I think it would be cool but, from my limited understanding, it takes a long time to go through an entire draft. I am assuming that you need guys that are really into this and you can trust.
I'm in a league that's been auction format for about 15 years. I love it -- really changes the draft dynamic as you can get anyone you want, but you have to think carefully about how to budget your money across all the positions.
It's a good option for leagues with very experienced players. I definitely would not recommend for more casual or beginner players.
So much more interesting, so much more strategy, and eliminates ALL potential excuses for poor performance. Separates the men from the boys, IMO.
I could see how it would be a PITA to administer manually, but we do it all through ESPN and it keeps things moving/organized/coherent. We still do it in person at a bar with WiFi to maintain the camaraderie / shit talk / etc.
I've play in fantasy baseball auction leagues. It brings up some questions. How do you handle free agent claims? Do you have an in season salary cap? What happens with salary when you cut a player? Is it a keeper league? Auction leagues tend to be more expensive to play because you pay fees to the league with each transaction.
I do auction in one FF league and snake in another.
Auction is superior. You can build your team however you want. If you think it will be "hard to get used to," just try some mock drafts and read up on it.
I think it would be cool but, from my limited understanding, it takes a long time to go through an entire draft. I am assuming that you need guys that are really into this and you can trust.
Been in the same league with friends the last 7 years. Drsfts take under 2 hours if you all get together and use a site like yahoo or espn. The site keeps things moving and there's no debate on who bid last.
My main reasons for liking this more is, at the beginning, you can get anyone you'd like. Youre also always involved. Even if you don't want the player, you're increasing the price others pay
I've play in fantasy baseball auction leagues. It brings up some questions. How do you handle free agent claims? Do you have an in season salary cap? What happens with salary when you cut a player? Is it a keeper league? Auction leagues tend to be more expensive to play because you pay fees to the league with each transaction.
when you use a site like yahoo or espn, you get 200 free agent dollars and then, lets say you can claim ppl starting tuesday, by Monday night your league bids on each player, highest bid gets ths FA. When yoy use your money you can only get on the market FAs
in same league for 24 years. No keepers. Have also done snake in other leagues. Auction is much better in my opinion- more strategic, can get any player you want if willing to spend $, have to consider reserve funds if blowing $ on one or two top guys, etc. And unlike a snake, you are not waiting around forever after you pick.
You can be a beginner and do an auction. There are many good resources online to gather info. Some sites (usually for fee) are customizable based on your league's rosters and scoring, and will put auction values on players. Not an exact science compared to values in the actual draft but gets a beginner in the ball park.
I've play in fantasy baseball auction leagues. It brings up some questions. How do you handle free agent claims? Do you have an in season salary cap? What happens with salary when you cut a player? Is it a keeper league? Auction leagues tend to be more expensive to play because you pay fees to the league with each transaction.
Yep, you have to agree on rules for each of these things. Fortunately, all of the major sites are well-equipped to handle auction settings. My league allows keepers and even long-term contracts (with escalating salary), and CBS Sportsline handles it well.
For kicks, here's how our league handles the issues you raise:
-- Free agent claims. There is a waiver deadline and waiver order. However, each free agent pickup is $10 in real money owed by the owner to the pot (and is assigned a relatively low salary -- $5 -- for keeper purposes.
-- We do not have an in-season cap. Our cap applies at the draft, but after that, anything goes. However, because ours is a keeper league, keeping salaries in balance is a good idea unless you are going all-out to win in the current year.
-- Cut players maintain their pre-cut salary and contract status.
-- Ours is a keeper league. Prior to draft, each team can keep up to 1/2 the required players at each position, provided they are not already in the last year of their contract. In year 2, players can be kept for the same salary at which they were drafted. After year 2, the owner has the option to sign the player for a 1, 2, or 3 year final contract, with escalating salary for longer contracts (1 year with no increase, or 2 or 3 years with $8 or $16 added to drafted salary).
Draft planning is pretty in-depth. After identifying my keepers, I figure out how much money I'm willing to spend on each position (roughly), and map out which players are likely acquirable in my price range. Sometimes the draft goes as planned, and other times I have to totally abandon my strategy when I misjudge the likely bidding....
