Auction Calculator: Advanced Features

The following is a look at some of the advanced features of the auction calculator. Adding keepers, how to change the value of relievers, and inputing points leagues are discussed. Lucas Kelly went over the basics of the calculator in this article.

Keepers

The Keeper function is one of the best features of the auction calculator. Since it was added, I’ve used it every year for my home keeper league and will again this year. While it takes a bit of time to set up, it’s well worth the effort.

The first step is to input the league settings for the individual league (need link) as noted in the introductory article. The next step is the long one. Every keeper and his cost needs to be entered. Here is an example with a $50 Mike Trout and the resulting league.

This step needs to be repeated for every player and could take a decent amount of time depending on the number of keepers. Once the players are added, there are two major advantages going forward.

First, the expected inflation compared to a redraft league is calculated. In this example, Spencer Torkelson is projected to cost more than $1 more than in a redraft league.

The reason for the increase is that the top third basemen are already rostered at below-market rates and the few remaining options become more desirable. Since most of the keepers are kept well below market costs, I’ve seen the Adjusted rate be more than twice the Dollars value.

The second advantage is that position scarcity becomes obvious. The calculator might point to only one or two top players at a position and the bidding might be intense for the. Sometimes, several options exist but all the players are barely above replacement level. In this instance, other managers might pay up for the best bad player, but since the players are interchangeable, there is no reason to pay a premium.

Reliever Value Adjustment

Calculating reliever value will be specific to each league’s historic dynamics. In most common issue is that the results of the auction calculator seem to include too many relievers and overvalue them. While middle relievers have value, fantasy managers start the season focusing on finding reliable starters.

An example, assume a 15-team with nine pitcher slots (no relief or starter designation) where just the 30 closers get drafted. If the interface is set to nine pitchers, here are the values for the top five relievers.

An additional, 61 relievers have values of $1 or more and are in the draft pool.

The first step to solve this discrepancy is to split apart the pitcher pool into seven starters and two relievers (15 teams x 2 RP = 30 closers).

The cost of the 30 remaining relievers drops quite a bit with the top ones down about $5.

If these values are still too high for the league’s history, they can be lowered using the aptly named “Artificially Decrease Relief Pitcher Value” feature.

This feature doesn’t work if a zero is in the RP box under Pitchers. Also, if someone would only want the 30 top relievers but increase the value, a negative value can be used.

Points Leagues

For those who play in points leagues, most of them can be set up using the Points feature with several preset conditions for our Ottoneu Leagues.

It’s fairly straightforward to just add in a league’s individual setting with our available options. For example, here are the settings for a standard ESPN points league, and here they are entered for a league.

One adjustment I had to make was adding Total Bases since we don’t have that option. For Total Bases, a 1 in is for 1B, a 2 for 2B, a 3 for 3B, and a 4 for HR.

I’ve gone ahead and set up some of the most common points leagues. In some instances, some adjustments needed to be made.

All set with no adjustments

• ESPN
• BB10’s
• NFBC Bestballs

Adjustments made

• Yahoo
• CBS
• Fantrax

The two categories we don’t currently have on our auction calculator are Quality Starts and pitcher Hit by Pitches. For Quality starts, the points added from it are included in the Wins category. It’s not ideal but the best that can be done. For Hit-by-Pitch, the walk deduction is increased to -1.13 (15794 walks were issued in 2021 and 2112 players hit). If this change was not added, pitchers would get artificially bumped up across the board.

One other issue is that Fantrax only has one position eligibility (most at the position) so double-check position availability.