Crooked Necks

I’ve come up with a few theories regarding auction strategies that I think might make sense. In general, it’s obviously a good thing to have a plan(s) going into an auction; are you going to go Studs & Duds or a more balanced approach?

You want to have a plan laid out of certain guys you like and dislike and try to generally stick to your plan. I’m not suggesting that you’re so rigid you don’t make adjustments on the fly and react to the market, but a general outline of how you want your auction to go is huge. If you have the time, it is probably wise to have some sort of plan for both strategies so that if you know you need to go Studs & Duds or Balanced, you can be flexible. I think early on in an auction you can get a feel for how it is going to flow; are people holding their cash or splurging? Normally I would say, “Do the opposite of what you think people are doing”. If people are coming in hot, blowing all their cash on the top tier guys, there are going to be good deals to be had later in the auction and you might be able to clean up if there are guys that you like still left. On the other hand, and this is the trickier one because you might not realize it until too late, if people are holding their money, you should be spending your money on the big name players and let people who hold their cash and get into bidding wars on 3rd and 4th tier players because they have the money to do so.

The key is to know the market and where it stands at each leg of the auction, beginning, middle and end. I think in auction leagues that are still young, the trend will be to over correct the first few years until the league gets into a groove. So, say in year one everyone comes hot and blows all their cash, look for year two to reverse and so on and so on with mini corrections each year until everyone gradually figures it out and settles in. Being on the opposite end of the masses each step of the way is where the value lies; getting big name players on the cheap or scooping up deals at the end.

You should always monitor where you stand during the auction in terms of cash left and roster spots left to fill. If your average $/player you have showing exceeds what the current players up for bid are going for you probably need to start spending some more cash to get who you want. If that is reversed, you’ll probably be forced to hang back as the excess cash gets spent up. Try not to ever be left with cash at the end, you’ll only be kicking yourself when it’s over, saying things like, “For the $5 bucks I didn’t use, I could have upgraded Steve Slaton to Chris Johnson”, which would have worked pretty well this year.

Like I mentioned, normally I would try to take the opposite approach of how the majority of the league is spending their money. The exception to that lies in knowing what kind of manager you are through the course of the season. Are you an active manager that goes out and scours the free agent market and makes a lot of pickups? Do you know when you need to trade 2 for 1 or 3 for 1, when you need to pick up depth and vice versa, knowing when its time to consolidate some depth into better talent at a certain spot? How successful are you at it through the course of the year? These are all questions you should ask yourself leading up to the auction.

If you are successful at those items mentioned above, I advocate going after the best top tier players you can get regardless of the market tendencies. On the other hand, if you know you have five kids to feed, a dog to walk, a needy girlfriend and work 80 hours a week, you probably don’t have as much time to manage your roster. I would then suggest going with a balanced draft approach so as you take injuries and need to make bye week moves you’re covered. The last thing to mention regarding filling out your roster, which I believe applies to either end of the equation (active or non-active manager), is leave at least one, if not two, roster spots where you’re not married to the guy. What I mean is, pick someone kind of irrelevant so that when a hot WR or key RB injury happens early in the season you can jump on it and have an easy cut. This also allows you to make an easy cut around bye weeks so you can fill you’re needs with out giving up a player you paid good money for and that you like. That said, I really kind of think that paying for the big name, best players is usually the way to go, unless you are not an active manager or people are really overspending at the top end of the auction. Don’t take this as gospel, it’s only an opinion of some things that I have found to work and some trends I’ve personally noticed…..of course every league is different, but hopefully some of the general principals remain the same and you can apply them to your next auction.

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