Best auction league strategy

[dougsul]

Have done fantasy for a long time, but never an auction league. It seems that running backs have the largest prices by a lot. For those that have been successful in an action league do you by a high priced running back or look for middle of the road talent. Whats the best strategy?

[Big Country]

Unfortunately there is no one size fits all strategy.

 

Depending on lineup reqs and scoring system, I have see nteams have great success by going all in on 3 high priced studs and filling in with minimum price guys, and I have seen team built by waiting out the high priced guys and filling a team with value plays.

 

Even a hybrid approach of getting one real big stud, 2-3 Tier2/3 level guys then filling in with minimum cost type guys works.

 

It really comes down to your preference and how you alloccate your budget (and your ability to stick to it)

[Thews40]

A lot depends on who you're drafting with and their experience. In my early auctions, many would blow their wad early and just didn't have enough money in the middle rounds. Here's a few tips:

 

1) Nominate high profile players you don't want. What you're doing is essentially draining the cash out of the pool.

 

2) If it's a late auction, nominate a kicker and a defense at some point and pay for them (not much). You'll then get to fill out your team and be done before most.

 

3) If you're going to bank on having the most cash to buy whoever you want in the middle, remember you can't wait forever. I waited too long last year and had money left over. In a perfect world, you have zero and all the players you want, but in a real auction you do have to pay to get top players. What you don't want is $1 left to buy your first TE/QB.

 

Auctions are the best BTW... it's a real blast to be able to get any player.

[robotpimp]

I take all starting positions and devise a way to allocate what I think I would pay for each position max (I leave a dollar to fill all positions required so that money is accounted for).

So either I want to allocate to make sure I get a top 4 RB (AP, McCoy, Charles or Forte) and I put say 50% bank roll on that guy.

If I commit to that strat but a winning bid is $60.00 I may save and go to plan B, best WR's and tier two RB's, I will shift that allocation.

 

I know there is do the opposite allocate and stick to your guns with keeping your bankroll for WR's and TE's and that can work. Also some strategies are don't bid on anything until round x (say 5 or 6) when you're closest to having the biggest bankroll to cherry pick, I get it you bully and control the market but if one other guy does that it can backfire and you're paying round 2-3 prices in round 8-9 because another d-bag is trying to do the same thing. Although this is what makes auctions fun.

 

Another thing is keeping track of every teams bankroll who they bought and what they paid it can be very advantageous to keep tabs on the other teams I do it in excel but there are apps or now auctions are done online so it's done for you.

 

I've seen other people plug the league scoring, salary for spend, and positions into a website to give them values for each player which is ok although it's still perceived value based on whatever that site views the players ranking and cost should be, that's why I try to tier and value my players I'm targeting ahead of time, so I know if I spend a couple more on say Gronk I can take some money from my WR2, or WR3.

 

Create a plan and budget have a short list of players for each position with a value that you could see spending $$ on, tweak, throw guys out that you intend on getting but don't stay in the bidding if you're not interested in the guy. The x-factor is the other league members you have no idea what the hell they are going to do.

[Thews40]

This is a pretty good article:

 

http://davidgonos.com/fantasy-football-auction-strategy-dos-and-donts/