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Keeper leagues-Lose round player drafted (1 Viewer)

Gawain

Footballguy
I follow the dynasty threads quite a bit, but my main league is a keeper where you lose the round the player was drafted. Keep up to 6, including one 1st/2nd year guy that can only have been minimally started. These leagues are very tough to determine value for and I know that I screw up my value judgments on a daily basis.

There isn't much content for keeper leagues, as redraft and dynasty understandably dominate. Hoping to start a thread where the few of us that still hold on to our archaic forms can bounce some value questions off each other. Formats vary a lot. Guys who are in keep-2 leagues will have a much different value list than guys in a keep-10 league.

Some of the more universal rules that I've learned:
--Never keep anyone at 1.01. If the guy you are keeping at 1.01 is the best player available, keep someone else and redraft him.
--Keep-12 leagues is where I'd transition to using dynasty information, but before that # of keepers, blending needs to occur. Taking numerous rookies in hopes of having long-time keepers is a losing strategy, as there's no ability to keep a guy who can't help, like a Michael Turner and still be competitive. The Bengals backfield was a great example of a guy having a ton more dynasty value than keeper value.
--Don't overlook the value of freeing up your earlier picks. Guys who can be kept for a double digit pick (Shaun Alexander when he was drafted as Watters backup) for years on end are worth their weight in gold. When deciding on a trade, you need to take round considerations, not just for the current year, but looking beyond at some diminished value.

What do other people who still play in lose the round keeper leagues find to be helpful? How many are you keeping? How do you handle free agents (we currently don't allow them to be kept)?

 
Question - if you draft say Antonio Brown in round 7 his rookie year.

He is always round 7 forever?

Or do you have an escalating system - each year you keep him is 1 round higher (that is how we did it)

 
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Question - if you draft say Antonio Brown in round 7 his rookie year.

He is always round 7 forever?

Or do you have an escalating system - each year you keep him is 1 round higher (that is how we did it)
In my league, once a guy is in a round, he stays there. I fully understand the bump a player (I've seen on the forums guys in bump 2 rounds a year and 3 a year as well) and might have suggested it if we were able to start our league from scratch (we've been in this format since 2001, the aforementioned Shaun A year), but it almost magnifies a hit in a later round.

Julio Jones is a 3rd round keeper, AJ Green is a 5th (both since 2011). Alshon Jeffrey is a 14th (since 2012). Had all of these guys slid up in rounds, Jeffrey would likely be worth a fair bit more than Jones and Green, as Jones would have become a 1st rounder in 2013 and Green in 2015. Meanwhile, Jeffrey would just be moving out of a double digit grade. Any scoring system will change relative values to a true value to an NFL team, but sliding the keeper rounds appears to do it even more.

In your league (how many keepers), do you find the better teams to target later round guys? Keeping those first few picks open can be invaluable if you're not keeping a full starting roster.

 
Question - if you draft say Antonio Brown in round 7 his rookie year.

He is always round 7 forever?

Or do you have an escalating system - each year you keep him is 1 round higher (that is how we did it)
It all depends on what you're trying to reward in your league.  Keeping AB for a 7th forever is a massive advantage, but if that's what you want to reward go for it.  We want to reward those good late picks but don't want teams to be able to just keep getting the benefit of one lucky pick every year so we do escalating.  We used to do "cost you a pick of 1/2 the original round, rounded up" so an 8th would cost a 4th, a 10th a 5th, and a 13th a 7th (6.5 rounded up).  So even a 16th round pick went from 8th -> 4th -> 2nd -> 1st to keep.  Solid advantage but nothing overpowering.

 
Our league allows only 3 keepers, and you can only keep 1 player on your roster 3 years (so kept twice). 

Each player is bumped up 1 round from where they were drafted: If you draft Diggs round 5, he's a 4th rounder next year, and a 3rd rounder after that, then he's a FA

I find this to be helpful because it repopulates the draft pool. The guy in our league signed DJ as a FA. he was a 14th round pick, then a 13th round pick this year. Next year he's back in the draft pool. If it was longer, or forever, then it wouldn't be fun anymore. That's a massive advantage. 

What I also find helpful is bumping up 1 draft slot. This is nice because it really helps to change the strategy. I might want to keep a guy as a 6th round pick but as a 5th round pick I'm not so sure so maybe I only keep on my roster 2 years instead of 3. 

