SDMB Auction FF League 2010

The Game Room
41

Some thoughts:

  1. The premium guys were clearly Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Chris Johnson, Andre Johnson, and Antonio Gates. They all went much higher than even other elite players.

  2. Excluding Tom Brady, there is an $11 gap between Brees and the next highest quarterback. So Brady was both a steal and a reach. Flacco at $9 and Palmer at $3 are great value.

  3. I should have spent more money on a backup QB. I like Stafford, but for a few dollars more I could have guys with a better track record

  4. Ray Rice at $49 was great value. Most regular drafts have him as the #3 RB on the board. Jonathon Stewart at $16, Matt Forte at $20, and Michael Bush at $5 are honorable mentions. I’m not sold on Rashard Mendenhall, but he’s OK value at $34

  5. I’m a bit surprised by the lessened value of the wide receivers. Getting a top 10 receiver for less than a #2 RB is good value in the current NFL. Although there are more WRs to choose from who may be studs, I still think they’re worth the investment in the really good ones.

  6. Reggie Wayne at $22 is great, even though I think he’ll fall off this year. The Steve Smith twins at $15 and $12 and Laurent Robinson at $1 are very good too. And Legedu Naanee at $5 is amazing compared to CJ Spiller at $18.

  7. The TE’s are really deep this year, which kept their prices down nicely. So did only 2 guys grabbing backups. There’s a lot of TE talent on the waiver wire. I think Zach Miller at $4 and Owen Daniels at $2 are great gets.

42

And, I should have specified that my team is the New New York Benders…

43

Yeah.

There isn’t one really. But if you get the guys you want without spending it all we figured it was fair to add to your faab total. Not worth saving on purpose for that reason though.

44

I have 4 starting quality RBs with upside. Mendenhall, Best, Ronnie Brown, and Foster. I’m willing to trade any of them for a roughly equal WR. Send league offers or PMs.

45

(Mine, anyway)

I had two new changes to drafting in the auction this year. I drafted with a concrete plan, and not just “wait for values” or “Stars and Scrubs,” but a list of players I was going to get and players I would settle for if the first option was overvalued. I based this on a new strategy I wanted to try, which was trying to stack up all my starters’ bye weeks onto one week. I ended up with 9 of 14 players (not counting K or Def) from my original list, and only had to really overpay for two or three.

I also did almost no research. Normally I’ll have put in easily a hundred or more hours during July and August for research and this season I put in maybe six. Maybe. I found it interesting how doing so little research colors your opinions towards last season and away from this season, or so it did for me (and I assume for everyone else since we all basically make decisions based on what we know). I’m convinced this is why average fantasy owners stay average - too much focus on last season.

Onto the list! I’ll list my buy value in bold with the average Yahoo auction value, my budgeted price, and my ceiling price for each player. I’ll also try to list some of the players Yahoo finds to be of similar projection and what they went for.

QUARTERBACKS
Peyton Manning, Ind $31
(Average: $26 / Budget: 25 / Ceiling: – )
Comparable: Aaron Rodgers $36, Drew Brees $34, Tom Brady $26
Peyton doesn’t fit the bye week plan, but I went strongly for him because I realized that the quarterbacks on bye Week 8 were all either unproven or not strong enough fantasy starts. Peyton could be argued to have nearly single-handedly won me the All-Pro league last season. His greatest value comes in his nigh-impossible consistency. He provides my team a fantasy floor that nearly guarantees my team no crappy, disappointing weeks. That was invaluable last season, and until he finally starts to drop off, I’ll shoot for him every time.

He also represents another important change for me. Last year I got several targets of mine sniped from me by people who were willing to put in just one more dollar. This time, I was that sniper. I learned my lesson last year; you’re better off paying an extra dollar for someone you really want than settling for someone (hopefully there’s a someone later to settle on) you only kinda want.

Kevin Kolb, Phi $4
(Average: $4 / Budget: $5 / Ceiling: $10)
Comparable: Joe Flacco $6, Eli Manning $6, Matt Ryan $5
I considered making him my #1 before I decided to target Peyton. He’s an outstanding value here and I’m honestly shocked no one at least tried to make me pay for him. Everyone knows I’m an Eagles fan (my logo is the Eagles logo), why not make me overpay? At the very least you end up getting the QB that virtually everyone loves as a sleeper.

Overall, I’ think I have the easily league’s best QB situation, though I paid for it. I didn’t really overpay, but I certainly paid a high percentage of my budget to this position. Kolb could explode and still only start one week for me, so he might have been too high a price to pay for a backup, but he wasn’t even the highest paid backup in the league. I’m thrilled with this position. I targeted both guys and got both. I would not change a single one of them.

