Right now, it's looking like it's quite possible the Rams will sign Terrell Owens tomorrow. I am, as I often am, of two minds on the subject. Or maybe it's three.
On the one hand, I don't like T.O. He's egotistical, which makes him pretty unlikable. He's got a history of conflicts with QBs that have led to problems.
On the other hand, he's old, and he wasn't any good two years ago, and was worse last year, albeit in a situation where nobody would have thrived much.
Actually, this one's looking pretty much unanimous in my head. Signing Terrell Owens is a bad idea.
Look, if this were last year, I'd probably come around to thinking it was a pretty decent idea. I'm a big believer in giving a young QB a reliable option over the middle. Think Brett Favre and Mark Chmura as a good example. Having that kind of short target gets quarterbacks into the habit of thinking of the short middle as a legitimate option, rather than a last resort. The Rams don't have that for Sam Bradford, or anything close to it. They have a bunch of question marks at TE, and more question marks at WR. Forget his being a big play threat on the outside; If Owens were capable of using his big body effectively to work the middle of the field while still threatening to break one big at any moment, he'd be a great addition, and a big help to Bradford's development, despite his personality. I just don't think there's much chance that he's going to be able to do that, given his "production" last year, and his disappointing performance in 2008. If he's not capable of performing, his presence will mean that the Rams will be giving him playing time that would be better invested in one of the young receivers they have, giving them a chance to learn, and develop a rapport with Bradford.
If Owens does become a Ram, there's essentially no chance that he'll recover his form as a hall of fame caliber receiver. That just doesn't happen often enough to receive much consideration. If he's a Ram, root for him to adapt to his new situation and level of ability to do some of the dirty work that will be a bonus for Bradford's development rather than a hindrance to the development of his young teammates.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Fantasy Auction Advice
1. Have a firm idea of the value of every player.
Fortunately, there are plenty of guides out there. Unfortunately, almost all of them are bad. Many will be done for leagues that use different rules than yours does, and almost all of them are not going to be terribly sophisticated with regard to their idea of value. Example: Quarterback A scored 300 fantasy points last year. Quarterback B scored 200. Little has changed about either one's situation for this season. If a list has Quarterback B listed at 2/3rds of the value of Quarterback A, you need to find a different list. There are plenty of quarterbacks available who can give you 200 fantasy points, and they'll be available on the cheap. Only a couple of passers are able to reach 300 points (in most scoring systems) and they have great value. Most lists freely available today underestimate this scarcity value.
2. Realize that a player's value is fluid, not static.
If players are going for more early in the draft than they are on your lists, this means that all the remaining players are going to have to go for less later on. Your approach to the auction needs to reflect this. To handle this effect, you can keep a running tally of how selling values are comparing to your list. The higher this number climbs, the more you'll have to adjust your bids down on later players. If you're a math genius, you should be able to keep track of how this affects your bidding on every player at every point. If you're not, don't worry, just estimating will be fine.
3. Realize that early players generally go for more money than you think they should.
This is because of the nature of auctions, not because the people in your league are idiots. Well, they may be idiots, but this doesn't prove it. In any fantasy auction, a player should be sold for $1 more than the second highest amount anyone thinks they're worth. There is always variation in how much people think a player is worth, and since the price is set by the person who values them second most, in a standard 10 or 12 team league, this is likely to be somewhat higher than the average in most cases. Also, keep in mind, you shouldn't be seeing players going for less than the value you have listed, because in that case, you should have been bidding on them.
What this means is that the running tally I told you to keep in part 2 should always be a tally of how much more players have gone for than they "should" have according to your list.
4. There are 6 possible outcomes on any player. They are, in order of desirability:
This often breaks down later in auctions, unfortunately, as you run low on money, and will not be able to block, or take advantage of every possible deal. Again, don't be too wedded to the values on your original list. A player going for "less than his value" late in an auction may simply mean that the values have shifted down, and the player is going for closer to his new real value.
5. Take advantage of the fact that players generally go for more early than they will later on.
When it's your turn to nominate a player for auction early, pick a player from lower on the list who you don't want. With luck, he'll go for quite a bit more than he'd go for late, sucking money out of your opponents' pockets. You want your favorite sleepers and potential bargains to be proposed later on, when people are cash strapped, and you're more likely to poach them at low prices.