Also, raiding the WW is crazy in our league. Once I showed that the way to win is to keep guys for the 12-14th round, not your 3rd rounder, suddenly everyone is doing it and the WW is insane every year, especially at the end of the season. 


I tend to try and keep guys who will be my RB2/WR2/even QB for late picks and then go for my studs in the first few rounds. 

 
I'm in a keep 1 - lose 2 rounds, 15 rounds and my two big options Wentz and lose the 10th round pick or Josh Gordon and lose the 13th round pick. Pretty hard to pass on a potential top 5 WR in the 13th round assuming he gets a real QB throwing to him.

 
I'm in a keep one, lose the rd the player was drafted in, can only keep 4th rd or later, can only keep one year

If you keep a player you got as a FA you give up your 12th rder. 

16 rd draft

Eta: we started this 2 yrs ago, I kept Rawls and Crowell so far. That's really worked out well for me ?

 
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I always preferred the system where to keep 1 player costs your 1st round pick.  To keep 2 costs your 1st and 2nd, etc.  You must use your own pick or better (so no trading the 2.01 for the 2.12 and something else and using 2.12 on your 2nd keeper)

Then teams who aren't as strong can at least draft players before the teams that are keeping top players, including rookies.   It also limits keepers values so you're not getting uber steals like 1st round players for 12th round picks.

Teams with more good players than the keeper limit allowed could always trade them, but the teams acquiring them should be paying very little for them.

 
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i like keeper formats that allow 2 keepers, but only allow a player to be kept one time... so you avoid someone having beckahm at a 15th round valuation for 8 years.... 

 
I always preferred the system where to keep 1 player costs your 1st round pick.  To keep 2 costs your 1st and 2nd, etc.  You must use your own pick or better (so no trading the 2.01 for the 2.12 and something else and using 2.12 on your 2nd keeper)

Then teams who aren't as strong can at least draft players before the teams that are keeping top players, including rookies.   It also limits keepers values so you're not getting uber steals like 1st round players for 12th round picks.

Teams with more good players than the keeper limit allowed could always trade them, but the teams acquiring them should be paying very little for them.
How many guys are generally kept? Game theory seems to indicate that guys towards the front of the draft should never keep anyone, while the person who won the Super Bowl may want to go 7 or 8 deep. Do you do a straight draft, or a serpentine draft (same guy picks X.01 each round?)

 
I’m in a 10 team keep 4 League.  Round drafted minus 2 each year.

 I’m loaded with about 9 potential keepers.  Wentz, Thomas, ertz, engram, juju, Dede, Collins, Dion, hogan all at great value.  

Anyone have any advice on how to trade these guys for picks???  It gets tricky to find a Trade partner because they need to 

a. Like the player

b. Need a keeper

c. Have some picks to spare

d. Agree with you on their value 

I can’t ever seem to get a fair offer

 
I’m in a 10 team keep 4 League.  Round drafted minus 2 each year.

 I’m loaded with about 9 potential keepers.  Wentz, Thomas, ertz, engram, juju, Dede, Collins, Dion, hogan all at great value.  

Anyone have any advice on how to trade these guys for picks???  It gets tricky to find a Trade partner because they need to 

a. Like the player

b. Need a keeper

c. Have some picks to spare

d. Agree with you on their value 

I can’t ever seem to get a fair offer
I have trouble trading in mine as well. I think that looking at the fairness of the trade through a dynasty or a redraft lens is the wrong way to determine what's fair.

The calculation that I think you have to use is Value = (Player Traded) - (Pick Compensation Given) - (Value of Player Not Kept Due To Acquisition) + (Draft Pick Gained From Player Not Kept). This is different than dynasty, because in dynasty you don't lose a guy (besides the roster spot to use for free agent churning) who you could keep when you acquire another. Therefore, trading Ertz for the 1.10 is only giving the opportunity cost of who you would have picked at 1.10.

In a redraft bringing in a player doesn't reduce your ability to have another player. That calculus is what makes trading so difficult and causes valuation issues between owners.

It's easy to overlook the third factor for the trader and easy to overlook the fourth factor for the tradee. In your example, say you want to trade JuJu as a 12th round keeper and you want to get a third back. I have Mike Williams (for example) who JuJu would bump as a 14th round keeper. To give you a third for JuJu, I'm really trading (14th round pick) + JuJu FOR (12th round pick) + (3rd round pick) + Mike Williams.

