Expansion Ideas for Existing League

[markgrebowsky]

Our league had a couple of dropouts(3) in the days leading up to last seasons auction so we had to contract a couple of teams.

This season we're trying to expand up to 15 teams and are trying to work out a plan for an expansion draft.

Anyone gone through this before and what sort of plan did you use?

[Trojan Pony]

Is it a dynasty league? Do you have keepers? I'm assuming so. Otherwise, why couldn't they just draft with everyone else? If you could provide a few more details on the format of the league, I might be able to help you.

[markgrebowsky]

It's an auction keeper league entering it's 7th season.

No contracts - all players salaries increase $5 per season
Unlimited keepers as long as you stay under the cap during the auction.

I agree that the expansion teams probably won't need much help to be competitive since they'll most likely have more money to spend at the auction and should scoop up the first few big name players.

[Trojan Pony]

OK, gotcha. Unfortunately I don't have much experience with auction leagues. But in general, I would suggest having a set number of auction rounds for just the expansion teams and allow them to bid on any players not kept by the existing teams. Then, after the expansion auction, open it up to all teams. Does that make sense? Sorry I couldn't be of more help...not my forte.

[baizboll]

Expansion teams in the auction leagues that I was in just had the whole $260 to spend. There was no such thing as an "expansion draft" ... it's an auction of the available players.

[Eagle Baseball]

I think you should give the expansion teams the ability to pick the average # of keepers the other teams keep at last years price. The non expansion teams are keeping players at a price that is likely less than their current auction price so to keep a competitive balance the expansion teams should have a few guys underpriced.

[Matthias]

I would do more than just give them their money to spend. In auction drafts, keepers are all about retained value (amount under the keeper price that someone can be kept for). There's a couple of ways to handle this fairly.
1) Figure out the average retained value of the existing keepers and add that to the auction budget for the new guys this year.
2) Do an expansion draft. All existing teams protect a keeper. First expansion team selects a keeper from a team. That team then gets to announce another protected keeper. Do that for the other two teams. And so on and so on until you have your number of keepers.
3) Do an expansion draft off of players from last year without the $5 escalation built in. Let the expansion teams select from the guys not kept and go from there.

There's probably other ways but those are the ones that immediately jump to mind.

[Fantasia]

When we had an expansion, we had a special "expansion draft". We were only expanding one team from a ten team league. Each team submitted a "special freeze list" as soon as we had the expansion owner identified. Each team protected 8 players. The expansion owner then got to pick ONE, and ONLY ONE of the unprotected players from each team (contracts and salaries were the same). After a team lost it's one player, it got back ALL of the rest of their unprotected players. Withe extra expansion, you might have each team that loses an unprotected player, gets to pull one back before the next round. This way, our expansion team had some decent players at some decent prices, and was able to package two in a trade for a better player. It worked well for us.

[Justin]

in a keeper league this is what you should do:

Say you keep 7 players. when there is an expansion team, all teams get to only pick 5 players so there is an extra 20 or so players left on the draft board, then give the new team owner first pick in the draft and he will have first pick at a better slot of players.

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