TOUT WARS 2008 Bidding observations

[rotodog]

In an effort to better understand bidding tendencies and auction dynamics, I wanted to see if certain prices realized on draft day were more popular than others. Why is this important? It may identify certain bidding opportunities and barriers to exploit during your own draft. This will help you save a buck here or there or help you to land the player you really want.

I have always argued that valuations run in a sound manner are not prices to bid to in a draft. For me, they are used to group certain players together to find the players and pockets of value. Perception is that some players are worth certain prices and some are not. Perception is the value auction bidders usually pay on draft day. Being able to exploit the human nature that forces these tendencies in others should be of value.

I took the 2008 NL and AL Draft results from Tout Wars 2008 and documented each bidding level and the number of times bidding ended there. There are 12 and 13 teams respectively for each multiplied x 23 players for each team. This gives us a total of 575 players and prices realized.

For instance, the 1 dollar bid was by far the most popular at 79 instances for a 13.74 % occurance.

Here are the results. The number on the left is the Price realized on draft day. Middle number is the number of times that price was paid and the 3rd number is the percentage of the entire pool of 575 instances.

1 79 13.739%
2 43 7.478%
3 41 7.130%
4 31 5.391%
5 19 3.304%
6 26 4.522%
7 21 3.652%
8 17 2.957%
9 16 2.783%
10 19 3.304%
11 16 2.783%
12 12 2.087%
13 22 3.826%
14 21 3.652%
15 17 2.957%
16 15 2.609%
17 16 2.783%
18 26 4.522%
19 14 2.435%
20 9 1.565%
21 9 1.565%
22 7 1.217%
23 9 1.565%
24 4 0.696%
25 10 1.739%
26 12 2.087%
27 8 1.391%
28 2 0.348%
29 8 1.391%
30 5 0.870%
31 3 0.522%
32 2 0.348%
33 2 0.348%
34 1 0.174%
35 1 0.174%
36 3 0.522%
37 1 0.174%
38 1 0.174%
39 1 0.174%
40 3 0.522%
41 0 0.000%
42 1 0.174%
43 0 0.000%
44 1 0.174%
45 1 0.174%
575


What do these results show us? When I grouped them in color blocks, one thing that stuck out to me was the amount of times that the bidding ended at 18 dollars . A whopping 26 times! For a 4.55 percentage rate. In context $17 end the bidding on 16 times for a 2.78% rate. Bidding to the nines on 19 ended the bidding even less, with just 14 occurrences and a 2.43 % rate.

What does that show us? It shows me that bidding to 18 maybe more beneficial than bidding to 19 . Bidders ended on 18 and many found that as a barrier to the 20 dollar player than 19. The 17 dollar bid and the $19 bid occurred at similar rates, but 18 ended the bidding almost twice as many times as the 19 dollar bid.

I think the strategy to employ here is to find a perceived player worth just under 20 dollars and be on the even side of the bid and maybe jump it from 15 to 18 to screw up the flow of incremental bidding by ones…If someone does say 19, you still have the option of calling him a 20 dollar player yourself and forcing your opponent into a $21 bid and essentially calling him a player worth over 20 bucks.. The $20 and $21 bid ended the bidding 9 times each.

Let me now look at the 5’s…$5, 15, 25 etc…

It appears that bidding to the 5s isn’t a real good strategy until you get to the very popular $25 level.

4 31 5.391%


5 19 3.304%

6 26 4.522%

The 5 dollar level only stopped the bidding 19 times compared to the $4 bid at 31 times and the $6 bid at 26 times. I think the dynamic at play here is money is tight in the second half of a draft and players are perceived as under $5 or over $5. If someone says 5, more times than not someone will say 6.

Again, toward the end, I want to be on the EVEN side of this bid. The difference in a $4 player and a $6 player is negligible.. So make sure you are the 4 bid here and if someone says 5, you can go 6. If you add the number of 4 bids and 6 bids, you get 57 times bidding ended there as opposed to 19 on the five.

Now lets take a look at the 15 turn. Do they turn the corner at 15?

12 12 2.087%
13 22 3.826%
14 21 3.652%
15 17 2.957%
16 15 2.609%
17 16 2.783%


It again appears to have a strong bias toward just under $15. $13 and $14 dollars ended the bidding 43 times compared to just 17 times with the 15 bid. . My bid here is the even side I think.

