Three Foundations of Auction Drafting; Guest Ryan Baas - Listener League Champion - Auction Brief with Drew Davenport

Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Welcome to the Auction Brief. There'sa joy in these games or not,
taking you on a journey through fantasyfootball. The law and life you saw
yours depends on how much you areand now you're legal analyst and auction draft

(00:23):
expert here to help you dominate yourfantasy drafts. Your host, Drew Davenport,
there are full hearts. Let's goplay. Hey, everybody, welcome
into the Auction Brief. As thelady said, I am your host,
Drew Davenport. You're fantasy football lawyer, and thank you so much for joining

(00:44):
me for episode four of the AuctionBrief. We are now a month into
this summer, and I can't believethat we're staring down the barrel of July.
Training camps are open in about threeweeks, and rookie report here in
just a couple of weeks. Holysmokes. I hope this show is going

(01:06):
to be a great lift off pointfor the rest of the summer, because
I'm really excited about how things areprogressing as we go through the summer,
because I have a bit more ofa cogent philosophy about how I wanted to
get through this summer and how Iwanted to build everyone up for their drafts.
Last summer, I kind of feltlike I bounced around a little bit

(01:27):
and I had a lot of goodthings to say, but they were kind
of all over the place, andthat bothers me. As someone who's had
the benefit of a lot of education. My teachers and educators have beat it
into me. Get yourself organized,figure out what you're doing, figure out
what thread is running through the show. And I have done that better this

(01:51):
summer, and I'm excited about howit's going because if you remember, back
in Week one, I talked alittle bit about knocking off the crusts,
knocking off the rough parts of everybody, knocking off the stuff that I don't
like in fantasy football, the myththat we have, and I'm going to
do a myth episode a little bitlater about auction drafting specifically. That's always

(02:13):
a fun episode. When we lookback at twenty twenty three, we've already
talked about hits and misses. We'vetalked about my favorite lessons from last year.
Then we did the commandments last week. All that stuff is leading up
to what we're doing now springing forwardinto twenty twenty four, and the purpose

(02:34):
of those first three episodes and ofthis episode is to get you in the
right frame of mind, is tosort of let all that stuff wash over
you, and it has the wayof making you, I guess, maybe
subconsciously in the right frame of mindto receive the building of the house because
now we have the proper foundation.So it felt like the first three episodes

(02:55):
we were leveling the ground and gettingeverything ready to pour the foundation. And
today we're gonna pour that foundation forthe rest of the summer. We can
build our house on a strong foundationof what we've done to this point.
And I hate to say it,but this is gonna be what I call
a little bit of a setup episode. It doesn't mean it's not important.

(03:19):
It's just that it may not beas exciting as you want it to be.
So here I am, in thefirst couple of minutes in the show
telling you it's gonna be boring today. It's really not, I promise you
know. My brother and I weused to watch The Walking Dead and we
would text each other after the show. And we used to text each other
after certain shows where there would besome things going on but not really anything

(03:40):
super exciting, and we would justtext and say, yeah, it's a
setup episode. That's still good,but a set up episode. So they
would have a couple episodes in arow, sometimes two, three, four
episodes before something big would happen.What I realized, though, is that
this applies to the show really accurately, because what I realize is when you

(04:00):
get to that payoff episode, allthe setup work they did made the payoff
just explode and sort of take off. And that's what we're doing here.
We've done all the setup work,and we're going to do the final week
here of setup work as we buildour foundation, as we pour our foundation
for auction drafting and fantasy success therest of the summer. It's a little

(04:21):
bit of a setup episode, butyou know what, you need it.
You gotta have it because the payoffisn't the payoff if you don't have the
setup. So that's what we're doingtoday. I've got three foundations of auction
drafting and we're going to hit thosepretty quickly. I know that I say
this every week, but let's doa little bit shorter episode this week.

(04:41):
Let's just try to get you inand out because we really aren't here to
break down every one of these partsof auction drafting. We're here to get
the basics down because you can't moveforward unless you have those basics down.
And before we get too far intothe episode with our auction talk, I
want to just mention the sponsors ofthe show, FJAY Fantasy draft Boards.

(05:03):
You can get ten percent off yourorder. Use the code Auction one zero
or auction Brief one zero. Thebest draft boards in the business for any
fantasy sport, bar none. I'mnot saying that because they're throwing me a
couple bucks to be sponsored. I'msaying that because I've been using them for
a long time, and a longtime before I ever had a podcast.

(05:25):
So use Fjay Fantasy and use mycode Auction one zero, and then don't
forget the Patreon network. It's justfour bucks a month, and you're gonna
find content on there that you're notgoing to find anywhere else that I don't
put out on Twitter, that Idon't put in the auction brief. Guests
that are not going to be onthe show, they're only going to be
there, and it's going to bereally hardcore auction stuff here as we get
into July, so make sure andcheck out the Patreon network, the Fantasy

(05:48):
Football Lawyer. That's how you findme on Patreon. But I think it's
that time let's get into the threefoundations of auction draft auction talk. So
I said in the beginning in theintro to the show today that we're going
to be setting things up a littlebit in this episode. But I really

(06:08):
enjoy this kind of sort of surfacewalkthrough because it's something that, like I
said, the first three episodes arekind of breaking you down a little bit
and telling you how I want youto be thinking about things. But now
we're going to just put out sortof the baby ideas, the bottom line
ideas, the basics that we allshould know, but the basics that we

(06:29):
need to talk about so that we'reall on the same page as we move
forward this summer. And I alwaysgo back to the same thing that I
think about when it comes to someof these ideas. You're going to hear
some of these ideas and you're goingto go, well, duh, obviously,
But I liken it too. WhenI started reading poker books, I
started playing poker, and I knewsort of what I was doing and had

(06:51):
a good instinct for the game.But until I started reading the books,
until somebody who had a ton ofexperience playing poker told me what I was
doing and why I was doing itand why I should be doing it or
how I should be doing it differently, then it was really hard to put
words to that stuff, even thoughI was doing it. So you may

(07:12):
be doing some of these things,and you may be doing them exactly correctly,
but it's always important to know why, and it's always important to know,
hey, maybe I am making amistake or maybe there is a little
bit of a leak in my game, because it would just be something like,
oh, well, say you knowI played pocket fours a lot and
I lose money on it. Well, why, Well, it's obvious it's
a small pair. You know thatyou're losing money on pocket force because it's

(07:33):
hard to win pots with a smallpair, but you don't really know why,
and you need all the understanding behindit. And when somebody articulates that
for you, it really sets itin as a core part of your framework
for how you move forward and howyou succeed in the future. So that's
what we're doing. And I comeback to something that I've used probably every

(07:56):
summer and I'm going to use itagain because it's real important. It's Abraham
Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Now,if you're not familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of
needs, all he said was humansbasically need I think he said four or
five categories. I'm just pulling thisoff the top of my head, but
there's a pyramid of needs that humanshave. And at the bottom of the
pyramid is basic physiological needs, thingslike food, water, air, sleep,

(08:22):
stuff like that. And then asyou move up, it's things like
safety, love, and belonging.And then you get to the top and
it's self actualization. And self actualizationjust means try to make yourself a better
person. So you've taken care ofall the basic needs and the lead need
for belonging and love and food andwater and shelter and all that stuff on
the bottom of the pyramid. Andthat's what we're doing now. We're filling

(08:48):
in all of the physiological needs.These are the basic structural needs that your
body of auction drafting skill set needs. I need to eat and I need
to breathe. And for auction drafting, you need to know how to bid.
You need to know how to nominate. You need to know basic things,
and we're going to get into specificsas the summer goes on. But

(09:09):
in order to refine these skills,we have to learn them first, right,
And even if you know them oryou think you know them, I
promise you as we walk through this, I promise there's going to be little
nuggets here and there that you hearduring this episode that are going to resonate
with you and that are going tohelp you, even if this episode seems
a bit basic. So we havethree foundations of auction drafting and how to

(09:30):
be successful in auctions. And thosethree foundations are number one, the grind,
Number two technique and skill, andnumber three cognitive ability. Cognitive function
and ability. So number one,what is the grind? Well, it's
a fancy name for the prep workyou're doing ahead of time, but the

(09:50):
grind is probably sixty five percent ofthe game, just pulling that number out
of nowhere, but it's easily morethan half the game. And I'm going
to say something to you that's goingto be a little bit surprising because I
know that you've all heard me rantagainst average auction values that I can't stand
them, and I'm going to talkabout that for just a second. But

(10:13):
part of the grind is becoming familiarwith pricing to the point that it's instinctual
when you're in the middle of anauction draft. So the grind is about
a couple different things. It's aboutmaking sure that you've divided your rankings into
tears. I want you to takeoff the pricing. We're going to talk
about that as the summer goes on. Ad nauseum. I'm going to have

(10:35):
Adam Siegel on the Patreon network.Him and I have had a back and
forth about how important average auction valuesare, and I think I'm starting to
wear them down. Folks, thepeople who know me out there, you
know, Mike pat Morgan, someof the guys that you're listening to.

