One of the most difficult skills to learn in fantasy football is managing FAAB and waivers properly. Acquisitions can be intimidating for new fantasy players, and some experienced players never learn all of the nuances involved. This article will look at eight important questions that can help shape your draft strategy.

  1. How often do transactions occur?

Some leagues process waivers or FAAB bids once, and if you come away empty-handed, you don’t get another shot at acquiring players until the next week. Other leagues process transactions every day or a few times a week. The more shots you get at acquiring players during the week, the more patient you can afford to be. At the same time, if you only get one shot a week at acquiring new talent, you may have to forgo taking a flier on a sixth wide receiver in favor of carrying a backup quarterback.

  1. What happens after waivers or FAAB are processed?

In many leagues players become free agents after they clear waivers or after the final FAAB period of the week. In these types of leagues, it may be worth it to preserve your waiver spot or FAAB money since you will still have a shot at players you want if nobody else tries to acquire them.

  1. How badly do you want the player?

Overpaying for a player feels awful, but missing out on somebody you really wanted because you were afraid to go a few extra dollars hurts even more. If you are okay whiffing on a player, consider a minimum FAAB bid or waiting for the player to clear waivers so you can get him as a free agent. If you really like a player, try not to worry too much about overbidding or wasting your high waiver priority. No one wants to pay $10 more for a player than they had to, but that is better than watching Tyreek Hill run roughshod over the league on somebody else’s team because you tried to snag him at a discount.

  1. What are you waiting for?

The best advice for either FAAB or waivers is to be aggressive, b-e aggressive. This may seem a bit odd considering we have an article out Tuesday about the importance of being patient, but when it comes to spending FAAB or having a top waiver priority, you should guard against waiting for a difference-maker who may never come.

As recently as five years ago, saving your FAAB or your number one waiver priority made a lot more sense. The idea in those situations was to wait for a number one running back to suffer a major injury and then pounce on his replacement. Even if the backup wasn’t as good as the starter, you would get enough touches and, hopefully, touchdowns to make him worth the trouble.

Nowadays, very few running backs have a clear handcuff, and the worthwhile handcuffs are pretty much 100 percent owned, even in shallow leagues. In the situations where there isn’t a clear handcuff, you aren’t going to want to spend a ton of FAAB, so there is no reason to save it. If Lamar Miller goes down again, D’Onta Foreman and Alfred Blue will likely split the workload in Houston. Are you really saving your number one waiver priority for one of those guys?

The thing is they might be the best players available at any point during the season. The odds of a wide receiver or quarterback you can trust suddenly becoming available or suddenly becoming fantasy relevant are extremely small. Again, the question becomes, what are you saving your FAAB for, and how likely is it to come along? Even the free agent adds who turn out to be difference makers like Jordan Howard, Tyrell Williams, Robert Kelley, Dennis Pitta and Jay Ajayi probably didn’t cost much at the time they were acquired.

All that being said, if you play with impatient owners who will drop a proven player after a couple of bad weeks, patience is probably in order. In that case, the answer to this question is you are waiting for somebody to make a mistake. It is up to you to determine how likely you are to get stuck waiting all season.

  1. How much time is left in the season?

The other reason to be aggressive is waiver pickups become less valuable with each passing week. If you hit on a waiver pickup after Week 1, you can enjoy fantasy production from that player for as many as 14 weeks. If you wait until Week 8 to spend your FAAB or your number one waiver priority, the potential impact of your player is lessened. If you are hoarding your FAAB or waiver spot, you have to be relatively sure a good player will become available, or else have a really strong roster.

  1. How deep is your league?

If you play in a shallow league, you are more likely to find useful players on the waiver wire. If you play in a 16-team league, most of the decent backups are already owned, so hoarding FAAB is even less important. If your league has an IR slot, that means teams essentially have one more roster spot to stash players, further weakening the free agent pool.

  1. Does your league allow $0 bids?

You can be far more aggressive if your league allows $0 bids. Sure, you probably won’t be able to add many quality players with $0 bids unless you are really savvy and a bit lucky, but that is a small price to pay to get a player you really want. If there is a minimum bid, an easy rule of thumb is to leave yourself enough money to make one minimum bid per week for the rest of the season.

  1. What have similar players gone for in the past?

Do some homework. If you can, look at the past few seasons to see previous bids. What have young tight ends gone for in the past? Does one league member always bid $20? Knowing these things can help you find that sweet spot between getting the players you want and not spending more than you have to.