Progressive auctions - SimLeague Baseball

sheller

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Has anyone been in a progressive league auction (as opposed to draft)?

What works and what doesn't?

1/8/2011 2:20 PM

biglenr

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I'd be very interested in playing if you find a way to make it work.

1/8/2011 7:07 PM

sheller

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I'm talking it over with another owner, Len. I don't think the problems are insurmountable, but the challenges are different than those for draft--type leagues.

I think you'd have to develop some sort of blind bid system, or anyone with good access to the site would have a big advantage.

Also, if you want to continue it as an auction league - you hold an auction, rather than a draft - every season, you'd have to find some way to distribute ducats (or whatever it is you want to call the tokens used for exchange in the drafts.)

1/8/2011 11:37 PM

gumbercules

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I am running the Monopoly league, which was not my original idea. I took it over before the dispersal draft, which was done completely by auction.

We didn't do a blind auction- we actually had it out in the open. We put each player into a unit based on the team they were in for our starting year and by position (IF, OF, C/DH, SP, RP). We released 1 team at a time (5 units), so not every unit and therefore not every player was available at once. To avoid the big advantage you mentioned, we kept all existing auctions open until there was a legal bid that had not been raised in exactly 24 hours (so the guy who can only carve out a little time once a day still had a shot at getting the guys he would want).

I'm not sure if a blind auction would work. I thought about it after the fact (fearing I might have to do the draft again as I had several owners drop out), but that could present a huge advantage to whoever is receiving the "blind" bids. It could lead to charges of looking at "secret" bids that would be hard to prove or deny.

We are continuing as an auction league after the 1st season (which we have not completed yet) and we will have no draft slots- there are rules for "income" that were established.

I provided links to our list of units and to one of our bidding threads below so you can see how something like that would work. This was an open and fair way of running an auction draft, but it was a lot of work to keep up with everything.

http://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?TopicID=426977&TopicsTimeframe=180&TopicsPage=2
http://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?TopicID=426996&TopicsTimeframe=180&TopicsPage=2

If I can help you in any way, let me know. You can post questions here or sitemail me if you like. Good luck to you.

1/9/2011 12:16 AM

sheller

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Here's how I think a blind bid system would work -

You open up for auction x-number of players (or player blocks, as was your case), per day.
The auction takes place 'live'. That is, you can make bids on a thread, out in the open.
If you're not going to be available, you can sitemail a blind bid with the highest you're willing to go for a player currently on the block
Sitemails have an honesty feature. You can tell if they're opened
Whoever has access to the sitemails has to make an 'open' bid for a player before opening the blind bids
So if the auction for the current crop ends at 6pm, the person handling the blind bids has to make a open bid by 5:59, then open the blind bids

I know you can tell if a sitemail has been opened, not sure if the site is able to log when the sitemail was opened. If so, then no problem. The receiver couldn't go back and edit a bid post without leaving a trail, couldn't outbid an opened blind bid without leaving a time/sequence trail.

1/9/2011 12:51 AM

sheller

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Here's a question -

How do you figure out the money available to owners after the inaugural draft?

1/9/2011 12:55 AM

gumbercules

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A couple of thoughts:

1. If you're going to stop an auction at a specific time, you're giving a big advantage to anyone with access to the site at that given time. Just like on eBay, you'll get poachers putting in bids at the last second to claim the win.   And what if there's a tie?  If the highest bid on a given player (or block) is, say, 30 units in the open auction section and you get an owner putting their limit at 30, what happens then?

2. What if you can't easily acertain the time when a sitemail was opened?  If it's you who wins the auction, you open yourself to allegations to someone (even if you're completely honest; you think no owner out there would accuse you of something out of "sour grapes"?) who wanted to win it. I put in a lot of time and effort into the auction I ran. It maybe wasn't the most efficient way of doing this, but at the end of it at no one had any doubt that everything was above board. And I don't think CS is going to be in love with hundreds of tickets asking, "When was this sitemail opened?".

I don't think a semi-open, semi-closed auction really works. I think you have 2 options:  completely open (as ours was), or completely blind. You'd have to get someone trustworthy (preferrably not in the league at all) to handle all bids. Everyone would have to basically put their trust in this person and submit to a "no whining" policy.

1/9/2011 1:08 AM

gumbercules

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As for the money, we had everyone start at 100M (the number itself is in essence arbitrary, of course) before the dispersal draft. At the end of the auction, all money not spent carries over until next year, where the rookies will be bid on. The winner is the person with the most money at the end (2011), although it isn't necessary to make that the determining factor of who wins.

I'll link you to a couple of more threads. The first one tracked the money- notice some owners still have balances remaining. Those carry over until 2001 and, if not spent, beyond. The second is the rules thread I wrote. It's fairly complex.

http://whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?TopicID=426993&TopicsTimeframe=180&TopicsPage=2
http://whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?TopicID=428526&TopicsTimeframe=180&TopicsPage=2

1/9/2011 1:15 AM

sheller

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1- In that case it would go to whoever made the bid - blind or open - first. The blind bids would be opened after the blind bidding closes.
2- I see your point. It could create an issue - altho, referring back to point 1, if both bids were the same and I, the blind bid manager, posted a 30 ducat bid at 5:59, I lose to anyone who posted a 30 ducat bid before 5:59 by blind bid. Plus, the person opening the sitemails has no way of knowing that the person who sent it isn't monitoring the sent sitemail.

I see the advantages to the system you used, but if you want to draft a full 24 team/25 players per/600 players total league, the 24-hour rules presents difficulaties of their own.

