The majority of fantasy baseball leagues use serpentine drafts but I’d argue there is no better move than to change your league to an auction draft. You have full autonomy over your roster and it adds a huge layer of strategy. If you want to make fantasy baseball more of a skill game and less about luck, switch over to an auction draft this season. If you want serpentine strategies, I’ve prepared four of them for you in the last few weeks:

• Marmol Strategy
• Bichette Strategy
• Pocket Rockets
• Points Leagues

I wouldn’t recommend using any of those in an auction format, however. The reason is that each of those requires you to punt a category or two. In an auction draft, there is enough of an advantage to be gained that you don’t have to punt any category. Today, I’ll show how I accomplished it using Yahoo’s average auction costs to construct a standard $260, 25 man roster.

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Forget the strategies in auction leagues. The reason we use strategies in snake draft roto and H2H leagues is because you are locked into your draft capital. That isn’t exactly the case in an auction league, however. Yes, you still only have $260 to spend, but think about it this way: If the top five players go for $70, $68, $67, $59 and $53, then you are paying $70 for the first overall pick. Essentially, if you carry that strategy throughout the entire draft, you can end up with equivalent of picks in the following rounds: 1st, 2nd, 4th, 4th, 4th, 6th, 6th, 7th, 9th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 13th, 13th, 15th, 15th, 16th, 16th, 16th, 16th, 18th, 21st, 25th.

Yeah, that team is dominant, as you’ll see in a little bit, and the reason you can pull it off is that the highest-end players have over-inflated auction values. Likewise, there are dead-zones in the 3rd, 5th and 8th rounds. What I mean by that, is there are no ADP values in that range, because the next 24 players are essentially the same. Value is not linear from pick #1 to pick #300. Rather, there are leaps and there a flat spots, so in an auction, you avoid the flat spots and you target the leaps.

For instance, there is a huge drop-off between Juan Soto, J.D. Martinez and the 8th best outfielder in baseball. Seeing as though the 8th will cost a near-identical value, you are maximizing your draft capital by buying J.D. Likewise, there is a huge gap in talent from ADP #50ish to ADP #60, yet their auction costs are similar. By far the most cost-effective range, however, is saving enough money to buy 12th-16th rounders for just a few dollars more than last round picks. The gap in terms of quality between ADP 150ish and ADP 300 is enormous, but the cost is virtually pennies.

The Results

Breakdown

Seeing as though I am projected to finish 1st or 2nd in every offensive category, it is no secret that I spent a ton of draft capital on my offense. In fact, it was 177 of my 260 available bucks. That is because it is easier to find mid-round value at the pitching positions this season which should enable you to be competitive in each category. I waited awhile on my closers because they are the most volatile position and easiest to replace via the waiver wire. When you take a look at the dominant roster, you’ll notice it lacks star power, but more than makes up for the absence in high-end depth. This team has 22 top 200 players. In a serpentine draft, everyone would be expected to finish with just 16 or 17.

The Team

Others who just missed the cut: Marcell Ozuna, Yordan Alvarez, Julio Urias, Nick Senzel, Chris Archer, Lorenzo Cain, Garrett Richards, Luke Weaver and Justin Smoak

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