This is our league's first year as a keeper league where you keep a player 2 rounds ahead of where they were drafted the year before, where pick ups are assigned a last round pick.

Its a ROTO league, and the discussion came up about how to keep people at the bottom of the standings from dropping players they don't plan on keeping for prospects for next year.

For example, say Erick Young Jr was on the FA list, and the team in last place doesn't plan on keeping Brandon Phillips, so he drops him for EYJ. Not fair for the league. Any ways to limit this or prevent it? I need suggestions.

I'm asking everyone, not just Grey (Though if you do have any options I am more than welcome)...

Thanks!!
Gopher

Why would someone drop a player that could help another team? Makes no sense.

I'm in a very similar leauge but we only get three moves per year so it's not much of an issue.
To deal with part of the problem, any player who is drafted is available the following year at their draft position -2 rounds regardless of what team they end up on and regardless of how they were acquired. For example, I draft Joe Nathan in the 8th then drop him because he is mortally wounded. Someone else picks him up because they want to keep him - he costs a 6th rd choice, not a last rounder.

The way the league is set up, you can keep players 2 rounds ahead of where they were drafted. So say I drafted Ryan Zimmerman in the 4th round, he would cost me a 2nd round pick next year. Johan in the 5th this year would cost me a 3rd round pick next year if I kept him.

The problem that came up was the possibility of the last place team dropping valuable players that they don't plan on keeping for prospects etc. So say they drafted Reyes in the 3rd round, and they didn't plan on keeping him, they dropped him for some dude that will cost him a last round draft pick. Then whoever is in the running could go ahead and pick up Reyes.

Does that make sense?

3 moves a year?? Haha I don't think I could deal with that! I like making small moves with my roster...19 moves already in one league!!

We have that exact same set up....except our draft was AFTER the Nathan news....... I guess it helps to some degree.

assign a higher round value to free agents. In our league, all free agent pick ups cost a 13th round pick if we want to keep them, which was a completely arbitrary number we agreed on. There shouldn't be anyone on waivers at the end of the season that would be a very good value in the 13th, but you could make it even higher, maybe an 8th or 9th?

None of this really seems to be getting at what I am interpreting as the heart of the issue.

Say Team A has Jose Reyes as a 5th round pick (3rd round keeper status) but is in last place with two months to go in the season. They see a prospect like Eric Young Jr. sitting in the FA pool and need a roster spot in order to sign him. Jose Reyes holds no value to Team A since they are in last place with no intentions of keeping Reyes. So they go along their way and cut Reyes to sign Young and better their team for the future - with no regard for the present since they are not in contention.

What rules should be put into place to stop Team A from dropping Reyes, thus allowing a contending team the opportunity to scoop him up off the waiver wire free of charge and gain a pretty unfair advantage over his competitors?

This question has raised an eyebrow for me as a commissioner of a keeper league. We have some rules in place setup to ensure that all players drafted before the 20th round hold their keeper status regardless of being dropped but that doesn't really solve the issue either.

I'll let you know if I think of anything... thanks!

Hmmm. I don't really have this problem in my keeper league, but I understand your concern. To be honest, I don't think that you are going to have as big of a problem as you think. Most teams that fall out of contention just quit checking their team. I don't like the moves limit (never have), and I don't really know of a way to fix it. Waiver priority makes a huge difference. I know that I wouldn't want to help another team win, but if I knew of a guy that I could pick up off FA and keep him for cheap, then I'll drop someone who wouldn't make that big of a deal not Reyes. That would be collusion. There's no reason to drop Reyes when I can drop a guy like B. Molina or Tim Hudson. In order to make room for keepers for the next season doesn't mean that you have to drop your best 4 players. That's crazy. I say don't really worry about it. You'll be okay. I understand both sides. If you are in contention then save that waiver. Good luck.

Reyes should then be a free round player if he's scooped off of waivers. So then a team would never drop Reyes if they knew they were making another team insanely strong with Reyes for next year.

We have a rule that prevents a player dropped after the trade deadline from being kept to protect against some of this but I still don't think it solves the issue fully. Certainly using common sense an owner would not drop a player like Reyes outright if he has better options and/or to protect league integrity but without a bylaw outlining this I would still fear it can and may happen.

The main issue here is not about necessarily keeping this star player in future years, it's more about having a contending team having a free pass at a quality player just because a non-contending team has no interest in filling a roster spot with a theoretically non-keepable player. What if I am in last place and just want to stockpile young talent just for the sake of keeping guys away from my opponents? I'd want to use every roster spot available.

We have a limit on adds (additional league fees added if you choose to go over) to semi-prevent an owner from dropping his entire team but this still leaves the loophole above if a non-contending owner has free moves left.

I can't think of a proper way to prevent this without using some type of "undroppable" player list.