Allow Spidertack back? The issues I have aren’t with league settings but with Yahoo and their waiver procedure.
i have no problem voting on changes but have always wanted in changes made to take effect the next season. That would mean 2024. This way teams know how to construct their team at the next draft and during the season to better take advantage of said changes that are forthcoming. That said, I am no longer in charge (just helping now) so doesn’t really matter what I think…but just my two cents.
I am intrigued about upping keeper limits.
Throw out what you have in mind, let’s discuss it. I agree that we’d probably want a long lead time on changes taking effect because they might have something to do with how people structured their teams close to the end of last season, but let’s talk.
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How about bumping keepers up to 8, making draft picks tradeable, abolishing wins and losses as categories, and increasing the value of holds to, say, three points apiece.
I am already extensively on the record regarding Ws and Ls but would be glad to reiterate the reasons I support that measure if anybody wanted me to.
I’m not really clear on it, but I’m pretty sure that draft picks are tradeable now but I could also be very, very wrong. It’s my remembrance though that they are, with some restrictions.
I think the question of keepers is interesting. Obviously, if you like your team then you want to keep more of them going forward. The drag of having to make tough decisions feeds back into keeping the league competitive and makes the draft more important, which in turn is balanced by roster management during the season. Fewer keepers means better players available in the draft, which means teams aren’t able to lock up practically an entire lineup or pitching staff year to year, preserving the role of other elements that are going to be more random.
Wins and Losses are being discussed in all different formats of fantasy baseball, and the only solutions I’ve seen that have any real traction revolve around the use of IP and Sv + H, which we already count. I think it’s a mistake to remove W and L entirely because A) they’ve been part of baseball statistics forever and will continue to be, forever and B) there are still the same number of Wins and Losses accounted for, they’re just spread out differently and are more random. I could see entertaining some changes like tinkering with the number of SP or P on the roster, or perhaps pulling down their point values a little bit, but I’m very leery of making a change so radical as to do away with them entirely. That is a huge amount of points to just remove, without careful consideration as to the potential consequences. I am in favor of discussion though, and perhaps making incremental adjustments if there’s something we all feel comfortable with.
Thank you for your suggestions, Devin. Also, everyone, feel free to comment on his suggestions/share your own to improve the league.
My thoughts at first glance are I am very much opposed to increasing the number of keepers by three per team without keeper term limits being implemented. As @Ron_Brand said, that limits talent available in the annual draft for teams at the bottom to improve. If anything, I’d like to see keeper year limits or reducing the number of keepers per team to add more talent to our annual draft pool. However, I do like the idea of trading draft picks, especially if we decide to limit the number of years players can be kept. That would increase league activity/player movement and give bottom teams an avenue to get better picks in exchange for weaker ones for players they can’t/don’t want to keep.
I also don’t think we should completely eliminate wins and losses, but weighing down their scoring I think could be a potential compromise.
I would be happy to have the weight of wins and losses reduced and could definitely get on board with keeper term limits. Say, five? I imagine that would add a lot of work, though?
It’s not that much work to track keeper contracts. I track it in the CBS money keeper league I commish using their commissioner tools, and Yahoo has a keeper salary section which we can use to track it in our league. A player in year 1 of being kept would have a 1 in the keeper salary column on the site, a player in year would have a 2, and so on. I’d suggest three or four years for contracts. That means if a player is drafted, the owner that drafted him could keep him on their team for four or five seasons because the initial season they are drafted doesn’t count towards their keeper years.
And for our purposes, I assume those “kept years” would begin with the 2023 or 2024 season, irrespective of how long an individual player has already been on a manager’s team. Right?
Does the keeper-clock reset when a kept player is traded? Assuming no, but might as well ask.
David, if keeper limits were put in place, would you personally be open to expanding the number of keepers per team?
The kept years would begin with the first year limits are implemented, yes. Keeper years remaining only reset if a player is dropped. The years remaining transfer to the new owner if traded.
As to your last question, with short enough keeper limits I might be able to be persuaded to expand the number of keepers, but, in general, I still prefer less keepers, not more. My hope in instituting keeper limits is to balance the league talent pool to a degree.
With 14 owners, if everyone keeps 8 players, that means the top 100 players are not available in our annual draft until three or four years from the point we enact the rule change. (If it passes). The draft is the best tool that rebuilding or lower-finishing teams from the year before have to improve their base of keepers. Also, fewer keepers incentivizes trading in-season and during the offseason because rebuilders can get early round picks from contenders if they value the pick higher during the season. Then, in the offseason, if contenders have more than five worthy keepers, those rebuilders with extra picks needing keeper upgrades can use their extra picks to trade for good players contenders don’t have enough room to keep.
I am a perennial doormat, so my opinion may not be common, but I’ll present it anyway. With as many teams as we have, the current keeper limits already make the pool of top-flight talent available in the draft pretty shallow: 14 teams times 5 keepers/team means 70 players are off the board before we start. Increasing the per-team limit only aggravates the situation, which seems like a move in the wrong direction to me.