Maybe my example sucks, but to determine value, you have to subtract out the value of the player who would no longer be kept by your potential trade partner. That's where I find my biggest issues have been. It's also (in my experience only) a buyer's market. Guys tend to fall in love with "their" guys and it's tougher to make them move away from them.
Using Mike Williams again, it's likely that someone who drafted him last year has some level of belief in his talent and can easily persuade themselves that he will be SD #1 WR by 2019. If that's what someone believes, it's tough to get them to pay anything for a modest value bump to a guy like JuJu.
 

 
I have trouble trading in mine as well. I think that looking at the fairness of the trade through a dynasty or a redraft lens is the wrong way to determine what's fair.

The calculation that I think you have to use is Value = (Player Traded) - (Pick Compensation Given) - (Value of Player Not Kept Due To Acquisition) + (Draft Pick Gained From Player Not Kept). This is different than dynasty, because in dynasty you don't lose a guy (besides the roster spot to use for free agent churning) who you could keep when you acquire another. Therefore, trading Ertz for the 1.10 is only giving the opportunity cost of who you would have picked at 1.10.

In a redraft bringing in a player doesn't reduce your ability to have another player. That calculus is what makes trading so difficult and causes valuation issues between owners.

It's easy to overlook the third factor for the trader and easy to overlook the fourth factor for the tradee. In your example, say you want to trade JuJu as a 12th round keeper and you want to get a third back. I have Mike Williams (for example) who JuJu would bump as a 14th round keeper. To give you a third for JuJu, I'm really trading (14th round pick) + JuJu FOR (12th round pick) + (3rd round pick) + Mike Williams.

Maybe my example sucks, but to determine value, you have to subtract out the value of the player who would no longer be kept by your potential trade partner. That's where I find my biggest issues have been. It's also (in my experience only) a buyer's market. Guys tend to fall in love with "their" guys and it's tougher to make them move away from them.
Using Mike Williams again, it's likely that someone who drafted him last year has some level of belief in his talent and can easily persuade themselves that he will be SD #1 WR by 2019. If that's what someone believes, it's tough to get them to pay anything for a modest value bump to a guy like JuJu.
 
This is exactly it.  Except instead of an upside guy like mike Williams (that at least I could guess their interest in), the other team might even be planning on keeping mike Wallace or someone that I perceive as having little to no value. 

Last year, a team that I thought had no significant keepers kept rejecting my offers without counter.  He ended up keeping gillislee and ty Montgomery right around their ADP.  Apparently he was very high on those two and thus my offers weren’t worth it to him.  

We are all guilty of overvaluing our own guys, and that make these keepers for picks trades very difficult. I’d obviously prefer to keep my favorite four of the nine guys I have and deal the others but will instead have to shop all of them and deal whoever brings back fair value.  

 
How many guys are generally kept? Game theory seems to indicate that guys towards the front of the draft should never keep anyone, while the person who won the Super Bowl may want to go 7 or 8 deep. Do you do a straight draft, or a serpentine draft (same guy picks X.01 each round?)
We did keep 4, serpentine.   Draft spots were selected by teams, in order, based on a system that combined regular season and postseason performance. Teams in the championship bracket it was order of finish but with the winner of the 3rd and 5th place games selecting ahead of the losers of those games, so there's always incentive to win.  Consolation bracket teams we had a a set # of "points" based on regular season finish (more for being bad) and also for consolation bracket finish (more for winning it).  Teams could move at most 4 slots in the selection order by winning or losing the consolation bracket.

So you would try to get an early pick in the round where you'd first use the pick to select a player rather than keep one.  Because of that different people would vie for different spots which helped too.

You're not going to get a player viewed as a 1st round worthy player using your 1st, but given half of the 1st round tends to churn each year, you can go from weak to strong keepers pretty quick with a few wise picks, especially rookies. I was generally near the top of keeper strength and kept four most years, but I only did that by turning over 1-2 keepers a year for players I drafted or traded for. 

 
This is exactly it.  Except instead of an upside guy like mike Williams (that at least I could guess their interest in), the other team might even be planning on keeping mike Wallace or someone that I perceive as having little to no value. 

Last year, a team that I thought had no significant keepers kept rejecting my offers without counter.  He ended up keeping gillislee and ty Montgomery right around their ADP.  Apparently he was very high on those two and thus my offers weren’t worth it to him.  