(10:56):
This of cracking myself up because itjust occurred to me like that. It's
just a core part of my personality, all right, I gotta get a
hold of myself. It's a corepart of my personality. I'm just gonna
wear your fucking ass out. IfI believe something and I believe it's correct,
I'm just gonna wear you out withmy logic and what I believe is

(11:16):
correct. You know thinking now.I love it when people challenge that stuff
and they want to tell me thatmaybe I'm wrong, because that's how we
learn. We learn by being challenged. And I am going to have Adam
on because he challenges me on theAAV conversation because he thinks that average auction
values are pretty important. And I'mnot here to say that he is just

(11:37):
this stone granite face that's never goingto change, because he says he's starting
to have some second thoughts on whetheror not I'm correct about this and how
valuable average auction values really are.And I'm going to talk about this a
little bit later in the show,but it goes into the whole idea that
average auction values are really just aspawn of eighty It's a spawn of average

(12:01):
draft position from snake drafts, andthat stuff can be pretty worthless. And
so the grind for me is thoseare your tear sheets, your par sheets,
your nomination list, and becoming superfamiliar with pricing ahead of time so
that you have a framework from whichyou can springboard in the middle of an

(12:22):
auction when a price is going highor low. I'm not here to tell
you that AAV has no place I'vealways said it's really good as background work.
It's background work. It's the stuffthat you have to know, but
that you can't be too concerned aboutwhen you're in the middle of the auction.
So that's my mini AAV rant isreally what it means is this is

(12:43):
that if somebody tells you that youshould pay twenty three dollars for a particular
player, and you get into thedraft and all the players are going for
way more money, you're gonna sitback and be shocked and be blown out
of the water by all these peoplebidding too much money. And then you're
going to end up with a supermedia team because you're going to have a
ton of money to buy a bunchof mediocre players in the middle of the
draft after everyone spent their money.So AAV or average auction values that you're

(13:09):
looking at from a website that youprinted out or compiling them from a bunch
of different sites. I don't carewhere you get your AAV It is really
not helping you when you get inthe draft. It is not, I
promise you. In fact, i'dtell you to drop that stuff way ahead
of the draft. Weeks ahead ofthe draft. You want to get rid
of that crap. Instead, whatyou should be focusing on in the grind
is preparing your tiers. Look atwhat players you want and what buckets.

(13:35):
You don't have to divide them upin RB one, RB two, RB
three, You don't have to dothat. That's kind of what I do.
But just divide them up in tiershowever you want. Just draw a
circle and write players' names in them. It doesn't matter how, but you
got to divide them up so thatyou know which players are similarly valued,
so that you can tell as thedraft goes on, what you're going to

(13:56):
be expected to pay in order tofill your roster according to your par sheet?
And what is your par sheet?Because there are new listeners wh're gaining
listeners every episode, I have tobriefly talk about the par sheet and say
that I have a big article I'mworking on for the Patreon network called the
Anatomy of a par Sheet. Butbriefly, what a par sheet is is

(14:16):
something that it's a name that Igave to the sheet that I use when
I walk into a draft room,and it's something that I've been talking about
since I got hired at Football Guysand since I started the Auction Brief podcast,
the par sheet is caught on andI love it because it's the way
that you try to shoot par inan auction draft. It's not like golf

(14:37):
where you're trying to shoot under parbecause you don't want to be off either
way on how much money you spent. If you have two hundred dollars to
spend, you want to spend exactlytwo hundred dollars. So I call it
the par sheet because we're trying toshoot par, not under or not over.
And the way we shoot par isto come up with exact values for
every position on your roster, andyou want to spend on every single position.

(15:03):
And those exact numbers are going tohelp you in the middle of the
draft because when you land a player, you know whether or not you under
or overpaid for them from your anticipatedprice that you wanted to pay on your
par sheet. And this helps youknow do I have to pull money from
somewhere or can I use some extramoney? And I said this recently with
somebody that I was interviewing. Idon't know how people don't do it,

(15:26):
or excuse me, I don't knowhow people do it when they don't have
a par sheet because they pay aprice and they're like, oh, okay,
I got my player, But whereare you, man? You're just
out there bouncing around in outer space, like not knowing where your money's going
to come from next. So Iknow that generally knowing what is a good
price and what is bad, that'sfine. But if you don't know that

(15:48):
in relationship in relation to your capsituation, you're never going to come out
of there with a great team.You're always going to fall short because you're
going to be left with too muchor too little money because you're not using
your par sh And we're going totalk about par sheets NonStop for the rest
of the summer. And finally,I want you to have your nomination list
again. We'll talk about it morein detail as we move along, because

(16:11):
again I told you, you know, I got some really good feedback last
summer when I had specific examples andthings I was talking about, and I'm
going to try to do more ofthat this summer, more specifics. And
I think that's I'm gonna go ita little bit on a rant a little
bit later in the show. Yesit's a RANTI show. What can I
say but I'm going to talk alittle bit about the paradigm shift that I

(16:32):
really want to see in our industryand what that means about our preparation.
So the first foundation of auction draftingis the grind, putting together your par
sheets, your tear sheets, yournomination lists, becoming super familiar with the
pricing. So it's sort of likemuscle memory when you get into the auction
draft and you can tell what's happeningin that particular room. I call it

(16:56):
the grind because I know how importantthat preparation is ahead of time, and
a lot of people don't want todo that. And that's okay, because,
like I said, fantasy football canbe whatever you want it to be.
Have fun with it. Maybe youknow, you just like listening to
me, and you're not going topractice any of the things that I tell
you ahead of time. You're justgoing to try to, you know,
go into the draft and do acouple of things. I said, that's
fine too, I don't care.Whatever commitment you want to give to it

(17:18):
is what you want to give toit. But I call it the grind
because the people who grind the hardestahead of time are prepared for the situations
they're going to see, and theyare not panicking, they're not nervous,
they're not worried. They're just goingin there and they're sligh in the draft
because they are ready, because theirmindset is so strong from all the time

(17:41):
they've spent working on this ahead oftime, and their brain has gone through
the mental exercises over and over andover for how they're going to react when
they get into that draft. Thegrind is huge. All right, let's
get to number two. Number twoin my foundation of auction drafting is technique
in skill, and in the techniqueand skill bucket, we have bidding strategies

(18:04):
and nomination strategies, and we'll hitentire episodes about those two things later in
the summer, and we're going todo a lot about what our attitude should
be about bidding and nominating. Anda couple summers ago, I was all
about the aggression when we're talking aboutbidding and nominating, about being super aggressive
and keeping up the pressure. ButI want to say that last summer we

(18:27):
get I tried to tone down thatrhetoric just a little bit because I saw
some evidence that people were taking theaggression a little bit too far. I
turned that down a little bit,and now the new phrase that I want
to use going forward when it comesto our bidding. Our nominating strategies are
price enforcing bidding people up. Allthe techniques that we're learning, I want

(18:48):
them all to boil down to onesimple phrase, pressure and precision. Pressure
and precision, because the way thatwe refine our skills is to point towards
those two goals. If we arenot marching towards those two ideas with what

(19:10):
we're doing, that I think thatwe're doing it wrong. Because the way
that we win in an auction draftis to put the pressure on our opponents
and to be doing things with theprecision that allows us to execute our plan.
Precision means that we can't get sloppyat any point during the draft.

