VBD in auction leagues

[Grogansghost]

Apologies in advance, I'm terrible at summarizing. Everything below demonstrates two main points (I think):

 

1. based on current auction values, the most expensive player at a position can actually be a bargain.

2. Today I had an embarrassing amount of free time on my hands.

 

 

This is my first year in an auction league and I wanted to get a sense of how average auction values relate to the actual scoring in my league.

 

(we use 6pts for all TDs, no ppr, and 1 pt for every 10yds rush/receiving)

 

Using Yahoo for current auction values, and last year's results in my league for a Value Based Drafting #, I created a cost/VBD# for the starters at every position in my league.

 

Average starter ignoring position = $.50 per VBD#

QB=$.40

RB=$.45

WR=$.72

TE=$.32

 

The average auction values for WR on Yahoo don't correspond well to my league because the mocks pool ppr and non-ppr leagues. (hopefully, the other owners fail to notice this and don't adjust for ppr inflation)

 

The other thing that struck me was that the top player at each position (except for TE) is a relative bargain per VBD if he lives up to last year's top performer.

 

The top RB costs $74. That would be $.33 per VBD# versus $.45 for the average starter.

The top QB costs $42. That would be $.34 per VBD# versus $.40 for the average starter.

The top WR costs $60. That would be $.66 per VBD# versus $.72 for the average starter.

The top TE costs $38. That would be $.66 per VBD# versus $.32 for the average starter.

 

With a higher cost comes higher consequences for a miss, but I guess I was expecting to see some sort of extra "luxury tax" on those early picks that equates to picking 1st overall in a snake draft and then waiting 23 players.

 

If the first RB off the board was valued at the $.45 average of the position - he should cost $86 and not $74 based on last year's numbers.

 

 

I was just interested to see that an argument could be made for the top RB and QB being undervalued when the current cost is compared to last year's VBD#'s (at least for my league's scoring).

 

Apologies again if anyone read this far. Curious what other insights others have had either from number crunching or past auctions.

[bostonsoxandy]

I'm a huge fan of auctions and my main league performs an offline auction every year that is wicked fun. I'm glad you did some work on trying to find insight into value trends in auctions! I think I need a little clarification on a few things you wrote, but I am eager to see if this can lead somewhere significant (if it hasn't already, hard for me to tell):

 

1. I'm confused how you got the average costs. So in other words, you are saying that to gain one additional VBD "point" you have to spend on average forty cents? For one extra VBD point for RBs you have to spend 45 cents on average?
   
2. You are assuming that the top player bought will automatically finish as the top player at the end of the year, correct? Even though it is intriguing to see that if this is the case it is a good value, it would be even more valuable if you see what % of the projected #1 QBs actually did finish #1.
   

 

Going off of my second point I would be interested to see if the top RB is actually a value on average in real world conditions. I think you are assuming that the top RB will finish as the top RB in this scenario. I think if you find the % of #1 ranked RBs that actual did finish the year at #1 in the last 10 or so years, and then that % would play a role in how much you were spending for VBD.

[SecondString]

It is interesting info, and relevant if the trends hold up from year to year. According to this, you obviously would get the most bang for your buck by splurging on the top tier RB's.

 

What would be interesting to see is how these proportions hold for other levels within those positions, for instance, what would the cost per VBD be for 2nd/3rd/4th tiers at each position. Given that info, you could conclude something like:

 

Optimum draft to maximize VBD (example):

• Top tier RB's
  
• 2nd tier WR's
  
• 3rd tier QB's
  
• Lower tier TE's
  

 

[Grogansghost]

I'm a huge fan of auctions and my main league performs an offline auction every year that is wicked fun. I'm glad you did some work on trying to find insight into value trends in auctions! I think I need a little clarification on a few things you wrote, but I am eager to see if this can lead somewhere significant (if it hasn't already, hard for me to tell):

1. I'm confused how you got the average costs. So in other words, you are saying that to gain one additional VBD "point" you have to spend on average forty cents? For one extra VBD point for RBs you have to spend 45 cents on average?

    

2. You are assuming that the top player bought will automatically finish as the top player at the end of the year, correct? Even though it is intriguing to see that if this is the case it is a good value, it would be even more valuable if you see what % of the projected #1 QBs actually did finish #1.

 

Going off of my second point I would be interested to see if the top RB is actually a value on average in real world conditions. I think you are assuming that the top RB will finish as the top RB in this scenario. I think if you find the % of #1 ranked RBs that actual did finish the year at #1 in the last 10 or so years, and then that % would play a role in how much you were spending for VBD.

 

 

Yes - for RBs it's $.45 per VBD, QBs .40, WR .72, and TE .32.

