Squish (268)
E-roc (127)
Shirley (66)
Jeff (53)
Tommy (53)
Mal (51)
Ken (44)
Amir (40)
TJ (29)
Brandon and I are in a keeper league that got its start in the ’06 season. I’m the commish, and I’ve been pretty happy with the system we have in place for keepers. It’s relatively conservative, it’s fair, and it rewards good judgment on player potential while not going so far as to slam the door shut on teams who didn’t make the best keeper decisions the previous season. The system we use is after the jump, and after using it for two seasons, I feel comfortable recommending it.
But that doesn’t mean I think it’s necessarily the best system in the world. I’d love to try something a little more extreme – something with few limits on how many players I can keep, and how long I can keep them. That, to me, would be the epitome of the keeper league concept. Really, I’m just curious to hear about any system you’ve tried and liked. If you’d be so kind as to share, please do so in the comments.
I don’t recall where we got the original set of keeper rules that we based our system on, but the basic idea of it has stayed the same: You can keep up to three players from one season to the next, and you can keep any one player for no longer than three seasons in a row. Other details:
- Any players drafted in rounds 1 – 3 of the previous year cannot be keepers. Obviously, this is to keep the Westbrooks and LTs of the world from making one or two teams into unstoppable league royalty.
- For each player you keep, you must give up a draft pick 2 rounds higher than the player’s draft position the year before. So let’s say you took Wes Welker in the 12th round last season. This season, you’d have to give up your 10th-round pick in order to keep him. So the question is: Is he worth a 10th-round pick now? (In Welker’s case, I think you know the answer – and so does his owner in our league, the bastard).
- Players you got via free agency count as 14th-round picks, so if you’re keeping one you give up your 12th-round pick. If you’re keeping two, you also give up your 11th-rounder, and so on.
- Players you got via waivers or trades maintain their draft position – so if another owner drafted Jamal Lewis in the 5th round and then traded him to you mid-season (then watched in horror as he became an elite back in the second half), you will need to give up your 3rd-round pick in order to keep him. An example for waivers: Let’s say another owner drafted Eli Manning in the 8th round, then dropped him after his string of mediocre statistical performances in the first half, and you grabbed him up off waivers because you’re a big ugly stupid Giants fan who smells bad. You’ll need to give up your 6th-round pick to keep your man-crush on your fantasy team.
- Draft order: While some keeper leagues try and mess around with this based on where you picked or what place you came in the previous season, we decided as a league that we didn’t really see the point. We just pick the draft order randomly using our NY Lotto system, which I’ll get around to describing here someday.
That’s about it. I’ve seen similar leagues out there so I know I’m not breaking any new ground here; just wanted to share what works for us. If you’d like to do the same, please do so in the comments. Thanks.
Doug Darroch 3:57 pm on 4/23/2008 Permalink |
Best keeper league strategy:
In my opinion the 1st thing you have to do is go to an auction format. Then after the auction you can sign your players for 1, 2 or 3 years for the amount they went for in the auction (with a salary cap). This will take the level of strategy in your league to a whole new level. All of the elite players will be in the auction at least every few years, and most owners will be afraid to sign the players with a big contract for more than 1 year in case they’re a bust or have a major injury.
Mike Wells 11:04 pm on 12/26/2009 Permalink |
I would like to start a keeper league next season, but I would like some rules to start with. Can you email me your constitution?
Keeper league resources: The Fantasy Football Geek Blog 6:36 pm on 6/01/2008 Permalink |
[...] Our suggested ruleset for a standard keeper league. This is the setup that Brandon and I use in the league I commish. It’s a conservative, fair setup which rewards smart keeper decisions while still preventing any one team from achieving permanent crushing dominance. We allow each owner to keep up to three players from the previous season, as long as they were drafted after round 3. [...]
TomBrooklyn 5:53 pm on 11/22/2008 Permalink |
How do you work it so the players loose their draft spots next year with an automated draft system like on ESPN?
Matt 7:00 pm on 11/22/2008 Permalink |
Tom – because our league has so many custom rules, we just do everything as an “offline draft” and enter the results into ESPN manually after it’s over. We use Google Spreadsheets to manage the draft – it’s got a cool feature where multiple people can view the speadsheet as it’s updated live by the commish. There’s also built-in chat, which is where people say who they’re picking.
TomBrooklyn 7:13 pm on 11/23/2008 Permalink |
Hi Matt,
Thanks for the tip about Google spreadsheets. I didn’t know about that. Cheers.
Nick Butterfield 6:04 pm on 11/10/2009 Permalink |
(This might seem a little overboard, but our league is composed of lawyers and public policy majors, so bear with me)
Rule 1: Each owner is allowed to keep a maximum of five players.
Rule 2: Owners are not allowed to keep first or second round draft picks.
Rule 3.1: If an owner decides to keep a player at the end of a year, he must forfeit his next year’s pick from the same round in which he obtained or retained the player at the beginning of the first year.
Rule 3.2: An owner may keep the same player for a maximum of four consecutive times. However, he must continue to forfeit draft picks in the following sequence: first year – draft pick from the same round; second year – draft pick from the same round; third year – draft pick one round ahead of the round in which he obtained or retained the player at the beginning of the first year; fourth year – draft pick two rounds ahead of the round in which he obtained or retained the player at the beginning of the first year.
Rule 3.3: A player may only be kept a total of 4 times in a row before returning to the draft pool. Changes of ownership of a particular player do not reset the keeper clock for that player.
Rule 3.4: Drafted or retained players picked up on waivers during the course of the season may be kept, but the owner must forfeit a pick according to Rule 3.1, based on the player’s draft round (or retention round) at the beginning of that year. Undrafted players picked up on waivers during the course of the season may be kept according to Rule 3.1, with the initial cost of a second-to-last round draft pick.
Rule 3.5: Should an owner choose to forfeit two or more picks from the same round, each pick shall be for the round preceding. For example, if an owner wants to keep three players at the cost of an eighth round pick each; he shall forfeit his eighth, seventh, and sixth round picks. In the unlikely scenario that there are not enough rounds to keep all the picks (such as if a player wants to keep four third round picks), a player can only retain as many players as he has appropriate picks.
Rule 4.1: Draft order is determined by each team’s performance the previous year.
Rule 4.2.1: The first 6 picks (teams that did not make the playoffs) will participate in the lottery to determine the order.
Rule 4.2.2: The winner of the playoff consolation bracket earns a 15% entry in the draft lottery.
Rule 4.2.3: The probability for the lottery teams to win the first pick selection will be the following: 14th place – 25%; 13th place – 15%; 12th place – 15%; 11th place – 12%; 10th place – 10%; 9th place – 8%; Winner of the playoff consolation bracket: 15%.
Rule 4.3: The order of the final 7 picks will be determined in the order of how each team finished in the playoffs.
Rule 4.4: Draft order will not mandate a certain pick. Rather, owners will choose which pick they have in the draft, in the order of the draft that has been determined by Rules 4.2 and 4.3.
Rule 4.5: The draft will be in a serpentine (snake) format.
Rule 5: Draft picks may be traded at the discretion of the owners.
Rule 6.1: Keeper league rules may be amended, but only prior to each season’s fantasy draft.
Rule 6.2: For an amendment to pass, it must win a 2/3 majority vote from the league.