Fantasy baseball auction drafts require a lot of preparation, strategy and adjusting on the fly. It's not enough to simply print out fantasy baseball auction values and enter your draft.
Managers will need to budget accordingly, target players who are underbid, adjust their budget after each winning bid and heed the advise of RotoWire's fantasy experts. Here's what you need to know about the ins and outs of dominating your fantasy baseball auction draft.
How Fantasy Baseball Auction Drafts Work
Each fantasy baseball manager begins the draft with the same amount of money, typically $260. Managers must fill out their entire roster using up to that amount. A manager throws out a player to be bid on, and the bidding continues until only one high bidder remains. That manager then owns the player, and the winning bid is subtracted from his or her overall pool of money.
It's widely considered a more fair way to draft because all managers have the access to the league's top players.
Establishing Player Values and Budget Before Draft Day
The RotoWire experts have done exhaustive work creating MLB projections for all the current players. That, in turn, creates auction values for each player based on your league settings. Managers can tinker with those values based on whether they like that player, or want to avoid them. Note that you should still have auction values for players you don't intend to go after, just to get a feel for how much your league-mates are spending.
Fantasy baseball auction drafts require a lot of preparation, strategy and adjusting on the fly. It's not enough to simply print out fantasy baseball auction values and enter your draft.
Managers will need to budget accordingly, target players who are underbid, adjust their budget after each winning bid and heed the advise of RotoWire's fantasy experts. Here's what you need to know about the ins and outs of dominating your fantasy baseball auction draft.
How Fantasy Baseball Auction Drafts Work
Each fantasy baseball manager begins the draft with the same amount of money, typically $260. Managers must fill out their entire roster using up to that amount. A manager throws out a player to be bid on, and the bidding continues until only one high bidder remains. That manager then owns the player, and the winning bid is subtracted from his or her overall pool of money.
It's widely considered a more fair way to draft because all managers have the access to the league's top players.
Establishing Player Values and Budget Before Draft Day
The RotoWire experts have done exhaustive work creating MLB projections for all the current players. That, in turn, creates auction values for each player based on your league settings. Managers can tinker with those values based on whether they like that player, or want to avoid them. Note that you should still have auction values for players you don't intend to go after, just to get a feel for how much your league-mates are spending.
Then you'll want to budget the dollar amounts you want to spend on different tiers of players and positions. If you are dead set on leaving with Aaron Judge, you'll need to find some cheap fillers later in the draft. If you want to be more balanced and not spend more than $30 on any player, you should attack the middle-tier players once the best players have come off the board, because you should have more money than most other managers.
"You'll also want to split your budget between hitters and pitchers, spending usually around two thirds on hitters and one third on pitchers," RotoWire baseball expert Erik Halterman. "I usually stick pretty strictly to that split (give or take a few dollars), but I don't budget things out to the level of X dollars on my 1B, Y dollars on my 3B, and Z dollars on my corner infielder, for example, because I want to stay flexible and take whatever bargains present themselves."
Stars and Scrubs vs. Balanced Roster Auction Strategies
A good rule of thumb is to treat your auction draft similar to a snake draft by winning one player per "round." That means securing one player within the top-12 fantasy auction values, one player ranked 13-24th, and so on. If you want to get aggressive and go after multiple stars, you'll want to dig deep into RotoWire's sleepers to hopefully find cheap value later in the draft for just a couple of bucks. RotoWire's fantasy baseball news will let you know about spring training surprises who may be available to be drafted for a low dollar amount.
A balanced roster leaves you with more flexibility, but managers who take this strategy also run the risk of not having that foundational star to anchor their team during down weeks. Check out RotoWire's strategy advice for greater detail, but we recommend targeting a few players in each of the tiers and then adjusting as the draft goes on. You'll likely be able to steal some undervalued players while picking up sleepers late in the draft.
Still, a stars-and-scrubs strategy can work if you're willing to dig deep for late talent after grabbing multiple stars early on.
"The beauty of an auction is that both strategies absolutely can work. I enter each draft with an open mind, ready to lean to either end of the spectrum depending on what the room gives me," Halterman said. "Note, though, that in a very deep league such as an AL- or NL-only league, the scrubs will be so scrubby (as in genuine bench players rather than boring players with everyday playing time) that I wouldn't recommend an all-out stars-and-scrubs approach."
Reading the Room and Exploiting Auction Draft Dynamics
Draft day always plays out differently than you anticipated. But it's still important to use RotoWire's dynamic fantasy baseball draft kit and other tools to prepare yourself. This is especially important in auction leagues where bidding on certain players is much lower than anticipated. Even if you weren't planning to target a certain player, you may need to change on the fly if the bidding is low. Value comes in all shapes and sizes, and sometimes when you least expect it.
"There will be periods of any auction where players are consistently going for a dollar or two more than expected and periods where players are consistently going for a dollar or two less than expected," Halterman said. "Nominate expensive players you don't want when the market is hot, and try to do most of your buying when the market is cold."
It's also good to pay attention to whether certain positions are going for higher than anticipated. Closers often have the widest range of outcomes because of their specialty in the saves category. If the first few closers go for higher dollar amounts, you may need to adjust your budgeting in real-time using RotoWire's fantasy baseball draft assistant. The same goes for positions with more scarcity, like catcher and second baseman.
Common Auction Draft Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
There are a handful of mistakes that beginners can make in auction drafts. The first is leaving with too much money. You can't take leftover funds with you, so make sure you budget out how much you want to spend on certain positions and players, and then adjust those numbers based on how much you spend on other players. You should leave the draft with a few $1 players knowing that you'll hit the waiver wire at some point in the season based on the MLB injury report and changes to MLB depth charts.
Perhaps the biggest mistake many managers make is sticking too rigidly to their auction values. If you're really a fan of a certain player and think he'll outperform where he's listed on RotoWire's fantasy baseball rankings, it's totally fine to spend an extra few dollars to secure his services. You'll just need to spend less in other areas during the draft. Get your players. It's the entire point of an auction draft.
"I find it useful to write down a dollar value for each slot on my roster (i.e. my most expensive hitter might be $34, my second-most might be $26, my third-most might be $23, etc.), and while I won't stick rigidly to those numbers, having them as guidelines helps make sure I don't buy too many (or too few) players from a certain tier," Halterman said.
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