So at first I thought I wouldn’t have time to get to this but then said ‘ah heck, who needs to eat, sleep and go to work. We’re talking fantasy football here!’ and decided to get not only an auction strategy up and running but also post my Auction Values for 2012 Fantasy Football up before it’s too late. Alright maybe it already is too late but at least you can learn the inner workings of my brain if you are daring enough to dive in. You’ll notice guys in the top 5 for me have a top dollar value of $48. Let me do a quick explanation of that. First off, this is based on a $200 cap with 12 teams that features 16 total players per team. My strategy is simple: I am willing to spend 2% of the total salary of the league available on one given player. This adjusts for inflationary measures so for example in a ten team league, I’d spend up to $40 on the top players but in a 14 team league, it slips up to $56.  Now realize my auction values are based on what I’m willing to spend, not what the value of the player is. Snake drafts are better at telling you the value of a player with that regard. Auction drafts are all about how much you’re willing to spend and let me just tell you, I’m about as frugal as they come. Aaron Rodgers is the haute couture of my quarterback rankings, ergo he is worth spending $48 in a 12 team league to me though as we know from previous posts, I won’t be. Now I realize my strategy prices me out of some of the top ringers but it also saves me from getting into a bidding war where Arian Foster goes for $70. You have to really think about the value of that last pick. Will Arian support 35% of your team’s scoring for the year?  You are putting a lot of your eggs into one basket and if he’s hurt, those are now goose eggs. So now that we’ve covered my spending habits, let’s attack some approaches to how I view an Auction Draft for 2012 Fantasy Football.
Overall, I will be spending the early rounds putting players out that I won’t be drafting unless they fall to me by price. That means I will be putting the top five quarterbacks on the chopping block so that someone else overspends for their services. If the top five QBs are gone for this purpose, I will move on to players I feel I still have no chance in getting such as the top three running backs, wide receivers, and the top two tight ends. I want people to spend their money early and often so that I can start getting value from my picks. Once these players are gone, I will begin to throw out players that others believe in way more than I do, such as a Michael Turner or a Demaryius Thomas. It’s best to get those guys you’re pretty ‘meh’ on out there while someone still has big bucks to dive in on them with. I do not stop this strategy until we get to the $10 and under portion of the draft I start putting guys I like out. By then, if your plan went smoothly, the bidding wars will be minimal and you, much like Charlie Sheen, will be WINNING them. One thing to avoid in the draft early on is to nominate a player you’re actually high on. There’s too much money on the table and people still feel too rich not to dive in and drive the price up on them. You’ll find yourself overbidding just to get the players you want. That, my friends, is no bueno.
Now for how I would actually break down where I spend my money. This is a practice not enough managers put into play. It’s like walking into a video game store with a credit card with no budget in place. You know how well that would go. I really only want to spend 10% on a quarterback, so roughly $20 bucks. That puts me in the Matt Ryan chase, so I’m happy with that. For my first running back, I’m willing to go up to 24% – or $48 – of my cap on a running back but most likely given the price wars that will happen, I will be in at $35, or 17.5%. I would willingly go up to that price again for my RB2 so long as the value is there. This leaves me with my WR1 going for 15% ($30), WR2 for 10% ($20), which leaves both my WR3 and my TE going for 5% ($10). With DEF and K, that leaves me $38 for my bench on a standard 16 player roster. For me, I’m spending it all on hookers and blow high end RBs and WRs. I’m willing to spend up to 10% of my cap on an RB3 if the value is there as I’ll need a good and reliable one.
A good final part of strategy is to give yourself a $5 buffer for those players you’re high on. Don’t draw a line in the sand and say you won’t cross it. If Julio Jones is your boy this year and he goes for $35 rather than $30, you’re going to feel a lot worse after the draft if you didn’t get him than if you overspent by a few bucks. Like any other draft, feeling comfortable with the guys you’re drafting is just as important as the price you’re spending. Your team should feel like that lazy boy you watch the games on Sunday in. It may be ugly to others, but you know how it works and you’re comfortable in it. You leave the draft with a bitter beer face, it won’t matter if it’s a good team or not; you’ll be that guy sending out massive trades before the season has even started.
One important note to note is that some of you who have been keeping up with us here at Razzball will notice some of the rankings moved around since last week. Well, that’s because they were updated and you can see that in my Overall Rankings for 2012 Football post now as well.
