Here is one of the league owners' reasoning for opposing these types of trades.
I'm curious how you would respond.
This type of trade works great for the two players involved, but creates an inequitable situation for the remaining players. The bottom line is that in a 3 keeper league the team that gives up the player is trading something, and getting value for something that they don't really have. How can you trade someone you aren't keeping? At best you can call it a keeper option, but on draft day once you have decided on your 3 keepers then those options are expired.
A great example of this is the trade of Reggie Bush and a 13 round draft pick for a 7th round draft pick. Owner 1 got a top 30 ranked player as a keeper, and gave up his 7th round pick for an extra in the 13th round. Owner 2 wasn't keeping Reggie Bush so he was able to get a pick about 60 places sooner without giving up anything. What a deal! The remaining 8 teams sit back and watch while in the 7th round Owner 2 in effect went to the front of the draft pick order for 6 rounds. That is why I see this type of trade as being inequitable.
One might argue that if you have four or five keeper caliber players you should be able to do this. I'm fine with that but if we do we have to redefine our Keeper system to giving up a round draft pick for each Keeper you decide to keep, and then you have those people to trade however you want. If you only want to keep 2 people, then you are free to pick whoever is available in round 3. If you want to keep 5 people than your first pick in the open draft would be round 6.
Looking at the Bush trade under this system of rules Bush would have been Owner 2's 4th Keeper, and whatever deal made would mean giving up that 4th round pick and whatever combination of draft pick swaps the 2 owners agree to. This system would be (1) much more equitable to the whole league, (2) would allow teams without 3 decent keepers to trade up, and (3) allow teams that have "keeper depth" to have more bargaining power.
This sounds like it coming from an owner that barely has 3 keepers himself. As for the Reggie Bush trade, the owner that traded him actually didn't give him up for nothing. In fact I was say it was a pretty dumb thing to do. As a previous poster stated, that owner should have realized that yes he moved up from round 13 to 7, but in return he gave away a decent player to a team that made not have had one. Instead of that team having to keep a lesser player and spend a high draft pick on Bush, he's only moved down 6 rounds and still has his top draft picks. That's a no brainer. I'll try not to bore you but I'll give you a summary of our league since it sounds like your league is at the point we were a few years ago. Alot of our rules came from suggestions from other FBG posters. IMO, once you get past one or two keepers you really have to start thinking about adjusting your rules to keep things balanced, especially with how teams trade away extra keepers.
We allow 5 keepers each year. When a player is drafted he is assigned a keeper number (KN) based on his draft postion. Each subsequent year that player can be kept for his KN-3. Therefore players drafted in the first three rounds go back in the draft. We also put a five year max on a player being kept (but with KN-3 only a handful of players make it that long). It took us a while to get to this system, starting with teams keeping any 1 player, then any 2, etc. All of our owners seem to like our current rules because:
1) Teams with weaker rosters can acquire keepers from other teams that may have more than 5.
2) The weaker teams know that the majority of the top players will be available to be drafted.
3) Teams that have quality depth (either through good drafting, waiver pickups or just luck) can trade away excess keepers for value (draft picks).
4) Owners like the fact that it's not just about drafting the top RB or QB but finding the Tony Romo's in round 13 or the LJs in round 16. Do you keep Westbrook for a 1st round pick or do you keep Michael Turner for a 8th? Next year Westbrook is back in the draft and Turner can be kept for a 5th, then a 2nd. Good upside for value.
In addition we have a few rules that work well with our keeper system and IMO limit the potential abuses. Teams cannot trade away their first or second round picks. Anything from the 3rd on is fine. Most premium keepers are in the 3rd-5th round range. The trade deadline is week 10 to prevent season ending roster dumps for future picks. Since we pay out weekly $$$ giving up in week 10 is a big decision. So far it's worked well.
Overall it took some time for owners to 'feel out' the value or keepers, especially in terms of draft picks. But I think it's made the league alot of fun for all of our owners, no matter what their skil level.
