What do you think of these keeper rules? (1 Viewer)

[Johnny Blood]

I am starting a new 12 team keeper league. There are 15 man rosters, 2 IR spots, no IDP. I would like some parity and player turnover, but don't want it to be too close to a redraft league. Can you please give me feedback on these rules? I have never been in a keeper league so would be very interested to hear what people think, if these rules will cause problems, etc.

1)Teams may keep up to 3 players, with no positional limits.

2)Keepers cost draft picks according to this formula:

The first time a player is kept, he costs his original draft value -1. So a 15th rounder is kept as a 14th rounder.

The second time a player is kept, he costs his original draft value -4. So a 15th rounder is kept as an 11th rounder.

The third time a player is kept, he costs his original draft value -9. So a 15th rounder is kept as a 6th rounder.

(So 1st round picks can never be kept, due to the value inflation. Players can't be kept more than 3 times.)

3)Original draft values for players persist through trades and drops.

4)Waiver wire acquisitions can be kept. Their original value is pegged to a second to last round pick.

5)Trades are pretty wide open. The trade deadline is 11th week, and trading reopens after the league championship. Trading can occur up till the keeper declaration, which is 2 weeks before the draft.

Thank you!

 

[zed2283]

So the only players that can be kept 3 times are ones who were originally drafted in the 15th round? I don't see too many 3-timers.

 

[Johnny Blood]

To be kept 3 times, a player would have to have an original draft value of 10th round or more. A 10th rounder would be worth a 1st round pick if kept for the third time.

I was originally thinking a two year cap would be desirable, but this rule seems to achieve a similar outcome while allowing people to keep deep draft gems for 3 years.

I think there will be a limited but probably significant number of 3 time keepers.

 

[Yenrub]

The rules look fine. I’m not a fan of trading players before the keepers are declared but everything else looks fine to me.

 

[Shutout]

Looks like a nice spin to things.

I know some leagues spin it differently and assign the value it costs to keep a player as how they finished (e.g., a guy like victor cruz finishes top ten, so it costs you a 1st rounder to keep him, regardless of where he was drafted). Its all in what you are going with, but these "performance based compensations" probably balance your league more wheras the set scale will probably heavily reward the shrewd or lucky when they pick up multiple players that really pan out. Again, its all in what you are looking for in your league.

Have fun in your new league!

 

[zed2283]

To be kept 3 times, a player would have to have an original draft value of 10th round or more. A 10th rounder would be worth a 1st round pick if kept for the third time.I was originally thinking a two year cap would be desirable, but this rule seems to achieve a similar outcome while allowing people to keep deep draft gems for 3 years.I think there will be a limited but probably significant number of 3 time keepers.

Ah ok. I guess I should have read your post closer.

 

[tdog]

I would suggest capping the initial value at the 10th (any player drafted in the 10th or later is a 10th rounder for keeper purposes). Giving up a 9th for the first year and and 6th for the next is still a very nice reward for hitting on a player late, preserving the option to keep a third year for the first. Having high round draft picks or waiver picks kept for almost nothing for 3 years may be hard on the league.

We give less upside on keepers--all start at their draft pick round but no greater than 7th. You then give up a draft pick 2 higher each year kept--so a 7th round or later pick can be kept for a 5th, 3rd, then a 1st over the next 3 year. A 3rd rounder could only be kept for 1 year at the cost of a 1st.

 

[Johnny Blood]

First off, thank you all for the feedback!

tdog, I had never thought of capping initial value that way. Is the concern that some teams will just dominate under my rules? I was a little worried about that but then thought the NFL has so much turnover and injury that it probably won't matter. But have you had problems with people having quality keepers at too low of a price, and making the league uncompetitive? I definitely don't want that.

 

[tdog]

First off, thank you all for the feedback!tdog, I had never thought of capping initial value that way. Is the concern that some teams will just dominate under my rules? I was a little worried about that but then thought the NFL has so much turnover and injury that it probably won't matter. But have you had problems with people having quality keepers at too low of a price, and making the league uncompetitive? I definitely don't want that.

We just decided we didn't want teams to get a superstar for three years and spend almost nothing on him. We also liked the idea of putting an emphasis on rounds 6-10, where you are drafting the first set of non FF starters, the emerging wr or rookie QB for example. We never tried any other keeper system so I haven't experienced the potential problems of a more generous system. However, there are plenty of leagues that have keepers with no draft pick loss and people seem to like them. I never thought that would be a league I'd like to join as you could have years of competitive imbalance. I agree, there is a lot of player value movement each year and that limits the likelihood of a 14th rounder being great for 3 years and thereby giving a huge reward to the drafting team. Basically, you have to decide how much benefit you want the team to get for keeping a player. Your system basically makes it free or a wash the first year (which is a nice reward for a good draft pick but still generous). I'd be more concerned that the 9 up for year 3 may be too nice a reward for basically cashing in on 17th round lottery ticket.

 

[toxic]

4)Waiver wire acquisitions can be kept. Their original value is pegged to a second to last round pick.

As others have noted, it is all about developing a set of rules that suit your particular league's intentions and preferences. From the full set of your rules, it sounds like you are trying to avoid a team "lucking" into dominance for an extended period. If that is indeed the case, I would suggest modifying how you treat waiver wire acquisitions. In many keeper leagues that use draft pick forfeiting (thus rewarding late round picks), I have observed that the bulk of the new keepers each year come off the waiver wire, not from late round draft picks. Personally, in the keeper league I just started up, I wanted to reward owners who demonstrated the foresight of drafting the hidden gem slightly more than the owners who picked up the hidden gem off waivers when the evidence of their luster was more apparent. As a result, we set the value of the waiver wire pick-ups to a 12th round pick (in an 18 round draft). That still provides plenty of value for waiver acquisitions, but adds an additional bonus to players drafted in the late rounds. Our draft pick cost also increases at a steady rate of 2 rounds per year for up to 3 years (-2, -4, -6) instead of -1, -4, -9 but that difference is just a matter of taste--I can see arguments for either. The only other change I might suggest is to make more players unkeepable each year. We lock any players drafted in the first 3 rounds of the prior year. Two benefits of that. One, the first 3 or 4 rounds are often fairly consensus driven. As a result, there may be players you really like, but if your draft slot that year is in the wrong position, you can't get the player without dramatically overpaying or getting really lucky. For example, maybe you are picking 12th. You really like the upside of the player generally seen as WR8. When you come to draft at 12, WR3 and WR4 are still available, and you project them higher than that consensus WR8. You could reach for 8 to show how smart you are, but the reasonable play is to take WR3 knowing full well that WR8 is not going to make it back around to the end of the 3rd round. (I realize the above is an argument for an auction, but we are discussing a draft-based keeper league, so ignore that for a moment). When you lock players drafted in the first three rounds, you alleviate some of the effects of draft position nonsense on keepers (where the early round breakout stud gets kept by a team simply because they happened to be drafting in about the right position that year which is especially an issue when the first year keeper is only -1). The second benefit of this locking (for us anyway), is that it keeps a stable of solid players available in the first 2 rounds of the draft each year which we find makes the draft more fun. But again, "fun" is very subjective, so I would not assume our fun equals your fun...

 

[tdog]

toxic

Lots of consensus round 1 picks were round 2, 3, or 4 picks the year before. Giving up only a one round higher draft pick opens up all those players as keepers. Protecting the first few rounds by some means (straight prohibition or a 2 or 3 round upcharge) is a good goal of such a keeper system. I like the idea of giving less upside to waiver wire picks. We just slot them as if they were 7th rounders. It probably rewards waiver wire churners too much.