important thing you can do. Making shrewd nominations at the right time, judging the temperature in the room or if a positional run has occurred, or that you feel people are overspending on tier 2 or tier 3 players while tier 1 players are on the board, it’s so important to get people to spend their money as fast as possible. I always forecast that people will go above budget for tier 1, panic for tier 2 and 3, and then deflation hits pretty hard. This year it appears people got a lot better about not panicking however.

 

[TheDirtyWord]

OP raises a very good point and I do see a lot of replies that aren't really grasping it.

Let's establish that the objective of an auction 'cheat sheet' is not to predict anything, but just to give you proper values to adhere to in your bidding. If a draft goes 'off the rails' so to speak, that should only play into your hands even more, if you stick to the sheet, and the sheet is actually good. This isn't about the Cowboys fan who bids Dak up to $30, if you had him valued at $5 you just watch and laugh, there's no benefit in predicting any of that nonsense.

This is about a trend is that consistent and observable if you have played as many auction leagues as some of us have. Footballguys is consistently missing on the top end. The people who are winning these leagues are paying considerably more for the studs than FBG would suggest, and it is not coming back to bite them. It is a league-winning strategy.

VBD, when applied to a snake draft, is only concerned with placing players ahead of other players. Valuing players for auction bring another dimension. Gibbs is more valuable than Jacobs, but how much more valuable? Yes you can go by raw points as basic VBD would do, but it's clear to me that, just to make a very simple example, having a player that scores +100 over baseline is MORE than twice as valuable than one who scores +50. I'm sure FBG is doing some kind of math behind the scenes to account for this, but the algorithm needs to be goosed. I do agree it is too linear as is.

I hate to Moneyball this, but...

What if we're doing projections all wrong?

What if we start thinking about projections/rankings not for specific players, but for your RB1? For instance, the last 3 years - the average RB1 (overall) has produced 2120 YFS/16 TD's. But the average RB1 (inclusive of the Top 12 RB's) has produced 1595 YFS/12 TD's. So the delta between average & elite at the RB1 slot is 525 YFS & 4 TD's. There should be a $$ value that we can calculate that represents value at both spots so to speak.

The specific player doesn't matter - that's personal preference. You might be higher on Jahmyr than Bijan...that's the vehicle you think is optimal to secure the upside delta. I think if that was part of auction cheat sheets, that would be infinitely more valuable.

 

[dkp993]

OP raises a very good point and I do see a lot of replies that aren't really grasping it.

Let's establish that the objective of an auction 'cheat sheet' is not to predict anything, but just to give you proper values to adhere to in your bidding. If a draft goes 'off the rails' so to speak, that should only play into your hands even more, if you stick to the sheet, and the sheet is actually good. This isn't about the Cowboys fan who bids Dak up to $30, if you had him valued at $5 you just watch and laugh, there's no benefit in predicting any of that nonsense.

This is about a trend is that consistent and observable if you have played as many auction leagues as some of us have. Footballguys is consistently missing on the top end. The people who are winning these leagues are paying considerably more for the studs than FBG would suggest, and it is not coming back to bite them. It is a league-winning strategy.

VBD, when applied to a snake draft, is only concerned with placing players ahead of other players. Valuing players for auction bring another dimension. Gibbs is more valuable than Jacobs, but how much more valuable? Yes you can go by raw points as basic VBD would do, but it's clear to me that, just to make a very simple example, having a player that scores +100 over baseline is MORE than twice as valuable than one who scores +50. I'm sure FBG is doing some kind of math behind the scenes to account for this, but the algorithm needs to be goosed. I do agree it is too linear as is.

I hate to Moneyball this, but...

What if we're doing projections all wrong?

What if we start thinking about projections/rankings not for specific players, but for your RB1? For instance, the last 3 years - the average RB1 (overall) has produced 2120 YFS/16 TD's. But the average RB1 (inclusive of the Top 12 RB's) has produced 1595 YFS/12 TD's. So the delta between average & elite at the RB1 slot is 525 YFS & 4 TD's. There should be a $$ value that we can calculate that represents value at both spots so to speak.

The specific player doesn't matter - that's personal preference. You might be higher on Jahmyr than Bijan...that's the vehicle you think is optimal to secure the upside delta. I think if that was part of auction cheat sheets, that would be infinitely more valuable.

That’s basically how I do it. I almost never target (or fade) a particular player. I determine how much I want to spend on a position (RB1 or WR2, whatever) and then group players that will likely go in that range based on my projected cost sheet. As long as I get someone from that group in the price range I’m willing to pay I’m happy.

Occasionally, I will add or remove a player from a grouping and put them in another based on a hunch if they will be over or undervalued (ie Hampton I knew would go for way more then raw projections as I have 4 Charger fans in my league)

 

[Runkle]

I think there's a certain art to auction management in knowing that you can overspend by $10, $15, $25, whatever to "get your guy" if he's Barkley or Chase, and then making that up with savings later by scooping up a few guys later that should be going for $5, for $1 or $2. It's a riskier strategy that could blow up on you, sure, but if it doesn't, you're in a sweet spot. Maybe that's why these guys go for over value--a lot of owners over-estimate their own ability to make it work.

 

[Pip's Invitation]

I think there's a certain art to auction management in knowing that you can overspend by $10, $15, $25, whatever to "get your guy" if he's Barkley or Chase, and then making that up with savings later by scooping up a few guys later that should be going for $5, for $1 or $2. It's a riskier strategy that could blow up on you, sure, but if it doesn't, you're in a sweet spot. Maybe that's why these guys go for over value--a lot of owners over-estimate their own ability to make it work.

Success with that also depends on the dynamic of your league.

In my auction this year, four teams held on to their money and were able to get whoever they wanted in the second half of the draft. If you were hoping to get a player you valued at $5 for $1, that wasn’t happening if one of those four also wanted him. I only got Woody Marks and Harold Fannin for $1 because those four had filled their rosters and those players hadn’t been nominated yet.

 

[Payne]

Pots,

The reality is, no auction value chart you'll find on the internet anywhere will give you what historical data will.

My initial post was suggesting the old school VBD spreadsheet was the best I have used. Is it perfect? No.
As somebody else said., you have to massage the numbers with your historical data to get the results you want.
I was suggesting a good starting point. Do what I said and use the knowledge you seem to have and adjust your values to how you see fit.

Good luck

 

[GregR]

Sorry if some of this is hazy as I haven't done FF in about 10 years now probably.

Yes Auction values are very hard to predict as people tend to overpay for them. If you go with some of the more straight up value methods you are going to end up with too many low level starters as backups, and weak starters.

I think the key is that you need to still get the right chunk of your money into your starters, but you want to overpay less than everyone else.

One way I handled this was that I would decide what percent of my cap should go to starters and what percent to backups. I don't really recall what values I used so I won't give advice there. Then I would do separate Auction values for starters and backups each based on their own segment of the cap. When doing just the starters, the minimum bid price used in the calculation should be what the minimum starters should go for not necessarily the auction's minimum bid. Since the backups a lot of them would go for minimum bid and you need to leave that room to fit them in beneath the starters. And you might lump kickers in with the backups so their prices were appropriate.

Doing this I might end up with more good but not elite players, but as I would get so many undervalued players compared to others, my team strength would end up better most of the time.

(Edit to add: Note I used the VBD tool to produce my values then. Do the starters, then can make a second copy, blank the starters stats to 0 fantasy points so the backups are at the top of their positions, and then do the backups baseline. And import the results into Draft Dominator for the auction itself.)

Final line, is produce auction values you think are right.