Question on starting a keeper league

[LeftyQB]

We have a 12 team Yahoo league and this year we want to institute a keeper league. We will start it for next year so we'll all be drafting from scratch this year. My question is how many players is optimal? And how long do you keep them for?
Thanks!

[brdmaverick]

The optimal number of keepers depends on how serious and dedicated your owners are. If all of you are hardcore football guys, the more keepers the better. Keeping most of your players would allow someone to build a dyasty and act as a real GM.

Personally, I like to have three keepers, it gives teams a chance to build for the future and become a dynasty, but it isn't too many keepers to the point where bad teams will just want to quit altogether.

I am currenty involved in a 12 team, 3 keeper league. We have added a twist to it. We name one of our keepers a franchise player while the other two keepers are transitional players. The franchise player can remain on your team forever if you choose so. With the transitional players, we keep them on our team for three seasons, then they will go back to the draft pool.

[Hawk022499]

It also depends on your roster# and # of weekly starters. In my league We keep 1 QB, 1 RB, 1 WR, and 1 TE. Enough to build a core team but not to many to where you can't rebuild if you have a bad initial draft.

We assign each "Owner" 9 points they can spend on their keepers each year. Each year a player is retained it costs you 1 additional piont to keep them (ie. 1 point the 1st year, 2 pts the 2nd year....etc.) With 4 keepers a year, after the 3rd season with the same players it would cost you 12 pts to keep them all. Someone has to go... this allows some turn-over as the years progress.

~ Hawk