How do you maintain (some) balance in your keeper league? (1 Viewer)

[Bobcat10]

I'm in what I think is a great keeper league, but we've run into competitive balance concerns by the commish and he is thinking about making major overhauls. Depending who you talk to, there are 2-4 teams that people think are so far ahead of the game that they can't be challenged for years. I think that's kinda lame (and yes I'm one of those teams, but no I'm not the commish). The commish is concerned that owners will start dropping out and essentially ruin the league.

What rules do you have in place that help maintain some balance in keeper leagues?

I'll list out some detail of our league in case you want to specifically address issues you see/ideas you have (both would be greatly appreciated):

-- One owner already quit during last season....so we are contracting right now from 14 to 12 teams. This is actually a great thing IMO as the player pool will grow. Going with 14 teams was one of the major flubs right from the start.

-- Points league (let's not go here) with weekly H2H matchups and playoffs. Start one at each hitting position (and one UTIL), 3 outfielders, 8 starts of pitching, and 2 RP. Two div winners and two WC teams make the top part of the playoff system. The rest of the teams play for draft pick slot in two seperate groups (worst teams for 1-4 for example).

-- Keeper setup: 9 major league keepers and 5 minor league keepers. The minor league keepers get a little tricky because a rule is in place where you can keep 2 players per season that eclipse 130AB or 50IP during the season as minor leaguers in the next offseason. After that, they must be major league keepers.

-- Draft goes 1-12 for the first three rounds and then serpentine until the end.

edit: The commish, who comes to me for advice, is thinking of lowering major keepers to 4 or 5 and increasing minor league keepers a bit. I see this as a huge overhaul moving the league closer to a redraft than I'd like. He agrees, but his major concern is to keep the league together and not have people drop out.

Thank you.

 

[rodg12]

The best answer I have is to stagger the number of keepers based on the previous years finish and put a limit on the number of years an owner can keep a player. In my keeper auction league, the number of players you can keep is dependent on where you finished the previous year. 1st and 2nd place get to keep 5 guys. 3rd and 4th place get to keep 6. 5th (last spot to be payed out) gets to keep 7 and the rest get to keep 8. On top of that, you can only keep a player on your team for 3 years (we do have a minors set-up kinda like yours that allows some guys to be on a team for 4 years, but they aren't active on the team at all for the 4th year). This league is highly competitive with quite a bit of turnover in the standings year-to-year.

 

[Captain Hook]

You don't say whether your league is AL or NL (hopefully not both because you don't have enough teams for that IMO)

My next question is slightly rhetoric but humor me.....Why do you think it is a Great keeper league while someone else in the league thinks it needs a major overhaul? That is quite a discrepancy

What first and foremost makes keeper leagues great is great owners.

Next is a very strong and experienced commissioner

Finally you must have a good set of rules that is very comprehensive AND that everyone is comfortable with.

WHY if it is a keeper league are you and the commish so concerned with keeper limitations?

How long can players be kept?

You say draft, and that is a problem because auctions thus salaries and contracts help maintain the competitive balance, but many draft leagues use a system where you lose a pick in the round where your keepers came from and some even increase this......so for example if you drafted a player in the third round last year and you want to keep him it should cost you at least a third round pick, if not a second round pick this year.

I don't like the commissioner thinking that if he makes it easier for the (presumably) less knowledgable/active owners that will make it a better league. In fact I think the opposite is true. BUT from what little I can see from your post I think the entire league needs to re-evaluate the system of player acquistion, contracts, keeps, and minor league players - the format for the games is not the problem.

 

[Bobcat10]

You don't say whether your league is AL or NL (hopefully not both because you don't have enough teams for that IMO)

All MLB. Why do you think this should be an AL or NL only? 12 teams (used to be 14) with large rosters.

My next question is slightly rhetoric but humor me.....Why do you think it is a Great keeper league while someone else in the league thinks it needs a major overhaul? That is quite a discrepancy

I personally like the way the league is set up. More than just a few keepers and the minor league twist is great. The commish thinks he needs to parse it down so the league doesn't collapse. Owners are generally mad at one particular owner (not me) who has made some lopsided trades....but that's the other owners fault.

What first and foremost makes keeper leagues great is great owners.

