Blind bid waivers are a waiver system in which every manager submits a hidden bid on a free agent and the highest bid wins, with no one able to see the competing bids until they process. “Blind bid” describes the mechanism; FAAB is the budget you bid with, and the two terms are used interchangeably.

The blind part is what makes it work. Because you can’t see what anyone else offered, you have to price a player by what they’re actually worth to you rather than just outbidding a visible number by a dollar. That rewards conviction and punishes both overpaying and lowballing a target everyone wants.

Blind bidding is the fairer alternative to first-come waivers, where the manager who happens to submit first — or who sits highest in a rolling priority order — wins regardless of how badly anyone else needs the player.