But just for completeness, to figure out auction value in general:
Find the Total Money in the league: 12 teams * $100 = $1200.
Find Discretionary Money = (Total Money) - (Minimum salary for each roster spot) = $1200 - (7 players * $1 minimum * 12 teams) = $1200 - $84 = $1116 discretionary dollars.
Add up the VBD values of all the players who will be auctioned: (I'll make up a number for the example) 2400
Find dollars per fantasy point by dividing Discretionary Money by Total VBD Value: $1116 / 2400 fp = 0.465 dollars per fantasy point.
Now you have a number that you can multiply each player's value by, and he's worth that much (plus the extra $1 minimum we already set aside for him). So if Chris Johnson's VBD value is 120, then he's worth $1 + (120 * .465) = $1 + 55.8 = $57
Can someone remind me how this works for players who will be drafted, but have a negative VBD #? E.g., 10 team league; Eli projected to go as QB 12. Using worst starter as a baseline (QB10), Eli would have a negative VBD #. Using the above numbers as an example, if I were to multiply 0.465 $/VBD point by Eli's (e.g.,) -20 VBD, I would get -$9.3??? It's been a couple years since I've done this, so if someone could remind me how to assign auction $ for backups using this method, I'd appreciate it. Thanks!
Treat negative VBD values as 0. A salary can't be less than the minimum salary, so anyone not good enough to gain extra salary from his production gets the minimum salary. Also be sure you don't add in negatives when figuring out your total VBD value for all players.MT's system will take as much into account as possible as you can pretty much. Instead of using a player's full season VBD value, his takes into account how many games a player in that situation (i.e. RB5) actually starts on average in fantasy. So if your QB10 only tends to start 10 games, MT's method will using only 10/16 of his value to give his salary. A backup it might be more like 3/16. That took a lot of effort for him to build those models of how many games a given slotted player normally starts in fantasy.
My initial response here you're quoting is probably the simplest method that should give pretty good results. But there's a general problem in every system, including MT's, in using projections for all backups... since many times we take non-primary backups based on potential if they take over a starting role, rather than our "most likely" projection that would be used to get our VBD value. That is, if I draft Mewelde Moore it isn't based on value from a FBG projection that he'll score 30 points. It's based on where I'd rank him compared to other NFL backups on how likely he is to start (due to injury, benching, etc) and how I think he'll do if he does start. There's no single good baseline to use for starters, primary backups, and your late picks.
But anyway, here's how I'd suggest modifying what I said previously if you want to do a better job with allocating money for backups.
SET BACKUP SALARIES FIRST
First I'd use that general method once through to determine the salaries for backups. Ignore the starters for now. Set a baseline equal to the highest ranked player at the position who you think should only be the minimum salary. So let's say that you think QB21 should only be $1 because you can get someone from waivers you think is roughly as good as him at any point during the season.
So figure out VBD value for all the backups who should be more than the minimum... QBs 13-20 in my example using a baseline of QB21. Do the same for each position. Use the method I first posted, summing up only the backup's VBD values. When you find your total cap dollars available, don't use the full salary cap, but use a percentage of it based on what you think should be spent on backups. For instance, many people try to spend 85% on starters and 15% on backups. So use 15% of the total salary instead of the whole thing.
Calculate your backup-only dollars per fantasy point... and use it to multiply by each backup's value to assign his salary and add back in the minimum salary to find each backup's price.
NOW FIGURE OUT STARTER SALARIES
Now you need to figure out the starters. We use the same method as before, but using best backups as the baseline player...but with two more changes. First, we use just the part of our cap that is allocated for starters. 85% in my example.
Second... our minimum salary we use to calculate Discretionary money for starters isn't the true $1 league minimum salary anymore. If our best backup QB13 is $4, then every QB above him should be $4 or more as well. So instead of subtracting out $1 for each QB1-QB12, we now need to subtract out $4 for each of them = -$48 for QBs. So when you subtract out the "minimum salary", you need to do each position individually and you need to use a value equal to the salary of the best backup.
Once that's done, it's mostly all the same. You sum up the value of just the starters, divide the starter cap's discretionary money by it, and now you have your multiplier that will yield your salary for starters. (Remember to add that position-dependent minimum salary back in for each player's final salary.)
I hope that made sense. It's late and I'm tired. If it didn't, let me know and I can try to walk through an example tomorrow. You might work through it and find you don't like the results and need to revise your thoughts on which backup should start being the minimum salary. Or you might find you're spending too much on backups, or not enough. For deep leagues where you do want to spend more than minimum on your "Swing for the Fences" type sleepers, you might want to manually adjust some VBD values to reflect which players are more valuable than others and by how much in your opinion.
This is actually the method I used in my startup auction of my contract dynasty league. With a bunch of player's VBD values manually edited to account for things like age.