Mike’s article on his bidding war illustrates the value of leaving yourself an outlet.

In his most recent article Mike Podhorzer discussed a bidding war that occurred. Such bidding wars should be assiduously avoided if at all possible. The way to do it is to either avoid backing yourself into a corner, or to provide alternatives to your opponent. Experienced auction players know all too well what happens when two people are sitting on the same player and both have the money to spend.

In The Art of War, Sun-Tzu first elucidated this principle:

Do not thwart an enemy retreating home. If you surround the enemy, leave an outlet; do not press an enemy that is cornered. These are the principles of warfare.

Sun-Tzu called the situation where an opponent is encircled a “death ground.” Someone has to fight to the death; they simply have no other choice. In this way an ostensibly defeated enemy can pluck a victory. Napoleon was a master of this; faking a retreat while holding part of his army in reserve. As the enemy chased, Napoleon’s reserve army would then come up behind the chasing enemy and would encircle them.

This is exactly what happens when you get down to the end of a positional ranking. It could be in an auction, or even in a draft when there is a run on a position. In Mike’s example, no outlet was left for either opponent, so in a desperate attempt to get the player and to avoid leaving money on the table, a bidding war ensues.

When an enemy is cornered, they have no alternative but to fight, and to do so to the fullest. In fantasy terms this means both players waste precious auction dollars in a situation that could easily have been avoided. This can be utterly disastrous for the loser, who not only is still left with money that never gets spent but who also loses out on the player.

Avoiding this situation is merely a matter of astute planning and adjusting during the auction. The best option is to avoid the general heuristic of bring up high salary players early. It is always possible to sneak in one of your players in the middle of the auction after big money is spent and players are gearing up for the wild endgame. Throw out your sleepers in the middle!

This is especially important with sleeper pitchers. You should almost ALWAYS bring up any pitchers you want in the middle of the auction. The reason is that if you wait until the end you may easily be trumped by someone who doesn’t even really want the pitcher but merely is seeking any warm body to fill out his staff. If you want a Juan Cruz or a J.P. Howell or any other cheap sleeper pitcher, bring them up when your opponents have many options left. You avoid losing out on one of your “go get them” players merely because another owner needs a live body. If you follow the LIMA plan make sure you heed this advice.

The other option is to entice your opponent. This works very well against skilled opponents but not as well against the duller ones. The skilled opponent will usually seek to avoid being cornered, so if they are heeding the principles above then you know they are flexible and will try to avoid a bidding war. So use that knowledge against them!

In this scenario bring up a comparable player to the one you are sitting on and don’t bid him up. Your opponent may very well take the bait. If you really want Homer Bailey, for example, and your opponent may force a bidding war, then bring up Johnny Cueto or Franklin Morales. If he wants Phil Hughes and you are set on him, but are in a worse monetary position, then bring up Clay Buchholz. You may get Buchholz because he stays out of the bidding, or he may bite on Buchholz leaving you to get Hughes. Either way, your flexibility wins the battle for you.

I simply can’t stress enough the importance of flexibility in planning, and the necessity for flexibility permeates virtually every decision made on auction day. These are little examples and little examples add up.

It is a rare opponent who will be able to thwart your strategy here, very rare. I have yet to meet an opponent who understood what I was doing when I executed this strategy and you can almost always get the cheap pitchers you want. In my experience, I may be right or I may be wrong on my analysis of these pitchers. But I almost always get the one that I want, though I may regret it in May.