1/9/2011 1:25 AM

sheller

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Thanks for the links, gumber. I'll give them a close look tomorow. I like that you're rewarding success. It does seem that auctions demand more complex rules than normal drafts.

I have a formula that correlates wins + team salaires I've always wanted to play around with.

1/9/2011 1:32 AM

gumbercules

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All that being said, maybe it's time to come back to your original question of what works and what doesn't.  Here's my humble opinion:

1. Either pick a completely closed or completely open auction. As I said, I think half and half creates all sorts of potential problems.  Personally, I'd suggest a closed auction but I've proven that an open auction can be done (it's a truckload of work and you need to devote a lot of time to do it right).

2. Lay out the terms of the auction before you start. State whether it's going to be closed or open, how players are grouped (if applicable), and give a description (you don't need a concrete schedule in your first thread) of how the bidding process works. "Does one player go on the block at a time or multiple players?" " Do I bid on players one at a time or as a group?" " How long are auctions open?"  "How do I submit a bid?": these are all questions you would want to at least address in your thread announcing the league. If you're running an open league, tell them it is going to take a while (ours lasted about a month or so). If you're running a closed league and you know the person who will take the bids, get that information out. That way, if someone wants to back out due to that (they have a problem with your person), it's all done beforehand and you're rid of a person who would have created a problem for you with no time wasted and no hard feelings.

3. Make it clear that everyone must agree to the terms of the auction. For instance, if you run a closed auction, make it clear to owners that by being in the league
they agree to abide by the decision of whoever has the bids. Let anyone who doesn't agree walk. Yeah, it's a pain in the butt to find owners (I'm already doing it myself for my auction league), but it's better than listening to constant whining and complaining. If anyone has an issue, you gave them fair warning about how it was going to be done.

The only other things I can think of right now are the things you'd want to do in any league you run:  have a good theme, get good owners (maybe even more important here, but always necessary),  stay on top of things as commish, respond to reasonable questions/issues in a reasonable amount of time, make sure the rules are fair for all and are upheld.

Hope this helps. By the way, what's the theme you are thinking of running?

1/9/2011 1:37 AM

gumbercules

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Quick question: if I really want a player (or group) and I have the option of a blind bid, why post it? Why would I want everyone to see what I'm bidding?

1/9/2011 1:43 AM

sheller

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A progressive beginning in 1900/1950. Not a one-and-done theme. I wanted to make it a double season progressive because I'm tired of 1969 as the launch point, and you're not going to get enough players to fill up 24 rosters if you start before 1969.

I like the 1900 and 1950 starts because it opens up options - do I spend all my ducats in the inaugural draft, or do I squirrel some away for Eddie Plank, or Mantle, or Mays, in the season two draft?

There are a couple more issues with blind bidding
I'm not sure anyone not involved with a draft would be willing to handle the work involved. Plus, with the number of people with multiple accounts it's not impossible that person isn't also a league owner using a 2nd account.

I could be talked into a completely open bid auction - or a different hybrid - that is, an owner who's going to be away for a day or two sitemailing the highest they want to pay for a player, but don't want to post that high bid unless they have to.

Different than yours - no 'bankruptcy'. Owners start with 200 ducats. They always have to have at least 1 ducat per position/park needed. Owners introduce players (schedule for that would be the same as that for normal drafts).

Example - I have the first slot and open with Christy Mathewson for 175. I would win the bid immediately, because nobody could bid more than that. Of course, for the remainder of the draft I'd be limited to paying 1 ducat for the remaining 24 players and the 1 park I need to fill out my roster. If someone does accidentally bid beyond their resources their bid becomes invalid.

1/9/2011 2:01 AM

biglenr

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My personal situation is that I have limited access to the site... I can access in the evenings/weekends, but it's totally blocked at work. I can use my iphone, but it's hard to use on such a text-heavy site, and not worth the effort generally.

So I wouldn't want an open auction.

For closed bids, you need to do an ebay style "reduced-bid" and also have a tie breaker... I;d suggest something like most recently won a player goes to the end of the tie breaker list.... Have say 20 players up for auction each day, 10 ending around noon, and 10 ending in the 8:00 pm ish time. The player order should be totally laid out and published before the season starts... Stars first, and an even mix of pitching and hitting, would seem to be fairest.

'

1/9/2011 8:46 AM

gumbercules

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OK, a few things:

1. I'm coming around a little to the idea that a semi-closed auction could work. Again, I'm unsure as to why I'd post a bid openly and therefore tell give everyone a better idea of what to bid if I can just keep it a secret, but I guess it's logistically possible to do.

2. The "money" isn't really that big of a deal- you have lots of options as to how you could do that. Your proposal above of starting at 200 and not allowing bankruptcy makes sense- I've done fantasy football auction drafts that use the same system.

3. I absolutely agree that you need a player schedule laid out and you would want to explain how that would work on the sign-up thread. For instance, if you're doing a 1900/1950 draft, and you want to have, say, 16 players up each day, what you could do is have the top 4 hitters from 1900, top 4 hitters from 1950, top 4 pitchers from 1900, and top 4 pitchers from 1950 based on their WIS salary for those years available on the first day. You can just keep going down the list each day (second day would be 5th through 8th on each list, etc.) until the rosters are filled.

4. One more rule that I would have for an auction draft if I had to do it all over again: depending on the setup of the auction, it may be a viable strategy for an owner not to bid on anything for an extended period of time (in the scenario listed above it probably isn't). If that's the case and an owner hasn't made a bid in X days (whatever you determine), make the owner check in with you via sitemail. All he/she would have to do is just state that he/she is still in the league; I wouldn't require an explanation as to why there was no bid or when a bid is planned.

1/9/2011 9:52 AM

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