This Is Why We Can’t Have Elite Things – Thoughts From An Expert Auction
Every auction is different, but the one constant in any given auction is that things can go careening off the rails in an instant. Last night, I participated in an experts’ auction along with a group of writers from Yahoo, RotoWire, Razzball and more. It is a 14-team rotisserie league with 27-man rosters, an innings cap of 1,450 and a standard $260 auction budget, with on-base percentage instead of batting average, and saves plus holds instead of saves. You can check the league out for yourself right here.
Let’s start off by taking a look at my team, which I drafted with an old friend of mine named Seth Oberlander. He has absolutely zero social media presence, but he might start Tweeting again if a few of you follow him. Anyway, about that team we drafted. Here it is, followed by a few general lessons about auctions, as viewed through the lens of this particular one (special thanks to Brad Johnson for teaching my HTML-challenged brain how to make these tables):
| Pos | Name | Price | Pos | Name | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C | Russell Martin (PIT) | $4 | P | Yu Darvish (TEX) | $26 |
| C | Alex Avila (DET) | $1 | P | Stephen Strasburg (WAS) | $25 |
| 1B | Freddie Freeman (ATL) | $26 | P | James Shields (KC) | $16 |
| 2B | Matt Carpenter (STL) | $17 | P | Tony Cingrani (CIN) | $10 |
| 3B | Martin Prado (ARI) | $12 | P | Jonathan Papelbon (PHI) | $6 |
| SS | Everth Cabrera (SD) | $16 | P | Jeff Samardzija (CHC) | $6 |
| CI | Chris Carter (HOU) | $4 | P | Sean Doolittle (OAK) | $1 |
| MI | Jonathan Villar (HOU) | $3 | P | Drew Hutchison (TOR) | $3 |
| OF | Shin-Soo Choo (TEX) | $28 | P | Paco Rodriguez (LAD) | $1 |
| OF | Jason Heyward (ATL) | $16 | BN | Aroldis Chapman (CIN) | $7 |
| OF | Austin Jackson (DET) | $10 | |||
| OF | Dexter Fowler (HOU) | $3 | |||
| OF | Christian Yelich (MIA) | $7 | |||
| Util | Khris Davis (MIL) | $6 | |||
| BN | Matt Joyce (TB) | $1 | |||
| BN | Daniel Nava (BOS) | $2 | |||
| NA | George Springer (HOU) | $1 |
1. Recognize and react to trends in your auction. I can safely say that I’ve never spent my first $51 on pitching before last night. Yet, there I was, with Darvish and Strasburg as my first two players purchased. Why did I do this?
It was very clear from the start that the elite position players were being significantly overbid. Another owner in this league, Joe Bond, noted in his recap of our draft that the top 20 players were all inflated far beyond their value, and I completely agree. Miguel Cabrera went for $60, Mike Trout for $59, Paul Goldschmidt for $48, etc.
At this point, Seth and I had clearly recognized the trend, now it was time to react. While many other owners were emptying their pockets on the top position players, we quietly rostered Darvish and Strasburg. As it turns out, both were good values in the context of this particular auction; they’re both strikeout machines, and Darvish’s lingering neck injury is less worrisome in a league with an innings cap. I hardly ever advocate spending this much on starting pitching, but when you’re dealing with an innings cap and auction values like these, a couple elite K-rate starters are far from a bad investment.
2. Don’t blow up your budget too early.
This can manifest itself in a few different ways. Often, it’s splurging on one/two elite player(s) — one owner in the league spent his first $96 on Trout ($59) and Joey Votto ($37). Consequently, his 27-man roster has 13 one-dollar players. Another owner spent $179 buying five of the first 28 players nominated. With just $81 to play with, and 350 players remaining to be auctioned, he was a non-factor for the remainder of the auction.
3. Review your league settings and take advantage of any abnormalities.
The aforementioned Brad Johnson said in his article from Wednesday that “even experts can struggle when category changes are present.” I can’t think of a better way to describe how Kenley Jansen cost $19, Craig Kimbrel cost $17, Greg Holland $16…in a saves plus holds league. My $1 Paco Rodriguez and Sean Doolittle look even better through that lens.
Furthermore, you may notice in that table up there that this league has a “Not Active” roster spot. Seth and I decided before the draft even started that we wanted George Springer in our NA slot, as I have previously professed my love for him on this very site. As we neared the end of the auction, Springer still hadn’t been nominated. We decided to nominate him and spend our last $10 on him, if need be. Very few teams had much money to play with at this point, and those that did still had active needs to fill. We figured $10 would be more than enough.
