Question about resistance to changing to a keeper league

[jwill2287]

So I'm trying to move a league I created this year to a keeper league. It's simple to do, but I'm getting push back from people in my league. They want to do another draft with no keepers and then make it a keeper league. Their main argument is that my roster is stacked (I'm 10-2), which by my standards it is not stacked but certainly an upper level roster. No one mentions the other 10-2 team in our league who should win this whole thing when I look at his roster compared to mine. They're saying that because I have a larger pool of talent to pull from and they don't that's it's unfair for me to make it a keeper league. I personally don't see how doing another draft before selecting keepers is going to alter how anyone drafts for the upcoming year or prevent me or anyone else from obtaining the roster with the most talent throughout the year.

Now here are the settings currently for the 8 team league:

Roster: 2 QBs, 2 RBs, 2 WRs, 2 TEs, 1 D/ST, 1 K, 1 RB/WR, 1 WR/TE, and 4 bench spots

Scoring: .04 per passing yard, .1 per rushing and receiving yard, 6 per TD for everyone, .1 per return yard (likely changing to .04 per return yard), and the defensive and kicker scoring isn't really relevant since no one can or should keep a kicker or defense.

My proposal for keepers is this: 4 total keepers per team and no more than 2 keepers at any 1 position (ex. QB, RB, WR, and TE or QB, QB, RB, and WR or RB, RB, WR, and WR but not RB, RB, RB, and WR)

My roster breakdown is as follows:

QBs - Brady, P. Manning
RBs - Foster, Lynch, Sproles, Moreno, Rodgers
WRs - Marshall, Cruz, Decker, Edelman
TEs - Gronkowski, Graham, Tamme
D/ST - Patriots
K - Tynes

I would likely be keeping Brady, Foster, Gronkowski, and 1 of Manning, Marshall, Cruz, and Graham.

The most recent complaint I received was that it "sounds like a shitty deal for people that don't have their pick of the prime right off the bat like [I] do. I'm failing to see their reasoning because as much as they don't have access to my 4 keepers unless they want to trade I don't have access to anyone that they would select as keepers as well, and there are plenty of players on other rosters I would love to have on mine. At the same rate, when you draft you are relegated to wherever your draft position is so it's not like the "prime" talent is available to everyone when it's their turn to select a player. Keepers help you retain your best talent in order to build your team around them in the draft next season. I've been able to identify a minimum of 3 people on each roster that I would keep if it were my roster in order to help me build that team going into next season. I feel like the people complaining are undervaluing their players based on their wins and losses rather than on the talent of the players and at the same rate severely over valuing mine based on me being 10-2.

Now I will admit, the talent level is far from balanced across every roster, but that's because people failed to draft well or use the waiver wire consistently or even update their rosters from week to week to play the best possible lineup. My team and the other team at 10-2 had fairly decent drafts. He still has 9 players (probably soon to fall to 8 because he has DeSeasn Jackson who is on IR) that he drafted and I have 8 left that I drafted. I used trades and the waiver wire to build my team which everyone has access to each week just the same. I've made 32 player adds thus far in the season (I've really had to play with my lineup basically every week) because of injuries and trades (by contrast the other 10-2 team has only made 9 with 0 trades which to me proves the stability of his roster). I'm having a really hard time sympathizing with them and letting them do another draft with everyone being available when they didn't seem to make the most of the draft or the free agent market.

So am I crazy for not understanding their argument against going to a keeper league this year? I don't believe it matters if we do another draft before selecting keepers because everyone had the same number of picks each round and thus should have 4 people on their team that they would take in the first 4 rounds next year. Is drafting again before selecting keepers really going to change how people draft going into the season? Furthermore, there's the same probability that I manage to obtain the largest talent pool to select keepers from next year as there was this year, so do the same people complaining now complain again then?

Would one or all of the following changes help?

Maximum of 1 keeper at QB per team
Drop one TE slot from the starting roster and either eliminate it altogether or make it a bench slot
Maximum of 3 total keepers per team
Only 1 keeper per position per team
Set draft order the reverse order of the final standings

I would love to hear as many opinions on this as possible.

[Hags888]

If you're going to make a league a keeper league, all teams need to know that it's a keeper league prior to the draft in which they will be keeping players. So, if nobody knew it was a keeper league this season, then it doesn't make sense to keep players at the end of this season.

This very thing happened in another league I'm in (but not commissioner), and having the knowledge that it was a keeper league prior to the draft was crucial. It's a PPR and why I went with Ray Rice in the 1st round over any other prospect. He's dynamite in PPR, but the key here is: he's also young. He'll be around for several more years barring major injury (knock on wood!), so I'll be able to keep him year after year. But, if the league wasn't a keeper league, I'm not certain I would have picked Ray Rice.

So, IMO, you're going to need to do a re-draft after this season heading into 2013. This way everyone will know ahead of time that you'll keep players after the 2013 season, and people can draft accordingly next year. Otherwise, it's not fair. And you should probably do a random draft order too, otherwise you'll unfairly reward/penalize those players that did well/poorly this season, which could upset the balance heading into a new keeper league. Changing from standard to keeper is a pretty big deal, and shouldn't be done lightly.

[jwill2287]

And you should probably do a random draft order too, otherwise you'll unfairly reward/penalize those players that did well/poorly this season, which could upset the balance heading into a new keeper league.

I understand what you meant here but the inverse order of standings would only go into affect if I changed it to a keeper league this season. If we do a re-draft then it's definitely random order.

I understand your points though and thank you for your response. Obviously, I'm not taking this lightly as I have had several conversations with league members and am now looking outside the league for advice.

[shawngee03]

i agree you shoudl do a redraft next year after telling everyone it will be a keeper. thattype of info should be known at draft time, not introduced mid season.

if you do make it a keeper now, you will have half the league happy(those w good keepers) and half unhappy(those without). if you just do a redraft next year, nobody has any real reason to be upset. best as commish to have no issues. i always say a good fantasy season is one where i dont have to make any desicions or piss anybody off