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How to Budget an Auction Draft (Fantasy Football)

How to Budget an Auction Draft (Fantasy Football)

So you’ve decided to join an auction league this year? Or, you’ve finally decided to approach your auction league’s draft with some real strategy. And not treating your draft capital like Monopoly money.

  • Throwing all your money at player with the highest expected point total
  • Raising the bid in hopes of costing an opponent draft dollars, only end up with the undesired player

…are not effective strategies if you want to make the playoffs this year. Instead, if you understand the concept of scarcity, have an elementary knowledge of math and a tad of discipline, you can properly find yourself with a decent looking team come Week 1. Here’s how it works.

Clearly, the goal of your auction draft is to maximize the expected point total of your entire roster via the draft. Since you have a finite amount of fictional cash allotted (typically $200) to bid on x players in order to fill y spots, you should look at each selection as maximum points/minimal cost. Yet, you have 14 or more players to allocate that cost to. Thus, the question then is, how much should I budget for a player at a particular position? To answer that question, you need to understand scarcity, or in this context, what is the difference among ranks/clusters of players within a position. Think of it this way:

Prepare for your auction draft with our Auction Draft Simulator partner-arrow

Let’s say of the RB1s (rated 1-12) available, the best RB1 is expected to get you 328 points, where the 12th best is likely to net 176, a point spread of 152 points (there are 152 points that separate the best RB1 from the “worst,” in a 12-man league). Now, we look at WR and see 208 points (No. 1 rated) to 149 points (No. 12 rated), or a difference of 59. This means an RB1 is more than twice as scarce as a WR1, demanding a higher price to match its scarcity. That is, the difference between the best RB1 option and the worst RB1 option is twice as large as the difference between the best WR1 and worst WR1. Why pay 50 dollars for the third-best WR, when you can get similar productivity (Total Points output) from the ninth-best and pay, say, 30 bucks?

Or you can look at it this way: Using last year’s results to start, the craziest example to help simplify the logic…

Let’s assume you are ONLY going to select two players, an RB and WR, spending all that you have on both. And we will assume you can afford the No. 1 rated at one position, and No. 12 at the other, here’s how that would shape out:

Option 1 Player 2016 Point Total Cost Pt./Cost
1 David Johnson 327.8
12 Frank Gore 176.3 50 3.526
1 Mike Evans 208.1 150 1.387333333
12 Amari Cooper 148.9
Total –   4.913333333
Option 2 Player 2016 Point Total Cost Pt./Cost
1 David Johnson 327.8 150 2.185333333
12 Frank Gore 176.3
1 Mike Evans 208.1
12 Amari Cooper 148.9 50 2.978
Total –   5.163333333

 
As you can see in this painfully simplified example, in option 2 (spending 3x on the more scarce position, RB) you get more bang for your buck than option 1 (spending 3x on the less scarce position, WR).

You use this application and apply it to each position you need to field (after budgeting for your bench players), and compare “scarcities” among the positions and apply it to your budget. Here’s how you do it:

1. Find the appropriate MAX/MIN expected for each position (so you subtract the No. 1 rated player’s expected total by the No. 12 rated player’s expected total).

2. Once you have the position totals, take the sum of them.

3. Take each position’s difference (from 1st to 12th or 13th to 24th for RB2/WR2), and divide it by the sum (of all the differences, step 2), to get a percentage.

4. Multiply that percentage by (Total dollars allotted – dollars allotted to the bench), and this will give you your positional budget.

OR…copy and paste this user-friendly model I created. After which I highly recommend practicing the discipline with the Auction Simulator as much as you can.

I’ve seen some pundits use a similar model but taking last year’s final point totals rather than this year’s expected. I find it better for your model to resemble the actual market by using 2017 projections (they are still predictions, yes, but the value in them is how well they predict opponents’ draft tendencies). I recommend using FantasyPros 2017 Projections.

*Important note. David Johnson is very highly valued this year, more than any other player. Thus, he skews the RB1 Max considerably (in the example above, the budget drops from 80 to roughly 69 for an RB1 without him). So, if you don’t draft him, you may want to make the appropriate changes to your model.