Bidder : $12
Me: Jump to $14

If he goes for more than that he wasn’t a 15 dollar player to begin with. He was in the UNDER 20 label as opposed to 15 dollar player. But again, on the even side of the bidding process, you have the $18 bid on your side as a significant stopgap from earlier …

I know this just takes two Expert leagues data from 2008 and it’s a small sample size, but I think it still has some value. I will have more observations later on the data.

[Todd Zola]

Interesting stuff but I would be hesitant to design a specific strategy based on such a small sample, when you further consider the sample is composed of people in the industry that may be less inclined to be influenced by psychological barriers than some home leagues.

[rotodog]

Interesting stuff but I would be hesitant to design a specific strategy based on such a small sample, when you further consider the sample is composed of people in the industry that may be less inclined to be influenced by psychological barriers than some home leagues.

You are right. it is very small sample size and I would love to get more league data from past years to see if their is any correlation . But even experts are human and do succumb to the pressures of Human nature.

I wonder if you had 3 years + of data from one team in a league you could find a tell in one of your opponents bidding tendencies....that would be interesting. Ok, I need to go get a life now and do some work too....

[roche]

There is the possibility that for the year under analysis, there was more players projected at $18 than any nearby value so that's why $18 was so popular.

I don't think that you can draw any conclusions about psych barrier from this. Nice work but your conclusion is reaching for too much.

[da_big_kid_94]

I agree with roche ... this approach may be too much like analyzing the bid in a vacuum. It may turn out to be a worthwhile effort but, at auction, one has to measure relative need at the time of the bid and what is being bid on. The number of teams involved and their relative needs apply here as well. 18 units may net you Brian Fuentes, if, at the time his name is thrown out Nathan, Rivera and Pappy are still on the board. But if Fuentes is perceived to be the "last" closer, that $18 may not hold up, simply because of the circumstances surrounding when his name was tossed. The only thing I'm fairly sure of is that the last of any item on the shelf will go to the highest bidder, regardless of value as long as more than one team has a need.

[rotodog]

i still agree...that is why I am looking for any old league data..

Any ROTOLAB users that just update the software yearly and keep the original? If you do, you very possibly have old drafts still in the rotolab itself. It could be easy to export to excel and send a file of realized prices....

[cwk1963]

I have some for my league but, alas, it's a keeper. I'm going to look at it and try to do the same analysis as you did to see if anything stands out.

[Rob Leibowitz]

From my perspective - tout wars al and nl $ values work well as bid guidelines for re-draft leagues or general baselines of a players' worth in keeper leagues, but really for the point in time of the draft day itself as rosters can change quite a bit that last week of spring training.

Everyone in the room knows (or should not be in the league if they don't) what players are worth and it is extremely rare for a player to go well above their preceived worth. There is little price enforcement and if you do enforce, you can be burned easily. Pitchers constantly go under value.

The one area where players may go "over value" is when we get to the last player or two at a position. This is really the best time you can price enforce (in Tout and any league really) - when people are bidding on one of a few players left and you don't need those types of stats or that position, but perhaps still have a ut spot open.

Yes I'm way off topic from what the purpose of this entry was.

[rotodog]

From my perspective - tout wars al and nl $ values work well as bid guidelines for re-draft leagues or general baselines of a players' worth in keeper leagues, but really for the point in time of the draft day itself as rosters can change quite a bit that last week of spring training.

Everyone in the room knows (or should not be in the league if they don't) what players are worth and it is extremely rare for a player to go well above their preceived worth. There is little price enforcement and if you do enforce, you can be burned easily. Pitchers constantly go under value.

The one area where players may go "over value" is when we get to the last player or two at a position. This is really the best time you can price enforce (in Tout and any league really) - when people are bidding on one of a few players left and you don't need those types of stats or that position, but perhaps still have a ut spot open.

Yes I'm way off topic from what the purpose of this entry was.

Actually its right on point. I am a study in draft dynamics...Bidding, budget etc....what i am trying to confirm is certain theories I have about bidding I guess......

maybe I should change the thread to "best bidding practices"