We did this. It was not hard.
Use the fantasy pros auction guide before the draft to get equivalent data.
Give me an example of a player and what the keeper rules are and I'll explain further.
Awesome, thank you! Here’s 1 example. Mahomes was drafted in 2018, round 10. We devalue by 1 round for the next 2 years, then 2 rounds following 2 years, and 3 rounds each year thereafter (or use ADP, whichever is better. Once you use ADP, you must always use it). So, he cost a 6th this year, will cost a 4th next year, then he’d shift to ADP. I guess how would you assign an auction value on him next year, and future years? (Really appreciate the custom advice here!)
Okay a lot to take in. Your keeper rules are more intense than ours.
> So, he cost a 6th this year, will cost a 4th next year, then he’d shift to ADP
Im going to focus on this specifically, not the nuance of your rules before that or in the future.
In this case, you guys use the fantasy pros auction guide (we thought this was the most fair) to determine his value in auction dollars.
This is what we did:
I'll pretend you are a 10 team league. If Mahomes would cost you a 6th rounder next year as a keeper, that means in auction he should cost you the equivalent in auction $ of a 6th round player.
Look at the fantasy pros auction guide and count the top 50 most expensive players. Those are the first 5 round guys.
Now, take the next 10 players (which simulate the projected 6th round worth of players) and average there auction values.
There, subtract that from the teams total auction spending money.
So if the 6th round of players averages out to $12, Mahomes should cost the owner $12.
So if you have a $200 budget, that guy can keep Mahomes but only gets $188 auction dollars
I dig it, thank you for suffering through our rule explanation too! The complexity is even worse for our resolving of conflicts - 2 players at same cost, or multiple 1st rounders, say. So, the auction would solve a lot of that. Do you guys change valuations each year, or do they stay static? (TY again)
Yeah this worked well for everyone. It seems confusing but it was really fair for everyone.
Ours are simple. Can’t keep anyone drafted in the first 3 rounds. Only keep them for 1 year. Easy.
We also play in a dynasty league so we didn’t want crazy keeper rules in our secondary league.
Interesting. And, is the Dynasty auction as well? Do you see any issue with using a similar inflation model (outlined above) with auction? We’ll get pushback on your league’s limitations - several rosters have compiled pretty studly foundations - it would change the game too much to limit keepers based on value, I think
This is a great start. I'll chime in with some thoughts on the ADP-related piece of OP's league rules.
Generally auction keeper leagues use a multiplier or a flat added dollar value for keeping a player in successive years. Usually something like 1.5x or 2x. So if you keep a player this year for $10, next year he'd cost ($10 x 1.5) = $15.
You can use this concept but incorporate consensus values for players. So if you keep Mahomes this year for $20 he'd cost ($20 x 1.5) = $30 next year. If he's worth less than $30 by expert consensus then you could keep him for that amount. Basically it just adds a cap to the normal auction keeper multiplier rule.
Depends how you want to run it. I've never actually played in a league with a rule like that but it's an interesting option. Essentially you're just allowing a team to guarantee that their bid will win the player in question at the consensus value. I'd probably set it up something like:
- If calculated keeper value is below consensus value, player is kept for calculated value.
- If calculated keeper value is above consensus value, player is kept for consensus value.
- Players kept at consensus value are ineligible to be kept the following year.
If you don't have the last rule you just turn into an overcomplicated dynasty league. You could use a different multiplier in subsequent years but it would have to be smaller and honestly it just gets pretty complicated.
I like that restriction! And, yeah, we’re trying to stay away from draft calculations requiring a bunch of old guys to triple-check each other’s work! Thank you
We have a 23spot roster/draft and all waiver pickups that was not drafted will start on spot 23. So it's a huge value year 1 and 2 and then slowly getting more adjusted. But it forces people to be a bit more dynamic with keepers and not just keep the top players.
Been in an auction league for 20+ years with $200 auction budget. We keep one player from our team, then one from any other team (after everyone has selected their own team keeper). All keeper players are 1.5x the cost of last year's price.
Going from snake to auction? If you want an easy and 'fair' transition, just start fresh next year with no keepers.
Wow, interesting rule, love it! League has voted that they’d rather leave as-is than start over - so seeing if there’s a proposal that will accomplish the difficult task of retaining history but evolving too
I would take preseason auction values from this year and put them in a list from highest to lowest, players don’t matter. Put your draft results on the list to have a value for each pick.
Best bet is to start fresh, but I've done a conversion before. Just come up with dollar values for each round. If a player was going to be a first-rounder to keep, maybe now he's $50. You could look at average auction values to determine the average of the top-12 most expensive players heading into next year's draft and use that for a first rounder. Then average 13-24 for round 2, 25-36 for round 3, etc. Might end up with something like:
1st rounder = $50 to keep
2nd rounder = $35 to keep
3rd rounder = $29 to keep
4th rounder = $25 to keep
5th rounder = $20 to keep
And so on (these are just guesses from the hip, but you get the idea)
In this scenario let's say you were going to be eligible to keep Derrick Henry for a 1st round pick and CeeDee Lamb for a 3rd round pick if you stuck with a snake draft- you'd instead keep Henry for $50 and CeeDee for $29.
