The Art of the Auction

[Mike FF Today 607]

Our own Doug Orth has been to the championship game four straight years in the Huddle's Expert Auction League. Here's a recap and analysis of this year's auction...

 

The Art of the Auction

[AnaheimRams 28]

Our own Doug Orth has been to the championship game four straight years...

 

The Art of the Auction

 

"If you don't win the last game of the season, nobody gives a sh!t." - Billy Beane.

 

Very nice write up. However... with Prater and Sea DST combining for TWELVE FOCKING DOLLARS... I question the legitimacy of these "Experts".

[Flgatorguy87 160]

 

"If you don't win the last game of the season, nobody gives a sh!t." - Billy Beane.

 

Very nice write up. However... with Prater and Sea DST combining for TWELVE FOCKING DOLLARS... I question the legitimacy of these "Experts".

That's exactly what I was thinking.

[BunnysBastatrds 1,913]

I really miss auction drafts. Looks like we had the same league set up as yours. I'm going to try and get our main league to go back to it next year. This might motivate them.

 

Two things: I'm suprised at how low the prices were for the top three QB's. Or all of the them for that matter. I know people in our league that would have put up fifty for Manning or Brees with a $200.00 budget. Interesting.

 

Also, are those your rankings as well? Manning, Brees, Rodgers, Luck, and Kapernick are your 1-5 ranked QB's and so on? Not critiquing. I'm sure they are, just wanted to be sure.

[tanatastic 2,061]

I never did an auction til yesterday. Did a mock, just waited for everyone to spend their cash, nominated guys on my dnd list and went shopping at the end. Got a dominant team of what would be all 2-5 rounders in a snake. then a few hrs did the money auction draft for real, did the same thing. Same result, extremely happy with my team scooping up guys I like such as alfred and zac stacy for pretty cheap.

 

Ill say this...auction is much more fun than snake. Yahoo has $20 10tm auction leagues I reccomend.

[The Football Guru 211]

I really miss auction drafts. Looks like we had the same league set up as yours. I'm going to try and get our main league to go back to it next year. This might motivate them.

 

Two things: I'm suprised at how low the prices were for the top three QB's. Or all of the them for that matter. I know people in our league that would have put up fifty for Manning or Brees with a $200.00 budget. Interesting.

 

Also, are those your rankings as well? Manning, Brees, Rodgers, Luck, and Kapernick are your 1-5 ranked QB's and so on? Not critiquing. I'm sure they are, just wanted to be sure.

The players are ordered by "My $", but I didn't rank the tied players in any specific order (if that makes any sense). I had just finished my first Big Board a day earlier and was more concerned about getting values on guys than I was about lining them up just perfectly. With that said, I did separate the players I really wanted from the others.

[The Football Guru 211]

 

"If you don't win the last game of the season, nobody gives a sh!t." - Billy Beane.

 

Very nice write up. However... with Prater and Sea DST combining for TWELVE FOCKING DOLLARS... I question the legitimacy of these "Experts".

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Mel Kiper once said that he preferred being called a draft analyst as opposed to a draft expert. After doing this job for a while, I know exactly what he means

 

At any rate, I think some of the bids - like the ones you mentioned - are a reflection of how early the draft is and how it catches some of our "experts" unprepared for the real thing. With that said, there is still really no excuse for Seattle or Prater to be drawing those kinds of bids. And you'd be surprised (or maybe not), there are questions every year about roster limits and how many players we can start during the draft.

[SaintsInDome2006 128]

He got Peterson and Foster. And that is what I love about auction drafts.

 

Although it is a complete departure from conventional auction-draft strategy, I’ve never been a big fan of setting pre-draft positional budgets – such as spending 30 percent on my top two receivers or 50 percent at running back. My method isn’t unlike my approach in serpentine (snake) drafts: highlight the players that I really want to build my team around, put them in tiers and set them aside in a different place on your spreadsheet.

Much like a snake format, value is only truly recognized during the course of the draft. If half the owners are willing to spend nearly half of their budget in order to lock up top-flight running backs and you are not (but still entered the draft placing a high priority on the position), you are forced to reassess your budget in the middle of the draft or face the possibility of ending up with a deep team with few superstars. While that strategy can win, superstars tend to carry the day in fantasy while complementary players can generally be found on the waiver wire throughout the year.

 

That's my main league, owners will overspend for the top RB's, like over a third of their budget for the best RBs. Mock auction lists or cheat sheets from experts seem to regularly underestimate the $ cost of RBs, I am not sure why that is.

 

I do think setting a positional budget helps though because it basically acts as an internal discipline. Doug may not realize it but he did this anyway:

 

I had hoped to land Sankey ($24) as a flex, but his nomination came at a time in which it was more important for me to focus my remaining budget on positions other than running back.

 

I would be interested to see the actual order he drafted in because I bet Peterson and Foster went first and then he focused on WR's, QB's and TE after that and then came back to scoop up his $1-3 RB values.