keeper league rules(first year) HELP... (1 Viewer)

[frogpond11]

OK, if ya'll could help me out with this, I'd be very appreciative. Let me start by saying we held our draft a while back and there were no keeper rules in place at the time of our draft. The league manager simply told everyone that we'd have the opportunity to keep two of our best players for next year. So the LM sends out a league email today saying these are the basic keeper rules:

1. You can only keep 2 players, but they can't be at the same position.

2. If you keep 2 players, you lose your 1st and 2nd round picks of next year's draft, no matter where those two players were drafted the year before.

3. If you choose to only keep 1 player, you get an extra pick at the END of the draft to make up the roster spot.

Now..in our draft, since I had no idea these would be the rules, I went RB-RB-RB in the first 3 rounds. Say what you will about the strategy...that's what I did, and a few others did as well. Obviously these rules hurt us in a bad way. But, if the majority of the league owners wanted it to where we can't keep 2 players at one position, I can live with that. So I can live with #1 if need be.

It's #2 and #3 I have the big problems with. Am I crazy for thinking both of those rules are totally unfair? This is my first experience with a keeper league, but every time I've ever seen it mentioned, it seems like the rule is that you lose the draft pick that you chose that player in. For example, if I chose to keep MJD and OchoCinco, who I chose in the 1st and 4th round this year respectively, I should lose my 1st and 4th round pick for next year, right? Isn't that the way it normally works?

And then #3...since I did go RB-RB-RB..I was just thinking, hey, I'll just keep 1 player and start in round 2...well, #3 says I would basically lose my 1st round pick and then get a last round pick to make up for the roster spot, basically skipping my 2nd round pick all together.

Somebody please tell me I'm not crazy in thinking that these rules shouldn't be this way, #2 and #3 anyway..like I said, I can deal with #1.

FYI, this is our whole league's first keeper league, including the league manager..apparently he just came up with these rules and sent them out as the rules without talking to much of anyone about it first.

Just looking for anyone's thoughts who don't mind helping our league out.......

 

[Evilhomer3k]

Our leage is keep 4-6. We have two rounds at the beginning for anyone who kept 4 or 5. So if you keep 6 you "lose" your picks in the first two rounds. It sounds to me like that is the case for you. If you keep 1 person you lose your first round pick. If you keep 2 you lose your 1st and 2nd round picks. Assuming you keep 0-2 players it seems pretty fair. What I don't see is any sort of built-in turnover or increasing cost. We have no turnover in our keeper league and so the guy who has Adrian Peterson gets to keep him for as long as he wants. Luckily, I am that guy. I was not so lucky to get Ladanian Tomlinson during his prime, though.

 

[apalmer]

Our keep 3 league is set up like Rule 2--you lose a pick for each guy you keep. Keep 1, lose 1st round. Keep 2, lose rounds 1 & 2. Keep 3, lose rounds 1,2 & 3. I have no idea what Rule 3 is supposed to do.

 

[Black]

This is different from our rules, where we:

-keep 2 (one rookie ('any player drafted as a rookie'), one vet)

-exchange the pick where we took the player

-no restrictions on positions

Your league rules seem to be the very simplified version of a keeper that requires little or no tracking (original draft slot, trades, etc.).

It seems pretty crappy that you didn't have the Keeper rule with restrictions on position before the draft, and that I might ask them to relax the rule year one (letting you keep 2 RBs) since it would have impacted your draft strategy had you known.

If it raises a big stink, let it go. Just standby to pickup a good WR off waivers or make it a secondary goal this year to trade for a top WR or QB by the end of the season.

What WR/QB did you draft? There's probably a high upside guy in there.

Also, in our two person keeper, just to let you know, the guys with the 'best keepers' each year rarely are the top team at the end of the years. Funny how it works that way. The NFL changes fast.

 

[Philo]

The "keep a player in exchange for the same round pick" rule isn't universal. It varies from league to league. You shouldn't have made that assumption. Many leagues escalate the pick, so that eventually that 10th round steal pick of Steve Slaton has to go back into the player pool after a few years. Many leagues use keepers to occupy first, second and onward picks, so if the guys is worth keeping, he's got to really be worth it, and if you want to keep 2, 3, or 5 guys, you'll lose your first 5 picks. To say it's the way it "normally" works is incorrect.

