FF2010: Keeper League discussion thread

Jolly Bill wrote:

I see $1 to $10 players like the guys that keep signing one year contracts with the same team as a backup or role player. The owner can and will discard that player at any time, there's no loyalty there.

Your own roster has a $4 Eli Manning and a $1 Sam Bradford. Those are potential keeper values, not just replacement-level role players.

Sidney Rice for $4 could be an awesome keeper move if he bounces back healthy.

There's lots of keeper potential in that price range. In fact, I'd argue that the most interesting keeper strategy is in that price range.

*Legion* wrote:
Jolly Bill wrote:

I see $1 to $10 players like the guys that keep signing one year contracts with the same team as a backup or role player. The owner can and will discard that player at any time, there's no loyalty there.

Your own roster has a $4 Eli Manning and a $1 Sam Bradford. Those are potential keeper values, not just replacement-level role players.

Sidney Rice for $4 could be an awesome keeper move if he bounces back healthy.

There's lots of keeper potential in that price range. In fact, I'd argue that the most interesting keeper strategy is in that price range.

Exactly, and if Bradford turns into the QB he could be, or Manning back into the guy he's been in the past, $10 will still be a steal for them. Same with Rice. No problems here.

I think the problem you are having is this is very positional. RB's or WR's that you pick up for <$10 and blow up are great values to your team, but could be kept for too long if the inflation is low. A QB or TE that blows up MIGHT be worth keeping IF they are in the top 3 or 5, unless the inflation is intentionally low. And a K or D would never be worth keeping, unless there is no inflation. I don't see any way to address this without separate rules for each position though.

1) For every week you used that player as a starter, his next year draft value increases by $1, up to a maximum of $10. Bench players do not inflate.

2) Same as above, but bench players inflate by less than your starters (each week starters increase by $1, bench increases by $.25 or something). I think I like this one better.

3) Players value increases with their average draft position each year. I like this the least, it's messier and mathematical, but I couldn't ignore it.

#1 is work-intensive but interesting. I wonder if, by any chance, Fleaflicker might keep that stat.

My Roster:

Chris Johnson
Drew Brees
MJD

*Legion* wrote:
1) For every week you used that player as a starter, his next year draft value increases by $1, up to a maximum of $10. Bench players do not inflate.

2) Same as above, but bench players inflate by less than your starters (each week starters increase by $1, bench increases by $.25 or something). I think I like this one better.

3) Players value increases with their average draft position each year. I like this the least, it's messier and mathematical, but I couldn't ignore it.

#1 is work-intensive but interesting. I wonder if, by any chance, Fleaflicker might keep that stat.

I do like these, but not as an after the draft decision. If I had known those lower priced guys wouldn't go up to atleast $10 like we had said, then I would have bid many more times on those players like Vincent Jackson and Rice.

The Elliottx Experience

QB $28 Peyton Manning
RB $24 Matt Forte
RB $7 Ricky Williams
WR $33 Reggie Wayne
WR $15 Dwayne Bowe
WR $20 Wes Welker
QB $6 Donovan McNabb
RB $7 Cadillac Williams
RB $3 Steve Slaton
RB $8 Jerome Harrison
RB $3 Fred Jackson
RB $8 Montario Hardesty
RB $5 Leon Washington
WR $14 Eddie Royal
WR $7 Laurent Robinson
WR $4 Kenny Britt
D/ST $2 Eagles D/ST

TE $3 Heath Miller
K $1 Jeff Reed
TE $2 Todd Heap

I paid my exact high bid for Peyton Manning and Reggie Wayne but everybody else I got for under what I was willing to spend with the exception of Eddie Royal, he was the last good WR on the board so I overspent. I am very bugged that I didn't spend more money on a good TE but I didn't expect you guys to be TE crazy. I'm lacking star power at the RB spot but not when it comes to fantasy points: Forte #12 in fantasy RB points, Ricky Williams #6 in fantasy RB points. Sure things change but I think I'll take last year's 6th best RB for $7. And just like last year in our re-draft league, I made sure I had 3 WR starting studs as I have to imagine that was what got me to the finals last year, not my revolving QB/RB slots.

I do have a regret list:

LeSean McCoy for $21, I had him valued at 22 and he would have made a great asset but like Legion said, I had been anticipating getting Charles for around the same cost.

Johnny Knox for $14, that was right at his cost but I bet he'll do better then Eddie Royal this year.

Zach Miller for $8, I had won him for $1 on all mock drafts before so I got sticker shock at his cost.

Dolphins for $1, they were my D sleeper pick for the year.

Mike Williams (TB) for $10, he would've made a nice steady RB/WR/TE Flex play.

Jermaine Gresham for $2, would've given me some hope for my TE positions ceiling. Instead all I have is a floor.

