Trading draft picks in keeper league question (noob) (1 Viewer)

[jbz]

My league has just introduced keepers. Everything has been straight forward until now before the draft as owners are trying to trade potential keepers for draft picks to other teams. I was hoping for some guidance and/or clarity about this seeing as all of us in the league haven't done it before. Our rules:

- 1 keeper, no keeping players drafted first 2 rounds, each player kept cost owner draft pick 2 rounds higher from where they were drafted.

Here's the trade scenario:

- Owner A agrees to trade Leveon Bell to owner B for the price of a 4th round pick

- Owner A is already keeping C. Patterson at the cost of a 10th round pick

- Leveon Bell has keeper cost of 8th round pick

In this trade is it correct to say this:

- Owner A keeps C. Patterson, receives the 4th round pick of Owner B

- Owner B gets Leveon Bell, who now counts as his keeper at cost of 8th round pick

- Owner A gives up his 8th round pick (previous value of Bell on his team prior to trade) to owner B

Is this correct? At first when I ran the trade through my head it didn't work since I didn't factor in the last item, so Owner A ended up with 1 player and obviously owner B one short. If it's not correct, where was the mistake made? Is Owner A not allowed to keep Patterson and he just gets the extra 4th round pick with no keeper?

Thanks for your help and apologies if it's a stupid question

 

[thehornet]

It makes sense, but owner A shouldn't be allowed to trade bell when he is already keeping patterson if you have a keep 1 only rule.

 

[jbz]

ok. that's what I was wondering. did he give up his keeper rights by trading away Bell and gaining the extra 4th? Seems like that could be or should be yes? Technically we have 1 keeper...he used that keeper for Bell and then traded him. I think the lightbulb might have gone on! lol. but i'd still like to hear input from others if they've done it differently. thanks

 

[Ironman2131]

I run a keeper league where teams can keep players (in my league, four of them, but it's the same concept) in exchange for giving up a draft pick two rounds earlier than the player was drafted the year prior. We allow rights to be traded, which is what it seems like your league does as well.

So the trade you presented is the rights to Bell in exchange for a 4th round pick, right?

Team A gets: 4th round pick

Team A gives: rights to Bell

Team B gets: rights to Bell

Team B gives: 4th round pick plus the "hidden" cost of the 8th round pick used to keep Bell.

It's a no-brainer for Team A, since they weren't keeping Bell anyway, while Team B need to weigh whether they'd rather have Bell or the two players they'd get with the 4th round pick they gave up plus the 8th round pick used to keep Bell.

Now, sometimes the teams will also trade the keeper pick (in this case the 8th rounder) to make things easier. Team A might still do the deal (since a 4th round pick beats an 8th round pick), but it's a better deal for Team B (since for them, it's like trading a 4th round pick for Bell without the hidden cost).

Especially if Bell can be kept again next year, I think a 4th round pick for his rights is pretty cheap, since he certainly wouldn't be available anywhere near that pick in a standard draft.

 

[jbz]

ok...I'm not really asking if it's a good deal or not, but I appreciate the feedback (I'm not one of the owners involved, my keeper sucks but that's another story) I just want to make sure our league is doing this trade right. So in your league this would be a legit deal in terms of what picks/players were given up to each owner? thehornet brought up an interesting point about technically Bell was kept and then traded no? Or is this a case where the owner who has surplus of good keeper options gets to use that and trade away to another team to get some valuable draft picks? I can see it making sense both ways....Normally I'm pretty good at being the commish with stuff like this, but keepers are new to me so I'm a bit lost (obviously).

 

[GregR]

My league has just introduced keepers. Everything has been straight forward until now before the draft as owners are trying to trade potential keepers for draft picks to other teams. I was hoping for some guidance and/or clarity about this seeing as all of us in the league haven't done it before. Our rules:

- 1 keeper, no keeping players drafted first 2 rounds, each player kept cost owner draft pick 2 rounds higher from where they were drafted.