The second rule just means that at the end of the draft, whoever doesn't have a full roster can pick one more guy. Sounds like you're not skipping picks, it's probably serpentine the whole way 1 through 12 then 12 to 1 or whatever, then, at the end, if teams 4 6 and 9 only kept 1 guy, they'll be short and can pick up a guy at the end. Otherwise round 1 would have picks 1 to 12, 4, 6, 9, then 12-1, then back again, and a lot of website software can't handle that. It's just easier to track to add an extra round at the end. Your pick isn't getting skipped, you don't lose a 2nd rounder, you still get to pick 2 of the top 24 guys, in fact, it's better for you, because you'll get 2 of the top 24 instead of top 27 in the case of 3 teams only keeping 1.

That said, making up the keeper rules after the inital draft isn't the best way of doing things. I would have held a regular draft once the rules were established so everyone understood what they were going for. But the rules aren't really that "unfair" to you at all, 2 keepers are fine, and even though they can't both be RBs it probably isn't a huge dent to your team.

 

[Pickle Rody]

In my league we keep 5 players, no more than 2 at any position. Everyone keeps 5 and we all begin drafting in round 1 (or round 6, however you look at it.) Been that way from draft #1. So we all knew going in what the rules were and everyone had an opportunity to plan their initial draft accordingly.

So, here is what really bothers me about your league. A league manager decides AFTER the re-draft to change the parameters of the league, to make it a keeper league, without any input from the rest of the league members. This is the problem with the rules you posted. Not that they are misguided, but that they were put in place without a league vote AFTER everyone has already drafted. This is a BOGUS move by the league manager. What? Does he have 2 studs he doesn't really want to toss back into the pool at the end of the year?

I would call him out on it and demand that if any keeper rules are going to be established, then the league should vote on a set of keeper rules to be put into place next year, so that everyone gets to draft a fresh team in 2010 with the knowledge that they will be able to keep some (2?) of those freshly drafted players for the following season (2011.)

If this change of league parameters, from re-draft to keeper, is allowed to stand, then everyone got hosed because I doubt anyone else drafted with the thought process that their first 2 picks should be of different positions because they would most likely be the top keepers on their team at the end of the 2009 season.

Just my

 

[Silver & Black]

This makes no sense to me. How can you do a draft without knowing what the rules are? Plus, how can the commissioner simply tell you what the rules are, especially after the draft? Shouldn't the owners have input or say on what the core rules are?

My opinion is to have these rules scrapped or not go into effect until year 3. There should be some sort of discussion amongst the owners now to arrive at a consensus as to what the fair rules are for this year. It is impossible to do a draft without knowing what the rules for the year are. Have a league referendum to discuss the issue.

 

[latrops]

OK, if ya'll could help me out with this, I'd be very appreciative. Let me start by saying we held our draft a while back and there were no keeper rules in place at the time of our draft. The league manager simply told everyone that we'd have the opportunity to keep two of our best players for next year. So the LM sends out a league email today saying these are the basic keeper rules:1. You can only keep 2 players, but they can't be at the same position.2. If you keep 2 players, you lose your 1st and 2nd round picks of next year's draft, no matter where those two players were drafted the year before.3. If you choose to only keep 1 player, you get an extra pick at the END of the draft to make up the roster spot.Now..in our draft, since I had no idea these would be the rules, I went RB-RB-RB in the first 3 rounds. Say what you will about the strategy...that's what I did, and a few others did as well. Obviously these rules hurt us in a bad way. But, if the majority of the league owners wanted it to where we can't keep 2 players at one position, I can live with that. So I can live with #1 if need be. It's #2 and #3 I have the big problems with. Am I crazy for thinking both of those rules are totally unfair? This is my first experience with a keeper league, but every time I've ever seen it mentioned, it seems like the rule is that you lose the draft pick that you chose that player in. For example, if I chose to keep MJD and OchoCinco, who I chose in the 1st and 4th round this year respectively, I should lose my 1st and 4th round pick for next year, right? Isn't that the way it normally works? And then #3...since I did go RB-RB-RB..I was just thinking, hey, I'll just keep 1 player and start in round 2...well, #3 says I would basically lose my 1st round pick and then get a last round pick to make up for the roster spot, basically skipping my 2nd round pick all together. Somebody please tell me I'm not crazy in thinking that these rules shouldn't be this way, #2 and #3 anyway..like I said, I can deal with #1. FYI, this is our whole league's first keeper league, including the league manager..apparently he just came up with these rules and sent them out as the rules without talking to much of anyone about it first. Just looking for anyone's thoughts who don't mind helping our league out.......

