Draft Strategy: Auction Leagues

Ah yes, auction drafts. I love doing auctions to kick off a fantasy season. It gives you access to every single player on the board. Sometimes when you get a draft position in your normal snake drafts, you already know these guys are not going to be accessible to me because they're not going to land where I would need to take them. However, with an auction draft, you can literally have a shot at every single player. There are a few things that you want to keep in mind when going through an auction draft.

Number one is budget control. You don't want to overspend on every single player right off the bat. You need to keep in mind that you have to fill an entire roster. If you really want CMC and he's first up on the board, there's a chance that you're going to overspend to get him, which means you're going to have to be able to budget the rest of the way. Now, I'm not saying don't overspend on CMC or Breece Hall, Bijan Robinson, Tyreek Hill, CeeDee Lamb, or whoever, you're just going to have to be cautious of how much you spend on each particular player. If you decide to spend half of your budget on CMC, you're just going to have to be very, very critical of that budget the rest of the way.

For me personally, sometimes I will stay away from those top-tier players because I know when they come on the board that people are going to be spending like crazy on them. I'm going to let them utilize some of that money and maybe overspend at that point so I can take a look at some of the guys that fall just after them. For instance, maybe you don't want to spend a ton of money on Christian McCaffrey, Breece Hall, Kyren Williams, the very top options. Instead, you want to target somebody that you feel like could get you inside the top 12 running backs but at a better cost. Maybe targeting Jonathan Taylor, Derrick Henry, a couple of guys whose value may not be as high as the top-tier players but also could offer you some top-tier production. At wide receiver, Amon-Ra St. Brown may end up costing a lot of money, but he may not cost as much as Tyreek Hill or CeeDee Lamb. Similar type of production, a guy with top-three potential, but you're going to get him at a top-five price. If you want to wait a little bit longer, then you could take a look at a guy like Drake London, Chris Godwin, some of those guys that are going just outside the top 12.

The second most important step that I'm taking in my auction drafts is securing my RB1 and my wide receiver one in advance. Think to yourself who do you want to have leading your team at those positions. Again, it doesn't necessarily have to be the top-tier players. Maybe you're okay with Derrick Henry being your RB1. In advance, know to yourself how much am I going to have to spend to lock in those two guys. Allocate quite a bit of your budget to it. 30 to 35% of your budget should be going to your wide receiver one and your RB1. If you're shooting for the top-tier players at RB1 and wide receiver one, now you're talking about upwards of 50% of your budget on only two guys.

Next tip: do not overbid on quarterbacks and tight ends. When you see some of the top tight ends come on the board—Travis Kelce, Sam LaPorta—a lot of your fantasy managers are going to get a little over-anxious to start bidding on those guys, and the money could end up being wasted really, really fast. For the tight end position, I'm taking a look at some of the lesser options that aren't going to cost me nearly as much. Evan Engram doesn't have a ton of upside, but he has a really nice safe floor that could lead to him not being bid on as much as some of the other tight ends. You could end up getting a value with a guy like Evan Engram. People think Dalton Kincaid is going to be a breakout candidate with a lot of ceiling. He's likely going to be a guy that people will try to spend on quite a bit fairly quickly. Maybe George Kittle wouldn't cost nearly as much because people would be a little bit more worried about how consistent the work would be for him.

At the quarterback position, same thing. Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts, Lamar Jackson, C.J. Stroud—all of these guys are going to end up costing an absolute premium. At the quarterback position, I'm looking to buy the dip. I am looking for that dip after the top quarterbacks are off the board. People are going to overbid on the top quarterbacks, and then when they don't end up getting them, they're going to go ahead and move away and start looking at the top positions elsewhere. You, at that point, could swoop in and start taking your top B-tier quarterback and get him at a little bit of a discount because everybody that missed out on the A-tier is now focused on the A-tier of position players instead.

Bargain shopping is one of the most important things that you can do in auction leagues. Being able to nominate guys at the right time and get them for the right price is absolutely a way to make or break your season. Nominate them too early, and a lot of the managers are going to have a lot of money still. At that point, if they see a guy that they really like, they may end up overspending on him because they're like, "Hey, I've got a ton of money. I really want this guy. I'm going to go ahead and bid what I need to to get him," and that drives the price up. But if you wait till later on in your auction draft, when people have money left over but they haven't filled all their roster spots, at that point they're panicking. They still have open spots. You've nominated a guy that you really like, they like him as well, but at this point, they're like, "I got to fill my roster with somebody," and now they just spend what they need to to get him so they can fill that roster spot. The sweet spot for the bargain players is going to be when some of those top-tier players just haven't quite come off the board yet—a lot of your B-tier players—because at that point if your managers that are also bidding are looking at the draft board and they see a lot of B-tier guys left, they may not be willing to spend their money at that point because there's still a lot of really good options available.

For me, I'm using anywhere from 15 to 25% of my budget for my bargain shopping, my RB3s, my wide receiver 3s, my flex options, guys that might sit on the bench but could become startable. Those guys—that's where you have to find the best deals.

Alright, now it's your turn to nominate a player for auction. Are you still in the early part of your draft? Are you in the mid part of your draft? If so, we don't want to put anyone on the board that we actually want. You need to nominate somebody that other people are willing to spend their money on. Throw somebody out there so they start wasting money, and that's just a little bit less that they need to utilize on players that you're going to want later on. It also doesn't show your hand too early or too late. You can keep inside what you want to be going after, what positions you want to target, and then at that point, when they become available on the auction board, you jump in and you target them.

Please do not spend a bunch of money on kickers and defense. Every single year we find a couple of defenses that end up surprising and become really, really good fantasy contributors. For kickers, I mean just get somebody who kicks. For God's sake, stop going out there and spending a bunch of money on defense and kickers. Wait till the very end. Allocate your budget everywhere else because guess what? When people start spending a bunch of money, they're not going to want to use what little money they have left to spend it on kickers and defense.

The final step to auction drafts is just making sure that you are prepared. Just like a snake draft, you're going to have to go with the flow of it sometimes, but again, you're going to have a shot at every single player. In a snake draft, a lot of times you can just cross out names. If you've got the ninth overall pick, you know Breece Hall, Christian McCaffrey, Bijan Robinson, Tyreek Hill—you know those guys are going to be gone, so you can just start crossing those guys off the list right away. However, in an auction draft, they're going to be available to you no matter what. Make sure you set your budget prior to going into your draft and make sure you try to give yourself a wide range. If you say, "I'm only going to spend 25% of my money on these two players," you're going to put yourself in a bind. Sometimes you've got to say, "I'm willing to spend between 20 and 30%," so then you can allocate money elsewhere a little bit more efficiently.

One more tip—consider this a bonus: have a really balanced roster in auction leagues. You're going to have a couple of managers every single year that wipe out 70% of their budget on maybe three players. Yeah, those three players are going to be really, really good and they're going to help carry their team, but they're not going to have the money to balance out the rest of their roster. After that, they're going to have some really high highs and they're going to have some really low lows. Your balanced roster is always going to be a way better matchup for them every single time.