Ironing out new Keeper League ideas

[rib217]

Thank you all who have given your opinions in the past. I am hoping to change my league from straight roto redraft to some form of a keeper league to keep teams interested throughout the year.
I do need help with some of the details and any other thoughts on my plan so far.

First we would have random draft for 2010, then starting in 2011:
1st choice: 7th place finisher
2nd choice: 8th
3rd choice: 9th
4th choice: 10th
5th choice: 11th
6th choice: 12th
7th choice: 6th
8th choice: 5th
9th choice: 4th
10th choice: 3rd
11th choice: 2nd
12th choice: 1st

Thoughts/opinions on this draft strategy? Give the bottom guys something to fight for.

Now for the Keeper aspect of the league: At the beginning of every year you are alotted 5 Keeper pts, you may use these points however you like.

Players drafted in:
Rds 1-2 are 5 point value
Rds 3-5 are 4 point value
Rds 6-9 are 3 point value
Rds 10-14 are 2 point value
Rds 15 and up are 1 point value

What are the pros/cons you see in this system? Would the league remain competitive?
How would this affect the draft the next year? If one team only keeps one guy and another keeps three, Can the commish automatically assign those players to the roster before the draft and one team just has less picks? (Yahoo league)

Do you think keepers should count as draft choices in some way? Also Should the 1st place finisher recieve some kind of bonus keeper point or something? ( we have no cash payouts)

Any of your overall thoughts or opinions would be appreciated, Thanks

[fast dogs]

Isn't almost everyone going to just keep their 1st or 2nd rounder? I'd think that system would be better if you don't allow them to keep their 1st rounder, maybe 1st or 2nd rounder

[rib217]

Isn't almost everyone going to just keep their 1st or 2nd rounder? I'd think that system would be better if you don't allow them to keep their 1st rounder, maybe 1st or 2nd rounder

I guess that may be a problem but i thought making them your only keeper could deter people from doing that.

Last year I drafted Miggy 1st. Could keep him for all 5 pts or could possibly keep a combination of:
Tommy Hanson for 1pt; Chris Carpenter for 1pt; Greinke for 2pts; Pablo Sandoval 1pt; H. Matsui 1pt; Mark Reynolds 1pt; Adam Jones would go for 1pt

and still have my 1st rd pick, But do you think most people will just go with a 1st/2nd rd stud opposed to keeping some young bats with potential?

[bigmck]

You are making this too complicated. Don't draft players with a whole bunch of complicated rules. Use an Auction. Each Owner gets $260 to bid with and you can keep a certain number of players each year. No muss, no fuss

[rib217]

You are making this too complicated. Don't draft players with a whole bunch of complicated rules. Use an Auction. Each Owner gets $260 to bid with and you can keep a certain number of players each year. No muss, no fuss

While i think the Auction is a solid option, i'm not sure it would work with our league. I'm guessing an Auction is a pretty lengthy process and we have players spread in three different states now

[fast dogs]

An auction league is a totally different animal, and yes they do take many more hours to complete.The 1 part of my keeper leagues I really like is being able to trade draft picks for improved keepers in the offseason trading. The problem almost every keeper league has is getting the teams with the worst keepers to come back & play the following years. This has proven to be a terrific way for bad teams to basically be able to rebuild in one offseason. We give the last place team the first pick rather than the 6th choice like you are considering; you just have to be sure teams aren't tanking at the end of the year. We make it very clear they have to keep putting their best squads out there every week & in 6 years haven't had problems that way. We go so far as doing reverse standings for the 1st 4 rounds of the following draft, so the worst team gets the 1st pick in each of the first 4 rounds. Very often they will trade 2 or 3 of their picks to teams with too many viable keepers in exchange they get much improved set of keepers to begine the year with. Something most commish's don't really think about in starting a keeper league is you really want the bottom teams to have a legit chance to at least compete the following year.The top squads will come back every year, its the bottom teams that drop out of keeper leagues. Then you find yourself advertising teams available for a new owner, and often times that team is aweful & that owner drops out again the following season again. To me, the strength of a keeper league as a whole isn't measured by the good teams, you gauge it by the weakest links. Some teams are going to make bad decisions & have bad luck one season, giving them a real chance to rebound really aids a keeper league

[Bloody Sox]

My two cents... it sounds like your league makeup might be similar to my main money league - we have a wide variety of skill level and people are spread out all over the place. Given that, I think you are on the right track. Here is how we implemented our system:

We had many managers who did not want the super-star players being kept year after year, so we wanted a system to promote turnover. So what we did was to make teams forfeit draft picks to keep a player - the picks that you forfeit are based on where a player was drafted or kept the year before. We allow teams to keep 4 players, and each player can be kept by forfeiting a draft pick 4 rounds higher than where they were drafted/kept the year before. An example: I draft Josh Hamilton in Round 11 in Year 1, I can keep him by forfeiting a 7th round pick in Year 2, I can keep him again by forfeiting a 3rd round pick in Year 3, and I cannot keep him after that.

This system has worked out really well for us. It rewards you for finding those diamonds in the rough in the later rounds of your draft but also makes you think about the true value of the higher end players - using my example above, Josh Hamilton was a steal for me because he was 1st-2nd round value but I only had to use a 7th round pick to get him. This year will be a much tougher call.

Also, on your draft pick system, we do the exact same thing - the 5th-12th place finishers get the 1st-8th picks, with the top 4 teams (who finish in the money) getting picks 9-12 in reverse order.