(19:30):
We can't fall asleep at any pointduring the draft. We and I don't
mean fall asleep literally, I meanfiguratively. I mean you cannot rest.
You should come out of your auctiondraft exhausted. You should be on the
drive home or sitting on the couchafter the online draft has concluded, and
you should be sitting there just wornout because of how much mental energy it

(19:53):
took to keep up and to keeppressuring everyone in the league. And one
of those things that I do thatwe I've talked about this with people before,
but it's so stupid simple. Itis just stupid simple that when I'm
in an online auction and somebody putsa player up forbid who I know is
going to go for thirty forty bucks, I bid relentlessly. Somebody bids two,

(20:15):
three, somebody bids four or five. Somebody jumps up to sixteen.
I go seventeen. Somebody bit jumpsup to twenty one. I go twenty
two, and I go as quicklyas I possibly can. I keep that
mouse hovered over the plus one.I just jam that plus one over and
over and over and over, andhonestly, what I want to picture this
is going to be kind of messedup, But what I want to picture

(20:37):
is I want to picture my otherleague mates getting irritated behind the computer screen,
like why is he doing that?Why is he going so fast?
And also maybe they're not necessarily directingthat at me, but they're a little
bit irritated about how they can't thinkabout what they're doing, or they're looking
over their draft sheets they're shuffling aroundtheir papers in front of their computer,
and that's what I want to picture. I want to picture them panic a

(21:00):
little bit because do I need thisguy? Is this a good price?
Wait a minute, what's the priceat? Now hear the thing. I
hear the clock ticking down, Ihear the bid going. You want them
to feel frantic and nervous and pressured. And that's what bidding and nominating skills
are all about, is turning thepressure around on your opponent. You're always
ready with your price enforcing or you'rebidding people up. We're going to talk

(21:22):
about those techniques later. And thething that you've got to remember is that
these things are both a science andan art. And as you get higher
into the conversations about how to perfectthese skills, you move further away from
science into art into how do youcraft the perfect nomination? What's the right

(21:44):
time that you anticipate that nomination beingcorrect? What's the right way to bid
against this player versus this player?Because not every fantasy player, it's not
a monolith. It's a bunch ofdifferent players with different personalities. And while
you can go in there with certainideas about how you're going to keep the
pressure on, and how you're goingto be precise with your nominations or your

(22:04):
bids. That's all going to changein the middle. So you always got
to be ready to go. Andthat's where the art comes in. The
science is learning the skill and learningwhat it is that you may see in
face, and then the art isputting it into play and pulling the right
buttons, pulling the right buttons.Everybody, don't forget to pull the right

(22:26):
buttons. Okay, just pull thosebuttons. But it's learning to push the
right buttons, pull the right leversat the right time. And that's not
always easy to do. In fact, you're not going to do it right
a lot. Sometimes you're gonna callon a nomination and be like, WHOA,
that was bad. You know.Sometimes I'll be sitting on a guy

(22:47):
for a certain amount of rounds andI'm like, Okay, this is the
round. I think this is theright time. I think I've seen an
inflection point. I'm all ready togo. I'm smug arrogant auction guy.
Maybe that should be an new character, smug air again auction guy. So
that's who I am. I gotmy FW I'm ready to yell out of

(23:08):
bid because I'm smug ar again,auction guy, and then I call out
a nomination. It's just which istotally wrong. That happens all the time,
and that's why you just have tohave the experience. You got to
put the reps under your belt.You're gonna be wrong sometimes. But you
know what, I don't care.I told this I was coaching soccer this

(23:30):
spring, and I used to tellmy kids all the time, I don't
care about the execution. Yes,we want to execute correctly, but the
fact that you had the idea tomake the pass, you had the idea
to take the extra pass instead oftaking the shot. I'm proud of you
for that. And I'm proud ofyou if you go into the room and
you try to nail that perfect nomination. Oh whoo, it didn't work.

(23:52):
Your guy got crushed. You thoughtyou were going to nominate him at the
perfect time to get him for fourteenbucks and he went for thirty eight.
Oh well, but that's why wedo it. We work on it because
when we have the thought process,we're going to be wrong sometimes. And
then sometimes you're going to call outthe perfect one and it's going to work,
and you're gonna be like, Iwant it in for fourteen and I
got them for nine, and you'rejust gonna be stoked. You're gonna be

(24:15):
over there right in nine on yourpar sheet with a plus five out to
the side, and you're just goingto be so happy because everything you did,
the forty nine billion hours you studyled to that one moment in that
one deal. But man, it'sa great payoff. It's a great payoff.
And nominating and bidding, you know, it's those are the things that
you have to think about ahead oftime, and it's not something that's going

(24:36):
to come to you automatically. Youhave to think to yourself, like,
for instance, with nominating, what'smy early plan for nomination. What inflection
points am I looking for where I'mgoing to shift that plan? So early
on, I'm nominating players I wantbecause I'm trying to send my draft off
into the right direction. But thenlater on what inflection point am I going
to see that's going to make meshift off of that plan to nominate players

(24:59):
I want into territory where maybe I'mnominating players I don't want, or players
that are gonna waste money, ormaybe players that I think I can get
because we've shifted to a certain pointin the draft where there's not much money
in the room. An example ofthat is I always talk about my scattershot
approach with running backs. There's apoint in the draft where there's a lot
of money that's gone, and you'vebeen purposely staying away from nominating those RB

(25:23):
twos and RB threes because you're tryingto just get a bunch of them later
in the draft real cheap. Allof a sudden, you realize the money's
out of the room and some guyjust went for four bucks who should be
a twelve dollars player, And youthink, okay, where and get your
guy mode. We're in that pointin the draft where everybody's just trying to
get their own guy. Then youstart throwing out your RB twos and RB

(25:44):
three's because some of the money's gone. That's a shift in your nominating philosophy.
So again, we're gonna talk aboutall that stuff. We're gonna go
through details and examples just like that. But your shift happens almost without warning.
Sometimes sometimes you can see it coming, but sometimes it's just without warning.
If you're not paying attention, you'renot going to know. So the
refinement of our technique and skill takesus further away from the science of it

(26:10):
to the art of it. Butwe have to learn all of it.
We have to learn the entire spectrum, and that's how we become experts at
it. And the phrase I wantyou to remember under the second foundation of
auction drafting, under our technique andour skill should always be building towards pressure
and precision. How are we puttingmaximum pressure with the most amount of precision.

(26:33):
So I'm going to say pressure andprecision all summer long. That's what
we are building towards, and thatis our second foundation of auction drafting.
The technique and skill we use tobring that pressure to bear to make the
perfect precise plays during our auction draft. And finally, the third foundation of
auction drafting that I want to talkabout today is called your cognitive ability or

(26:57):
your cognitive function. I saw aquote the other day talking about it,
so I just looked it up becauseI was like, you know what,
I know what the phrase means,and I know generally what I'm trying to
say when I'm trying to say yourcognitive ability. But I wanted to define
it more precisely, and then Igot this perfect definition from just googling.

(27:18):
It was the first thing that poppedup at the top of the page.
I'm like, oh, this isperfect, this is perfect. Cognitive ability
is your general mental capability that involvesreasoning, problem solving, planning, abstract
thinking, complex idea comprehension, andlearning from experience. Now, I know
I just spit a lot out youright there, but think about it again

(27:41):
here one more time. Your generalmental capability that involves reasoning, problem solving,
planning, abstract thinking, complex ideacomprehension, and learning from experience.
They might as well have just said, hey, this is what you need
to do to win at auction drafting, because that's all awesome, that's everything
that we talk about all the time. In order to develop that cognitive ability,

(28:06):
we have to break away from theindustry paradigm about how we should be
preparing for auction drafts. And I'mgoing to go out on a limb and
say that this is something that's notgoing to be very popular, and then
I may spend the rest of mycareer in the fantasy industry talking about it
till I'm blue in the face.We're not going to get the full rant
today, but I'm going to giveyou a quick example, and I'm going

(28:27):
to tell you why I'm thinking aboutthis stuff and why it's so important to
your ability to succeed as an auctiondrafter. I've already had a couple of
sites turn me down when I wantto talk about this stuff because it doesn't
fit the mold of checking that boxfor what auction drafting is supposed to look
like. And I understand, butthese sites want to check a box.

