Auction Fantasy Football League

[Cblust21]

I will be joining my first Auction Fantasy Football League this year. I've always been in regular snake-type drafting leagues and had some success. Any tips for the auction? What should I be expecting? We are starting out with $200. TIA.

[Papa Chubby]

I've run an auction league for about 8 years. Here are my suggestions.

Don't trust the auction values that you find on some websites. Expect AP to go for at least $80, maybe even $90. The rest of the top RB's should be in the $60's and $50's.

Don't follow the advice of the "experts" that recommend you set maximum bidding limits and wait for bargains. If you do this in a good league, you'll end up with a deep team full of crap players. If people seem to be bidding too much for receivers, you need to jump in or you'll end up with Eddie Royal as your #1 guy (but you'll get a great deal on him!)

I recommend spending between $150 and $170 on you starting skill position players. How you split up this money is up to you, which is the beauty of an auction league. You can grab a top player at each position, then settle for second rate players to fill out your roster. You can get a couple stud RB's. You can get a bunch of $20-30 guys. Or you can get a balanced team similar to what you would get with an auction. Auction values roughly relate to draft rounds as follows (at least in my system):

1st round: $80-$50
2nd round: $49-$33
3rd round: $32-$21
4th round: $20-$17
5th round: $16-$13
6th round: $12-$9

For a balanced team, I'd recommend something like:

RB1: $60 (Forte, MJD, Turner, etc.)
RB2 or WR1: $40 (Jacobs, Barber, Moss, Wayne, etc.)
WR1 or RB2: $25 (Houshmandzadeh, Welker, Grant, Lynch, etc.)
WR2: $20 (Bryant, Jackson, etc.)
WR3 or QB: $15
QB or WR3: $10

(Note that my league does not include TE's, so I don't know how to plan for them.)

A suggestion for the actual auction: assuming you get a chance every now and then to nominate a player for the auction, never nominate a player you really want in the early rounds. Nominate a player that you don't want that you think is overvalued, and try to get a couple of other teams into a bidding war. They'll have less money to compete against you when the players you want are nominated.

[Cblust21]

Good advice, Thanks.

[JeffGarcia]

I would say try to do some auctions on ESPN if you have the time. Not the mocks, but join a public league auction even if you won't update the team during the season. A lot more people in the mock auctions seemed to leave without trying, or do stuff like getting into a bidding war over Barry Bonds (baseball, but insert, like, some hilarious 3rd string QB here).

Even if you don't stay until the very end, I think you would get a better sense of the values that people are going for and how to manage the auction money you've got.

[Papa Chubby]

And another thing...

If its not automatically presented to you, its a great idea to keep track of every team's rosters and remaining funds available during the auction. When you get into the "middle rounds", you'll want to know who is looking for what positions, and how much money they've got available to spend. This'll give you an idea of where you may and may not find some bargains.

[Papa Chubby]

Here are the top picks from our auction last year. Entries in italics are keepers, who could be reserved by spending 3x their previous year's auction value (or $20 for waiver wire acquisitions). Note that our values may be about 5-10% higher than they should be because of the value gained from keepers.

Team	Pos	Player	Value
Team Bud	RB	L. Tomlinson	$84
Tropical Trash	RB	J. Addai	$83
E & D's TD's	RB	A. Peterson	$81
Rickfits	RB	B. Westbrook	$71
Vapor Trails	RB	S. Jackson	$67
Hammerheads	RB	F. Gore	$60
Hammerheads	RB	C. Portis	$59
Sikeopaths	WR	R. Moss	$56
Felons	RB	M. Lynch	$55
Mx5	RB	M. Barber	$54
Asskickers	RB	J. Lewis	$50
Asskickers	WR	T. Owens	$49
Hoof Hearted	WR	R. Wayne	$48
Hoof Hearted	RB	L Johnson	$48
Mx5	QB	T. Brady	$48
Felons	WR	B. Edwards	$46
Vapor Trails	WR	A. Johnson	$46
Hammerheads	WR	L. Fitzgerald	$45
Lunatics	WR	M. Colston	$40
Lunatics	WR	TJ Houshmandzedeh	$36
Rickfits	QB	P. Manning	$36
Asskickers	RB	W. McGahee	$35
Vapor Trails	QB	D. Brees	$33
Felons	RB	M. Jones Drew	$32
Team Bud	QB	T. Romo	$32
Rickfits	RB	W. Parker	$30
Sikeopaths	RB	L. Maroney	$30
E & D's TD's	WR	W. Welker	$28
Tropical Trash	WR	Chad Johnson	$28
Lunatics	WR	T. Holt	$27
Lunatics	WR	A. Boldin	$26
Rickfits	WR	S. Smith (Car)	$25
Tropical Trash	WR	P. Burress	$25
Lunatics	RB	E. James	$25
Rickfits	WR	G. Jennings	$23
Mx5	RB	R. Bush	$21
Tropical Trash	QB	B. Roethlisberger	$21
Hoof Hearted	WR	R. White	$20
E & D's TD's	RB	R. Grant	$20
E & D's TD's	RB	J. Jones	$20
Hoof Hearted	RB	T. Jones	$20
Mx5	RB	E. Graham	$20
Vapor Trails	WR	Roy Williams	$19
Asskickers	WR	C. Chambers	$18
Sikeopaths	WR	M. Harrison	$18
Team Bud	WR	H. Ward	$18
Sikeopaths	RB	B. Jacobs	$18
Felons	WR	Cal Johnson	$17
Mx5	RB	D. McFadden	$17
Sikeopaths	RB	K. Smith	$16
Felons	QB	C. Palmer	$15
Felons	WR	J. Cotchery	$14
Team Bud	RB	R. Brown	$14
Hoof Hearted	WR	S. Moss	$12
Sikeopaths	WR	B. Marshall	$12
Asskickers	WR	N. Burleson	$11
Sikeopaths	WR	J. Witten	$11
Hoof Hearted	QB	E. Manning	$11
Hoof Hearted	RB	Rudi Johnson	$10
Lunatics	RB	D. McAllister	$10
Sikeopaths	RB	R. Williams	$10
Tropical Trash	RB	S. Young	$10
Asskickers	QB	D. Garrard	$10
E & D's TD's	WR	S. Holmes	$9
Mx5	WR	D. Bowe	$9
Team Bud	WR	K. Winslow	$9
Team Bud	RB	R. Rice	$9
Tropical Trash	RB	M. Forte	$9
Vapor Trails	RB	M. Turner	$9
E & D's TD's	QB	J. Cutler	$9
Hoof Hearted	WR	A. Gates	$8
Mx5	WR	L. Evans	$8

