REVISED! EMERGENCY HELP NEEDED.

[Captain Eddie]

Well, our rookie commissioner made a mistake on how we are converting to a keeper league next year.

The rule is we have 5 points to spend on players. Any player drafted in the first round last year is worth 5 points, second round is 4 points down to 5th round and below plus free agents are worth 1 point. We do not surrender commensurate draft picks, but we do stop drafting when our roster reaches the 18 player limit. So if you keep 3 players, you would stop drafting after round 15. For 2014 any player we keep for 2013 will increase in value by one point.

Anyway, here is my end of season roster, excluding DB/LB. Each one of them is valued at 1 point, so I can keep 5 of these players, and stop drafting after round 13. After talking with other owners, I do know that Brady, Brees, Rodgers, Sean McCoy, J Graham and either Roddy/Julio will all be back in the draft next year. I also suspect that McFadden, Calvin, MJD, CJ2K, LFitz,Forte, Rice and Foster and Stafford will be available as well. I will be drafting 6th of 12 teams (convention draft...not a snake).

So the question is, which five of these players do I keep?

We are converting our league to a keeper league and the commissioner want our keeper list this week. Anyway, I can keep 5 off the following list. Keeping anyone with a round attached to them will cost me that pick this year. Two from the same round (via trade) would cost me the next lowest pick. FA would cost me my last pick (18 rounds) and then 17, etc. Here is my list:

Russel Wilson
Colin Kaepernick
Percy Harvin
Eric Decker
TY Hilton
Pierre Garcon
Alfred Morris
Ahmad Bradshaw
Aaron Hernandez
Blair Walsh
Cincinnati DEF

My concern is if I keep 4 WRs (which seems to be the consensus from my previous erroneous post), that I will have a big decision to make in the first round..taking someone like Calvin as the best available even though I would not need a WR. It would be hard to pass on someone like Calvin and take Forte just because RB is a bigger need.

[duffoholic]

This is a awesome system of keeping players!

So, if I remember correctly, Morris is a keeper FA (1pt) as would be Hilton, Decker, Garcon and Harvin. With RGIII's injury and news about Garcon's reluctance to have surgery done his nagging foot injury I think he is too risky to have to lock up now, I'd cut him from the list. I still don't think keeping Walsh is a bad idea but Hernadez might be worth a pick too (he was a 6th rounder right?).
Clearly there will be loads of talent back in the pool since only teams with a severe lack of talent and waiver pickups would only keep their first rounder. Even AP becomes hard to keep if he's the only guy you can have.

All that being said, I'd be keeping:
Morris
Hilton
Decker
Harvin
Hernandez/Walsh

[daullaz]

I'd look at keeping Morris, Decker, Harvin, Hernandez and one of the QBs. I could also see throwing Hernandez back in for both QBs and potentially having some trade bait during the season. Under these keeper rules, I'd say both those guys are worth the late-round picks you're sacrificing to keep them, which is how it sounds like the system is set up.

[mycuccismells]

Morris Decker and Harvin are 100% automatic keepers if you only use one point for all of them, no brainers. Next i would keep Hernandez just because he is the 3rd best option in a very shallow pool of talent. The 5th one depends on your preference, but whatever you do don't keep a kicker.

If you want to go with one of the QBs that not a horrible option, but based on the fact that you think most QBs would be tossed back i dont know if the value is there to keep a fringe top 10 QB when you can probably get a top 5-6 in the 3rd-4th round since most of your needs will be met by then. I would highly consider keeping Bradshaw if it was me, he wont be a stud but as your 3rd RB you could do a lot worse.

That would leave you with a WR1/WR2/RB2/RB3/TE1 which is a pretty good core to have. You either go WR/RB or RB/WR in the first 2 rounds depending on who is on the board and then go from there.

[duffoholic]

Why is everybody so down on the kickers?

[ollie7585]

Here to echo other sentiments

Must keep:
Morris
Harvin
Decker
Hernandez (almost didn't include him in this section, but he is the consensus #3 TE behind the two monsters)

I'd also keep:
Wilson

Wilson has shown incredible play-making ability. I'd be sure to grab another reliable QB in the draft but those keepers would give you a great core and flexibility in the draft.

Kickers are incredibly inconsistant and otherwise don't differentiate themselves from each other.