RUNNING BACKS
Ray Rice, Bal ** $49**
(Average: $59 / Budget: 62 / Ceiling: – )
Comparable: Chris Johnson $68, Adrian Peterson $59, MJD $56
Another of my guys, he’s probably the steal of the entire draft. A top 4 RB for a $10 discount? I got really lucky he was one of the last RBs nominated when fewer people had the money to bid him up. I got into a 1-on-1 bidding war for him somewhere around $40 and thought for sure I’d end up paying 50-60… but the other person backed off. That feeling of seeing the timer expire is one I doubt I’ll ever replicate.

Jamaal Charles, KC $31
(Average: $38 / Budget: 40* / Ceiling: – )
Comparable: Rashard Mendenhall $35, Ryan Mathews $42, Shonn Greene $37, Steven Jackson $51
I almost didn’t get Charles. He wasn’t on my targets list (though he was a secondary target, hence the asterisk for the budget). The reason I got him was because of Rashard Mendenhall, actually. I was so pissed that I didn’t have the stones to jump in when he was going for $35 that I swore I wouldn’t let that happen again. Interestingly, he was the very first person I drafted and I nearly slapped myself for ruining yet another draft strategy before it even had a chance to begin. Now, seeing how the RB market played out, he’s as good a value as anyone. Thomas Jones is scary, and so too is the Chiefs’ seeming disinclination to actually using Charles… but it’s worth the gamble. He’s a legit #2 if he performs close to his projections.

Ahmad Bradshaw, NYG $9
(Average: $4 / Budget: $10-15 / Ceiling: $15)
Total desperation buy. I kinda liked him because I had read some reports that the Giants were finally going to move past forcing the ball to Brandon Jacobs, and he shared the same bye I wanted… but those reports (which I doubt…) obviously colored my thinking too much. I way overpaid for a guy potentially on the wrong side of a time share and potentially not very good anyway. I just felt pressured to have a startable third RB, a tenet of my drafting philosophy from my first years in fantasy football. He probably wasn’t it.

Clinton Portis, Was $7
(Average: $4 / Budget: $6 / Ceiling: $10)
Ah yes. Clinton Fucking Portis. What to say? I’m torn here. I targeted him specifically because he had a juicy Week 8 matchup (when all my team was supposed to be on bye), and so considering that, I drastically overpaid. He could end up not earning out a dollar price. Then again, he’s only one year removed from a 1500 yard 9 TD season, and the last time his coach was Mike Shanahan (a coach sorta famous for great running teams), Portis went nuts. That was a long time ago though.

So here’s the bottom line: From 2005 - 2009 Clinton Portis played in all 16 games 3 times and only 8 games twice. His average stats for a full season are very good, so if I get 16 games of him I’m probably getting 1000 yards and 6-9 TDs. For $7 that’s a big time steal. For my third/fourth RB, that’s great value. If I get 8-game-Portis, I’m probably out that seven bucks without even a single start from him, in which case he was an awful, awful choice. And finally, who else can you get for $6-8 who is an unquestioned starting RB with little to no talent behind him to poach carries? Who can you even get for that price who is just a full time starter? So even then he was a good value. (Even if it makes me feel dirty and stupid)

Willis McGahee, Bal $1
Handcuff
Didn’t want him. Tried to get Thomas Jones but I was stuck in that awful position of having exactly one dollar to spend on any player I nominate, so anyone with even any value at all gets quickly taken from me. At the very least, he’s my handcuff insuring my best player. At best he’s a stud TD vulture whom I can possible spot start with Rice against awful run defenses to double up on the goodness. Not terrible for a buck.

I think my RB situation is top heavy and potentially very fragile. Rice should be a workhorse that anchors the position for me and locks up that top spot with top 5 quality production, a huge advantage for me. After that, I need help. Charles could be a top 10 guy or no better than Marion Barber. Even if he slightly disappoints but comes close to his projection, I’ll have a viable top two. Not the league’s best by any stretch, but viable. Not a disadvantage. My depth is a major concern, even with McGahee insuring my best guy. It’s not even unlikely that none of the three of Charles, Bradshaw, or Portis earns out their investments for me.

Just need one to, though.

WRs and TE(s) to come…

46

Can I ask why that strategy? Not that your team doesn’t look tough to beat, it does. Buy why make something as minor as whether the team’s bye week matches determine who you go after?

