Another League Expanding from 10 to 12 players, Need Advice!

[Lost]

First, let me welcome everyone back, it's going to be a 'Hugh' season this year. Can you believe we are back for another year already? Geez, time goes by quick! Keep up the good work DMD and krewe! And welcome noobs, just don't piss off Grits or you will be ignored!

 

So now to my dilemma, I am in my third year of commishing my league. Right now, it is a 10-team standard performance scoring keeper league. We are able to keep up to 2 players, but they can't be from the same position (i.e. 1 Rb and 1 WR, not 2 RB). So basically a player can be kept one year after drafted and then they get thrown back into the pool on the third year. The last caviate is that if a team keeps a player, they lose the round the player was drafted last year (i.e. if I drafted LT last year in the first round and keep him this year, I lose my first round pick).

 

So finally, here is the problem. I don't think many, if any, of the teams will have a problem moving from a 10 team league to a 12 team league. The problem I have is that I don't know what to do about the keeper portion for the 2 new teams. Do I devise a plan to allow the new teams to have keepers or do they just have to come on board without keepers?

 

There are many things to consider here. I am not sure the 2 new teams will both be ok with the idea that they won't be able to start with players and everyone else will. However, even though teams are keeping players from last year, they are still losing a draft spot. On the other hand, they could be getting a deal on keeping a player that they picked up in free agency or in a low round. Another thing to consider is that this is the third year of the league and a large number of players kept last year were superstars and will have to be thrown back into the pool. Yikes!

 

So here is what I want to know:

 

1. Should I allow the 2 new teams to have have keepers like everyone else?

 

1a. If I do allow them to have keepers, what is a fair way to let it happen?

 

 

I have been throwing around a lot of ideas, but none have really seemed brilliant! I had an idea of putting the reamining players that could be kept for this year in a pool (after the returning teams announced their keepers) and letting the new teams pick 1 player from the list and losing their 1st round pick, regardless of when that person was drafted last year, but I am not sure that is fair. I am afraid the only fair way is for the new teams to enter the league without a keeper.

 

Any thoughts? I wanted to be preapred before I present this to my league. Thanks in advance for any help.

[Outshined]

Whats the draft order?

[Lost]

Draft Order will be determined by a roll of the dice (Random Number Generator).

 

Right now, lowest to highest gets a draft spot of 1-10 (i.e. lowest gets 1 spot, 2nd lowest gets 2nd spot, etc.); however, one of the league votes this year is to do the roll of the dice and have the lowest to highest pick the spot of their choice. (i.e. lowest picks spot first, 2nd lowest picks spot of choice second, etc.) After the first round, it is a serpentine draft.

[Dirty Weasel]

For the 2 new owners, you could offer them a choice between either the first pick in the draft, or double picks in a round that seems fair (perhaps round 4?). Just give the first new owner his choice, and the second new owner gets whatever the first new owner didn't take. You've got to give them something, because they don't have the luxury this year of keeping a sleeper they nabbed in the later rounds last year. I assume LT has been kept for 2 years, so the first pick will be him. That should be enough to sway new owner #1.

[Outshined]

For the 2 new owners, you could offer them a choice between either the first pick in the draft, or double picks in a round that seems fair (perhaps round 4?). Just give the first new owner his choice, and the second new owner gets whatever the first new owner didn't take. You've got to give them something, because they don't have the luxury this year of keeping a sleeper they nabbed in the later rounds last year. I assume LT has been kept for 2 years, so the first pick will be him. That should be enough to sway new owner #1.

 

 

What about the current owner that does not keep anybody. He is penalized and has no chance at LT or whoever the new owner gets the 1st pick.

 

The new owners will probably get screwed unless you make it a non-keeper year. Otherwise I would throw them in the random generator and draft as usual. They get a 1st round pick.

[Bronco Billy]

You could suspend the rule on tossing back players after a year for the original 10 teams and let them "protect" 3 players on their rosters as long as all 3 don't play the same position. After all teams declare "protected", you have a 2 round "expansion draft" for the 2 new teams. They get to pick 2 of any unprotected players in the FA pool as long as the two players do not play the same position. Let them roll for positions or some other way of randomly deciding which picks first & last and which team gets the middle two picks. Then allow owners to decide which 2 of the 3 they will keep and throw the 3rd player back into the pool per your rules. That might lessen the "lots of unkept studs" impact.

 

A second option is to throw back all players & start from scratch.

 

Let's face it - you're going to piss off someone with instituting the rules. You'll want good feedback from the league before deciding which way to go.

Edited July 16, 2007 by Bronco Billy

[McBoog]

I have been through this a few times.