6. Don't get impatient.
Sometimes, players see the best players flying off the board at ridiculously high prices, look at their own bare cupboard, and start making panicked bids at ridiculous prices themselves. Don't. In a fairly standard auction, where you have $200 for 16 players, you can put together a terrific team that doesn't have a single player you originally valued at more than $20 to $25. If you're patient, and the other GMs are going crazy, you'll be raking in a strong team of Pierre Thomases and Sidney Rices later on.
7. Don't be afraid to pay full value for big ticket items early.
While it's never a good idea to overbid early, if you have the chance to get a $50 player for $50, take it. It's the third best outcome, and getting at least one of these top guys early takes the pressure off. It's a lot easier to wind up spending $150 for 15 guys without pressing or taking guys you don't like than it is to spend $200 for 16 guys.
Fortunately, there are plenty of guides out there. Unfortunately, almost all of them are bad. Many will be done for leagues that use different rules than yours does, and almost all of them are not going to be terribly sophisticated with regard to their idea of value. Example: Quarterback A scored 300 fantasy points last year. Quarterback B scored 200. Little has changed about either one's situation for this season. If a list has Quarterback B listed at 2/3rds of the value of Quarterback A, you need to find a different list. There are plenty of quarterbacks available who can give you 200 fantasy points, and they'll be available on the cheap. Only a couple of passers are able to reach 300 points (in most scoring systems) and they have great value. Most lists freely available today underestimate this scarcity value.
2. Realize that a player's value is fluid, not static.
If players are going for more early in the draft than they are on your lists, this means that all the remaining players are going to have to go for less later on. Your approach to the auction needs to reflect this. To handle this effect, you can keep a running tally of how selling values are comparing to your list. The higher this number climbs, the more you'll have to adjust your bids down on later players. If you're a math genius, you should be able to keep track of how this affects your bidding on every player at every point. If you're not, don't worry, just estimating will be fine.
3. Realize that early players generally go for more money than you think they should.
This is because of the nature of auctions, not because the people in your league are idiots. Well, they may be idiots, but this doesn't prove it. In any fantasy auction, a player should be sold for $1 more than the second highest amount anyone thinks they're worth. There is always variation in how much people think a player is worth, and since the price is set by the person who values them second most, in a standard 10 or 12 team league, this is likely to be somewhat higher than the average in most cases. Also, keep in mind, you shouldn't be seeing players going for less than the value you have listed, because in that case, you should have been bidding on them.
What this means is that the running tally I told you to keep in part 2 should always be a tally of how much more players have gone for than they "should" have according to your list.
4. There are 6 possible outcomes on any player. They are, in order of desirability:
- You buy the player for less than his worth.
- Someone else buys the player for more than his worth.
- You buy the player for exactly his worth.
- Someone else buys the player for his worth.
- Someone else buys the player for less than his worth.
- You buy the player for more than his worth.
This often breaks down later in auctions, unfortunately, as you run low on money, and will not be able to block, or take advantage of every possible deal. Again, don't be too wedded to the values on your original list. A player going for "less than his value" late in an auction may simply mean that the values have shifted down, and the player is going for closer to his new real value.
5. Take advantage of the fact that players generally go for more early than they will later on.
When it's your turn to nominate a player for auction early, pick a player from lower on the list who you don't want. With luck, he'll go for quite a bit more than he'd go for late, sucking money out of your opponents' pockets. You want your favorite sleepers and potential bargains to be proposed later on, when people are cash strapped, and you're more likely to poach them at low prices.
6. Don't get impatient.
Sometimes, players see the best players flying off the board at ridiculously high prices, look at their own bare cupboard, and start making panicked bids at ridiculous prices themselves. Don't. In a fairly standard auction, where you have $200 for 16 players, you can put together a terrific team that doesn't have a single player you originally valued at more than $20 to $25. If you're patient, and the other GMs are going crazy, you'll be raking in a strong team of Pierre Thomases and Sidney Rices later on.
