So, you’ve got yourself a fantasy baseball auction, huh? Outstanding. Most people shy away from them because of the complexity with which you need to prepare, but for those ready to brave a new and much more exciting world, it is time to put your big kid pants on and embrace the chaos. There is nothing more fun than going toe-to-toe with your league mates in a fantasy baseball auction draft.

 

 

 

First off, everyone is in-play. What’s better than that? If your league is doing a snake draft and you draw the 10th pick, say goodbye to any hope of rostering Shohei Ohtani, Bobby Witt or Aaron Judge. Unless you play in a league of buffoons, none of them are falling to you in the late first round. 

But in an auction draft, if you want, you can enter the 2025 MLB season rostering all three. Tough to recommend that, which we’ll get to later, but the fact remains, it is definitely possible and that’s what auctions are all about – possibility. You never know who is going to slip through the cracks and land in your lap for a bargain price.

If you’re a seasoned veteran of auction drafts and just looking for some last-minute strategy and advice, welcome. You know the basics of what you have to do and are probably here just to see if there are some 2025 insights that can help you. I might have a few pointers you haven’t thought of yet. If this is your first fantasy baseball auction draft, then it’s time to get settled in. 

We’re going to discuss a number of things, like player values, bidding cadence and roster construction, just to name a few. Do not feel overwhelmed. It may seem like a lot, but if you follow my 10 Steps to a Successful Auction Draft, not only will you have an absolute blast throughout the process, but you’ll also walk away with an amazing team with a championship-caliber foundation. 

Are you ready? Are you buckled in? Great! Let’s get it!

Fantasy Baseball Auction Draft Strategy: 10 Steps To Be Successful In 2025

When it comes to teaching, I’ve always been more of a “do as I say, not as I do” type of guy. I like to take risks. I like to work off my gut-feelings and instincts as much as I rely on empirical data. I still do the necessary research to remain as informed as possible, but on many occasions, I like to take a left even when the directions say to take a right. It’s probably not the most sensible way to go about things, but I do always tend to end up in the right place.

It’s no different for me when it comes to fantasy baseball auctions. The way I go about my own auctions is not how I would instruct a beginner and I often encourage others to play it safe and straight rather than linger outside the box with overly-bold or unconventional methods. Obviously, there are certain leaps of faith you must take in regards to player selection, but this isn’t a piece about choosing players. This is a piece about how you go about acquiring those players in an auction format.

You obviously don’t have to take everything I say here as gospel. Consider it more of a guideline than anything else. After all, there is no one right way to be successful at an auction. However, what I can do is assure you that if you do follow these 10 easy steps, you’ll put yourself in a much better place to win your league than if you don’t. 

 

 

 

1. Mentally Prepare For Battle

It starts with your mentality walking into your draft. You want to be in the right head-space – focused, determined and vicious. Imagine you and I walking into your draft together. 

These might be your friends and/or colleagues, people you interact with on a daily basis, but on the auction battlefield, it is kill or be killed. You play no favorites and you have no friends.  People will be fishing for information before you actually sit down at the table. You give them nothing. Anything you do give, they’re going to use against you. 

2. Strategy Goes A Long Way, So Have A Plan

This seems easy enough to follow, especially for the beginner. Auctions can be confusing, overwhelming and even a bit intimidating if you don’t have a strategy picked out. Strategies vary, so pick one with which you are most comfortable.

You want to pay up for pitching? Go ahead. You want to invest in power and go cheap on speed? By all means. You want to spread your money around rather than using more of a “stars and scrubs” approach? For sure. Whichever way you feel you want to attack this auction is fine. Again, there is no one right way. To each his/her own. 

Just do it with purpose and with a methodology intact. The worst thing you can do to yourself is go in blind and just say you want to grab Players X, Y and Z and whatever else happens, happens. That’s not a plan. Set yourself up with a very specific strategy/game plan and follow through with it from start to finish.