Here's the trade scenario:

- Owner A agrees to trade Leveon Bell to owner B for the price of a 4th round pick

- Owner A is already keeping C. Patterson at the cost of a 10th round pick

- Leveon Bell has keeper cost of 8th round pick

In this trade is it correct to say this:

- Owner A keeps C. Patterson, receives the 4th round pick of Owner B

- Owner B gets Leveon Bell, who now counts as his keeper at cost of 8th round pick

- Owner A gives up his 8th round pick (previous value of Bell on his team prior to trade) to owner B

Is this correct? At first when I ran the trade through my head it didn't work since I didn't factor in the last item, so Owner A ended up with 1 player and obviously owner B one short. If it's not correct, where was the mistake made? Is Owner A not allowed to keep Patterson and he just gets the extra 4th round pick with no keeper?

Thanks for your help and apologies if it's a stupid question

If you described the trade correctly, then no, the bolded is not correct as there was no 8th round pick included in the trade. The trade was Bell for a 4th.

Whoever owns Bell at the keeper deadline can choose to keep him for an 8th round pick. It doesn't matter when he was acquired or how. Whether Bell ends up on a roster from a trade in week 2 last season or from a trade 2 hours before the keeper deadline the process is exactly the same. Only the team who owns him at the deadline can make Bell his 1 keeper, and must supply the required pick in doing so.

Team B has to supply the pick for his keeper. If Team B wanted to get an 8th round pick as part of this, it needed to be acquired in a trade. The two teams could have included it, but apparently didn't according to you.

Edit to add: Of course, after the keeper deadline has hit, then Patterson is the only player left on Team A's roster. He no longer has any rights to Bell so he couldn't trade him at that point.

 

[bigfoamfinger]

In our league you can trade players and still keep your allotment of keepers. When trading picks we require each team to get a pick back otherwise one team has an extra pick and one is short a pick.

 

[Titans_fan]

Much like what Greg said, in my league we are allowed two keepers. There are no add/drop transactions once the season ends, but player rights are retained until the keeper deadline (which just happened to be last night). As such, any player can be traded for another player or draft picks with no impact on the two keepers.

For example, Owner A traded Kendall Wright and Percy Harvin to Owner B for Owner B's third-round pick (3.06). Owner A still had Andre Ellington and Michael Crabtree as his keepers plus pick 3.06 in the draft. Owner B kept both Wright and Harvin as he now "owned" their rights prior to the keeper deadline.

Hope that helps...

 

[Ignoratio Elenchi]

In my local league we've decided that you cannot trade a player you're not keeping. So in your case, Owner A would not be allowed to trade Bell and keep Patterson. He can opt to keep Patterson, and Bell goes back into the player pool for the draft; or he can opt to keep (and subsequently trade) Bell, and Patterson goes back into the player pool.

Anyway, in your situation, Owner A would not give up his 8th round pick to Owner B. The trade was Bell for a 4th. Owner A's 8th round pick has nothing to do with it. Assuming Owner B elects to keep Bell, it will cost him his (B's) 8th round pick.

 

[Adam Harstad]

At first when I ran the trade through my head it didn't work since I didn't factor in the last item, so Owner A ended up with 1 player and obviously owner B one short.

If you're in a league where all moves need to be roster-neutral (i.e. everyone winds up with a full complement of picks and players afterwards), then the solution is to include Team A's last draft pick in the deal. It's functionally no extra cost to Team A (since he can't use that pick anyway, since his roster will be full), and it allows Team B to still draft a full complement of players.

 

[Gawain]

We fought through this exact problem the first couple of years our keeper league was in existence (we transitioned in 2001 IIRC). One year, we just didn't let guys use their last picks if they accumulated more than 20 and the guys with less than 20 had to fill their rosters from the FA pool. We then went to a 20 round draft, but a 25 man roster limit, so that people could accumulate more picks if they wanted to (we only have 5 FA moves a year, can't keep FA moves and this let folks keep their prospects without cutting them for a FA move).