 

In the current example it analyzes the value you're getting only if you're drafting accurately.

 

It would be interesting to analyze these numbers based on how often players are likely to maintain, improve, or decline in value.

 

Repeating as #1 is tough and obviously setting a very small target - but I don't know how the chances of repeating as #1 compares to the turnover in the top 5-10 in general.

[Grogansghost]

It is interesting info, and relevant if the trends hold up from year to year. According to this, you obviously would get the most bang for your buck by splurging on the top tier RB's.

 

What would be interesting to see is how these proportions hold for other levels within those positions, for instance, what would the cost per VBD be for 2nd/3rd/4th tiers at each position. Given that info, you could conclude something like:

 

Optimum draft to maximize VBD (example):

• Top tier RB's

• 2nd tier WR's

• 3rd tier QB's

• Lower tier TE's

 

 

 

When I get some time I'll see what patterns I can find by looking at tiers.

 

Is it possible to paste an excel table in a response and have it keep the formatting? If so, I could paste in the info for the different starters. The main thing that I've noticed is that there aren't tons of super values when looking at the cost versus VBD for the starters -- but cost doesn't drop as fast as VBD does.

 

As Boston pointed out, however, that's only part of the equation because this exercise is assuming perfect drafting. Ideally some sort of confidence score could be attached to each position.

 

I'm not sure what the actual history of past #1s has been - but what would you guys put as realistic chances for AP this year:

20% repeats as #1, 50% top 2-5, 30% 6-10

 

I'm not really attached to those numbers, just thinking aloud.

Edited July 11, 2013 by Grogansghost

[SecondString]

When I get some time I'll see what patterns I can find by looking at tiers.

 

Is it possible to paste an excel table in a response and have it keep the formatting? If so, I could paste in the info for the different starters. The main thing that I've noticed is that there aren't tons of super values when looking at the cost versus VBD for the starters -- but cost doesn't drop as fast as VBD does.

 

As Boston pointed out, however, that's only part of the equation because this exercise is assuming perfect drafting. Ideally some sort of confidence score could be attached to each position.

 

I'm not sure what the actual history of past #1s has been - but what would you guys put as realistic chances for AP this year:

20% repeats as #1, 50% top 2-5, 30% 6-10

 

I'm not really attached to those numbers, just thinking aloud.

 

 

Not sure about the copying & pasting, but I copied your numbers in this post before you edited and removed them, pasted them on an Excel sheet so I could see them in rows, and it pasted in the correct format.

 

And.....so much for my idea, there's no real consistency within tiers, at least at the RB position. But that doesn't mean there won't be a pattern from position to position.

[Grogansghost]

I didn't realize that people would be able to copy and paste into excel. So here are the numbers for anyone who wants to take that step.

 

You'll notice that sometimes the last one or two players before the final starter tend to have a really bad value number. I didn't include those players in coming up with the average cost for a starter because they seemed like real outlier numbers that could skew the results.

 

When I get some more time I'm going to try to see how often certain players repeated in my league.

 

QB's

 

Rank QB Yahoo AAV 2012 VBD cost / vbd 1 $42 122 $0.34 2 $36 114 $0.32 3 $29 98 $0.30 4 $27 82 $0.33 5 $25 58 $0.43 6 $18 55 $0.33 7 $17 54 $0.31 8 $14 26 $0.54 9 $11 24 $0.46 10 $11 16 $0.69 11 $8 1 $8.00 12 $6 0 #DIV/0!

 

RBs

Rank QB Yahoo AAV 2012 VBD cost / vbd 1 $42 122 $0.34 2 $36 114 $0.32 3 $29 98 $0.30 4 $27 82 $0.33 5 $25 58 $0.43 6 $18 55 $0.33 7 $17 54 $0.31 8 $14 26 $0.54 9 $11 24 $0.46 10 $11 16 $0.69 11 $8 1 $8.00 12 $6 0 #DIV/0!

 

WRs

Rank RB Yahoo AAV VBD# cost/vbd 1 $74 193 $0.38 2 $62 144 $0.43 3 $59 144 $0.41 4 $55 130 $0.42 5 $55 126 $0.44 6 $55 103 $0.53 7 $52 95 $0.55 8 $52 88 $0.59 9 $45 87 $0.52 10 $45 86 $0.52 11 $30 84 $0.36 12 $30 63 $0.48 13 $29 58 $0.50 14 $27 55 $0.49 15 $25 51 $0.49 16 $20 46 $0.43 17 $17 39 $0.44 18 $14 36 $0.39 19 $12 35 $0.34 20 $11 31 $0.35 21 $11 27 $0.41 22 $10 15 $0.67 23 $10 2 $5.00 24 $8 0 #DIV/0!

