Targeting Stats at the Auction?

For years, I've consistently advocated that proper valuation is the most important facet of laying a foundation for a winning Rotisserie team. But recently, an anonymous reader suggested that my approach might be off base.

Everyone should have a different estimate of the players worth based on your keepers. If I have two capable closers I have closers values less since I only want them at a hefty bargain....I want to leave an auction with 80% of what it takes to win a category.....If I purchase a big hitter and am lowest on speed it values stolen bases higher. If U have a low team BA it values high batting average guys higher. You just need to hit your marks, not guess what a player should go for.

I agree with this to a certain degree.

I wrote about adjusting your bids based on what your freezes look like, and how much value is wrapped up in your hitting freezes versus how much is wrapped up in your pitching freezes. If you had Cliff Lee at $3 and Zack Greinke at $6 heading into your auction, you probably weren't planning on spending $85 on your pitching staff. You were probably looking at spending between $60-70 and parlaying Lee and Greinke's cheap salaries into making your offense stronger.

I also agree with the idea of not pushing money into a category where you're already strong. If you had Jon Papelbon at $11 and Frank Francisco at $10 heading into this season, it wouldn't have benefited you to pay $38 for Joe Nathan.

However, there are two significant reasons why I don't agree with anonymous' approach.

1) You are trying to buy the best talent, not necessarily the best stats
In the example above with Papelbon/Francisco, what would you have done if Fernando Rodney came up early in the auction, the room decided he was a bum, and he was sitting at $5? Would you have said $6?

You definitely wouldn't have if you were shooting for 80% across the board in each category. In that model, Rodney would have been excess and you would have had no bid limit on him (which could be why he was sitting at $5). But even if you had a modest price on him of $11, you would have recognized that you were buying a player worth $11 that you would be able to flip later. More importantly, you would have prevented a competitor from scooping up a bargain at closer and allowing him to build a bullpen on the cheap.

I made this mistake many years ago. I let an owner with a solid but not great freeze list buy two very solid closers at a combined $49 because I was dumping saves and had committed. By doing so, I ignored the inherent value in the relievers he purchased. This oversight was a big part in allowing him to win the league. Never again.

Don't forget that if you buy Rodney in this scenario you can trade him later for what you need, and if you're right about his value, you should get more back in talent than the $6 you paid for him.

2) Scarcity artificially skews prices
In an auction with scarce steals or saves, the removal of one player from the board can create a radical environment where you wind up artificially price enforcing a player to a point where you won't win if you buy him, no matter how strong your team is otherwise. Using anonymous' example, the same thing can happen if you enter an auction strong on power but light on speed.

There are two ways this can happen.

The first way is if you enter your auction strong in some categories but very light on others. For example, let's say that you enter your auction halfway to your 80% goal in home runs and RBI but only 10% of the way to your stolen base goal. Using a straight formula, it's not out of the question that you would pay $55-60 for Carl Crawford or $40-45 for Chone Figgins. This might put you in competition in the speed game, but unless your other hitting freezes are so good that you can afford to freeze yourself out of help at other positions by locking down Crawford or Figgins at these absurd prices, you're probably going to weaken your team significantly.

You can also wind up in a scenario where Crawford goes to another owner for $45 and because a high percent of steals have been removed from the board, you'll wind up with a "new" price on Chone Figgins of $38...not because Figgins suddenly got better, but because his stats are suddenly more "valuable" because with Crawford off the board steals are harder to come by.

Of course nothing has changed. Figgins' potential steals were worth just as much when Craword was on the board as when he wasn't. But someone using a model where you're gunning for specific stats can easily fall into this trap.

As I've said before, there's nothing wrong with paying an extra buck or two specifically for the stats you need, and similarly letting someone go a little cheap if it's going to provide excess you won't be able to trade later.

For the most part, though, you are better off buying the value where it comes in your auction and trading it later, even if it does provide you with some categorical excess in April. Having too much of something is your best non-dump trading opportunity, and if your opponents let you get bargains because they were chasing categories and not value in the auction, you will have even more to trade.