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Fantasy Baseball > Fantasy Advice > Auction Draft Advice
Free Fantasy Baseball Advice:
Justin K. Moreau |
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For those of you brave enough to do a fantasy baseball draft auction, we commend you for stepping up to the big-boy game. The thought behind a fantasy baseball auction is that you have an equal chance at any player in the league, so long as you're willing to spend the cash. The best part of a fantasy auction draft is that there's no bitching about your spot in the draft. You know the guys you want, you spend the money on them, or you let someone else over-spend when you just can't pull the trigger on a guy.
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Don't be afraid to spend on the right guys, but don't get suckered, either.
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In a standard fantasy draft, the "snake" draft where you pick 1-12 then 12-1 and so on throughout the draft, there's always someone who bitches that he didn't have the top pick in the draft. "I had the #10 pick - that's why I lost! This league is bullsh*t!" We've all heard it, we've all probably said it, and we're all tired of it, especially since these are the same a-holes who claim they don't care what pick they get in the draft because they're so smart, they can find diamonds in the rough no matter what pick they have.
In an auction-style draft, if you buy the wrong player(s), it's your own damn fault. You can still blame the injury bug when players go on the DL, but you have an equal shot at any player in the league at any given time.
In an auction-style draft, if you buy the wrong player(s), it's your own damn fault. You can still blame the injury bug when players go on the DL, but you have an equal shot at any player in the league at any given time.
How Do You Win a Fantasy League with an
Auction Draft?
There are several strategies to winning a fantasy baseball league with an auction-style draft, but it all boils down to how you spend your last few dollars.
First, the easy part: typically, since you start out with a finite amount of money to spend on your players, you can load up your roster with 2-3 superstars at the beginning of the draft and hope the injury bug doesn't hit anyone. After drafting (buying) your first three studs, you can also spend the next hour swilling beer and eating chips while everyone who has money left buys up the rest of the players. Just stay sober enough to do the required math to fill out the rest of your roster, and you'd better hope that your fantasy geek brethren have left enough quality players and solid sleepers on the table for you to scrape up.
Another strategy is to bypass all the superstar studs and wait to fill up your fantasy roster with a solid lineup of decent players. No superstars, no scrubs - just a bunch of guys who are good, solid, second-tier fantasy players. No one is gonna tear the league a new one, but your fantasy roster will be filled with reliable, solid hitters and pitchers. And if you have a couple of guys who have surprise career years, and/or if some sleeper picks actually live up to the hype, you may just win the whole thing.
Regardless of which auction draft strategy you fall into (and believe me, you'll very likely fall into one of these two categories whether you plan on it or not), we have some tried-and-true ways to kick some ass in your auction draft.
First, the easy part: typically, since you start out with a finite amount of money to spend on your players, you can load up your roster with 2-3 superstars at the beginning of the draft and hope the injury bug doesn't hit anyone. After drafting (buying) your first three studs, you can also spend the next hour swilling beer and eating chips while everyone who has money left buys up the rest of the players. Just stay sober enough to do the required math to fill out the rest of your roster, and you'd better hope that your fantasy geek brethren have left enough quality players and solid sleepers on the table for you to scrape up.
Another strategy is to bypass all the superstar studs and wait to fill up your fantasy roster with a solid lineup of decent players. No superstars, no scrubs - just a bunch of guys who are good, solid, second-tier fantasy players. No one is gonna tear the league a new one, but your fantasy roster will be filled with reliable, solid hitters and pitchers. And if you have a couple of guys who have surprise career years, and/or if some sleeper picks actually live up to the hype, you may just win the whole thing.
Regardless of which auction draft strategy you fall into (and believe me, you'll very likely fall into one of these two categories whether you plan on it or not), we have some tried-and-true ways to kick some ass in your auction draft.
How to Spend Your Last Auction Draft Dollars
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In every fantasy draft auction, it comes down to everyone spending $1 on each of their last players. This is where you take a chance on the following types of players:
Players who steal bases and do nothing else: they may have been crappy hitters last season, or even the past few seasons, but players like this are typically young players (hence they still have speed) and they work hard on their hitting in the off-season (a la Vince Coleman and Ozzie Smith early in their careers). They also may end up in the every-day starting lineup at the leadoff spot if the injury bug strikes the guy ahead of them or if they just plain ol' earn it the old fashioned way. Guys like Billy Hamilton, Ben Revere, Rajai Davis, Eric Young, Jr. and Leonys Martin have absolutely saved some fantasy rosters in recent seasons, and they definitely came at a low, low price. |
Rajai Davis is a great guy to waste a $1 bid on. He can single-handedly win you stolen bases any given week.
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Players who spent last season on the DL: a lot of these guys have gone on the DL never to return, and there are other players who have come back to kick ass, if for nothing else than a few weeks at a time between repeated stints on the DL. Lance Berkman was left for dead a couple of seasons ago, then he went to St. Louis and, for one season, he batted like his old self again. He single handedly saved a few teams in 2011 who would have otherwise been at a severe disadvantage in the power hitter categories. Every season there's a guy who comes back off the DL to have a great (or at least serviceable) comeback year. Keep an eye out for these guys - you're bound to get one for a buck.
