Auction vs Snake draft?
 

A vocal few are trying to build steam towards having an auction draft.

I have always done well with a snake draft, as its all I am used to. However, they keep saying that once you do an Auction Draft, you'll never do Snake again.

Its a 12 man league. Should I vote to keep it snake, or get on board with the auction folks?

Thoughts? Opinions?

"They" is full of shit....(I swear one day I would LOVE to run into "They") whoever it is needs more than one ass whipping.

I do both as a commissioner and I don't necessarily believe that one is better than the other, it's just personal preference.
The biggest upside to an auction IMO is that no player is off limits to you opposed to a draft. I'm picking 12/13 and my shot at AP is zero unless he gets hurt prior to the draft......in an auction I can have him if I want him bad enough.

How do you alter your preparation? I feel the auction might benefit me more, as I consider myself well studied and thus in a better position to snag value guys.

Do you assign a value for each player? A min and max you would pay? Assign position groups an allotment of you total budget?

For ME, I'll take my normal tiered rankings and assign $$ values to them, but that's just a guide. If the last player in a given tier is up for auction, I will often go over what I estimated for them.

One of the biggest keys in an auction (again, just MY opinion) is to nominate big name guys that you don't want as early as you can. That gets rid of other teams money.

Be prepared to be there a while. I like the auction draft. The only thing is that you definitely have to prioritize who you want and how much you're willing to spend on them. I'm not in an auction league myself, but I've sat in for someone who couldn't be there a few times before. In that league, people can keep one player at the price they paid for them the previous year (or whichever year they purchased them).

While I like the auction draft, I prefer the snake draft. Not sure why exactly. Each has their pros and cons.

Which brings up probably the biggest thing you need for an auction if you do a live one (as opposed to online).
An unbiased, sober "auctioneer" is an absolute must.

Genius.

Yeah....until you take into consideration that other people are doing that as well.

I've done both and I prefer snake over auction.

Auction is the best but it takes a year or two of doing them before you have any idea what you're up to.

The other problem is that you need to have a pretty good league to do it. If you have 1/2 the league being dipshits about it, you can end up with some really lousy competitive balance problems.

They're the 'expert' setting for fantasy drafts, IMO. If you do the homework, you can do a damn good job of them (as I did 2 years ago in the CP draft). If you don't do the homework and decide "**** it, I'm getting Aaron Rodgers", you can end up with Beanie Wells as your #2 HB and just desperately waiting for the season to end.

There's a lot more risk for a really bad fantasy team.

*cough*Hootie*cough*

Big yep here.

Two years ago in the CP league was my first auction draft...and it showed. My team struggled to make the playoffs.

Last year I had a better approach and philosophy, and I think I ended up winning the league, if memory serves. And the league as a whole was a lot more balanced.

What was your approach/philosophy?

Or you could be the guy who gets outbidded on every top guy and then you can buy anybody you want later and your team still sucks see me last year in the CP league.

If you really want a kick in the ass.......do an auction draft. You'll be pissed when you blow $70 on Aaron Rodgers...only to find out that you could have had Matt Ryan later on for like $12.

I've found that you have to limit spending by position and as soon as a player goes over your limit....you have to let him go. No matter how awesome you think he's going to do. You also have to be able to be flexible during the draft. If you've cleaned up and gotten 3 RBs for $25 but you budgeted $40....you need to be able to figure out what position/s are going to get that extra money now.

For one, I never turned down value. For example, I didn't have a QB and somehow landed Rivers for $15. At the time, this was looked at as one of the "steals of the draft."

Bit later, Matt Ryan comes up, and OTWP and I start going back and forth, and I ended up with the player, paying in the high 20s. This was, easily, my best move of the draft, and I rode this move into the championship.

I think some thought I was overpaying for a backup, but Ryan was my primary target, and Rivers was whom I viewed as the backup/insurance/trade bait.