We talk about this a lot, and I think it might go a long way toward making people competitive throughout the year when they are out of the mix. Is there any interest in allowing 1 or 2 keepers from your team this year to be allowed to remain on your team next year? I would think it would be at a premium, like next year you get them, but at a cost of $15 more than you paid for them in this auction, and if you want to keep a second player, you could do so for $20 more than this year's cost. I think it would be cool, and I'm guessing at that cost it would help keep some of the more big time players off of the keeper market.
Plus, it would make the auction go a little quicker with up to 40 players off the market.
Players belong to the "franchise" so if someone drops out, the new owner next year has dibs on that franchise's potential keepers.
Seems like a little more strategy involved, which I always like.
I responded:
I like the idea of keepers, but I think maybe the proposed price increases are too steep to make it worth keeping anybody. I feel like if I'm smart enough to grab a Buster Posey for $1 (I wasn't), that I should be rewarded by being able to keep him for not much more.
If I were pressed to make a counter proposal, I'd say 3 keepers max with a $5 increase over draft value. Undrafted players like Jose Bautista and John Axford should be treated as $1 draft picks.
The Commish replied:
Good input. I think it would be nice to make sure one player isn't locked into being kept forever though. So a guy like Posey, if he panned out, could be kept for $6, $11, $16, $21, and $26 over five years. All would probably be good deals if he turns into a great catcher. How about a sliding scale, like your $5 for year one, $10 for year two, $15 for year three, etc. That way you get him for a $6 bargain this year as your reward for picking him, but next year that is a still reasonable $16, followed by $31 in year three where you may have to think about it a little and a not-likely-to-keep $51 in year 4 or a no way $76 in year 5?
I think trades with non-contending teams late in the year would be a lot more legit if they were to acquire, say, a Buster Posey that they could renew the following year at a good price.
I agreed with the escalator clause, but then the more conservative element of the UL reared its head with a chorus of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The informal vote is a 4-4 tie, but the official vote will go down probably next week. I'm firmly in favor of keepers, primarily because of how I draft.
I tend to spend high on a handful of all-stars early and then wait out the middle part of the draft when everyone is getting anxious about filling out their rosters. I have no desire to spend $13 in a panic on Erick Aybar or some other marginal player. So I get the studs early and then focus on upside players: guys with good track records who stumbled the previous year, or young guys who look like they'll get a chance to prove themselves.
Last year, I had the core of my team built in the first 100 picks: Felix Hernandez for $35, Jason Bay for $32, Victor Martinez for $27, Johan Santana for $26, Matt Holliday for $40, Nelson Cruz for $25, and Adrian Gonzalez for $41. That's 87% of my budget. I had overspent my pitching allowance ($52) but I felt good about having two prime starters. 73 picks in and most of my money spent, it was time to wait for the upside guys.
I grabbed Brandon Wood for $2, hoping he would become the power 3B everyone thought he could. Didn't really work out that way.
I took a flier on Oliver Perez - who's always been a great strikeout pitcher - hoping that Citi Field would help keep the ERA down. It didn't.
I drafted Scott Feldman, a guy who had won 17 games in 2009. He got knocked around pretty good and eventually lost his rotation spot.
It gets better, I promise. You have to take the bad with the good in fantasy baseball. it's just the nature of the beast.
I spent a big $5 (considering what I had left) on Jorge De La Rosa, another big strikeout starter. He had a pretty good April, but I ended up trading him straight up for Kelly Johnson. My trade partner thought he was selling high after Johnson's 9 April homers. He ended up hitting 17 more for me. De La Rosa got hurt one start after the trade. Them's the breaks.
I also dropped another big $5 on Hideki Matsui, who was about to don a non-Yankee uniform for the first time as the Angels' DH. He didn't put up prime Godzilla numbers, but a .274-21-84 line is a pretty healthy $5 investment.
The clincher - and probably the key to my 2010 success - was how I filled out my pitching rotation. $3 on Mat Latos, the 22 year-old Padres 5th starter who returned a stellar 2.92 ERA, 1.08 WHIP and 189 Ks. $3 on Wade Davis, the Rays 5th starter who got me 12 wins with an acceptable 1.35 WHIP. $1 on C.J. Wilson, the Rangers converted reliever who surprised everyone with a 15-8 record, 3.35 ERA, 1.25 WHIP and 170 Ks.
Any of those guys would be keepers for this year's squad. Who wouldn't take Mat Latos for $8 this year? He'll probably get drafted for somewhere between $25-$30. If I could have him again for $8, that's about $20 I could spend on other talent. Keepers give your squad a better chance at competing for a good stretch of years since you've got a lock on talent at a bargain price. Pretty much the same as the first three years of any ballplayer's contract, where the owners reap the benefits of a low player salary. Eventually with the escalator clause you'll have to give up a guy like Latos because the price he commands will be too steep, but you can get around three years of value out of a smart draft pick instead of just one.
I'm not getting my hopes up that we'll start a keeper system this year, because I'm pretty sure it'll get voted down by the managers that are scared of change. That's really too bad, because I keepers add an element of stability to a very chaotic game.
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