Keeper League Rule Changes

Q: Great site!! I hope you can help!!

I am entering the 12th season as commissioner of my fantasy football league. We started off small and simple, but have evolved throughout the years as most leagues do. We have a 12 team keeper league that is split into 3 divisions. The 3 division winners and 1 wildcard team make the playoffs. I have created several new rules throughout the years that have evened the playing field and prevented owners from taking advantage of weaker owners and loopholes in the rule book. There are usually grumblings from a few owners on each new rule, but I end up putting the rule in place because it will often increase our league integrity.

Many of the owners have been requesting/suggesting a new twist on our keeper rule. I’ve mulled a few ideas over the years and came up with (what I believe to be) an exciting and fair format. Our current keeper rule is this……

Teams can keep between 0-2 keepers per season (no limit on the number of years you can keep a player). If you choose to keep 1 keeper player, you lose your first round draft pick. If you choose to keep 2 keeper players, you lose your 1st & 2nd round draft picks. We’ve had this implemented for the past 7 years and it has worked out pretty well, but it’s starting to feel a little stale.

The new proposed keeper rule is as follows…..

Each franchise may keep up to 2 franchise players from their final roster in 2006. For each franchise player kept the team will lose their draft selection in the round where the respective player was drafted in the previous year’s draft (round 9 & 10 for Free Agent acquisitions). If a player is/was acquired via trade, said player retains the round he was drafted in the previous year’s draft. Keeper players from 2006 count as a 1st or 2nd round draft pick if you choose to keep them in 2007

Once a player has been declared a keeper in 2007, he will automatically have a 1st or 2nd round draft tag applied to his keeper status in the following years draft. For example, Laurence Maroney was drafted in the 9th round in 2006. If said franchise chooses to keep him in 2007, they will lose their 9th round draft pick in 2007. If the franchise chooses to keep Maroney in 2008, they will lose their 1st round draft pick (and 2nd round draft pick if they choose to keep 2 players more than one season) in 2008.

This is one of the few (if not only) rule changes I have implemented that focuses on spicing things up a bit instead of increasing league integrity.

I proposed this rule in the middle of July and received a 70% response from league owners in favor of the new rule. As a result, I put this rule into place and haven’t heard too much about it until this week. I would say most of the owners support the rule and understand it. Yesterday, I had an owner threaten to quit if the rule wasn’t revoked immediately. Our draft is on Sunday and I’m trying to convince this owner that while the rule change may not benefit him this year, it will down the road. His response was, “the late rounds are a crap shoot anyway. The only thing you’re rewarding is luck. I don’t draft my team based on how they’re going to do next year. I draft based on how they will perform this year. If I would have known this, I would’ve drafted different last year. If someone wants to keep Maroney they only have to give up a 9th round pick?? That’s ridiculous.” This particular owner is also trying to rile up a few of the other owners as I have received calls from several of them over the past 48 hours.

My response to this owner was that no one knew about this rule change last year and I hadn’t even thought of it until early summer, so no one could have drafted with this in mind. Now, you have to understand something about this guy’s team. His two keepers were P. Manning and Tiki Barber last year. Tiki retired (tough luck) and if he wanted to keep Manning he would need to give up his 1st round pick. He also has Thomas Jones, but he was drafted in the 4th round and a 4th rounder for Jones might be a stretch this year. His biggest argument is that one owner is keeping Laurence Maroney for a 9th round pick and Drew Brees for a 10th round pick.

Before every draft we gather around the Festivus pole and have an “airing of grievances.” He said he will show up to the draft and will do everything in his power to change the rule back. Unfortunately, I already have several owners who are excited about their keepers since they don’t have to give up a 1st and/or 2nd round draft pick. Hopefully he sticks around and drafts, but I have an emergency “drafter” ready to go.

Am I losing my mind?? Is this keeper rule unbalanced and unfair?? Can it be manipulated?? Should I stick with the new rule or revert back to the old?? Any suggestions on improving/changing the rule??

Thanks in advance!!

A: Hi Brett. Thanks for the question. Looks like your draft was yesterday so I apologize for not responding sooner but for what its worth I got married this past weekend so I was pretty busy.