Players (young player and/or rookies) who were brought up late last season: a long time ago in a fantasy league far away, there was a young third baseman for the Cleveland Indians named Jim Thome who hit .268 with 20 home runs in 98 games for the Indians. I drafted him in the 25th round for $1 and he eventually became my starting third baseman for the majority of the year. In 1996, there was a 20-year-old shortstop with a lot of hype behind him that got drafted for a few bucks in our league. He played for the Mariners and he went on to have one of the most ridiculous seasons in the history of fantasy baseball. This 20-year-old Alex Rodriguez won the freaking batting title with a .358 average, he led the league in Runs, Doubles and total Bases, and he totally carried every fantasy team that was smart enough to draft him, let alone pay a couple bucks for him in the draft. It should also be noted that no one on Earth drafted - let alone paid for - Mike Trout three seasons ago. He was a free agent in every league in his rookie season, and if there is someone who drafted him before even being called up his rookie season, the good news is that you probably rode his talent to the playoffs; the bad news is that if you were dumb enough to draft him, you probably had such a miserable fantasy roster that you wasted his stats on a terrible team.
Relief Pitchers with great stats who back up crappy Closers: two years ago, Brandon League was just not going to survive the season as the Dodgers' Closer with Kenley Jansen and his gawdy stats breathing down his neck. Sure enough, Kenley Jansen was the Dodgers' closer shortly into the season. Same thing goes for Koji Uehara. Uehara had to wait for two Red Sox relievers to fail (either by stats or by injuries) at the Closer role before he was given a shot at the job. We let you know about Uehara two seasons ago, and he could not figure out why he wasn't cemented into the Closer role immediately. Joel Hanrahan and Andrew Bailey each had the job before Uehara, but Uehara was destined for the role and he had one of the best seasons of all time, especially when he started chalking up Saves along with his freakish 1.09 ERA and even-more-freakish 0.565 WHIP that year.
This season, as always, there will be a bunch of relief pitchers who will come out of nowhere to be closers, or there will be a bunch of setup guys and young flame-throwers who will burst onto the scene to close down games when a closer inevitably get injured or destroyed by opponents' bats.
Players (young player and/or rookies) who were brought up late last season: a long time ago in a fantasy league far away, there was a young third baseman for the Cleveland Indians named Jim Thome who hit .268 with 20 home runs in 98 games for the Indians. I drafted him in the 25th round for $1 and he eventually became my starting third baseman for the majority of the year. In 1996, there was a 20-year-old shortstop with a lot of hype behind him that got drafted for a few bucks in our league. He played for the Mariners and he went on to have one of the most ridiculous seasons in the history of fantasy baseball. This 20-year-old Alex Rodriguez won the freaking batting title with a .358 average, he led the league in Runs, Doubles and total Bases, and he totally carried every fantasy team that was smart enough to draft him, let alone pay a couple bucks for him in the draft. It should also be noted that no one on Earth drafted - let alone paid for - Mike Trout three seasons ago. He was a free agent in every league in his rookie season, and if there is someone who drafted him before even being called up his rookie season, the good news is that you probably rode his talent to the playoffs; the bad news is that if you were dumb enough to draft him, you probably had such a miserable fantasy roster that you wasted his stats on a terrible team.
Relief Pitchers with great stats who back up crappy Closers: two years ago, Brandon League was just not going to survive the season as the Dodgers' Closer with Kenley Jansen and his gawdy stats breathing down his neck. Sure enough, Kenley Jansen was the Dodgers' closer shortly into the season. Same thing goes for Koji Uehara. Uehara had to wait for two Red Sox relievers to fail (either by stats or by injuries) at the Closer role before he was given a shot at the job. We let you know about Uehara two seasons ago, and he could not figure out why he wasn't cemented into the Closer role immediately. Joel Hanrahan and Andrew Bailey each had the job before Uehara, but Uehara was destined for the role and he had one of the best seasons of all time, especially when he started chalking up Saves along with his freakish 1.09 ERA and even-more-freakish 0.565 WHIP that year.
This season, as always, there will be a bunch of relief pitchers who will come out of nowhere to be closers, or there will be a bunch of setup guys and young flame-throwers who will burst onto the scene to close down games when a closer inevitably get injured or destroyed by opponents' bats.
This is when you go buck wild on the sleeper picks: be careful with the sleeper picks, however. We all know that guy in the draft who thinks he's out-smarting everyone by spending real money on sleeper picks when, in actuality, he's hosing himself and leaving the door wide open for you and you $1 wonders. If you go to our Fantasy Baseball Rankings page, just go to any position you're looking for and you'll find a truckload of sleeper-pick dudes ready for their $1 paycheck to join your fantasy team.
Fantasy Baseball Rankings for 2018
Get an early look at the 2018 Fantasy Rankings for position players. It's never to o early to prepare for your draft, bud.