Next is a very strong and experienced commissioner

Finally you must have a good set of rules that is very comprehensive AND that everyone is comfortable with.

I don't believe the league is full of great owners and that is part of the problem. I'd say let the suckers quit and then fill in, but it's hard to find people to take on bad teams. One person actually did that and turned it into a playoff team last year...he's a good owner though. The commish is good.

WHY if it is a keeper league are you and the commish so concerned with keeper limitations?

How long can players be kept?

You say draft, and that is a problem because auctions thus salaries and contracts help maintain the competitive balance, but many draft leagues use a system where you lose a pick in the round where your keepers came from and some even increase this......so for example if you drafted a player in the third round last year and you want to keep him it should cost you at least a third round pick, if not a second round pick this year.

The commish thinks lowering the keepers numbers will give more teams a chance to compete soon and balance out the league. Players can be kept for as long as you want. Only restrictions are on those minor leaguers. Correct this is not an auction and I don't think that's in play. We're probably a bit too far along (this will be season 5) to implement a cost to players based on where they were drafted.

I don't like the commissioner thinking that if he makes it easier for the (presumably) less knowledgable/active owners that will make it a better league. In fact I think the opposite is true. BUT from what little I can see from your post I think the entire league needs to re-evaluate the system of player acquistion, contracts, keeps, and minor league players - the format for the games is not the problem.

I agree with the bolded. That's basically what I'm looking for ideas on here. Instead of lowering the keeper numbers, what can we put in place at this point to help in that regard?

 

[Captain Hook]

You don't say whether your league is AL or NL (hopefully not both because you don't have enough teams for that IMO)

All MLB. Why do you think this should be an AL or NL only? 12 teams (used to be 14) with large rosters.

My next question is slightly rhetoric but humor me.....Why do you think it is a Great keeper league while someone else in the league thinks it needs a major overhaul? That is quite a discrepancy

I personally like the way the league is set up. More than just a few keepers and the minor league twist is great. The commish thinks he needs to parse it down so the league doesn't collapse. Owners are generally mad at one particular owner (not me) who has made some lopsided trades....but that's the other owners fault.

WHY if it is a keeper league are you and the commish so concerned with keeper limitations?

How long can players be kept?

You say draft, and that is a problem because auctions thus salaries and contracts help maintain the competitive balance, but many draft leagues use a system where you lose a pick in the round where your keepers came from and some even increase this......so for example if you drafted a player in the third round last year and you want to keep him it should cost you at least a third round pick, if not a second round pick this year.

The commish thinks lowering the keepers numbers will give more teams a chance to compete soon and balance out the league. Players can be kept for as long as you want. Only restrictions are on those minor leaguers. Correct this is not an auction and I don't think that's in play. We're probably a bit too far along (this will be season 5) to implement a cost to players based on where they were drafted.

I don't like the commissioner thinking that if he makes it easier for the (presumably) less knowledgable/active owners that will make it a better league. In fact I think the opposite is true. BUT from what little I can see from your post I think the entire league needs to re-evaluate the system of player acquistion, contracts, keeps, and minor league players - the format for the games is not the problem.

I agree with the bolded. That's basically what I'm looking for ideas on here. Instead of lowering the keeper numbers, what can we put in place at this point to help in that regard?

1) 12 or 14 team Mixed keeper league is TOO shallow - especially when you can keep players forever2) Keeping the players for unlimited years makes it a dynasty league NOT a keeper league - HUGE differences

If you can't switch to an auction/salary format then change this to keep them for three years and then they go back in the draft and that alone will help the competitive balance of the league

3) Keeping bad owners in is just delaying the trouble you will eventually have (again changing the salary or keeper structure will help)

4) What are the roster sizes during the season?

 

[rodg12]

1) 12 or 14 team Mixed keeper league is TOO shallow - especially when you can keep players forever

Not with large roster sizes it's not...

 

[dparker713]

1) 12 or 14 team Mixed keeper league is TOO shallow - especially when you can keep players forever

Not with large roster sizes it's not...

It would need to be a 10+ person bench to qualify for anything but a shallow league. Only 9 offensive starters with the whole MLB universe. But really, what they have is a dynasty league, not a keeper league. They can keep half a starting lineup indefinitely. Should be able to swap in replacement level for the league for bench and filler without having to do much during the season. Easiest fix is to limit how long players can be kept or lower the total keepers or both.

