When to declare who you're keeping...

[bartman]

Hey,
This is the first year that we will be declaring keepers for our league. My question is this: When should that be? I suggested that it be mid February, but 2 others in the league thought that late March would be better.
From your experience with keeper leagues, what is the norm?

Thanks for any help.

[Chiefscards]

We set our deadline for Feb 20th. Activity in our league usually starts up in late Dec, so by that time pretty much everyone has done all their trading. That also gives us plenty of time to conduct a slow draft without rushing to get done by the start of the season.

[GotowarMissAgnes]

We actually declare keepers in the fall, but allow each team one alternate which can be used in case of injury. The earlier you require keepers, the easier it is to plan for a draft.

[Grouperman941]

My league declares keepers by March 1st, at which point no transactions are allowed until after the draft, which is the second or third week in March.

I would rather make the keeper date a little later,maybe a week beforethe draft, but lots of guys want that time to prep for the draft in light of the keepers.

Apparently, they don't spend all winter on it. Losers.

[Jivedude]

Mid March

[DominicanLou]

We declared keepers two days ago.

[crapshooter]

We always try to have our draft the weekend after the season opens. We will always set our freeze date approximately a week prior to that.

[Garry26]

Im about done listing peoples teams and player prices on our league forums. I told my league when I was done we'd start listing keepers. A couple of people started doing it ahead of time anyway. When it comes to keepers leagues, it all depends on when the league owners start showing up again, when your ready to start drafting, whether its an auction draft or straight draft, and if its a slow draft.

Our league is a slow auction draft. Due to a horrendous experience with chat, we do it on our own boards. So its slower than a regular slow straight draft because auction drafts involve a bidding process. Each round takes a few days so it takes a while.

Im hopeful that I can have people listing keepers in a few days and start the league auction draft in mid-late february.

[ukjohn]

we declare our keepers in the next week or so...Draft is in mid-March

[mcqfesijiba]

Usually for my leagues, we declare about a month and a half or so before the season and the rest of the time in between declaring keepers and the season is spent on a slow offline Yahoo Group board draft. Live drafts for us are impossible, because we could never get everyone together. As long as your keepers are declared before the draft, there shouldn't be any problems.