 

TEs

Rank WR Yahoo AAV 2012 VBD cost/vbd 1 $60 91 $0.66 2 $48 87 $0.55 3 $46 77 $0.60 4 $42 71 $0.59 5 $39 68 $0.57 6 $35 58 $0.60 7 $34 53 $0.64 8 $30 53 $0.57 9 $29 50 $0.58 10 $28 46 $0.61 11 $27 43 $0.63 12 $27 40 $0.68 13 $22 39 $0.56 14 $19 35 $0.54 15 $17 35 $0.49 16 $15 27 $0.56 17 $14 22 $0.64 18 $14 14 $1.00 19 $13 12 $1.08 20 $12 10 $1.20 21 $11 9 $1.22 22 $10 8 $1.25 23 $10 4 $2.50 24 $8 0 #DIV/0!

Edited July 11, 2013 by Grogansghost

[bostonsoxandy]

I would expand the sample size to whoever is in a clear first, elite tier each year for the last 10 years. I'll start off with QBs:

2012: Rodgers, Brady, Brees

2011: Rodgers, Vick

2010: Brees, Rodgers

2009: Brees, Brady

2008: Brady, P Manning

2007: Manning, Palmer, Brees

2006: Manning, Palmer, Brady

 

and then where the guys finished:

2012: Rodgers - 329 pts/2nd Brady 329/2nd Brees - 337/1st

2011: Rodgers - 397 pts/1st Vick 233 pts/11th

2010: Brees - 269/6th Rodgers 304/2nd

2009: Brees - 292/2nd Brady 270/6th

2008: Brady - injury Manning - 252/7th

2007: Manning - 275/3rd Palmer 230/9th, Brees 265/4th

2006: Manning - 309/1st Palmer - 251/5th, Brady - 225/7th

 

 

this site should be a good archive for results: http://www.fantasyplaymakers.com/historical_fantasy_pts.php?year=2008&position=1

[Old Money]

Grogansghost, there is a flaw in your thinking. Comparing VBD to AAV, you're assuming that the lowest player at each starting position would be bid for the the lowest amount i.e. $1, but in fact, the lowest starting running back and wide receiver typically goes for more than this. You're also assuming people spend all of their budgets buying just starters, which also isn't the case (in auctions I've done it's more like 80-90% of budgets are spend on starters, but could be different for different leagues with different people).

 

I did this same analysis awhile back, and I couldn't get the numbers to be close to what my leagues had bid on players at the relatively the same values in past drafts.

 

I like the thinking, and your definitely heading in the right direction, but I've found some leagues bid the best players up a lot and some don't (sometimes top RBs will go for 40% of a guys budget, and sometimes that same player will go for 30%). Auctions are very fluid, and it's difficult to see where other people value players until you're actually drafting.

[Grogansghost]

Grogansghost, there is a flaw in your thinking. Comparing VBD to AAV, you're assuming that the lowest player at each starting position would be bid for the the lowest amount i.e. $1, but in fact, the lowest starting running back and wide receiver typically goes for more than this. You're also assuming people spend all of their budgets buying just starters, which also isn't the case (in auctions I've done it's more like 80-90% of budgets are spend on starters, but could be different for different leagues with different people).

 

I did this same analysis awhile back, and I couldn't get the numbers to be close to what my leagues had bid on players at the relatively the same values in past drafts.

 

I like the thinking, and your definitely heading in the right direction, but I've found some leagues bid the best players up a lot and some don't (sometimes top RBs will go for 40% of a guys budget, and sometimes that same player will go for 30%). Auctions are very fluid, and it's difficult to see where other people value players until you're actually drafting.

 

 

Thanks for the feedback Old Money. it's tough to tell from the mess I pasted, but Instead of using a minimum bid for the last starter, I was actually using the corresponding bid from Yahoo's mocks. if you look at the final two entries in the RB row: 11 $8 1 $8.00 12 $6 0 #DIV/0! -- the 11th RB went for $8 while the 12th went for $6. The 11th RB nets 1 VBD pt (thus the $8.00) while the 12th has 0 VBD.

 

I know it would be very tough for anyone else to read that - I wish I knew a better of way of including data.

 

This attempt at analysis definitely focuses on the starters and doesn't include back-ups and sleeper type of players. I guess my thinking is that if I know the ball park figure of what a starter is going for, then I can get a sense of what my ceiling should be.

 

I've been doing some mock drafts to try and get a sense of how people act -- but I think you're right that I should fully expect my league to do some crazy stuff.