[mycuccismells]

Why is everybody so down on the kickers?

I hope you are joking with this one, but if you arent then i guess i will explain. There is a reason that kickers go in the last round in almost every single draft, they are a dime a dozen. Based on my scoring system the top scoring kicker got 165 total points and the 16th highest scoring kicker got 123 total points. So if you are in a 16 team league then the difference between the best kicker and the worst kicker (since no one holds 2) is only 42 points which comes out to around 2.5 points per week. If you are in a 12 team league then the difference between 1 and 12 was only 32 points or around 2 points per week.

To use a keeper on a position that will gain you a 2 pt/wk advantage over the worst player at that position (assuming he is the best again next year) is ridiculous. Thats assuming that you also get the worst kicker in the league, if you get even just a fringe top 5 kicker you are losing around 1 pt/game on average and if you are smart and know how to stream kickers you can do even better than that.

To take it one step further i sorted by averages to account for games kickers might have missed. Blair Walsh averaged 10.3 per game (Josh Brown was first at 11.5 but he only played 4 games) and there were 35 other kickers in the league that averaged 6.5 points or more per game. Basically the top 6 are separated by 1 pt/gm, next 6 by 1 pt/gm, and then after that it goes in brackets of 10 that are within 1 pt/gm of each other.

That ends my rant but i have seen a few people now suggesting to keep kickers or draft kickers in the middle rounds to get a stud kicker and it doesnt make sense.

[daullaz]

Why is everybody so down on the kickers?

I hope you are joking with this one, but if you arent then i guess i will explain. There is a reason that kickers go in the last round in almost every single draft, they are a dime a dozen. Based on my scoring system the top scoring kicker got 165 total points and the 16th highest scoring kicker got 123 total points. So if you are in a 16 team league then the difference between the best kicker and the worst kicker (since no one holds 2) is only 42 points which comes out to around 2.5 points per week. If you are in a 12 team league then the difference between 1 and 12 was only 32 points or around 2 points per week.

To use a keeper on a position that will gain you a 2 pt/wk advantage over the worst player at that position (assuming he is the best again next year) is ridiculous. Thats assuming that you also get the worst kicker in the league, if you get even just a fringe top 5 kicker you are losing around 1 pt/game on average and if you are smart and know how to stream kickers you can do even better than that.

To take it one step further i sorted by averages to account for games kickers might have missed. Blair Walsh averaged 10.3 per game (Josh Brown was first at 11.5 but he only played 4 games) and there were 35 other kickers in the league that averaged 6.5 points or more per game. Basically the top 6 are separated by 1 pt/gm, next 6 by 1 pt/gm, and then after that it goes in brackets of 10 that are within 1 pt/gm of each other.

That ends my rant but i have seen a few people now suggesting to keep kickers or draft kickers in the middle rounds to get a stud kicker and it doesnt make sense.

Even more so than these points is that it's been shown there isn't much reliability at the fantasy kicker position from year to year (exhibit A, David Akers). Most owners are hesitant to invest anything above the bare minimum in a kicker because there isn't much you can do to predict whether you're getting a top kicker or not.

[duffoholic]

Hahaha.

Fair enough.

[duffoholic]

There was a dude in my league who paid 3$ for one last year. Hahaha.

I get that it is insane to overshoot on kickers BUT if the other keepers would just be taking up spots better filled by somebody else, why not get the pick out of the way. These are last round picks we are talking about right? What I mean to say is that sometimes keeping a mediocre player for the sake of keeping somebody isn't good. Sometimes it's fun to reset your roster. I'm in an auction style keeper and I know I've kept players, mostly flyer type receivers, because they were only a dollar or two only to hold onto them the whole next season because they were always 'almost there'. That's how I feel about keeping one of those QB's. Their situations could be completely different by next season so spending a pick on them when you could just as easily pick the better of them up in late rounds next year doesn't make a tonne of sense to me. Taking a kicker now means he won't have to waste one of those late round picks next year on a kicker and since, as you pointed out, kickers are all so close together, it shouldn't make a difference if Walsh doesn't 'light it up' next season. Looking back on it, Hernandez is the better of the two choices regardless but if you feel like he won't hold his own next year under Gronk's shadow...

I wouldn't be making this argument if the picks were attached to a round or had a real penalty. Does that make any sense or am I still crazy?