SO... new thread? is 2013 a go?

Hell yes..after all that keeper stuff we have to follow through........

In. Did we actually make a concret decision on the keeper stuff?

we were still trying to iron it out but i think it was between a couple of options.

I like the proposal from the Commish on keepers but would like to keep for 4-5 years instead of 3.
Reply
Dan (GoTeamVenture)
Jul 26 7:42 pm
I think eight keepers is way too many when hadn't discussed more than 2 per team before the draft.
Mark (El Nacho de Muerte)
Jul 27 5:03 am
I'm not actually the commish ( Monty is), I just wanted to get the ball rolling.

Mark (El Nacho de Muerte)
Jul 27 5:13 am
I went back and re-read the thread. Monty's keeper proposal was 0-2 players, but there wasn't really any consensus on any format/ limit.

My personal take is that with 26 players per roster, a 2 keeper max is pretty thin. But I can see where Dan is coming from - it's always best to have a rule that might affect how you'd draft ironed out before the draft.

Perhaps a good compromise would be to limit keepers to 2 for the 2013 season, but (if the commish and the rest of the league approves) go with a higher max for the following seasons.


Dan (GoTeamVenture)
Jul 27 5:25 am
I agree that more than two keepers with rosters this large would be nice. I think going from 2 to 8 after the draft already happened would be too much. I'd be willing to comprise on 4 or 5 for this season but I think if we're going to change the number of keepers after the draft took place everyone should agree to it.
Timothy B (timmyjoe42er's)
Jul 27 5:26 am
I think the keepers should be 3 or 4 so we can have 2 position players and maybe a couple of pitchers....even though my team hasn't been doing so great.
_Mutty (Licensed to Illich)
Jul 27 10:50 am
four players sounds fair to me. My question is how draft choices will be assigned
Disco (Bros of Kilimanjaro)
Jul 27 12:11 pm

I have been noodling on this, & I would submit three keepers exactly, with cost being equal to the previous year's round of selection - two. (So, if you protect your 13th rounder from 2012, he counts as your 11th rounder this year. Players drafted in the first & second round would be restricted from protection.)

(I had considered previously assigning sound based on Yahoo! rank in the week leading up to draft divided by number of teams in league -- e.g. protecting Yahoo!'s 120th ranked player, in a twelve-team league, would equal a 110th rounder -- but it seems too clinical.)

Also: no restrictions on positions kept. If someone wants to hoard three catchers, that's fine. Three closers, or three mound aces -- no problem. Positionally, anything goes.
Timothy B (timmyjoe42er's)
Jul 27 12:32 pm
What is your reasoning for not wanting to allow 1st or 2nd round selections as keepers? This seems silly to me. Keeping player X who counts as a 11 rounder and player Y as a 17 rounder and Z as a 3rd rounder can get very complicated very fast, especially with the number of teams we have, and draft positions. It is much easier with 1 or 2 players in a 12 team football league with 16 rounds of drafting than 4 or 5 keepers with 27 rounds.

I would make it nice and simple. We each pick 4 players we want to keep and they count as our first 4 rounds of the draft. The drafts starts with round 5 in a traditional worst to first order.
Kevin Ellis (Warrior Sprites)
Jul 27 1:35 pm
I'm fine with 5-8 keepers, I'd like to keep them for more than a few years tho, if I choose to
(Warrior Sprites)
Jul 27 2:12 pm
Right, if we're doing keepers, we might as well really commit to it, which is what my brother handicap and I were talking about. We are apparently thinking on the high end of the consensus, though.
DHRjericho (The Mendoza Line)
Jul 27 2:26 pm
I don't like Timmy's proposal for losing your first x# of picks for keepers. I'm fine with a penalty of a few rounds but if we can only keep them for x# of years then i don't think there should be a penalty. You get them at the round you initially drafted them. If there's a penalty then you can keep them as long as you think they're worthy. You could easily make a 1st round pick cost a 1st and a 5th (for example) if you wanted to allow 1st and 2nd round keepers. I personally would love to keep at least 5 keepers but would be fine with 3.
Timothy B (timmyjoe42er's)
Jul 27 2:50 pm
Assigning keepers to future draft picks gets pretty weird, especially if they were a waiver wire pick or rookie of the year. It doesn't make sense to value a ROTY who may have been a 27th round draft pick as someone's 27th round selection the following year. Picking your 4 or 5 best players means that you would value them in the first 5 rounds so I don't see the problem with having a 10th rounder who has increased in value (or you think will increase) as a keeper that counts inone of the top 5 rounds.

