Keeper Leagues

[pan6467]

Anyone interested in a baseball after season Keeper league?

What we'll do is draft our team after the season ( your choice of real team AND FARM SYSTEM) then we'll bid on the F/A markets, and do some trades.

By the beginning of next season we'll have our rosters set and ready to go.

If we get enough people interested we can talk about donating and getting a true trophy to pass around from season to season.

Now the rules I would suggest (as this will be a majority rules league).

1. Each team starts with equal F/A money.... watch how you spend it because you may need it for trades (I think $150 Million should be a good number). Each F/A signed can be signed to a multi-year contract that will affect those payrolls or a single year contract.... also players on drafted teams may be signed to long term contracts (based on current pay plus a 5-10% increase each year).

Example: if the Cubs drafter chooses to keep Prior, he may sign Prior to a long term deal (his real salary*5%). If in R/L Prior may become a real F/A but our Cubs owner has his rights and therefore in our league he isn't. If our Cubs owner didn't sign him and he becomes a R/L F/A then our Cubs owner must bid on him.

Example: Garciaparra signs with a team in R/L for 5 years and 50 Mill, but in our league he is signed for 1 year and 15 Mill. after next season in our league he is a F/A and can be bid on by anyone.

2. Trades affect your finances. Just like in real baseball if in July you need a Randy Johnson and the guy who has him is out and you want to trade prospects, or whatever, you also have to eat his salary. If you don't have the money to pay him.... no trade.

3. Attendence of the real teams affects your money AFTER each season. How we'll figure the money is Home Attendence * $20 and Away Attendence *$5. (Money not spent the season before carries over.... say you only spend $75 mill the first season, you'll have Attendence revenue + the $75 mill. you didn't spend).

4. To avoid a "Yankees" syndrome, if the team you draft has a real payroll over the $150 million given at the start of the season, you must lower your payroll to match the monies you have. In other words, you'll have to drop some players into F/A. SALARIES OF DRAFTED TEAMS ARE THOSE OF THE "REAL TEAM".

5. We'll have a non-biased commissioner taking the bids on the F/A (as bids will be set with a minimum and then blind), bidding lasts until there is only 1 bidder. The commisioner will post here once a week players that have only 1 bidder left and you'll then have 1 week to bid if you choose to do so, BUT the commish will not post bidding price so you may still be under.

Example: Posted: 1 bidder remaining on Vazquez..... NOT POSTED the bid is $12 mill a season..... you bid $10 mill and have not bid on him yet... you are still out and have 1 bid left on him..... you can try again or give up.

6. Minor league systems are NOT up for trade, however, you may trade for the rights of a player in the minors. Also 10% of your payroll goes to pay for your minor league system.

7. Teams not drafted, all players become F/A

8 Expansion. We'll start out hopefully at 8-10 players..... there is no "in season" expansion, but at the end of a season if a player wishes to join he must meet the buy-in price. He then is able to draft a real team (minus any players taken out by F/A). He then can pick up to 5 players on that team that were taken, BUT he has to pay the team that has them their salary and 5-10% (decided by vote on charter)

9) Contraction. If a player drops out he can "sell" his team to a new non player OR the the team is "a dead team (no trades and dead in the standings)", managed by the Commish until a new player can be found.

10. A charter will be drawn up 1 week prior to draft, via chatroom. There owners will decide on official rules, whether we want a "buy-in price" (which I recommend so that we may have the trophy or at least pay the commish a small salary for taking care of us, a "secretary" who keeps records of players and teams, the system we use (ESPN, Yahoo, etc)


Hopefully, there are some of you interested and we can get this going. If it works we can do it for Football and Basketball also.

[pan6467]

Anyone interested at all? Come on guys I think it'll be fun. Course I have a feeling noone wants to be the first, if someone jumps then more will jump, just getting that first one to say yes.

[crewsor]

Sounds like fun, but maybe a little too complicated for me. I don't think I could invest the time required.

[pan6467]

I don't think after the draft there would really be much time. Just whatever you put into your F/A bids.

Once the F/A period is done, it's just trades. I figure take away the draft (which is just basically saying I take the Angels (just an example team)) and the Charter meeting to work on the rules, I don't think it would require more than a few minutes a week. Once F/A is over it's just trades and waiting for the season, from there it's no more time than you spend on any other Fantasy league. The good thing about this though is we would have a stake in the game, and people would be involved for more than just a season.

The Commish may have some time involved going through F/A bids but even that wouldn't take long because I doubt many teams would go after the same guys. That's why I suggested a little pay for his/her time.