3. Know Thy Enemy

When it comes to a fantasy baseball auction draft, there are two quotes that come to mind:

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.” – Sun Tzu from The Art of War

“If you can’t spot the sucker in your first half hour at the table, then you ARE the sucker.” – Mike McDermott from Rounders

Both apply equally.

Having a firm grasp of the player pool and using cleverly-calculated spreadsheets will only get you so far. Sure, you know which players are primed for a breakout and who the top "sleepers" are, but guess what…? So does everyone else. 

That crazy Google machine all the kids are talking about these days is readily available to John Q. Public and with the surplus of fantasy sites out there, few stones are left unturned. But if you know the inner-workings of the minds of those with whom you are competing, well then, the battle can be easily won no matter which person’s spreadsheet has the sexiest algorithm.

Think about it. If you’re in an auction and you know your Mets-fan brother-in-law just can’t be without Juan Soto, then you bid his ass up. If you know your entire league subscribes to the “always wait on starting pitching” philosophy, then steal a few aces early to solidify yourself. You need to know when to zig before they zag. A working knowledge of the subject matter is one thing. A working knowledge of your opponents is what gives you that edge you need to win.

 

 

 

4. Put Together A Budget & Stick To It

You have a salary cap, and you are not allowed to go over. The trick is to decide exactly how much you want to spend and where. You can break it up by splitting between pitching and hitting or you can split it up by individual positions. Both will work just fine. 

Personally, I prefer just a split between hitting and pitching (usually something near a 60/40-percent split in favor of hitting), but that’s me. This is your team, and you can dole out the auction bucks any way you like. 

However, if you don’t set up at least a basic budget, you could end up blowing all your money on outfielders and leave yourself nothing for starting pitchers (or infielders, or catchers, or whatever position you end up slighting). That’s no good. Take a look at the potential auction values of players on a few different sites just to get a basic feel. Make sure that those prices are based on the same format and/or criteria and see how they fit into your budget.

  • Quick Note on Auction Values:

When you are looking at different auction values, you need to be sure you are looking for the proper pricing. When you look at the Fantasy Alarm Fantasy Baseball Cheat Sheet, the auction values you are looking at are what you should expect to pay in a standard auction – expected cost. If you look around at other sites, the auction values they give you are what you can expect in return value by season’s end. There is a massive difference, especially the deeper you get into the player pool.

For example, a player like Elly De La Cruz who is a first-rounder in snake drafts, could cost you somewhere around $50 in a fantasy baseball auction draft. He may even cost a few dollars more, depending on how badly an owner wants him. 

We have an expected cost range of $46-55 in our Cheat Sheet. However, other sites who use return value for their auction values have him listed between $40-45. Further down, we have Ketel Marte, likely an early third-round pick in snake drafts, who could go for close to $30 in an auction which aligns with our Cheat Sheet, but is listed with a return value on other sites around $20 or $21. 

Using return values as opposed to expected cost will affect your budget and likely cause you to stop bidding on players because you think they’re going for too much. If you back out too early on the upper-tiers of players, you’ll end up over-bidding on mediocrity because that’s all that’s left when you’re holding the hammer in your auction. Holding the hammer means you have more bid money and more bid money per player than anyone else. 

The easiest way to identify whether a site is using return value instead of expected cost is to look at the very bottom tier of players. Players who have an expected cost of $1-3 usually have a zero or negative return value, so if you see anyone listed as a zero or negative dollar figure, you know they’re using return value, and you should expect to pay more in your auction than what they have listed? If you want to know how much more to bid, just make it easier on yourself and use our Cheat Sheet.

Now when I say “stick to it,” with regard to your budget, there’s a little bit of wiggle room here. Let’s say you have a $260 budget and you decide to spend 65 percent on hitting ($169) and 35 percent on pitching ($91). If you feel comfortable with your first couple of pitchers and think you can get some supplemental hurlers for cheaper, you can certainly borrow from that budget to kick in a little extra to get the hitters you want. 

