FantasyGuru.com’s Analysis Auction League

by Mike Horn
Staff Writer, FantasyGuru.com
Published, 8/6/08 

INTRODUCTION

Last year I organized an auction league consisting of staff and board members with an interest in auctions. It would be more than a mock auction so everyone would have their competitive juices flowing. And it wouldn’t just test everyone’s skills as team owners; it would also look at their ability to analyze others’ teams. Each owner would have to write a contribution on his strategy and execution and then predict the final standings. The league was a success and the article was, too, although as long as any auction fanatic could possibly want. We’re back for more this year, with a re-cap of last season and another auction to tell you about.

 

I again enlisted the support of Fantasy Auctioneer to host the live auction. It’s a great site and the owner, George del Prado, also took part as one of the team owners in the league and ensured excellent technical support for our auction. My Fantasy League is the league host. As a novice commish, I had no trouble getting the league site set up last season, and they make transitioning to a second year a snap. Plus they keep your historical records for you, so if you plan on having the league around for a while, that’s great, too. If I had my druthers, I wouldn’t play anywhere else.

 

As with last season, most hard-core owners that I wanted to participate already have a full plate of leagues, so we stuck with a best-ball format. If you’re not familiar with it, best-ball does not require the owner to designate his starters each week. The players who score the most points at the required line-up positions are automatically considered the starters. You’ll see a number of comments in the analysis below about the implications of this format. This league also has no trades or waivers, so the team we bought at auction is it for the year. Admittedly this takes something away from the season as a whole, but it’s a great way to add another league, have the fun of an auction (or draft) but not further overload your system. I don’t think anyone would want to play it exclusively, but it’s a nice variation.

 

Rosters: 22 players, any combination, but had to buy 22 at auction

Starters: QB, 2 x RB, 3 x WR, TE, D/ST, K

Scoring:

• Rush Receive: 10 yds = 1 pt; TD = 6; 2 pt conversion = 2

• Pass: 25 yds = 1 pt; TD = 4; 2 pt conversion = 2

• INT/Fumble Lost: = minus 1

• DS/T: TD = 6; safety = 4; INT/Fumble Recovery/Blicked Kick = 2; Sack = 1; Shutout = 10; sliding scale for points allowed that includes negative points for allowing big scores (i.e. minus 8 for 35+ PA).

• Return TDs count both for D/ST and individual scoring.

• Kicking: EP = 1; FG = 3/4/5 (<40/40-49/50+); EPM = minus 1; FGM = -1 (<40 only)

Comments: we increased the roster size from 20 to 22 this year to allow for deeper benches and allowed individuals to score return TDs this season. Again this year, no point-per-reception; all turnovers count against offensive players, not just INTs; defenses can score more and less (negative) than in most formats

 

The league will be 17 weeks, total points, no head-to-head or playoffs. The standings at the end of year determine the payouts.

Comments: went from 16 weeks to all 17 weeks this year.

 

Auction: 200 dollar cap, minimum bid/minimum increase 1 dollar, no fractions. Owners take turns nominating players starting with Team 1 through Team 12, then reversing the order. Once a team fills its roster, it drops out of the nominating “snake”. Owners had 25 seconds to make a nomination before one the software made one automatically for them. High bid stands for 10 seconds and then the player is sold. An increased bid resets the 10 second timer.

Comments: This makes for a very fast-paced auction, and we went through 264 sales in just over three hours, including a bathroom break while one owner sorted out some technical difficulties. But it creates errors being under time pressure. Also, at the end when there was only one owner left who needed to nominate three players, the software ran too fast and we had to sort out some problems after the fact. Fantasy Auctioneer has upgraded to a new look – although I stuck with the old, er, “classic” design – and most owners preferred it. I like the software, but if you’re a commish you have to pay close attention to the endgame and make sure all your owners get a fair shake. I recommend reminding everyone at the beginning use pre-selections late in the draft so they don’t get caught short. Don’t hesitate to pause the auction when things get out-of-hand.

 

The auction took place on July 20^th and a few player values have shifted since then, but the analysis in this article is based on what the situation was at the time of the auction: Shockey in NY. Favre in Mississippi, and Smith set to play a full season.

 

Predictions: each owner is required to predict the order of finish of the league. As I said at the beginning, this is a test of the owners’ ability to evaluate any team, not just build one themselves. Predictions will be scored using the table below. This is a sliding scale which awards the most points for exactly predicting the best and worst teams and fewer points for exactly predicting 2nd through 11th place. Points are reduced for being one, two, or more places off the actual order of finish. Negative points are possible, with 100 being the score for a perfect prediction.

 

PREDICTIONS SCORING
Predicted Rank	Predicted rank vs. Actual rank
	Exact Match	Off by 1	Off by 2	Off by 3	Off by 4	Off by 5	Off by 6	Off by 7	Off by 8	Off by 9	Off by 10	Off by 11
1	15	12	6	1	0	-1	-3	-4	-6	-9	-12	-15
2	12	10	5	1	0	-1	-3	-4	-6	-9	-12
3	9	8	4	1	0	-1	-3	-4	-6	-9
4	6	5	3	1	0	-1	-3	-4	-6
5	4	3	2	1	0	-1	-3	-4
6	4	3	2	1	0	-1	-4		Gray zone =
7	4	3	2	1	0	-1	-4		Can't be that far off
8	4	3	2	1	0	-1	-3	-4
9	6	5	3	1	0	-1	-3	-4	-6
10	9	8	4	1	0	-1	-3	-4	-6	-9
11	12	10	5	1	0	-1	-3	-4	-6	-9	-12
12	15	12	6	1	0	-1	-3	-4	-6	-9	-12	-15

 

Payouts: 1^st/2^nd/3^rd in order of finish in the league is 60/40/20 dollars. 1^st/2^nd/3^rd in order of finish in the predictions contest is 60/40/20. So an owner can win by building a good team, but also by being a good analyst.