Anyway, I don’t think you are losing your mind at all and I think its healthy to experiment with different rules so that you can continue to improve your league.

This is a somewhat sticky situation. As you’ve already mentioned in your email, the owner who has the biggest issue with the keeper league rule change does not have potential keepers that would be a good value with the new rule. Likewise, it seems the biggest supporters of the rule change have players like Maroney and Brees that would be a good value. Obviously, their support is based on personal gain and not on an objective belief that the rule will improve the league.

Unfortunately there is nothing that can be done to keep league members from reacting to new rule proposals based on how said rule personally affects them. This is a natural response and its something you’ll always have to deal with. You can curtail the effects somewhat by voting on important league decisions during the off season when vested interests are less apparent. Let’s dig into the issue at hand a little deeper though.

First the quote from your disgruntled owner:

“the late rounds are a crap shoot anyway. The only thing you’re rewarding is luck. I don’t draft my team based on how they’re going to do next year. I draft based on how they will perform this year. If I would have known this, I would’ve drafted different last year…”

By definition, a keeper league is supposed to add the element of long-term planning to your fantasy team so anyone who says they don’t draft their team based on how they’re going to perform in the future has no business participating in a keeper league. However, he absolutely has a valid point in saying he would have drafted differently had he known the rule was changing. I think I would have definitely made some riskier selections in the later rounds last year if I knew I could potentially hold on to someone like Jones-Drew in the 14th round this year. Wouldn’t you? To even the playing field, it would make sense to push this rule change back to next year so that all league members can adjust their draft strategy accordingly in this year’s draft. I don’t think it matters that all owners were unaware during last year’s draft because those who have good keepers for the new proposed keeper format did not end up that way because of their drafting prowess - luck played a significant role as in they lucked out that the change to the keeper rule favors last year’s team more heavily.

Another problem I see with your keeper rules (old and new) are that they eat up your 1st and/or 2nd round draft picks. This is just a personal preference but the draft is one of the best parts of fantasy football and marking all the top players as eligible keepers dilutes the fun of the draft.

Lastly, allowing any player to be kept the following year in the round you drafted them in is a popular keeper league format but it is also one of the easiest ways to create some lopsided match ups within your league. If that’s the path you choose, your entire league has to be in for the long haul and has to understand that the balance of power in such a format will definitely shift from year to year.

I’m going to give you a suggestion from one of my keeper leagues that addresses some of the problems I listed above. Adopting this exact format in your league will require you to reset all keepers which is probably not a practical options. Maybe you can incorporate parts of it into your keeper rule.

You can keep up to two players each season but you can only keep players drafted in the 3rd round or later so that each year the top players like LT and Manning are still available to be drafted. I find this helps maintain a competitive balance. If you decide to keep one player, it doesn’t matter if you drafted him in round 3 or round 11, he counts as your 3rd round pick. If you keep a second player, he always counts as your 4th round pick. This forces owners to consider their keeper options thoroughly since they are sacrificing very high draft picks and also avoids having to deal with the grumblings undoubtedly invoked when one smart owner drafts the next Barry Sanders in round 15 as a rookie.

A variation of this that might work for your league is that anyone you keep in the later rounds will count as your 3rd pick the next season. Or you could say that each year you keep someone, they cost you a draft pick two spots up from the previous year. For example, if you draft Michael Turner in round 10 this year, next year he costs you an 8th round pick, then the following year a 6th round pick and so on.

By the way, the rule that there is no limit to the number of years you can keep a player makes it much harder to make any changes to the keeper rule. In one of my leagues players can only be kept for two years. If we really want to change the keeper rule we can just grandfather in the current keepers for the next two years until their eligibility is up which helps prevent some owners benefiting more than others from a rule change.

One last note, I’ve never been a big fan of allowing free agent pickups to be eligible keepers because unlike the late rounds in a draft, scooping up a top free agent does have a lot to do with luck depending on how waiver priority is determined. In most of my keeper leagues you can only keep players that you draft or that you trade for…. just an idea.