Yesterday, I completed another mock draft. This one was different, though. No, I didn't draft the top-rated player each time my selection arose to end with my pitching staff completed by the 10th round. I did an auction draft.
The league was a 4x4 AL-only with the same roster as traditional Rotisserie baseball dictated - 2C, 1B, 3B, CR, 2B, SS, MM, 5 OF, DH, 9P, and it was hosted by Fantasy Auctioneer.
I had never used the mock draft services of this site. As a result, I was not aware of its behavior for its auto-drafting for non-present teams. At Mock Draft Central, that is easier to understand and strategize around. The computer takes the highest ranked player that will fill a roster slot.
In an auction, though, there is are additional considerations. How much to open the bidding with for a player and how long to continue bidding. I admit to being baffled by the artificial intelligence employed.
The computer was taking middle infielders into the teens regardless of ability i.e. Adam Everett, Nick Punto, Juan Uribe, etc. All these players went into the teens. Even Alexi Casilla went for $11.
For my team, I agressively bid where I saw value and was very surprised to see very few of the elite players go for value. Admittedly, I missed the first couple picks because the draft software was a little slow, but that would have only changed the names and not the general theme of the auction.
If anyone is interested in doing a mock auction draft, let me know. I suspect the mock would need a nearly-full league to be representative of real auctions as the AI used to auto-select appears to be less than useful.
My roster has plenty of aut-selected players as I quickly ran out of money and had to settled for $1 players. The PC choose Cody Ransom and Shinji Mori, two obvious mistakes. However, the rest of the $1 players can be considered relevent for any AL-0nly auction draft where a team is executing a Stars & Scrubs Strategy.
Here is my roster, and here is a link to the results of the draft.
| Pos | Name | Team | $alary |
| C | Victor Martinez | Indians(CLE) | 24 |
| C | Joe Mauer | Twins(MIN) | 15 |
| 1B | Justin Morneau | Twins(MIN) | 23 |
| 2B | B.J. Upton | Devil Rays(TAM) | 28 |
| 3B | Russ Adams | Blue Jays(TOR) | 1 |
| SS | Tony Pena Jr. | Royals(KCR) | 1 |
| CI | Wilson Betemit | Yankees(NYY) | 1 |
| MI | Cody Ransom | Yankees(NYY) | 1 |
| OF | Ichiro Suzuki | Mariners(SEA) | 30 |
| OF | Alex Rios | Blue Jays(TOR) | 20 |
| OF | J.D. Drew | Red Sox(BOS) | 8 |
| OF | Carl Crawford | Devil Rays(TAM) | 28 |
| OF | Grady Sizemore | Indians(CLE) | 22 |
| U | Billy Butler | Royals(KCR) | 1 |
| P | John Lackey | Angels(ANA) | 22 |
| P | Kazuo Fukumori | Rangers(TEX) | 1 |
| P | Shinji Mori | Devil Rays(TAM) | 1 |
| P | Matt Guerrier | Twins(MIN) | 1 |
| P | J.J. Putz | Mariners(SEA) | 22 |
| P | Octavio Dotel | White Sox(CHW) | 1 |
| P | Scot Shields | Angels(ANA) | 1 |
| P | Yorman Bazardo | Tigers(DET) | 1 |
| P | Todd Jones | Tigers(DET) | 7 |