I was a little nervous at first because a lot of the players had been doing the auction for years. But I think I caught on pretty quickly and won it last year.
imo, because there's more strategy and you get to target players you really want, which can make the season more enjoyable.
I'm going to target Barkley fairly early and will enjoy watching him infinitely more (will enjoy anyway, but I'm talking strictly from a FF perspective) than some other guy who I was sort of forced to pick because of the draft order.
yes, it will inherently take more time, but if you use a site like yahoo, it shouldn't be much more than 2 hours vs. what, 1 hr for traditional?
The extra hour is more than worth it, imo.
We did it live and "offline" and to be fair, when we would use a traditional snake draft for this league that takes forever too. But...this was a league with good friends and it's been together for almost 20 years - we started it on Excel and used the newspaper box scores, and most of us don't get to see each other that often, so the draft is sort of an annual reunion, and most people enjoy the pace. I'm just an impatient bastard.
I know you don't need it but my experience and advice with auctions are below.
I have noticed two extremes. The one guy who has a player or players he absolutely has to have and overpays for that player(s) leaving him at the end with very little budget per player/position. Sometimes in a savvy setting you can get someone who knows this guy to bump up the price.
the other extreme is the guy who sits back and is tentative to bid on anyone the first half of the draft and saves his money. Every time you do a budget check (keep in mind this was offline) you see this guy has almost his entire budget.
In my experience with both the regular season and post-season leagues the two extremes struggle. the first guy eventually is left with such a small budget per remaining position anyone can simply push him out of the bidding. And the other extreme can get any player he wants, but all the great players are gone.
the people who do the best (in my limited auction experience) are people somewhere in the middle - they target players, but put a cap on the value they will pay for the player or position and have realistically budgeted their roster beforehand. It's a little more prep than a standard snake draft where you can just rank players and auto-draft, but like you've said also involves more strategy.
I'm in a league with experienced and pretty smart people, so I don't see quite the extremes you mention. We do have slightly different strategies though.
I have a limit that I will spend on different players. I am optimistic I can get Barkley for a somewhat reasonable price, at least this year.
There aren't any other Giant fans in my league and guys like Gurley, Bell and Zeke will be getting top $. I think Barkley will be considered tier 2 (due to rookie and maybe Giant OL uncertainty), even though I expect him to perform in tier 1.
Let me know which BBIers are "serious" about it and once we got all the owners together, we can go over any rules, keepers, buy-ins and format for the Auction League.
the people who do the best (in my limited auction experience) are people somewhere in the middle - they target players, but put a cap on the value they will pay for the player or position and have realistically budgeted their roster beforehand. It's a little more prep than a standard snake draft where you can just rank players and auto-draft, but like you've said also involves more strategy.
Good luck.
I agree with this. I started doing well in my league when I started budgeting for each position and targeting players likely to fall within my budget.
Let me know which BBIers are "serious" about it and once we got all the owners together, we can go over any rules, keepers, buy-ins and format for the Auction League.
I think auction leagues are much better live face to face rather than online.
We also do keepers, so way more effort needs to go into the draft than a normal snake league.
It's a good option for leagues with very experienced players. I definitely would not recommend for more casual or beginner players.
So much more interesting, so much more strategy, and eliminates ALL potential excuses for poor performance. Separates the men from the boys, IMO.
I could see how it would be a PITA to administer manually, but we do it all through ESPN and it keeps things moving/organized/coherent. We still do it in person at a bar with WiFi to maintain the camaraderie / shit talk / etc.
Been in the same league with friends the last 7 years. Drsfts take under 2 hours if you all get together and use a site like yahoo or espn. The site keeps things moving and there's no debate on who bid last.
My main reasons for liking this more is, at the beginning, you can get anyone you'd like. Youre also always involved. Even if you don't want the player, you're increasing the price others pay
You can be a beginner and do an auction. There are many good resources online to gather info. Some sites (usually for fee) are customizable based on your league's rosters and scoring, and will put auction values on players. Not an exact science compared to values in the actual draft but gets a beginner in the ball park.
