After years of playing with the same guys, we are finally gonna start a keeper league next year. There are many ideas as to how exactly we will determine keepers. I was wondering what your experiences are with keeper leagues and what your preference is. Also any ideas as to certain rules about who you can and cannot keep. I have heard things like any 5 players and 2 players that have less than 3 full years in the league to keeping 4 hitter and 4 pitchers. Any and all ideas are welcome. My league is very undecided so far, so maybe if I have some input I can help sway some of the guys as to how the keeper issue can be handled. There is talk also of making it an auction league, and we're not sure how the keeper system would work with that. Using this years team as an example, I snatched up Aaron Hill off free agencies, so would I keep him for next year for only a dollar? And if so, how long is his value only a dollar? How do you guys handle things like that?

El Cleaverino,

If you're going to make it a keeper league, you should begin with a clean slate. I.e., no guys from this past year. Draft entire new teams.

Go with the auction. It's much easier for keepers. Then you just put in an inflation clause. I use a $5 inflation clause in my longest running league. So if you draft Votto for $20 this year, then you can keep him for $25 in 2011, then $30 in 2012 and so on. This way people all have keepers and eventually all players end up back in the pool of players to get redrafted.

Only keep 5 players.

Use a $260 cap and a $100 FAAB. So you draft with the $260, then you have $100 in season to bid on players once a week.

Make it deep enough with corner and middle infielders or two utility players.

Feel free to ask any of other specific questions...

yeah for sure we will redraft. I was just using Hill as an example. As far as CI and MI, this has been an idea that has never taken with this group of guys. We use only 3 OF and 2 UTIL. Last year I tried to push for expanded rosters, 5 OF and the MI and CI spots, but only a few guys were interested. They feel the talent level will decrease significantly to the point of having to use bums as starters. I told them to draft better and keep a better eye on the free agents out there, but this fell on deaf ears. The thing is, only half of the guys in the league are REAL fantasy ballers, with the rest playing for fun more than to win. We have one guy that has finished in the bottom third in both baseball and football for 4 years running. We can't kick him out because he actually plays the entire year and is an active manager, he just sucks. But its guys like him that arent interested in adding more starting positions because they lack the knowledge to fill that many spots.

One other question, how many bench spots do you prefer. I think this past year we used 5, which some argued was too few, other loved it because that meant there was actually usable players in free agency.

If you're only using 3 OFs and 2 UTIL guys, I'd go to 7 bench spots, but you might only be able to convince them of 6..

A variation on Grey's $5 annual inflation rule for keeper salaries: in my auction keeper league, a player is assigned a three-year "contract" when he is drafted or picked up off waivers, and he can be kept for up to those three years. E.g., I drafted Jose Lopez for $10 at last year's auction, so Lopez was assigned a 2009 contract and I can keep him for 2010 and 2011 at $10 (unlikely, but I could if I wanted to). I also picked up Dice-K for $1 in the Free Agent Auction Bidding process when he was hurt last year, so Dice-K also has a 2009 contract and can be kept for 2010 and 2011 for $1 (more likely).

We also have a twist that allows an owner to purchase an option to keep a player for a fourth year; to purchase that option, the owner must decide to do so before the third year, and the player's salary then goes up by $5 for both the third and the fourth years. So for example, I bought Tim Lincecum at the 2008 draft for $20 (that has turned out nicely for me). Before this year's draft, I have to decide whether I want to purchase an option to keep Lincecum for 2011 (which would be my fourth year of keeping him); if I do so, Lincecum's salary will increase to $25 for both 2010 and 2011.

It's a little complicated (every year at least one owner gets confused by it), but overall I really like the system. I like the hard cap of 4 years on keeping a player--that means that a player like Hanley Ramirez, who I picked up on the waiver wire in Spring 2006 for $2, is back on the auction market this year, whereas under a $5 annual inflation system Hanley likely would be kept this year at $22. But there are reasons in favor and against either system; just thought I'd throw out an alternative to you.

I like the idea of only keeping players for a maximum of 4 years. Maybe we will try some combination of contracts with inflated prices each year. Thinking about starting a keeper league has me all giddy. I know football has just ended, and I should take a break, but I just jumped right back into baseball.

Also, who offers the best options in the way of keepers? I like ESPN because of free live scoring.

hasenmensch,

is there a online service that can do all this? does CBS or any other one have the FAAB process built in?

Could be wrong, but I think both ESPN and Yahoo will be offering it this year.

Yes, ESPN and Yahoo both offer the FAAB bidding. But what about contract management? CBS offers it. Does anyone else?

Another possibility if you decide not to go with an auction league is to inflate them by draft round. For instance, say I picked Tulo in the 2nd round and decided to keep him. I would give up my first round pick the following year. If I picked up, say, Justin Heyward in the 13th round, I would give up my 12th round the following year. This places a fair amount of emphasis on finding and keeping new talent and sleepers. And obviously, you cannot keep a 1st round pick.