 

First of all a new player IS NOT going to want to pony up bucks to play in a league where they in essence do not get any of the top 20 players (in theory).

 

SO…

 

We always did an expansion draft.

 

The ten legacy teams have two players of their roster. Each team then identifies ONE of those players as their Franchise Player. This is the player that can’t be touched.

 

The two new players are then able to select one of the players from the protected players that are “the other guy” (non-franchise). This means that two of the legacy teams will lose a player and be p!ssed.

 

Now, the four teams that have only “one protected player” (two new and two legacy) are put into an expansion/supplemental draft. You can do this in a number of ways, but the premise is that these four teams now get to each draft a player from the draft pool before the “real” draft begins. We always let the two legacy teams pick first (seniority privilege) based on the previous year’s standings and then a coin flip for the two new teams. Abracadabra, now all 12 teams have two protected players. This can all be done on draft day if you do a live draft. If not, it should be done about a week in advance to avoid confusion and allow for draft strategy changes that may occur.

 

We used this same model with four protected players one year. One franchise and the rest were vulnerable to the expansion draft. The only difference was that when a player was taken from a team, they could now add the “franchise” tag to one of the two remaining players. New teams would pick three players from existing rosters. and then get the last in the expansion draft as outlined above. No legacy team ever lost two players, but as a contingency, they would get to draft a player to get to three before the supplemental draft was conducted.

 

There was some resistance at first, but if the desire to expand is greater that the want of the owners to keep their players, this is the only fair way to do it. As it is, the noobs are getting at the best the 11th and 12th best players, and then after that, a tier two player (unless one team had four monster players by chance. These are the teams that HATE this format of expansion).

 

Even with the legacy teams giving up some players, we never had a noob team make the playoffs, but we did have a legacy team that lost a player (me) win the championship .

 

Hope this helped!

[The Holy Roller]

A league I'm in is also going from 10 to 12 owners this year. Each owner is allowed to keep 3 players. We are going to have the 2 noobs pick three keepers each after the original owners declare their keepers. The noobs then will have the first and second picks in the draft (decided by coin flip). I don't give them much chance this year but we have owners who haven't made the playoffs in a half dozen years so who knows.

[DMD]

A league I'm in is also going from 10 to 12 owners this year. Each owner is allowed to keep 3 players. We are going to have the 2 noobs pick three keepers each after the original owners declare their keepers. The noobs then will have the first and second picks in the draft (decided by coin flip). I don't give them much chance this year but we have owners who haven't made the playoffs in a half dozen years so who knows.

 

Yeah, I like this idea. Have a "supplemental" draft to start with just the new teams who can select up to two players before the regular draft. I was in a league once that handled it that way. As mentioned, the only truly way to be fair is to just start over but I would put it to a league vote with the options of either starting totally over or giving the new teams a chance at two picks from remaining players to start with.

[The Irish Doggy]

A league I'm in is also going from 10 to 12 owners this year. Each owner is allowed to keep 3 players. We are going to have the 2 noobs pick three keepers each after the original owners declare their keepers. The noobs then will have the first and second picks in the draft (decided by coin flip). I don't give them much chance this year but we have owners who haven't made the playoffs in a half dozen years so who knows.

 

The advantage to the new owners in this situation should be first crack at rookie RBs, so there is a bit of compensation. Grabbing Peterson and Lynch this year ain't so bad in a keeper league.

 

In one of my leagues, the best solution we came up with was no raiding of current teams, a quick supplemental draft like above, and allowing the new owners to pay half price for the first year (with full internet website fees) . Payouts were proportionally lowered to account for the lower pool that year only.

[DMD]

The advantage to the new owners in this situation should be first crack at rookie RBs, so there is a bit of compensation. Grabbing Peterson and Lynch this year ain't so bad in a keeper league.

 

In one of my leagues, the best solution we came up with was no raiding of current teams, a quick supplemental draft like above, and allowing the new owners to pay half price for the first year (with full internet website fees) . Payouts were proportionally lowered to account for the lower pool that year only.

 

That is a good point - no rookies can be drafted by the new teams in the "pre-draft" selections.

[The Wolf]

I have been through this a few times.

 

First of all a new player IS NOT going to want to pony up bucks to play in a league where they in essence do not get any of the top 20 players (in theory).

 

SO…

 

We always did an expansion draft.

 

The ten legacy teams have two players of their roster. Each team then identifies ONE of those players as their Franchise Player. This is the player that can’t be touched.

 

The two new players are then able to select one of the players from the protected players that are “the other guy” (non-franchise). This means that two of the legacy teams will lose a player and be p!ssed.