(28:49):
But if you're not here to checka box and you're here to learn to
be better, then you're going tolove this. Because your cognitive ability to
succeed in an auction all those thingswe just talked about, your ability to
handle complex ideas, planning, allthat stuff, it comes down to how
you play situations in a draft roomand how you react to situations in a

(29:11):
draft room. That's all it is. It's not about is this guy twenty
eight bucks or twenty three bucks?Is this guy a good RB two or
a good RB three? No,it's about what is your expectation for your
particular room. And that's the paradigmshift that we have to we have to
get there. We have to getthere. And let me give you an

(29:33):
example, because it's a little biteasier to understand what I'm saying if I
give you the example first and thenI go on my mini sermon here.
Let's say that you're walking into adraft and your thought to yourself is,
hey, I'm going to go reallylight on running backs, and my RB
one is going to be somebody rightaround the eleven to fifteen range. And
you look in that range and yousee James Cook and you think to yourself,

(29:56):
Okay, he's going to be aperfect RB one for my build.
Now, obviously I'm not saying thathe's an RB one like overall, I'm
not saying he's gonna finish in thetop twelve, none of that. The
point being you think for your buildbecause you're gonna throw eleventy bajillion dollars at
wide receiver along with the rest ofthe universe, myself included, and you

(30:17):
need a running back one that youlike, but who isn't actually an RB
one in price. So you lookat James Cook and you think to yourself,
Okay, James Cook's average auction valueis twenty three bucks. Now,
I'm just pulling that number of thinair because it doesn't matter. We're at
the end of June. Who cares. We're gonna get that stuff dialed in
later. Let's say that is averageauction value is twenty three bucks. If

(30:40):
you listen to the big sites,they tell you go into your draft and
if you get a deal on JamesCook for nineteen, take him. Okay,
there's a lot of reasons why that'sa problem and why we need a
paradigm shift. And the way I'mgoing to go about explaining this to you
is real simple. Let's look atthe low side or the high side of
what could happen in a draft room. If his average auction value is twenty

(31:04):
three what does that mean? Thatnumber is an average auction value, So
that means in a lot of draftshe's gone for way more, and a
lot of drafts he's gone for wayless. That's where the average is.
So right out of the gate,it's an imprecise number because you're giving us
an amalgamation of hundreds or thousands orwhatever leagues or parameters you're putting in to

(31:29):
spit out that AAV. So it'simprecise from the very word jump. All
you're doing is taking an average draftposition and trying to make up a value,
or you're pulling it from auction draftsthat have already happened. And that's
good to get a general idea,But if you're sticking with that twenty three
dollars, you're doing yourself a disservice. And here's why. What if you're

(31:51):
in a room that absolutely hates runningbacks and they just don't care about running
backs? You see that twenty threedollars is the average auction in value and
the pricing stalls out of fifteen dollars, and you say sixteen, and you
did them for sixteen. You're like, oh, this is awesome. But
what if you wanted to pay thirteenfor your RB one and you ended up
paying sixteen, Well, that's notawesome. According to your par sheet,

(32:15):
you lost three bucks. And here'sthe thing. The reason that the price
was so low is because they haterunning backs in that room. So why
in the hell are you paying attentionto a twenty three dollars random arbitrary price
tag from some other leads? Andlet me tell you something I found out
last summer. I found out thehard way. I thought I was going
to be able to automate the parsheet process a little bit. I was

(32:37):
giving people par sheets all last summer. I did like one hundred and twenty
of them, or however many Idid of them, but every time I
would do a new par sheet,there was some scoring wrinkle or change in
the lineup, or how You'd beshocked at how many combinations of things people
can have superflex, tight end,premium, this many flex, this many
flex, this many tight ends,this many superflex kickers, no kickers,

(33:00):
DS, no ds. This onehas a defense, but no kicker.
This one as a kicker, nodefense. I thought I'd be able to
automate the par sheet process a littlebit. And the reason I'm going off
on this rant is because these AAVnumbers are compiled over thousands of leagues that
all have different settings. I sawalmost no settings that were the same when
I was doing par sheets. Veryfew leagues have the same settings, very

(33:24):
very very few are exactly the same, and that means the prices are going
to change. It's like being Let'ssay, I remember, specifically, somebody
came to me last summer and wantedme to do a par sheet for a
league that was a superflex league andthey didn't like quarterbacks. It was a

(33:44):
super flex league and they didn't likequarterbacks. Like, what are we talking
about? Are you what? It'sa super flex and you don't like quarterbacks.
I don't even know how to wrapmy mind around that. But I
told them, Okay, well thenyou can spend less money on quarterbacks,
or maybe you can spend a littlebit more and you can just have a
killer quarterback and just walk away withthe title. I mean, I don't
know, but like we talked aboutthe two different ways to play that.

(34:05):
But my point being, if you'relooking at superflex rankings and you're seeing that
somebody says, oh, you shouldspend thirty one dollars on this quarterback,
but your league doesn't care about quarterbacks, you should not be spending thirty one
dollars. And again, that's whyAAV doesn't do shit for you. Excuse
me, doesn't do anything for youexcept to give you a baseline. That's

(34:27):
it. That's literally it. Becauseevery league is different and every time somebody
comes up, it's going to change. So if you spend now let's go
back to the running back example.So if you spend twenty three dollars on
James Cook, the exact AAV thatis going for ahead of the draft.
But you're in a room that hatesrunning backs, you paid too much.
Now, let's say you're in aroom that loves running backs and you know

(34:50):
that the reason you're spending less isbecause they just go crazy for running backs.
You're gonna have to overpay for JamesCook. But come to the table
with this idea about the philosoph feeof the par sheet and about your bild
because ahead of time you should knowmy league likes or doesn't like this.
Now, if it's a new league, of course you can't know that.
You can pay attention in the firstseventy picks and figure that stuff out.

(35:14):
But if this is something that youknow, Let's say, for example,
this league loves running backs, andyou think to yourself, well, twenty
three for Cook would be great,but it's gonna cost more, so you
a lot twenty eight for Cook.Let's say that you're on a little app
with a little bluebird and you wantto post your team later, and you
end up paying thirty dollars for JamesCook. Now that's well over his twenty

(35:36):
three dollars AAV but you had alot of twenty eight bucks, and you
say bucks, you saved a fewbucks somewhere else, so you were able
to still get your guy for thirty. Now you feel good about your thirty
price because everyone in the room wasjust going crazy for running backs. That's
the kind of league that you're in. You're in this home league with a
bunch of people that love running backs. Maybe there are a bunch of fifty

(35:57):
five year old guys who started playinga long time ago when running backs king
me me, I'm not fifty five, but that's the era I started in.
There are leagues like that. Soyour thirty dollars price for cook may
look bad to people on the birdapp and people are gonna say that's too
much, but may it may betotally fine. It's it may be totally

(36:21):
fine for you, your league,your build, your par sheet, your
situation. At that snapshot in timewhen you got cooked for thirty bucks,
it was exactly the right play.It was exactly the precise play for your
team. And that's why I hatethe paradigm, and that's why I'm pissed
off. Can you tell them angryabout it? Because I don't like how
the industry is lazy about this,and they're lazy about it because they don't

(36:44):
have enough people out there calling themout on the carpet for it. Most
sites put out a little dribble ofauction content and some auction values, and
they, you know, they theyhold up their hands like a Vegas dealer
and they walk out like I'm out. That's it that you get what we
give you. I'm not here togive you that cookie cutter crap. I'm

(37:06):
here to give you the real dealand hope that you enjoy it. So
the whole point of the third foundationof auction drafting is to develop your cognitive
ability to handle situations and train yourselfto react to the proper way when things
happen. So everybody remember the eightiesmovie Wargames. Would you like to play

(37:27):
a game? You need to wargameyourself. Okay, because I've talked about
it before about how mocks can behurtful, and I do believe that.
But if you don't have a lotof experience with mox or excuse me,
experience with auctions, you need todo some mocks. Just do them and
just know that the pricing is goingto be off because I did a mock

(37:49):
with a bunch of people who weregood players and didn't We weren't going to
play it out. It was justgoing to be for a magazine. It
was just purely a mock, andpeople knew that. They didn't take it
quite as seriously. The loloaded theirteams. I waited got an incredibly loaded
roster, maybe not a ton oftop talent, but point being, mocks
are weird, they're off, theycan be hurtful. But if you don't

(38:12):
have a lot of experience, youneed to do them, because it really
is wargaming yourself. It's telling yourself. It's showing yourself how you're going to
react when things happen to you.Anticipate that there will be problems. You
know. I'm a guy who readsa ton of like, uh, spy
novels or military like special forces stuff. I was a huge clancy guide that

(38:34):
kind of thing. And the onething that I've picked up from these books
is the one common philosophy that theyall have is a plan is great until
the bullets start flying, and thenthe plan is no longer the plan.
It's going to change, and that'swhat you have to think. The grind
is super important. Not because youcome up with the perfect plan, although
that sometimes can happen, but becauseyou have taken your brain through the thought

(38:59):
exercise. Is that allowed you toshift when things didn't go right. So
you have to anticipate how am Iplaying this early? How am I playing
it in the middle, and howam I playing it late? But you
don't just say how do I doit? I'm going to go after this
guy and then move on. No, anticipate problems. You want to go
after that guy, You're probably notgetting that guy. I just got news