We are all guilty of overvaluing our own guys, and that make these keepers for picks trades very difficult. I’d obviously prefer to keep my favorite four of the nine guys I have and deal the others but will instead have to shop all of them and deal whoever brings back fair value.  
Do you have any potential targets already in mind? Trading goes in a flurry in my league starting about a week before our keeper deadline (Friday before the draft). Last year I added Keenan Allen for 5.07 and Nelly Agohlor. 5.07 turned into Danny Woodhead, so the depressed value certainly helps when you are a buyer.

 
Do you have any potential targets already in mind? Trading goes in a flurry in my league starting about a week before our keeper deadline (Friday before the draft). Last year I added Keenan Allen for 5.07 and Nelly Agohlor. 5.07 turned into Danny Woodhead, so the depressed value certainly helps when you are a buyer.
I’m just after picks.  I traded away picks in round 5-8 for guys like golden Tate and Jarvis Landry in a failed effort at a championship run. 

Keepers aren’t due until August.  No one in my league really trades for keepers until things are more settled.  I should be able to move wentz for a haul (philly league) but I doubt anyone takes on the risk of sitting him half a season.

perhaps I should be trying to move 2 or 3 keepers for one stronger keeper and leave the picks out of it.

Might see what the kamara (costs an 8th) owner would want in return.  I’d give Michael Thomas (costs a 4th) plus ertz (6th). That might be light.

 
I’m just after picks.  I traded away picks in round 5-8 for guys like golden Tate and Jarvis Landry in a failed effort at a championship run. 

Keepers aren’t due until August.  No one in my league really trades for keepers until things are more settled.  I should be able to move wentz for a haul (philly league) but I doubt anyone takes on the risk of sitting him half a season.

perhaps I should be trying to move 2 or 3 keepers for one stronger keeper and leave the picks out of it.

Might see what the kamara (costs an 8th) owner would want in return.  I’d give Michael Thomas (costs a 4th) plus ertz (6th). That might be light.
Feels light to me as well, but would need to know what else he has on his rooster to see who he'd be dropping for Ertz.

So, if you acquire a guy during the year, you can't keep him?

 
Feels light to me as well, but would need to know what else he has on his rooster to see who he'd be dropping for Ertz.

So, if you acquire a guy during the year, you can't keep him?
The rule for free agents is ADP plus 2.  So if you picked up agholar, and his ADP is r7, you can keep him for a 9.  I hate that rule, should be at ADP tops because you already got use of the FA all season plus the draft is already watered down by the 40 keepers

 
We have a salary cap league- 18 roster spots/10 teams/$165 auction cap.

You can keep up to four players. Each player kept goes up $4 per year kept. No limit to number of years kept.

As an example, Julio Jones at $26 in 2015 would be $30 in 2016 and $34 in 2017.

We like it because you can build a core but also can recover more quickly from a down season. 

I've done dynasty and if you have a bad start up draft, it feels like forever before you are competitive. 

 
We have a salary cap league- 18 roster spots/10 teams/$165 auction cap.

You can keep up to four players. Each player kept goes up $4 per year kept. No limit to number of years kept.

As an example, Julio Jones at $26 in 2015 would be $30 in 2016 and $34 in 2017.

We like it because you can build a core but also can recover more quickly from a down season. 

I've done dynasty and if you have a bad start up draft, it feels like forever before you are competitive. 
We've got a similar setup. Auction league ($200) where you can keep a player at last year's auction price +$8. Awards you for a couple of years when you can unearth a gem but also steep enough that it allows for turnover of players. If you can unearth somebody like Kamara this year for $1 you have a potential stud RB for 5-6 years. If a player wasn't selected at the auction he is assigned a value of $2.

I'm trying to decide this week on picking up either of these 4 RBs:

D'Onta Foreman

Rex Burkhead

James Conner

Devonte Booker

Only have room for one of the 4. How would you rank them?

 
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KingPrawn said:
We've got a similar setup. Auction league ($200) where you can keep a player at last year's auction price +$8. Awards you for a couple of years when you can unearth a gem but also steep enough that it allows for turnover of players. If you can unearth somebody like Kamara this year for $1 you have a potential stud RB for 5-6 years. If a player wasn't selected at the auction he is assigned a value of $2.

