I choose you, Pikachu

Our first day of free agent auction is over and I for one was excited to see what the results would be. As it turns out, ESPN doesn't tell you the winning bid, nor how many owners bid on a particular player. I guess that's the point of a "blind auction" isn't it? But because I'm Asian and have a solid grounding in basic math, I think we can figure out how much people bid on particular players.

Here's the add/drops from September 15th. Discounting the moves for kickers and head coaches, there were a few free agents that were snapped up after a stellar weekend. RB Brandon Jackson, QB Michael Vick, QB Sam Bradford, WRs Mark Clayton and Eddie Royal. By combining that information with the Free Agent Auction Summary page, we can determine what prices these players likely went for.

Oliver used $58 total on Jackson and Clayton. The bulk of that has to be toward Jackson, who was the premier pickup of the week as he'll be entering next week as the new starting running back for a potent offense. Let's assume he went for around forty or fifty bucks. We'll never know if that was overkill but a starting RB doens't come along very often on the waiver wire.

Victor and Mike both picked up guys to shore up their shoddy depth at QB. It looks like Mike paid $20 for Vick and Victor paid $10 for Bradford. Which one would you rather have at those prices? I think Kevin Kolb's days are numbered and Vick will start most of the rest of the way so this could be a steal for Mike. As for Bradford, it's hard to envision a rookie QB doing well but Bradford seems to have all the tools and more than enough opportunity. A possible steal at ten dollars if he can at least be serviceable.

Jon scooped up Royal for $3 and again, there's no telling if there was no demand or if he outbid someone by a few bucks. I wish we could tell how many owners bid but since we don't have that information, we'll just have to guesstimate. Some people have already voiced their displeasure at the system but to that I say, "tough!" It's the fairest way to acquire free agents and it's also fun and strategic. If you aren't sure how the auction system works, you should probably have a better idea now. Just remember that the auction runs daily Wednesday through Sunday, at 11am EST.

Update [9.16.2010]
Oliver pointed out that you can see how much people bid. The link for the daily Free Agent Auction Report is at the bottom of the transactions box. Along with that, if you look at the expanded Transaction Report, you can see the winning bids for each player too. Below is the auction report from September 15th. From the looks of this guy, it looks like the next closest bid for Brandon Jackson was only $25!