I’ll just add that, in addition to too much focus on last season, it also comes down to “I heard that…” a lot more. If you do minimal research, the research you do do becomes more vital. So if you see a single report that Michael Crabtree is tearing up training camp, it becomes pretty much all you know about Michael Crabtree.

Manning is a stud, and Kolb has some serious upside, maybe even some trade value if he develops. The prices weren’t too high either. Kolb at $4 was great value, it’s just I’m not as high on him as you are.

One thing I learned from last year is that that kind of incremental thinking can cost you. Yes, the next bid is only one dollar more to get the guy you want, but then it becomes one more, and then one more, and then one more, and soon you’re 6 or 7 dollars above what you think is value. But $31 for Peyton isn’t going to kill you, especially with the extra $10 savings you got on Rice.

As I said in my earlier post, Rice was amazing value when you got him. I don’t think he’ll have as good of a season as last year, but I’d take him in a heartbeat for $49. Charles just doesn’t do it for me. I have no idea why, and no concrete reason, but I don’t want him on my teams for the price paid. I gotta learn to quit trusting my hunches. I wanted Bradshaw, but his price was too high. I ended up with Michael Bush at $5 instead, which is fine by me. Portis will remain undrafted by me from now on, but I suppose he’s due for a bounceback. He’s still only 29, which shocked me. McGahee is a fair handcuff, if you like handcuffs. Altogether, it’s a damn good RB crew, and put together on a good budget. And Rice is frontrunner for SOTY.

47

Trade to announce. I’m giving New New York Benders (it’s not rocket surgery!) Mendenhall and Legedu Naanee in exchange for Andre Johnson.

48

I already got a protest for the trade so I’ll post it here.

I disagree. Mendenhall isn’t a “mid-tier” RB, he’s probably the 6th or 7th best RB in the draft. He went for $35 in our draft and was considered a good value (ie he was worth $40+ probably) and Andre Johnson went for $37. His ADP is somewhere in the 10-13 range whereas Andrew Johnson is like 8, so it’s not a very big gap. Nanee may be the #1 receiver in SD in the absense of Vincent Jackson.

You may think the trade is slanted one way or the other (it seems pretty even to me), but this doesn’t remotely strike me as the sort of league-destabalizing unbalanced trades that would warrant a veto. But it’s open for discussion.

49

I don’t think the trade is corrupt and worthy of being overturned but it’s not even in the vicinity of fair. The Benders are getting positively ass raped. Mendenhall is mid-tier at best, he’s basically Matt Forte.

50

Ok, this doesn’t even make sense. Mendenhall went for $35 and people were commenting about how cheap that was and how they should’ve jumped in. Andre Johnson went for only $2 more and that seemed to be a fair price. If Johnson is so much more massively valuable than Mendenhall, why would that be the case?

Mendenhall is one of the few backs that’s pretty much guaranteed 300 carries. He’s a first round pick in most mocks and ADPs. This doesn’t even factor in I’m throwing in a high upside receiver into the deal. The idea that anyone is getting “raped” in this deal is pretty silly - if one player were so massively better than the other, why don’t the auction values reflect that?

51

Mendenhall could easily have been overpriced because he was the second player nominated in the entire draft. The early nominees traditionally get overpriced. I don’t have an opinion either way, so I’ll use the fantasy value chart and the draft results of the All-Pro league to compare the trade.

Andre Johnson #8 (1485)

Rashard Mendenhall #16 (1167)
Legedu Naanee #151 (53)
1167 + 53 = 1220 draft value

1485 - 1220 = 265 draft value

265 draft value is equivalent to the 87th overall pick in the draft, which is the third pick in the 8th round of a 12-man league.

52

He’s averaging 11th on mock draft central. He was probably somewhat underdrafted in all pro league because partial PPR makes him a little less valuable and in general RBs are a little less valuable with our roster setup.

The reaction during the draft was actually that Mendenhall was undervalued, and people said they wished they’d have bid more on him. It was actually the opposite of what you suggest - people wanted to feel out the market before making bids, so the early one went cheaper.

53

That was your reaction, I don’t recall there being any outcry over it. I know I was pretty meh over it, if I’d have wanted Mendenhall for $40 I’d have had him. All I remember is you raving about what a value you thought he was. A couple people said, “yeah, maybe”.

Comparing auction prices is a meaningless endeavor. Lots of RBs went for way more than Andre Johnson, that not many of them were drafted ahead of him in standard snake drafts. Auctions are weird.

54

Another trade pending.

