Fantasy Baseball : The Auction Draft-Part II : KingFish Tales

Part II

The Auction Draft
How to bid in an auction draft!
Written by: Karl Fischer

Bid all players named at the lowest increment possible
Are we being cheap or what?

This is a rather conservative approach on how to begin the bidding whenever it is the naming owners turn to shout out, �Mike Aldrete, $1.00�. (Or whatever your league minimum bid is and at least it wasn�t Dickie Thon I used as an example!) If you always start at the smallest increment other owners will become used to it. A mature and shrewd owner can use this tactic for the first half dozen rounds or so to lull the other owners into a comfort zone and then shock them out of it with a higher opening bid in an effort to draw their attention to this particular bid. The minimum bid tactic is a safe method often employed by the first time auction owner. At least if you get stuck with this sucker it won�t cost you an arm and a leg. In less mature leagues you may find that you end up with one or more of these minimum bid players on your team, as perhaps the other owners are not as knowledgeable about all the players or their true values. Hey, this might be a Sleeper extraordinaire and at the league minimum salary! I�ve seen stranger things happen. In mature leagues you will seldom if ever get one of the minimum bid players that have a higher value. The other owners will always try to bid that player up to at least near their projected values. A major exception to this may be during the end game of the draft where other owners may not be able to bid higher than minimum or they do not have an available position for the named player. We had one owner in our league get Pujols this way last year and now it looks like a stroke of genius!

The Jump Start Bid
Wake up, we�re drafting now!

Some wise guy must have spent some time on this one. The strategy is simple and can be effective. If your opening bid on a named player is at or nearly at the limit of what you would have paid to get the player anyway other owners may get gun shy and let you have him. For example you have Bagwell pegged at $32 in your league. If you have the need and you have the funds a bid starting at 30 to 32 just might give pause to the others or cause them to over bid! Remember everyone is hunting for bargains. I would caution that this tactic only be used on those players at the upper limit of the value scales and I would not try this on pitchers or catchers. These two positions are just to unreliable due to injuries. With this kind of investment you simply must maximize your investment and the only way to do that is on the very best of players, at the right age, on the right team, playing in the right park at the right time. Any owners� brave enough to venture beyond this bid is risking not getting back what was invested. Less value for cost again is not a good thing. Timing is everything and this tactic is no exception to the rule but generally speaking early in the draft is where you want to use this tactic. After that the return on investment potential drops off sharply.

The String Bid
This ain�t no string cheese. A nickel and dime at a time and no more!

String bids are just what they sound like. It is another owner(s) that is topping your bid by a small (or the smallest) increment. It can happen over and over and over. What the other owners are doing in this instance is testing how far they can push you to bid and then back out. At times several owners will simultaneously jump in with this tactic. Do not get caught up in the �string along� bidding and just continue the trend by going just that one more bid. If you go along with the tactic you just might get stuck, leaving you holding the bag on a marginal player at a higher than acceptable cost to value ratio. Often owners that either have a strong keeper team, a good draft background or personal knowledge of your particular draft tendencies employ this tactic. Typically the �string bid� does not reference that surprise single last bid sometimes referred to as the �Topper� at the end of any specific bidding.

You can effectively break this �string bid� by using the next tactic mentioned below, �Kick it Bid�. Doing so usually gets that guy off your back or at least makes them reconsider what they are doing. As long as the bidding says you are still netting a bargain, why not shock them into inaction? You could actually save some draft dollars this way. Another effective way to break the �string� is to just shut up. Let the others roll for a while. If the string ends and a bargain is still to be had, jump back in. If the string ends and it isn�t a bargain then you did well by not saying a thing.

One final word before we move on here. An astute owner is always aware of just what value is remaining to be drafted. The �string bid� during the final few rounds of the draft is not a good thing when you have just that one last slot left and there is little talent left to be had at that position. At this point your only concern must be to get the best talent at that remaining position. If this is truly all that is left that you value, bid it all to get him if you have to, no sense saving draft dollars at this point now is there?

The Kick it Bid
There is a new sheriff in town!

Here is the strategy that can be used to put a halt to string along bidding. If you see the bidding is moving in small increments somewhere way below value, kick it up sharply. Force the other owners to stop and think for a minute. For example someone names a player and opens bidding at lowest bid and he and several other owners are shooting small increment increases across the table at each other, over and over and over. If this is a player you are interested in and its going to take a while for the bidding to reach the value level you have set, consider making a bid somewhere above the mid-point between your value setting and the current bid. Even if it's a big kick of 10 times the minimum bid. You will definitely separate the men from the boys with this move. Some of the other owners may even stop for a second before continuing. Some will even drop out of the bidding at that point by waking up to the fact that there is a new sheriff in town and he's not playing around. The shock value of this tactic cannot be understated. The Auction Draft is an experience that can play on the human emotions/responses. The �Kick it Bid� may produce various responses from the other owners. The responses will run the gambit from shocked disbelief to mano y mano macho man, I�ll show him bid. If one or more of the other owners gets uppity over this sharp bid increase it can be a great advantage for the shrewd bidder. If they fire right back with their own sharp increase to yours, guess what? They may have just crossed into the negative value versus cost area. You drop out and they are stuck. Ka-Ching! Chalk up another one for the soon to be champion!

The End Game Bid
The party is almost over now!

Well the draft is coming down to the final selections for each of the remaining owners. Funds are down to levels where you may not see how you can still bring value to your team. But you can. Your focus must now shift from bargain hunting to getting the best possible player into each of your available positions. Who you name as related to their position and identifying what other owners still need the same position filled becomes critical. You need to know who has how much money left at this point. Now is not the time to name someone you do not want on your team. You can often only name the player you do want. If you have drafted wisely to this point, hopefully you will be in a position to outbid the other owners that have the same position openings as your self. If you have more than one position left to fill and there are very few good players left you may want to look over all the available players and pick out the highest value one and make your maximum bid even if its slightly over the projected value. At least this way you end up getting the best of what's left. In leagues that go very deep like ultra leagues with large taxi or reserve teams this may not be an appropriate tactic. It is sometimes difficult to tell in this situation which player will really pan out in the long run. It may be best to make only minimal bids at this point of the draft but it really all comes down to the talent that is still available. An important point to remember is you are working with a defined amount of draft dollars.

Yes you may have to over pay with an �End Game� bid that most certainly may not be a good return of value to cost but ending the draft with a significant amount of money left over is seldom if ever a desirable thing. Now if you have a history of being able to pick out those super deep sleepers ala Pujols of last season and you have completely researched a player and really want him as a future keeper then the �End Game� bid that leaves you with funds at the end of the draft may not be as bad. It does indicate you could have bid higher earlier in the draft and perhaps upgraded from a good player to a stud. To late now to do much about that but learn from the mistake and use it in you next draft.

Hopefully the above entertained in some small way and can be of some help to either the new owner/auctioneer or the mature owner that has been in auction drafts for many years. The names of the different tactics are not really important but the methodology of each of them may give you that edge that your opponent owners do not have. Good bidding and Happy Drafting to all!

So Sayeth the Fish!
Revised 03/2002