 

Now, the four teams that have only “one protected player” (two new and two legacy) are put into an expansion/supplemental draft. You can do this in a number of ways, but the premise is that these four teams now get to each draft a player from the draft pool before the “real” draft begins. We always let the two legacy teams pick first (seniority privilege) based on the previous year’s standings and then a coin flip for the two new teams. Abracadabra, now all 12 teams have two protected players. This can all be done on draft day if you do a live draft. If not, it should be done about a week in advance to avoid confusion and allow for draft strategy changes that may occur.

 

We used this same model with four protected players one year. One franchise and the rest were vulnerable to the expansion draft. The only difference was that when a player was taken from a team, they could now add the “franchise” tag to one of the two remaining players. New teams would pick three players from existing rosters. and then get the last in the expansion draft as outlined above. No legacy team ever lost two players, but as a contingency, they would get to draft a player to get to three before the supplemental draft was conducted.

 

There was some resistance at first, but if the desire to expand is greater that the want of the owners to keep their players, this is the only fair way to do it. As it is, the noobs are getting at the best the 11th and 12th best players, and then after that, a tier two player (unless one team had four monster players by chance. These are the teams that HATE this format of expansion).

 

Even with the legacy teams giving up some players, we never had a noob team make the playoffs, but we did have a legacy team that lost a player (me) win the championship .

 

Hope this helped!

 

+1 I like this idea immensely. It allows the existing teams to make sure they get to keep at least one of their two protected players and ensures that the new owners each get a top 12 pick.

 

I also agree with BB...make sure you completely discuss the options with existing and new owners. You will not please everyone but by being totally up front with everyone and allow for opinions to be heard, you will at least minimize some of the complaining.

 

If they don't like McBoog's idea, then dump all rosters back into the pool for this season and redraft.

[Big Country]

Done this several times, though usually with teams able to hold a larger number of players.

 

What I would suggest is this, though it is a little more "complex" albeit should make it more fair for the incoming teams and allow the majority of your current owners to keep their top two players, and also preserve the majority of what would have been the likely draft pool.

 

First rule is that only players currently on a roster can be selected by the expansion teams. Each current team protects one player. Random draw to determine expansion draft order. Team A picks a player from the unprotected pool. The team that he selects from then chooses his second keeper and the rest of his roster is released to the draft pool. They can not be selected in the expansion draft. Team B then selects a player. The owner of that selected player then declares his second keeper and the rest of his team is placed in the draft pool. The remaining 8 owners who did not have a player taken then get to declare their 2nd keepers. Team B then takes their 2nd expansion pick. Whichever roster he selects from is then released to the draft pool. Team A then takes their 2nd pick and all unprotected players are placed into the draft pool.

 

For your regular draft, as it is a random order, just treat the new teams as any other and add them to the random draw.

[kcmast]

I have been through this a few times.

 

First of all a new player IS NOT going to want to pony up bucks to play in a league where they in essence do not get any of the top 20 players (in theory).

 

SO…

 

We always did an expansion draft.

 

The ten legacy teams have two players of their roster. Each team then identifies ONE of those players as their Franchise Player. This is the player that can’t be touched.

 

The two new players are then able to select one of the players from the protected players that are “the other guy” (non-franchise). This means that two of the legacy teams will lose a player and be p!ssed.

 

Now, the four teams that have only “one protected player” (two new and two legacy) are put into an expansion/supplemental draft. You can do this in a number of ways, but the premise is that these four teams now get to each draft a player from the draft pool before the “real” draft begins. We always let the two legacy teams pick first (seniority privilege) based on the previous year’s standings and then a coin flip for the two new teams. Abracadabra, now all 12 teams have two protected players. This can all be done on draft day if you do a live draft. If not, it should be done about a week in advance to avoid confusion and allow for draft strategy changes that may occur.

 

We used this same model with four protected players one year. One franchise and the rest were vulnerable to the expansion draft. The only difference was that when a player was taken from a team, they could now add the “franchise” tag to one of the two remaining players. New teams would pick three players from existing rosters. and then get the last in the expansion draft as outlined above. No legacy team ever lost two players, but as a contingency, they would get to draft a player to get to three before the supplemental draft was conducted.

 

There was some resistance at first, but if the desire to expand is greater that the want of the owners to keep their players, this is the only fair way to do it. As it is, the noobs are getting at the best the 11th and 12th best players, and then after that, a tier two player (unless one team had four monster players by chance. These are the teams that HATE this format of expansion).

 

Even with the legacy teams giving up some players, we never had a noob team make the playoffs, but we did have a legacy team that lost a player (me) win the championship .

 

Hope this helped!

We did the same thing and it worked out very well (2 keeper league)

[The Holy Roller]

Or do something with pingpong balls. I hear some pro league uses them.