It’s not an exact science and if your 169/91 split ends up 160/100, well that’s OK to do. You’ll also find that you’ll get players for less than you expected and can always throw money back that you borrowed earlier. Again, it’s a guideline, not the gospel. You don’t go crazy and suddenly flip $20 to one side or the other, but a couple of bucks here and there is acceptable.

But the MOST IMPORTANT thing to remember – DO NOT leave money on the table at the end of your auction. You can’t take it with you, it doesn’t transfer to your Free Agent Acquisition Budget (FAAB) and you’ll sit with massive regret, wondering what could have been had you just used that extra $8 to draft one of the elites.

5. Use Tiered Rankings & Be Sensible With Your Targets

Player rankings are all well and good and can be very helpful when looking at the fifth-ranked outfielder versus the 40th-ranked outfielder. But how much of a difference is there between the fifth-ranked outfielder and the ninth? 

Maybe the fifth guy hits a few more home runs while the ninth steals a few more bases. Maybe the fifth guy drives in 20 more runs but the ninth guy hits 30 points higher in batting average. Sometimes, the difference in value is negligible as each guy can help you differently. That’s why you group them in tiers.

Player A may have an expected cost of $25 and Player B’s is $22. Both do roughly similar things for you with respect to the raw numbers, and while Player B may be considered cheaper, their overall return values may be extremely similar. 

Sure, taking one over the other may require you to target the categories you’ve slighted with one over the other, but for the most part, both players are likely to provide a similar return. Breaking up your rankings into tiers will allow you to pivot much more easily if someone is over-bidding on a guy you originally wanted.

As for being sensible, make sure you’re not just targeting the top guy at each position. You’ll never win them all. If you want a top-tier first baseman, then know you’re going to have to downgrade elsewhere. Use the above tiers to help you. 

If the top-tier first baseman is all about the home runs and RBI, then target a lower-tiered shortstop whose strength lies with stolen bases and runs scored. Even if you’re trying a “stars and scrubs” approach, you have to be very specific with your lower-tiered bargains. Don’t just haphazardly grab guys to fill out your roster.

 

 

 

6. Nominate With Purpose & Always Adjust Your Bidding Cadence

This is an important one. Not enough people put the proper thought into their nominations each round. Some just go down their player rankings list and throw out the next uncrossed name they see. Some don’t even put that much thought into it. 

They just haphazardly toss out a random name. You need to always have a reason for your nomination. If you are looking to get people to eat into their money, start throwing out high-profile, high-cost names you have no interest in drafting. Or nominate their favorite players and watch them over-bid.

Sometimes you can even get away with nominating someone most consider a late-round pick and get them on the cheap. How many times have you seen a miser in your auction pass up on killer value early because he’s so focused on holding back his money to stock up on mid-level targets? There are a variety of reasons to nominate players throughout your auction. Just make sure you have one in mind before you throw out a name.

As for your bidding cadence, as well as who you nominate, you always need to mix things up. If you are always throwing players out there to get people to eat up their money, they will catch on fairly quickly. If you always stay out of the bidding until the end, hoping to swoop in and buy the player after most have tapped out, people will see that. It's like a “tell” in poker. If you continue to do the same thing, you're a sitting duck and the rest of the room will feast on you. They'll bid up the players they know you want and they'll try to stick you with players if they know you're just trying to price enforce (jumping into the bidding just to get someone else to go higher). You can try to lure them in by doing the same thing a couple of times and then change it up at the last minute, but again, try not to establish any kind of real pattern.

How about a quick, in-draft bidding tactic?

