Fantasy Football Preview 2009 - Auction Draft Strategy

Auction drafts are becoming the new "hot" format in fantasy football. For those of you who've never done an auction draft it's just like it sounds. Everybody (in a non-keeper league) starts with the same amount of money and same number of roster spots to fill. Each team takes turns nominating players to bid on and you can bid on whoever you have money/roster spots for. All of the majors (ESPN, FOX, CBS, Yahoo) offer free mock draft services now. I recommend doing a couple before you do your cash league auction draft. Even if you've done auctions before, it never hurts to do a mock.

So here are a few tips that I've picked up over the years regarding mock drafts.

• Early in the draft, do not nominate players you want. Make a list up of players you don't want on your team and place them up for bid. This will deplete the amount of cash other teams have available to bid against you while preserving the players you want to bid on. This becomes more difficult to do later in the draft but early on it will work like a charm.
  
• In the middle of an auction draft don't be afraid to throw the top ranked kicker or team defense out there for bidding. By doing this you're either going to get the top ranked kicker or team defense for $1 or you're going to force another team to spend more than $1 on a kicker or team defense. Don't be that guy. The only exception is in leagues where team defense score a lot of points and include team special teams.
  
• You have a budget, don't be afraid to spend it. In an auction draft you can actually go into the draft with a lineup in mind because you can target specific players much easier than in a snake draft. There's a lot of cheat sheets out there with auction draft money values for each player. Look at your roster and the projected cost for players you want. You should be able to land at least 75% of your targets if you plan correctly.
• It's not always the best idea to wait. One auction draft strategy is to avoid spending much money until most of the other teams have already spent a bunch. By doing this you will end up with more depth than anybody else, but more than likely you will have one of the weaker starting lineups. Pay for your starters and find value buys to fill out your bench.
• Value is a variable thing as the draft proceeds. How much value a player has to you will depend on your team needs, your remaining budget and how far below your predicted value you can get a player for. Sometimes you should take a player you're not wild about if he fills a need for you and your getting a great deal on him. If you're getting a $12 RB for $3 and you don't have any RB depth you need to do that. He'll give you depth and provide some upside for a possible later trade.
• You need to know more about the other owners during an auction draft than a snake draft. Knowing their favorite players, favorite teams and fantasy football history is a big plus. If you know your buddy wants Adrian Peterson no matter what, don't be afraid to bid him up. Odds are you can go at least $10 over your projected price and your buddy will go higher.
  
• Pay close attention to the RB's who REALLY require handcuffs. If an owner spends $32 on Brian Westbrook early, he NEEDS to get LeSean McCoy. So don't be afraid to bid him up. The other owner is basically forced to keep going. Should you actually win McCoy you're going to have a ton of leverage on the Westbrook owner in a trade. If you need a handcuff either try to wait until teams have less money at the end of the draft or nominate the player yourself with a substantial opening bid. This will forces owners to make an immediate decision about how far they are willing to go when trying to bid you up.
• One newer strategy I've been working on is basically a variant on a re-raise in poker. In auction drafts, situations often occur when multiple owners bid up a player one dollar at a time. This makes it difficult to tell which owners are genuinely interested and which owners are just bidding the price up. If a player you want is in such a situation, try a re-raise. For instance say you want this player who is projected to go for $20. Somebody else nominates him for $1 and the bidding begins. Three or four different owners start bidding one dollar at a time and pretty soon it's at $10. In a re-raise, what you do here is raise it to somewhere around $15-$17 dollars. By doing this you're either going to get the player you want for less value or you're going to find out what owners are really interested. Sometimes other owners who actually want this player will "fold" because they're afraid you will "raise the pot too much". Not the best analogy in the world but you should be able to get the picture.
• One note about auction drafts in keeper leagues. Do as much research as you can by talking to other owners in order to try to figure out who they are keeping. This will allow you to plan your keepers better because you should have an idea of what players will be available in the draft .Who you keep should be based on what is available and how much your keepers will cost you. For instance, if you can keep Steve Slaton for $5 or Adrian Peterson for $58, which one do you think will give you more value? It's Slaton, and it's not close. Also, don't be afraid to trade keepers if you have guys you don't want to keep but you feel are too valuable to just throw back.