I wouldn't even consider the keepers as draft picks. I consider them keepers so the first round of our draft selects the 5th or 6th player for your team.

I'm also against having any limitations on the number of years that a player can be kept. I like consistency. "Free agency ruined the God Damn game."
_Mutty (Licensed to Illich)
Jul 27 4:15 pm
I like Timmy's suggestion. Everybody keeps their four best players, and the draft continues as normal using the players left. This system rewards players for in-season pickups like Trout, and removes any subjective draft worth assignments.
ievenlostmycat (Puke & Cry)
Jul 27 4:17 pm

I think I agree with Timmy about the keepers serving as the first few round of the draft. How do you deal with a Bryce Harper or Mike Trout (unless someone drafted them in expectation), someone who was not drafted? Am also against a cap on years they can be on your team.
Timothy B (timmyjoe42er's)
Jul 27 4:19 pm
2 people agree with me? Have you guys been drinking?
DHRjericho (The Mendoza Line)
Jul 27 4:30 pm
Actually i drafted Trout, Harper and Lawrie due to the keeper league
Mark (El Nacho de Muerte)
Jul 28 11:40 am
A keeper system that assigns value to a player based upon his draft round brings more strategy to the table than just keeping your (x) best players. It rewards teams that find cheap (meaning late in the draft) and usually young talent, much like real life baseball. And for teams that fall out of contention, it also makes "building for next year" a more viable option, because teams at the top of the standings may choose to sell off some future potential for a shot at a championship this year. Again, like real baseball.

Yes, it's a more complicated system and takes more work. I think it's do-able though, and I think it's just more fun than keeping your best (x) players. It wouldn't be too hard to save the draft results from this season and post it at Obner, so we can refer back to it when making keeper decisions. Plus, Yahoo has Commish tools that can account for keeper settings at the draft. I don't think it'd be super difficult.

And it might not work out. If it doesn't, we can switch to something simpler. I think it's worth a shot, though.

In my proposal that I emailed out a few days ago, a free agent picked up during the year can be kept for a 17th round pick. subsequent FA's can be kept in the same year for a 16th rounder, 15th, and so on.

For trades that result in you keeping two players drafted in the same round, you'd forfeit the round the players were drafted in, plus the next round.


Mark (El Nacho de Muerte)
Jul 28 11:41 am
re: free agent keepers, in the alternative we could make free agents ineligible to be kept.
Timothy B (timmyjoe42er's)
Jul 28 11:50 am
The problem with waiver wire acquisitions is that they are immediately pushed through. If player X has a good game, everyone takes notice and the first person to be at a computer or to see the news gets the guy. If this were like a real football league where waiver wire requests are pushed through based on records after the weeks games, then I might agree with a waiver wire guy counting for round 17.

Does a guy that I drafted in round 3, dropped because he stinks, then picked up by another team become keeper selection #17 or #3?

I'd be more inclined to make any player not drafted ineligible to be a keeper. (Trades would be ok.)

My real preference would be to keep the draft as simple as possible. Being in a fantasy baseball league is a lot of work as it is.
DHRjericho (The Mendoza Line)
Jul 28 5:33 pm
Yeah, i kind of agree that players that weren't drafted probably shouldn't be keepers.
Mark (El Nacho de Muerte)
Jul 30 5:34 pm
After re-reading this thread, how's this for a system?