I understand the frustration of owners who succeed in uncovering up-and-coming players but can’t keep them because of the current limit. A league with this many owners puts a premium on an owner’s ability to evaluate secondary players, which is a good thing. But I fear that increasing the keeper limit will mean that the only talent available is such that even if you do a good job of evaluating it, its contribution will not be enough to make much of a move.
Having said all of that, I admit that I haven’t done any research on lineup variance and how many points are piled up by a team’s keepers versus how many by the rest of the lineup, so I may be full of shit. If so, feel free to call me on it.
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I think you’re just a little bit full of shit, but I haven’t done that research either. I come at this from a position philosophically fond of the dynasty league–in which teams have the opportunity to retain most their players every year–so am always inching to move us closer in that direction. But I recognize that it’s quite possibly a distinctly minority opinion.
I feel like putting term limits on keepers and allowing the trading of draft picks would go a long way toward minimizing gridlock.
WTH, I needed to do something while my car warmed up. Here’s the breakdown of keeper contribution (average, total, and percent of total points) from last year. Draw from it what conclusions you will. I’m off to work and will revisit this later.
RKFC: avg 540, total 2703, 28% of total score
Rainbow Guts: 546, 2728, 29%
Bagelman: 638, 3192, 34%
Ballbreakers: 639* (Ohtani), 3195, 35%
Zack Attack: 432* (four keepers showing), 1726, 19%
Dome Foam: 378* (four keepers showing), 1512, 17%
Less Lakers: 504, 2521, 29%
Wild Dogs: 467, 2333, 27%
Corpse Killers: 468, 2338, 28%
Castellanos: 492, 2461, 30%
Houston Grackles: 399* (four keepers showing), 1995, 25%
Berkman’s Revenge: 488, 2438, 31%
Goldrush: 454* (Tatis), 2272, 30%
Mercury Rising: 446, 2230, 31%
I like the idea of a dynasty league having the option to keep at least 50% of the roster, otherwise its just a regular league that allows you to keep a couple of players.
However its not fair for any team to get a single player for a large chuck of his career prime. Also the more talent that is kept the harder it is for a team to compete after a bad season.
I have been in leagues that have countered this 2 different ways.
- have an auction with salary cap instead of a draft. The players salary for 2 seasons is what you got him for in the draft. In season 3 you choose keep him 1 last year at that salary and then FA or Before his 3rd season sign him to a contract and choose the length but each additional year adds $10 to his annual salary. Then he becomes a FA.
Example:
Yordan goes for $10 in 2021 He plays 2021-22 for $10.
For 23 the owner can:
- Not keep him
- keep him for $10 then he’s a FA
- sign him for 2yrs @$20, 3yrs@$30, 4yrs@$40, etc.
The 2nd way is a draft.
In year 2 every player is assigned a draft slot 1 spot better than last year. 1st rd picks can never be kept.
Example:
Alex Bregman is a 6th rd pick in 2018.
If an owner keeps him in 2019 he surrenders 5th rd pick.
2020 = 4th rd
2021=3rd rd
2022=2nd rd
2023=1st rd
2024 = FA.
It has the benefit of always having 1st rd players available so teams can load back up after a bad season but also allows owners who find an end of the draft gem and keep him longer.
It also has strategy of: Say Ohtani is available in the draft. Do you want to keep Alex again in 2023 knowing you won’t have a 1st rd pick and will miss out?
Seems complicated. I’d be fine with a 5- or 6- year limit on keepers and revaluing pitcher wins (or using QS instead), but after a few years in the league I have grown fond of its idiosyncrasies and don’t see a need for big changes.
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I have no interest in blowing up a functioning, competitive league that has worked for 20 years by turning it into some complicated morass or heavily-weighted composition. I understand falling in love with your team and wanting to retain the competitive advantages you feel you have - I reset my team this season and found some strong keeper candidates. I like that this league has its idiosyncrasies and I really don’t want to see drastic changes to its tried methodologies. I also recognize that changes can be necessary, but without anything other than isolated, anecdotal feelings to go on I would strongly argue in favor of incremental changes that can be easily amended depending on how the results show.
At some point we might need to ask ourselves if we’re here because we like the league, or if we’d rather make this league like others that are out there.
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This is people talking, like you suggested.
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Great points.
I am happy with the league as is and will continue to be happy regardless if additional keepers are decided.
I will look at catagory change suggestions. I have not done that yet.
It sure is. And so am I.
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I don’t have access to the league on Yahoo so can’t see the scoring catagories.
I will say that if Ws and Ls are scrapped in favor of increasing the value of Holds then it reduces the value of pitching as a whole and drastically increases set up men since there are only so many relief pitchers (pitch 6-8 innings) who can get holds.
My issue with wins and losses nowadays is that fewer are going to starters (even decent ones), more are going to middle relievers, and that creates an unfortunate randomness for a category with such a high point value. It’s why I like QS in my other regular league.
As for holds, if we upped their value by a point or whatever to help get them more equal to saves, that’s fine with me. Good setup men are valuable in real baseball and I think it’s good for fantasy to reflect that.
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