7. Don't be afraid to pay full value for big ticket items early.
While it's never a good idea to overbid early, if you have the chance to get a $50 player for $50, take it. It's the third best outcome, and getting at least one of these top guys early takes the pressure off. It's a lot easier to wind up spending $150 for 15 guys without pressing or taking guys you don't like than it is to spend $200 for 16 guys.
Fantasy Auctions
It's officially football season. Yes, I know the season hasn't started. Heck, training camp hasn't even started yet. Nevertheless, fantasy football is already kicking into gear, and if you aren't getting prepared, you're already falling behind.
That's a depressing thought, isn't it?
I'm going to talk here about fantasy sports auctions. Many regular fantasy sports participants have never actually done a fantasy auction, instead only participating in fantasy drafts. This might be a little surprising, given that auctions are actually the older method of distributing players, since when Rotisserie baseball started in the '80s, it used auctions. Drafts came into vogue later, particularly in football, and particularly online, given the greater ease of coding applications to handle drafts rather than auctions.
Many fantasy enthusiasts greatly prefer auctions, and some now eschew leagues with drafts entirely. Why? Well, two major reasons. First, it gives everyone an equal shot at every player, eliminating the vagaries of draft order from the equation. This year, if you draft third or lower in your league, you have no chance at Adrian Peterson or Chris Johnson. You might value either of those players more than any other GM in your league, but your only option for obtaining them would be to attempt to trade with the GMs lucky enough to own one of the first two picks. In an auction, all you need to do is outbid the others. If you truly value Chris Johnson more than the rest of the league, he's yours. Further, there aren't any drop offs in an auction, where people might say that the GM drafting third is getting a raw deal, missing out on Peterson and Johnson and getting a player no better than the guy drafting 6th, yet having his second round pick come later as a result of having the earlier first rounder. Again, with an auction all GMs are on an equal footing in terms of getting any individual player, and in terms of the price they'd have to pay to get him.
The second reason is a bit more subtle. In a fantasy auction, there is more emphasis on preparedness. Not that being prepared isn't important in a draft, but an auction takes this requirement to a new level. You can't get away with simple lists by position, grabbing the most attractive player at the top of a list where you still need a player, you have to know your team, your needs, and the relative value of every player at all times. Further, there is no down time, no period while the other teams make their picks while you plan which players you'd most like to select next. Instead, you're involved on every single player. This is more taxing, but it's also, to many, much more exciting.
Next up: Advice for handling your fantasy auction.
That's a depressing thought, isn't it?
I'm going to talk here about fantasy sports auctions. Many regular fantasy sports participants have never actually done a fantasy auction, instead only participating in fantasy drafts. This might be a little surprising, given that auctions are actually the older method of distributing players, since when Rotisserie baseball started in the '80s, it used auctions. Drafts came into vogue later, particularly in football, and particularly online, given the greater ease of coding applications to handle drafts rather than auctions.
Many fantasy enthusiasts greatly prefer auctions, and some now eschew leagues with drafts entirely. Why? Well, two major reasons. First, it gives everyone an equal shot at every player, eliminating the vagaries of draft order from the equation. This year, if you draft third or lower in your league, you have no chance at Adrian Peterson or Chris Johnson. You might value either of those players more than any other GM in your league, but your only option for obtaining them would be to attempt to trade with the GMs lucky enough to own one of the first two picks. In an auction, all you need to do is outbid the others. If you truly value Chris Johnson more than the rest of the league, he's yours. Further, there aren't any drop offs in an auction, where people might say that the GM drafting third is getting a raw deal, missing out on Peterson and Johnson and getting a player no better than the guy drafting 6th, yet having his second round pick come later as a result of having the earlier first rounder. Again, with an auction all GMs are on an equal footing in terms of getting any individual player, and in terms of the price they'd have to pay to get him.
The second reason is a bit more subtle. In a fantasy auction, there is more emphasis on preparedness. Not that being prepared isn't important in a draft, but an auction takes this requirement to a new level. You can't get away with simple lists by position, grabbing the most attractive player at the top of a list where you still need a player, you have to know your team, your needs, and the relative value of every player at all times. Further, there is no down time, no period while the other teams make their picks while you plan which players you'd most like to select next. Instead, you're involved on every single player. This is more taxing, but it's also, to many, much more exciting.
Next up: Advice for handling your fantasy auction.
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