Earlier today, I completed my first ever fantasy baseball auction draft for a 12 team head to head league.  I heavily suggest you and your friends giving it a try sometime, as it adds a fun and competitive dynamic not found in a traditional draft.  The concept is quite simple, even for first time participants.  You start out with a certain amount of “dollars” to spend on your team (for us, it was 260 dollars).  Instead of going in order to draft players, you rotate nominating players, in which all teams have the option of bidding on said player.  The catch is you must be able to bid at least one dollar on every single player, and you cannot spend over your bankroll on your entire draft.  This creates a challenge when you big top dollar on players early in the draft, but find yourself too low on funds to bid on players in the later rounds.

Here’s my team, and how much I bid on each player.

Catcher: Alex Avila-$13
First baseman: Joey Votto-$47
Second baseman: Ryan Raburn-$1
Shortstop: J.J. Hardy-$6
Third baseman: Placido Polanco-$5
Outfield: Curtis Granderson-$32
Outfield: Brennan Boesch-$7
Outfield: Drew Stubbs-$7
Utility: Corey Hart-$7
Utility: Carlos Beltran-$5
Bench: Jhonny Peralta-$1
Bench: Yadier Molina-$3
Bench: David Freese-$4
Bench: Neil Walker-$3

Starting pitcher: Roy Halladay-$42
Starting pitcher: Doug Fister-$15
Relief pitcher: Jose Valverde-$14
Relief pitcher: Phil Coke-$3
Pitcher: Rick Porcello-$6
Pitcher: Mat Latos-$12
Pitcher: Ryan Madson-$6
Bench: Max Scherzer-$4
Bench: Tim Hudson-$2

Overall, I really feel like my team is very solid all around, with enough star players to make a difference.  My strategy going into the draft was to not spend more than 20 percent of my budget on any one player, and to not have more than three people combine to cost more than 60 percent of salary cap.  I was able to get my three most expensive players for 46.5% of my budget.  By doing this, I had plenty of money available in the later parts of the auction to outbid people who spent foolishly early on.  If you do find yourself in an auction draft, I suggest using a similar strategy, as I thought it worked quite well.