Keeper League (1 Viewer)

[secretid]

One of my leagues has a commish that's talking about doing a "franchise league" when he means keeper league. I think he's getting in over his head a bit and I want to make sure we have good rules set up for fairness sake.

What rules do you guys use and just as importantly, why? What pitfalls are we going to encounter if we don't set this up right?

 

[Cixelsyd]

You need to agree on keeper rules before the draft.... and let everyone have a chance to understand them...

We wen't through several iterations, where we had to scrap it, and start over... but we are in our 3rd year of this set of rules and it is going well...

We allow up to 3 keepers on a team.... you can keep players drafter AFTER round 3... and it will cost you round drafted - 2.... so a 4th rounder will be this years 2nd rounder... a 18th rounder will be a 16th rounder...

This keeps the first round interesting, as the proven studs are still there... and it rewards folks for drafting well...

We put a cap of 3 years on a team for a keeper....

This year we have some good players being kept, so by the end of the 3rd round it's more like middle, late 4th...

We have Larry Johnson (2nd), Lamont Jordon (14th), Ronnie Brown (2nd), Willis McGahee (2nd), Chester Taylor (12th), Willie Parker (6th) all being kepts, along with Steve Smith (2nd), Larry Fitz (3rd), Anquon Boldin (14th), and Antonio Gates (13th) being kept... some of the late ones (Boldin, Gates, Jordon) are keepers from the previous year....

It's been a fun situation... and also our draft is based on a combo of worst to first for the playoff teams... and we have a loser bowl to decide picks 1 - 6.... winner of loser bowl picks 1st, etc.... winner of the super bowl picks last and down from there...

Good Luck....

 

[SSOG]

My league is a keep-3 league. Each player you keep costs a draft pick 2 rounds higher than what he cost the season before, with UFAs costing a 22nd round pick (out of a 22 round draft). If you keep two players that both cost the same pick, then one of the players winds up costing your next higher draft pick (so if you keep two UFAs, one costs a 22nd and the other costs a 21st. If you keep two 6th-rounders, one costs a 4th rounder and the other costs a 3rd).

The result is that players are valued not just on their production, but also on their cost. I currently own Steven Jackson and wouldn't trade him for Tomlinson this season straight up, because Tomlinson is a 1st rounder (and can't be kept), whereas I kept Jackson for a 7th rounder this year (which means I can keep him for a 5th rounder next year and a 3rd rounder the year after, if I choose). Sure, Tomlinson will probably outproduce Jackson this year, but I'd much rather have 3 years of Jackson for a 7th, 5th, and 3rd than 3 years of Tomlinson for a 1st, a 1st, and a 1st.

I definitely like the system, although it's taking some players to adjust their thinking to really understand how much the keeper value is really worth. Somone traded the #1 overall draft pick for Ronnie Brown and a 4th (Brown keeps for a 4th this year and a 2nd next). To be honest, Ronnie Brown for a 2nd rounder next year isn't a great keeper- definitely not enough to warrent trading the #1 overall pick for him. Someone else offered me the 3rd overall pick for Steven Jackson, the 11th overall pick, and the 51st overall pick, and can't even understand why I wouldn't trade Jackson for the #3 overall straight up.

Outside of some growing pains and a few unbalanced trades as everyone learns the ropes, I really like this keeper system. It adds a lot more strategy than just a "keep your 3 best players", and it opens a lot of strategies very late in the draft (if you draft a backup in the 20th and keep him for a year or two, then suddenly you will have a starting RB who keeps for a 16th round pick). Someone did that with Larry Johnson- picked him up off the street two years ago, kept him for a 22nd round pick last year, and is keeping him for a 20th round pick this year while Tomlinson and Alexander both re-enter the draft pool.

 

[SSOG]

You need to agree on keeper rules before the draft.... and let everyone have a chance to understand them...

We wen't through several iterations, where we had to scrap it, and start over... but we are in our 3rd year of this set of rules and it is going well...

We allow up to 3 keepers on a team.... you can keep players drafter AFTER round 3... and it will cost you round drafted - 2.... so a 4th rounder will be this years 2nd rounder... a 18th rounder will be a 16th rounder...

This keeps the first round interesting, as the proven studs are still there... and it rewards folks for drafting well...

We put a cap of 3 years on a team for a keeper....

This year we have some good players being kept, so by the end of the 3rd round it's more like middle, late 4th...

We have Larry Johnson (2nd), Lamont Jordon (14th), Ronnie Brown (2nd), Willis McGahee (2nd), Chester Taylor (12th), Willie Parker (6th) all being kepts, along with Steve Smith (2nd), Larry Fitz (3rd), Anquon Boldin (14th), and Antonio Gates (13th) being kept... some of the late ones (Boldin, Gates, Jordon) are keepers from the previous year....

It's been a fun situation... and also our draft is based on a combo of worst to first for the playoff teams... and we have a loser bowl to decide picks 1 - 6.... winner of loser bowl picks 1st, etc.... winner of the super bowl picks last and down from there...

Good Luck....

