Keeper Rule Suggestions

[onejayhawk]

I am in a 20 team ROTO league that is discussing keepers. Most of the comments are supportive, suggesting at most three keepers. Others want to limit the length of time a player can be held. As Commish I want to keep it simple and easy to manage.

Since we cannot draft until the site rankings are posted, my proposed rule is this:

• Keepers are optional and at most three players.
• No one in the top 100 players, as ranked by Yahoo, is eligible.
• Final selection of keepers will be three days before the draft to allow everyone to update their draft boards

Questions? Comments?

J

[Ken]

I am in a 20 team ROTO league that is discussing keepers. Most of the comments are supportive, suggesting at most three keepers. Others want to limit the length of time a player can be held. As Commish I want to keep it simple and easy to manage.

Since we cannot draft until the site rankings are posted, my proposed rule is this:

• Keepers are optional and at most three players.
• No one in the top 100 players, as ranked by Yahoo, is eligible.
• Final selection of keepers will be three days before the draft to allow everyone to update their draft boards

Questions? Comments?

J

My quesiton is why are you arbitrarily making the 101st best player in fantasy baseball have the most keeper value?

[Fresno Bob]

why not go fairly standard roto rules of 3 year max contracts for 3 keepers of any value?

[mjl]

The concern I always have with choosing a very small number of keepers is that if you don't also structure the prizes to give some value to coming in as high as possible (i.e. having prizes go down to 10th or something like that), or if the people in your league aren't otherwise driven to finish as high as possible every year, it makes dump trading absurd.

If you only had one keeper, and the prizes were normal (down to 5th), it's basically correct for someone in the bottom half to offer their entire team for the best keeper in the league. Even two or three keepers still lends itself to crazy trades unless you also have some restrictions on team construction, like salaries or whatever.

Something to think about.

[onejayhawk]

I did think about it. The idea of having a year limit on contracts was another. Contracts are not (yet) built into the system. The cutoff may be arbitrary, but so is cutting off at #1. Some cut is needed and this way the site decides who the most valuable keeper turns out to be. I won the league, so I have a nice pool of talent. This would be my breakdown.

Not eligible to keep:

Christian Yelich Mil - OF #8
Jean Segura Phi - SS #59
Mitch Haniger Sea - OF #75
Matt Olson Oak - 1B #87

Justin Verlander Hou - SP #25
Blake Snell TB - SP #30
Jack Flaherty StL - SP #65

Potential keepers:

Robinson Canó NYM - 1B,2B #114
Victor Robles Was - OF #122
Yoán Moncada CWS - 2B #144
Billy Hamilton KC - OF #147
Jurickson Profar Oak - 1B,2B,3B,SS #160

Madison Bumgarner SF - SP #106
Luis Castillo Cin - SP #131
Shane Bieber Cle - SP #164

For the record, player #101 is Mike Foltynewicz.

It does reward those that play out the season, eg Eloy Jimenez, #109.

J

[cavebird]

I am assuming that it is a straight draft because of the ideas you have--in an auction league, the prices would make value a very different thing than player rankings. My suggestion would be this: whatever rules you want for keepers, set them this year and use them next year. If you are allowing keepers in a league that previously did not have them it seems unfair. People drafted last year not thinking of keepers. If you put it in this year and use it next year, people can draft with this in mind--whatever keeper rules you decide to use.

[Judge Jude]

"No one in the top 100 players, as ranked by Yahoo, is eligible."

seems kinda weird. keeper leagues are great, redraft leagues are great - this is.... I dunno.

are you making a deal in July speculating on who comes closest to ranking 101st by some website 8 months later? wouldn't that mean aggressively praying that the guys you just acquired get hurt, for example?

also I agree with cavebird

[Ken]

"No one in the top 100 players, as ranked by Yahoo, is eligible."

seems kinda weird. keeper leagues are great, redraft leagues are great - this is.... I dunno.

are you making a deal in July speculating on who comes closest to ranking 101st by some website 8 months later? wouldn't that mean aggressively praying that the guys you just acquired get hurt, for example?

also I agree with cavebird

I agree 100%. You are exactly right. For some reason it was stated above that 1 was just as arbitrary as 101, even though that has no logic behind it. No idea how to even comment to that lunacy.

[onejayhawk]

I am assuming that it is a straight draft because of the ideas you have--in an auction league, the prices would make value a very different thing than player rankings. My suggestion would be this: whatever rules you want for keepers, set them this year and use them next year. If you are allowing keepers in a league that previously did not have them it seems unfair. People drafted last year not thinking of keepers. If you put it in this year and use it next year, people can draft with this in mind--whatever keeper rules you decide to use.

That is the plan. We draft from scratch this year.

"No one in the top 100 players, as ranked by Yahoo, is eligible." seems kinda weird. keeper leagues are great, redraft leagues are great - this is.... I dunno.

Initial feedback on that has been positive. The idea is to keep the best players available. We will see what some other comments say.

J

[Judge Jude]

"The idea is to keep the best players available."

oh, I get that part - hence the appeal of redraft leagues. I don't play in one, but that definitely is appealing.

only 3 keepers AND outside an arbitrary top 100?

well, as I always say, if your league likes it - enjoy!

[cavebird]

Ah, okay, so this year no keepers. Beyond that, it just seems weird. Why not something like you can keep any three, but three rounds earlier than drafted? That knocks out the first three rounds from keeper eligibility and also eventually limits the number of years as three rounds each year eventually gets to the top three rounds.

[onejayhawk]

Ah, okay, so this year no keepers. Beyond that, it just seems weird. Why not something like you can keep any three, but three rounds earlier than drafted? That knocks out the first three rounds from keeper eligibility and also eventually limits the number of years as three rounds each year eventually gets to the top three rounds.

That effectively knocks out 60 players, just in a backhand way. This way there is a lot less record keeping.

J

[Ken]

That effectively knocks out 60 players, just in a backhand way. This way there is a lot less record keeping.

J

But it does so in a choice based manner - you can't keep them because you picked them in round 3, instead of you can't pick them because Yahoo decided they were "too good".

I'd just have a problem playing a league where I couldn't keep a sleeper player I drafted because he improved too much. It makes it better to draft a guy who underperforms than one who overperforms from a keeper perspective which is not fun.

[cavebird]

That effectively knocks out 60 players, just in a backhand way. This way there is a lot less record keeping.

J

But this also takes care of the how long you can keep them with one simple rule.

[onejayhawk]

I also put that one out there. We are getting argument both ways.

J