Click here if you just want the chart as a printable pdf and don’t want to read how to use it. Good luck.
I have trouble playing in fantasy football dynasty leagues. I see their value, but I’m interested in the “fantasy” part of fantasy football. Having to look at and deal with all the mistakes I made in years past shatters that fantasy. I want a clean slate, I want new toys, and most of all I want more chances to do auction (salary cap) drafts.
You probably got here by Googling “2023 Auction draft values),” as about 50,000 people each year do. But I’m concerned because I’m not sure how many of those people just get my chart, bid up to the stated value on each player before passing. Anyone who has ever mock drafted with a bot can tell you: That strategy doesn’t work. It leads to you getting only the players with such huge question marks all 9 other managers passed at the listed price. It will lead you to rostering Trevor Lawrence, Najee Harris, Mark Andrews, Calvin Ridley, and Jerry Jeudy more times than not because I love those guys and thus listed them significantly above their usual values.
The best way to use this chart if you are in a pinch and don’t want to make a fully formed strategy is to focus on the tiers. I have drawn a black line below the end of each tier. That’s the point where I think the quality significantly drops off. If you want to use this tiers strategy, which I recommend, there are some important rules to know:
- If you absolutely want a player from a tier, it’s best to roster one before it gets down to the last 1-2 players. That’s when bidding wars happen. Sure, everyone’s tiers are different, but all it takes is ONE other manager with the same last guy in the tier as you to fuel a desperate bid-raising sequence that leads to the player going for significantly over value.
- If you use this list, you aren’t likely to get the top ~18 players. Again, all it takes is for two managers to really want a player for them to go well over listed value. I don’t like to play that game, as it cooks away any gain in expected value. For instance, I have CMC listed as $55. He usually goes for $63 as per my database of real-life mock auctions with all human managers. That $55 is based on projected stats. So let’s say Christian McCaffrey flips out and outperforms projections by 10%. Amazing, right? Well, kind of, but not really: $63 is over 11% more than $55, so you actually got a net negative return on your auction dollar. I’d rather go for the mid-range players than sacrifice value in the hot early-rounds market. Now, if your leaguemates are being timid and letting top players go for listed value, get in there and make a killing.
- My WR values are industry-low after the third tier. In about 90% of auction drafts, there is a plunge in the value a WR goes for. This “market crash” usually starts around WR18, this year. If you’d like to go full-on expert and anticipate when the market will crash based on early player costs, use my tested WR market crash prediction tool.
Thank you for reading that, your auction will go so much more smoothly because of it. People are so used to snake drafting, where you can successfully use a chart and just pick the guy at the top of the chart, that they don’t stop to learn that this strategy does not work for auction drafts.
Moving on, here is my list of 2023 fantasy football auction values. Half-PPR, 4 pt passing touchdowns:
