Auction style fantasy baseball league
February 6, 2009 10:48 AM   Subscribe

Fantasy Baseball: Looking for answers on how to run an auction-style fantasy baseball league, friend(s).

This is an update to a question posed in February 2006, as there was some guidance there, but I'm looking for more current answers.

I've been active in fantasy baseball for years now, so there's some level of shame in having to ask this, but I've never participated in an auction league before. Neither has anyone else in my fantasy league and we are considering switching to auction.

A few questions quickly come to mind:

- Is there a site that can run an auction league effectively? My experience has only been with Yahoo and Sportsline and I don't remember seeing auction options on those sites. We are not tied to any of the major sites, so if there's an independent site (I'm not sure what they'd be independent of - the interests of Big Rotisserie?) that handles auctions, we're in.

- Is there any realistic way to handle an auction online? Time is not a concern, as if we can do this online, we'll do it right (and our snake-style drafts have taken six+ hours because we're idiots), but getting everyone together might be an issue. Is an in-person auction necessary?

- This may be answered if I'm directed to a site that meets our needs, but how does free agent acquisition work? My understanding is that one time each week, teams send their bids in for free agents. Who receives these bids? The commissioner or another member of the league have obvious conflicts of interest. Do you need a disinterested third party to handle free agent bids? Can an auction league website handle these?

Hope this is all clear. Thanks!
posted by dorisfromregopark to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (2 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
You should try ESPN.com's fantasy baseball auction site. I've heard good things. If time isn't a concern, you could all do the auction part via a skype conference call or from within an IRC chat room, then add the rosters into Sportsline or whatever site you choose.

As for free agents, set up a throwaway e-mail address to which people e-mail their bids. Once per week, the commissioner should go in and check the messages. They will have a time, author, player and bid amount. First come, first served for the same bid price, and it's anonymous until the commissioner checks it and awards the free agents.
posted by LouMac at 12:08 PM on February 6, 2009


We've been running our football auctions on FanstasyAuctioneer.com and then running the league on myfantasyleague.com, which is more than capable of keeping track of the waiver bids and finances.

Unfortunately, myfantasyleague is football only, so we're considering just using fantasyauctioneer to determine the initial rosters, and then running the waivers in a traditional standings based manner (forgetting the salaries) once the season starts.

I'm looking forward to hearing other's suggestions too....
posted by Barnsie at 1:03 PM on February 6, 2009


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