FF2010: Keeper League discussion thread

We can certainly either modify the FA budget or just scale it by .2 for keeper purposes. I'm fine either way. Or increase the draft budget, whatever the people want.

I've been thinking about the effect of having the caps match, too.

At first thought, I would think that having a FA cap (which will be used on, what, around 6-8 players?) that matches the draft cap (which will pay for a roster of 20) would necessarily lead to FAs commanding higher prices than drafted players, and making them, in many cases, unkeepable.

But I wonder if perhaps FA behavior will change. When it's a redraft league and you've got $200 to spend, you spend $200. But with the price becoming the player's keeper price, will players bid low in hopes of getting players at prices they could keep them at? Or will everyone still bid high and just live with not being able to keep those players?

Kind of an interesting wrinkle. You can bid $80 on a free agent but that guarantees he's a rent-a-player for that year only.

*Legion* wrote:

I've been thinking about the effect of having the caps match, too.

At first thought, I would think that having a FA cap (which will be used on, what, around 6-8 players?) that matches the draft cap (which will pay for a roster of 20) would necessarily lead to FAs commanding higher prices than drafted players, and making them, in many cases, unkeepable.

But I wonder if perhaps FA behavior will change. When it's a redraft league and you've got $200 to spend, you spend $200. But with the price becoming the player's keeper price, will players bid low in hopes of getting players at prices they could keep them at? Or will everyone still bid high and just live with not being able to keep those players?

Kind of an interesting wrinkle. You can bid $80 on a free agent but that guarantees he's a rent-a-player for that year only.

Wow, that's.... something I hadn't thought of before. Up until now I was thinking that the FA budget would be better at maybe half the full roster budget. But I hadn't thought of the value holding from year to year in the keeper format. It's going to take a year before I really have any idea what's going on here. I do really like the idea that I can keep as many players as I want from my old team... as long as I can pay the inflation out of my budget.

I think I prefer the keeper rules where there is a set % increase with a minimum base price. That way when you acquire a player, you know how much it is going to cost you in future years to keep him as opposed to being at the mercy of what someone else bids for him.

ukickmydog wrote:

I think I prefer the keeper rules where there is a set % increase with a minimum base price. That way when you acquire a player, you know how much it is going to cost you in future years to keep him as opposed to being at the mercy of what someone else bids for him.

Here's the rub...if we depend on inflation as the sole balancing mechanism, those percentages have got to be perfect, or the league might very well turn into a lottery (pick tons of upside players and hope a few pay off big). The problem gets worse if we allow free agent pickups to be kept based on the price they're initially acquired at, as everyone has to be on their A-game with free agent bids every single week.

I know the fixed inflation method sounds simple and easy to manage, and I'm sure it would be, but it lacks any degree of balancing aside from the draft. I think the qualifying offer piece ensures that teams are still rewarded for drafting well (by being compensated when they lose a player), but also ensures competitive balance, making those inflation percentages less crucial
to get perfect.

Ok, rewrote this post now that I've worked through my thoughts. With the inflation method, Free Agents would be undervalued as keepers because not EVERY team will bid EVERY week for free agents. At least I certainly hope not, that's not what I signed up for. With the qualifying offer method the potential Free Agent will still inflate to their proper value next year, but the person who picked them up gets a little extra dough for their foresight. I'm OK with that. My vote is for qualifying offer all around. Teams that don't have as many good keepers will have to be reaching for deeper sleepers, which makes sense and rhymes as well.

Hurry up and pick the rules for this so I know which chapter of this auction theory book to read.

The Titans hit the lottery with CJ. What about being able to protect a subset of players from being susceptible to qualifying offers? Just a thought...

Grumpicus wrote:

The Titans hit the lottery with CJ. What about being able to protect a subset of players from being susceptible to qualifying offers? Just a thought...

I like this. Have one or two that you can protect and the rest can be bid on. Kind of like the Rule 5 draft in baseball, you can protect some players but not all.

ukickmydog wrote:
Grumpicus wrote:

The Titans hit the lottery with CJ. What about being able to protect a subset of players from being susceptible to qualifying offers? Just a thought...

I like this. Have one or two that you can protect and the rest can be bid on. Kind of like the Rule 5 draft in baseball, you can protect some players but not all.

I think this could work as long as it's heavily limited. Something like you can only protect 1-2 players, and you can't protect the same player two years in a row.

Or, what about approaching it from the other angle and limiting the number of qualifying offers a coach can make (say something like 2-3)? In that manner you could almost turn the qualifying offer process into a small draft.

I'm trying to come at this from the perspective of the owner of a lousy team- there have to be some mechanisms in place to allow a turn around. Dynasties are one thing in the NFL (one thing that doesn't exist anymore, that is), but in fantasy it's going to be tough to keep folks interested in their 2-12 team if there's nothing that they can do to rein in a powerhouse.

