Translating snake rounds to auction levels (1 Viewer)

[achiappanza]

I don't know about you guys, but I'm really tired of listening/reading all the FBG advice being centered on snake draft strategy when auctions are the way to go. I don't even know how to parse it when they say, "Player X would be a reach in round 2 but a steal in round 3."

We need to know what that means in a standard 12-team, $200 auction.

Now granted, it's trickier because roster sizes affect dollars as do the top-heaviness of your league. But I say we collect data and see what it says.

In our auction yesterday, I can segment out the results of every 12 player tier like so:

Round 1: 64 to 52 dollars

Round 2: 50 to 35

Round 3: 35 to 25

Round 4: 25 to 21

Round 5: 20 to 12

Round 6: 12 to 6

Round 7: 6 to 5

Round 8: 5 to 3

Round 9: 3 to 2

Round 10: 2

Round 11: 2 to 1

Rounds 12-17: All 1

How about the rest of you? Is our league as top-heavy as it seems to me?

(If your budget isn't $200, please pro-rate values to a 200 dollar scale.)

 

[Wooderson]

Agree that most information is snake draft oriented. It's frustrating when in an auction league.

The two reasons I can see is a lot of new fantasy players are in snake leagues. These are the people you want to get to buy your product.

Other reason is auction leagues have so many more variables. Just a tough thing to handicap.

 

[achiappanza]

It's definitely tougher, but these guys should be up for it. There's plenty worth talking about. I'm just learning how to adjust for how my competitors bid and it's interesting game theory stuff. It's become too focused on superstars (in my opinion) and so the "first round talent" gets bid way up. I think I finally figured out where I can overbid just a little and still land quality players, leaving me sufficient budget to get everyone I want for the back half of the auction.

I liked that FBG had a "Who is worth an overdraft?" article this year. That's a good way to help us think about who to go after when everyone's overbidding. You can't just stay out... you won't get any frontline players.

 

[chauncey]

I was thinking the exact same thing the other day. Every podcast, article, forum thread, and redneck caller on sports radio talks in terms of getting x player in z round. It is almost worthless info for auctions. I understand that old people don't like change and new people wouldn't be able to keep up with an auction, so snake drafts are necessary. Also, one of FBGs revenue streams is the Draft Dominator, and they need to push info that creates a market/encourages sales.

During the season the guys who run the waiver wire podcast have been using auction terminology for several years (bidding x% on y player), so that is a start. And DFS follow the salary cap format, so the concept of fielding a team for a set budget is gaining awareness from that angle. Hopefully we see more useful auction info in the future.

Two ways of translating snake info to auction info are assigning $$ ranges for each round, as you mention in the OP, and also referencing players as RB1, RB2, RB3, RB4, ... etc rather than 1st Rd RB, 4th Rd RB.

I had an auction yesterday, and another this weekend. I'll see if I can post some of the info here when I get a few minutes about $$ Range/Round.

 

[imjackdupp]

Your numbers seem to be pretty close to what I've seen in recent auctions. To my surprise it seems to even hold same in a 2QB league I play in. They don't seem to realize that Qb's are at a premium. I got Rogers and Wilson for $38-35 when Brown, Bell and AP were going for $55-60. I really think this can only be accredited to the fact that most of them are just using listed auction values they find online since they don't have much auction experience. Same group of guys gave me my choice of picks in a dynasty start up last year. Every draft they all run out of money and I cleanup on the leftovers.

Same with most of the non local leagues I'm. Personally I'd rather have 5 Boldins than Dez and 4 Riley Coopers.

 

[achiappanza]

>> Two ways of translating snake info to auction info are assigning $$ ranges for each round, as you mention in the OP, and also referencing players as RB1, RB2, RB3, RB4, ... etc rather than 1st Rd RB, 4th Rd RB.

Completely agree with this.... had an e-mail exchange with Joe Bryant last year where I said the term "Flex" had become useless... what that means varies with how leagues set their rosters. The FBG experts had taken to using the expression "Maybe a flex" as a way to cover their asses instead of saying "This guy isn't worth taking."

I asked Joe to have them stop using "Flex" and instead say "WR3, WR4" or whatever they actually think. And then I saw a responsive change almost immediately.

So I think they care, but auction advice is either too hard for them, or they think it's not really their market. Joe agreed with me that auction was a better way to go.

 

[Ilov80s]

Tough to talk about auction because it's so much more open ended and the possibilities are much wider.

 

[achiappanza]

>> Personally I'd rather have 5 Boldins than Dez and 4 Riley Coopers.

Agreed... I almost always go for 2nd and 3rd tier guys I really like. Last year, based on what the league was giving me, I ended up with an unusually lopsided roster, winding up with AP, Jamaal Charles, and Gronk taking up my big share of money. I took hits on all three of those guys and limped to the quarterfinals.

 

[achiappanza]

>> Tough to talk about auction because it's so much more open ended and the possibilities are much wider.

True, but there is plenty of unmined territory. "Who would you overbid for" is a good topic, and I think the idea of expense to value really is worthy of a lot of data analysis.

I've never seen any thoughts about nomination strategy, or how to predict what an autodraft manager will do.

 

[btemp]

Tough to talk about auction because it's so much more open ended and the possibilities are much wider.

That's what makes it so much more interesting (and worth talking about). Auction is a far superior format and I wish FBG spent more time on it.

 

[ghostguy123]

Never done an auction.

Has anyone ever done one where you bid on draft picks rather than players, then do the draft? Instead of throwing out a name, you throw out "pick 47".

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

 

[achiappanza]

Bidding on draft picks... interesting. One year long ago we allowed draft pick swaps before the draft.