Working the waiver wire in FFPC leagues is THE game within the game.  There are two keys to winning this game.

1. 1. Knowing WHAT you should  bid on a player
   2. Knowing HOW  you should bid on a player 

With waiver wire data captured over previous years, we have analyzed the results and broken down these two areas to help your game. These are data driven observations that can be used to give you an edge in the waiver process.

WHAT should you bid on a player?

What you should bid is a function of a variety of factors. How much FAAB you have, how much FAAB your league mates have, and the demand for an available player are top of mind. When creating bids during the season you can use our  Waiver Wire Bidding history pages to give you comps to help. Bid runs for previous years are  broken out by format and week. With these you can get a feel for what bids on a particular player may be. 

 There are two preseason waiver runs in the FFPC for those teams drafted prior to the Thursday Night NFL Kickoff game. The initial waiver wire run in 2024 is scheduled to execute on Wednesday  September 4th.  If you’ve been drafting during the preseason, your team is a reflection of player values at the time of that draft. Since that time injuries may have happened, players might have changed teams, depth charts may have changed, players have emerged, etc. What felt like a great pick during the draft might now feel regrettable. Similarly, there might be players that went undrafted who are now being drafted on a regular basis.

The first preseason waiver run is a high volume one that will massively overhaul teams across leagues so you do not want to take it lightly. While the Waiver Wire Bidding history pages are invaluable for the preseason run, we have observed that the winning bids in these first run(s) are highly correlated to the draft capital of the players available in the player pool.  Based on this observation, we can map median winning waiver wire bids to the draft positions of players being drafted during the days leading up to these initial runs. The result is a data driven chart that  cross references the median bids from 2022 and 2023 leagues to the players that were drafted in a particular round, by position, and by format.  

Format differentiation is important because a Dynasty format has different implications on player value than a redraft format. Similarly, within Dynasty, we must break out Superflex bids from Standard bids. In Superflex, QBs are drafted at a higher frequency and much earlier. This also pushed the other players down in drafts,and their ADP will be lower in Superflex vs Standard Dynasty.

The chart ON THIS PAGE provides the cross reference. If you are targeting a particular player, find his current ADP and map it to the appropriate round and format listed on the page.  The value there is the median bid value of the players drafted in that round in 2022 and 2023, for that position, within the particular format. 

Keep in mind that these are the medians, and there are actual ranges to be considered with outliers, so these are just a starting point. Adjust your bid appropriately based upon how badly you want, or need, a given player. (Again see the waiver wire bid history charts where actual bid ranges for a player are visually represented).

Once we are past week 1, the correlation to draft capital no longer exists so looking at Waiver Wire Bid history for the appropriate week and format then becomes the primary method to use.  They serve as a “comp” to the profile of the player you are planning to bid on . 

As the weeks progress, teams have fewer bid dollars to spend, and that will be reflected in the winning bids for a particular week.  However, as we near the end of the bidding season (weeks 10 – 14) teams tend to “empty the clip” and freely spend their remaining FAAB, as time is running out and desperation ensues. This is mostly reflected by large bids on average players. 

HOW should you bid on a player?

In analyzing the winning bid amount from previous years, we have observed patterns in the bid amounts rooted in what we call “Human Factors”.  Certain numbers are being entered more frequently than others. We have analyzed the data and identified what the FAVORABLE and UNFAVORABLE numbers are based on the patterns. One of the worst feelings when bidding on a player is losing to another team by just a dollar or two. By avoiding these commonly used numbers, you can at least eliminate situations where you bid ‘like every other guy’.

THIS PAGE provides a more in depth overview and an actual chart showing the numbers you should avoid if possible.