The Draft Society / Pickup Timing Study

What a bid buys

You are paying
for a fight

Three quarters of waiver claims are made for nothing at all — on priority, at $0. Of the ones that do cost money, the expensive end does worse on every measure that matters, including the one you would think money controls: whether you win the claim.

Win rate climbs, peaks, then collapses

Up to about $9 the money works as you would expect. Above that it goes into reverse. Not because a higher bid loses an auction — it cannot, the top bid wins — but because a big bid is a signal that you are in a fight, and most people in a fight lose it. You bid $25 on the player everybody else is chasing too.

Share of claims won

all waiver claims, won and lost

And it buys nothing on the pitch

The dearest claims start least often and score least per week they are held. The only thing that rises with the price is how long the manager keeps him — and that is a sunk cost, not a verdict on the player.

Points per gameweek held

the only measure not inflated by hold length

Did he start the week you claimed him?

expensive claims are bets on a player not yet in the side

Every tier

Bid Claims Win % Won Start % FPts GWs held Per GW
Two thirds of contested auctions were won without spending a penny. Grouping properly by division — the only place two claims actually compete — the median winning margin over the best losing bid was $0.00, and 7% of auctions were won by someone who bid less than the loser. Waiver priority is deciding a great many of these, not money.

What eighteen divisions know

Each division is a separate market with its own managers. Counting how many of them independently chased the same player in the same gameweek is a real consensus signal — and the crowd turns out to be worth listening to, up to a point.

Divisions chasing him, against what he scored

mean FPts that gameweek

It flattens at the top. The very most fashionable pickups are no better than the merely popular ones.