Auction Draft Strategy: Adrian Peterson

If you’re going to try to draft Adrian Peterson this year, there’s something you should know: guys with bum knees generally take 2 years to come back. You can view the research here or just take my word for it. That being said, there is the outside possibility that Peterson is an alien life form capable of faster healing. This video of his rehab seems to indicate that he is ready to perform.

Because of this uncertainty, Peterson is either an incredible value or a waste of money this year. Thankfully in an auction format, you can cover your bases. Former Stanford running back and current Peterson backup Toby Gerhart is not terrible. His career average is over 4.0 YPC and he is a capable receiver. With a traditional draft you would need to spend a two picks in the first 6 rounds to secure Peterson and Gerhart, not so in an auction – you can grab ‘em both!

Before employing this strategy however, consider one more factor: the order in which the two players are nominated. If you pick AP first, your league mates can drive up the price on Gerhart. However, if you nominate Gerhart first you can test the waters and see if he’s worth buying (because you’ll be nominating him early, chances are he might go for higher than expected). If he comes in at a reasonable price, you’ve secured APs backup and made it less likely that another owner will take the risk drafting AP (hopefully securing a little discount for you). In the end, you get AP and Gerhart for the cost of what AP alone should cost and you now hold a lottery ticket that just might pay out.

Basic Auction Draft Strategy – Part 3: Flexibility

So you’ve prepared for draft day, you have your list and now it’s time for the main event. 10 minutes in and you’re freaking out because the guy you wanted cost way more than you were willing to spend and almost all the good RBs are gone. Before you press the panic button, let’s rewind to your draft prep and add one more thing: flexibility.

If you aren’t flexible you’ll end up overspending, putting together a bad roster or both! As you’re prepping for the draft you can take a few simple steps to ensure that you don’t get screwed when the auction gets unpredictable. There are essentially two areas where you’ll need to be flexible: roster composition and budget.

Roster Composition

Because running backs and wide receivers are so unpredictable, I like to stockpile value choices on the chance that one of them goes off. Instead of grabbing top guys I’ll try to grab several guys who are close to the top and have top-5 potential. (read this post for more about the type of player I target). Unfortunately, there can be runs, overbidding or just a lack of awareness and you can find yourself short. Instead of falling in love with particular guys, chose 2/3 who you think are relatively equal and aim for one of them.

I recently did a mock draft where I intended to grab Jimmy Graham as a TE. My computer freaked out and I missed his nomination, so instead of reaching for one of the other “top” TEs I simply waited and grabbed a high upside guy for $1 (Jared Cook).

This brief example demonstrates player flexibility. I do in fact love Graham, but after missing him I didn’t need to get Davis, Witten or Finley – players I don’t like. You should use tiers to separate your players and decide how many from each tier you want. If things don’t go your way, have a backup plan (as in the TE example above). You’ll also need positional flexibility. If you draft Vick, you must have a quality backup. If Vick wasn’t your plan going into the draft but his value was too good to pass up because everyone else is scared (this IS happening this year) then you’ll need to make a spot on your roster for a backup QB and take off one of your other position players.

Budget flexibility

Another example:  I am not targeting ANY RBs in the top tier this year (MJD, Foster, Rice, McCoy) for reasons that I’ll not discuss for the sake of brevity. Instead I want 2 from the next 10 guys – more specifically two of CJ2K, McFadden, Matthews and Richardson. If the first three off of that list go for mega bucks, I’m not going to panic and grab a guy I don’t like. Instead I’ll be flexible my making sure I grab the last guy and an extra high upside RB from one of my lower tiers. I’ll take the difference in price and invest that into another position. The same works in reverse, if I decide to spend a little extra to get “my guy” (which you SHOULD do in some cases, by the way) then I need to take that money from somewhere. I don’t have a specific breakdown of ____$ for each position because I think it limits my flexibility. What I do think is worthwhile however is to compose your dream roster – something you could actually achieve for $200, not the best at every position – and then try to mock draft it. See how much you spend on each guy as a baseline for how much they’ll go for on draft day and then track your spending.

Being flexible not only helps you to come out of the draft with a good team, but a team you like. I’ve had seasons ruined because I wasn’t flexible and wound up drafting guys I didn’t want because I felt like I had to. Plan a little wiggle room into your draft day strategy and you’ll be able to enjoy the nachos and beer because your stomach won’t be in knots!

Basic Auction Draft Strategy – Part 1: Preparation

I’m going to break this series on auction draft strategies into the basics and what I consider to be slightly more advanced strategies. I think they make the most sense in sequence, but feel free to jump around as they stand alone as well. We’ll start with the basics and what strategies you should use prior to draft day.

Getting Started

One non-negotiable piece of strategy that gets reiterated by everyone who has an opinion is to prepare thoroughly for the draft. Showing up with a magazine or the ESPN draft kit open on your laptop will not serve your purposes at an auction. You need to have some semblance of an opinion on pretty much every meaningful player at every position (excluding kicker and defense).

I don’t want fantasy football to be hard work!

It’s not! Part of the fun is reading up on players, projections, quirky statistical analysis (football outsiders!) and then making your own decisions. Preparing just means deciding who you like and who you don’t. If you want to just print off a list from some website, that’s ok – it just means you won’t get much value because everyone else’s list will be similar.

Fine, I’ll prepare….but how?

1)      Find a list of players broken down by position that includes suggested auction price. Copy it to a word document, or better, excel. Put each position on a different page and now you’re ready to start making notes. As you hear updates or read articles, update your document by highlighting players you want and don’t want (I just use green and red backgrounds to make these designations).

2)      When you copy the list make sure you get the suggested prices. Next to the suggestions, come up with a ceiling price (a dollar amount you won’t go above) for the players you like and a basement price (dollar amount you would be willing to pay) for the players you don’t (I’ll go into more detail in a later post about why you should have a basement price). I’ll also post later on flexibility – but these prices are mostly firm.

Example: last year I wanted Ray Rice. I liked him better than all 5 guys ranked ahead of him (Peterson, Foster, CJ2K, Jamal Charles and MJD). His suggested auction price was $50 and I had a ceiling of $56…we got to my ceiling, I dropped out and he went for $57 to another owner. (Thankfully I got Shady Mccoy at a $6 dollar discount within minutes to salvage my backfield).

On the other end of the spectrum I hated Steven Jackson, but I was thinking of basement price as ‘price I wouldn’t want someone else to get him for.’ I was worried about someone else getting too much value so I bid $26 on a player valued at $32 assuming the trend of RBs going at or above market price would continue. Instead I heard crickets and I landed myself an oft injured RB on a terrible team. Egads! This is why it is important to set your basement price based on what YOU WOULD BE WILLING TO PAY and not feel dirty afterwards. (For the record, S-Jax’s basement price would have been $17 for me last year).

3)      Now look at a few of the guys you have targeted and clump them together (QB, RB1, RB2, WR1, WR2, etc…) and make sure that you can put together a full roster at or around the suggested prices. It is important not to have the kid in a candy shop mentality: “I’ll get the best player at every position, hooray!” Because that just won’t happen. Know that you’ll have to make some compromises: last year in a two QB league I decided to feast on RBs and WRs hoping to make a patchwork starting unit out of several different QBs. A mid season trade was the only thing that prevented my doom.

Using this method of draft prep, you should be able to call an audible in the middle of your auction with little to no stress and still put together an awesome team. Make sure that you’re filling out your roster, and look for value within your groupings. Stay tuned for my next post about overall team strategy heading into the draft.