I wrote an article about Fantasy Baseball Auction Strategy last year and I thought it would be a good time to revisit this in light of what I have seen the past couple of weekends.
It happened to two owners in my auction league this past weekend and I also saw it happen several times in recent “expert” auction leagues. What I am referring to is the mismanagement of money.
In my auction league last week, Jeremy Hellickson went for $16 as the last player taken for one owner because of all the money he had left over. Another owner spend $16 on Sean Rodriguez because of the same thing; way too much money left and not enough players to roster to spend it on.
To me, an auction format is 10 times better than participating in a draft. No longer do you have to worry about players sliding to you in the draft, or having the 10th pick in the first round, knowing that you have no shot at nine players in front of you, in an auction, you have much more control of what goes on around you.
For most players when participating in a fantasy baseball league auction for a first time, they usually run into one of two problems, either they run low on money with multiple players left to buy, or else they have already filled their roster, but have several dollars left to spend.
I am going to give you a couple of tips in order to prevent this from happening and to ensure that your first auction experience is a great one.
When you are preparing for the auction, make sure that the dollars you have assigned to each player add up to the total dollar amount that is to be spent for the league. For example, if you are playing in a 15-team league, and each team has $200 to spend, make sure that the combined salaries you have for the number of players that need to be bought equals $3,000 ($200 x 15). This way you will have closer to a true dollar amount of what a player is worth. So many of the cheat sheets or projections floating around out there provide dollar totals, but they do not add up to what a league total dollar amount is. Each league is different in roster size and team size so make sure that your dollar values are adjusted accordingly.
To make sure that you spend all of your allotted dollars and on the flip side, to make sure you do not run out of money, it is a good idea to go into the draft with dollar amounts assigned to each position on your roster. If your team budget is $200, determine what amount you want to spend for hitting and pitching. On average the split is roughly 70-30 skewed toward hitting. That means with a $200 budget you would plan on spending $60 on your pitching staff. Assuming you have a 10 man pitching staff, you dollar amounts would look something like this:
1Sp – $15
2Sp – $8
3Sp – $7
4Sp – $4
5SP – $2
6Sp – $2
1 Closer – $16
2RP – $2
3 RP – $2
4 RP – $2
You have $15 budgeted for an ace on your staff and $16 budgeted for a closer and so on down the line to fill out your rotation and bullpen. This gives you a good plan of attack to start with. If you happen to spend $17 for an ace starter, simply adjust by $2 another spot on your staff to make sure you hit the $60 mark if that was your allocation to build your staff with.
I usually try to leave $2 for each of the positions instead of $1. At the end of the draft when people are low on money, the auction at that point basically turns into a draft because each person is down to a dollar per player. By having $2 left per player, this ensures that you have a much greater chance of getting the players you want late in the draft.
If there are several low priced players you are hoping to snag at the end of the draft, don’t be afraid to throw them out early and roster them. If you are interested in say Shaun Marcum and Brian Matusz and are saving $8 to spend on them, if other owners run out of money, you might only have to pay $4 for them at the end of the draft leaving that money on the table. if you throw them out in the early to middle part of the draft, you should still be able to get them at the $8 you intended to spend, or else better yet, they go for a lower price and you can put those dollars toward another position instead of leaving that money on the table.
I saw several “experts” comment after recent auctions that had money left over because they were saving it for certain players. There is no rule at an auction that says all of the expensive players have to be thrown out first. If you have a targeted group of players you want to buy, don’t be afraid to throw them out early.
– injury concerns plus the possibility of him starting the season on the disabled list has dropped his average draft position by three to four rounds.