Some other fun questions that you may face. If I have 4.01 and am keeping a guy in the 4th, can I trade 4,01 for 4.12 and keep my guy and pick up value somewhere else?

If you ever go to more than one keeper, what do you do if someone wants to keep two guys in the same round?

How do you handle FA keepers?

 

[Ironman2131]

The key seems to be when the keeper deadline occurs and if your league allows teams to trade players (or player rights) they're not keeping. My league allows this, but yours may not.

Gawain, in my league teams are allowed to trade player rights and draft picks, so there's always a flurry activity in the two weeks before the draft, as teams move back in rounds where they have keepers and up in rounds where they don't. I think it's fun, and it creates a lot of interaction in the league. One issue is that a subset of owners never seem to "get" it, and keep sitting tight in rounds where they have early picks but a keeper, but I guess that's just another skill to exploit for good owners.

 

[GregR]

Al Davis once did this in the NFL, trading for the last pick in a round for which he had to give up to another team. The NFL shut down that loophole the next season.

 

[Skoo]

You really should only be able to trade a player "as" your keeper.

So in a 1 keeper league if you trade away Bell for a draft pick, you no longer have a keeper.

That's the only fair way to do it, imo.

Otherwise I could be making all kinds of moves with players that I had last year but aren't really on my team anymore if I'm not keeping them.

 

[Gawain]

The key seems to be when the keeper deadline occurs and if your league allows teams to trade players (or player rights) they're not keeping. My league allows this, but yours may not.

Gawain, in my league teams are allowed to trade player rights and draft picks, so there's always a flurry activity in the two weeks before the draft, as teams move back in rounds where they have keepers and up in rounds where they don't. I think it's fun, and it creates a lot of interaction in the league. One issue is that a subset of owners never seem to "get" it, and keep sitting tight in rounds where they have early picks but a keeper, but I guess that's just another skill to exploit for good owners.

We've put a stop to it (rule that if you're keeping one in a round it has to be in your "earned" pick or higher). We draft straight 1-12, 1-12, so people didn't like that the Super Bowl winner could get extra value by trading his picks off because it didn't matter to other people if they kept a guy at XX.12. There's still a little gamesmanship (for instance I'm keeping Stacy and Murray in the 12th, had my own 12.12, picked up 12.01 and then traded back to 12.11 for a later bump), but it's curtailed by the rule that you are locked into your pick or better to keep one guy.

I think a little depends on how many you keep for how many rules you need in place. Like you, we have a definite subset of guys that treat this as a redraft and only think about their 6 guys and if they have the right picks three days or so before the deadline.

 

[GregR]

You really should only be able to trade a player "as" your keeper.

So in a 1 keeper league if you trade away Bell for a draft pick, you no longer have a keeper.

That's the only fair way to do it, imo.

Otherwise I could be making all kinds of moves with players that I had last year but aren't really on my team anymore if I'm not keeping them.

That's a way to do it. I don't know that it's any more or less fair than letting teams before the keeper deadline trade the players still on their roster, though. It's just a preference.

Letting such trades happen would be unfair in the same way that having keepers at all is unfair. Teams who had better rosters have an advantage.

Just depends on what you want to see in a league. My leagues are mostly about keeping friends together after our lives have gone separate directions, so I prize interaction amongst the owners above many other aspects of the game. Something like this that encourages trading is very much a positive to me, and not at all unfair.

 

[jbz]

If you described the trade correctly, then no, the bolded is not correct as there was no 8th round pick included in the trade. The trade was Bell for a 4th.

Whoever owns Bell at the keeper deadline can choose to keep him for an 8th round pick. It doesn't matter when he was acquired or how. Whether Bell ends up on a roster from a trade in week 2 last season or from a trade 2 hours before the keeper deadline the process is exactly the same. Only the team who owns him at the deadline can make Bell his 1 keeper, and must supply the required pick in doing so.

