Keeper League Strategy - Part One

Posted 7/30 by Jeff Tefertiller, Exclusive to Footballguys.com

Many fantasy footballers participate in dynasty leagues. Even more are in redraft leagues. But, there is a sizable number that love keeper leagues. Keeper leagues offer the ability to take advantage of drafting well and building a strong nucleus, just like with dynasty. They also allow an owner to recover from a bad draft the year before and rebuild a team. So, keeper owners must figure out how best to interpret the rankings that are made for just redraft and dynasty. This article is the first in a series that will address the issues and strategy of keeper leagues. There will more articles in this series on keeper leagues.

Keeper leagues are leagues where an owner keeps a certain number of keepers from last year's team. In most cases, keeper leagues range from keeping one to keeping eight players. The fewer keepers, the more the owner should look at redraft rankings and projections. The inverse is true as well with the larger keeper leagues looking more like dynasty leagues. Keeper leagues offer the year around appeal of a dynasty league with the ability to draft well and make a bad team into a contender in one year. For keeper owners, it is the best of both worlds.

There are only two goals of keeper leagues: Win the championship and upgrade your keepers. Everything a keeper owner does is with one of these goals in mind. Many keeper leagues trade more often than redraft or dynasty leagues because owners are trying to either load up for a title run or make quantity-for-quality deals to improve their keepers. Other trades involve "selling" players that will not be kept for draft picks. One key point that surprises many is that each keeper league has its own economy for trades involving draft picks and players. Many trades happen right before the keeper deadline. As the deadline approaches, usually the players traded for picks are worth less and less as more teams offer similar players to the teams without good keepers. It becomes an issue of supply and demand.

There are three primary types of keeper leagues:

Keep less than three players
Keep more than three players
Give up a draft pick assigned per keeper

In leagues that keep three players or less, the key is whether the players kept would be drafted in the same number of rounds of a redraft league. If a league keeps two players, each player should have an ADP of 24 or higher. In these leagues that keep three or fewer players, keeping a quarterback or tight end is a bad idea, even if their names are Manning and Gates. Why is this so? Most teams will keep at least two running backs, depending on starting lineup requirements. If every other team keeps two or three running backs, and you do not pick early in the first round, you will lose all chance at having a top 20 running back. You are already behind the curve. One rule of thumb is that you should try to keep (depending on your choices) as many running backs as you are able to start each week. If your league starts two backs, plus a flex player, you should try to keep three running backs. The ability to start a back in the flex while some start a receiver is a big advantage for you. This is assuming the back has an ADP equal to the pick given up to keep the player. Other than being behind the curve finding running backs, value is another reason to keep as many backs as possible. There will be some teams in some years that the best keepers might be positions other than at running back. If so, that will put an even heavier burden on finding quality backs early in the draft. There are several wide receivers available outside of the top ten that will produce similar numbers to those stud receivers. If you are in a keeper league that keeps three or fewer players, you should try fervently to improve your keepers each year. This comes from quantity-for-quality trades, working the waiver wire, and drafting well. In leagues that keep just one player, that player kept is of the highest importance. You should always try to trade for a stud running back in these leagues. If you acquire a top back, you would be wise not to consider trading him. In a keep one-player league, LaDainian Tomlinson has more value than in dynasty or redraft. His owner gets to keep him indefinitely like a dynasty league. Plus it allows the owner to draft well each year and start each year with a huge advantage. If the 2007 season is like 2006, Tomlinson will outscore the keeper for most teams by more than ten points. This advantage that is not easily overcome for the other teams in the league.

In the best case, an owner is wise to keep a wide receiver if the league keeps four player or more. Quarterbacks should be kept in leagues that keep six or more players. Many times, it is still best to only keep running backs and receivers in leagues that keep six or seven players. There are tight ends and passers that are startable and are great value each year that are not kept. To keep six strong backs and wide receivers gives a huge advantage over the teams that feel like they must keep their starting lineup. It goes without saying that defenses and kickers should not be kept unless the league keeps at least eight, and probably not even then. In these larger keeper leagues, it is very important to draft well and improve the keepers. With most of the better players kept, the draft becomes even more imperative for poor teams to compete. In these keeper leagues, rookies are invariably drafted much too soon. Since few rookies will be kept the following year, each rookie drafted has to make an impact. Solid, steady veteran players are often overlooked in these keeper leagues. Most owners want to take a chance on striking gold and forget that there are veteran players available with upside the advantage of solid statistics and experience behind them.

In these leagues where keepers are at the cost of a draft pick assigned to the player, running backs are usually in great shortage. These leagues have Willie Parker, Frank Gore, Brandon Jacobs, Marion Barber, and Marques Colston locked up at a very cheap price. This is why many times it is wise to take chances on high upside players late in the draft. With these good players already on rosters, the talent drop off in the draft will come sooner than normal. This makes the higher picks more valuable.

So, the big question is how to interpret the Footballguys.com rankings into a keeper league. First of all, know your league's rules inside and out. This is true for any article. To get a feel for value, next put all of the rules into the Draft Dominator. The rankings that are derived will be tailor-made for your league. Also, the Draft Dominator will allow an owner to input keepers. The Dominator is also a great tool in leagues where each owner has a choice of keepers but must give up a draft pick assigned to that player.

This is the first of a series of articles on keeper league strategy. Part two will look at leagues that keep three players or less. These articles hope to inspire thought on keeper league strategy. Not every keeper league and keeper team is created equally. These are general principles and strategies to make your keeper team into the dominant team year after year.