Keeper League (First time/year) (1 Viewer)

[StarkNakedRU]

My league of ten years decided last year to start a 2 player keeper league.  I now have about two weeks to make some decisions and really need some advice.  

  I have a 10 team PPR league.  8 starters 6 bench team.  Must play QB, RB(2), WR(1), WR/TE(1), Flex(1), D, K.  Apparently we can save 0-2 players from last season(I would not get to pick the first two rounds of draft if I kept two players).  If we all save two, that could mean the top 20 players removed from draft before it even starts. I already know I will have the 5th pick in the draft and it is snake format.   I have done well in my league and tend to draft 1 if not two RB's in the first two rounds of draft.  My third round would then prob be WR, unless I saw value RB still not taken.  I do favor loading my team with RB's.

  Looking at my roster from last year and comparing it to the ADP list on this site I see I have Tyreek Hill WR ADP 10,  Nick Chub RB ADP 12,  and Austin Ekeler RB ADP 19 are all that I have within what is considered the top 20 players by ADP.  I am leaning towards keeping Tyreek Hill and Nick Chub but never doing this format before and being uncomfortable picking a WR in either the first or second round normally I am wondering what you fine folks with more experience would consider.

 

[jwsbowler]

can understand your concern as you need to start 2 RBs.  But, I am keeping Hill and Chubb and not thinking twice.  With the 5 pick, thus #25 overall, you will find plenty of RBs and players.  I would still be in BPA mode while drafting, leaning towards RB if I am comfortable to the value.  IMO views, I don't even have Ekeler in the top 30 overall.  I never use ADP numbers to judge how I draft.  

 

[Gally]

I think you are too hung up on positions.  In leagues where you keep such few players it is basically a redraft so I typically just keep the best player(s).  Of the players you listed that is easily Chubb and Tyreek.  That is not a bad start to a roster. 

Do you have a feel for how many players everyone else will be keeping?  If you don't keep 2 will you be the only one doing so?  What if you kept nobody?  I ask these questions because if everyone else keeps 2 and you keep nobody then you would still be able to take Chubb and Tyreek if there weren't anybody else you thought better to draft in rounds 1 and 2.  It's a bit of a risk but I have no idea what your other owners may or may not do.  It's just an idea to game the system a bit if nobody else keeps anyone. 

I would also caution about forcing a particular position.  I have stated that in other threads and I think it's one of the biggest mistakes an owner can make going into a draft.  If you have tunnel vision on a position it prohibits you from recognizing value in other positions if they fall.   I really recommend putting in the time on a combined draft board ranking all positions in one list.  This way you can see where value falls to you regardless of position. 

 

[acarey50]

Agree with everything that Gally asked/said, though your league setup definitely cranks up RB value by requiring 2 plus having a flex while only having 1 required WR. The majority of leagues would have this the other way around given positional scarcity.

Also - if you only keep 1 player, does that cost you your 1st round pick or your 2nd round pick?  Different leagues do this different ways, and it is a critical piece of information.

 

[StarkNakedRU]

Do you have a feel for how many players everyone else will be keeping?  If you don't keep 2 will you be the only one doing so?  What if you kept nobody?  I ask these questions because if everyone else keeps 2 and you keep nobody then you would still be able to take Chubb and Tyreek if there weren't anybody else you thought better to draft in rounds 1 and 2.  It's a bit of a risk but I have no idea what your other owners may or may not do.  It's just an idea to game the system a bit if nobody else keeps anyone. 

This is the big problem, I have never done a league where we saved players and so I have no idea what my other owners might do this year.  I fully expect 1 if not 2 owners will NOT save any players.  One of my biggest competitors in the league and most challenging to beat in the last two years favors QB's.  On his roster currently he has  Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, Aaron Jones,  and Alvin Kamara and I have no idea who he will keep.

 

[StarkNakedRU]

Agree with everything that Gally asked/said, though your league setup definitely cranks up RB value by requiring 2 plus having a flex while only having 1 required WR. The majority of leagues would have this the other way around given positional scarcity.

Also - if you only keep 1 player, does that cost you your 1st round pick or your 2nd round pick?  Different leagues do this different ways, and it is a critical piece of information.

My understanding is that if I save 1 players, I will miss out on the first round of our draft.  If I save 2 players, then I miss out on the first two rounds of our draft.  Now I understand that if everybody saves two players then I am not really missing out on any rounds of draft since we will all start at same time, just a less talented pool to draft from.

So yes, I could keep Chub and then I guess my first pick would be pick 15.

 

[StarkNakedRU]

I never use ADP numbers to judge how I draft. 

This is the first year I have really looked at ADP and it was per an article on this site that suggested doing this when deciding on players to save in a keeper league.  For the most part in the past I will look at 3 - 4 ranking sites and come up with a master list myself on the value of players in the upcoming season.  I don't have the in-depth knowledge to evaluate players based on how teams improved over the off season and I don't follow college ball so I have no idea on new incoming talent.  I just rely on the so called experts and you fine folks that do have the skills and experience that I lack. 

 

[acarey50]

First thing you need to do is take a best guess at what you think every team will do as far as keepers. Far from exact, but this is so you can give yourself a rough idea of what a realistic scenario is as far as available players for your picks to compare against who you would be keeping.

The reasoning is that, in a vacuum, I would say that neither Chubb, Hill or Ekeler are worth the #5 pick. But, if after presumed keepers are accounted for, they may be the best player available and who you would draft at that spot if you did not keep anyone.

The more complicating factor is your 2nd pick (16th overall). At that spot, both Chubb and Hill are a value and Ekeler is creeping into range. But, more importantly you have to take a best guess if they would be the best player available once keepers are accounted and you account for picks made by teams keeping 1 or 0 players.