Keep the mechanism of the qualifying offer in mind here- even if a player gets stolen out from
under your nose, your opponent paid a premium to get the player, you had an offer to match at a total cost below what the other team offered, and you were compensated by some amount unless you kept a player at his minimum price. All cases here still favor the initial drafting team, and ensure you won't ever have a player just taken from you- you will always have the choice of keeping someone, just at a potentially higher price.

Yeah, I'm not sure I see the need to further complicate things. I like being able to keep a player that you smartly drafted on the rise, but I thought the whole point of inflation/qualifying offer was so that a team could not have a ringer who was still rated at $2 for the redraft. I think we should keep one rule and stick with it, these subset rules CONFUSE AND INFURIATE ME!

Personally, I prefer the simplicity of a "simple" inflation formula coupled with a maximum number of keepers. Everyone understands it and it's how most keeper leagues run. The qualifying offer concept just makes my brain hurt.

Let's enumerate the options.

OPTION A: INFLATION: Player values increase based on a percentage chart
Pros: Simple, works well in the average case
Cons: A severely undervalued player can take a long time to "inflate" to his real value

OPTION B: INFLATION + SALARY FLOOR: Same as "A" but players below a certain value inflate to a set baseline
Pros: Helps defend (somewhat) against the corner case of a severely undervalued player
Cons: Hamstrings the ability to keep long-term prospects

OPTION C: INFLATION + SIMPLE LIMITED OFFERS: Owners have the ability to make a limited (1 or 2) number of "offers" to keepers on other rosters. The current owner of the keeper receiving an offer has the right to match.
Pros: Prevents Option A's "con"
Cons: Arbitrary, extra rule mainly just exists to try and prevent Option A's "con"

OPTION D: RESTRICTED FREE AGENCY STYLE: Owners place tender values on each of their keepers. The amount (if any) in which a tender exceeds the previous year's value is the "compensation cost". Owners of other teams may place any number of offers on keepers on other rosters. The current owners of the keepers receiving offers have the right to match. If they do not, the "winning" owner loses an extra amount of his salary cap (equal to the "compensation cost"), and the "losing" owner gains the same amount on his cap.
Pros: Strategery! Addresses any value "corner cases"
Cons: Considerably more complex than other options. Might solve the undervalued player problem too well and make it difficult to reap the rewards of buying a player low

Although I came up with the idea for option D and think it would be quite fun, I think the way to go might be option A.

Many of the ideas we've come up with beyond option A have been geared towards trying to solve the scenario of highly undervalued players, and though I have enjoyed brainstorming solutions, I've never been convinced that it's a problem that actually needs to be solved.

My thinking is that (a) severely undervalued players won't happen often, (b) draft day behavior will adjust if/when they do (people will bid higher on prospects to try and get the next one), and (c) these little strokes of luck will tend to even out over the long haul and don't necessarily need to be aggressively prevented.

I'll differ with Grumpy on one part, in that I don't think an arbitrary maximum number of keepers is necessary. With normal, non-auction keeper leagues, it's an important rule, because there's literally nothing else stopping rampant player-keeping. But inflation is meant to push players off of rosters and back into the draft pool, so I don't think it's necessary to also put an arbitrary limit restriction on top of that. A limit isn't going to put studs back into the talent pool, it would be long-term project players that owners would have to give up on because they're out of room.

I'm cool with options A or D.

*Legion* wrote:

I'll differ with Grumpy on one part, in that I don't think an arbitrary maximum number of keepers is necessary. With normal, non-auction keeper leagues, it's an important rule, because there's literally nothing else stopping rampant player-keeping. But inflation is meant to push players off of rosters and back into the draft pool, so I don't think it's necessary to also put an arbitrary limit restriction on top of that. A limit isn't going to put studs back into the talent pool, it would be long-term project players that owners would have to give up on because they're out of room.

And I'm perfectly fine deferring to the group on this one.

As for A or B, the reason I put "simple" in quotes is because the inflation formula I envisioned would either have a scalar or a hard floor that would make sure that anyone worth keeping would have a keeper-worthy price tag.

To more pressing matters, what shall we do about the auction budget vs. free agent budget question?

I arbitrarily think that $100 is a good idea. Anyone worth picking up off FA is going to go for a low double digit amount, unless someone REALLY wants him, which is likely to put the price around $40 or $50 or higher, and more in line with a top auction draft spot. Still leaves you plenty of room for $1 and $2 pickups. Any higher than $100 and the blind bids for anyone on FA will almost always guarantee a 1 yr contract due to inflation when the draft comes around again. Any lower and I think people will get too conservative and undervalue players. That's probably going to be a problem anyway, but $100 feels like it might mitigate that more.

Of course, if we decide FA pickups are always 1 yr pickups and will be redrafted next year regardless, it doesn't really matter what the FA budget is.

I like option D the best. If we go with one of the other options I think we should seriously consider making free agent pickups ineligible for keeper status. There are too many opportunities for wacky valuations week to week without a balancing mechanism.

Grumpicus wrote:

As for A or B, the reason I put "simple" in quotes is because the inflation formula I envisioned would either have a scalar or a hard floor that would make sure that anyone worth keeping would have a keeper-worthy price tag.