I'm trying to decide this week on picking up either of these 4 RBs:

Donta Freeman

Rex Burkhead

James Conner

Devonte Booker

Only have room for one of the 4. How would you rank them?
Assuming the first guy is D'Onta Foreman, he's the one I would add. Texans have an out on Miller and I could see them using it if Foreman is healthy. Think he's the only one on your list that could go into 2018 as a #1 RB, though it is anything but guaranteed.

 
Assuming the first guy is D'Onta Foreman, he's the one I would add. Texans have an out on Miller and I could see them using it if Foreman is healthy. Think he's the only one on your list that could go into 2018 as a #1 RB, though it is anything but guaranteed.
Sorry my bad. Yes meant Foreman. Thanks

 
KingPrawn said:
We've got a similar setup. Auction league ($200) where you can keep a player at last year's auction price +$8. Awards you for a couple of years when you can unearth a gem but also steep enough that it allows for turnover of players. If you can unearth somebody like Kamara this year for $1 you have a potential stud RB for 5-6 years. If a player wasn't selected at the auction he is assigned a value of $2.

I'm trying to decide this week on picking up either of these 4 RBs:

D'Onta Foreman

Rex Burkhead

James Conner

Devonte Booker

Only have room for one of the 4. How would you rank them?


My format is similar to this. $200 auction budget, can keep as many as you want. Salaries inflate by 30% or $3, whichever is greater. If you claim a player using FAAB, their keeper price is based on the amount of the FAAB bid, or their original auction price (whichever is higher).

A few examples:

Julio Jones - kept for $45 this year, would be $58 to keep next year ($45 x 1.3 = 58.5, rounded down)

Dede Westbrook - picked up for free, so his price is $3 ($0 + $3 inflation)

Robert Woods - picked up with a $7 FAAB bid, so his price is $10 ($7 + $3 inflation)

Keenan Allen - kept for $12 last year, so his price is $16 ($12 x 1.3 = 15.6, rounded up)

We also have a rookie draft with pre-determined prices slotted. The four non-playoff teams are in a lottery for the top 4 picks (so no incentive to tank), and the prices are as follows:

1st round: $16, $15, $14, $13, $12, $11, $10, $9, $9, $9

2nd round: $7, $7, $7, $7, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6

3rd round: all picks are $3

You aren't required to keep your rookies, and if you throw the rookie back they are available in the auction with the other unkept players (where they could end up going for more or less depending on demand). 

In this format we've had a few owners get very lucky with extremely underpriced studs. We've only had the rookie draft for 2 years, but that's been really successful at establishing solid values for the influx of talent each year and preventing a bunch of incredible bargains at the end of the auction. Before we had the rookie draft, Odell was a free agent pickup, for example, so he's just now getting out of the single digits. Now the owners in the league are much sharper about bidding up and/or stashing high upside players, giving it more of a dynasty feel, with the added bonus of some forced turnover due to inflation. 

 
Salary cap league with contracts.  Players on contract do not escalate and if you don't keep them you take the full cap hit of the remaining contract value.  If a player is in the last year of his contract you can still keep them but the salary goes up based on their finish in relation to this position.  The top 15 scorers at every position escalate at various levels.  Top 5 are $15 or the average of the top 5 salaries at that position  (whichever is more), 6 thru 10 go up $10, and 11 thru 15 go up  $5.

This way players salaries go up based on actual performance rather than some random multiplier regardless of performance.  

It has worked well

 
There was a question posted in the AC forum that I was thinking about that I think illustrates what might be an area for me to improve my keeping. @NREC34

I can keep 3. David Johnson and Antonio Brown are pretty much set in stone. It’s a league where qbs score a lot and it’s important to have a good one. But it’s only a one qb start league. 

So who would you guys go with of those 2? (Watson and Garappolo) I also have Mariota on my roster but at this point I’m probably done with him. 
It came out that this was a keeper league where the keepers go off the top of the draft and that if less than 3 are kept the first pick is in the third round, if 3 are kept, then the pick is in the 4th.

I know that my league (and myself personally) have been guilty of getting to attached to a guy and keeping someone in a round that didn't offer much, if any, pick equity.
For instance, one year Peyton Manning was kept with pick 1.01. At worst, Peyton could have been redrafted and anyone else could have been kept.

How are you determining pick equity in your leagues? Do you try to mock all keepers and see where yours would be drafted? In the above example, I wonder if someone would be tossed that might be more valuable (or if Barkley would be more valuable) than the QBs.

