Auction Strategy - Zig and Zag

I was reading the TMR so-called NL Expert League auction piece. BABI players would tear these guys up. Huge overbidding early, ridiculous bargains at the end, just like the classic rookie type draft. Graves went for $5 and Mesa went for $4; meanwhile Yhency Brazoban went for $8. And this in a non-keeper league.

Mike Bornhorst, who resisted most of the overspending temptation early, had this to say about his strategy:

Personally, I go into every auction prepared to implement one of two strategies: 1) Stars and scrubs; and 2) Total cheapskate, no $30 player-mode. I do this because I think fantasy owners are better off zigging when the majority of the league is zagging. Better to be the owner with a ton of money in the middle rounds if teams are spending $40 for $30 players in the first few rounds. Similarly, if most owners are sitting on their money when the draft starts, then it's best to open up your wallet early - trust me, you want no part of the Geoff Jenkins bidding war; that's not why you saved $150 for the end of your draft. Sometimes the best bargains don't come at the end of the draft, but at the very beginning.

I find this insight truly profound. This is a much more difficult thing to evaluate in a high inflation keeper league like BABI. You've got to have a clear feel for the inflated value of each player, particularly early in the auction. Is $45 a bargain or a ripoff for Beltran in an inflationary setting? You've got to know right away if the league is overspending or underspending, because if you just wait, and it turns out to be the latter, you're going to pay $27 for Geoff Jenkins.

I wonder if Jeff Busch knew or just sensed the relative overspending early. I knew it, but we were too committed to our strategy to buy certain expensive players. This season, we have to be doubly sensitive, because we're keeping 10 for only $72. We've got to spend that money, and we don't want to be chasing Jerry Hariston to $17 half way through the auction. We need to know in the first few picks what the nature of the spending is to project whether there will be middle-round bargains (a bargain generally being defined as a fairly priced player relative to real value).

It makes me rethink our commitment to Thome, which is going to happen pretty early in this auction. Committing to a super-specialist can cause you to lose all flexibility later. The same might be said of Dave Roberts, though the scarcity of steals might justify it. Going after the 4 category guys we like will help us spend the money, and by bying a little of every stat, we retain our flexibility. If Thome is going twice at $34, though, we've got to step up.

I do believe we have the approach relative to analyzing inflation that should allow us to exercise judgement quickly. We just have to have the courage to do so.