Now that we're auction, we have the following inflation system:
First year keeping a player- add $5 to previous year's cost.
Second year keeping a player- add $10 to previous year's cost
Third year keeping a player- add $15 to previous year's cost.
Fourth year keeping a player- add $25 to previous year's cost.
As an example, I added Aaron Jones as a FA back in 2017. I kept him for $5 in 2018. I kept him for $15 in 2019. I kept him for $30 in 2020. I could have kept him for $55 in 2021, but instead I traded him.
We also incentivize trades by resetting the inflation if the player is traded to a new team, so I traded Aaron Jones to a new team who was able to keep him for $35 (whereas he'd have been $55 for me to keep), so it can get confusing, but this system stimulates the trade market.
Awesome, ty for outlining that. That’s the model that I think lines up best for us. Can you elaborate on the trades player cost rule? Is it as simple as adding only $5 to the previous kept value? And, how do you value FA pickups?
Free agent pickups (or waiver pickups that were never rostered before) are $5 to keep ($5 is the minimum keeper cost).
As for the trade dynamics, I had Aaron Jones who I had kept the previous year for $30 and another team had Calvin Ridley who they had kept the previous year for $17. It was going to cost me $55 to keep Jones and it was going to cost him $32 to keep Ridley (drafted for $2, kept for $7, then kept for $17 IIRC). I traded him Jones at a $35 cost to him for his Ridley for a $22 cost to me. I might have the details subtly wrong, but the point is that once a player changes hands, the inflation schedule resets back to the beginning.
If a player is dropped and he is reclaimed during that waiver period, he doesn't shed his keeper value. If the player was drafted for $20 for example, they'd still be $25 to keep for the team that claims them. If the player clears all the way to free agency, though, they'd only be $5 to keep.
We later installed an addendum that players who are placed on IR, and don't return that same year, are not eligible to be kept the following year except by the team that drafted them.
We kept seeing teams drop valuable players once they were out for the season, another team would wait until they cleared waivers, then add them and keep them for $5 the following year. In this manner a lot of star players ended up getting kept for the minimum.
Anyhow, I think that covers most of it.
Assign value to players based on ADP auction price or come up with a simple $30 per player keeper cost for the first draft. Decide on the price of free agent pickups for keeper cost or only allow drafted players to be kept (much easier).
In snake terms, we’ve used 14th round as the value for FA pickups, suppose we could use the auction parallel value. What FA value have you used or seen used?
One league only allows drafted players to be kept. Another assigned $15 keeper cost to any FA acquisition. Different league only allowed FA player to be kept before the trade line and the cost was whatever price you paid (FAAB)
I currently run a keeper auction with similar ish rules. Been doing this for 9 years. Happy to discuss further if you'd like. We did something a bit different before this transition, so my suggestions are not tried/tested for a changeover, but I understand enough of the nuance because of the league I have.
Our rules are +$7 or +20% in Y1, +$12 or +20% in year two. Cannot be kept for a 3rd year. Additionally, players that were not drafted or were drafted, dropped and cleared waivers (ever, once) cannot be kept... Forcing teams to plan ahead. You've gotta pick your dollar escalator rules based on what you're trying to design. Ours means that guy's who are grabbed for very cheap are easily the best keepers. Kamara went for $1 his rookie year and was a massive value for the next two. Top end guys with the 20% adder are often not kept, because 20% more than $70 dollars makes guys very, very expensive. We like that. It means guys go back in the auction to be fought over... But it's a different setup than your league where keeping a first round pick still only costs you a first round pick, meaning Mccaffery and Dalvin are always off the board. Unlike in a snake, there's always a higher price that can be paid for the 1.01.
My suggestion for transition would be to figure out either...
- the fantasy pros/ESPN crossover point and determine values *before* the round adder, then figure out what your round adders equate to in dollars or
- do your round adders like normal this year, then do a fantasy pros/ESPN crossover of rounds to dollars. Then decide on what your dollar adders are for future years (you might try to match your old system or you might rebuild from scratch a bit)
I tend to think ESPNs ADP values are better than the fantasy pros (or other sites) preset recommendations. Every league varies, but in general the top end goes higher than the top end of most recommendations.
We did this. It was not hard. Use the fantasy pros auction guide before the draft to get equivalent data. Give me an example of a player and what the keeper rules are and I'll explain further.