Be aware, this is just a budgetary GUIDE, not the end all/be all. Use it to help you make decisions.

So let’s see this in action. Using FantasyPros Auction Simulator, I used my model to draft according to plan.

A couple notes before I review the economic aspects of the draft

– It’s very likely I overdid it on the rookies, but if you follow my personal blog, Zay Jones was my No. 1 rated WR in the 2017 NFL Draft Rankings. Combine that with the WR situation in Buffalo, and the 307 additional targets that need homes in 2017, I am all-in on Jones. You can find a detailed analysis of the cited Target Displacement here.

– Similarly, given the Williams-State of Utah-Rookie RB tandem leading my 2017 Draft RB Ratings, and the sorry state of their respective RB groups, I’m also all-in on the “Williams Twins.”

How well did I follow my own budget?

Just like the choice between Madden and the electric bill, or that 70 inch TV and an extra student loan payment, budgets are wonderful planning tools, but don’t always pan out. Here’s how I fared:

Position Player Selected Actual Salary Budget Under/Over
QB1 Jameis Winston 11 34.96 23.96
RB1 Jordan Howard 33 53.16 20.16
RB2 Melvin Gordon 32 16.76 -15.24
WR1 Amari Cooper 33 30.65 -2.35
WR2 Sammy Watkins 26 9.58 -16.42
WR3 Quincy Enunwa 6 5.75 -0.25
TE1 Rob Gronkowski 29 30.65 1.65
FLEX Joe Mixon 16 11.49 -4.51
B Danny Woodhead 8 1 -7
DST Colts DST 1 1 0
B Zay Jones 1 1 0
B Jamaal Williams 1 1 0
B Joe Williams 1 1 0
B Robby Anderson 1 1 0
B JuJu Smith Schuster 1 1 0

 
Analysis

– The model said to pay much more for QB, but two things changed my strategy. First, overall, I am very bearish on top-end QBs this year/think there is a lot of value in the 5-15 range. Second, one of the finer points to auction drafting is to NOT draft based on overall rankings (i.e. don’t just nominate the next best available). Thus, for my first pick, I selected a mid-tier QB1, in hopes to set a floor for other QBs, while being happy with my selection. Winston at $11 felt right.

– Although technically I underpaid for my RB1, collectively (RB1 + RB2) added up close to budget, with a few bucks to spare.

– Jumping ahead to TE1, I (like the rest of the world) know there is always a big drop from Gronkowski to the field (similar to the David Johnson effect, but with more years of data to support). This is why TE1 calls for WR1 dollars. Thus, nabbing him at budget sounded perfect.

– Now to the WRs. I had $20 or so above budget to spend on them, so I was more aggressive on players ranked high on my list (yes, if you’re catching the trend, my rankings are quite a bit different from the status quo).

– This left me with $12 over budget to handle my flex, and maybe some extra cash for 1-4 dollar bidding on bench players. Highlighting the pinewood riders, Danny Woodhead, who has found himself in a petri dish of additional targets not to mention the injury to Kenneth Dixon, ended up as the only “bench player” without a $1 price tag. I am very bullish on Woody.

– Colts at Def?!?! Yeah, the FP algorithm actually tried to throat punch me on that one. But I have a specific strategy on DST: USE the Strength of Schedule! Think of it, even in a 12-team league, assuming every opponent picked perfectly (1-11), there are still five teams out there that will win/can get you legit points. Thus, I went for the team who’s first three games are Rams, Cardinals, and Browns…I can find someone else in Week 4.

One way or another, a budget is extremely important to ensuring auction draft day success. And using the scarcity model is the best way to properly distribute funds. However, it’s a guide, not the 10 commandments. Therefore, some variation is likely…just make sure to come in with some type of budget, and adjust accordingly throughout the live draft.

I hope this helps you proud few, you auctioneers. Happy Drafting.

For more fantasy football auction advice:


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Ryan Newman is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Ryan, check out his archive and follow him @Ryannewman20.

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