I'm a little worried about that. I get your point, of course, but I am worried about making it financially infeasible to keep cheap long-term prospects.

To me, a keeper league is about being able to make moves with a long-term outlook, not just the ability to keep Adrian Peterson on your roster for more than one year. I love the idea of walking the balance between fielding the best team you can every year, and also holding on to young players that may not pay off for you immediately. But if the inflation or salary floor is too aggressive, it won't be feasible to hold onto players that aren't producing for your team now.

The problem, of course, is that it's really hard to project what will happen without numbers. And really, we won't get a good feel for where the strategic lines fall until we've actually played through a season with draft picks and FAs and come to the time when we've got to look at the numbers and pick keepers.

On a different note, I think I may be in favor of Jolly Bill's idea of a FA cap that's half the draft budget. Nice, round, and at least at a cursory glance, I think his logic is good.

GWJFFLK, I've had ESPN send out invites for the league I created to support out auction draft. Please PM me if it didn't show up in your inbox. Please verify your email address in said PM. Thanks.

EDIT: Ignore the first invite email. It was the wrong league type and the number of teams was stuck at 10. Sorry.

Well you know I've already mentioned that my optimal goal is to let you hold on to a prospect for 4 to 5 years so...

*Legion* wrote:

On a different note, I think I may be in favor of Jolly Bill's idea of a FA cap that's half the draft budget. Nice, round, and at least at a cursory glance, I think his logic is good.

I agree it seems to make sense. So then the question is, lower the FA budget or just multiply by .1 for keeper values?

Grumpicus wrote:

I agree it seems to make sense. So then the question is, lower the FA budget or just multiply by .1 for keeper values?

I think lowering the budget makes the most sense. I think it's a little more clear (the dollar value is the dollar value, period), and I don't think anything is really gained by having the budgets match.

What about trading during the season?
My team is 1-5 and Legion has the red hot (QB Rating 115.7) Vince Young on his bench. He won V.Young for $4 during our draft. I don't have any players I could give up that wouldn't keep my losing ways going. I offer Legion $50 of my free agent money? He returns with wanting $35 of my auction money. I accept his counteroffer.

The rest of the season I have Vince Young.

At the next year's draft things look like this:
Me:
V. Young for $4 + Inflation
-$35

Legion:
+$35

Mortgage the future for victories today? Or no trading with money?

As much as I would love every advantage possible. I highly recommend going into an ESPN Auction Mock Draft so that you can figure out the interface and experience an auction draft first hand. Now the others won't be drafting for keeper but I'd say it's a pretty good close proximity. It certainly opened my eyes up to how poor my auction draft strategy was.
http://games.espn.go.com/ffl/mockdraftlobby

So are we talking the FA budget down to $100?

Sounds good to me.

I'm just going to go ahead and ask a question possibly no one will answer, but would anyone tell me how much the 20 man roster affects auction values? I can't find any info for teams over 16, and while I can do the math on how much less money that means on the high value players, I'm still at a loss as to the general system.

You know? Never mind, I'll just look forward to completely sucking it up Wednesday :-D. I have a couple... interesting strategies to employ.

Landshrk83 wrote:

I like option D the best. If we go with one of the other options I think we should seriously consider making free agent pickups ineligible for keeper status. There are too many opportunities for wacky valuations week to week without a balancing mechanism.

I like the concept of option D, but we're playing fantasy football and I'd rather not take a chance on someone this year and have it work out in my favor only to have to tender him the next year and have someone take him away, regardless of the fact I'm getting money for the player. If I pay $1 for my cousin because I just know he's gonna be an elite NFL player, then I should be able to keep him for the next 4 years because I took a chance on the kid.

Jolly Bill wrote:

I'm just going to go ahead and ask a question possibly no one will answer, but would anyone tell me how much the 20 man roster affects auction values? I can't find any info for teams over 16, and while I can do the math on how much less money that means on the high value players, I'm still at a loss as to the general system.

We aren't drafting all 20, though, right? Or, how many rounds are we actually drafting? 16?

Legion, Jolly Bill, and garion333, you still need to get signed up for ESPN.

ESPN wrote:

You must fill your league prior to your draft. Your league will not draft if it is not full one hour before the scheduled draft time.

I believe we're drafting all 20 roster spots.

Hey, I already signed up!

I may have been doing it while you typed that post

Grumpicus wrote:

Legion, Jolly Bill, and garion333, you still need to get signed up for ESPN.

Ah, apparently I joined the wrong version (GWJFFLAuction). Anyway, joined now.

Kaos mentioned in the preseason thread that there could be no first come, first serve FA pickups after the week deadline due to the dollar nature of the pickups. Does that make a difference in the pickup deadline (normally Thursday), or does that just mean that if there is any concern about the weekend you should already have your backup in place by then? I guess it doesn't matter as much for the draft, but something to work out.

And are we decided on a keeper format yet? I've seen the most votes for option D, but I could be biased. It would be nice to have all this nailed down before the draft.