I nominated Springer for $1, and much to my surprise, sat there and watched the clock wind down to zero. Less than half of the teams in the league rostered an inactive player, leading me to assume that the majority of owners forgot the league had a NA slot, or never noticed to begin with. Likely because of this, I got Springer for $1 and can just wait on him with zero risk.
4. Trust your auction values and don’t let other owners force your hand.
It would have been loads of fun to jump into the madness last night and bid through the roof on the top players. However, I had my auction values going in, and I spent too much time and effort preparing them to just toss them out the window. Don’t get caught up in the emotion of an exciting, overactive draft, because you will find yourself wondering how you spent so much money on [insert players here].
According to my auction values for this league, I overpaid by $1 each on Choo, Freeman, Prado and Martin, and by $3 on Cabrera. I’m not going to fret about a $1 overpay, and I’m okay with what we paid for Cabrera, seeing as he could conceivably lead the league in steals. Other than that, according to my numbers, it was fair value or better on 22 of our 27 players. Trust your preparation, not your emotions.
~
All that said, our own auction was far from perfect. If I could do it again, I’d still buy either Darvish or Strasburg, but I probably wouldn’t buy them both. I’m glad to have them, and got both for pretty good values, but in the end we still definitely ended up spending more than we wanted to on starting pitching. I’m not thrilled with the catching situation; both Martin and Avila are significantly more valuable in OBP leagues than ones that use AVG, but it’s still an underwhelming tandem. I also have no idea how we ended up with so many Astros.
At the end of the day, I got a bunch of really good values (I’m especially proud of my $3 Dexter Fowler) and a team that I like a great deal. It’s not perfect, but nothing ever is. All of the advice I’ve given here may seem sort of basic or obvious, and in a way it is. However, go back to what Brad said about how even experts get thrown off sometimes. It’s pretty easy to get swept up by the momentum of an auction; hell, I’ll freely admit that it happens to me sometimes, and I bet it happens to you too. It happened last night to a handful of intelligent people who really know their stuff. Keeping these basic tips in mind can make all the difference.
Scott Strandberg started writing for Rotographs in 2013. He works in small business consultation, and he also writes A&E columns for The Norman Transcript newspaper. Scott lives in Seattle, WA.
you dont have very much power, does that concern you at all?
The problem with waiting too long while everyone else is spending like crazy is you can end up without any competition in the end game. Yes, you will get a bunch of very cheap bargains, but you will also leave money on the table and you won’t have a deficit of top players.
Exactly. My advice for when you see the early round crazies is to join. Sometimes I even advocate trend setting the crazies if you anticipate early-round aggression. The reason I say that is a $59 Trout is much more valuable than a $48 Goldschmidt.
The Blog Wars draft went this way (as I wrote on Weds). I took Miggy for 61 rather than fight for the 2nd tier of elites and I later took Bautista for $5 over my value because I was getting to the point where I had more dollars than I needed. My only true regret from that league was that I had to roster Andre Ethier instead of Josh Reddick. That qualifies as small fries.
Very true. Walking that middle ground is the biggest challenge in any auction.
My best attempt at a strategy is make sure your $ per open roster slot stays in the middle of the pack until you’ve hit the mid-point of the draft. Then, if there hasn’t already been “bargain” period because of a timid draft, you start to bid more aggressively on remaining quality players until you are left with $2 per remaining slot. The $2 per slot gives you a nice veto power over the folks who can only pay the minimum when you reach the end game.
“Less than half of the teams in the league rostered an inactive player, leading me to assume that the majority of owners forgot the league had a NA slot, or never noticed to begin with.”
How do experts not know the league’s settings/rules? Isn’t that like rule #1 of any fantasy league?
The notion of an “expert’s league” can be a misnomer. Yes, they’re all experts, but no that doesn’t mean they apply their expertise. Many of these leagues aren’t really real. Someone’s just drafting to write an article about it. Or they don’t have any intention of really paying a whole lot of attention during the season. Experts often participate in so many leagues that they don’t have the time to learn the peculiarities of non-standard scoring. Then in their article they say “Don’t forget to learn your league rules. Case in point this one league I drafted in where I ended up with ….”
“The problem with waiting too long while everyone else is spending like crazy is you can end up without any competition in the end game. Yes, you will get a bunch of very cheap bargains, but you will also leave money on the table and you won’t have a deficit of top players.”