(39:21):
for you. If you want topay a certain price for a guy and
that's what your draft has hinging on, you better do it early because it
likely ain't happening. Let's say,for example, this year, I want
to go young at tight end.I want Sam Laporta, or I want
Trade McBride, or I want DaltonKincaid. Okay, great, so does
everybody else. Welcome to the club. You are going to have to tell

(39:43):
yourself what happens when I don't getone, not if when I don't get
one of those. Now, youmay end up overpaying and getting one of
them, but I'm willing to betyou're not going to get a good deal.
So either tell yourself I'm going tohave to overpay, or when I
don't land one of them, whatis my plan B. And don't just
say okay, well I'll just I'llgo over Mark Andrew. No, you

(40:05):
got to figure out what are yourcontingencies here and how are you going to
react? And once you do that, when it happens. Have you ever
been in an auction before and somethinghappens where something went poorly, Like you
bid too much and didn't that's notwhat you wanted to bid, or you
didn't click bid on somebody that youknew you should have been on, and
you get that kind of like hotfeeling, like that rush of like almost

(40:27):
embarrassment that goes to your face andyour ears because you're like, oh no,
is that a mistake? Like yourblood gets hot, not because you're
mad, because you're like, ohmy god, it's an emotional thing that
comes over you, that flush,that feeling of emotion that rushes into your
body. That's all going to happen. But if you've run the wargames,
would you like to play a game? Run it on yourself. If you

(40:52):
run those wargames, you will beable to handle it when it happens.
I want to get Derrick Henry thisyear for forty I think he's going to
fall into the end zone eighteen timesfor the Ravens. I want to get
him for forty bucks. What happenswhen somebody bids forty six? Are you
going to continue to go to fortyseven or are you going to say,
hey, I figure this out duringthe grind. I know that when Henry

(41:15):
goes over forty bucks, my alternativeplan is X. My other alternative plan
is why. My contingency for allof that falling apart is Z. But
if you don't do it ahead oftime, it's not going to work.
It's not going to matter. Iam really excited about the cognitive abilities portion

(41:37):
of this show because we're going toget into this more and more as the
summer goes on. We have threefoundations of auction drafting, the grind,
the technique and skill to apply pressureand precision, and finally, number three
cognitive abilities that you must learn thatteach you how to handle situations and teach

(41:59):
you how to react when you're inthe middle of an auction. We are
going to shift the paradigm me andyou all of my Auction Brief listeners are
going to shift the paradigm this summer, and we're going to be vocal about
how we shift the paradigm of auctiondrafting away from the little cousin of the
snake drafters out in the fantasy community. We're going to have our own set

(42:22):
of standards about how we go throughthe process of preparing for auction drafts and
how we shift the paradigm to situationalawareness and advanced cognitive ability to crush an
auction draft. Thank you so muchfor listening to my three foundations of auction
drafting. I've had a blast droppingthose on you. Today, we have

(42:43):
a fun discussions with Drew. Wehave Ryan Boss, who was last year's
The Listener League champion. The AuctionBrief has only had two seasons, but
it's now become a tradition to havethe winner on the show and tell us
how they won, because I dobelieve that I would put the Auction Brief,
Listener League, draft Room, auctionroom up against any group of auction

(43:08):
drafters in the world, and that'snot an exaggeration. People who listen to
the show and want to perfect theircraft and get into the Listener League.
They love it and they are goodat it. And we have Ryan Boss
here to talk to us about howhe did it and how he took it
down. So let's get over tothis week's Discussions with Drew and Listener League

(43:28):
Champion Ryan Boss. Time for Discussionswith Drew, in depth conversations with the
brightest minds in the fantasy industry.All right, everybody, welcome into this
week's Discussions with Drew. We havea special episode this week, as has
become the tradition here on the AuctionBrief, dating all the way back to

(43:50):
twenty twenty three, we are bringingon the Auction Brief and Listener League Champion
to talk about how he took downone of the toughest auction leagues on the
planet. Yes, I said it. I do believe that you get a
lot of people who are interested inauctions, who follow me and want to
learn and have that thirst for knowledge, listening to the show, being involved

(44:15):
on Twitter and really trying to refinethe craft of being an auction drafter.
And you put all those people ina room together and you tell them to
go have an auction. It's oneof the tougher leagues. I play in
bar none industry anywhere, one ofthe toughest leeps. I plan, and
we're going to talk to this year'schampion, that is mister Ryan Bass.

(44:36):
And am I saying your name correctly? Ryan Boss Boss? Ah? See,
now that's a conversation that we shouldhave had off the air. Drew.
Come on, it's my first day. I've never done this before,
all right, so Ryan Boss andhe is our second year Listener League champion.
Ryan, thank you so much forcoming on in. Congrats on the

(44:57):
title. Hey, thanks, Drew, thanks for having me. I'm excited
to be here so appreciate the opportunity. Yeah, no problem, And I
like talking to you because I'm alwaysgoing to get a perspective that maybe I
didn't have. And frankly, Iwant to hear how somebody can For two
years now, I've got my buttkicked around in the Listener League and I'm

(45:19):
frankly a little bit irritated with myself. So we're gonna hear how you did
it this year. But first ofall, I have another thing that I
want to ranch about for a second. This guy is in my Fantasy Surfing
league as well, So the auctionBree Fantasy Surfing League and we both had
a bit of a rough time inEl Salvador. But this guy knows how

(45:42):
to play fantasy surfing. Where doesthat come from? Oh man, I
just love advocating for kind of thoseless popular sports out there. So if
there's a chance to get involved withfantasy surfing, I'm all about it.
And I'm just gonna, you know, do the research I can to to

(46:02):
keep my head above water with it. And yeah, it's fun to learn.
And you know, so you youhaven't played before this, you had
never played right fantasy surfing? No, last year when you started the league
was the first time I did it. I didn't, I didn't couldn't name

(46:22):
more than a few surfers. Soyeah, well, I guess that was
gonna be my next question. Didyou have any background at all and following
professional surfing that made you interested inthis or was this just like, Hey,
I want to I want to trythis. I knew who Kelly Slater,
I knew John John Florence. That'sabout it. I have a couple

(46:43):
of cousins out in California that arereally into surfing, so I've kind of
tapped into their knowledge about pro surfing, and you know, it's been fun
to to interact with them and andlearn a little bit more through them too.
So well, they're welcome to bein the league next year if they
want. I got to say Ryanwas in first place until we got to
El Salvador this past weekend and weboth got worked a little bit. I

(47:07):
managed to hang on to third.I think he dropped a fourth, Is
that right, Yeah, I thinkso. Yeah. Well, we've got
three events left and you know,two events in the finals, plenty of
points to be handed out. Butyeah, it was. It was a
tough, tough event for us.Yeah, And I'm trying to find ways
to develop fantasy sports for other sportstoo that you know, sports that are

(47:30):
in the Olympics or for the Olympicsof themselves. So it's kind of one
of my one of my side projects. Can you imagine having fantasy Olympics and
just drafting athletes from different countries andoh my gosh, it's a dream that
you said, Ye, yep,that's awesome. That would be a lot

(47:51):
of fun. Although I gotta behonest, I think I love the Olympics
and I may be one of theyou know, I know there's a lot
of people that like them, butI also know there's a lot of people
who really just don't get into it, and so I feel a little bit
funny, but I say it allthe time. I love it. I
think if I had Fantasy Olympics,it might be a problem. I don't
know. Man, I got sofired up about losing and surfing this past

(48:13):
weekend with the interference from Griffin howMan other stuff. Yeah, yeah,
for sure. All right, Well, hey, look, let's get onto
some stuff people actually care about.This is just me and you chatting,
but let's talk about this league.And I want to set the background here
about what your experience is with auctions, and then we can get into specifically
the league itself and how you tookit down. So, first of all,

(48:37):
I guess the most important thing isyou love fantasy sports in general.
How long have you been doing fantasyfootball in particular. Yeah, it probably
goes back to my high school days. I think, you know if you
looked at my Yahoo profile and saysomewhere around two thousand and six, and
yeah, my favorite part of fantasyfootball has always been the connection point that

(49:00):
provides for a group of people tostay in touch or just get to know
each other better. So I reallyenjoyed that. Yeah, going back to
high school, that's that's a lot. So eighteen years or so you've been
in it, and that's I'm findingout more and more, you know,
I'm with I hang around a lotof people that are so hardcore that they're

(49:21):
in it as long as I've beenin it. But I'm finding out that
that's a little bit unusual, youknow, to be fifteen to twenty years.
You know, a lot of peoplewoke up to it in the last
five, six, seven years,so that's a long time. Have you
been doing auctions the whole time?No? Yeah, I didn't do an
auction league until I think it wastwenty twenty. My brother in law got

(49:42):
me into it and he actually suggestedlistening to you at that time for advice,
and I've enjoyed listening to you sinceand just fell in love with the
strategy of auction drafts and you know, that ability to get the guy that
you really want instead of disappointed becauseyou got a late pick and a redraft
or something. Okay, so you'veonly been at it for a couple of

(50:05):
years, But do you have acouple like are any of your home leagues
auctions or do you try to haveto find them? I started a lee
an auction league, I think threeyears ago, so I had one with
my brother in law, and thenI started one. So I've been in
two auction leagues, okay, andthen the listener league was my third one.