Yep, you have to agree on rules for each of these things. Fortunately, all of the major sites are well-equipped to handle auction settings. My league allows keepers and even long-term contracts (with escalating salary), and CBS Sportsline handles it well.
For kicks, here's how our league handles the issues you raise:
-- Free agent claims. There is a waiver deadline and waiver order. However, each free agent pickup is $10 in real money owed by the owner to the pot (and is assigned a relatively low salary -- $5 -- for keeper purposes.
-- We do not have an in-season cap. Our cap applies at the draft, but after that, anything goes. However, because ours is a keeper league, keeping salaries in balance is a good idea unless you are going all-out to win in the current year.
-- Cut players maintain their pre-cut salary and contract status.
-- Ours is a keeper league. Prior to draft, each team can keep up to 1/2 the required players at each position, provided they are not already in the last year of their contract. In year 2, players can be kept for the same salary at which they were drafted. After year 2, the owner has the option to sign the player for a 1, 2, or 3 year final contract, with escalating salary for longer contracts (1 year with no increase, or 2 or 3 years with $8 or $16 added to drafted salary).
Draft planning is pretty in-depth. After identifying my keepers, I figure out how much money I'm willing to spend on each position (roughly), and map out which players are likely acquirable in my price range. Sometimes the draft goes as planned, and other times I have to totally abandon my strategy when I misjudge the likely bidding....
Once you go auction you won't want to go back.
I like the concept, everyone has the same chance at every player, sort of like the FAAB of drafting.
But holy shit they take f-ing forever.
I actually do one every year for a post-season FFL league and that's not too bad since its only 6 teams and no bench players.
He's been averaging around $60 in the mocks I've done.
The extra hour is more than worth it, imo.
I'm going to target Barkley fairly early and will enjoy watching him infinitely more (will enjoy anyway, but I'm talking strictly from a FF perspective) than some other guy who I was sort of forced to pick because of the draft order.
The extra hour is more than worth it, imo.
We did it live and "offline" and to be fair, when we would use a traditional snake draft for this league that takes forever too. But...this was a league with good friends and it's been together for almost 20 years - we started it on Excel and used the newspaper box scores, and most of us don't get to see each other that often, so the draft is sort of an annual reunion, and most people enjoy the pace. I'm just an impatient bastard.
I have noticed two extremes. The one guy who has a player or players he absolutely has to have and overpays for that player(s) leaving him at the end with very little budget per player/position. Sometimes in a savvy setting you can get someone who knows this guy to bump up the price.
the other extreme is the guy who sits back and is tentative to bid on anyone the first half of the draft and saves his money. Every time you do a budget check (keep in mind this was offline) you see this guy has almost his entire budget.
In my experience with both the regular season and post-season leagues the two extremes struggle. the first guy eventually is left with such a small budget per remaining position anyone can simply push him out of the bidding. And the other extreme can get any player he wants, but all the great players are gone.
the people who do the best (in my limited auction experience) are people somewhere in the middle - they target players, but put a cap on the value they will pay for the player or position and have realistically budgeted their roster beforehand. It's a little more prep than a standard snake draft where you can just rank players and auto-draft, but like you've said also involves more strategy.
Good luck.
I have a limit that I will spend on different players. I am optimistic I can get Barkley for a somewhat reasonable price, at least this year.
There aren't any other Giant fans in my league and guys like Gurley, Bell and Zeke will be getting top $. I think Barkley will be considered tier 2 (due to rookie and maybe Giant OL uncertainty), even though I expect him to perform in tier 1.
good luck to you too.
Let me know which BBIers are "serious" about it and once we got all the owners together, we can go over any rules, keepers, buy-ins and format for the Auction League.
the people who do the best (in my limited auction experience) are people somewhere in the middle - they target players, but put a cap on the value they will pay for the player or position and have realistically budgeted their roster beforehand. It's a little more prep than a standard snake draft where you can just rank players and auto-draft, but like you've said also involves more strategy.
Good luck.
I agree with this. I started doing well in my league when I started budgeting for each position and targeting players likely to fall within my budget.
Let me know which BBIers are "serious" about it and once we got all the owners together, we can go over any rules, keepers, buy-ins and format for the Auction League.
I think auction leagues are much better live face to face rather than online.