Most of us have done it at least once.
The auction is nearing its conclusion, and you can tell you're going to leave some cash on the table. It isn't a lot, but you're aggravated at yourself, since you could have gone that extra $2-3 earlier on that player or those players that you liked. You still had a good value auction, but you didn't gain as much ground as you would have hoped because of this shortfall.
badgermaniac wrote about this happening in his auction in 2010:
The problem is the guys I wanted just weren't bid on. Kris Medlen went for $2. Jon Sanchez went for $3. Brett Myers went for $5. When Todd Coffey and Brandon Lyon went for $1-$2 each, I was stuck with money.
badgermaniac isn't alone. I did the same thing in 2010 in my American League for the same reasons. I left $9 on the table because the pitchers I bought were bargains relative to my projected prices and no one was spending on pitchers. I was happy to get who I got, but I should have spent my money sooner.
Sometimes leaving money on the table can't be avoided. However, here are a few tips so that you don't find yourself in this unfortunate position.
1) Know your league's spending history. Does your league spend a good deal on closers? Is speed devalued? Do middle infielders always go for top dollar? While you don't want to adjust your bids to the point of making them completely worthless, you do want to make sure you reflect the realities of how your league spends its money. Putting an artificially low price on Leo Nunez and Ryan Franklin might make you feel better when someone pays $15 for each of them, but it's also going to leave you with too much money to spend for commodities that your particular market isn't chasing.
2) Know your roster. Do you have three middle infielders frozen? Are you locked into two closers? From a value perspective, these are often good or great scenarios for your roster, but can leave you with money if you lock out your DH/UT slot early or if you don't want to bid on a closer because you don't want to overspend on a category. If you have three MIs frozen, you had better avoid filling in your UT slot unless you're getting a stud like Hanley Ramirez or Troy Tulowitzki. You will lock yourself out of bidding on other players later and possibly cripple yourself in the later rounds.
3) Budget appropriately. This ties into points #1-2, but it is vital that you make sure that your bids make sense for the types of players you need to buy and also the types of players other owners need to buy. A couple of years ago I needed three middle infielders and had a lot of outfielders. I pushed down my OF prices and pushed up my MI prices so that I'd buy three middle infielders between $40-50. Mission accomplished. This can work the other way, too. If you see three teams locked into DHs, you might want to push the DH prices down and move money elsewhere.
4) Don't be afraid to go over your bid on a player or two if you need to do so. No matter how much strong work you put into your budgeting, you might still need to make an adjustment during your auction. If you see all of the top OF going at prices $2-3 above your sheet price, you might need to push on a strong outfielder, particularly if you're locked in at other positions and have to buy an outfielder to spend your money. One tactic I adopted years ago was to track the maximum amount of money I could spend based on the open slots on my roster versus the maximum bid limits of the best players left. When the bid limits were $10 greater than the money I had left to spend or less, I knew that I had better start buying players. This usually meant pushing a player to par, but if I had to go $1 over, it was better than going $5 over later or leaving money on the table.
Even with the best laid plans, you still might leave some cash behind at your auction. However, the strategies I list above should minimize the chances of this happening and allow you to further maximize your teams value by making sure that you spend your money and don't leave it at your auction.
No comments:
Post a Comment