(50:29):
Okay. And are those live onlineonline? Okay? But yeah,
I've never done like a offline liveauction. Oh you haven't, okay,
you know, And I'm finding thatalso is pretty common. And I forget
who was that said it to methe other day that was telling me they'd
never done a live auction, butthey're they're a huge auction fan. I
can't remember who it was. Iwas just surprised because I just always tend

(50:51):
to think that there's at least onehome league out there there where you're doing
those live ones. But I understandit's difficult. And one of the changes
I had to make in my leaguea few years ago, my home league
that's coming up on year twenty four, was I told people, we're starting
to get flung all over the country. We had a guy in Florida,
we had a guy in Illinois,we had a guy up in a couple
guys up in Cleveland, and I'mlike, guys, this started out to

(51:15):
be something where we have a connection. Every year, we're going to get
together and do this auction, andnow everybody's all over the place and it's
getting harder and harder. I'm goingto have to make it just a Ohio,
you know, managers league. Andwe went back to that because the
live part of it was so importantto me. But I understand how difficult
that is and rare it is too, and I do enjoy getting together in

(51:37):
person to do them, even thoughit's always been online for us. But
yeah, what would you say arethe benefits that put live offline auctions over
the top? Boy? There's somany. My favorite thing about live stuff
is and I've talked about this onthe show before. I've got a buddy

(51:58):
who we used to play online poketogether, like on the same site.
He was much better at reading peoplethrough the screen, like their betting patterns
and the things that they did onthe computer screen, whereas I've always been
better at being in person and seeingwhat the person's doing. I get just
a read off of just their bodylanguage and kind of they exude something that

(52:20):
I can understand, and I likethat part of it, but also just
there's something about being in the roomand your opponents right there. I don't
know what it is about it.It's hard to describe, but I find
that I have a bigger edge.And I also find that it's also a
lot more fun to just throw jokesaround and say stupid stuff while we're drafting.
To sure, how many leagues areyou in total, not just auction

(52:45):
but total fantasy leagues? Usually aboutthree? Yeah, three is kind of
I think this coming year it'll betwo auction league. Okay, all right,
well let's talk. Let's let's getinto the auction stuff, because I
want to hear the way you approachthis stuff. And I tend to take
it for granted. You know,I'm running my mouth all summer long,
like this is what you should do, this is what you should do.

(53:07):
I feel like I sound like I'vegot the cornerstone on truth, which is
not it at all. This ishow I do it. So I like
to hear other people's opinions like howdo you do it? Because it further,
you know, sharpens my ability tothink about what works and what doesn't.
Do you have a way when yougo into the auction. I know
a lot of people say, nowI just kind of go with things.
Do you have a particular build thatyou like that you're going for? And

(53:31):
I guess it's a two part questionbecause the first part of it is do
you have a like a standard build, like, Okay, I'm going to
this auction and I know that Ilike this and this is what I'm going
to do. Or do you decide, Hey, this league likes this and
I'm going to change it up.How do you decide what your build's going
to look like? I really tryto prepare for anything because every auction draft

(53:54):
is different, right, So alot of times I'll make like three different
par sheets for scenario A, B, and C. If I have my
ideal choice, it's probably at leastone or two studs, kind of the
studs and duds approach. I don'twant mediocrity across the board. I try

(54:17):
to get plenty of running backs,hoping one or two of them stick because
I feel like running backs are hardto predict sometimes. But yeah, I
really go into each auction draft witha couple different par sheets, and then
based on how the first several picksgo I'll kind of narrow in on one
or the other. Okay, Well, let me follow up with that because

(54:38):
you say you said, like Ilike to have a couple of studs.
Do you want those guys to bewide receivers or do you not really care
what position they come from? Idon't really care. Probably wide receivers are
running backs. Okay, And yousaid I want a lot of running backs.
You mean like a volume, likeyou want to get several guys.

(54:58):
You're not necessarily saying want a lotof top tier running backs. You just
want to kind of the scattershot,just get a bunch of different ones more
or less. Yeah, I wouldsay I want at least four or five
running backs that have opportunities to takeover the workhorse load. I know that's

(55:19):
not going to happen for all ofthem, but if I can get one
or two that it works out thatway, then that's great. All right,
Well, you're gonna love this week'sshow then, because I'm talking about
that very thing. So all right, I like that. Let me talk
in a real general sense about whenyou go into an auction. Are there

(55:40):
things that you've developed over the past, what four or five seasons of doing
it that you feel I've got thisstrategy that really works for me, or
I've got this edge on people andI feel real comfortable doing X or Y
that I feel like gives me anedge. Sure, yeah, I use
tier based range a lot. Ithink that's really helpful for me because when

(56:04):
a player comes up forbid, Ilike being able to take a quick glance
to see if I should really gofor him, if there's a tear break
coming up, or if there areother players I like, if I pass
on them. It's important for meto have my own kind of gut feeling
rankings, though I don't want topass on a guy I like just because
there are other guys available that expertshave in the same tier. If I

(56:29):
like my guy or a stack thatI like, I'm going to go for
it. So okay. I thinkit's important to remember that when you talk
about auction drafting. We hear tierbased drafting all the time, and it
becomes one of those things where itseems a little bit cliche after a while,
But there's a reason because people talkabout it because it's that important.

(56:52):
You have to be in the middleof that auction with your tiers in front
of you to know what the heckyou're doing and how to predict how the
draft's about to go. So Ilove that you brought that up, because
I really do think that it kindof gets like it falls on deaf ears
almost because we hear it so much, But it really is that important to

(57:13):
have your tears out there. SoI wanted to shift a little bit because
I talked about you talked about studsand duds, and I said, what
position. Let's back up even alittle bit further and say, are you
traditionally a guy that wants to gofor the top of the position? Regardless
of who it is, you know, Kelsey or Josh Allen or you know

(57:35):
this year, CD Lamb or ChristianMcCaffrey. Do you shoot for the very
top of the position or are youtrying to stay away from that? I
would say I usually stay away fromthe tippy top of the of the position.
I'm not opposed to it if Ican get a Christian McCaffrey for a
reasonable amount, But I usually findmyself aiming for someone a little bit lower

(58:01):
that I think could have the sameproduction, but try to get them for
a little bit less. Yeah,I've always found that I don't like my
bills when I do that. WhenI go for the top guy. If
I'm going to get that guy that'sgoing to be a sixty dollars player,
We're talking two hundred dollars cap.If I'm going to get that sixty dollars

(58:22):
player, I just always feel likeI leave the draft with a whole Is
that how you feel or do youfeel like it's still possible to build a
really nice roster? That's always beenmy experience, But then again, I
haven't done a lot of shooting forthe top lately either. What's your opinion
about that? Yeah, I wouldthink i'd agree. You know, like

(58:42):
last year, I think I hadAJ Brown in the same tier as like
you're justin Jefferson and Tyreek Hill,and I ended up with AJ Brown and
paid a lot less for him,and I liked having that. But that
signif that number, the drop fromthose guys that you mentioned to AJ Brown

(59:04):
is significant, right, And thatmeans that you can go and then kind
of do it again at the otherposition, and then those two compound to
give you that trickle down effect whereI can draft my thirty six receivers.
So okay, So you mentioned parsheets already, and I was going to
ask you about that. Do youmake a par sheet? No judgment if
you don't, but it sounds likeyou do. And for those who don't

