Where Are the Bargains At?

In a follow-up to his previous posts, anonymous asks:

So, basically, if I pay a bit above estimated value, I will actually lower the price of the endgame players and possibly increase my chance of picking up a $3 player who might be valued at $7?

I hope I'm not giving the impression that there is a uniformly magic moment in every Rotisserie auction when all the bargains are there for the taking. Every auction does have that moment or those moments, but they are unique to every auction.

Here are examples of two separate auctions I've participated in and the anticipated cost of these players based on my projected inflation calculation.

Auction A

Round		Player Cost	Inflation Value	+/-
1		$362	$342	-20
2		$372	$366	-6
3		$266	$256	-10
4		$224	$205	-19
5		$185	$172	-13
6		$124	$103	-21
7		$116	$111	-5
8		$76	$83	+7
9		$59	$66	+7
10		$22	$42	+20
11		$33	$47	+14
12		$21	$39	+18
13		$12	$25	+13
14*		$6	$7	+1

*last 6 players purchased.

Auction B

Round		Player Cost	Inflation Value	+/-
1		$310	$307	-3
2		$311	$278	-33
3		$225	$217	-8
4		$168	$152	-16
5		$208	$211	+3
6		$165	$129	-36
7		$110	$98	-12
8		$63	$59	-4
9		$38	$51	+13
10		$27	$36	+9
11		$20	$41	+21
12		$15	$30	+15
13		$12	$28	+16
14*		$4	$4	0

*last 4 players purchased.

All of these examples are for 12-team, A.L.-only leagues, so each round is 12 players worth of data. The player cost is the combined cost of what all 12 players in each round went for, the inflation value is how much each block of 12 players were worth with inflation, and the +/- for each round is self-explanatory.

In both Auction A and Auction B, the best bargains come at the end of each auction. Additionally, each auction sees a significant climb in prices over the inflation value. In Auction A, Player 87 (three players into Round 8) pushes the winning bids $104 past inflation par. In Auction B, Player 86 (two players into Round 8) pushes the winning bids $114 past inflation par.

At this point, there have to be bargains. There is more talent than there is money, and the final 75 players in Auction A and the final 74 in Auction B will push the bids down and down until they almost reach $0 in inflation.

This has to happen. If a league has $1200 to spend on $1000 worth of available talent and spends its first $800 on $600 worth of talent, the league would then have $400 to spend on $400 worth of talent. Even in a league with freezes, the bids have to add up to equal what there is to spend, regardless of when the money is spent.

The challenge doesn't lie in finding the bargains in the endgame. The challenge comes in finding bargains when all of the bids are over par.

In Auction A, Rounds 8-14 show a total of 82 players purchased for $80 below inflation par. Picking your spots in these rounds sounds like an excellent plan...until you realize that a mere total of $229 is being spent on $309 worth of players. That sounds like a lot, but that only comes out to $19 per team. Rounds 1-7 are where most of the league's money is spent. $1,649 are spent on 84 players whose inflation bids are worth a mere $1,555 in inflation bids. And these are inflation bids. That means that you're actually losing more than $94 on these 84 players.

Auction B is even more radical. Rounds 9-14 see $116 spent on players worth $190. Great...except for the fact that $1,560 has already been spent on $1,451 worth of players with inflation bids, and that $116 works out to a measly $10 per team.

In both cases, you have to spend money at some point to fill out your roster with at $260 team. Simply waiting for bargains at the end means that you might fill out a 23 man roster with +30 or +40 worth of value, but leave plenty of money on the table.

The "magic moments" I mentioned above have to come earlier. In Auction A, Round 2 is a bit of a sweet spot. Eight of the 12 players purchased in that round went at inflation par or $1-2 below. And the spikes across rounds generally aren't incremental. Round 1 in Auction A is a -20 round, but 75% of this loss is wrapped up in two players.

Auction B's sweet spot on the high end of the auction was in Round 1. There was a plus on the board for the first 10 players, meaning that up until that point the cumulative bids were all below inflation par. If you see this happening in your auction, you had damn better make sure that you buy at least one player in the round and probably two.

In the first half of a Roto auction, you don't know when the bargains are coming again. Four of the 12 players in Round 1 of Auction B were not only bargains, but were $3 or $4 below inflation par. In an experienced league, the room will quickly snap out of its early lull and realize that the money has to be spent. This happened in Auction B in a hurry, as Round 2 saw a -33 spot put on the board.

With inflation, you are already paying above "estimated value". The key is to pay a little less below inflation value on as many players as you can and try to make your profits in the endgame. More often than not, those profits will be there in a Stage Three auction.