 
How are you determining pick equity in your leagues? Do you try to mock all keepers and see where yours would be drafted? In the above example, I wonder if someone would be tossed that might be more valuable (or if Barkley would be more valuable) than the QBs.
This is really the crux of any thought process for keepers.  When you are dealing with a situation like the AC forum example you really need to get a feel for what players will be kept and see where your 3rd round pick would fall.  If there are players available that you prefer over your 3rd keeper then by all means you should let that guy go and open up your 3rd round pick.  Worst case scenario is the guy you would have kept is available (and better than the other available choices) and you end up just taking the player you could have kept.  Nothing lost but you had the option to go a different direction if you wanted to.

In your Manning example that guy was just not very smart unless you didn't know what pick you had at the time that the keepers had to be announced.  Anytime you have pick 1.01 you should never keep a player that cost you a 1st round pick.  Worst case scenario you just draft that guy but you get to keep someone else.  In general I wouldn't keep a player with a 1st round cost unless I am at the back end of the 1st round and the player in question is a consensus top 2 or 3 player.  Generally you don't get any value in keeping a guy with a first round cost and it ties your hands in case someone were to fall to you in the first round that is a better choice. 

 
In general I wouldn't keep a player with a 1st round cost unless I am at the back end of the 1st round and the player in question is a consensus top 2 or 3 player.  Generally you don't get any value in keeping a guy with a first round cost and it ties your hands in case someone were to fall to you in the first round that is a better choice. 
Trying to put together a package with some of the guys I have to cut loose to get up to 1.01 this year. Would either give me a chance to repick Fournette or draft Barkley.

I started thinking about guys I would keep over 1.0X picks. This would change a little bit based on number of keepers. As the number of keepers goes up, the value of the player not kept to keep a guy goes down. If I have Gurley(1), Ingram(4), Cook(5), Adams(7), Hill(9), Diggs(8) and Olsen(6), the cost of keeping Gurley @ 1.02 in a keep 2 (foregoing Adams/Cook) is much different than in a keep 5 (foregoing Olsen/Diggs).

The basic math I have is (VoRP of Player Kept + VoRP of pick of player not kept) > (VoRP of player not kept + VoRP of pick of player kept) AND VORP of Player Kept > VoRP of pick of player kept.

I think my math breaks down at lower and higher values though. In the above example, say the 1.02 can either be Barkley or Gurley. If Gurley is kept, Diggs is thrown back with a VBD of 20 points, but a VoRP (WR in the 8th round in a 3WR league) of 30 points. Is it correct to keep Gurley if Gurley projects 20 points better than Barkley, or 30? If VBD is used, no player that is below the baseline starter will ever look worthy of being kept. However some of these players obviously have value (Kupp in the 18th round for example). But if VoRP is used, I think mediocre players who are late round keepers start to look too attractive. (Kupp may be 75 points better than a random 18th round WR, but may not provide any VBD advantage).

Where am I wrong and how should I combine VoRP and VBD?

 
I have an auction league where you keep anyone at +5 their prior year draft/WW value.  I play in another league that is just a keep 4.  Have played in other keeper types over the years.

I think it is important to remember 3 things when trying to value players in these odd formats:

  1. Each league is different.  Looking at rankings is just a way of understanding how players are generally valued.  It will never be perfectly applicable to you.
  2. Leagues are won with studs so prioritize strategies that allow you acquire as many as possible.  Don't be afraid to take a young potential stud earlier than others to secure him. 
  3. Study your league mates and their tendencies.  Know whether players will undervalue studs or wait on a QB or etc.  People don't change, particularly when drafts involve alcohol
 
Trying to put together a package with some of the guys I have to cut loose to get up to 1.01 this year. Would either give me a chance to repick Fournette or draft Barkley.

I started thinking about guys I would keep over 1.0X picks. This would change a little bit based on number of keepers. As the number of keepers goes up, the value of the player not kept to keep a guy goes down. If I have Gurley(1), Ingram(4), Cook(5), Adams(7), Hill(9), Diggs(8) and Olsen(6), the cost of keeping Gurley @ 1.02 in a keep 2 (foregoing Adams/Cook) is much different than in a keep 5 (foregoing Olsen/Diggs).

The basic math I have is (VoRP of Player Kept + VoRP of pick of player not kept) > (VoRP of player not kept + VoRP of pick of player kept) AND VORP of Player Kept > VoRP of pick of player kept.

