In reality, a fantasy auction draft takes longer than a regular draft and there is no guy talking as fast as he can like in the video.
Auction Wedding
An auction draft is a lot of fun because you can build your team anyway you would like. In a regular draft you have to take you turn making pics, where in an auction draft you decide when you want to add players and can fill your team with a handful of elite players and the rest after everyone’s money runs out, or you can fill it with players that all fall in the mid-range with cost.
If you have never done an auction draft, here is how ESPN Fantasy Baseball describes an auction draft.
Auction Draft Overview
Auction drafts are based on a bidding format and differ considerably from traditional “snake” live drafts. In those drafts, teams take turns drafting players from a fixed order in a back-and-forth serpentine or “snake” format (ie 1-10, 10-1, 1-10, 10-1, etc). Players disappear from the draft board and teams (waiting for their draft turn) can do nothing about it. In Auction drafts, teams have the chance to draft any player they want, as long as they have the available funds. As such, the likes of Jose Reyes and David Wright could be drafted by the same team, which would rarely happen in a Snake draft simply because both players are so early and close to one another in the snake draft ranking order
Leagues which use Auction to draft are setup with a preset budget ($260) to spend on a set number of players (25-man roster). Free Standard and Prize-Eligible leagues will have preset default auction values assigned to all players in the pool. Custom leagues have the option to edit the player default auction values to be loaded in the draft application prior to the draft start. This page can be access via the “Edit Auction Draft Values” link on the main “My Team” page.
Once a player is nominated for auction, the bidding begins. Team owners are free to bid however much they feel that particular player is worth (the preset value is only a guide). Bidding continues until there is a single remaining high bid (at which time the system will alert all bidders by saying “Going Once, Going Twice, Sold”). The player is awarded to the team of the highest bidder, and the bid amount is deducted from the team owner’s available funds. This process repeats until every team’s roster is completely filled.
When the draft is finished the league will move into “in-season” mode where teams can start making roster moves, waiver claims, trades, etc. Please note that auction salaries do not, in any way, carry over into “in-season” mode. As such there is no advantage in finishing the draft with any remaining budget.
Strategies
There are many strategies in an auction draft and many more options than a regular snake draft. You can have three top 10 players in an auction draft, where in a regular draft that is not going to happen. The biggest thing to remember is that all rosters end up full and using our CCO Auction league as an example, a 20-team league there will be 420 players that need to be bought with $260 per team for a total of $5,200. Life is not fair and neither is an auction draft. Every team will round out their roster with $1 players (or $2/$3 players if some teams have the money left to grab guys from other team’s nominations, in the later rounds). At some point your team runs out of money and only has $10 for 10 players as an example. At that point you still get to nominate a player every 20 picks for a $1 to try and round out your roster, but you won’t likely get to keep that player unless you go outside the top 300-350 likely to be drafted players as other teams still have money (don’t nominate your sleeper picks during this time). But, once everyone is out of money it is like a regular draft as you nominate a player for a $1 and no one can bid on him because they have no money left. What you do with the money you spend before getting to this point is what dictates how your team will look. So, let’s look at some different strategies for how to spend the money above the dollar players.
I used ESPN’s average auction cost as of February 22 for the examples. ESPN puts every player with at least a $2 bid, but once teams run out of money, they will all spend $1 on their final player, so I used $2 players to round out rosters at $1 or $2 cost as that is how it will play out. These are examples only and in any real draft you have other people that may be trying to do the same thing you are and raising the cost of doing your strategy. Always stay flexible and look for the bargains that fall into your lap. Also keep in mind there is strategy into how you nominate players, but we will get into that some other time.
A few ELITE players and then a lot of dollar guys
Go for broke on the elite guys and get as many as you can and then round out your roster with the dollar guys. This will lead to a team with superstars on it and will have to take some chances on upside guys to round out their roster. If you take this approach you still have to not overpay too much for the elite players, as you want as many of them as possible. But when you figure out the bottom of the 420 players for each position, it can help you decide which positions are good to wait out the spending spree. In a regular draft this would be like trading your fifth-15th picks to get four in the first two rounds, then rounding out your roster with guys from the 18-21 rounds. Not one of my recommended ways to build a team in an auction draft, but to each his own!