0-4 keepers per team
Each keeper costs a pick in the round the player was drafted in during the previous draft -2. Example: Player X is taken in round 10 in year 1. To be kept in year 2, he costs an 8th rounder. In year 3, a 6th rounder, and so on.
No limits on how long a player can be kept, but 1st & 2nd rounders cannot be kept. In the above example, player X can be kept for 3 additional years (years 2, 3, and 4) after being drafted. In year 4 he costs a 4th rounder, and in year 5 he would cost a 2nd rounder, and therefore cannot be kept.
Players not drafted cannot be kept
Any combination of player positions can be kept
If a trade results in one team rostering two players originally drafted in the same round, to keep both players, the team forfeits the normal pick (round drafted -2), plus the following round (round drafted -1). (This one could get tricky, but hopefully it's a rare occurrence. I guess we can see how it goes.)
We should re-visit these rules prior to the draft of each season and revise as necessary
Did I forget anything?
Dan (GoTeamVenture)
Jul 30 5:42 pm
I don't agree with all of these rules. I would be against not being able to keep 1st and 2nd round picks and free agents when we didn't have those rules established going into the draft. I also don't think there should be an additional penalty on keeping players obtained through trades. Odds are you're already going to have to give up more in trade to get a guy with more keeper value.
Mark (El Nacho de Muerte)
Jul 30 6:04 pm
There's no penalty for keeping players acquired through trades. The rule I laid out only applies where a trade results in you having two players drafted in the same round. To keep both you need to give up two picks.
Disco (Bros of Kilimanjaro)
Jul 30 6:06 pm
Appreciate the legwork. I concur.
Timothy B (timmyjoe42er's)
Jul 30 6:11 pm
I want teams to be able to keep players picked up off the waivers, or waiver players acquired via trade, or first and 2nd rounders.

I would argue that a 3rd round pick becoming a keeper shouldn't make them need to cost a round 2 draft pick. Just because a player has a good year doesn't mean they are going to have a great following year. The longer you keep them, the more likely they are to decline.

I would also like everyone to have the same # of keepers. (4)
Dan (GoTeamVenture)
Jul 30 6:13 pm
I misread your trade rule, sorry. I would still be against the rule of not being able to keep 1st and 2nd rounders plus free agents since it wasn't established before the draft.
Disco (Bros of Kilimanjaro)
Jul 30 6:30 pm
I do think all sides should keep the same number, so, four per side (working from nacho's proposal). As to free agent keepers, a compromise could be the permission to keep fa pick-ups drafted in the current season. Ergo, if I were to cut Ellsbury, then Timmy were to pick him up, Timmy could use one of hs four keeper slots on him.

(Note: I am not cutting Ellsbury.)

As to having second & first rounders excluded from retention, that is in keeping with a general rule of keeper rotisserie leagues: retention requires a price. In my roto league, that means a 15% salary increase (to the nearest ten cents; we play on a 26$ budget (most leagues do 260$)); here, in Obner fantasy, a draft round mark-up. But if the mark-up is previous round minus two (i.e. ninth to seventh, as with Jason Heyward, in my case), then we have to account for an impossibility to subtract two from a round while keeping a positive result.
Mark (El Nacho de Muerte)
Jul 31 3:57 am
I'm curious - what's the rationale for having everyone keep the same number of players?
scott (Jewels McFishstick)
Jul 31 3:59 am
I'm experimenting with a keeper league this year, by keeping my injured players activated.
Mark (El Nacho de Muerte)
Jul 31 4:00 am
Also - can everyone weigh in on this?
Disco (Bros of Kilimanjaro)
Jul 31 6:19 am
I was thinking a strong team in 2012, with four keepers going into 2013, could be viewed as disadvantaging a weaker 2012 team with only two keepers going into 2013. But I'm agreeable to allowing a team to keep zero, one, two, or three, but not four. Just didn't want to be unfair.

Again, to borrow from my roto league, we use a 7-to-15 keeper roster, with each of the ten owners allowed to keep any number within that range. (With an additional quirk that, since we use only twelve of the MLB teams (AL East, NL East, Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, St. Louis), if a team only keeps seven or eight but loses such a number of players to acquisition by a team outside of our jurisdiction, there is no penalty. But that's neither here nor there.) So, I am familiar with uneven retention rates.
Disco (Bros of Kilimanjaro)
Jul 31 6:19 am

:LOL:

(Do Obner emoticons present on Yahoo!?)
DHRjericho (The Mendoza Line)
Jul 31 5:00 pm
I'm fine with he set-up but have two issues

1) In your keeper scenario i think you should be able to keep a player until you've kept him as a 2nd rd or 1st rd. Essentially a person drafted in the 10th rd should be allowed to be kept in the following fashion:

Drafted - 10th rd
1st Keeper - 8th
2nd - 6th
3 rd - 4th
4 th - 2nd (you should be able to give up a 2nd or 1st rounder to keep someone for an additional year.

