Targeting Players?

anonymous asks:

I know from watching other auctions that it isn't always best to target players -- only how much you'd want to pay for certain types of players -- lest you overbid terribly on your targeted men.

What say you?

I'm against targeting specific players in most cases.

The obvious example of trying to target a player is if a super-stud like Alex Rodriguez isn't frozen. Some owners decide that they have to own A-Rod no matter the cost, and they'll go for too much money, like in the CBS Sportsline expert auction. A-Rod was the first player called out and he went for $54.

Your first guideline should be your bid limits. That doesn't mean -as Badgermania and others have pointed out in the comments section - that you shouldn't adjust your bid limits based on how your team is shaping up as the auction goes along. But these adjustments should be minor, and you shouldn't find yourself chasing players because A-Rod, Miguel Cabrera and David Ortiz are gone and you just have to own a superstar.

One thing I think people lose sight of in freeze league is that the auction is a closed system. Your league only has a finite amount of money to spend, and you will wind up filling your roster with $260 worth of players if you budget correctly. You do want to avoid simply sitting on your hands and waiting for bargains to fall; in experienced leagues, the bargains on anyone priced over $15 are few and far between. You are going to have to buy players at par or $1-2 within par in order to field a roster.

From that standpoint, you do want to set targets. Think about your bid limits and then decide how firm you want to be on each bid limit. When you have a soft bid limit, you might decide that you won't push that player to more than $2 under your bid limit. If, on the other hand, you like a player, you can push him to $1 under par or even - in rare cases - par.

The only time I target players is if I have a strategy that requires owning a certain type of player to compete in a certain category. The examples that spring to mind are a top steals guy or a top starting pitcher. Even then, you still want to have a limit that will enable you first and foremost to compete in the categories you intend to compete in. Buying the player is secondary.

One year I made the mistake of buying Pedro Martinez in his prime for $57 because I wanted to build my rotation around an ace. This crippled my team and made it next to impossible for me to execute my strategy. Even in this circumstance where I needed an ace to make my strategy work, I should have stayed away from Pedro and come up with a Plan B. You always want to have that Plan B, rather than insist on owning a player at all costs. That cost, more often than not, is a second division finish.