Obviously, everyone should have insisted that the rules be in place before the draft. Nonetheless, if you like the other owners and the league, I'd just go along with it. Assuming you can trade during the offseason, you can deal a rb for a wr or qb and it's all good. The rules, as they are, are fine. They just should have been announced predraft.

 

[caglassc]

I would say that you need the rules in place regarding the keepers prior to holding the draft. I say you play the year and then at the end redo the draft with the keepers rules in place. Drafting and then putting the rules into place is not the right way to go about it. There isn't anything wrong with modifying rules over time if the league agrees; but starting out the rules for keepers should be clearly stated.

 

[frogpond11]

Ruff, to clarify one point...it was known that this was a keeper league and that we'd have the opportunity to keep a max of 2 players at the end of this season for next year. But that is all that was known at the time of the draft. Therefore, and this is one of my problems with the rules as they were presented to me, I drafted RB-RB-RB in the first 3 rounds of our draft thinking I'd be able to keep any 2 players I wanted. So the rule about 2 players different positions really throws me for a loop because my next player was OchoCinco in round 4. I would have never drafted 3 RBs in a row if I had known rule #1 above at the time of our draft.

And to clarify another point...the other big problem I have with these rules involves losing 1st and 2nd round picks no matter who you keep. Obviously for those of us that drafted 3 RBs in the first 3 rounds don't have any good option for a "2nd round keeper" because our next draft pick was in the 4th round. Now....if I chose to only keep MJD as my 1st round pick for next year...this is why I believe it puts me behind. Say 3 teams keep 1 player and 7 teams keep 2 players. So 7 teams already have 2 players rostered that are legitimate 1st/2nd round players...and the other 3 teams only have 1 player rostered that are probably legitimate 1st rounders. The proposed rules state that everyone will start next year's draft in round 3...so the teams that kept 1 player are basically starting on their 3rd pick, because that's where the teams that kept 2 are starting. The teams that kept 2 players are drafting their 3rd round pick in the 3rd round, like it should be. Teams that kept 1 are using their "2nd pick" in the same round as everyone else's 3rd round pick...that doesn't seem right to me. Shouldn't the teams that kept 1 be given their 2nd round pick before the 3rd round even starts??? Using the example above, shouldn't the 3 teams that kept only 1 player be allowed to roster a player in the "2nd round"..and then all 10 teams start in on the 3rd round after that??

Again, I just think it's crap that the keeper rules were not decided on before the draft, and now those of us who drafted RB-RB-RB or WR-WR-WR are being penalized because of the way we drafted....when we had no idea at the time of the draft what the keeper rules were going to be.

 

[Pickle Rody]

Ruff, to clarify one point...it was known that this was a keeper league and that we'd have the opportunity to keep a max of 2 players at the end of this season for next year. But that is all that was known at the time of the draft. Therefore, and this is one of my problems with the rules as they were presented to me, I drafted RB-RB-RB in the first 3 rounds of our draft thinking I'd be able to keep any 2 players I wanted. So the rule about 2 players different positions really throws me for a loop because my next player was OchoCinco in round 4. I would have never drafted 3 RBs in a row if I had known rule #1 above at the time of our draft.

And to clarify another point...the other big problem I have with these rules involves losing 1st and 2nd round picks no matter who you keep. Obviously for those of us that drafted 3 RBs in the first 3 rounds don't have any good option for a "2nd round keeper" because our next draft pick was in the 4th round. Now....if I chose to only keep MJD as my 1st round pick for next year...this is why I believe it puts me behind. Say 3 teams keep 1 player and 7 teams keep 2 players. So 7 teams already have 2 players rostered that are legitimate 1st/2nd round players...and the other 3 teams only have 1 player rostered that are probably legitimate 1st rounders. The proposed rules state that everyone will start next year's draft in round 3...so the teams that kept 1 player are basically starting on their 3rd pick, because that's where the teams that kept 2 are starting. The teams that kept 2 players are drafting their 3rd round pick in the 3rd round, like it should be. Teams that kept 1 are using their "2nd pick" in the same round as everyone else's 3rd round pick...that doesn't seem right to me. Shouldn't the teams that kept 1 be given their 2nd round pick before the 3rd round even starts??? Using the example above, shouldn't the 3 teams that kept only 1 player be allowed to roster a player in the "2nd round"..and then all 10 teams start in on the 3rd round after that??