Starting Pitchers are the cornerstone for any fantasy baseball championship. Check out our early rankings for 2018.
How to Get Your Opponents to Buy Scrubs in Your Fantasy Auction Draft
Someone ALWAYS takes a chance on Hyun Jin Ryu in every draft. Bring him up for $1 and stick him on someone else's team for $2 or more. They just can't resist.
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Part of your fantasy baseball auction draft strategy should be to get your opponents to buy players that they don't really want. Bring up a few crappy, has-beens early in the draft for $1, knowing full well someone will waste a roster spot and more than $1 on him.
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Find a player who's coming off of an injury-prone season, and preferably a power hitter who strikes out way more than he walks. This is a true sign of someone who has enough talent to bloat his perceived fantasy baseball value by making the highlight reel with a few home runs, but is also someone who pisses off every fantasy baseball team owner because they end up being the players who only do well when they're not in your starting lineup.
Juan Uribe is a prime example - such a good example that even the Dodgers fell for it. A real team fell for Juan Uribe's bloated statistics more than fantasy owners did! Juan Uribe swings out of his shoes on every pitch within spitting distance, and he's an overweight shortstop/second baseman/third baseman. After his World Series season with the Giants, San Francisco promptly packaged his fat ass up and let him go anywhere he wanted to go. Sayonara, tubby. Thanks for the lucky streak - see ya never, and good luck to whoever is dumb enough to pay you. Then after last season's game-winning playoff home run, the Dodgers fell for it again and re-signed Uribe.
But the deep pockets in LA don't match up with the salary cap you have in your auction fantasy draft, so if you want to fill other guys' rosters with scrubs, bring someone up early on for a buck, then watch someone else take a flier on him (and waste a roster spot) for $2 or more.
Juan Uribe is a prime example - such a good example that even the Dodgers fell for it. A real team fell for Juan Uribe's bloated statistics more than fantasy owners did! Juan Uribe swings out of his shoes on every pitch within spitting distance, and he's an overweight shortstop/second baseman/third baseman. After his World Series season with the Giants, San Francisco promptly packaged his fat ass up and let him go anywhere he wanted to go. Sayonara, tubby. Thanks for the lucky streak - see ya never, and good luck to whoever is dumb enough to pay you. Then after last season's game-winning playoff home run, the Dodgers fell for it again and re-signed Uribe.
But the deep pockets in LA don't match up with the salary cap you have in your auction fantasy draft, so if you want to fill other guys' rosters with scrubs, bring someone up early on for a buck, then watch someone else take a flier on him (and waste a roster spot) for $2 or more.
$1-$2 Auction Draft Time: Just You and a Field of Forgotten Players
After you've forced your opponents' hands at a few scrubs, this frees you up to fill out the remaining 4-5 roster spots with players who will make your opponents say, "Aaaaaahhhhh! I wanted that guy!" to which you'll say, "Tough sh*t - you got Uribe, sucka."
Now, you'll notice that the above header reads "$1-$2 Auction Draft Time". That means that we want you to make sure you leave enough money at the end to outspend someone else by $1. So when everyone is filling out their rosters, uncontested, you'll be able to veto one of their picks that they think they're gonna get for a buck. Let everyone go for a dollar so long as it's someone you don't need. But if someone brings up a player in this last bit of auction drafting, you want to be able to say, "Not so fast, dude - I'll take him for 2 bucks."
Now, you'll notice that the above header reads "$1-$2 Auction Draft Time". That means that we want you to make sure you leave enough money at the end to outspend someone else by $1. So when everyone is filling out their rosters, uncontested, you'll be able to veto one of their picks that they think they're gonna get for a buck. Let everyone go for a dollar so long as it's someone you don't need. But if someone brings up a player in this last bit of auction drafting, you want to be able to say, "Not so fast, dude - I'll take him for 2 bucks."
Keep Track of Everyone's Spending in the Auction
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One of the biggest advantages you'll have in an auction-style draft is knowing how much money everyone has left in the auction at all times. Look at the amount of money they have left, then look at their rosters to see how many spots they have left to fill. |
Once you see that you're getting down to the time in the auction where most of the teams have the same number of roster spots to fill as they have dollars left to spend (i.e.: $7 left; 7 empty roster spots), that's when you want to reserve an extra dollar over your opponents.
You always want to be in a position to be able to buy any player who comes up at any point in the auction. By contrast, if you're too much of a cheap bastard where you finish the draft with any money left over, you're probably screwed for the season. If you end up in this predicament, you'd better get crackin' on the free agent wires in the first week of the season, or you'd better start trading some studs early (who may end up on the DL), or some top prospects early (who may end up sucking ass all year).
You always want to be in a position to be able to buy any player who comes up at any point in the auction. By contrast, if you're too much of a cheap bastard where you finish the draft with any money left over, you're probably screwed for the season. If you end up in this predicament, you'd better get crackin' on the free agent wires in the first week of the season, or you'd better start trading some studs early (who may end up on the DL), or some top prospects early (who may end up sucking ass all year).