2) If you wanted to you could develop a way to keep 1st or 2nd rounders for an additional pick - i.e. - you keep a 1st rounder you have to give up your 1st rd and 4th rd pick. 2nd rd you have to give up 1st and 7th rounders. It's doable if people have a problem.

I agree with everything else - especially players not drafted not being eligible for keeper status.

I still owe you Youth Lagoon, DHR....

Obnerball 2013 is a go.

League number: 108621
Password: shamshakes

I'm in. Can we do something about the draft time? Currently set for Sun 3/24 at 10 am. How about in the evening?

jewels - thank you for the album. i appreciate it.

Is there anybody who would actually want to draft at this time? Still hoping we can change it...

Monty - there needs to be a decision on keepers. I spent a lot of energy last summer with proposals that went nowhere. Pick something already. If you're not up to being commish, say so and I or someone else will do it.

my pleasure, sorry it took so long.

I agree, we still need a ruling on keepers.

I still contend something simple, even if only for this year, is the way to go. Everyone keeps up to 4, draft goes normally with all leftover players?

i think it should be really complicated so I have a reasonable excuse why I have 20 names in my amazon address list.

For year one, Mutty takes it: four keepers per team, 26 round draft, first round draft order inverse to strength of teams's keeper class.

Now if only I had any players worth keeping...

Ok, but we're not done yet. When is the deadline for declaring keepers? Ideally it would be at least a few days prior to the draft, so we can trade.

Is there a way to re-load last year's rosters to make them view-able? I doubt I'm the only one who doesn't remember who was on my team. *Figured it out. Click on "All time" and then your team name from last year.

And is a customized first round order do-able in yahoo? Not opposed to it, but wondering if it's possible.

And about the draft time? 10 am???

Ok, so assuming 4 keepers, here is a pool of guys I'm considering keeping:

Matt Holliday
Cliff Lee
Cole Hamels
Roy Halladay
Madison Bumgarner
Shin-Soo Choo

Open to trading anybody.

So on top of not getting to take advantage of drafting smart keepers strategically last year i'll penalized more for having better keepers.

I think we should be able to keep 4 players from when we drafted them last year or with a two round penalty.

This is the problem with not having agreed-upon keeper league rules in place before drafting.

If that's the case should we even have keepers for this year.....the point of a keeper league is to increase strategy ...not just keeping your four best players every year. I guess if we can agree on something before our draft that may work but just keeping your best and holding the draft like normal is pretty lame and would effect compensation for those guys in future years if we expand to true keeper league.

I agree. Since we didn't have rules in place before the draft last year maybe we should come up with rules before the draft this year and not pick keepers until next season.

We better hurry up then. I think we discussed it for two months last year.

I'm not overly invested in the plan I suggested, I just think it's a reasonable system that doesn't rely on subjective valuations or puts too heavy a work load on the commish. I'm also fine with scrapping the keeper idea entirely. Keeper leagues are probably best for groups of people who can physically sit down with each other and hash this all out.

I think at least part of the problem is that it's difficult to comb through all the posts here and figure out what a majority of people want to do. I say we create some polls and work our way through the options. The league message board might be a good place for that. I think the first poll should be whether we should have keepers at all for the upcoming season. After that, we can vote on different formats. We can do it in stages - first, vote among all the options, and then have a run-off poll with the top two vote-getters.

I can't set this up from work. If anyone here thinks this is a good way to go, and can access the site, feel free to fun with it.

I made 3 polls on the group page. Let me know if I should make more.

Thanks Timmy. How about one re: whether or not to have keepers in effect for this upcoming season, or to wait until 2014.?