[Papa Chubby]

Here are my computed "fair market values" for this year's top players. Let me know if you think anything seems way out of whack. These values are computed for a 14 team league. For a 12 team league, fair value will be about 10% lower.

Value	Player
$85	Peterson, Adrian MIN RB
$78	Turner, Michael ATL RB
$75	Jones-Drew, Maurice JAC RB
$70	Forte, Matt CHI RB
$64	Tomlinson, LaDainian SDC RB
$60	Jackson, Steven STL RB
$59	Fitzgerald, Larry ARI WR
$57	Williams, DeAngelo CAR RB
$57	Brees, Drew NOS QB
$54	Johnson, Chris TEN RB
$54	Moss, Randy NEP WR
$52	Johnson, Andre HOU WR
$51	Brady, Tom NEP QB
$49	Gore, Frank SFO RB
$46	Slaton, Steve HOU RB
$46	Johnson, Calvin DET WR
$44	Westbrook, Brian PHI RB
$44	Wayne, Reggie IND WR
$43	Manning, Peyton IND QB
$41	Jacobs, Brandon NYG RB
$41	Jennings, Greg GBP WR
$38	Smith, Steve CAR WR
$38	Barber, Marion DAL RB
$36	Boldin, Anquan ARI WR
$36	Portis, Clinton WAS RB
$35	White, Roddy ATL WR
$33	Rodgers, Aaron GBP QB
$32	Colston, Marques NOS WR
$30	Owens, Terrell BUF WR
$29	Brown, Ronnie MIA RB
$29	Rivers, Philip SDC QB
$28	Welker, Wes NEP WR
$26	Grant, Ryan GBP RB
$26	Bowe, Dwayne KCC WR
$24	Thomas, Pierre NOS RB
$24	Houshmandzadeh, T.J. SEA WR
$24	Warner, Kurt ARI QB
$23	Smith, Kevin DET RB
$23	Williams, Roy DAL WR
$22	Romo, Tony DAL QB
$21	Ochocinco, Chad CIN WR
$20	McFadden, Darren OAK RB
$19	Marshall, Brandon DEN WR
$19	Addai, Joseph IND RB
$18	Jackson, Vincent SDC WR
$18	Bush, Reggie NOS RB
$18	McNabb, Donovan PHI QB
$17	Edwards, Braylon CLE WR
$16	Jackson, DeSean PHI WR
$16	Lynch, Marshawn BUF RB
$16	Gonzalez, Anthony IND WR
$15	Jones, Thomas NYJ RB
$15	Holmes, Santonio PIT WR
$15	Moreno, Knowshon DEN RB
$14	Ryan, Matt ATL QB
$13	Johnson, Larry KCC RB
$13	Berrian, Bernard MIN WR
$12	Royal, Eddie DEN WR
$12	Ward, Hines PIT WR
$12	Parker, Willie PIT RB
$11	Schaub, Matt HOU QB
$11	Bryant, Antonio TBB WR
$11	Ward, Derrick TBB RB
$11	Evans, Lee BUF WR
$11	Witten, Jason DAL TE
$10	Steelers, Pittsburgh PIT Def
$10	White, LenDale TEN RB
$10	Cutler, Jay CHI QB
$10	Moss, Santana WAS WR
$9	Stewart, Jonathan CAR RB
$9	Wells, Chris ARI RB
$9	Gates, Antonio SDC TE
$8	Palmer, Carson CIN QB
$8	Rice, Ray BAL RB
$8	Hester, Devin CHI WR
$8	Gonzalez, Tony ATL TE
$7	Benson, Cedric CIN RB
$7	Ravens, Baltimore BAL Def
$7	Moore, Lance NOS WR
$7	Jones, Felix DAL RB
$7	Roethlisberger, Ben PIT QB
$7	Giants, New York NYG Def
$7	Driver, Donald GBP WR
$7	Cotchery, Jerricho NYJ WR
$6	Coles, Laveranues CIN WR
$6	Manning, Eli NYG QB
$6	Clark, Dallas IND TE
$6	Vikings, Minnesota MIN Def
$6	Sproles, Darren SDC RB
$6	Walter, Kevin HOU WR
$6	Brown, Donald IND RB
$5	Jones, Julius SEA RB
$5	Holt, Torry JAC WR
$5	Cassel, Matt KCC QB
$5	Lewis, Jamal CLE RB
$5	Gostkowski, Stephen NEP PK
$5	Avery, Donnie STL WR
$5	Eagles, Philadelphia PHI Def
$5	Harvin, Percy MIN WR
$5	Titans, Tennessee TEN Def

[Ezekiel P. Jebediah]

I've got a spreadsheet set up for a 12 team league with $200 cap....can help you keep track of other teams limits. Our league is such that you have to have at least $1 remaining to bid on players to fill out your roster. PM me if you are interested and I can e-mail it to you for you to customize or whatever.