How can I auction for more than one team?
This basically works right out of the box. A feature of the product is that you can see the situation of all teams, not just your own. So there’s no reason you can’t monitor needs of both teams and act on their behalves. We’ve all been in leagues where someone doesn’t show and you could be forced to do this (though in an auction it’s particularly tricky and more of a conflict of interest).
How can I reflect multi-position eligibility?
Unfortunately the grid does not handle multi-position eligibility well yet. You'll need to do one of two things:
· Create actual positions for each possible combination, like "1B/3B" in baseball or "PF/C" in basketball. It may be impractical to cover all possible combinations with their own combo-position, thus their own color, especially in baseball where some utility-men cover 4 or 5 positions. But basketball or hockey may be more manageable, or even in baseball, you can cover a few common ones like 1B/3B or SP/RP, and handle the rest as in the next bullet
· Your only other option is to blow away all multi-positions and simply make a choice for each player what position you'll treat them as. In this case we suggest you choose the most-scarce position so as to give the best indication of value when drafting. Another way to augment this method is to populate additional position eligibility right in the Name, like “Adam Dunn-1B,OF”.
How can I handle positions that are more specific than in my league, like if Tight Ends are treated as Wide Receivers in football, or Point Guards and Shooting Guards are all just Guards in basketball?
You have two options here:
· Change their position in AvgDraft to be the less specific position, like “WR” or “TE”. One drawback here is that they’ll be indistinguishable, and you might prefer knowing the difference.
· Include cells for the more-specific positions (like “TE”, “PG”, “SG”) in the Styles sheet and simply format them the same as WR and G, respectively. Or better yet, format them the same color but just a couple shades off, so you can tell the difference but you can also tell they’re from the same general position color.
Can I use unusual positions, like IDP in football?
Without a doubt, yes. However, the pre-filled data in AvgDraft will not include them, and you’ll need to work them in yourself. Once you've done that though, it works just like any other position. Simply make sure you have styles set up for each position in the Styles sheet columns D:H, and that they exactly match the positions for corresponding players in AvgDraft column C.
Can I reflect each team’s keepers for specific amounts before the auction?
You can absolutely do this. You basically conduct auctions in the product just like you would normally, except as soon as you nominate the player, you know instantly know the team and the amount. Simply set some time aside before the auction to go through and finish all the keepers. All the kept players and remaining budgets will then be ready to go for live auctioning.
Can I use the product for AL or NL-only leagues?
Yes, you simply need to customize the AvgDraft rankings to include only the eligible players. We’ve even heard of certain hybrid leagues, for instance one where each team is allowed one NL player and the rest AL. These would be fully supported too. Again, you simply need to adjust the AvgDraft to have only eligible players and be ranked in a way that considers your league setup.
How were the prefill rankings determined?
All prefills are created by aggregating several different respected sources into one set of rankings. They are generally based on the most standard league types in a given sport. Here are the assumptions in the data for the current baseball product:
· Starters: C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, MI, CI, OFx5, UTILx2, Px9, 3 bench for 26-player roster
· Category-based scoring, either rotisserie or head-to-head, using 5x5 categories (R, HR, RBI, SB, AVG and W, K, SV, ERA, WHIP)
· Total team budget of $260
· Mixed-league (not AL or NL-only)
· Redraft (non-keeper) league
If your league differs from this, you can completely replace the AvgDraft rankings, move them around a bit, or leave them and try to adjust on the fly during the auction.
How should I customize the AvgDraft and Value assessments?
First, think about how you may want to change them based on your league rules, based on the FAQ above. However, the theory of how The Grid: Auction is truly supposed to help you requires understanding.
What you want to put in AvgDraft is the best approximation of what all your opponents are looking at. You want to know as well as you can how they’re going to value players, so you can use that to work your own strategy of letting overvalued players go and grabbing undervalued ones. Our prefill approach is designed to optimize this goal, by aggregating many different sources (including expert rankings, expert mock drafts, ADP rankings).
However, for whatever reason you may want to change them. For one thing, they’ll never be as up to date as what you can go grab off the internet right here and now. Another reason could be that your league rules may differ enough from the prefill assumptions (the above FAQ), that the prefill won’t work. A quick note though: If your opponents are not likely to use rankings tuned to your league rules, then you don’t want your AvgDraft to either. Again, you want them to reflect what everyone else thinks.
So if you want to change AvgDraft, here are our suggestions in order of preference:
· If you’re in an online draft room for your fantasy site, you absolutely want to get your hands on the rankings that your fantasy site is going to show to everyone in the auction room. There’s no doubt they’ll all be heavily influenced by the rankings right in front of them. If you can, put those exact rankings in AvgDraft.
· Find the most-recent ADP listing (Average Draft Position). This will show you what people are doing in actual live auctions.
· Find a single source you trust that seems to be a good approximation of what your opponents might have.
Now, here’s where you contrast what your opponents are using with your own opinions. This is what the value assessments (in the Styles and AvgDraft tabs) are designed for. If you think a player is undervalued at their AvgDraft amount, mark them with a value that will tell you that, and you’ll know you can enter the bidding and possibly win for less than “list price”. If you think a player is overvalued, you can enter the bidding, but know that you probably won’t want to get up to the “list price” and exit the bidding if it indeed goes that high.
Your own opinions can come from anywhere: sleepers, busts, breakouts, risks, studs, duds, etc. from fantasy experts. Or maybe you’re an expert yourself and you just know. Or if you love stats, you can do some analysis, based on some source of projected stats, that determines an auction value. Do some work to contrast that with the AvgDraft amounts, and your value assessments will be clear.
This is the true power of the product, to maximize your spending by knowing exactly how you value players in contrast to what the rest of the crowd is doing.
What sports can I use the product for?
Any sport you can think of that could have a fantasy auction works in The Grid: Auction. The goal of the product is to take a set of rankings and display them in a way that gives you an edge in live decision-making. Therefore sport, league setup, and player list are largely independent. You only need to buy this product once, then all you need to do for other sports is change the settings and rankings.
For that matter, we’ve even heard of some crazy things like fantasy movie leagues, or some of the fun stuff you’ll hear on a Bill Simmons podcast on ESPN (fantasy Us magazine, fantasy Real World). You could even use it to follow along with actual pro sports drafts.
The point here is, regardless of the prefill and marketing you see when you first buy the product, you can use it for anything. We will also be creating prefills in the future so you can still get different rankings from us for different sports without re-buying the core product.
How can I use the product for mock drafting?
We are working on a mock-auction add-in product, but you still have options. Up in the Optimization FAQ section we gave one idea of how you can build in your own mock auction functionality.
But perhaps your best bet is to go online and find free online mock auction services (ESPN has an excellent one). Do the mock auction in that window while keeping your copy of The Grid: Auction in another window (two windows, sure, but you’ll be better off for it). Try quite a few of these. You get great experience in the following ways:
· How it feels during the heat of a live auction – the more practice you get, the more it all just “slows down” for you
· How people are valuing players – what it may take to get someone in your auction
· How different strategies feel – what kinds of traps or advantages you encounter – when, for instance, paying big for several studs and filling out with $1 players vs. picking up more mid-level players.
· You get very experienced at using the product and can tune your settings and approach for the real thing. A live auction is no place to use the tool for the very first time.
Can I use the product as a draft board for my league’s live, in-person draft?
Of course! Because it shows all team’s purchases and budget stats on the same screen, it is an ideal tool for this purpose. We guarantee no other tool for the price will make a commissioner’s life easier for a live, in-person draft. And not only can you do this in person with a projector / monitor / HDTV, you can use online with something like Net/Live Meeting or WebEx.
