Auction 101: So Much Better than Drafts

Dan Meylor

What specifically is your favorite feature of your fantasy league?

Some will answer that question with a broad answer like, “it’s a reason to get together with my buddies” or “because I love the competition.”  Many of the people visiting DLF might say “building a dynasty.”  Others will give answers like, “PPR,” “IDP,” or “super-flex.”

All of those answers are good ones.  To me however, the answer is easy.  “The auction!”

Over the last handful of years, I’ve become somewhat of an auction specialist.  Although I’m certainly no expert (just ask those that saw me spend RB1 money on Montee Ball and QB1 money on Robert Griffin III a few years ago,) I almost exclusively takes part in auction leagues.  So I decided to jot down some of things that have helped me become more successful in auctions.

First though, let’s find out why I love auctions so much more than drafts.

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Fair Play

The primary reason a startup auction is so much better than a startup draft is because it evens the playing field.

Before any startup draft, the league’s commissioner most likely holds a random drawing to decide the selection order.  Whether done by drawing cards, picking numbers or any other way, many would probably say it’s the only fair way to choose who gets the top pick.  But how fair is a random drawing?  It seems to me that combining the words random and fair creates a bit of an oxymoron.

Most should agree that fantasy football is a game with far too much luck involved already.   A random drawing for draft position adds to that.  Why would any fantasy owner want to introduce chance and fluke results before they’ve even started playing the game?

Unless your fantasy draft selection order was decided in a creative way like using a March madness pool or having a Tecmo Super Bowl tournament, the order was likely chosen at complete random.  That means that in a 12-team startup draft, every owner holds a one-in-twelve chance of getting the number one pick, or the top player on their draft board.  Those are long odds and doesn’t seem fair at all.

Although there are a handful of worthy choices to be the top overall pick in a startup this off-season, the top pick according to the latest DLF ADP data is Odell Beckham Jr.  For argument’s sake, let’s say you’ve identified OBJ as the player that gives dynasty owners an advantage over all others and the obvious number one pick entering a startup draft.  It seems like bad luck that your chances of guaranteeing Beckham Jr. as a part of your team are just 8.3%.  It’s not bad luck though, it’s just a bad choice in startup type.

Instead of leaving who you’re going to build your dynasty roster around to chance, why not make it possible for every owner in the league to get the top player on his or her draft board?  That is exactly what auction does, and is the principal reason auction is better than draft.

Competition

Most of us that play fantasy football do it at least in part for competition.  All things told, a draft isn’t very competitive.  Sure, anybody can look at the rosters at the end and say who has the best looking squad but on top of the luck involved in the draft order selection, owners mostly just select the best player available to them when they’re on the clock.

Not in an auction.

In an auction, literally every auction ends with a winner.  Whether you win a player because no matter what, you were willing to overpay more than everyone else to get him, or because you saved enough money by working on your budget every day for weeks, your strategy worked better than anyone else’s for the player.  There’s a feeling of accomplishment when you win a player (and also a feeling of rejection when you lose the auction for Randall Cobb every year to Ryan Freaking McDowell.)

See, auction is the ultimate competition when it comes to fantasy sports.

Strategy

There’s nothing better than building a team from the ground up, exactly as you see fit.  There are countless strategies when it comes to building a dynasty roster.  You can build around the wide receiver position, exclusively build your team through youth, employ the late round quarterback philosophy, or subscribe to the zero running back theory.  You can use any of these philosophies and many at the same time whether you’re drafting or participating in an auction.  An auction however, gives fantasy owners more choices.

The most commonly used strategy auction owners can use that isn’t available for drafters is the studs and duds strategy.  Using this approach, an owner splurges on three or four of the top overall players in the league (studs) and fills the rest of his roster with cheap options (duds.)  This strategy is particularly useful for dynasty owners who consider themselves bargain hunters.

I’ve seen the studs and duds strategy employed many times.  Some owners have thrived using the strategy and some have failed miserably (although most fall somewhere in between.)  A few years ago I saw an owner pay top dollar for LeSean McCoy and Jamaal Charles, both of whom were in their prime and ranked at the top of almost everybody’s dynasty rankings.  Just last year another owner in a super-flex auction league I was in decided to spend 65% of his startup funds on the combo of Andrew Luck and Aaron Rodgers.  Perhaps this year somebody would start their team with both OBJ and DeAndre Hopkins.  The great thing about auction is it gives owners the opportunity to do something like this.  It gives owners ultimate flexibility… which leads us to our next topic.