I agree with this. You don’t have to follow everybody down the rabbit hole, but what often happens is that instead of managers slowing down after the elite guys go off the table, enough of them continue spending premium prices on guys through the first 50 or so players. So you end up either paying a premium for the 2nd and 3rd tier players or missing out and ending up with money, as was mentioned above.
If you retain some level of discipline you can usually have enough $ for a few really good values, but I do think you HAVE to be ready to pay a premium for elite players above and beyond what they’ll likely earn. Think about in a draft league – would you trade a Trout or a Miggy (each a mid-$50s player) for two $25 players like Jay Bruce and Jose Reyes? Even if those guys might add up to the same total value as Trout, there absolutely is a premium placed on elite guys. I think you should be willing to go a few bucks over your projections of what they will earn to get them and $59 on Trout in a 14-team mixed league doesn’t shock me at all.
I disagree. Miggy at $60, he can have the best fantasy season of all time and you still probably aren’t breaking even. You decreased your variance in that he’s unlikely to be a total bust, but on the other hand your season is one injury from over. I’d much rather go a few bucks over on a $20 guy with the potential to hit $30. Why lock yourself into negative value?
I’m sure they happen, but I haven’t seen an auction go crazy from #1 to #200. I have seen them go crazy for the first 50 guys, and then everyone after goes at value (until the end, when $5 guys go for $1). In those drafts I just spend my money at value in the 2nd/3rd tier and roll with production at every position. You have to be flexible and aggressive, but there’s a lot of players in the $15-25 range, and it only takes about 12 of them to use up your budget. Money at the end of the auction is inexcusable, but if you know your middle tier guys it’s hard to imagine not finding anywhere to spend your cash.
“but on the other hand your season is one injury from over.”
That’s a bit of an exaggeration. You’re also assuming that 2 $30 guys or 3 $20 guys are going to be available at cost. Usually, it’s the $10 and under bin that goes at or below cost.
And I didn’t finish making my point.
If you’re forced to build most of your team on player with $10 or lower valuations, your season is much more over than if you lose Miggy in June.
If the elite players are overbid, you’ve got the following possibilities:
A) Some of the $15-$30 players are less overbid.
B) The overbidding continues at the same rate
C) The overbidding accelerates as the draft goes on.
My experience has mostly been A, that as wallets dwindle people get a little less aggressive. Many $15-$30 players will still be inflated, but not all of them.
If case B happens, you’re basically no better or worse off then if you’d taken Trout.
If case C happens, you do worse than average.
It may very well come down to league, that other people have seen more of case C then of case A. Personally I’ve always seen enough value in the middle rounds that if you pay attention to position dropoffs and keep an open mind you can get better value.
This is the same argument as the 2 3 WAR players vs a 6 WAR player. In my auction drafts, I usually end up with the equivalent of 4 3rd round picks because people always overbid on the Trouts and Cabreras since everyone agrees they are the top tier. Since there is more disagreement in rounds 3-5, you can get the players you target at below inflationary prices because not everyone will target them. In a 10 teamer, go all out and bid like crazy. Anything deeper warrants patience.
In a 14 team league there is significantly more money for the same elite players. For a #1b player, $60 in this format is equivalent to $45-$50 in a 10 or 12 teamer. The superstars get inflated but the scrubs will still be there for $1-$5.
To put it another way, if somebody gets Trout or Cabrera for $50, the other 13 teams screwed up royally.
I disagree. I would rather spend 65 on Trout in a 10 team league than 50 on him in a 15 team league.
Los has a good point, it swings both ways. There are more dollars per value unit above average so Trout and Cabrera should cost more in a 14 team league than a 12 team league. But the bottom of the barrel is also much scarier, so building a deep team carries more long term value. That’s easier to to if you don’t bust 20% of your budget on one player.
I just participated in a draft that had shockingly similar set. Same number of teams, roster spots, and the SV+HLD category. The obvious difference being a non-expert league.
For anyone that finds themself in a draft that uses SV+HLD and has daily transactions, here’s the strategy I advise. Draft 1 very high-end SP in first 3 rounds. Other than that, hold off on any other starters until after Round 10. And avoid the bullpen completely until the last 7 or 8 rounds of your draft and just load up on setup guys.
You’ll load up on hitters while other guys are grabbing 2nd tier SP and closers. The cadre of setup men I can slot in every day will lead to outstanding K, WHIP, ERA, and SV+HLD numbers. Last year I dominated those categories and ran away with the most pitching points.
This year I’ll be throwing out Clippard, Melancon, McGee, Santos, Tazawa, Walden, and Marshall. Hopefully they’ll work out like last year’s class of Robertson, Uehara, Rosenthal et al did.
