Preparing for the Auction

Yesterday, I talked about the work I do prior to the freeze date for my keeper leagues. Today, I'll talk about the what I do after the freeze date but before the auction to feel completely prepared.

1) Figure out what the real inflation rate is
Now that I know what everyone's actual freezes are, I can look at each team, figure out how much money they've spent on their teams and how much the inflation rate actually is. If you've done this already prior to the freeze date, you'll probably only need to tweak a few players and readjust.

2) Rank your team
Knowing what the inflation rate is gives you the opportunity to rank your team and see how far behind you are in hypothetical dollars. Using the example above, if you are Team 3 and project out as a $292 team post-auction, I would recommend auctioning using a simple value approach. Don't try and get cute and dump a category overboard or take significant cost risks on unproven or over-the-hill players. Play the value game and you should do well. On the other hand, if you are Team 8 and you only have $247 of projected post-auction value, you will want to consider tossing one category and possibly two overboard at the auction.

Whether you're in the first scenario or the second, you will want to move on to the next step.

3) Figure out your "raw" inflation bids.
This means taking the inflation factor and applying it to all of the available players in your league using a linear model. If inflation is 20%, multiply all of your raw bid limits times 1.2. Make sure that your bids plus your frozen salaries still add up to your league's salary cap.

OK, that was the easy part. Here comes the part where your intuition and knowledge of your own league will do more for you than any advice I can ever give.

4) Adjust your raw bids.
I've talked in older posts about how inflation isn't linear. However, one of the greatest challenges in Roto is that leagues are like snowflakes when it comes to inflation. Some leagues push closers to par inflation prices, while others refuse to chase even the best closers past a certain price. Some leagues have a moderate or severe dump culture while others frown upon this practice; this affects the prices of young players. Some leagues pay for position scarcity while others don't. I could go on and on, but the idea is the same in every example.

What you need to do is move past the mechanical mathematics and think about adjusting your bid limits. Here are some examples:

A) Adjust based on position scarcity: In my A.L. this year, most of the starting 2B will be frozen. Asdrubal Cabrera, Akinori Iwamura, Jose Lopez, and Juan Uribe will be the only ones available. If I don't have a 2B, I will have to decide whether I should increase my bids on any or all of these players or if I should not risk overpaying and grab an endgame MI and hope for the best. If I do decide to pay more based on position scarcity, I will have to make sure to adjust bids at other positions down.

B) Adjust based on league preferences: I was in a league once where everyone paid full inflation value for closers and overpaid for them in trade during the season. This made no sense to me, but I knew that if I wanted a top closer I'd have to pay $40-45 with inflation, and $25-30 for a bottom of the barrel closer wasn't out of line. I have no problems dumping a category if the prices are out of line, but this isn't in everyone's personality. If you have to have two closers in a league like this, adjust your bids accordingly.

C) Adjust if you are category dumping: I talked about this adjustment in a post last winter. The key is to adjust your prices enough to get the players you want without shooting yourself in the foot and paying $60 for Jose Reyes because you've decided to dump power. Paying $60 for Reyes might make sense, but only if you've done the math and figured out you can pay Reyes $60 and compete in all six or eight categories you're playing to win.

The bottom line regarding your prices is that these aren't magic numbers that you're spitting out of a computer and on to a spreadsheet. These are prices that are designed to buy a team that will allow you to win your league. If Alex Patton's or Rotoman's or John Benson's prices look screwy to you based on what happens in your league every year, change them. Your goal is to win your league, and only you know what the "best" prices will be at your auction.