I've played in a lot of fantasy leagues and to be honest I get tired of having dead leagues or leagues where people give up then drop everyone, and so on.

"Owning" a current team (possibly your favorite) not having to worry about a draft and just going after F/A and knowing you can build your team to be a dynasty or trade away high profile players for a couple sure to be greats and have them for a few years as they mature. I just think the concept sounds like a lot of fun and really don't think it would take much time.

[Grondar]

I'd be interested, but I have a few questions..

• 1) Is this all done online, or do the members have to be local so that they can meet in person?
  
  2) Are you using a stat service or online fantasy league host, or will the commish be doing all the stat tracking?
  
  3) What do you anticipate the buy in price will be per season?

I consider myself to be a "fantasy gamer" and play primarily on Yahoo. Each year I get in leagues with friends and a public league or two, and I find them a lot of fun. I, too, get frustrated by inactive owners, and feel they are the one thing that truly hurts a league and its active owners.

I've always been intrigued by keeper leagues, but the only ones I've found have been pretty expensive and I wasn't sure I wanted to throw down that much money, when I could instead buy into a league that rewarded cash or prizes for doing well.

I generally don't play for money, but if I am going to spend money, it's nice to have a shot at winning something..

I get the general idea of your league, and how it will work, and it seems like a nice change, and like it could be a lot of fun.

I'd be interested, and if you need any help running things I'd be willing to offer my services so that you aren't bogged down with excessive work.

Also, feel free to Email me (Grondar@GMail.com), or contact me via PM's. I'm also on AIM; my screenname there is also Grondar.

Take care.

[pan6467]

Originally Posted by Grondar

I'd be interested, but I have a few questions..

• 1) Is this all done online, or do the members have to be local so that they can meet in person?
  
  2) Are you using a stat service or online fantasy league host, or will the commish be doing all the stat tracking?
  
  3) What do you anticipate the buy in price will be per season?

I consider myself to be a "fantasy gamer" and play primarily on Yahoo. Each year I get in leagues with friends and a public league or two, and I find them a lot of fun. I, too, get frustrated by inactive owners, and feel they are the one thing that truly hurts a league and its active owners.

I've always been intrigued by keeper leagues, but the only ones I've found have been pretty expensive and I wasn't sure I wanted to throw down that much money, when I could instead buy into a league that rewarded cash or prizes for doing well.

I generally don't play for money, but if I am going to spend money, it's nice to have a shot at winning something..

I get the general idea of your league, and how it will work, and it seems like a nice change, and like it could be a lot of fun.

I'd be interested, and if you need any help running things I'd be willing to offer my services so that you aren't bogged down with excessive work.

Also, feel free to Email me (Grondar@GMail.com), or contact me via PM's. I'm also on AIM; my screenname there is also Grondar.

Take care.

I suggest,

1) online, with the internet as it is and chatrooms we could have an instantaneous conference without having to meet.

2) We would use Yahoo, ESPN, whichever the owners vote on. I prefer Yahoo myself.

3) The buy-in price would just be whatever we decide to pay the commish/ #of owners, the optional trophy and if we want to get like a web page (I'm not computer literate, but I'm sure we can find someone on here to set us up a page that would list F/A / drops / who has what kind of money left / etc. (All moves (drops, trades etc) would be sent to the Commish who would update the page and $$ once a week)

I think there are services that do this and we could vote on taking one of them, if we can't find a commish or webpage. I'm thinking we may be at anywhere between $25 -50 / owner/ year, not bad really (and that's if we get a trophy).

I appreciate your questions and offer to help Grondar, I'm sure your help will be needed.

I just think this gives the serious baseball fan total control (except the actual playing) and takes out all the "if only the Cubs had signed this player... or traded that one." With you as GM/Owner you make all those calls. You maybe out in July but see the Phillies have a great 1B in their farm system that will be coming up in the next season so you trade a high salary guy for him.

[Grondar]

It sounds good to me. Thanks for answering my questions..

I guess now you just have to find more interested and active people so that the details can start to be worked out.

Take care, and please keep me posted.

[pan6467]

Now that the season is getting ready and football is ending, anyone up for this?????

[Jimellow]

I'd be interested..

I've never been in a keeper league, but they seem like a lot of fun.

I love fantasy sports and play them every year, but have yet to do a keeper league..

[Esen]

I you have everything i laymans terms and have all the rules decided on and there is no surprises with the structure of the league I might be intersted.

[pan6467]

we have 4 it looks like..... hopefully we can get a minimum of 4 (maybe 2) more to start and once started I have a feeling others will join.

But those that get in first will have the better teams for awhile.