Last Player Picked

For me, a fantasy auction is like a game of chess, and a fantasy draft is like a game of checkers.

Sure, checkers has its own unique strategies, but those strategies are restricted by the limited moves you can make. With chess, you have lots of different moves at your disposal and lots of strategic options. Freedom makes a much deeper and involved game. While auctions give you lots of choices, with a draft you’re just deciding which piece to move forward one square.

So it’s always been amusing to me that fantasy baseball started out with auctions but has since become dominated by serpentine drafts. It’s like chess players converting en masse to checkers or Garry Kasparov dropping out of tournament play to take up draughts.

Ironically, I’d guess that it’s technology that is responsible for — from the point of view of someone who favors auctions — a dramatic step backwards in the fantasy gaming experience. Internet-based fantasy baseball seems like the biggest factor in the rise of serpentine drafts. (I think that could work as an action movie — “The Rise of the Serpents.”) Technology couldn’t handle an online auction but could deal with a straight pick ‘em, and so the quality of the game regresses.

The Internet causing something to take a step backwards is not unparalleled, I guess. Think about Internet communication — an instant message is in many ways a step backwards from talking face-to-face. You have the advantage of communicating at a distance, but you miss out on tone and expression and body language. It took years for the technology to catch up with the old-fashioned experience — with faster connections speeds and the popularity of video chat. (And, honestly, even video chat has yet to replicate a face-to-face conversation.) But technology can take a while before it compares with a live experience.

Finally, though, it looks like the fantasy baseball technology is starting to catch up. After years of making people rely on straight drafts, Yahoo’s 2010 game is offering online auction drafts.

The question: Can auctions make a comeback? Will people who have spent the last decade doing serpentine drafts make the switch now that online auction technology is available?

I’m clearly biased towards auctions, but I’d like to think that when people try out auctions, they’ll be won over by the superior method. Once people are no longer forced to play checkers, they’ll start to see why so many people like chess.

There are two principal ways that fantasy leagues select players: auctions and drafts. The basic strategy for either of these leagues is the same. You want to acquire the greatest value of players (relative to replacement levels) on your team. However, there are some finer points of strategy that do differ between auctions and drafts.

Auctions

Auctions are the original method for picking fantasy teams. The idea is simple: Each owner is given a certain amount of imaginary money. Since the money isn’t real, the amount could be $5000 or $5 million, but typically it’s around $260 per team. Owners then bid on players in $1 increments, with player values usually ranging from about $50 to $1.

Team Construction
The main concern at an auction is how to construct a team. Do you spend all of your money on three or four top players, and then fill in with $1 sleeper picks? Do you take a more balanced approach, refusing to spend more than $25-30 on any one player? Or do you just take whatever players you feel are being undervalued by the other teams?

All of these strategies can work, and there could be owners at your auction employing all of them.

Nominations
With an auction, teams take turn nominating players for bidding. Often, teams will choose to nominate a player they don’t really want, hoping that other teams will be willing to spend money and a roster spot on that player. Sometimes you want to nominate a player that you do want early, just to make sure that you have the money to spend on them.

Running Up the Bid
In an auction, it’s to your advantage for other teams to overplay for players. While sometimes this will happen naturally, there are times where you might want to get involved yourself. If you suspect that an owner who currently has the high bid on a player would be willing to go higher, maybe you choose to raise the bid.

Obviously, there’s risk involved, since you could win a player that you didn’t really want. But there’s also some reward if you can empty out an opponent’s bank account and fill a spot on his team.

Drafts

The draft is a bit simpler than the auction, which might be the reason for its rising popularity. With a draft, teams take turns picking players. The order that teams choose reverses each round, so that whichever team picks last in the first round then picks first in the next.

Timing
The main strategy that I see when drafting is trying to time when to pick someone. “If I don’t take that player now, will he still be available in the next round?” This can be an especially hard decision for teams that pick first (and last) in a round, because they will have to wait for 22 picks before they get another selection.

Teams might be waiting to draft a player because they think no one else will take him at that point in the draft. Even if you think that player is the best pick, you can maximize your value by taking someone else now (provided you still get the first player later).

Team Balance
We noted that the auction format gives you the flexibility to take whichever players you want, provided you are willing to pay for them. Given the option some teams will spend most of their money on a few top players and then grab the leftovers at the end of the process.

However, the draft requires that every team takes a balanced approach. Everyone gets one first round player, one second round player, etc. While this is a restriction that eliminates some of the strategies you have in an auction, it also requires some additional thinking.

Conclusion
Given the choice, I will always pick an auction over a draft. I realize it’s a little easier and faster to do drafts (especially online), but I still don’t think they can match an auction’s flexibility.