 

[Bobcat10]

1) 12 or 14 team Mixed keeper league is TOO shallow - especially when you can keep players forever

Not with large roster sizes it's not...

Yeah I'm not quite sure I'm following Hook here.When I think of dynasty, I'm thinking you keep every player you own. When I think of keeper, I think you keep a limited amount of what you own. This is regardless of whether or not you cap how many years you can keep a player or whatever.So, this league is 12 team mixed. Roster size is 34....breakdown of that is 27 major leaguers (max 9 SP) and 7 minor leaguers...of which you keep 9 and 5 respectively.Starting lineup:C1B2B3BSSOF x 3UTRP x 2SP (start as many as you want, limited to 8 starts per week, must use all double starts in lineup).Good feedback so far. Maybe my interpretation of dynasty and keeper is off.

 

[rodg12]

1) 12 or 14 team Mixed keeper league is TOO shallow - especially when you can keep players forever

Not with large roster sizes it's not...

Yeah I'm not quite sure I'm following Hook here.When I think of dynasty, I'm thinking you keep every player you own. When I think of keeper, I think you keep a limited amount of what you own. This is regardless of whether or not you cap how many years you can keep a player or whatever.So, this league is 12 team mixed. Roster size is 34....breakdown of that is 27 major leaguers (max 9 SP) and 7 minor leaguers...of which you keep 9 and 5 respectively.Starting lineup:C1B2B3BSSOF x 3UTRP x 2SP (start as many as you want, limited to 8 starts per week, must use all double starts in lineup).Good feedback so far. Maybe my interpretation of dynasty and keeper is off.

What Hook means is that it's more of a dynasty since you can keep the guys forever. Most keeper leagues don't allow you to do this either by capping the number of years a guy can be kept or increasing the cost to keep that player until it's just not feasible to keep him anymore (i.e. for redrafts two guys with a 1st round price tag so only one can be kept).For my 12 team mixed league, we start 27 with an 8 player bench.

 

[Captain Hook]

bobcat - rodg has it right - YOUR league is a modified Dynasty league....because you can keep players forever; the fact you can keep a limited number doesn't change the fact that the player pool is NOT replenished every couple of years and there is NO cost to keeping Miguel Cabrera or Carlos Gonzalez or any true stud for far too long

Limit player terms to three years if you don't go to auction based salaries/contracts

AND you are only starting nine hitters? from ALL MLB teams - its friggin all star teams and there is not much fun nor competitive balance to that

Switch to AL or NL or some random thirteen MLB teams or get to 18+ teams and IMO you should have 40 man rosters

Minor league players should have to move to ML keepers when they exceed ROY limits - create some tough decisions here for people; makes the league more fun and more competitive

 

[David Yudkin]

We had a problem with this many times, so much so that it seemed like every 3 years the league would have to fold and redraft because there were definitely the haves and the have nots. We ended up coming up with (what we thought) was an interesting solution.

We ended up combining the best guys from three dysfunctional dynasty leagues (mostly different people in each one) into one league (that part wasn't exactly innovative). But we made the league payouts only 50% of the money each year and the other half went into a bigger pot. After 5 years, the top 4 teams with the most points across that 5 year stretch split the remaining 50% (50%/25%/15%/10%). We used extended roto categories not head to head, so you had to worry about your yearly categories and your cumulative totals as well. We added things like WHIP, OPS, and even fielding, so it was more interesting. Again, we were hardcore so that made it more challenging and we set a end point of the league for 5 years.

We set things up that you had huge rosters and you could draft pretty much anybody. Guys in the majors, minors, college, overseas, unsigned players, etc. IIRC, we had a 40 man roster and a 40 man minor league system, so you carried 80 players. While there was a waiver wire, they pretty much were the dregs of society if you were really desperate. There were some stipulations about who you had on your minor league roster, but I can't remember what they were.

In terms of the race over 5 years, two teams ended up fighting it out for the title and 4 or 5 teams stayed in it in terms of fighting to get in the money. Basically, 7 teams were really intersted. On a year by year basis, a couple other teams ended up in the money in any given year, so there really only were one or two teams that didn't consistently remain competitive (or made really dumb trades or roster moves). I remember finishing third or fourth, and it was pretty fun.

