When you do an auction league with no trading, you have a small margin for error. There is no other owner who is going to be knocking on your door looking to take your third closer off your hands. You can win an auction many different ways. Every year the player pool will change slightly. Your job as a player is to evaluate the inventory and come up with a plan you can execute at the draft table. If you come away with enough pieces to the puzzle, you can manage your why to the championship.

Whatever game plan you decide, you must be ready to adjust if you don’t get your key players. I think a common mistake players make is hoping the players they want don’t get called out early. It sound good, but the problem is all the other good players are coming off the board while you are sitting back holding your money. If you wait and miss, you will have limited options to build your team.

I see a lot of players get aggravated when an owner holds his money and doesn’t buy any players. They are so concerned that this owner will overbid them on a key player they want. If you have spent $185 on 10 players, the other owner has spent $40 on 2 players. He is 8 players behind you. He will think he has all the power in the world with the big stack, but the truth is someone will always be bidding against him. Each of the other 10 or 11 owners will need players also. He will be competing with at least one owner most of the time when he tries to fill his roster.

When you sit down at the draft table to do the auction, your best opportunity for players could be the first couple of players called out. If you sit back and wait, you might miss on a discounted player. I know $33 might not sound like a discount, but that same player might go for $38 if he was called out a round later.

If you really want a player at the auction and you think he is the key to your team winning, I would want to call him as soon as possible. By doing this, you find out how much he is going to cost you or if you need to start looking for some else to build your team around. The quicker you know where you stand on key players. The better you will be able to react to building your team.

Another common mistake is waiting for the best player left on the board. You will see this happen a lot late in auctions. No one wants to call out a player because they want him as cheap as possible. Four or Five owners are sitting back just waiting for the right time to add him to their team. When he is called, all of their hearts are broken. This player usually cost the winning owner a few more dollars than expected. You can use this to your advantage at certain positions. If you like two or three guys about the same at say second base, the earlier you take one of them off the board. The better chance you have of not over paying for the last second baseman on the board.

When the auction starts, I don’t care what money any other owner has until I get down to about $60. Each owner will need to spend at least $200 on their nucleus of their team. The other teams will catch up to you when they start filling roster spots. When you get down to $60, you need to put on the brakes and start looking for players who are bargains. The more disciplined you are, the better chance you will have of getting the players you want. If you can shut it down totally when you get to $35-$40, you will have the leverage in the end game. You will need almost every player to have less than $20 to hold any edge over them.

Winning an auction league is game planning and executing your game plan. Every owner in the auction will know the players and come up with similar evaluations. When you try to execute your plan, there will be battles for key players. You will win some and lose some. You just hope you win the right ones. I would much rather lose with a team I like than lose with a team with players I didn’t want.