- Catcher – Welington Castillo – $1
- First Base – Joe Mauer – $1
- Second Base – Cory Spangenberg – $1
- Shortstop – Jean Segura – $1
- Third Base – Nolan Arenado – $57
- Left Field – Stephen Piscotty – $1
- Center Field – Mike Trout – $79
- Right Field – Avisail Garcia – $1
- Utility – Chris Carter – $1
- Bench – Will Venable – $1
- Bench – Michael Taylor – $1
- Bench – Danny Santana – $1
- Bench – Marwin Gonzalez – $1
- Bench – Yangervis Solarte – $1
- Starting Pitcher – Clayton Kershaw – $73
- Starting Pitcher – Matt Harvey – $31
- Starting Pitcher – Joe Ross – $2
- Starting Pitcher – Brett Anderson – $2
- Starting Pitcher – Collin McHugh – $2
- Starting Pitcher – Kevin Gausman – $2
- Relief Pitcher – Glen Perkins – $1
- Spent $260
Forget the high price guys, let’s have a team full of good but not great players
Maybe you tried for the elite guys but they kept going past what you were willing to spend. Not to worry as you may be able to build a better team in the middle of the draft where players just a notch below the expensive guys, go for, in comparison, bargain prices. At this point in the draft, some teams are out of money after buying up the stars, so the prices don’t break your budget and you are able to fill a large portion of your roster with above average players. This would be like trading your top five picks, with your bottom five picks to get 10 extra picks in the sixth to 15th round range. The prices for the mid-range I do expect to be higher than the numbers projected by ESPN right now. But every auction draft is different.
- Catcher – Matt Wieters – $6
- First Base – Freddie Freeman – $26
- Second Base – Anthony Rendon – $11
- Shortstop – Jose Reyes – $22
- Third Base – Matt Duffy – $10
- Left Field – Christian Yelich – $21
- Center Field – Billy Hamilton – $15
- Right Field – Hunter Pence – $23
- Utility – Ender Inciarte – $13
- Bench – Eduardo Escobar – $2
- Bench – Gerardo Parra – $2
- Bench – Chris Owings – $2
- Bench – Alex Guerrero – $2
- Bench – Kurt Suzuki – $2
- Starting Pitcher – Adam Wainwright – $18
- Starting Pitcher – Garrett Richards – $16
- Starting Pitcher – Jeff Samardzija – $15
- Starting Pitcher – Jose Quintana – $12
- Starting Pitcher – Michael Wacha – $12
- Starting Pitcher – Hisashi Iwakuma – $11
- Relief Pitcher – Jonathan Papelbon – $12
- Spent $253
Stud Arms – Dollar Lineup
The best part about an auction draft is the ability to have the team you like, versus an evenly distributed roster with a standard draft. One way to do that is having stud arms. You can fill your pitching staff with all top of the rotation and stud closers and round it out with upper level mid-tier guys. Imagine having Chris Sale, Madison Bumgarner, Matt Harvey, Corey Kluber, Dallas Keuchel and Carlos Carrasco for a rotation. You can have it but you won’t have much if any money left to buy a lineup.
- Catcher – J.T. Realmuto – $2
- First Base – Lucas Duda – $10
- Second Base – Starlin Castro – $3
- Shortstop – Jean Segura – $2
- Third Base – Trevor Plouffe – $1
- Left Field – Melky Cabrera – $10
- Center Field – Denard Span – $3
- Right Field – Mark Trumbo – $6
- Utility – Ryan Howard – $1
- Bench – Colby Rasmus – $1
- Bench – Mark Canha – $1
- Bench – Jedd Gyorko – $1
- Bench – Luis Valbuena – $1
- Bench – Geovany Soto – $1
- Starting Pitcher – Chris Sale – $39
- Starting Pitcher – Madison Bumgarner – $34
- Starting Pitcher – Matt Harvey – $31
- Starting Pitcher – Corey Kluber – $30
- Starting Pitcher – Dallas Keuchel – $28
- Starting Pitcher – Carlos Carrasco – $28
- Relief Pitcher – Wade Davis – $27
- Spent $260
Stud Bat – Dollar Rotation
The other way to have a team you like is to have the lineup that every team doesn’t want to face. Spend all your money on bats and take what is left for the rest of the lineup, bench and pitching staff. Both of these last two strategies are not for the weak, as you could end up with a lineup or rotation that loses you too many weeks, but with a few upside guys working out, could lead you to the World Series.
- Catcher – Matt Wieters – $6
- First Base – Anthony Rizzo – $42
- Second Base – Ian Kinsler – $26
- Shortstop – Brandon Crawford – $10
- Third Base – Kris Bryant – $41
- Left Field – Ender Inciarte – $13
- Center Field – Mookie Betts – $38
- Right Field – Giancarlo Stanton – $60
- Utility – Lucas Duda – $10
- Bench – Colby Rasmus – $1
- Bench – Mark Canha – $1
- Bench – Eduardo Escobar – $1
- Bench – Danny Santana – $1
- Bench – Robinson Chirinos – $1
- Starting Pitcher – Tommy Milone – $2
- Starting Pitcher – Aaron Nola – $2
- Starting Pitcher – Kevin Gausman – $1
- Starting Pitcher – Anthony DeSclafani – $1
- Starting Pitcher – Rick Porcello – $1
- Starting Pitcher – Clay Buchholz – $1
- Relief Pitcher – Glen Perkins – $1
- Spent $260
The main thing to remember is to have a strategy but to be flexible with it as you have to react to the way the draft is going. Just like in real baseball you have to be ready to pounce on a bargain that has presented itself and to walk away from a player you really wanted when the cost doesn’t make any sense anymore. The CCO Auction League is almost full so if you are interested in playing in it, you better react fast.