And the fact that I will have to do my RB/WR/TE Flex as a committee and possibly my 2nd RB slot if Ricky Williams abilities drop off the radar. But I do have the Browns backfield so fear me!

ukickmydog wrote:

I do like these, but not as an after the draft decision. If I had known those lower priced guys wouldn't go up to atleast $10 like we had said, then I would have bid many more times on those players like Vincent Jackson and Rice.

Even those guys should inflate the full amount if you use them after they become available, since it caps at $10. Still, I see what you mean.

Edit: Actually no, I still don't see it. using option 2 (bench players increase in value, too), even a benched player all year will still inflate by $4 (16 wk fantasy season). Use him just 1 week and it goes to $5. Jackson automatically goes above $10, and Rice would go to $8 if I don't use him, and using him even once puts him close. Unless you're really worried about someone with a benched $1 player that they bench the entire year going for $5 the next year, I guess that's a valid complaint. To me, if you've benched the guy the whole year, I doubt he's going to be worth that much more unless there are major off-season changes. At that point, hell, you deserve credit for that.

Double edit: I didn't realize before I posted, but I can see how this might look like it favors my team due to the injury/suspension players. I think it favors anyone who made good picks for cheap. Still, if the major complaint is my team, i;m open to suggestions.

Elliottx wrote:

Dolphins for $1, they were my D sleeper pick for the year.

I'm proud now.

I regret having my autodrafter on at the end. it spent my 1 extra dollar on a defense, and then i didn't have it for a late round steal.

Edit: I've never seen so many little Tonberry's waving their lanterns on one page!

Jolly Bill wrote:

I regret having my autodrafter on at the end. it spent my 1 extra dollar on a defense, and then i didn't have it for a late round steal. :(

That happened to me with my 2nd kicker. I wouldn't have drafted a 2nd kicker at all. Ah well, lessons learned and all that.

Jolly Bill wrote:

Ok, Here's a crazy idea for you: Incentive based inflation.

Aside from the additional work that it appears to be, I like it in principle. I'd tweak some stuff (e.g. a $1 base inflation + performance) but I like it. Still, unless we go position-based multipliers, a rate that works for RB/WR will be too high for TE/K/D... though that may just be a necessary evil.

ukickmydog wrote:

I do like these, but not as an after the draft decision.

While it certainly would have affected people's strategy, we all drafted under the same set of operating assumptions as well as the understanding that the keeper rules were not set in stone.

*Legion* wrote:
1) For every week you used that player as a starter, his next year draft value increases by $1, up to a maximum of $10. Bench players do not inflate.

2) Same as above, but bench players inflate by less than your starters (each week starters increase by $1, bench increases by $.25 or something). I think I like this one better.

3) Players value increases with their average draft position each year. I like this the least, it's messier and mathematical, but I couldn't ignore it.

#1 is work-intensive but interesting. I wonder if, by any chance, Fleaflicker might keep that stat.

It does! Under the "League" tab, the "All Rosters" option shows you who the starters / benched players are for each team, by week.

Grumpicus wrote:
Jolly Bill wrote:

Ok, Here's a crazy idea for you: Incentive based inflation.

Aside from the additional work that it appears to be, I like it in principle. I'd tweak some stuff (e.g. a $1 base inflation + performance) but I like it. Still, unless we go position-based multipliers, a rate that works for RB/WR will be too high for TE/K/D... though that may just be a necessary evil.

Personally, I think I'd rather go with the necessary evil. But if we were to go with positional...

RB/WR: Base $1 inflation + $1 per start + $.5 per bench (up to a total of $11)
QB/TE: Base $1 inflation + $.5 per start + $.25 per bench (up to a total of $6)
K/D: Base $1 inflation

Round up at the end of the year

Really, it's just range within the QB position that's the headache. The top 4 or 5 QB's go in the $25+ range, whereas everyone goes for around $10. Even with that, I've heard the goal mentioned that you want to be able to reward a smart drafter with 3-5 years of a certain player, and this would do it.

Jolly Bill wrote:

Personally, I think I'd rather go with the necessary evil.

Agree. Positional starts to get to far away from KISS.

Grumpicus wrote:

I know it affects the draft so for now, you can operate under the assumption that every keeper will increase by $11/year.

As you stated, this was what I drafted under. Under this assumption, drafting someone like sidney rice or sam bradford for cheap makes no sense since next year they would cost in the low-mid teens. If I was drafting under the assumption that I could stick someone on my bench the whole year and not increase his price or only increase it by $4, my strategy on low priced players would have been completely different.

ukickmydog wrote:
Grumpicus wrote:

I know it affects the draft so for now, you can operate under the assumption that every keeper will increase by $11/year.

