2014 Draft Prep: 12-team mixed auction

You know that friend who keeps saying that you have to see Breaking Bad!? And it gets to the point where you just relent because the nagging has gotten annoying? You watch it, you're ... hooked, you regret waiting so long to see it, and you become that guy telling everyone else to see it? That's pretty much what an auction is -- the viral Fantasy equivalent of an AMC show.

Auctions invite a special brand of chaos to team building, one that you won't find in the neatly-wrapped homogeneity of a snake draft. Bidding on players can rage out of control, All-Stars will sneak through toward the end for a pittance, and you'll finish the ordeal out of breath, slightly dizzied, and wanting to tell everyone you see about the $3 Huston Street you managed to buy.

Our 12-team mixed league auction took place this week, and it featured plenty of fireworks (it can be heard on our March 11 and March 15 podcasts, which we recorded as the auction was being held). Scott White played an extreme "Stars and Scrubs" gambit, as he spent $62 on Miguel Cabrera and $51 on Mike Trout. The next-highest player was Clayton Kershaw ($43), followed by Bryce Harper ($42), Andrew McCutchen ($41), Carlos Gonzalez ($41), and Paul Goldschmidt ($39). Ryan Braun fetched $32; Jose Reyes went for $25.

For those of you new to auctions -- and trying to make sense of these numbers -- each team has a $260 budget (of fake money) to fill in a Fantasy lineup (2 Cs,1B, 2B, SS, 3B, 5 OFs, U, MI, CI and nine pitchers). It's as much about money management, market quirks, patience, reading your opponents, and restraint as it is about baseball knowledge (maybe not really, but you get the point). You can be in love with the upside of Eric Hosmer, for instance, but you may not have enough money in your budget to spend more than $18 on him. An auction is alternately a damningly frustrating and wholly satisfying experience.

For the seasoned veterans of auctions, some of these values may surprise you. Jedd Gyorko landed on Scott White's team for $23 when Scott price enforced my bid of $22. He thought I would go to $24 -- mainly because I announced to the office that, "I'd go as high as 24 on Gyorko!" as he was being bid on -- and I bowed out in order to save money for other endeavors (including a $15 Elvis Andrus and $5 Hisahi Iwakuma). The prices paid for Cabrera and Trout also stand out, but Scott was trying to prove a point that these two players are way above the rest of the crop in terms of talent and value, and it's fine to pay top dollar for them in this format, as there will be bargains later.

The "bargains later" section included Chris Archer ($1), Carl Crawford ($2), Anthony Rendon ($2), Alex Wood ($2), CC Sabathia ($3), Victor Martinez ($3) and a bevy of others (as you can see below).

Like any auction, if we did this again, the values would mostly be about the same (at least in a $1-2 window), but you'd see some fluctuations based on when the player was nominated for bidding (maybe he went late, when not a lot of people had money left) and what everyone's team looked like at certain points (you're going to bid up the last good second baseman with your remaining money if you have a hole there). Combine these results with our Roto auction values, and you have a nice base from which to begin your prep.

The results of the mixed auction are below:

Our participants (with special thanks to Brian Flood, Keith Cromer, and Philip Ponebshek):

1. Nando Di Fino, Senior Fantasy Writer
2. Adam Aizer, Host, Fantasy Baseball Today
3. Scott White, Senior Fantasy Writer
4. Al Melchior, Data Analyst
5. Matt Snyder, Baseball Writer, CBSSports.com
6. Keith Cromer, Patton & Co.
7. Jeff Tobin, Associate Managing Editor
8. Jameson Fleming, Social Media Editor
9. Joe Polito, Social Media Manager
10. Chris Cwik, Fantasy Writer
11. Philip Ponebshek, Patton & Co.
12. Brian Flood Contributing Writer, Sports Illustrated