I don't think you will save money and tokens bidding on those players 1 skill point away from an additional star, I find there will be many bidders on players close to the next star, that is, any players with quality ending in 4 or 9, even on my server where I can get 20 decent 5* players for less than 35 tokens on the first few days. I tend to avoid these players because I operate on a tight budget, unless they're a huge bargain then I'll risk a token on them very early and see who else makes a bid.