Input On Keeper Rules

[BrettCB]

Hey everyone... First year doing a keeper league and we are drawing up some rules that we can use in our league. This league is pretty competitive and we have always done a redraft until now. So, as of right now these are the rules we are looking at. If you guys and let me know how they look it would be much appreciated. Thanks for any help you can give.

Each owner will be allowed to keep up to five players from their current roster at the end of the season.

In order to retain a player the owner will be forced to use a draft pick to keep each player. The draft pick will be calculated by using the draft round the player was chosen in from the previous year and then adding a penalty depending on the round drafted. This is to ensure parity throughout the league.

Example:

Victor Martinez was drafted by Team 1 in the fifth round of the 2008 Draft. This would put V. Martinez in the first tier of draft penalties resulting in a 1 round increase. In order to keep V. Martinez this owner would be forced to give up their 4th round draft pick for the 2009 season.

Draft pick penalties are calculated according to the round a particular player was chosen in during the previous years draft. The lower the draft pick the higher the penalty. This is to ensure parity throughout the league and keep a high turnover rate of quality players in the draft pool.

Tier Explanation:

Draft Rounds 1-5: Penalty of one round.

Draft Rounds 6-11: Penalty of two rounds.

Draft Rounds 12-23: Penalty of three rounds.


Examples:

Player 1 was drafted in the 6th round of the 2008 Draft. Player 1 would now be considered a 4th round draft choice for the 2009 Draft.

Player 2 was drafted in the 12th round of the 2008 Draft. Player 2 would now be considered a 9th round draft choice for the 2009 Draft.

In the event an owner keeps multiple players from the same round, whether acquired through trades or free agent pick-ups, they would then be forced to give-up the original draft pick along with the preceding draft pick. If the two players equal a first round draft pick then the penalized round would be the next highest draft pick.

Example:

Victor Martinez was draft by Team 1 in the fifth round of the 2008 Draft. In order to keep V. Martinez this owner would be forced to give up their 4th round draft pick for the 2009 season. This owner also acquired Carlos Delgado, drafted in the fifth round in the 2008 draft by the previous owner, through a trade during the regular season. This means Team 1 would be forced to give up a 4th round draft pick to keep C. Delgado. However, since the owner is keeping V. Martinez this means the 2nd round draft pick is already used, therefore if Team 1 wanted to keep both C. Delgado & V. Martinez they would then be forced to give up their 3rd and 4th round draft picks.

If an owner decided to keep a player for multiple seasons the draft penalty would continue to increase each season. This penalty would increase as the player enters new tiers according to draft round.

Example:

Ryan Braun was draft by Team 1 in the twentieth round of the 2008 Draft. In order to keep R. Braun this owner would be forced to give up their 16th round draft pick for the 2009 season. At the conclusion of the 2009 season this owner decides to keep R. Braun again. R. Braun is now a 16th round draft choice which qualifies him as a Tier 3 player. This means a penalty of an additional three rounds would be required to keep this player. So now, R. Braun would cost the owner their 13th round draft pick.


A player can only be kept for a maximum of three seasons by one individual owner. This is to retain parity throughout the league and keep a steady turnover of quality players in the draft pool. In the event a player is traded to a new owner that player would then be eligible as a keeper for three more seasons for the new owner.


When players are traded or acquired through free agency they will retain their draft position from the previous year. In the event a player is acquired who wasn’t drafted the previous year they will be given the highest draft round available from the previous season.

[Matthias]

Looks like a pretty well thought-out system except for this...

In the event a player is traded to a new owner that player would then be eligible as a keeper for three more seasons for the new owner.

[Grouperman941]

Looks like a pretty well thought-out system except for this...

In the event a player is traded to a new owner that player would then be eligible as a keeper for three more seasons for the new owner.

Yep. That is a major loophole. The draft round needs to stay with the player.

[BrettCB]

Thanks for the input guys.

In the event a player is traded to a new owner that player would then be eligible as a keeper for three more seasons for the new owner.

Both of you sited this as a problem. The reason I included this was to allow the owner of a player to get value out of them instead of just being forced to put them back in the Free Agent pool for next years draft. After thinking about it I can see how this would cause an effect of basically never seeing the top tier players ever being thrown back into the draft as they would always be traded in their last year.

With that in mind, do you propose I make a rule where that player keeps the three year limit no matter where he is? Or are you suggesting the opposite and think I should do away with the keeper limit all together?

[Matthias]

Either solution is fine, but if you didn't have 3-year limits, then you would have to significantly increase your round penalties as someone drafted in the 20th round would never get up to the 1st round through a normal playing career... or at least during their peak. So rather than start changing everything around, I'd leave everything else the same and stipulate that when a player is traded, the number of years they have left as a keeper is traded along with them.