(59:28):
know, a par sheiat's just away of putting down numbers that you want
to pay for each position and thenkeeping track of whether or not you over
or underpaid as you go through thedraft. So you do a par sheet.
You mentioned the fact that you domultiple iterations for each draft, and
that's what I do. I dotwo or three for every draft. Is
that the same thing that you're doing. Yeah. Absolutely. I rely on

(59:51):
par sheets and have been using themsince I started auction drafting, and pretty
quickly I'll narrow in on one,you know, even after just a few
if I if I realize, okay, I know I'm not going to get
Travis Kelcey for less than fifty bucksor something, then I'll be like,
Okay, that par sheet's gone.So it's just it's a must to help

(01:00:12):
me stay on track throughout the draftfrom start to finish, and I'll adjust
it as I go to make sureI don't end up with any leftover money
at the end, of course.And yeah, it's just it's a fun
feeling when you fill a position onyour par sheet for significantly less money than
you expected, and you can allocatethat extra money elsewhere, and it's like,

(01:00:36):
all right, that was fun,isn't it. It's the best feeling.
It's like, Okay, I wantto spend thirty eight. I spent
thirty one. Like where do Iget to spend this seven bucks? Well
Christmas gift? Yeah, it's wonderful. And I often wonder how people do
it when they don't have that infront of them. And I know John
Bosh, who do you know John? You follow him? He's he's an

(01:00:58):
auction nut and he actually lives inCincinnati. Become friends with him because he
plays a lot of poker too.But he's an auction nut. And when
I say a nut, like dudedoes like twenty or thirty auctions every year,
and a lot of them are slowauctions. And so I think that
he's gotten used to the fact thatyou don't need to have a par sheet
in front of you for a slowauction. You can just sit there and

(01:01:19):
figure it out. But when you'rein the heat of the moment, don't
you think that the part she justmakes you feel better. It makes you
have more confidence in what you're doing. Absolutely, yep. It's there's no
worse feeling than a player coming upfor bid and you're like, Okay,
how much can I spend on himand not knowing and just passing it by
and realizing later like, ah,I totally could have gotten that guy.

(01:01:44):
That was my moment. Yeah,yeah, I hate that. That's the
worst feeling in the world. Thatwas my moment, And I think I
haven't probably wants every single auction,but it helps to control your It's an
emotional thing. You get in there, you're excited, you want Frankly,
you know you're going to have aroster of sixteen players. You want fifty
players like you like fifty guys,So you've got to have some self control,

(01:02:08):
and that's not always easy to dowhen the numbers aren't staring you in
the face and black and white fromyour par sheet. So I've always said
it just makes me feel better andit's like training wheels. But I still
use it, and I've been doingauctions forever. So one more question about
just your style in general. I'mjust curious about it. Then we'll get
into the Listener League. Itself.But when you're bidding, I know that

(01:02:30):
that I've always preached to worry aboutyour nominations and that kind of thing.
But that's kind of a convoluted topicthat we can't really nail down here.
But when you're bidding on players,have you found that you have more success
bidding a certain way or have youdeveloped a style that is just makes you
feel comfortable? What is it aboutyour bidding style? Like, first of

(01:02:52):
all, I guess what is it. Are you one of those ones that
weighs down so there's two seconds onthe clock and you bid, Do you
bid right away to project confidence?So what's your style? But then also
have you found something that works foryou that makes you feel good when you're
doing it? Yeah, I tendnot to wait until the last second to
bid. Maybe it's an indicator ofmy risk level, but I usually bid

(01:03:20):
on most players at least once ortwice early when they come up, just
to kind of not not give awaymy hand too much. But yeah,
I'm I usually bid earlier, early, and often. And then yeah,
I believe that's the way you gotto do it if you know you're gonna

(01:03:40):
bid, because just getting your bidout there it puts the pressure. It's
like turning it right back around onthe other person, like now you have
to think about what you're going todo. And of course when it gets
later, sometimes I need that timeand the clock's running down and I need
to think. And that's fine,but I generally believe early bidding is better
or just because you're putting the pressureon the other person. Mhmm. Yeah,

(01:04:03):
So fine with getting a stutter ortoo early, and if that means
I have to sit back for awhile at that point, that's fine.
But I'm never not looking for gooddeals, so yeah, and always paying
attention to that. Okay, allright, well let's talk. Let's let's
shift a little bit here because Iwant to hear more specifics about what you

(01:04:24):
did in the listener league. Iknow, we all know we've been playing
fantasy football forever. We know thatyou don't win the league out of the
draft. However, you had tohave a pretty good draft in order to
succeed. And then also we'll talka little just a little bit at the
end about what you may have donethrough the year. But when you came
into the draft, did you havea specific Now I know we talked about

(01:04:46):
you have multiple par sheets. Didyou have a thought about I think I
really want to go this way inthis room? And also was that a
little different than your home leagues?Are you thinking it's going to be different
or did you try to play itthe same way? Well, first of
all, I just tried to notlook like a dummy in a room full
of experience. But no, mystrategy was to just pay attention to what

(01:05:13):
each player was going for and tryto get someone I liked for a few
dollars less than that, and that'sreally not any different than my approach and
a home league or anything. Soyeah, all right, So when you
came into it, were you thinkingto yourself, I'm just going to I
need to get somebody early because Iwant to make sure that I'm heading in

(01:05:35):
the right direction. Or were youreally open to, hey, this is
just going to flow a certain wayand I just don't want to screw this
up. Maybe a little bit ofboth, But I definitely didn't want to
be too passive at the beginning,because I knew if I sit back and
watch too much, I'm going toend up with a team of mediocre players.

(01:05:58):
So I kind of had to chooseearly on, like, hey,
I'm going to go for this guyand see what happens. And it worked
out. Okay, I think Ithink it did. Before we get too
much further, can we just heara quick rundown of what your team looked
like coming out of the draft.Do you even remember? Sure? I?
I know I got b Jon Robinsonpretty early as my RB one.

(01:06:21):
I spent about forty percent of mybudget on a good wide receiver core of
AJ Brown, DK Metcalf, MikeEvans and Rashie Rice. Oh, Mike
Evans and Rice those are big hitstoo. And yeah, I had options
for the rest of my positions.I you know, my running backs were

(01:06:43):
like Delvin Cook and Javonte Williams andlike Kendre Miller. So my running backs
I wasn't thrilled about. But Ihad Justin Fields and Jordan loves my quarterbacks
out of the love hit too,got the big Justin Field's Cole Kamet Stack.

(01:07:05):
It didn't really work out so well, but okay, well, so
we can take there's you know,there's both sides of the coin you can
take away here, which is thatyou had some problems at running back.
You still end up winning the league. You know, Bijon was fine at
times, other times he was brutal, and then you didn't really have a

(01:07:26):
lot behind him, but you weresuper deep at wide receiver. You hit
on Jordan Love and I'm betting we'regoing to hear some moves from in season
that laid off pretty well as well. But I love the wide receiver approach
there because you had four guys thatcould really pop, and you know what
most all four did, which ispart of the reason you're talking to me

(01:07:48):
right now. But yeah, theMike Evans thing, I'll tell you what
I was. I've been pissed offabout that the entire offseason, the fact
that the last time a guy thatwas that good, that had that much
doubt going into the season was aman name Stefon Diggs a couple of years
ago. I still haven't let thatgo about how I faded him so hard

(01:08:08):
going to Buffalo and I faded Evanseverywhere, and I'm upset about it.
So kudos to you. Do youremember what you paid for him? He
was my MVP of the team forsure. I got him for eleven dollars.
Oh god, Oh take away myexpert card because that is trash for
me, not bidding twelve dollars onthat. So okay, I need a
second to recover from that one.Okay, take away my expert card.

