Auction Draft: How I Lost Brett Anderson
For those of you that have never given an auction league draft a try, I highly recommend that you do so this year – there are still plenty of public leagues looking for fantasy managers. Yahoo Fantasy Baseball has free live auction drafts for the first time and I joined a random league yesterday and participated in the auction draft. It’s also designed to help those who are uncomfortable with auction values, as the draft program tells you A) The estimated player’s value, as well as B) The average going rate this draft season.
In this draft we had a 10-team league (with a $260 budget) and three managers failed to show up, which was disappointing because it meant we had to battle three automated picks. The evil computer bid hard and fast early in the draft with one team snapping up Tim Lincecum ($47), Roy Halladay ($41), Ryan Howard ($36), Chase Utley ($33), and Evan Longoria ($33). That, of course, is a lot of money to spend on five players on a 21-man roster and it ended up with 13 $1 players.
My player nomination approach was fairly simply. I tossed up players I had little-to-no interest in as an effort to get the fantasy managers to blow their cash in bidding wars. I also looked to get the mangers to fill up at certain positions so that when the player that I really wanted came up, many of the teams had already filled that spot.
The most expensive player taken was Albert Pujols at a whopping $55. I did not get involved in the bidding. My top five spends were Upton, Ian Kinsler ($27), Grady Sizemore ($24 – I think he’ll rebound and be a steal), Jimmy Rollins ($20), and Joey Votto ($22). My biggest over-spend was $11 for Jason Heyward but I left $14 on the table at the end of the draft so I feel pretty good about the gamble.
I did not worry too much about pitching; my big man in the rotation is Ricky Nolasco ($17) and I grabbed Joakim Soria ($11) as my closer. My worst pick was wasting $3 and a roster spot on Ben Sheets, but to be honest I was trying to push the bidding and no one bit… so I only have myself to blame. The biggest blow is that I wanted to use that roster spot for a $1 buy on sleeper Ian Kennedy. I also ended up with too many first basemen with Votto, Derek Lee (for $18, which I considered good value at the time), and Carlos Pena ($5 was too good to pass up, yet again).
As a thrifty shopper, I was also thrilled to get Curtis Granderson ($14), Scott Baker ($7), Matt Garza ($3), Carlos Quentin ($2), Elvis Andrus ($2), Dan Uggla ($2), and John Danks ($1). You can round my roster out with Pablo Sandoval ($19), Mike Napoli ($1) and David Aardsma ($6). I ended up with a good mix of speed and power even though I went with well-rounded players rather than wasting space on one-dimensional sluggers (Pena, aside) and hollow-batted speedsters.
The one player I really, really wanted and didn’t get was Brett Anderson. I was laying in the weeds on him for the entire draft and he didn’t get nominated until the 18th round. I was feeling pretty good about it, as I had $23 in my pocked with two players left to get and I was OK with spending $1 on the other spot (a reliever… it would have been Kennedy). I had Anderson for $3 right up until four seconds before the bidding expired and then a bidding war ensured with my now least favorite person in the world and I lost Anderson at $22 (about double his estimated value). Garza was a pretty good consolation prize, and a steal for three bucks.
If you’d like to share any good auction draft stories, feel free to post ‘em… and if you have any auction draft questions, feel free to ask.
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if anyone from my league is reading this take note: Brett Anderson is mine.
Seems like the lesson should be that Garza is a MUCH better value.
Agreed. I’ve never been in an auction league myself, but it would seem that Garza + $19 > Anderson. Also, I feel like an auction draft would be exponentially better in person, rather than over the internet. Thanks for the article, it was interesting.
Of course… but if you have X amount of dollars, one (or in this case 2) spots to fill and the player you want whom you believe is the best remaining player comes up, blow the wad! It seems that in the end stages the other guy with money thought the same thing about Anderson. Apparently after that no one else thought that about Garza or Hulet would have bid up to $22 for him too.
Anytime you leave that much money ($14) on the table, it seems like you didn’t budget well. For $7 more you could have had Utley instead of Kinsler, and I’m sure there were other high-to-mid-priced players that you shied away from bidding up but could have had.
Of course, if you’d landed Anderson at $21, you would have felt like you did things right.
Love the auction.
Was able to nab Rios for $6, Bell for $7 (apparently no one noticed) and Nolasco for $15. Sadly, I overpaid for Wright ($38) and Hanley ($51) and ended up with 10 $1 guys, but I think they will work out:
Reimold, Frasor, Chris Davis, Franklin Gutierrez, Phil Hughes, Colby Lewis, Marc Ryphchinski, Gio Gonzalez, Chris Perez and martin prado.
Surely you mean you were robbed of $6 and the jerk left you stuck with Alex Rios
You should really try a real auction. Your mock auction seems typical of the experience:
- Three slots taken by a computer.
- One slot taken by a person who out of ignorance or just to jerk the collective chain of others wildly overbids on top players.
- Other slots taken by people who simply stick within a dollar or two of the suggested bid by whatever service produces auction values on the site being used.
- A few people who know what they are doing.
Last year in my 12-team A.L.-only league with a traditional 23-man roster, a 17-man reserve and up to 15 keepers, I found myself with only a single outfielder keeper and a marginal one at that because of playing time issues, Brett Gardner. In a deep keeper league, the lack of outfielders is poison, because after catcher, it offer the fewest starters – 42 FTE for 60 roster spots.
What I had was excess pitching, including Jeremy Guthrie coming off two solid seasons for $1. So I swapped Guthrie for a $1 outfielder who was too old to be considered hot prospect and had languished on the bench for three years. While his projected stats were below average for the position he would play – 1B – they were solid for an outfielder. The team that had him had six outfielders and little starting pitching. That’s how I ended up with Kendry Morales.
