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Fantasy Auction Drafts and Auction Draft Strategy
By now you know that any one can draft a decent fantasy football team by just taking the best available guy that’s on the board. That’s the team that beat you out for that last playoff spot even though they weren’t even active for the last three weeks. How to solve this problem? Auction draft. You want LT, Peyton, and Gates all on the same team? They can be yours, but for a price… Welcome to the big boys’ league, the world of fantasy auction drafts.
How Does the Money Work?
On draft day you’ll start out with a predetermined amount of auction money, usually $200 or $500, to spend during your draft. Make sure to spend all of this because the money doesn’t come into play at any other point in the season, it’s ‘draft only’ money. Since you only have a set amount of funny money to spend, you’ll need to make a plan and stick to it. If you’re here reading this you already research the players available for the upcoming season. At the very least you make up a mental draft order, or if you’re like me, pages of printouts with notes that once made sense scribbled in the margins. You’ll need to depend on this information even more now since you will have to determine how much each player is worth to you.
Before the draft it’s a good idea to set a limit on how much money you want to spend on a certain position, and from there determine individual values. There’s no magic formula here as every league scores differently, but a broad range for almost any type of league would be: 40-60% for RBs, 20-30% for WRs and TEs, 10-20% QBs, and 0-5% DEF and K (don’t spend more than a dollar or two on a kicker). Use your rankings (or ours) to establish a budget and stick to it for your players during the draft (or use the Draft Pick Analyzer to handle the projections and number crunching).
How to Bid Effectively
Once the draft starts someone will open up bidding on a player. This player is then on the board and the bidding begins. Usually the commissioner will play the role of auctioneer, but it can be helpful to spread this duty around since these drafts tend to last at least twice as long as your usual serpentine draft. If the player up for bid is someone that you have targeted for your team then bid away. If you’re bidding, beware of entering bidding wars, they can lead you to pay more money than would have when you’re caught up in the excitement of the bidding. This could potentially ruin any chance you had for a well-rounded, deep team. Then again you can use the bidding war to bid up a player so another owner will wend up paying more than they should have. This is deviously fun, but dangerous, so use it only if you’re feeling especially confident.
You don’t want bid every player and end spend all of your money right away, deals can be had in later rounds after the big names have passed. These are the players who will make up the heart of your team. If you wait around too long to bid on any players you might be able to bid everyone else out of the water, but you’ll be doing it on second and third tier players. This will certainly make you depend on free agency to contend for a playoff spot.
As you fill up your roster sheet, pay attention to your team’s positional needs and the remaining players at that position, it would be a long season if you only had 1 WR and $5 left. It’s also a good idea to know the positional needs and remaining funds of any owner bidding against you. Keep an eye on your league’s draft board, or keep detailed notes, and you’ll have a good idea what you’re up against when you’re bidding.
Conclusion
The psychological side of this draft is certainly part of what is making auction leagues more and more popular. Trash talking can be used as a distraction to get other owners frustrated and off track. Misinformation and bluffing are good and can help thin others’ salary cap effectively. You’ll have the opportunity to really affect the season before it even starts. Your knowledge of other owners’ expectations, strategies, and loyalties will help you spend your money wisely, but it’s your player projections and assigned values which will be your most important asset in drafting an auction league contender.
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