For example, the team you mentioned with Mahomes and Jackson - odds are pretty high that he does not keep 2 QBs (and me personally, assuming standard scoring I would not keep a QB in a 10 team, 1 QB league), but let's assume he keeps 1 (say Jackson) along with Kamara. That means you know from his squad Aaron Jones and Mahomes are back in the draft pool. So we plan accordingly. Do this exercise for the other 9 teams taking your best guess at who will be kept and who will be in the draft pool. Build out your draft board based on that, knowing it will not be exact but probably fairly close. Then do a mock draft. At pick 5, If Chubb is your top player on the board, then you should probably just keep him, especially if he is the top player by a decent margin. Most likely, if you do decide that you should keep a player with your first pick, you almost assuredly will want to keep a second player (probably Hill) as you are being presented decent value to do so (and I would guess in most scenarios at that point they'd be the best player available).

Let me know if you have any other questions or need clarification on any of those steps.

 

[Gally]

First thing you need to do is take a best guess at what you think every team will do as far as keepers. Far from exact, but this is so you can give yourself a rough idea of what a realistic scenario is as far as available players for your picks to compare against who you would be keeping.

The reasoning is that, in a vacuum, I would say that neither Chubb, Hill or Ekeler are worth the #5 pick. But, if after presumed keepers are accounted for, they may be the best player available and who you would draft at that spot if you did not keep anyone.

The more complicating factor is your 2nd pick (16th overall). At that spot, both Chubb and Hill are a value and Ekeler is creeping into range. But, more importantly you have to take a best guess if they would be the best player available once keepers are accounted and you account for picks made by teams keeping 1 or 0 players.

For example, the team you mentioned with Mahomes and Jackson - odds are pretty high that he does not keep 2 QBs (and me personally, assuming standard scoring I would not keep a QB in a 10 team, 1 QB league), but let's assume he keeps 1 (say Jackson) along with Kamara. That means you know from his squad Aaron Jones and Mahomes are back in the draft pool. So we plan accordingly. Do this exercise for the other 9 teams taking your best guess at who will be kept and who will be in the draft pool. Build out your draft board based on that, knowing it will not be exact but probably fairly close. Then do a mock draft. At pick 5, If Chubb is your top player on the board, then you should probably just keep him, especially if he is the top player by a decent margin. Most likely, if you do decide that you should keep a player with your first pick, you almost assuredly will want to keep a second player (probably Hill) as you are being presented decent value to do so (and I would guess in most scenarios at that point they'd be the best player available).

Let me know if you have any other questions or need clarification on any of those steps.

I think this statement is not necessarily true.  If you project everyone keeping two players then you don't really have the 15th pick you have the first pick of all the non-kept players.  That may be worth it depending on your projections on who is available.   As acarey50 mentioned...the first thing you must do is project what each team is keeping.  Try and do some reconnaissance with owners you know and see if you can get a feel for who they are keeping.  This will also help with future trade negotiations if you can build up a good relationship.  Look at previous drafts to see how some of these guys value players and or positions.  You should be able to get a fairly accurate picture from that.  This will tell you who and how many to keep.

 

[acarey50]

I think this statement is not necessarily true.  If you project everyone keeping two players then you don't really have the 15th pick you have the first pick of all the non-kept players.  That may be worth it depending on your projections on who is available.   As acarey50 mentioned...the first thing you must do is project what each team is keeping.  Try and do some reconnaissance with owners you know and see if you can get a feel for who they are keeping.  This will also help with future trade negotiations if you can build up a good relationship.  Look at previous drafts to see how some of these guys value players and or positions.  You should be able to get a fairly accurate picture from that.  This will tell you who and how many to keep.

I suppose in theory this could be true, but in all practicality I find it hard to believe that if all owners keep 2 players, there will be anyone significantly better than Hill available. If there is, that means that there are several really stacked teams keeping two top 10 players each and having another top 10-15 guy going back into the pool, meaning there are several teams with extremely weak teams that are then much less likely to keep any players, as they'd have no one worth keeping for a 1st round pick.

But, until going through the exercise of predicting keepers, slotting them into the draft and running a mock, no way to truly know. 

 

[Blackbear]

I would keep Hill and Ekeler since it is ppr. The projections on fantasy pros has Ekeler outscoring Chubb by 16 points. This essentially is one more point per game in your line up. Also, Chubb cooled off and was RB 18 for the weeks Hunt was in the line up taking away touches. Ekeler ADP is at 15 for ppr as compared to Chubb at 20. For these reasons I would keep Ekeler over Chubb. 

 

[Gally]

I would keep Hill and Ekeler since it is ppr. The projections on fantasy pros has Ekeler outscoring Chubb by 16 points. This essentially is one more point per game in your line up. Also, Chubb cooled off and was RB 18 for the weeks Hunt was in the line up taking away touches. Ekeler ADP is at 15 for ppr as compared to Chubb at 20. For these reasons I would keep Ekeler over Chubb. 

Chubb has a new coach that wants to pound the ball.  I don't think last year is going to be a good sample for how they will be this year.  I would want Chubb by a wide range over Ekeler.

 

[jwsbowler]

Chubb has a new coach that wants to pound the ball.  I don't think last year is going to be a good sample for how they will be this year.  I would want Chubb by a wide range over Ekeler.

Definitely in agreement.  Value wise, Chubb far more valuable.

 

[huthut]

Do you not lose rounds for keepers? You just... have them? Sorry if I missed where that was mentioned if it was mentioned. In that case, seems like it is fairly easy to predict who will be kept based on ADP. Seems like it would be easy to go Hill and Chubb if so.