Keeper League Questions...

[EncyclopediaBrown 0]

I am starting up a keeper league this year and thought I would ask here about a good set of rules. I have played fantasy football for about 5 years now, but never in anything but redraft leagues. I have read around online and basically I have decided to allow the option of keeping up to 3 players for an unlimited number of years, losing one draft spot higher than where the player was drafted. The league scoring is basic with no IDP. I am planning to use Yahoo at least for this year because I am most familiar with their fantasy site, but it seems that keeper options are new to Yahoo, so I don't know if there might be a better option for free at some other site.

 

I wanted to see if anyone could give me some hints of things I need to watch out for, things I am not expecting that might come up in a keeper format. I could allow only keepers in certain draft round ranges (one keeper for rounds 1-5, one keeper for rounds 6-10, and so on), or I could only allow one keeper per position. I was planning to allow each player to keep 3 at any position. I am not sure what the upside or downside of these different options might be. There is the option of requiring teams to keep players, I was planning on this being an option rather than a requirement.

 

Any help and / or hints would be greatly appreciated.

[EncyclopediaBrown 0]

Any help at all?

[EncyclopediaBrown 0]

Sweet. I noticed on this board where people were asking for help with keepers all the time, meaning that there were a lot of people in keeper leagues, that there would be a good chance that I could get some advice on setting up a keeper league myself. And by the number of responses over the past two days, it obviously worked well. Thanks for the help everyone.

[SATTMAN 0]

my keeper league is just 1 keeper, with a time limit of 3 years on the keep. (after drafting, you can keep the player 2 yrs). I like keeping 1 vs more because it keeps the draft fresh (still some anticipation of getting a high pick at the next best player)... Unless you want to micromanage the league, you could do 2+ and have throw backs where a team can keep 3, but they sacrifice that many rounds to start the draft.

 

There you go, that's your first reply!

[EncyclopediaBrown 0]

my keeper league is just 1 keeper, with a time limit of 3 years on the keep. (after drafting, you can keep the player 2 yrs). I like keeping 1 vs more because it keeps the draft fresh (still some anticipation of getting a high pick at the next best player)... Unless you want to micromanage the league, you could do 2+ and have throw backs where a team can keep 3, but they sacrifice that many rounds to start the draft.

 

There you go, that's your first reply!

 

Thanks for the info SATTMAN. I can see where keeping 1 would make the draft more interesting each year, but it seems like that makes it very close to a redraft league. Is the reason for a time limit on the amount of time that a player can be kept in case it's a really good player? From what I have read, increasing the draft rounds that a keeper loses each year might take care of that as well (like if a kept player was drafted in the 8th, the player loses 2 rounds the first year, meaning he loses his 6th pick, then loses two more if they keep the player again, meaning he loses his 4th, and so on). I do worry about keeping 3 though for sure, the last thing I want is for the draft to suck. I'm thinking of keeping 3, maybe 2, but not letting any picks from the first two rounds be kept, which would be automatic anyway if they lose two rounds higher than the kept player's pick. From reading around on rules, that seems to be a pretty common set up.

 

Something else that I am trying to get straight from the outset is having a very thin waiver wire. I hate to have a bunch of bench spots just holding marginal players, but I hate it when there are good players sitting out there on waivers. How many spots do most people use to keep this under control? I am aiming at 10 teams in the league at a minimum, maybe 12. I have it set up right now as QB,WR,WR,RB,RB,TE,W/R,K,DEF, 10 Bench spots. I was thinking about adding in another WR or W/R flex spot to at least have another player being used.

[Vetman 0]

I am in a 12 team keeper league. We start 1QB/2RBs/3WRs/1TE/1DEF

 

The way we work keepers is based on the round that the player was drafted in the previous year. We assign 5 points for a first round pick, 4 points for a second round pic, 3 for a third, 2 for a fourth and 1 point for rounds 5 or later. We also assign 1 point for FA.

 

Each team is allowed to keep 5 points worth of keepers. If you drafted a stud in round 1 the previous year and you want to keep them the next year, then that would be the only keeper you would have. If you drafted a RB in the third round and a WR in the fourth round that you want to keep, their totals would add up to the 5 points.

 

When we set up the keeper league, we did not want to allow any team to keep a player more than a couple of years. So, after a team has kept a player for one year, we add 2 points to their point value. Therefore, the stud RB that you drafted in the first round two years ago, and kept last year for 5 points, now would be worth 7 points and you are only allowed 5 points worth of keepers. Or, the RB that you drafted in the third round 2 years ago, which was worth 3 points, can be kept another year with the additional 2 points for a total of 5 points. That team would not be able to keep that player for a fourth year because the point value would exceed the 5 point limit. This way the stud players rotate back into the draft pool every couple of years.

 

I know this may sound confusing, but it really is pretty simple. We just keep a spreadsheet with the teams rosters and work off of that for the keeper points. The reason I like this system is that it prevents the same team from having an elite player forever. After a while, I think the draft in those leagues can get pretty boring, not to mention the overall team performances.

 

I hope this helps.