Navigating the Auction

Last night I completed my third straight ottoneu auction in as many nights, and sixth overall so far this draft season. Every year the auctions I’m a part of seem tighter and more difficult, but the massive hours I’ve spent participating in ottoneu auctions the past two seasons has given me a good feel for what to expect. Let’s take a look at the different auction phases, and the strategies for dealing with them.

Before I start breaking down the auction phases, I want to take a moment to discuss the interplay between auction preparation and the application of that prep work during the auction. As I have discussed in other articles, my prep work involves generating dollar values, modifying those values using the inflation rate for that particular league, identifying positional and specific player targets, and generating expected auction prices for each player to identify bargains and players I value much less than others (these are the players I try to nominate in the early going).

How much of that plan actually gets carried out in my auctions? Less than you might think. As the great American philosopher Mike Tyson once said- “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face”, and the typical ottoneu auction will likely leave you feeling like you took an uppercut to the jaw. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t have a plan going into an auction, but rather that any plan you make must be fluid and adaptable, rather than rigid, otherwise you are bound to make mistakes (or more mistakes than usual!) in the heat of the auction battle.

Auction Appetizer

This is a sort of mini-phase that kicks off each auction, lasting through the first half dozen or so nominations. In both a first year auction and a returning league my experience has been that owners are generally fairly passive during the first half round of the auction, as they sit on their piles of auction dollars and see other worthy targets they prefer to spend their money on. My advice for this phase? If you plan on competing this is the best time to throw out a stud and acquire him at par or at a slight discount, so if you have an early nomination don’t be shy about throwing out one of your top targets.

Early Auction

Once the introductory phase of the auction is over we reach the phase of the auction that is most variable from league to league. In some leagues this phase is characterized by heavy bidding as owners spend whatever it takes to acquire studs (this is more typical in first year leagues, as all twelve owners are trying to compete and the demand for production is high even though the supply is also high), and in other leagues the passivity of the introductory phase carries over into the early phase (this is more typical is returning leagues, where there might only be two or three strong contenders and the studs being nominated may not fit each contender’s roster and budget). The key to navigating this phase is to identify as quickly as possible if the league is being aggressive, or passive, or somewhere in between. When your league mates are being aggressive in the early phase, it may be tempting to follow the herd and overspend yourself, but be very careful that you don’t ruin your flexibility in a panic. In a passive league, this phase carries the same advantages as the very beginning of the auction, and you should try to acquire a couple top tier assets at good prices. Another strategy I like to employ during this phase is to nominate younger and lower tier assets, those types of players will always auction at a higher price early in the auction than they will middle and late since there is a greater chance of more owners having the roster space and cap space to get involved.

Mid-Auction

This is the phase where the trends begin to reverse themselves. If the league was aggressive early, it will begin to become more passive as teams start to run into lineup and cap space constraints. If the league was passive early, aggression will become the norm as owners realize the talent pool is dwindling and there is more demand (auction dollars) than supply (productive players). Another key characteristic of this phase are positional “bubbles”. These bubbles occur when there are only one or two players at a particular tier within a given position, and owners become extremely aggressive in order to acquire one of the last players of the tier. The other night in the Champions League (#530) auction Matt Holliday went for $32 because there was a bubble at OF, Holliday was the only $10+ outfielder left and two teams (myself included!) traded blows in an attempt to not be shut out at the position. The biggest lesson? Don’t wait until there are only a couple options left at a position to fill it, as the bubble will explode in your face!

Late Auction

Depending on how tight your league is, this is either the phase where you can gobble up $10 players for $2 or $3, or the phase where you fill out the back end of your roster with $1 fliers. Given the roster and cap space constraints all owners are dealing with at this point of the auction, the winning bids will likely be determined by who has the most cap/roster flexibility and/or whoever nominates the player first. This (and the mid-auction) are often the points in a first year auction where you can acquire quite a bit of value, but in a returning league your options will be more limited.

Do you have any other lessons based on your auction experiences? Let me know in the comments!