An auction is a marketplace and it’s key to understand the demand for players, something that is best in a real, face-to-face league. Being in London, Ontario, my rivals are fans of the Tigers and Blue Jays, something that influence their bidding. Some have a weakness for single-category speed guys, a few are prospect junkies like myself and most will pay more for starting pitching than will I. All of these idiosyncrasies I consider and they are what make the auction so much fun – a unique marketplace, like a unique ballpark, is a lot more enjoyable than the cookie-cutter version.
If you’re interested in participating in a real auction, next year, if not this one (it’s a bit late), let me know.
This was the first year i did auction drafts on espn and yahoo. I ended up spending a lot on top tier hitters, had hanley in every draft, and used my bench spots, final pitcher spots, C, MI and 4th and 5th OF spots for $1 at the end. No reason to spend a lot of P(especially in a H2H league), and no real reason to blow money on unpredictable closers. Just my strategy, we’ll see if it works at theend of the season
I employ a “stars and scrubs” strategy as well but end up with the second best player often. Lots of teams with Kinsler, Longoria, M. Cabrera, Tulo, Sizemore, the Uptons, etc. Try to get one true ace and round out the staff with a half dozen of the guys I have ranked #25-#35 SP. Bad closers are a staple of mine as well!
Hmm…..am I the only one who thinks a $3 flyer on Ben Sheets is a better value than $1 on Ian Kennedy?
I think it is a better value as well. Can’t you just pick up Ian Kennedy off the free agent list? It’s not like he goes drafted in most leagues.
That and he’s pitching at a horrible park for fly ball pitchers. I like Kennedy as a sleeper but not in Arizona.
Donde esta friggin Colby Lewis, Hulet?!? You’re gonna regret it!
In a league as shallow as this one, the only way Lewis gets picked is if someone is a huge fan of the Hiroshima Carp.
He’s on my list of cheap starters with upside in a 12-team A.L. only auction.
i play in an AL auction draft. because it is also a keeper league, there is inflation on premium players and conversely players who are average or below always go for cheap. but regardless of inflation, closers in my league (the good ones) always go for big bucks and i never understand why every other draft i see they are relatively cheap. even the SP go for much more than the auction values i see.
but i think my league is correct in these valuations. the premium players, regardless of position, should go for big money and everyone else for cheap. in most auction drafts i see a lot of money spent on average guys. that doesn’t make sense to me. garza at 3. soria at 11. even for a mixed draft, those prices are absurdly low. who are people spending money on?
everyone in my league has professional degrees (attorneys, accountants, finance) and 2 guys even work for MLB just to give you an idea of the makeup of owners.
vcoheda – When you write that your league “correctly” values players, what does that mean exactly? Here’s how I do it, at least the first few steps, for my league, which is an AL auction with a deep keeper list (up to 15 per team):
(1) I created my own value system that starts with actual league results from past years; I do this because while our league will share similarities with other 12-team AL leagues, there may be some differences to that reflect the skill level of the owners in our teams.
(2)Most stat categories finish in a bell curve of sorts, with 2 or 3 teams at the top and bottom and 6 to 8 bunched in the middle. I calculate the team totals needed in each category to finish in the middle of that bunch and also just above that bunch, the latter typically a top-3 finish needed in each category to win most years.
(3) I divide the needed totals by the numbers of players to come up with a replacement level player for our specific league.
(4) I split the $260 between hitters and pitchers to reflect how much is actually spent on each, and that leads to a split heavily weighted to hitters.
I won’t bore you with the math and all the steps, but along with an inflation measure based on actual keeper lists, I come up with specific dollar values for every player, both with and without inflation. The vast majority of players end up going at auction close to their inflation-adjusted prices, though their are always some bargains and some excess.
How are you calculating values? How are you calculating inflation?
As for Hulet’s mock auction, the values don’t surprise me. With only 10 owners, one a computer that blew its wad quickly and others who probably didn’t take it all too seriously, the results seem predictable: all over the map.
It would be far more interesting to read an analysis of real auctions, don’t you think?
12 team universal, 24-man roster, $260 budget, OBP in place of AVG.
C: Montero, $4
1B: Pena, $11
2B: Uggla, $11
3B: Wright, $38
SS: Escobar, $3
OF: Crawford, $35
OF: Dunn, $19
OF: Manny, $19
OF: Jones, $16
UT: Berkman, $15
BN: Beltran, $10
BN: Quentin, $6
BN: Fowler, $3
BN: Konerko, $1
BN: Stephen Drew, $1
BN: Kyle Blanks, $1
SP: Kershaw, $20
SP: Garza, $8
SP: Marcum, $1
SP: Latos, $1
RP: Broxton, $15
RP: Valverde, $7
RP: Soriano, $8
RP: Chris Perez, $1
Immediately following the draft, I traded Soriano, Garza, Crawford, and Adam Jones for Halladay, Kemp, and Nyjer Morgan. I picked up Chris Young (SP) to fill my empty roster slot. That’s $67 for $79, a nice profit. Halladay and Kershaw give me a great 1-2, I’m middle of the pack in saves with good K/9 from those guys, and I should be able to find 2-3 servicable starters from my current roster and the waiver wire. The offense is stacked, but I will be lagging a bit on SB. Thoughts?
I love Blanks, by the way.
It’s not an auction question, but I figure why not ask anyways.
Me: Give up Pablo Sandoval and Josh Johnson. Receive Matt Kemp and the Rangers’ closer. Frank Francisco or whatever his name is.
Note: Josh Johnson is the best pitcher I have, my outfield is already Braun, Granderson, BJ Upton, Jason Heyward and Dexter Fowler, and my backup firstbaseman is James Loney.