As you stated, this was what I drafted under. Under this assumption, drafting someone like sidney rice or sam bradford for cheap makes no sense since next year they would cost in the low-mid teens. If I was drafting under the assumption that I could stick someone on my bench the whole year and not increase his price or only increase it by $4, my strategy on low priced players would have been completely different.

In the end, it will affect everyone just the same. I think it's more important to have a league with rules we feel are balanced than to stick to some rules (that were quite clearly laid out as tentative) that may not work.

Landshrk83's Lagomorphs

QB Matt Ryan $7
RB Rashard Mendenhall $40
RB Jamaal Charles $30
WR Hines Ward $23
WR Hakeem Nicks $18
WR Santana Moss $14
FLEX Ahmad Bradshaw $9 (or Mason, Hightower, Cooley, Collie, Henderson, Jacobs)
TE Tony Gonzalez $8
DEF Bears $1
K Matt Prater $1

BENCH
David Garrard $3
Brandon Jacobs $5
Tim Hightower $7
Thomas Jones $4
Laurence Maroney $1
Derrick Mason $5
Austin Collie $7
Devery Henderson $3
Jordan Shipley $1
Chris Cooley $6

I've got mixed feelings about my draft. I went into it with two main goals. First, draft a core of young players that I think have a very good chance of exceeding their draft value (swing for the fences sort of picks). My main targets here were Mendenhall, Charles and Nicks. Incidentally, I got Mendenhall and Charles for exactly the values I had budgeted for them, and I surely would have gone at least $5 higher for Charles- so the theory about his value being lower if someone had made a bigger step in bid is probably moot. I think there were enough people interested that even if I had stepped from, say $15 to $25 on him, someone else would have been willing to push the bid up more. Second, I wanted to grab productive older players (mainly receivers) that I thought would be undervalued in the keeper format. My main targets here were Mason and Ward. I did grab Mason for $5, but I also ended up overpaying for Ward- I don't think there's a chance he exceeds the value I paid for him, although I also don't believe he's going to be a huge disappointment, either. I thought I'd also be able to grab a receiver whose value was falling (looking at Greg Jennings and Calvin Johnson here mainly), but no one fell like I thought they would so this didn't pan out. In hindsight, I should have reached and pushed higher on Roddy White and Greg Jennings- both could still end up being steals at the prices they went for, and I would have likely avoided overpaying for Ward.

I have to admit that many of the upper and middle tier players went for more than I thought they would- folks seemed more content to take $1 players than I anticipated they would. Grump in particular threw me off my game entirely with his huge rush early on high end WRs. I think that had a lot to do with the inflated WR values that persisted through even the middle tier WRs. Beyond the top 4-5 RBs, I think there were a lot of steals to be had...plenty of those drafted below $10 should end up having reasonable to great years. I think taking a TE for the flex position could have paid dividends this year, as there were a lot of good players gotten very cheaply outside the top 2-3, and the PPR format will ensure those players have a high floor, even if their ceiling isn't as high as some players at other positions.

Grump in particular threw me off my game entirely with his huge rush early on high end WRs.

Red Bull gives you wings!
IMAGE(http://www.lonestarprep.com/lonestar/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/7405_redbull.gif)

Landshrk83 wrote:

Incidentally, I got Mendenhall and Charles for exactly the values I had budgeted for them, and I surely would have gone at least $5 higher for Charles- so the theory about his value being lower if someone had made a bigger step in bid is probably moot. I think there were enough people interested that even if I had stepped from, say $15 to $25 on him, someone else would have been willing to push the bid up more.

Then I'm especially glad I jumped on McCoy and didn't wait for Charles' turn. I didn't think anyone would have him valued that high. Makes him awfully hard to keep after inflation unless he steps into stud territory.

Based on AAV, I expected McCoy and Charles to both be in the $23-26 range. I had figured if I missed on one, I would go for the other. I would have been traumatized if I had missed on McCoy and then Charles went up to $35-land.

I was curious to see what the proposed keeper inflation values would look like now that we have a real data set (our draft) to compare with, so I pulled ESPN's 2009 projected player values out and applied our +$10 rule.  Out of the players drafted (excluding rookies), 27 players would have made sense to keep (2010 auction value was greater than 2009 value +$10).  If you take this a step further, and calculate the inflation rate of the league based on value kept vs market value (16%), it would have made sense to keep an additional 9 players.  So, out of the 240 players we drafted this year, 36 would be keepers using these formuals...that's 3 keepers per team, give or take a few for budget concerns.  Only 1 keeper would have been a tight end (Jermichael Finley), and 2 would have been QBs (Aaron Rodgers and Kevin Kolb).  Of the remaining 34 keepers, 21 were WRs and 13 were RBs.