[Old Money]

Ah, didn't notice that. AAV's can be a bit misleading since a lot just depends on the other guys you're drafting with, but it will give you a good place to start. If you like a guy be prepared to go over their AAV, and when you get them for less, it's a good move for you and you can spend that money elsewhere.

 

I had a league where the first year we did the auction the top RB went for $70 of a $200 budget, and the next year the top one only went for $52 of the same $200 budget with the same guys in the league. Granted there's a bit of difference on how guys value the top player year to year, but I was expecting to see the same type of bidding for the top guys the second year, and was caught off guard when the top guys were going for less.

 

Auction's are a lot of fun, and a much better way to draft. You can grab the guys you want, and don't have to worry about that one guy who values your sleeper more than you to grab them a few picks ahead of you. Keep doing mocks, and see how your team stacks up with different strategies. Plus, it will help you get a feel for how the draft is going in your real draft. Are the top tier players going for way more than the second tier players or is there not much of a drop off in the price? The sooner you can figure that out, the faster you'll be able to determine your strategy.

[Grogansghost]

I would expand the sample size to whoever is in a clear first, elite tier each year for the last 10 years. I'll start off with QBs:

 

 

I started by focusing on RB's and took a slightly different approach. Looking from 2001-20012 I tried to see how likely you were to get a top 10 RB if you drafted one of the previous year's top 10. I then looked at how the #1 pick faired year to year.

 

I also just spotted an error in some of my data - I'll try to post the fixed results next week.

I'm going away for the weekend and probably won't have time to get back to this before then.

 

I haven't done this yet for QBs or WRs (because it takes a lot of collecting data and then crunching) -- but I think WRs and TEs probably show a similar turnover rate - while QB would be a bit more stable.

[Grogansghost]

It took a while, but I gathered some data from 2001-2012 to see how the RB who finished as #1 at the end of the season fared the following season. I also included how the RBs who finished 2-10 fared.

 

So from 2002-2012 if you drafted the previous year's end of season RB1 - you had a 27% chance he'd repeat as RB1. If you drafted an RB 2-10 he had a 4% chance of ending as RB1. Those numbers probably sound too far apart until you consider there are 11 RB1's over 11 years, and 99 RB 2-10's. (NOTE: from '02-'12 RB1's repeated as RB1 3 times, while an RB 2-10 climbed to 1 4 times.)

 

Next year's finish for previous year's RB1

#1 27.27%

2-5 18.18%

6-10 18.18%

11-24 27.27%

flex 25-36 9.09%

>36 0.00%

N/A 0.00%

100.00%

 

Next year's finish for previous year's RB2-10

#1 4.12%

2-5 18.56%

6-10 13.40%

11-24 36.08%

flex 25-36 11.34%

>36 7.22%

N/A 9.28%

100.00%

 

 

Using last season's end of season numbers and the RB24 as a baseline:

 

RB1 had a VBD of: 193

RB1's AAV: $74

RB1 cost/VBD: $.38

 

RBs 2-10 averaged a VBD of: 111

RBs 2-10 AAV: $53

RBs 2-10 cost/VBD: $.48

 

so the cost/VBD of the RB1 is roughly 80% of the cost/VBD of the RB 2-10.

 

As Bostonsox pointed out in the first response - the problem with these expected values are they assume that all of the players simply repeat their performance from the previous season. By using the first table that broke down how the 1-10 RBs fared in terms of repeating year to year I came up with new adjusted numbers.

 

(e.g. the RB 1: is 27% of RB1 value + 18% of (RB2-5 averaged value) + 18% of (RB6-10 averaged value) etc.)

 

RB1 adjusted VBD: 103

RB1 adjusted cost/VBD: $.72

 

RB2-10 adjusted VBD: 57

RB2-10 adjusted cost/VBD: $.92

 

So the adjusted cost/VBD for RB1 goes from $.38 to $.72.

The adjusted cost/VBD for RB2-10 goes from $.48 to $.92.

 

Wow - that was a lot of number crunching to come to the same result. In both scenarios ($.38/$.48) or ($.72/$.92) the cost/VBD for the RB1 is roughly 80% of RB 2-10.

 

The hit that the expected VBD vs the adjusted VBD is a bit alarming for the RB1 and RB 2-10 - but it bears out the expected volatility of the RB position.

 

I'm sure there are still lots of problems with this feeble attempt at analysis - but hopefully some will find it interesting/helpful. Hopefully the work isn't too tough to follow - but allowing me access to a message board and excel is a bit like handing a power drill to a gorrilla -- results aren't always pretty.

 

I have a new found respect for the other posts and articles I've read on the Huddle in the past.

Edited July 22, 2013 by Grogansghost