New New York Benders gives up Matt Moore and Fred Jackson and Phoenix Redbirds gives up Chad Ochocinco.

55

I’m not for disallowing the trade. I wouldn’t do it, but most “experts” consider Mendenhall a solid #1 RB because he’ll be getting a ton of touches and he does have potential alone and Naanee is the #2 WR in San Diego, and Andre Johnson, while a stud WR, does have an injury history. It’s not nearly bad enough, and there’s no indication of any collusion that would make me say no.

56

Gotta agree with Beef, here. We *just *had an auction to determine the relative value of the players in our league, and these two came out about the same. If you want a larger sample, in all Yahoo auction drafts, Johnson is going for an average of $39, while Mendenhall is at $46.7. Why is Johnson going ahead of Mendenhall in standard drafts by about 6 picks? I don’t know, but I don’t see why one is necessarily a better indicator of true value than the other.

57

The other issue that crops up here is how many votes do we need in order to veto? I turned it into commish approval so that I could fast track ordinary trades before gameday, but if I had left it on vote to veto, how many would it take to actually make the trade get rejected? 4? 6?

I don’t want to use my power as commish to influence this decision in my favor in any way. On the other hand, I don’t want to respond to an overreaction by voiding a trade over one veto just to prove how much I’m not trying to abuse my power.

Generally, I think the veto is just around so that if people in public free leagues are in 11th place and give up on the season they can’t do something goofy like trading MJD and Calvin Johnson for a kicker. I don’t think it really has a place in our league - we’re all competant, none of us are colluding.

The only trade I’ve ever objected to was made by a fantasy novice back in the 05 or 06 season - his QB went down, so he wanted to trade Steven Jackson (who as like the #4 RB or something) for David Carr, who was like the 17th QB. His logic was that he needed a QB, and back in the days of 6 point TDs, Jackson and Carr had scored roughly the same amount of points. But it was an obviously screwy, league-destabalizing trade and only was offered because the guy didn’t really understand the relative value of players vs raw points. This trade is nothing like that, and I don’t imagine in our league we’ll ever see a situation like that. So is it fair to object to a trade on the basis that it’ll make your competitors better?

Anyway, I’ll leave it in the hands of the consensus. I’m at the mercy of the league because I’m not going to make a decision as commish for my benefit. What do you guys think should happen?

By the way, the trade will automatically accept and proces in 2 days if I don’t cancel it. Since the season is over a week a way, there’s no rush, we can sit on it and discuss it. So if it automatically goes through, don’t worry - I can always reverse it if that’s what the consensus ends up being.

58

Where are you getting the average auction cost data for yahoo? That would be interesting.

I estimated Mendenhall to be going around $43 myself, which is why I was so surprised to grab him at $35. The idea that Johnson is so much better (in a non-ppr league no less) yet no one was willing to bid $38 on him is strange to me. If the average auction values are $46 vs $39, how in the world can the $46 player not only be not as valuable but someone would be “getting raped” if they made that trade? It’s not like anyone has gotten hurt or anything, we just sorted out how much each player is valuable to us a few days ago and nothing has changed.

Mendenhall is the clear starter on a run-oriented team - a team that’ll be especially run-oriented because of the rapistberger situation. There are only a handful of backs that you can pretty much chalk up to get 300+ carries and he’s one of them. He’s projected by yahoo to end the season with 30 more points than Johnson. He’s a clear RB1. And between the two, who do you think is more likely to get injured?

I find the idea of who makes out better in the deal debatable. I find the idea that someone is “getting raped” here pretty silly. And the idea that it’s such a horrible trade that it’s league breaking and needs to be vetoed… strange. I’m giving up my clear RB1 here, a 300+ carry guy, and the only reason I’m willing to do it is not because I’m not high on Mendenhall, which I am - but because I’m also very high on Jahvid Best, Arian Foster, and Ronnie Brown, and I don’t need to go into the season 4 deep at RB.

59

And I forgot to add that none of this even factors in Naanee, who, while no one has ever heard of him, becomes the 6’2/225 #1 or #2 receiver on SD’s offense in the absense of Vincent Jackson.

60

“Ass-rapee” checking in. I’m not a newbie - I’ve been playing FF for 6 years, and this seemed like a fair trade where I would give myself a very solid (probably league-best) running situation; while hoping I could fill in the WR gap with trades and pickups. It didn’t look unbalanced to me - in a league where more than 1/2 the teams are RBBC, I now have at least two guys who are unlikely to share time. This trade seems fine to me.