Wow, that's almost exactly like my league. Same rules, similar keepers. We have Jordan for a 13th, Brown for a 4th, McGahee for a 3rd, Taylor for free, Parker for a 12th, Steve Smith for a 3rd, Fitzgerald for a 7th, and Gates for a 15th (he's my prized keeper, since we don't have a 3-year keeper cap). We also have Johnson for a 20th (which is a ridiculous deal, and might one day lead to the institution of a keeper cap to prevent something like that from happening again). It's interesting to see someone posting about a league that's pretty much identical to the one I'm in. Funny how close a lot of those keepers are, too.

 

[valhallan]

My league's keeper rules are modeled after this article: Hybrid League

I highly recommend this league type if you want to have keepers but not lose the excitement of redraft.

 

[gruecd]

Hey, guys. Nice thread. I'm actually thinking about starting a keeper league myself. Anyone mind E-mailing me their rules? You can send them to cgruett@gmail.com.

Thanks in advance!

 

[GroveDiesel]

I'm in 2 different keeper leagues. One has been in place for about 5 years now and the other one we're just converting this season.

The first one has a system where each team has 6 "keeper points." Any player drafted last year counts as one point this year. Any player drafted two years ago counts as 2 points and any player drafted 3 years ago counts as 3 points. After that you can not protect that player anymore.

So if I had LT for the 3rd year, than he'd cost me 3 points. I then have 3 more points to use on other players. So you could end up keeping anywhere from 2 to 6 players. No draft picks are involved. It's worked pretty well for us.

In my other league, we have more of an inbalance of owner experience and it's more of a fun league. I actually used VBD to aid in our keeper system. I took last year's final stats and created a VBD ranking based on last player on a roster. I then broke down the top 30 into 3 tiers of 10 players each. The top 10 cost a 1st round pick to protect, the next 10 a 2nd round pick and the next 10 a 3rd round pick. Each team can protect up to 3 players. I actually ended up kind of screwed because I had Chad Johnson, Steve Smith and Edge all end up as 1st round guys so I can only protect one of them. We'll see how this system works out. I'm hoping that it will allow us to do a keeper system while still helping out some of the owners that aren't as experienced or knowledgable.

 

[piston pete griffin]

Ours is pretty simple. You get to keep 2 players from last years team. Anybody you wan't. There is no draft picks charged. The only down side is that they guy with players like Tomlinson will have him forever. One guy kept Brett Farvre for 8 strait years.

 

[Bulldog96]

We keep 3 players for 3 years... No Draft Picks are lost.

The only catch is >> your keepers must have been drafted AFTER the 5th Round.

That's it.

We have all the usual suspects and most studs remain draftable... Some notable keepers : LJ, Gates, Domanick Davis, Steve Smith, Santana Moss, Eli Manning, Lamont Jordan, etc...

It's worked out well for us.

 

[sunuvabee]

Our "keeper" league is more like a semi-dynasty league. We have 12 total teams and can keep up to 8 players from year to year, unless we lose an owner. In that case the number of protected players drops by 1 for every new owner (to put some more players back in the pool for draft day).

Scoresheet Website

 

[Defending Champs]

I'll give you the reader digest version, if you like it I can get you my set of rules.

We like the draft portion of the game as most do, so we keep the "franchised players" to a minimum but reward those who do the right research.

You may keep two players of a 13 man roster.

If you keep two:

1 must be a rookie from the year before AND only one can be a Running Back.

You may only keep a player for a max of two drafts which would put him on your team for three seasons.

Of course, you may keep one or none if that is what you choose.

We do an auction draft, so money does apply and certainly comes into play. I can elaborate if needed.

 

[gwhammerhead]

I was very excited several years ago when my redraft league converted to a keeper style. We had grown to a 10 team league and decided on a three year keeper cycle then we would start fresh. I found an article about it on FBG's. The league agreed that for a player to be retained ... 1) the player had to be drafted and remain on a team roster throughout the season and 2) the retained player was moved up four draft slots next year. This system would reward people that did their homework and came prepared to draft day. Some managers kept injured player(s) on their rosters hopeful to gain an advantage at the following year's draft. Some managers didn't worry about the keepers and worked the waiver wire for immediate benefit. Sounds like fun, right?

Here is an obstacle we faced. We had a couple of managers drop out of our league for one reason or the other. Trying to fill the vacancy was a real burden. Because in a redraft league - everyone is even before the draft, in a keeper league - year to year, everyone isn't even. A new manager may not want to buy into this kind of league. Going into our second year, a vacant team had some of the best keeper options, but it was confusing for the guy who was new to fantasy football. He didn't want to commit to a 'long term relationship,' he wanted a 'one-season stand.' There is little incentive for a person to join a league if the teams they will compete against have too big a headstart. After the year #3 draft we abandoned the keepers and redraft each year. Everyone enjoys it - we have grown to 14 teams, and if someone moves in and out of the league there is no gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes.

Good Luck with the keepers! Maybe you won't have the problems of filling vacancies that I experienced. --GW