some Fantasy League policy decisions (how many keepers/team, etc)

[slothinator]

This may sound harsh, but I think your commish is in over his head or did not think this through before the season started. Those are the kinds of trades that get made in long term keeper leagues. They are more like real trades, where someone gives up their expensive star in exchange for 2 cheap players that could be stars.

Changing rules midstream is not cool. Changing them in the offseason isn't a bad idea if the majority agrees to the change. As I said in a previous post, beware of the kooky-commish syndrome. Some people become very self-righteous in that position and take it very seriously, thinking they are making decisions that will benefit the greater good of the league. Usually it just benefits them and they are trying to exert control over the league because their shift leader keeps putting them on fries when they really want to work drive-thru. Just saying.

[slothinator]

Rover,

Sounds like your league doesn't like the keeper format. It is not for everybody. I am not particularly fond of it myself. If it's a good group of guys, then I would just roll with it for next year. If you are still interested in doing a keeper league, there are plenty of leagues always looking for new players on Sandbox and Sportingnews. I took over a guys team this year on Sandbox and got to start with Pujols, Utley, H. Ramirez, and F. Hernandez.

[James282]

lol kb4z, kick your commish in the nuts. that's exactly how real baseball works, and keeper leagues in some way try to mirror that. silly ruling here.

[rwperu34]

I'll share my experience from my keeper league.

My league is a 12 team auction with 20 starters and a $260 cap. There is a 13 round snake draft at the end, with those players salary set at $1. We keep up to 15 players the next year. We can "redshirt" up to four if they are drafted at the begining of the season and don't start at any time during the season. Their salary and contract year remain the same. Everyone else goes up;

2nd year: $5
3rd year: $5
4th year: $7
5th year on: $10

We changed to these rules prior to 2006, and two teams realized the importance of future value and built around young players with high upside (one was an expansion team and really had no shot, so in reality only one exisiting owner saw how the new rules would impact the league). Those two teams are 1st and 2nd in the standings and also have the best set of keepers coming back in 2008.

Three or four teams have already decided to punt 2007, forcing the market for superstars way down and the market for superkeepers way up. The most recent deal was four redshirtable players, Carlos Gonzalez ($1), James Loney ($1), Chris Iannetta ($1), and by far the best long term keeper available, B.J. Upton ($7). The team in contention recieved Jake Peavey, J.J. Putz, Jeremy Bonderman, and Paul Konerko.

Of course the league threw a fit, and there was another deal that dealt with another issue going on at the same time, so we had 150 message board posts from eight different owners in a day and a half. This type of trading and subsequent blow up is very normal for the league and happens every year, even when future value wasn't so important. One of those years we had FOUR blow ups like this. We've tempered that down to one a year now. IMO, it's just a part of being in my league. I've been on both sides in the past, giving up and getting future talent.

One thing we did was develop an open market trading system. The biggest problem I've ever had with a deal is not knowing a player was available. The second biggest is not knowing all of the information, ie they tell me their about to make a deal with so and so, but in reality they're barely in the begining stages of dialouge. The basics are, any trade that is made goes to the message board and owners have 48 hours to counter. P.M. for full details.

The biggest thing that will keep crap like the Upton deal above from happening is to have a competitive league. This year, essentially three teams have a chance at winning and there is about a 90% chance that those three will finish exactly 1-2-3. One of those teams is already out of potential keepers, so that sends the market even furthur to the extreme. Last season, we had five teams with a legitimate shot at the trade deadline, so that kept things under control.