Are these the sorts of results we're looking for? Disclaimer here: I'm not comparing apples to apples here, our rules would have made WRs
slightly more valuable than ESPN thought they were.  The net effect if I corrected for it is probably that slightly fewer WRs would have been keepers (10 of the last 12 players kept were WRs in my simulation).
You could likely expect roughly equal numbers of WRs and RBs kept in a
PPR league.

How do waiver bids work? Is it a bid to a maximum or is it a bid of x and you pay that? I assume it is the latter but it would make a huge difference in how much to bid for a player.

EvilHomer3k wrote:

How do waiver bids work? Is it a bid to a maximum or is it a bid of x and you pay that? I assume it is the latter but it would make a huge difference in how much to bid for a player.

No ebay here, you pay what you bid.

I think we need to nail this down before the season gets too far underway. The prevailing ideas seem to be:

1) increase by $10 every year
2) increase by $1 per start and $.5 per bench plus $1 base inflation (to a max of $11 or $6 respectively)

Can we get a vote or an executive decision? I still like (2) myself.

2 seems like more fun but could be a lot of work for the commish. It only has to be done for keepers, though. It doesn't have to be calculated by the commish for everyone on the team. I could calculate my own team and then decide on the keepers then the commish could calculate it for those keepers.

EvilHomer3k wrote:

2 seems like more fun but could be a lot of work for the commish. It only has to be done for keepers, though. It doesn't have to be calculated by the commish for everyone on the team. I could calculate my own team and then decide on the keepers then the commish could calculate it for those keepers.

Actually, it's tracked by fleaflicker. Might take a bit of excel juggling, but it shouldn't be that hard. I would do it if necessary.

I could handle #2 if that's what everyone prefers... though Darelle Revis has advised me that I shouldn't hold back the players with an artificial cap.

I like #2. Especially if someone gets injured and we spent $30 on them, we can actually keep them with a $6 inflation if we want. I like that better than the $11 flat fee.

I like #2 but prefer leaning closer to Jolly Bill's original idea, which (with a couple of additions) was along the lines of:

* $1 inflation per start
* $0.25 inflation per non-start (not just bench, but any week not starting - sitting on FA wire, etc, so we don't have to track when the guy joined a roster)
* Round up to nearest dollar
* No caps necessary

The maximum number of starts a player can have is 12 (13 regular season weeks, minus the player's bye week), so by nature, inflation is "capped" at $12. I'm good with an every-game starter inflating $12. With bumps and bruises, $9-10 inflation is more likely for most, and that's still right in the "one draft round" value increase of Landshrk's calculations.

Someone who doesn't start a single game gets $3 inflation. For a player that doesn't start a single fantasy game, I think that's a fair value. We're mostly talking guys who would have $1-5 values to begin with.

Counting every week, not every week on a roster, is important because it makes the only piece of information necessary the number of starts, as FF tracks.
5 starts = 5 weeks starting, 7 weeks non-starting. (5x1) + (7x.25) = $6.75 = (round to) $7.

If desired, this can include an extra $1 base inflation, although I don't know if it's necessary, as a player's inflating based on all 12 non-bye weeks, whether he was on a roster or not.

I will agree in principle to the per-start inflation solution as proposed by *Legion* (with credit to Jolly Bill) using a natural cap instead of an artificial one. The only outstanding questions are:

  • Whether to include a base inflation (would affect all keepers)... or a floor/minimum (would only affect non-starters). In other words, is everyone ok with a $3 keeper (example: someone signs Montario Hardesty in the final week)?
  • Related: Is $.25 per non-start a number that everyone is happy with?
  • And the big one: Should playoff starts factor in to the inflation? In the NFL, you frequently see players who went to the Super Bowl get "inflated" deals just because they were there. This might also help to "even the playing field" a little if the champ is paying $15 for his MVP (i.e. started every week) keepers instead of $12. In the NFL (and the other GWJFFL conferences), the better teams draft last. In this solution, since there is no draft ranking, the better teams pay just a little bit more (only for their keepers). Personally, I like this one (probably because I suck :D) but am willing to hear what everyone else has to say.

My biggest concern with option 2 is that it's going to create situations like last years Colts- teams that have their playoff seed wrapped up or those who are mathematically eliminated will rest all the players they intend to keep to drop their inflation. This could end up determining the fate of other teams who just got lucky. Are folks okay with a scenario like that?

I like the idea that JollyBill has here, I'm just concerned about the effects it could have.

Landshrk83 wrote:

My biggest concern with option 2 is that it's going to create situations like last years Colts- teams that have their playoff seed wrapped up or those who are mathematically eliminated will rest all the players they intend to keep to drop their inflation. This could end up determining the fate of other teams who just got lucky. Are folks okay with a scenario like that?

I like the idea that JollyBill has here, I'm just concerned about the effects it could have.

That would be during our playoffs, so I don't think people will "rest" their players.