Comment: there is certainly luck in making predictions; but so is there in building a team, especially before camp opens and with no waivers or trades to fall back on. The scoring set-up for predictions rewards being close and punishes being way off – if the team you pick to finish 1^st actually comes last, that’s minus 15 points.

 

LAST YEAR

 

You can go back to last season’s article to read all the details, but here’s the consensus picks from preseason 2007 (I’ve used staff members names or board names as I thought would be most recognizable to the readers):

 

Rk. Owner

1st. Former Army Person

2nd. Greg McDonald

3rd. kaycigee

4th. Scott Pianowski

5th. Turf Surfer

6th. Idiot Savant

7th. Dom Korbel

8th. Hurricane Samurai

9th. River Rats

10th. George dp (Fantasy Auctioneer)

11th. Dr Gamble

12th. Fantasy Lady

 

Just to prove that either predictions are hard, or we didn’t know what we were talking about, here’s the actual standings (total points through Week Sixteen):

 

1st. George dp (Fantasy Auctioneer) (1909)

2nd. Dom Korbel (1804.28)

3rd. Greg McDonald (1776.34)

4th. Dr Gamble (1713.4)

5th. Hurricane Samurai (1644.34)

6th. Former Army Person (1613.4)

7th. Fantasy Lady (1544.24)

8th. kaycigee (1464.06)

9th. River Rats (1460.76)

10th. Turf Surfer (1448.9)

11th. Scott Pianowski (1425.72)

12th. Idiot Savant (1406.06)

 

That’s right, the auction site owner, who we picked to finish 10^th, won going away. Overall, I think more owners were upset when they were picked to finish low than when they actually finished poorly. Of course, I was happy with the preseason, but it was all downhill from there.

 

However, that was just half the payouts. How did our fearless owners do in the prediction scoring (prediction points):

 

1st. Hurricane Samurai (24)

2nd. Scott Pianowski (13)

3rd. Dr Gamble (11)

4th. Former Army Person (9)

5th. kaycigee (2)

6th. Greg McDonald (-6)

7th. George dp (Fantasy Auctioneer) (-8)

8th. Fantasy Lady (-12)

9th. Dom Korbel (-16)

10th. Idiot Savant (-16)

11th. Turf Surfer (-26)

12th. River Rats (-38)

 

No one covered themselves in great glory, but Hurricane Samurai led most of the way and easily took the predictions crown, mostly by getting the top 2 right, although he had the order reversed). River Rats had the Bizarro entry, ranking Idiot Savant first and George dp last. No one who won money in the PF competition won in the prediction contest, so six owners at least broke even on the year.

 

THIS SEASON

 

Owners: I recruited the staff members who routinely write about auctions or contribute to auction discussions. I also invited board members who have been auction proponents on the message boards. I’ve used staff members names or board names as I thought would be most recognizable to the readers; we have all but one owner back from last year:

 

Dom Korbel

Dr Gamble

Fantasy Lady

Former Army Person (Mike Horn)

George dp (George del Prado, Fantasy Auctioneer)

Greg McDonald

Hurricane Samurai (Tom Simons)

Idiot Savant

kanemochi

River Rats

Scott Pianowski

Turf Surfer

 

Every owner was required to submit an analysis with their predictions, and those write-ups are below in more or less random order. At the end of the article is a chart with all the predictions in it, but first I’ll let the owners speak for themselves. Each owner had to say what their strategy was and those are identified here and linked (I hope) so you can go straight to that write-up if you’re interested in a particular strategy. There is a rich spread of options here.

 

Strategies (in short-hand):

Dom Korbel - Grab a top 10 player at QB, RB, WR and TE as my core set of players.

Dr Gamble - Get two solid RBs, three cheap defenses, and fill out the rest with high upside depth.

Fantasy Lady - Bargain hunt for RBs; buy a top 3 QB, a stable of solid, close to elite WRs, and a top defense; and then fill out my roster with value picks.

Former Army Person - Build a deep team of low-to-mid-priced players to take advantage of best-ball format.

George dp (Fantasy Auctioneer) - Spread the wealth and have as much depth as possible.

Greg McDonald - Studs and depth…get some good RBs and platoon the QBs and WRs.

Hurricane Samurai – Go hard after LaDainian Tomlinson, then back off and wait should I not win LT.

Idiot Savant – Get a top 10 RB at below AAV, a top 15 WR for excellent value, and seek value.

kanemochi – All or nothing/Go for broke strategy.

River Rats – land a few rock solid players (without paying top dollar) but also draft for team depth.

Scott Pianowski – Affordable quality at running back, quantity at the passing positions, no major resources everywhere else.

Turf Surfer – Get guys that score TDs.

 

You can see there are a lot of us thinking along the same lines, which made it tough for everyone to execute their strategy. Here’s the teams they ended up with:

 

FantasyAuctioneer						Turf Surfer
Pos	Name	Team	Bye	Salary		Pos	Name	Team	Bye	Salary
QB	Donovan McNabb	PHI	7	13		QB	Derek Anderson	CLE	5	13
QB	Brett Favre	GNB	8	3		QB	Tarvaris Jackson	MIN	8	2
QB	Trent Edwards	BUF	6	2		QB	Chad Pennington	NYJ	5	1