Complicated Home League Auction Question

[timhipp]

Hey Todd,

Really appreciate all your great analysis, especially the pods with DVR. Never miss one.

About 11 years ago I joined an AL only home league. 8 teams, 5 OF, CI, MI, DH, 2 catchers and no bench (makes 2 catchers super fun ). 5x5, roto scoring but with 2 week scoring periods (I guess when they started the league in 1983 they met and tallied points every 2 weeks and these guys never change, well, anything).

Here's the quirky/annoying thing about this league - they put all the positions in a "hat" at the start of every draft. Somebody draws one, and we all have to nominate/bid on only that position until everybody has that slot filled before moving on. This makes the pre-planning hazy at best since what tends to happen is the final categories go for the highest prices (we're in trouble if SP doesn't show up until last). Makes the assigning of values prior to draft day tricky, as the late categories will go way over what I think is a reasonable value for those players.

With this bizarre/quirky setup, I'm starting to think maybe less is more and just tiering / ranking each position and trying to hunt/aggressively spend early and see what happens. I've won two titles but usually due to in season management and not particularly successful auction days. I had been trying to wrestle with coming up with SGP's to do valuations for this league, but struggling a little bit with the ratio stat calculations and also through some searches here got the idea that maybe you don't recommend that route anyway.

With this kind of auction day randomness, what pre-auction strategy would you recommend? (I considered the "quit this league and find a normal replacement" option but I know the people and they convinced me to stay)

Sorry for saying too much, and thank you again for all your great analysis. If you have any general or specific tips for preparing for the auction, I'd really appreciate it. I haven't taken the trophy (these guys actually hand one around every year) in a few years.

Tim
Costa Mesa, CA

[da_big_kid_94]

Welcome aboard, Tim.

Quirky? True? But let's look at this a little deeper. 8 teams - so for the league, you need 56 position players - eliminating catchers and DH here. Now, even if everybody starts from scratch, here are the MI who most likely will be part of the 8; Altuve, Bogaerts, Lindor, Correa, Didi, Cano, Segura,Odor. (Someone else's mileage may vary). Now look at who is still available. ONE of those names is yours at a bargain basement price because of the way your auction proceeds. The owner who fills his MI slot last gets one of these 8 names at a buck - so let's say you want Seager for your CI. No matter when the hat says CI time (either before or after MI), you know you can get your MI (as listed above) for a buck as long as you are the last one to fill your MI slot. SO maybe money you once allotted for MI you can now throw at Seager.

Just an example, but I would not get analysis paralysis on this. I'd look at your league as 6 separate auctions and I'd budget for each position. If i spend less than I budgeted for any given position, hooray for me and add the leftovers to the remaining pot. This way I don't really care what position comes up because if i wait long enough in the bid for each position, I'm pretty sure I'm going to get a useful player at a price i like.

Good luck.

[timhipp]

Thanks for the input. The one thing I didn't say is we keep 6 and use 3 year contracts, and the final "quirk" is that they have a sort of "restricted free agency" system where if your player's deal expires, you have the option to automatically top the winning bid. So for example, the same guy has bought Trout for $68-$75 each of the last 3 years on a 1 year deal, and then just tops the winning bid by $1 the following year. The only time it doesn't apply is if you give a guy a multi year deal and drop him before the deal expires. This year I can say for sure that many of the elite (Correa, LIndor, Sanchez, Judge, Stanton due to a trade rule where if your player is traded to the NL, you get the player that comes back, thanks Starlin Castro, Jose Ramirez, Gary Sanchez) are going to be kept. There are a few others that I'm not as sure about, same with pitching, we don't announce keepers till auction day. I detest the "restricted FA" system but they're mostly personal friends and its been the same system since 1983 so it is what it is.

But your point is still true and I had the same thought last night after posting, that I should just consider this league as a separate auction for each position and determine where to hunt for the biggest game based on guys that will be thrown back early or whatever.

[da_big_kid_94]

A truly additional quirk bout the keepers not being known until auction day. Why is that so? Seems I'm saving units each year in a blind bid for whatever reason. But the keeper portion should only have a good effect on you. No guarantee fellow owners will rank positions in the importance you do. Take our MI example; lets say Altuve, Lindor, Correa and Odor are kept. Now let's say one owner thinks Schoop is a keeper for him. Now you have Didi, Cano, Segura AND Bogie to add to the dollar day scenario and only two other owners to bid against.Your job is to rank each position and cross reference the players at that position against the keepers (which is why I think the shrouding of keepers until auction day is a bad idea), but ya lives wit what yas got.

[timhipp]

Yep, I agree. Honestly I think a couple of the guys are much more "casual" fantasy baseball players and part of the reason that keepers aren't announced until then is I think 1 or 2 guys don't pay much attention to it until draft weekend. Thanks a lot for your input, has at least helped me put a little bit different approach in mind for this year's auction.

[da_big_kid_94]

De nada. Good luck with it.