I think my math breaks down at lower and higher values though. In the above example, say the 1.02 can either be Barkley or Gurley. If Gurley is kept, Diggs is thrown back with a VBD of 20 points, but a VoRP (WR in the 8th round in a 3WR league) of 30 points. Is it correct to keep Gurley if Gurley projects 20 points better than Barkley, or 30? If VBD is used, no player that is below the baseline starter will ever look worthy of being kept. However some of these players obviously have value (Kupp in the 18th round for example). But if VoRP is used, I think mediocre players who are late round keepers start to look too attractive. (Kupp may be 75 points better than a random 18th round WR, but may not provide any VBD advantage).

Where am I wrong and how should I combine VoRP and VBD?
I don't necessarily think you are wrong but pure statistical evaluations falter some in that performance is completely unknown.   We are all guessing as to what Gurley will do next year.  He gets ranked and a projected score is placed on him and then everything is calculated based on these projections and VBD value. 

I agree that keeper strategy is greatly dependent upon how many you can keep.  In leagues with only one keeper I think it is generally a good idea to keep the best player almost regardless of value with the caveat to that being a high first round pick.   Freezing someone like Kupp with an 18th round cost over someone like Gurley really won't move the needle in the long run.  It almost always better to keep Gurley because you can always find players like Kupp throughout the draft.

However, if you are keeping 5 or more then you start to gain more advantage with the better value picks.  This of course depends on the availability of studs at the top end of the draft.  This holds more for situations where you lose the specific round drafted instead of first 5 rounds. 

Bottom line is that I usually like to keep players that have a decent round value that I think will be difference makers.  General projections and ADP sometimes don't match evaluations so that may be where your model is missing.

 
Question - if you draft say Antonio Brown in round 7 his rookie year.

He is always round 7 forever?

Or do you have an escalating system - each year you keep him is 1 round higher (that is how we did it)
Our league has a Max of 3 years you can have a guy. The year you draft him and keep him 2 times after that. If you trade a guy though to another team, that new owner gets a maximum of 2 times to keep the player at that draft position. There's then a year cool down. Meaning you can't keep a guy for a full season after you've kept him for the max amount of time.

So A brown drafted in the 7th in 2012, kept on 13 and 14 for a 7th. Can draft him in 15 at wherever you can get him (presumably 1st) can't keep him for 16 though. 

It's worked for us to reward guys for making good finds but not getting exclusive rights forever on a guy. Best one I ever got was Arian Foster for a 9th. Got the 3 best years of his career.

 
Our league has a Max of 3 years you can have a guy. The year you draft him and keep him 2 times after that. If you trade a guy though to another team, that new owner gets a maximum of 2 times to keep the player at that draft position. There's then a year cool down. Meaning you can't keep a guy for a full season after you've kept him for the max amount of time.

So A brown drafted in the 7th in 2012, kept on 13 and 14 for a 7th. Can draft him in 15 at wherever you can get him (presumably 1st) can't keep him for 16 though. 

It's worked for us to reward guys for making good finds but not getting exclusive rights forever on a guy. Best one I ever got was Arian Foster for a 9th. Got the 3 best years of his career.
If he goes back into the draft after three years it doesn't seem right that you can't keep him if you happen to get in the draft the following year (4th year).  Theoretically every team could have drafted him that year so it isn't "exclusive" rights.  If you miss him in the 4th year but he goes back into the draft for the 5th year can you keep him for three more after that?

 
If he goes back into the draft after three years it doesn't seem right that you can't keep him if you happen to get in the draft the following year (4th year).  Theoretically every team could have drafted him that year so it isn't "exclusive" rights.  If you miss him in the 4th year but he goes back into the draft for the 5th year can you keep him for three more after that?
It's been brought up but we've never voted out the cool down year. Could go either way on it.

 
Could you trade back? Team A gets a guy for two years, trades to Team B for two years who then trades back to Team A?
Yes. Being as that would have been 2 years that team A didn't have the player. Obviously that sounds like an area where collusion could occur but if teams are just managing their rosters how they see fit, then so be it.

 
I have a question for anyone who can help. My fantasy league is a 2 player keeper league and the question I have been asked is what to do if a player was acquired off free agency and turns out that's one of the keeper pick, but was never drafted, how do you handle the losing that draft round they were picked in if they weren't drafted originally? Any solutions? 

 

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