 

[Bobcat10]

How hard do you think it would be to go to a salary cap without starting over? Is it possible to do that WITHOUT going to an auction based league/draft or do players salaries have to be determined by what people would pay for them?

You would have to make cap by 2012, this year is sorta "uncapped" but players have salaries.

 

[rodg12]

How hard do you think it would be to go to a salary cap without starting over? Is it possible to do that WITHOUT going to an auction based league/draft or do players salaries have to be determined by what people would pay for them? You would have to make cap by 2012, this year is sorta "uncapped" but players have salaries.

The best thing to do would be to just start fresh. If you have to do it without starting over, one thing you could do would be to average 2-3 salary rankings from before LAST year and assign those values to the players. Decide on a salary cap and keeper limitation and just go with it. This would at least give you some valuable guys going into this season. You could do it with this year's rankings as well, but that would more or less take away any value aspect, which is key in an auction keeper.

 

[Captain Hook]

How hard do you think it would be to go to a salary cap without starting over? Is it possible to do that WITHOUT going to an auction based league/draft or do players salaries have to be determined by what people would pay for them? You would have to make cap by 2012, this year is sorta "uncapped" but players have salaries.

1) FIRST you have to get on the same page as your commissioner with all of this or nothing will fly - even then you guys are going to have to ge the entire league to go forward together towards a common goal - or nothing will work2) NO you cannot change midstream to an equitable system. Either you get everyone to agree to make the changes now OR you get basic agreement, a committee to present rules to be voted on over the next year and you maintain current rules for 2011 and 2012 and start over in 2013. The only fair way is to change the rules together and start over - but you can phase it in.

 

[oso diablo]

an idea i've toyed with, and would pursue if i were starting a league from scratch...

a 5-year cycle, where at the end of season 5, all contracts are terminated, and so you start with a clean slate every 5 seasons.

 

[Captain Hook]

an idea i've toyed with, and would pursue if i were starting a league from scratch...a 5-year cycle, where at the end of season 5, all contracts are terminated, and so you start with a clean slate every 5 seasons.

1) What happens to all the players added in years two, three, or four?2) Five years seems a little long - the norm is three which gives teams a good run with a Stud without locking the player out of the draft pool for too long.

 

[dparker713]

How hard do you think it would be to go to a salary cap without starting over? Is it possible to do that WITHOUT going to an auction based league/draft or do players salaries have to be determined by what people would pay for them? You would have to make cap by 2012, this year is sorta "uncapped" but players have salaries.

The best thing to do would be to just start fresh. If you have to do it without starting over, one thing you could do would be to average 2-3 salary rankings from before LAST year and assign those values to the players. Decide on a salary cap and keeper limitation and just go with it. This would at least give you some valuable guys going into this season. You could do it with this year's rankings as well, but that would more or less take away any value aspect, which is key in an auction keeper.

Dont think you can you last year's values since no one was contemplating this change last year. I'd just allow people to keep whomever they wanted this season, assign those players a value based on a ranking system and then complete the rest of the draft. Then, starting next year implement a salary bump for the keepers and go from there. This year is effected as little as possible in the transition to an auction, and next year you'll get a true keeper auction.

 

[oso diablo]

an idea i've toyed with, and would pursue if i were starting a league from scratch...a 5-year cycle, where at the end of season 5, all contracts are terminated, and so you start with a clean slate every 5 seasons.

1) What happens to all the players added in years two, three, or four?2) Five years seems a little long - the norm is three which gives teams a good run with a Stud without locking the player out of the draft pool for too long.

there would be other keeper rules. my current league uses a keep-one-year-at-current-salary, or two-years-at-salary+$5. We also have some minor league keeper rules, but 3 years is the max you could have a guy under contract while in the majors. The 5 year thing would just add an additional layer, so every year within the 5 year window has a slightly different strategy. For example, year 1 might be prospect heavy, but year 5 would be solely focused on year 5.

 

[Notorious T.R.E.]

Talk to Juddzilla. He'll set you straight.

Auction is the way to go. Also, roto.