Flexibility

It’s absolutely maddening to be on the clock in a draft and realize there’s not a player you’re excited about selecting at that spot.  Envision being on the clock and perusing the top 12 names of the available players by ADP and not seeing a single player you truly want to add to your team.  The feeling of not getting proper value when giving something up (in this case, a draft pick) is infuriating.  It’s nearly just as infuriating when you feel that the player you really want will still be available when your next pick comes, offering better value.  Those feelings should never happen when building a roster.  And they never do when the roster is being built in an auction.

Imagine being in the middle of the fourth round of a startup draft.  To this point, you’ve built your roster through youth and the receiver position – selecting Amari Cooper, David Johnson and Jordan Matthews through the first three rounds.  Now you’re looking for another wide receiver with your next pick, but Donte Moncrief, Michael Floyd, Tyler Lockett and John Brown all go off the board before you get to pick.  That leaves veterans like Julian Edelman, Brandon Marshall, Jeremy Maclin and Golden Tate as the top options at the position.  More interested in continuing to build through youth than the win now upside that those names offer, you scroll farther down the ADP list to find names like Breshad Perriman, Stefon Diggs and an entire class of rookies that pique your interest.  Knowing none of those names should be called for at least another round, you’re forced to either choose a player not worthy of the draft spot or choose a player that doesn’t fit your draft plan.

Say No to the Sniper

So your plan going into the draft was to build through youth (check!) and build through the receiver position (check!)  But now you’re sitting in the fourth round of the draft dying to add your young, up-and-coming WR3 but the last three picks were Moncrief, Lockett and Brown.

Whether trading is allowed in your league or not, you’re stuck wishing there was something you could have done to keep your plan on track of building your team exactly as you wanted from the onset.  After all, you would have given up more to roster one of those young receivers if you had the option, right?

In an auction, that opportunity is always available and you never get sniped.  After paying reasonable prices for Cooper, Johnson and Matthews to build your team around, you could easily spend the extra dollar or two to secure the third wide receiver that fits your starting lineup perfectly.

The Price is Right

On top of never having to worry about being sniped for a player you covet and getting to avoid those regretful decisions, you’re never forced to overpay for a player and have a much better chance of getting a massive bargain on a player you really covet.

In a draft, you know that if you’re on the clock at pick 45 and you really want Mark Ingram (who has an ADP of 43), you’d better take him now because the chances of him returning to you a round later are slim.

What if he would have though?  What if you happened to be in a draft with 11 other owners that all thought Ingram is overrated?  Unless you’re in a draft full of DLF writers who do rankings, there’s no way to know (or even predict) if he would have made it back to you.  If you were in an auction though, you’d know exactly how the other owners valued him

While ADP is a great tool that shows where players are being valued in general, it doesn’t necessarily show you where a player is valued in the league you’re in.

According to DLF’s March ADP, Ingram was picked as high as 22nd overall and as low as 57th overall.  Now imagine for a second that you truly see him as a late second round value in a startup – as the 22nd overall talent on the draft board.  If you’re in a draft, even if you watched ADP data closely, you’d feel compelled to select him by the end of the third round because you wouldn’t want to risk losing the massive value.  If you were in an auction however, you may only have to pay late fourth round money for a late second round talent which would give you a truly massive value.

The point is, whether you’re in a draft or an auction, you have no idea going in how the other owners in the league value a player you’re high on.  In an auction though, you can figure it out before paying more than necessary.

Fun

The final reason auction is so much better than draft is pure enjoyment.

On top of all reasons mentioned above, participating in a fantasy auction is an incredible adrenaline rush.  Instead of waiting for somebody else to make their pick in a slow draft, you can take action at any time, day or night, and work on improving your team in a slow auction.  And instead of waiting on somebody to pick in a live draft, you can make a bid at any time to jump ahead of them.  Way more exciting.  Auctions also keep people more engaged in league activity and fuel smack talk and league comradery in a way that drafts simply can’t do.  ($46 for Cobb, McDowell? Never again!)

Winning

Overall, there’s nothing better in fantasy sports than penciling out a detailed auction strategy and following that up with perfect execution.  Check back in the coming days and I’ll share a few of the tips and tricks that have helped me have auction success.

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dan meylor