Is there a way to tell have many times a team has started an auction? I know that when a draft has been completed in tells you who started that one. It seem that some teams never start them but bid on them.
No, though you can see auction results to see who started a given auction. Click through enough and you’ll get an idea of who is starting what kinds of auctions.
OK.
@dp73 This is not super elegant, but if you use Chrome:
-
Search for the Chrome Extension called “Search All Tabs”
-
Install it
-
Go to your league’s All Transactions page.
-
Perform a search looking for Adds by All Teams
-
The page will display the last 50 transactions.
-
Open all the “adds” in new tabs.
TIP 1: Clicking the “add” link with your mouse wheel/button opens it in a new tab. No mouse? Ctrl + tap/click opens it in a new tab.
TIP 2: Zoom out to fit more transactions within the browser. This means less scrolling.
TIP 3: Any “add” that is not a hyperlink was a waiver wire pick up, not an auction. -
It will look like quite a mess, but that’s OK. The goal is to have all the auctions open in separate tabs.
-
Click Extensions > Search All Tabs. This is the extension you installed in Step 2.
-
Now the fun part. Every auction page includes the phrase, “Auction Started by” followed by the team name. For example:
-
So, whatever team you are looking for, include their name within the search. Note: surround the search within quotes. So, if I were looking for “Auction Started by Blake Street” my search looks like:
Notice, this means there were 3 out of roughly 50 auctions started by Blake Street.
Conversely, searching for “Auction Started by John Never Wonahan” produces 12 hits:
-
Nothing is stopping you from opening up all auctions from multiple transaction pages. It sort of depends what you’re seeking.
-
As you can see in the screenshot, the tool also provides some handy tricks. Like after searching, press Shift + Enter to move all matching tabs into a new window. This allows for a deeper look at all the auctions the owner started.
Good luck with your shakedowns!
5 Likes
An owner in our league also raised this point to me as the league Commissioner to complain - a player does not seemingly initiate many auctions, but they actively bid in auctions and win their share. An auction is a market - just bid more is my thinking - but is there a point I’m overlooking? I don’t see it as an issue for a Commissioner.
1 Like
It is not an issue for a commissioner or really anyone.
1 Like
100% agree. Thanks for the reality check.
No, it is more annoying and lazy than anything else. IMO some owners seem not to look available players list but look at the auctions.
There is a strategic advantage to bidding on players, but not starting auctions. If the player is hurt during the auction period, or the prospect underperforms expectations, everyone else can pull their bids, but the person that started the auction is stuck with them.
One way to counter owners that are using this strategy is to start many auctions on the up and coming players, but only place the minimum bid. This works especially well if your team is high in the standings, so you are not likely to win many $1 ties. You will occasionally win a $1 players, but mostly you drive the market and force the owners to make decisions on players. This may lead to them cutting players you are interested in, or at the very least, burns some of their salary cap space.
2 Likes
That is true and it may work some of the time. I will look at it more closely .
What happens often from what I am seeing is a rookie say a SP is a auctioned off at $1 and the bid goes up and the winning bid $8 or $9 and the pitcher has one good start and several bad ones and is sent down and soon cut. So a player worthy of $1 or $2 bid in now cut and is now worth $4 if he passes the wavier claim period and he is not worth $4 on many budgets.
1 Like
Yes, it can be frustrating when that happens. I am usually annoyed because I was aware of the pitcher and wished I had added them before they debuted and the value was lower. That being said, there are not many good SP options available as free agents right now, so people are desperate for pitching. For some teams, overpaying for each young pitcher and then managing salary cap hits for most of them when cut later is worth it, if you occasionally find the next Spencer Strider. While it is frustrating when a young player gets bid up to $8-$9, at least you know that there is a good chance that even if they stay in the the majors, there is not much surplus for the team that paid a premium for them. And all of those $4 salary cap hits start to add up over time, hence the utility of starting a lot of auctions with low initial bids to force owners to either pay or let you have players cheap.
2 Likes
I actually prefer when this happens. When I am towards the top of the standings, I am frequently starting guys for auction, but rarely go above $1. But more inexperienced ottneu owners will bid up too high IMO on the hot, young names. Rarely are they worth that plus whatever they get bumped in the off-season. So 1) this increases the chance they get cut and are just back in the pool at a later time or 2) they take up more of my opponents’ salary cap.
When I am in the lower half of the standings, I actually often overpay for players that get auctioned. Mainly to spoil the teams near the top of the standings. Either insure they are really going to have to pay for the extra performance they need or insure they don’t get a good young guy at a decent price.
I trust my own evaluation skills enough that I know I’ll be able to still find bargains later.
1 Like