The seven steps to a successful auction draft

The key to a fun auction is preparation. In snake drafts, you typically have five or more minutes between picks, and with the myriad resources available online, it is easy enough to print out some rankings for your format and make your draft decisions on the fly. In auction drafts, you are always on the clock, and each decision you make impacts the resources you will have available for all of your future picks. Auction prices are not always available online for the types of leagues you play in. It can be intimidating, especially if you are less experienced with auctions or with your league’s roster or scoring format.

Fortunately, auction prep is like food prep. You don’t actually have to know how to cook as long as you can follow the recipe. And no matter what type of league you play in, the recipe for auction prices boils down to these seven steps.

(Note that this recipe follows the basic logic of value-based drafting, which is explained here.)

1. Find or create player projections

The only way you can end up with useful auction prices is if you start with player projections you trust. PFF has excellent projections, which is what I’ve used for this article. Alternatively, you can create your own projections. The only real requirement for those is that they produce a projected fantasy point total for every relevant player in your league.

2. Calculate player projected fantasy points per game

Rather than rely on each player’s total projected fantasy points for the season, it is best to work on a per-game basis. Doug Martin is suspended for the first three games of the season, so a fantasy player who drafts Martin will plan to receive Martin’s points in his 13 games plus the points of a replacement back in the first three weeks. Working with points per game eliminates the hassle of trying to add replacement-level points into a player like Martin’s total.

3. Estimate the replacement level for all relevant positions

This step is one part science and two parts art. If you know your league scoring and roster settings, then you can make a reasonable guess as to how many players at each position will be owned at any given time. To start, simply lay out a table with the number of starters from every team used at every position as well as bench spots. Here are examples using four different scoring formats.

Next, you need to allocate the available bench spots to the positions you expect to fill them. I find the easiest way to do that is to first distribute the bench spots based on the ratio of starters at the other positions. In the standard league example, quarterbacks take up 10 of the 70 total starter spots among the main fantasy positions. Therefore, quarterbacks should be given one-seventh of the total bench spots, which in this case is 10. Do similar math for every relevant position in your format, and you’ll end up with a table like this one.

Before you run with those expected position totals, you need to make some common-sense adjustments. For example, the 51 projected owned quarterbacks total in the 2-QB league example is obviously too high. Because of the nature of the position, only 32 quarterbacks can typically provide fantasy value, and there are not enough prospects at the position to justify excessive ownership. Remember that whatever you subtract from the totals at one position needs to be added to the totals at another position or positions. If you’ve played in the league you are doing this for before, it can be helpful to look at last year’s teams and add up all of the owned players by position to use as a guideline.

Now that you have an estimate of how many players at each position will be owned, you can identify specific players to serve as your benchmarks for the replacement level. Your starting place will be the top point scorer at each position who is unowned. In the standard league example, that would be the 21st quarterback, 51st running back, and so on.

This is one of the artistic parts of the process because it might not make sense to blindly follow the projected points per game if you believe there are reasons why more productive players will be available. One reason for that could be an ownership that is less risk-averse and therefore willing to own more prospect players. Again, it can help to have experience playing in leagues with the owners you will be facing to get a sense of their preferences for their bench player ceilings and floors. In general, the shallower the league, the more willing owners should be to select upside over moderate guaranteed production.

Here are the benchmark players I came up with in the same four formats.

It feels like Eli Manning has been the replacement-level fantasy quarterback in shallow leagues for the better part of a decade now. In deeper leagues, the replacement quarterback often ends up being the worst of one of the worst fantasy starters. Jared Goff isn’t quite projected to be that, but some quarterbacks without guaranteed jobs like Paxton Lynch have (presumably) greater fantasy potential.

In deeper, two-quarterback leagues, it will likely be the case that every starting quarterback is owned. That makes the replacement-level choice a backup who is among the most likely to play, be that a rookie that could take over mid-season or a backup playing behind an often-injured starter like Cody Kessler. His point per game total should reflect the fact that he would only receive points in some of his teams’ games played.

In my experience, the replacement-level running back is often a third-down back who can buoy his fantasy total with a few catches to offset his lack of total touches. Don’t stress the specific names too much. An owner could reasonably believe that Charles Sims might end up as the lead back in Tampa Bay because of Martin’s suspension, but as long as his projected points per game is a reasonable proxy for the replacement level at the position, then he will work fine for this exercise.

Wide receivers and tight ends tend to play out similarly to running backs. The best choices for replacement-level players tend to be guys like Mohamed Sanu and Eli Rogers who are consistent in their roles but would be unlikely to see a significant role change if the No. 1 receivers on their teams missed some time.

4. Calculate player projected fantasy points per game over the replacement level

With replacement-level proxies established, you can calculate each player’s points per game over replacement by subtracting those replacement PPG totals from players’ projected PPG. For example, David Johnson is projected to score 23.2 points per game in the PPR 16-Team seven-bench league, and the replacement running back is expected to score 3.7 points. The difference is 19.5 points per game.

5. Aggregate PPG over projected games played

For this step, multiply each player’s points per game over replacement from Step 4 by his projected total games played. Johnson is projected for 16 games, and so 16 * 19.5 = 312.0 total fantasy points over replacement. Most players will be projected for 16 games like Johnson, but remember to account for suspensions and PUP/IR-boomerang players like Martin when you can.

6. Apply an auction price multiplier

Once you have each player’s fantasy points over replacement, you need to scale those totals down to fall within the auction constraints. To do so, divide the total budget of all teams by the sum of all positive fantasy points over replacement — players with negative totals should all be valued at $0. Continuing with the previous example, let’s assume that the 16-team PPR league has $200 budgets for each team. That creates a multiplier of $200 * 16 / 19,143.0 = 0.167. Multiply that by Johnson’s projected 312.0 fantasy points above replacement, and you end up with his auction value of $52.

Johnson happens to have the highest projected auction value. Here are the rest of the top 16 players.

When you sort players by auction value, then you also have a ranking list for a snake draft. Auction values also make it easy to establish positional tiers, which can help you make decisions about which players to bid on or selection during your draft.

7. Know when to ignore what your pricing sheet says

It is a worthwhile goal to try to end up with the most surplus value at the end of your auction, but you shouldn’t be wedded to what your pricing sheet tells you. There is a balance to it. If your league starts to pay too much for top-end talent across the board in your auction, you could let those players go and build a roster of underpriced mid-tier players. However, that strategy may prevent you from taking advantage of your ability to find gems on the waiver wire, which is something that can turn a stars-and-scrubs team into a sudden juggernaut.

Play to your own strengths and weaknesses. If you are a news hound, then maybe allow yourself to pay up for stars and go a few extra dollars on high-ceiling rookies. If you have less time to devote to the league during the year, maybe spend more of your money on established quarterbacks and receivers who have lower bust rates. Whatever your plan, the pricing sheet should help give you confidence to make decisions, especially early in auctions when there aren’t a lot of players to establish comparable pricing points.