How to Draft the Best Fantasy Sports Team in an Auction Draft
Sources:
https://draftysports.com/news/beginners-guide-to-auction-drafts
As October approaches, Fantasy Football season has already begun and people have been spending a lot of time watching the players associated with their fantasy team play every Sunday. The most important part of a successful fantasy sports season is to draft the best players and this is done in two ways: a snake draft or an auction draft. Many treat the auction draft, though time-consuming, as the more entertaining choice because it is more interactive and involves more strategies. The auction draft can be thought of as a first-price auction for every single player until every team in the fantasy league drafts its full roster. Every member of the league has the opportunity to bid on a certain player, and the highest bidder drafts the certain player. For a second-price auction, bidding your value for a player would be the dominant strategy, but since this is a first-price auction, as learned in class, there is no clear dominant strategy for the draft.
The two articles I read talk about different approaches to the auction draft. Both articles claim that the most important aspect is the valuation of available players by position. In Fantasy sports, each team owner has a set budget and a specific combination of positions required to draft a complete team. Fantraxhq states that “knowing when to stop” is the most crucial part of a successful auction draft. This is where the pre-draft research and valuation come into play because team owners should approximately know how much, or even set a specific value, to each player. Usually, the players with the best stats will have high valuations from every team owner. It will be extremely important for each team owner to stick to their valuations no matter what since overbidding will cause the valuations for other players to change. The position also plays a crucial role in terms of valuation. The valuation for the #1 kicker in the league should not have the same valuation for the #1 running back or wide receiver because each position has a different role and affects the scoring system in different ways.
Draftysports emphasizes the importance of “sleeper picks”. These are the players whose initial valuations would be low on average but will make a great impact in the following season. For instance, if my valuation for the rank #1 quarterback in the league were $50 when my budget is $100, engaging in a bidding war that would exceed $50, and result in a negative payoff would ruin the rest of my draft because I would be forced to reduce my valuations for the other players I would want to draft, ruining the entire point of doing the pre-draft research.
The Fantrax article recommends the sleeper pick strategy. If I look into a quarterback whose projected ranking was #10, but I truly believe, after looking at more statistics, he will rank top 5 by the end of the season, I should always save my sleeper picks. Bidding on a sleeper pick at a lower value in the early rounds may surprise other team owners, but it poses the risk of another team owner outbidding you. Other team owners are more likely to perk up why such a low-ranked player was drafted so early in the draft.
In conclusion, the auction draft is a very entertaining way to play fantasy sports as a first-price auction is held for every player. The strategies the two articles mention are to provide accurate valuations to players considering their position and projected ranks and to utilize your sleeper picks very carefully.