One thing I like to do is to bid on the 4's and the 9's. Most people, when looking at players, tend to use the 5's and zeroes as benchmarks. This player a $25 player. This a $40 player. It's a fairly common round-off spot for many and they'll use those benchmarks to decide whether or not to go further into the bidding war. So when a player is up for auction and he's at $26 but I know I'm willing to pay up to $32, I'll do a “jump bid” (go up by more than a dollar) to $29 and put the onus on my opponent to decide whether the player is a $30 player or not. If a guy is at $21 and I know I'd pay $28 for him, then I'll bump the bid to $24 and see if $25 is too rich for their blood. Just understand that by doing this a couple of times early in your auction, someone will catch on and make their own adjustments. You can do it a few times, go back to bidding in  $1 increments as everyone else is likely doing, and then re-visit the strategy further into your auction. Just be careful with jump bids. You don't want to go too high and use up more dollars than you really needed to go.

7. Learn To Let Go

Yes, I know. You want Paul Skenes. Who wouldn’t want him? The kid’s an absolute stud. But as much as you may want him, if you’ve only budgeted $30 for him and your friend is jacking the price up to $40, you just might have to let him go. Of course, you don’t want to, but what you really don’t want is to blow up your budget to the point where you’re going to hurt yourself in the long run. 

Again, a few bucks here and there is fine, but the player pool is vast and if you don’t get him, well maybe that $30 you budgeted can be flipped into acquiring someone like Garrett Crochet or Cole Ragans. You may not have been originally targeting either, but now you can since you may have to downgrade to a cheaper alternative.

8. Don’t Be Lazy – Do The Math

If you’re doing the draft online, most web sites will show you how much bid money you have left and what your maximum bid can be for a player while leaving yourself enough extra money. It does not, however, show you how much money you have left based on your budget and potential allotments for hitting/pitching/individual positions. Do the math. Keep track. 

Yes, even if you’re down to just a few bucks, having the correct numbers in front of you is a must. Again, the only thing worse than being that tool who bids more than he is able to and screws up the draft, is the guy who leaves money on the table at the end and kicks himself for missing out on a big-named player earlier on because he didn’t spend $5 more.

 

 

 

9. Pay Attention At All Times

Unless there’s a life-or-death emergency or you’re using it to look up a player’s stats, put your damn phone away. This is league time. Text your girlfriend on your time. Got a funny story to share? Save it for after the draft or, if your league is filled with a bunch of wussies, when you take a mid-draft break to go to the bathroom. 

There’s absolutely nothing worse than the flow of your draft being screwed up because some idiot isn’t paying attention. We’ve seen it a million times as some dipstick nominates players who have already been drafted or, as we said earlier, loses track of his bid money and starts flashing money he doesn’t have. A fantasy baseball auction draft is long enough without some nimrod extending your stay because of incompetence.

10. Don’t Be THAT Guy

Every league has that guy. You know the guy I’m talking about. The real-life Tommy Boy.

He’s usually the guy who walks in with the half-drank case of IPA and somehow thinks the last call is five minutes away from whatever time it is when he looks at his watch. He’s also the clumsy oaf who forgets his fantasy cheat sheet in the cab and asks if he can look on with you. He also doesn’t have a pen or a piece of scrap paper, let alone a clue as to just how much of a pain in the ass he is. 

You want to booze it up? Fine. Just show a little moderation. You want to smoke a joint? Go right ahead. Just make sure you don’t turn yourself into a Cheech and Chong movie and continually ask which player you were just talking about. Drafts are supposed to be fun. I get it. But when one guy seems to be having the time of his life and 11 others are staring at him with seething hate in their eyes, guess what…? It’s not such a good time. 

Auctions, again, are complicated enough. If you can’t handle your liquor or your smoke, don’t do it. Save it for later. Not only will the rest of your league mates appreciate your restraint, but you’ll probably have a much better team in the long-run.

There you have it – 10 very easy steps to follow to have a successful auction.

Again, not the gospel here. Just a guideline. But a sensible one at that. Adhering to these 10 simple steps will not only help you succeed at your auction, but your whole league will probably have a much better time. Good luck and I’ll see you all in the money this year!