Team B has to supply the pick for his keeper. If Team B wanted to get an 8th round pick as part of this, it needed to be acquired in a trade. The two teams could have included it, but apparently didn't according to you.

Edit to add: Of course, after the keeper deadline has hit, then Patterson is the only player left on Team A's roster. He no longer has any rights to Bell so he couldn't trade him at that point.

Ok that makes sense. But then owner A received a 4th rounder. That means he ends up with an extra pick over everyone else. That's why I asked about the 8th since it balances the picks out. Or as someone else suggested, the owner that gets the extra 4th no longer gets to keep anyone. But it becomes a matter of if we want to maintain roster-neutral as Adam stated below. Decisions, decisions...

At first when I ran the trade through my head it didn't work since I didn't factor in the last item, so Owner A ended up with 1 player and obviously owner B one short.

If you're in a league where all moves need to be roster-neutral (i.e. everyone winds up with a full complement of picks and players afterwards), then the solution is to include Team A's last draft pick in the deal. It's functionally no extra cost to Team A (since he can't use that pick anyway, since his roster will be full), and it allows Team B to still draft a full complement of players.

That's another option to balance it out, I'll consider that way too. Thank you.

 

[jbz]

The key seems to be when the keeper deadline occurs and if your league allows teams to trade players (or player rights) they're not keeping. My league allows this, but yours may not.

Gawain, in my league teams are allowed to trade player rights and draft picks, so there's always a flurry activity in the two weeks before the draft, as teams move back in rounds where they have keepers and up in rounds where they don't. I think it's fun, and it creates a lot of interaction in the league. One issue is that a subset of owners never seem to "get" it, and keep sitting tight in rounds where they have early picks but a keeper, but I guess that's just another skill to exploit for good owners.

Like I stated, it's our first year doing keepers, but I like the strategy you talk about and what it could add to our league predraft. I do agree with the issue of the owners that just don't get it. We have those likely in our league as well. We also have those one or two guys that really get into it and find the loop holes/weaknesses in the rules and use it to their advantage. We call them the rule changers, lol. I think it's good to have that though we need some testing of the rules like that. It's not always obvious as to what the shortcoming of our rules are at times.

 

[jbz]

We fought through this exact problem the first couple of years our keeper league was in existence (we transitioned in 2001 IIRC). One year, we just didn't let guys use their last picks if they accumulated more than 20 and the guys with less than 20 had to fill their rosters from the FA pool. We then went to a 20 round draft, but a 25 man roster limit, so that people could accumulate more picks if they wanted to (we only have 5 FA moves a year, can't keep FA moves and this let folks keep their prospects without cutting them for a FA move).

Some other fun questions that you may face. If I have 4.01 and am keeping a guy in the 4th, can I trade 4,01 for 4.12 and keep my guy and pick up value somewhere else?

If you ever go to more than one keeper, what do you do if someone wants to keep two guys in the same round?

How do you handle FA keepers?

Yeah some of those scenarios and questions popped into my head when I was analyzing this trade last night. Lots of "what ifs" that could really muck things up if we don't make these rules solid. FA keepers aren't allowed in our league.

 

[GregR]

We don't have a roster-neutral rule like Adam mentions. We've had this come up before though and teams who are short a pick fill the final spot from waivers. Teams who have an extra pick can't use it, it just goes to waste.

 

[Yenrub]

In my local league we've decided that you cannot trade a player you're not keeping. So in your case, Owner A would not be allowed to trade Bell and keep Patterson. He can opt to keep Patterson, and Bell goes back into the player pool for the draft; or he can opt to keep (and subsequently trade) Bell, and Patterson goes back into the player pool.

Anyway, in your situation, Owner A would not give up his 8th round pick to Owner B. The trade was Bell for a 4th. Owner A's 8th round pick has nothing to do with it. Assuming Owner B elects to keep Bell, it will cost him his (B's) 8th round pick.

My league does this as well

As a matter of fact the league doesn’t allow trading until the day after every team has declared its keepers.

 

[jbz]

thanks for the input fellas