Auction Draft Strategy

Auction Draft Strategy
by Ray of RotoPicks.com

In life, you have to budget. You usually have a finite amount of funds to work with, and you must allocate them accordingly. While it sure would be nice to take a $10,000 tropical vacation every month, if you only have $11,000 to work with in your budget, you can't go overspending because you need to allot funds for eating and putting gas in your car. If you don't, this is a recipe for disaster. Something has to give, so you prioritize, do some cost analysis and project future costs. You budget.

Yes, the process of budgeting is often painful and things change for the better and worse. It is not, and should not be 100% binding. But it does give you a good idea of where you stand and what you are working with. You could find hidden value by budgeting, or it is possible you will find you are in better position than you think. Most importantly it provides guidance. So if you do it with your personal finances, then why wouldn't you budget for your fantasy baseball draft?

If you are in league that uses an auction style draft, the only difference in your league compared to others is how players are acquired on draft day. Everything else is the same. You must do your homework, evaluate and rank each player and develop your plan. However, instead of thinking about it in terms of what you will do with each draft pick, you must think about allocating your funds amongst both players and categories.

A benefit to an auction as compared to a snake draft is that within reason you can plan out what players you want on your team. If you have a list of 10 players that for whatever reason you need to have on your team and players you think will provide good value this season, it is possible you will get all 10. Or at least, you will be able to get 8 out of those 10. In a snake draft, it is possible that you might only get 2 or 3 of those players. An auction format does make it easier to target specific players.

While you are of course constricted by a finite amount of funds (usually $260 auction dollars) to fill out your team's roster, there is some wiggle room here. You obviously aren't going to get the 20 best players on your roster, but having 5 of them is certainly possible. But that will obviously impact and hinder the rest of your team depending on how much you spend on them. These are decisions you need to make before heading into the auction.

So you have done all of your prep work. Players are ranked and tiered. Your sleeper candidates are highlighted. By looking at last year's standings, you have been able to figure out where you need to be statistically in each category. But how will this work? The most important characteristic about your auction prep work is figuring out to accomplish this task.

• For starters, go through your rankings and determine how much you think each player is worth. First, try to do this exercise without any outside influence. Once that is completed, it is then time to incorporate some outside influence. Look at the projections from outside sources to see how they compare to your dollar values. At this point, you can adjust your dollar values as you see fit. I would then adjust the dollar values one more time to account for your inflation specific to your league. The dollar values you see in magazines are not meant to be all encompassing. It is only a start. They need to be adjusted based on your league and the bidding preferences of it's owners. Look at past auctions to get a better idea at how to value players.
• It is possible that those dollar values (in some cases) are materially different to yours. I am not suggesting that you really change your dollar values, just have two. Keep those values, because that is ultimately what you think each player is worth and what you would be willing to pay for them. But then have the market adjusted values as well, to prepare for the auction. This will help you project how the auction will go and to also illustrate some players to target.
• So at this point you know the players you like, have them ranked, and have projected their performance. You also have computed what you think they are worth and what the market says they are worth. The final step of preparation prior to draft day is figuring out how this all computes into your team and your salary cap. Being aware of where you can possibly find value in players and also the statistical targets you need to hit in every category is extremely important here.
• A general rule of thumb is to spend about 30% of your available funds on pitching. That is a good starting point. It is important to remember pitchers are often more volatile than hitters so that is why you are only spending 30% of your available funds on 39% of your roster. In my opinion, you should build your pitching staff from the top down. Invest in one or two top end ace pitchers. This will help you in all of the major pitching categories and give you a good start on building your staff. Essentially, you want to build your pitching staff like a major league rotation and spend salary cap dollars accordingly. Closers are increasingly hard to figure, so I would not recommend investing much at the draft as it will be extremely fluid throughout the season. In summary, less money should be spent on them. Their jobs aren't always secured and you can even find them on waiver wires in some leagues.
• Supply and demand in each position will greatly influence your spending. Try not to get sucked into bidding wars and bid more on stats than specific players or positions. This will help you to reach your goals.

Every league is different, just as every owner is different. There are too many budgeting strategies to count, in all honesty. Your budgeting and spending will also greatly be impacted on whether or not you are in a keeper league. If you are keeping players at substantially below market value, this allows you to truly alter your budget. The most important thing though, is to be fluid. You must be able to adapt during the auction. Remember that your budget is just a plan, not a binding contract. The work has been done. You know what you need to do. Build the best team money can buy and do so by finding value.

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