Again, I just think it's crap that the keeper rules were not decided on before the draft, and now those of us who drafted RB-RB-RB or WR-WR-WR are being penalized because of the way we drafted....when we had no idea at the time of the draft what the keeper rules were going to be.

Good points, and I would discuss your thoughts with the league manager. It seems he decided to "slightly alter" the general keeper rules to ensure those of you who drafted strong RB's or WR's do not get a leg up on the rest of the league. Of course, it would depend on your league scoring system but I can see, if the league is RB or WR heavy in scoring parameters, why he would want to make sure that no one team got too strong at one position. Regardless, changing the rules after the draft is not good for league "trust." If this occurred in any of my leagues I would be very hesitant to believe anything he says in the future for fear he will just "alter" the rules at any time to suit his tastes.Good luck!!

 

[supersecretid]

I never really understood charging picks for keepers. It seems like you're making it almost impossible for someone to get a major advantage via keepers since there's always a trade off for them.

My favorite keeper rules are "keep X players for free" with some restriction on who those players can be.

 

[Black]

I never really understood charging picks for keepers. It seems like you're making it almost impossible for someone to get a major advantage via keepers since there's always a trade off for them.My favorite keeper rules are "keep X players for free" with some restriction on who those players can be.

I actually prefer it...you have to make a calculated decision about the 'value' of the player this year and in the future. You might be tempted to keep an up-and-coming player with a later pick instead of a stud this year for an early pick.For instance, in my league, I had to decide (among others):SJax (1st Round)Roddy White (5th Round)Felix Jones (11th Round)MJD (14 Round)I have had MJD since his rookie year, and have given up other 'great' player since (he's always been productive, but just this year is concensus top 5).

 

[sandy]

OK, if ya'll could help me out with this, I'd be very appreciative. Let me start by saying we held our draft a while back and there were no keeper rules in place at the time of our draft. The league manager simply told everyone that we'd have the opportunity to keep two of our best players for next year. So the LM sends out a league email today saying these are the basic keeper rules:

The rules should not be enforced until the start of next draft when everyone has a clean slate and knows that what you are drafting is going to be part of a keeper league...BTW, who is on the league manager's roster?

 

[frogpond11]

sandy, this is the league manager's roster:

QBs = Tom Brady, David Garrard

RBs = LT, Portis, Thomas Jones, Cedric Benson

WRs = Steve Smith, Marques Colston, Braylon Edwards, Laverneus Coles

TE = Owen Daniels

D/ST = Eagles, Packers

K = Rob Bironas

..........I agree with your point sandy..I think we should just forego keepers for this year and come up with keeper rules that everyone can agree on throughout the year...then totally re-draft again next season from scratch with everyone knowing the keeper rules from the get-go. I'm going to push for that with the LM..we'll see what happens.

 

[Mr. Anonymous]

To maintain some consistency with the original intent about moving to a keeper league, but not screw people like you, I'd say:

Option 1: just have one keeper. Nobody could claim they would have changed their drafting strategy on that.

Option 2: have two keepers, but they can be any position (including two RBs) for just this coming year.

Option 3: if the current two keeper rules stay in place, certainly the minimum fair requirement is that your pick stands available in the second round if you don't utilize a keeper (whereas those with a keeper forego that pick). You should "pick up" a second round pick, not a last round pick, relative to those with keepers.

In our league, you get to keep one player in lieu of a last round pick. So we have a "first round" for everyone. (I treat the the keeper "round" as the "0.X" round although it technically is the 16th.) Everyone keeps one player because everyone has many players on their rosters worth more than a 16th round pick. We also later instituted a supplementary keeper rule, which is that any player drafted in the 10th round or later (including waiver wire pickups) can be protected the following year with a 5th round pick. About a third of the teams in any given year will have a worthy player. I love this rule which rewards active in-season management and strategy.

Good luck. The current situation you are faced with is baloney. We also have a "no ex post facto rules" rule (all rules are prospective, with respect to current rosters.) Thus, if we changed the keeper rules right now, they would apply not to next year's draft (because our drafting this year contemplated the current keeper rules for next year) but to 2011's draft. Yes, this reduces change which isn't always a good thing, but that's why the league has survived 17 years and no one has ever left the league because of being upset about something.