Frankly number 3 is just disappointing. Its almost as if the experts did not even care about this draft then posted the results regardless. Add in the crazy amounts the top players went for and Im not even sure much can be taken from this draft. I guess you could take the “this is what COULD happen” approach, but it just looks like a bad free 10 team ESPN auction rather than an experts league.
What I think happens is that some of these guys run 15-20 leagues and have done 20-30 mocks. So they don’t feel the need to prep going into a draft because they have their values internalized. Then little wrinkles like SV+HLD don’t get included in their prices.
It’s worth noting, there have been only 24 reliever seasons with 30 or more holds over the last 5 seasons (about 5 per season). Only 2 have 40 or more (40,41). In the same period, there are 83 30 save seasons, 41 40 save seasons, and 3 50 save seasons. The point being that it’s easier to predictably accumulate saves.
Of course, Paco + Doolittle will put up the same volume as Kimbrel or Jansen for 1/10 the price. And they won’t be too far off on the other stats.
Brad, your high opinion of Paco is interesting, seeing as he’s likely 3rd or 4th in line for Holds in that bullpen, and he walks a lot of guys for a RP.
Why did you target him?
I didn’t target him, this is scott’s article and his team. I just got interested in the comments because we were talking about it yesterday.
I’m not particularly high on Paco but he still profiles to get 15-25 holds. As does Doolittle.
This was actually a good auction. In a 14 team innings cap league strasburg and darvish will be gold at those prices, as will shields. I expect that staff will earn at least 50-55pts if not more.
The bats you have some power lacking, but enough where a 4 or 5 finish isn’t out of question. Love Carter at $4 in OBP league, he did have a .320OBP last year and could easily improve to league average .335 or so, and the power is great. Speed and runs you shoudl be at least 11, if not 12 or higher. OBP will be close, but you should be able to get at least an 9 or 10 out of this group. RBI maybe 5 or 6 floor. Add it up you get a floor of 90 and upside you should be in it all year.
I’m always confused in my big league auction. Everyone always overvalue pitching, both SP and RP. I always get confused about when I should strike. I think you’re right about striking early in the auction on the side that is undervalued. I need to remember that next year.
As an Everth Cabrera owner, I hope he can lead the league in steals too.
and somebody else got Baez @ $1 for NA. to me the biggest danger in the face of a big inflation is that you are not the only who holds back, and then you end up in a bidding war over what is left of the talent pool, so you overspend on players who are never going to return value. Grabbing a few players at a little more than you wanted but not insane prices is perfect.
Yeah, the ‘experts’ in these leagues often remind me of members of congress who think they are ‘experts’ on various topics, from climate change to healthcare.
Yeah, stupid Republicans.
Yes ,and even dumber Democrats .
Can you recommend a good article that explains how to create auction values? For instance, I know Miggy and Trout are worth a lot more than other players in this points league I’m in, but I can’t figure out by how much. Further, the auction has $300, not $260, so even if I just used ESPN auction values, they would be off significantly.
So the fact that there are drastically different categories in this league and that the auction money is different, I’m sort of at a loss of how to generate my own values for players other than making some guesses.
You want an article, eh? There have been BOOKS written on this very topic. Check out Schechter’s Winning Fantasy Basbeall or the Projecting X system from Podhorzer, with embellishments and simplifications from Tanner Bell.
For me, the exact line where one becomes an “expert” is if you are making informed projections for every player that will be drafted for a given league, and assigning them relative values based on those projections.
“Can you recommend a good article that explains how to create auction values?”
In The Cafe I’ve seen a few good, slightly varying, methods of creating auction values from stat projections in leagues of varying sizes, rosters, and even with keepers. I’m not sure if a link from here would be appreciated or not, so I’ll refrain.
See the comment directly above, JR.
The cause for higher than normal auction values need to determined soon in a draft.
If hitters (pitchers) are going higher than expected, early. Throw out a high end pitcher (hitter) you don’t really want and see what he goes for.
If he goes low: This will help to determine if some owners are not using a 75-25 (or less) mix instead of a 70-30 mix and hitters (pitchers) are just going to cost more. In this case, I would get some cheaper than my estimated elite pitching and move the savings over to hitting.
If he also goes the higher => wait for the second tier of players and get a team full of $20 to $25 dollar players for $15 to $20. The money has to run out.
