How Do Keeper Leagues Work?

[jbran23]

Ive been in the same league for 5 years now and it seems like we have a pretty good nucleous of returning players every year so was thinking of making it a keeper league rather than a straight redraft every year. Was just wondering how it works exactly? What are the rules as far as who you can keep and who you cant keep, how many guys you get to keep, etc. etc.? Other things we need to know before starting it? Thanks!

[slinger]

Here are our keeper rules. We are an 12 team auction league, with two keepers per team that must be kept each year. It does add a different level of strategy to who you draft. You must plan some moves that will make or break you for years at a time.

 

4.0 Keepers

 

4.1 Keeper Delaration

Keepers will be declared prior to the start of the current year’s draft. Typically one week before draft night.

 

4.2 Player Protection

 

Each Franchise will be required to keep two players from their prior year’s roster (which includes any post-season trades made) and carry them over to their next years starting roster. The protected players can be made up of any two players on your roster regardless of position.

 

4.3 Protection Rules

 

A protected player can be kept on a roster for no more than 3 consecutive years (you can draft a player 1 year, then he can be kept twice after that). Undrafted Free Agents are always considered 1st year players.

 

The “keeper clock” for a player (whether drafted, traded, or picked up on the waiver wire) begins from the time that he was first acquired as an Original Draft Pick or as an Undrafted Free Agent.

 

The longest amount of time a player can be undrafted is three years. The only way for a players protection status to start over is, he must enter the free agent pool and be redrafted.

 

4.4 Keeper Trades

 

If a player is traded between teams, his protection years do not start over from year 1, they carry on to the next owner. Thus, if a protected player in his third year of protections is traded, he must go into the free agent pool at the end of the third season. The value of the declared keeper player remains his value from the original draft value.

[bostonsoxandy]

In my 13-team league we have the following for basic keeper rules....(auction draft as well)

 

---Max of 3 keepers, Min of 0

---Pay 150% drafted value or 100% FAAB value to keep a player each year

---One player may be kept a max of 3 times and no more

---Keeper rights carry over in trades

[Puddy]

The OP doesn't mention that it is an auction league. I run one serpentine keeper draft. Our keeper rules are fairly simple.

 

Each team can keep a player up to two years. In an effort to keep 'star' players in the draft pool no player drafted in the first 4 rounds is eligible to be kept. Also, the following year you must use one round higher than where the player was drafted the prior year in order to keep him. We also don't allow players undrafted players to be kept.

 

This has worked well for us. The Petersons et al are always available at the draft but those guys who far exceed their ADP become great keepers (i.e. Foster was a 6th rounder last year).

Edited October 11, 2011 by Puddy

[Bronco Billy]

The principles behind keeper leagues is to reward owners who make good choices in drafts/FA acquisition and to give more of a carry over year-to-year team ownership experience. The reason some people prefer keeper leagues to dynasty leagues is that by limiting the amount of players retained year to year, the league gets more turnover of all but the top players which would theoretically allow more leveling of the playing field annually. It has the added benefit of allowing injured stars to keep their value to their owners and makes trading of future draft picks for current players very intriguing.

 

With those parameters in place, even though I currently only play in dynasty leagues, I've always thought that a good keeper concept would be to allow teams to keep up to about 25% of their current roster if they choose and to surrender draft picks for each kept player starting from their first round pick and regressing.

 

So if you have a league with 16 man rosters (assuming team D), the draft would be a 16 round draft and owners could keep up to 4 players and surrender their successive top draft picks for each kept player. So if you wanted to keep only 1 player, you would surrender your first round pick and your first pick in the draft would be your second rounder. If you wanted to keep 4 players, you would surrender your first 4 rounds of picks and your first pick in the draft would occur in the 5th round. Make all potential keeper rounds worst-to-first and then go serpentine after that.

 

So in a 12 team league, the worst finisher from the previous year would have the following picks:

 

1.01

2.01

3.01

4.01

5.12

6.01

7.12

8.01...etc

 

If that owner wanted to keep two players, he would surrender picks 1.01 and 2.01, and his first pick would be 3.01.

 

That would allow the weakest teams better pickings in the draft the following year by not forcing them to keep players who may not be upper level talent, while still rewarding the best teams to keep their prime players. Owners would then need to decide how vaulable the draft pool players are vs their keepers for each round.

 

You could really make drafts even more interesting by making owners declare each round's keepers just before the round started rather than declaring all keepers ahead of the draft. That might make some owners watch the draft carefully and decide to throw a player who normally might be a keeper back because they see a potential gem dropping into the 3rd or 4th round, or maybe wanting to exchange a very good player for an upper echelon rookie.

 

Just some thoughts. But make sure your league has thoughtful discussions well before next season to consider all the ramifications of changing the format of the league, and then I would suggest starting from scratch next year with no keepers, since player value will change for many owners depending upon whether owners know a younger stud can be kept for years vs an older stud who might be out of the league in a season or two.

[Big Country]

THere is no set definition of how a keeper league must be run.

 

Some allow only a few players be kept, others an entire roster (dynasty leagues).

Some allow you to keep a set number of players, some allow owners to keep a range of players.

Some cost draft picks to keep, but the rules around this vary a lot. Some are set that your first keeper costs your first round pick, 2nd your 2nd round pick, etc., others don;t let you keep anyone drafted in the first X number of rounds, others have you forfeit a pick X rounds higher than where the player was drafted.

Some have contracts, others allow players to be kept indefinitely.

Some have salary caps (auction leagues primarily) that must be adhered to.

 

After all those wrinkles are worked out, you have to determine the rules for future drafts... are they rookie only (most dynasty leagues work this way) or is any unrostered player available.

Is draft order based on previous year's finish or is it random (generally, the greater the number of keepers, the more important it is to go based on previous year's finish)

If based on last year, do you have a draft lottery for the top picks or does it go to worst record automatically.

 

That's just off the top of my head, a lot more wrinkles to consider, such as trading of future draft picks.. allowed or not, and if so, how far into the future, etc.

[satelliteoflovegm]

Yet another way, everyone must keep 5. 1QB, 1RB, 1WR and 2 of 3 TE K or D. 16 player rosters.

 

You lose no draft picks for keepers because everyone keeps 5 players. We also base first five rounds of draft on worst to first record pre-trades.

 

Then rounds 6-8 are serpentine as are 9-11 but with some twists that aren't germane to the topic here.

 

So our first 5 picks were, McFadden, Gore, Blount, Hillis, and Forte. The teams throwing them back into the draft were obviously strong at RB having kept better RB presumably.