Everyone knows how to run a snake draft in fantasy baseball, where you have a draft spot and choose a player when it gets to your position each round. If you like that format, keep at it.
However, a very fun experience that a fantasy sports player can have is getting involved in a fantasy league that drafts players using an auction. However, you have to make sure everyone understands the rules and the person running the auction knows how to keep things under control.
This is a fantastic way to draft in fantasy baseball because, in a snake draft, you choose your players based on who the other teams draft before you. In an auction draft, you directly control who you aim for, and if you pay enough, you can have almost anyone you want – at the start.
In an auction, you work within a budget. Standard for most leagues is a cap around $260 and it is important to formulate a strategy before ever starting. Set up the budget of how much you're going to spend on individual players as well as the ratio between batting and pitching. A nice rule is to keep it fairly even between the two positions but spend a little bit more on batting.
First up, choose who you want to spend big money on. If you really want Albert Pujols, you will have to a lot of your budget to get him. That is fine but, once your money gets low, you will lose out on other quality players in the middle rounds of the draft. Sometimes it is good to avoid some big money targets and watch other teams eat each other's salaries up. It is even more fun to be the one to nominate those players and manipulate the draft with your nominations.
Your budget is very important here. If you are willing to spent $65 on Pujols but the bidding hits $75, pull out and take the loss. Another team will wipe out a third of their budget on one player and you can always go for Prince Fielder as a backup option. If you overspend on a player, your budget is blown and your draft will spiral out of control.
Online fantasy baseball auction drafts are even better, because the computer deals with the ticking clock and it can speed along quite nicely. Done live, you have to make sure the person running the draft has a good grip on controlling the room. If the auctioneer is good enough, the draft will zip right along and that makes the bidding, winning and fighting all the more fun.
Here are Yahoo’s online rules on how to draft fantasy baseball teams in one of their auction leagues. Give it a try, you won’t be sorry.
- Interested in playing fantasy baseball? Keep up with all my preview articles heading into fantasy baseball season at Examiner.com and contact me at sslealos@yahoo.com with "fantasy baseball" in the subject title if you are interested in playing in one of the fantasy baseball leagues that I will be setting up later this month.
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