If the same value, move onto setup men, like Sergio Santos for $2. Team(s) could be dumping saves and they could be moving the money onto hitters. Call out Santos and, if live watch the reactions of others. He (or other major setup men) will be the people these guys hope to get late and you will know the tables interest. These owners hoping for a cheap pickup will now have to adjust. Maybe call them out so other slower owners pick up on what is happening.
Another move I like early is throwing out the ~#3 closer and see where the market stands.
I’m not sure if my question was understood. If Miggy is projected to get 1500 points in my league and trout 1400, and goldschmidt 1300, etc. What’s the best way for placing monetary values on them?
I know who the best players are already, but I’m not sure how to equate them to monetary values for an auction.
Rudy Gamble did on article on this exact topic over at Razzball. His values were for 12 and 15 teams, I believe.
I would have planned to load up on $1 setup guys and completely disregarded closers over $5. You’d be good in every pitching category except wins.
Then you should allocate those pitching dollars to overpaying for a couple elite hitters, like Choo. I also wouldn’t have bothered filling out my bench with all OFs, but go with RP’s whom you can play every day.
I thought about this, but you’d also have to essentially punt Ks since there are very few bench spots.
CJ in short you have to estimate how many guys at each position will be “starting” in your league – usually the number of starting roster spots times number of teams but if you have a couple Util spots you may have more 1B or OF starters, if you can rotate SPs daily you might have more SP starters, etc. The replacement level guys (last starter at each position) will be worth $1 and a function incorporating projected points is used to put dollar values on the other players in that position based on the projected points difference. I usually try to take a guy near the median at each position where my rankings/projections and the ranking/projections for the league I’m playing in are close and come up with a $ value for that guy and use the difference in $ values between him and the replacement guy divided by the difference in projected points as my $/points. If that comes up with $ values that I’m not comfortable with near the top (too high or low) I will adjust that guy’s $ value a bit.
Do this for each position, then add up the $ values for the total number of players that will be drafted. If this is above/below your team budget time number of teams in the league then hit all $ values with a factor.
You can also do other factors like adding in a hitting/pitching split (like 75%/25% for instance) of your budget, averaging these positional $ values with an overall $ value where you sort all players from every position in one list and value as if positions don’t count, you can add/subtract $s based on upside/downside percentages from your points projections.
Very similar league to my own, except for the innings limit … Looking to keep an eye on how things pan out / who gets targeted on waivers. Best of luck!
Too say that Kimbrel and Jansen have the same value as Doolittle and Rodriguez is laughable. It being a save and holds league means very little as neither Doolittle or Rodriguez are elite hold guys and even worse saves guys. You can easily find holds off the waiver wire, which I assume the Kimbrel and Jansen guys will do. Meanwhile you only have Doolittle and Rodriguez as your opening day bullpen.
He never said that kimbrel and jansen have the same value value as doolittle and paco.
In an innings capped league (where the cap comes into play), it does make sense to spend (relatively) more on pitching. I would have been comfortable going over the $101 spent here by a not insignificant amount. There is some risk zagging when everyone zigs, but the risk can be somewhat ameliorated by targeting specific hitting stats.
Since one wins by having your roster produce value beyond what it costs ,it seems to me that advocating spending a big chunk of your budget on players who are AT BEST only going to be worth what they cost is a losing strategy .It is much more productive to look for $10 players who will produce $15 of value , $1 players who will produce $5 and such.
60 is not too much for Cabrera, 59 is not too much for Trout, 48 is not too much for Goldschmidt … auction leagues peg superstar players with a projected value typically far lower than their actual value. Work it out and behold (the math isn’t hard but it’s dependent on league settings, of course). It’s one of the big inefficiencies in auction drafting, and why I have won every auction draft I have entered (some 10+) but one, in which I came second.
In a 14 team mixed league, replacement value is going to be very high. People overpay for little but their right to choose from an undifferentiated mass of similar players. People horde money, kowtowing to conventional wisdom about how much is too much for a superstar, and then overspend on borderline replacement value (see you $16 for Everth Cabrera) because they have money and nothing to do with it. Happens every draft.
The balanced approach, as seen above, has little upside. That’s not a winning roster. If your pitching doesn’t do what pitching does, disappoint, it’s a middle of the pack team.
Meanwhile, someone you have used your bully platform to chastise likely has a stars and scrubs team, and will likely win.
Not trying to be dick-ish, this is just one of those instances where conventional wisdom is very, very wrong. Rotographs could earn some renown and certainly a few devoted readers if it challenged that wisdom and proved it wrong.
Though virtually useless for this season, do you feel Miguel Sano is still a worthy stash for next season? How much will his injury effect his long-term power potential?