Auction Draft Tip -Determine 2-3 players for which you would overpay.
It is often encouraged that you bring a price sheet to an auction and stick to it, religiously. The goal is to ensure that you don’t wildly pay above the market price for too many players, only to run out of money right away. Spending too much money too quickly is the most common mistake made in an auction, but the easiest way to lose a fantasy season is to allow a good player to pass you by because you were too rigid with your rules.
Between competitive nature and the lack of a true market value tied to everyone’s budget, the beginning of an auction draft is typically wild. Almost everyone goes over their projected price in the first few picks, and the prospect of landing Mike Trout, Clayton Kershaw, and Andrew McCutchen is so tantalizing that it is nearly impossible to not bid on all three.
Inevitably, unless you are extremely disciplined, you will over-spend somewhere. Inherently, the belief that one should remain ‘disciplined’ infers that the typically good behavior of enacting discipline will be rewarded with equally good results. It is only when discipline is applied properly that it deserves praise. Indeed, you should not throw money around, but you should be ready and willing to wisely over-spend.
The undisciplined owner is poor within a few picks. The overly disciplined owner has too much money leftover at the end of the draft. To fall in between, you need to trust that you will always end up in the same place if you plan ahead.
Consider the math. If you are the ‘disciplined owner’ who never spends as has money left over, you must have let a few solid players pass you by because their price was inflated. If you could look back, you would have thrown a few more dollars to upgrade from Ian Kennedy to Gerrit Cole. But, no one can control how much money you have in the later rounds except you and your spending habits. If you prepared to spend wisely throughout, you can literally afford to break that for a few select names.
Let the other owners stop bidding on Felix Hernandez at a certain number. Buy him at a premium, believe that you can still find bargains later, and reap the rewards of an ace pitcher afterwards, when price paid likely won’t matter.
