The results of the strategy I detailed here.

Yesterday was my main money league’s auction draft, the one I commish that you’re all probably too familiar with after my 2 posts here desperately seeking more owners! I was 2nd to nominate a player, and as I described in the post linked to above, decided to test out the strategy and go with Travis Hafner. I was hoping that with the 2nd nomination, the other owners might be hesitant to lock up their Util slot so quickly, and given Hafner’s disappointing season last year, that was a 2nd factor that I thought could help me land a bargain.

But as always with the crazy animal known as an auction draft, the result wasn’t as hoped for. He ended up going for $4 over my value, filling up another owner’s Util spot almost immediately after the draft began. So much for that strategy. Maybe it could work in your league! Doesn’t hurt to try.

So what have I learned from this? Anytime you think you have an idea/strategy/clue as to when to throw out a specific player or a type of player (breakout candidate, sleeper, injury rebound candidate, etc.) that will allow you to purchase said player for the best price, you are wrong. Every auction is different, and if you auctioned 100 times in a row with the exact same owners, you’ll have completely different results each time.

So I say forget about all those common strategies of throwing out players you don’t want early or waiting to nominate your sleeper later. It just doesn’t really matter. I usually throw out players early who I expect to be overvalued, but this year I actually nominated early mostly players I thought I could get at a discount. Did it make a difference? Not one bit. So the best advice I have is to make sure you have a list of values using the best valuation method you could find, and instead of targetting specific names, just buy stats at as much of a discount to your values as you can. I know Patrick will hate this advice given all his articles about the concept of value in an auction, but I disagree with him on this. I’m all about value and trying to buy the most stats for my $260, and the only way this could be accomplished is by overpaying for as few players as possible (none at all would be ideal of course), and buying players for below your values (but still taking into account what stats you’ve bought so far and what you need, so you don’t end up with 250 SBs, for example).

Questions, comments, criticisms, praise, expert league invitations? Email me at FBGeneralsMike@gmail.com.