Offseason Keeper League Changes

Q: My commish just announced he\’s making our league a keeper league (three keepers and players taken in rounds 1 to 3 go back in the pool).

Sounds fine, but he wants it to be retroactive to last year\’s draft — my worst season ever. I blew the draft last year and that\’s the main reason I\’m against it.

Just about everyone else will be OK with it because they have three drafts — or three FAs — on last year\’s roster worth keeping.

I picked Edge in the 4th last year — a bad pick to be sure with Turner still on the board (our league scoring is tilted toward QBs). That was a stupid pick to be sure, but there\’s no way I would\’ve picked James in the 4th if I knew that was the first round of picks to be available as keepers.

I say drafting for a keeper league should be announced prior to drafting for the keeper league. Other coaches are saying it was a level playing field because everyone went into last year\’s draft without knowledge there would be keepers.

What do you think?

A: Well, we agree with you.  The only way to ensure a level playing field when adopting keeper rules is to announce the change prior to the draft in question.   The obvious reasoning behind this is that keeper league potential will affect the way you draft.

That said, what your commish is doing doesn’t violate any rules your league has previously established.   It may favor the owners who had more productive drafts last season, but this situations usually come down to majority rules and unfortunately, it appears you are in the minority.    The options are to adjust your draft strategy or leave the league.

This isn’t a problem though.  It’s very common for owners to go “keeper crazy” in their first few years of a keeper league and you end up having a slight advantage over some other owners who are too attached to certain players to realize they are overvaluing their keeper status.