General Auction Strategy (1 Viewer)

[Your Mother]

We might go auction next year, and I'm curious about people's ideas and strategies. If you have any thoughts, let me know:

-14 teams, H2H, 9 hitters, 7 pitchers, 22 spots total. 5x5, with OBP and QS instead of Avg. and Wins.

-I would consider myself above average in terms of skill in the league, conservatively in the Top 3.

There is one owner in particular who thinks along the same lines that I do in terms of player evaluation. When I nominate players, do I nominate only guys that I'm legitimately interested in? Do I mix it up and throw in some dudes that I don't really care about? Should I target good values in the beginning when people are still conservative, with the hopes of landing someone big down the road? Or do I go after a Reyes (Jose) early? Knowing that I will work the waiver wires harder (and better) than the rest of the league, do I concentrate on starting positions, knowing that I'll probably just pick up bench guys during the year?

Do you guys set hard targets in terms of price ceilings? How are opening bids determined, for instance is it poor form if I open Johan Santana for $1?

So many questions...

 

[guru_007]

After the first few rounds, I rarely nominate players that I really want.

In my league, the player that throws out the players, throws out the opening bid. This offers some curious situations, such as when a rookie owner misvalues a guy and throws Ty Wigginton out there for $25....and then crickets.

If it's your first year doing auctions with your league, be prepared for lots of guys with lots of different values. In my first auction league, it seemed to me that guys were way overbidding early in the draft. I figured that there would be huge bargains later on, and I waited....and waited....and waited.....and then proceeded to win the league handily. Well, a few owners learned from that and the following year, there were 3 of us waiting, and waiting....there were still some good bargains, though not as many. I won the league again, and one other owner who waited cashed too. Well, by the third year, valuations on players were pretty sharp.

My basic strategy is not to overspend on anyone and go against the grain. I'm never afraid to buy someone early if the price is right. If prices are too steep, I'll wait for the bargains. Generally in a league with good owners, the bargains are in the middle rounds. Bad owners are overspending early.....shrewd owners think they can outwait everyone until the endgame. Thus, generally in the middle of the draft you can build a pretty good foundation.

I'm not a huge proponent of the LIMA plan....but I do not overspend on pitching. I'd say I spend 75/25 on batting/hitting (but my league is 14 offensive and 9 pitchers).

For pitching...what I try to do is target an ace to anchor the staff and surround him with cheap relievers and non-WHIP killing starters. For instance, this year I liked Peavy and Beckett a lot...so I'd try to snag one of them and then get a guy like Wakefield and/or Wang to get me cheap wins....the rest of my staff would be bottom feeders, but guys with high potentials. This strategy works a lot better with daily transactions.

On offense.....target shallow positions and get a stud. Chase Utley is an obvious choice. One year I tried to get fancy and get an all stud outfield. I spent 140/260 on my outfield. Yeah, it was a good outfield, but it was a crappy strategy because outfield is so deep that I was getting killed at other positions. Now I generally go with a bland outfield/corner infield....guys like Raul Ibanez, Brad Wilkerson...etc. Yeah,they don't 'wow' you, but they put up decent stats.

have more thoughts....probably around draft time next year.

 

[Your Mother]

We have some position-scarcity freaks in my league, so the Victor Martinezes and Chase Utleys probably won't offer good value, I always look for mid-round guys here in normal drafts.

How do you price the guys that you want that you open? Any hard and fast rules like 50% of what you are willing to pay, etc?