Creating a Keeper League

[MaggsIsMint]

that's why i suggested something along the lines of the keeper value earlier. but if you wanted to keep your current system, i'd make a rule that someone is considered to have been drafted two rounds earlier every year they're kept. so weeks in the 8th counts as an 8th round keeper this year, 6th rounder next year, 4th the next, etc.

We do something like this in the N.H.L. draft that I run.

Nobody can keep players picked in the top 3 rounds so that stars come back into the draft. And then players value who are picked rounds 4-16 increase more and more each year.

For example, a player picked in the 8th round moves up in value by 1 round then next year, 2 the year after that, 3 the year after that etc.

So if he was originally drafted as a 8th rounder in '05 he is:
7th rounder in '06
5th rounder in '07
2nd rounder in '08

You can keep him until his value moves past the #1 spot on your team. You can only keep a max of 4 players from the previous year.

Just a rough idea of how we structured our league ...

[jsphlly]

You can keep him until his value moves past the #1 spot on your team. You can only keep a max of 4 players from the previous year.

So you can keep a player until he is essentially a "round 0" pick?

I assume their status carries through trades?

[Matthias]

Nobody can keep players picked in the top 3 rounds so that stars come back into the draft. And then players value who are picked rounds 4-16 increase more and more each year.

For example, a player picked in the 8th round moves up in value by 1 round then next year, 2 the year after that, 3 the year after that etc.

So if he was originally drafted as a 8th rounder in '05 he is:
7th rounder in '06
5th rounder in '07
2nd rounder in '08

You can keep him until his value moves past the #1 spot on your team. You can only keep a max of 4 players from the previous year.

Just a rough idea of how we structured our league ...

I also like the increasing values so that someone can't sit forever on a player they happened onto super late while still keeping value for mid-round diamonds in the rough for a season or two. I'm starting an auction league this season where keepers escalate $3, $5, $10, $10, $10, etc., each year that they're kept.

At the end of the day, what you really want is a system that rewards someone more for choosing Derek Lee in the 4th last year than Albert Pujols in the 1st. And incentives such that eventually, someone will voluntarily release Albert Pujols in favor of other players rather than an inflexible rule that you get them for 3 years and then they're done (although the redrafting the top 3 rounds is a nice way to deal with it as well).

Another twist is to make waiver-wire pickups count as a higher value than late round draft picks. The logic there is that it rewards more players who think ahead and draft well rather than simply see that Huston Street got promoted mid-season and being the first one to your PC.

Trust me: some of these things sound like extra work, but your players will all be acutely aware of their player statuses if you lay out in advance how it's going to work. And a simple spreadsheet, or even just a Word document, will be all that you'll need.

p.s. My brother is in a keeper football league where they get to keep 6, and I can't see how it's really interesting for everyone else. We've won the regular season each of the 3 years and our 6 keepers are: Tory Holt, Terrell Owens, Larry Fitzgerald, Lamont Jordan, Rudi Johnson, and Antonio Gates. Granted, we've had some movement, trading away Priest Holmes for Lamont last season and dropping an RB after the emergence of Fitz, but is anyone else in the league ever going to own Gates? Not a chance. And the majority of teams don't have much better odds of ever seeing the playoffs. The league is just boring, really.