(01:08:30):
All right, what let's see.I gotta I gotta recenter myself. What's
my next question? All right?So what when you're in the auction room
itself and it's going on, didyou feel like it was more difficult than
other rooms or did you just feellike, hey, this is another puzzle
I got to put together. Itwas a little nerve wracking at first,
but you know, within the firstfew minutes I just kind of zoned in

(01:08:55):
on that it's kind of the sameas you know any other auction drafts.
So I feel like it was familiarpuzzle to put together. Okay, so
I want to go at that fromboth sides, though, What did you
find that you felt the most comfortablewith during the draft that that was easiest
for you to to to find successwith just putting bids on players early and

(01:09:18):
often, like I said, andeven it was an online draft, but
it was similar to what I'd donein the past, so I felt confident
that I could just bid on playersand and no kind of internally when it
was time to to be out ona guy or Yes, you you had

(01:09:41):
a lot of confidence here. You'veyou know, you've done a lot of
online auctions. You're You're not sittingin there thinking this is the hardest thing
I've ever done, because it's ait's a tough room, but you had
the confidence you could do it.What was the most challenging part for you?
Uh? I feel like the challengingpart was those times when I would
barely miss out on guys that Iwanted. I remember getting bijon pretty early,

(01:10:03):
but then feeling like I kept barelymissing out on other running backs and
feeling like others had solid running backgroups like I remember you particularly had like
Kenneth Walker and Damian Pierce, whoat the time was looking good, and
you know, a couple other guys, and just feeling like, oh man,
I got some work to do onthe running backs. There was definitely

(01:10:26):
a cliff in that room where thoserunning backs were way cheaper than I thought
they would be. Now, ofcourse, Pierce didn't work out, but
running backs I felt like were astrength coming out of the draft, And
then my season sort of fell apartbecause a couple of those guys weren't what
I wanted them to be. Butit's a tough room. It's a tough
it's a tough league. It's peoplethat know what they're doing, so you

(01:10:47):
can't win. Coming out of thedraft. We know that you have to
make some big pickups. Maybe there'sone, maybe there's five. How did
you feel like? Well, firstof all, let me ask you this.
I felt like the blind bidding processfor the Listener League was really difficult.
Did you feel the same way inthe draft? No, I'm sorry.

(01:11:10):
I was shifting gears to in season, the waiver wire, the blind
bidding, and the waiver wire,like I didn't get anybody I ever wanted.
I mean, I never put ina correct bid the entire freaking season.
Yeah, how did you feel aboutthat? And that's always so hard.
You never know if people are goingto put it just a huge waiver
bid on someone. So I agreeit was tough. What was your biggest

(01:11:31):
pickup? Probably Kyler Murray And Ican explain why because of another in season
move that I did. But Ipicked him up before he came back from
injury for pretty cheap, and thenyou know, it's probably a couple of
weeks before he came back and startedplaying that I picked him up and stashed
him. Okay, so now areyou referencing did you make a trade that

(01:11:55):
you'd have to do that? Yeah, so I started. I don't know
if you realized this, but Istarted the league one in five in the
first six weeks. I didn't realizeit until you pointed it out, and
I was in last place. Iwas getting desperate to change things up,
and I had picked up Kyler Murray, so I proposed a trade to send
so I had like three quarterbacks then, so I proposed a trade to send

(01:12:18):
Justin Fields and Jordan Addison for ZachMoss, who had just stepped into the
lead role after Jonathan Taylor got hurtin Indy, and I needed some sort
of stability for my RB two.And when I sent that trade, I
knew that my future matchup with theguy I was sending the trade to was

(01:12:41):
a week where Jordan Addison was onby, so he accepted the trade diabolical
and I ended up beating him afew weeks later when Jordan Addison's on by
to help me get to eight andsix and just squeak into the playoffs.
I almost didn't playoffs. Wow,you know, that's a tale as old

(01:13:02):
as time when you're a fantasy player, how things can work out. I'll
never forget my brother. One ofthe first years he ever did fantasy football,
he ran off like six straight winsto end the year and then three
straight wins in the playoffs. Ithink you won like nine straight games to
win the title. That kind ofstuff happens. You know, you can
get hot, but also you hada really nice core. It was just

(01:13:24):
can I manage it well enough toget there? So it sounds like you
did that And was that your onlytrade? Think, I don't remember if
I had any other trades. Thatwas definitely the most spout. I definitely
didn't. My end season management inthe Listener league was really bad. And
I have to say this is notan excuse, zero excuses here on the
auction brief, but I think thatbeing on sleeper is bad for me because

(01:13:49):
I'm constantly on MFL because most ofmy leagues are on my Fantasy league and
then I've got like one on CBSor whatever. But I like accessing them
from the desktop. I just Istruggle and it happens, you know,
I want a league on sleeper thisyear. So like I'm not this is
not like a whine infest. Ijust I'm searching for the reason why I

(01:14:11):
was so bad in d season managementboth of the last two seasons. And
I really have to say that probablyit's just the level of competition so fierce
and so tough, and those blindbids were I could never figure it out.
We also had a couple of guysin the league, Jesse Morris and
Edwin Poris, who were not auctionguys. They kind of threw a wrench

(01:14:32):
in things at times, right,they did. They did a couple of
odd things, and they were reallyaggressive with their blind bid money too.
Sure, yep, yeah, itwas interesting. It was an interesting twist
to have those two guys in therethat weren't auction guys. Yeah all right,
man, Well look this is aboutperfect. You know, I don't
ever do anything short on the auctionbrief, but I wanted to commit right

(01:14:53):
around thirty minutes and that's where weare. So thank you again for number
one being in the league, butmore importantly just being a supporter of the
show and you know, always beingaround and supporting my work. I can't
thank you enough for that, andI don't think a T shirt is enough.
But thank you for coming on theshow, sharing your insight with us,

(01:15:14):
and being a huge part of mysuccess in this industry. I really
appreciate the opportunity and it's great totalk to and keep up the great work.
We appreciate it, you bet,Thanks man, thanks for being here,
and don't forget to set your lineup. Fantasy Surfing is coming back around
real quick. I think a weekfrom Saturday we're back at it. So

(01:15:35):
absolutely, hey year and fourth,I'm in third. It ain't over,
brother. We got three events.There's a lot of points. Finals Day
has a ton of points too.It's a weird format where you can make
up a lot of grounds. Soanyway, yes, yes, I know,
I love it. Well, okay, well let's wrap things up.
Thank you very much to Ryan Bossfor being here, for being a supporter

(01:15:57):
of the show, and congrats onthe title and one of the tougher auction
leagues I play in every year,the Auction Brief Listener League Champion Ryan Boss.
That'll do it for this week's discussionswith true Well, folks, we

(01:16:17):
have come to another conclusion of theAuction Brief Podcast That was some interesting stuff
from Brian there, because what Itook away from all of that was that
Ryan was just a calm, cool, collected dude, couldn't you tell from
the conversation. Nothing really phased him. He hasn't been doing it super long,

(01:16:38):
but he felt comfortable about his abilitiesand he clearly was right because he
took that thing down after a onein five start. Congratulations again, Ryan,
great job taking down the Auction briefListener League. We will have Auction
Brief Listener League number three. I'llbe announcing details about that in the middle
of July, so stay tuned.Maybe around episode I don't know, six

(01:17:00):
or seven, something like that,we'll start getting the Auction Brief Listener League
filled in. But thanks again toRyan. Thank you all for listening to
my three foundations of auction drafting.I hope that you are excited to learn
more details and hear more examples aboutall these techniques that I reference today.
I kind of went over the surfaceof all of them, gave you a
little bit on each one, butwe did a real thirty thousand foot view,

(01:17:21):
and that's how I love it.Because we've now concluded a month of
the auction Brief, and what we'vedone is look back at twenty twenty three.
We've come up with some commandments thatwe should be living by. We've
learned some lessons, We've learned somelessons from player eval hits and misses,
and now we've laid the foundation forour house. And our house is going

(01:17:43):
to be this big, beautiful mansionthat we're going to build brick by brick
over the rest of the summer,as we talk to more awesome guests,
more people that are going to helpyou decode fantasy situations, and more auction
talk and more fantasy talk about howwe get better at the game of fantasy
football and how we build our houseinto a beautiful, beautiful auction draft where

(01:18:08):
we're gonna absolutely rip the hearts outof our opponents, right, no mercy,
Pressure and precision. Oh yeah,that sounds good for the shirt.
Maybe hashtag FFWM my fantastic fat wetMouth on the front and then on the
back, pressure and precision. Baby. Thank you for joining me for episode
four of the Auction Brief. It'sbeen a real pleasure. Don't forget FJA

(01:18:30):
fantasy draft boards. My Code AuctionBrief one zero, The Fantasy football lawyer
Patreon Network just four dollars a monthfor content you can't get anywhere else.
Thank you for being a loyal subscriberto The Auction Brief podcast. We'll see
you next week after the fourth ofJuly. I am your host, Drew
Davenport. The Auction Brief is adjourned, and I am out. The Auction

(01:18:53):
Brief is adjourned. That'll do itfor this week's episode. See you next
time on The Auction Brief

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Three Foundations of Auction Drafting; Guest Ryan Baas - Listener League Champion

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Three Foundations of Auction Drafting; Guest Ryan Baas - Listener League Champion