Draft Tactics II: When Cheaper Players Go Early

Frank agreed with Eugene's assessment (posted yesterday) that calling out players who want in your auction early is a better tactic than trying to suck money out of the room by calling out players that you don't.

Most bidders do a better job of bidding properly on mid- and lower-level players if they already know what they need to budget for the stars. They also use star salaries as a point of reference for pricing lower tier players. You might be able to land a few mispriced players if you can get them before all the big money players are off the board.

For the most part, I've always found that it doesn't matter. Second and third-tier players are just as expensive as the studs if they go early. In fact, they sometimes are more expensive.

Rather than just go by my intuition, though, I thought I'd do what I always do and look at the data.

BABG 2009 "Early" Auction Data (Rounds 1-3)

Proj. Price (brackets)	#	Total Cost	Total Value	+/-
$40+	3	$123	$130	+7
$30-39	14	$478	$472	-6
$20-29	12	$320	$310	-10
$10-19	6	$100	$83	-17
$1-9	1	$1	$1	0
Totals	36	$1022	$996	-26

Yesterday, I used four rounds of data for the purposes of scoring "early" rounds. Today, I switched to three for 2009 since this has commonly been the last round where a player was purchased for $30 or more.

The projected price is the player's price with inflation, as is the total "value" column.

As I expected, the second and third-tier players are not bargains. In fact, they account for most of the losses in the first three rounds of the auction, and this isn't just the impact of a few extremely overpriced players. Only three of the 18 players in the $10-29 range are undervalued in my opinion. The other 15 are paid at inflation par or overpaid.

BABG 2008 "Early" Auction Data (Rounds 1-3)

Proj. Price (brackets)	#	Total Cost	Total Value	+/-
$40+	3	$123	$121	-2
$30-39	12	$389	$395	+6
$20-29	7	$192	$175	-17
$10-19	9	$152	$138	-14
$1-9	5	$34	$23	-11
Totals	36	$890	$852	-38

2008 has a wider distribution of players from price bracket to price bracket. Fourteen out of 36 players who were called out had a perceived value of $19 or less, compared to only seven in 2009.

The results, though, are quite similar. Only five out of the 21 players in the $0-29 price range are bargains; the other 16 either go for a par price or (in most cases) for more money.

BABG 2007 "Early" Auction Data (Rounds 1-3)

Proj. Price (brackets)	#	Total Cost	Total Value	+/-
$40+	4	$174	$177	+3
$30-39	15	$522	$515	-7
$20-29	6	$138	$136	-2
$10-19	8	$151	$127	-24
$1-9	3	$15	$9	-6
Totals	36	$1000	$964	-36

The league showed even more discipline in 2007. The $20-29 players as a group fell in around par prices. The $10-19 players is where most of the overpays came. Once again, trying to sneak in a lesser player for a cheap price didn't work out. And, once again, on the whole the $0-29 players were not bargains in the early going; only three out of 17 players went for $1 or more below their par prices.

Every league is different. It's possible in Eugene Freedman's league and in Frank's league that mid-tier and lower level players sneak in at cheap prices early. It simply hasn't worked out that way in my leagues, though. Unlike in Frank's league, owners know what they're going to pay for players in every price bracket and - generally speaking - pay that price.

This doesn't mean that you can't or shouldn't call out a player you want on the early side. I've done it before for some of the reasons Frank mentions. If there is a player I want at a thin position, I'll call him out to settle the issue and see if I'm going to get the player I want or allocate my money elsewhere. Just keep in mind that in many mature Rotisserie leagues, this tactic often doesn't work, and you'll have to decide if you're going to pay that par price - or go $1-2 over - right off the bat.