Fantasy Baseball Auction Strategies: Go Cheap for Championships

When you think about joining a fantasy baseball auction, your mind wanders to all the top players you can acquire. After all, you generally have $260 to spend and every player is available to you. You don’t have to wait 12, 15 or even more picks for your turn to roll around. Instead, you can bid on Trea Turner, Gerrit Cole and, heck, even Yordan Alvarez.

But unfortunately, that approach is generally not a winning one in fantasy baseball. You need (approximately) 23 players, so two or even three stud players aren’t enough to support your fantasy team. As most experienced fantasy managers know, you won’t usually win by pouring your assets into a few top players.

This is not an article designed for brand new fantasy baseball participants. Apologies. But there have been literally millions of words written that can give you a proper introduction. So that is not my goal today. Instead, I’m going to assume you’re looking for a deeper discussion about how best to spend 260 fictional dollars to get the winning stats.

Step 1: Evaluate the Players

Just like preparation for a snake draft, of course the foundation is player evaluation. Which player is ready for improvement and which ones could fall – especially to find differences in the popular projections and ultimately the fantasy baseball marketplace? The goal is to stake out your targets and fades that would be different than the majority of fantasy managers. You need to do this work yourself, but we at FTN have you covered with lots of help to do so (Vlad Sedler’s Auction Values come out in mid-January).

Step 2: Evaluate the Market

The second step is to evaluate the market. Even though you have a good idea of your projections or which players you like, you need to cross-check this with the market. In fact, I like to create a chart of players based on average auction value, which shows the market price based on the prices they have attracted in previous auctions. I recommend using information from the NFBC, which has excellent ADP in general, and as auctions start to populate the system (they have not started yet as of this writing), you will see how players are being viewed. I like to have the full list of players by position and expected cost on the computer or in hand, because it lets me see at a glance (as I cross out the players taken during the auction), which ones are left and the position of any of my target players. Here is an example of how the top of such a chart might look:

I have only shown the 15 players going in Round 1 of NFBC 15-team drafts — so these are of course the most expensive players to buy. Once you create a budget, you’ll see that it is difficult to afford more than one of these players. It can be done, but compromises must be made.

I left off some positions in the chart that don’t have a player being drafted (in this case, any pitcher), but that is a personal preference. If you like seeing the top pitcher (right now Corbin Burnes) up on the top line even though his auction value is more of a Round 2 amount, the advantage is your spreadsheet will be far shorter. The disadvantage is that you cannot see the breaks in value as clearly, but that can be overcome by knowing the player pool well prior to the auction.

Step 3: Identify the Low-Cost Players You Think Have the Most Value

The key to the draft is identifying the least expensive players you want. This runs counter to everyone’s initial reaction, because the players brought up for auction first (generally) are the top names (see above). But rather than focus on whether Trea Turner or José Ramírez is a better target (Hint: They are both excellent!), you need to determine who you’re getting with your $5 and under selections. 

At this point you might find it helpful to look at two hypothetical budgets. I do so to show you a couple of different ideas – the first is a little more balanced approach with less allocated toward hitting (58%).

Here is an alternate plan with more spent on hitting (71%)

In both cases though, I want you to notice the number of players under $10. In budget No. 1 (58% hitting), 12 of the 23 positions are filled with single-digit players. In budget No. 2 (71% hitting), I am showing 13 of 23 at the inexpensive level. And no matter how you slice it, it is likely that about half of your initially active roster will be made up of these guys.

Also notice that in these scenarios you get only two or three players above $30 and only four players above $20. Yikes. That means you should be prepared to shop in the bargain bin rather than spend too much time comparing Pete Alonso to Paul Goldschmidt. 

Step 4: Look for Value in the Pockets

But we all want to spend less even on the few $20 players that we will get. So certainly consider who your top buy might be. But in addition, I suggest looking for what I call “pockets of value.” What do I mean? This would be a group of players that are going at about the same ADP (or AAV once that is available) and who are good attractive targets for you. 

Let’s look at a couple of examples. So far, there are a lot of starting pitchers going in the third, fourth and fifth rounds of 15-team NFBC drafts. If this holds the dollars needed to acquire them in an auction would not be all that different. 

• Round 3: Dylan Cease, Spencer Strider, Jacob deGrom, Brandon Woodruff, Shane McClanahan, Aaron Nola
• Round 4: Justin Verlander, Julio Urías, Carlos Rodón, Zack Wheeler, Max Scherzer, Shane Bieber
• Round 5: Kevin Gausman, Alek Manoah, Luis Castillo, Max Fried, Zac Gallen

As you can see, plenty of choices in this area. If you go for Dylan Cease and he is bid up too high for your liking, there are still plenty of options so you won’t be forced to overspend. In fact, with a group this large it should be easy to get two of them if you construct your budget accordingly. This is much more preferable than staking out a player which is the only one in a tier and going all out for his services. If you meet stiff resistance, then there is not as much to fall back on.

A second example might be the outfielders going in the ninth and 10th rounds:

• Round 9: Christian Yelich, Nick Castellanos, Kris Bryant, Jake McCarthy 
• Round 10: Anthony Santander, Taylor Ward, Andrew Vaughn

These players aren’t as attractive as the pitchers from the earlier rounds, but if you like a few of these guys you can be pretty picky with your bidding – you won’t need to overpay because there are a lot of options. 

Of course, the ADP and AAV will jump around quite a bit between now and March, but if you keep up with it, you’ll be able to “see” these pockets and create a budget plan to capitalize on its nuances.

So, the four rules are:

• Step 1: Evaluate the Players
• Step 2: Evaluate the Market
• Step 3: Identify the Low-Cost Players You Think Have the Most Value
• Step 4: Look for Value in the Pockets

If you do that, you’ll have an excellent chance to win your auction league. 

Expect more detailed auction strategy coverage in the coming weeks.