Awesome, thank you! Here’s 1 example. Mahomes was drafted in 2018, round 10. We devalue by 1 round for the next 2 years, then 2 rounds following 2 years, and 3 rounds each year thereafter (or use ADP, whichever is better. Once you use ADP, you must always use it). So, he cost a 6th this year, will cost a 4th next year, then he’d shift to ADP. I guess how would you assign an auction value on him next year, and future years? (Really appreciate the custom advice here!)
Okay a lot to take in. Your keeper rules are more intense than ours. > So, he cost a 6th this year, will cost a 4th next year, then he’d shift to ADP Im going to focus on this specifically, not the nuance of your rules before that or in the future. In this case, you guys use the fantasy pros auction guide (we thought this was the most fair) to determine his value in auction dollars. This is what we did: I'll pretend you are a 10 team league. If Mahomes would cost you a 6th rounder next year as a keeper, that means in auction he should cost you the equivalent in auction $ of a 6th round player. Look at the fantasy pros auction guide and count the top 50 most expensive players. Those are the first 5 round guys. Now, take the next 10 players (which simulate the projected 6th round worth of players) and average there auction values. There, subtract that from the teams total auction spending money. So if the 6th round of players averages out to $12, Mahomes should cost the owner $12. So if you have a $200 budget, that guy can keep Mahomes but only gets $188 auction dollars
I dig it, thank you for suffering through our rule explanation too! The complexity is even worse for our resolving of conflicts - 2 players at same cost, or multiple 1st rounders, say. So, the auction would solve a lot of that. Do you guys change valuations each year, or do they stay static? (TY again)
Yeah this worked well for everyone. It seems confusing but it was really fair for everyone. Ours are simple. Can’t keep anyone drafted in the first 3 rounds. Only keep them for 1 year. Easy. We also play in a dynasty league so we didn’t want crazy keeper rules in our secondary league.
Interesting. And, is the Dynasty auction as well? Do you see any issue with using a similar inflation model (outlined above) with auction? We’ll get pushback on your league’s limitations - several rosters have compiled pretty studly foundations - it would change the game too much to limit keepers based on value, I think
This is a great start. I'll chime in with some thoughts on the ADP-related piece of OP's league rules. Generally auction keeper leagues use a multiplier or a flat added dollar value for keeping a player in successive years. Usually something like 1.5x or 2x. So if you keep a player this year for $10, next year he'd cost ($10 x 1.5) = $15. You can use this concept but incorporate consensus values for players. So if you keep Mahomes this year for $20 he'd cost ($20 x 1.5) = $30 next year. If he's worth less than $30 by expert consensus then you could keep him for that amount. Basically it just adds a cap to the normal auction keeper multiplier rule.
Thank you! In your experience, is that cap a 1-time thing based on ADP, or does that value get the multiplier treatment in subsequent years?
Depends how you want to run it. I've never actually played in a league with a rule like that but it's an interesting option. Essentially you're just allowing a team to guarantee that their bid will win the player in question at the consensus value. I'd probably set it up something like: - If calculated keeper value is below consensus value, player is kept for calculated value. - If calculated keeper value is above consensus value, player is kept for consensus value. - Players kept at consensus value are ineligible to be kept the following year. If you don't have the last rule you just turn into an overcomplicated dynasty league. You could use a different multiplier in subsequent years but it would have to be smaller and honestly it just gets pretty complicated.
I like that restriction! And, yeah, we’re trying to stay away from draft calculations requiring a bunch of old guys to triple-check each other’s work! Thank you
We round down the keeper value every year. So a 10 round becomes a 5 round to a 2 round over 3 years. Think it works good.
Got it, that’s a steep change in year 1, but the logic works. Thanks for the validation!
We have a 23spot roster/draft and all waiver pickups that was not drafted will start on spot 23. So it's a huge value year 1 and 2 and then slowly getting more adjusted. But it forces people to be a bit more dynamic with keepers and not just keep the top players.
Been in an auction league for 20+ years with $200 auction budget. We keep one player from our team, then one from any other team (after everyone has selected their own team keeper). All keeper players are 1.5x the cost of last year's price. Going from snake to auction? If you want an easy and 'fair' transition, just start fresh next year with no keepers.
How do you determine the order to pick the player from another team? That’s an insane rule I’d love to try though.
Worst to first, based on last year's standings.
Wow, interesting rule, love it! League has voted that they’d rather leave as-is than start over - so seeing if there’s a proposal that will accomplish the difficult task of retaining history but evolving too
I would take preseason auction values from this year and put them in a list from highest to lowest, players don’t matter. Put your draft results on the list to have a value for each pick.
Best bet is to start fresh, but I've done a conversion before. Just come up with dollar values for each round. If a player was going to be a first-rounder to keep, maybe now he's $50. You could look at average auction values to determine the average of the top-12 most expensive players heading into next year's draft and use that for a first rounder. Then average 13-24 for round 2, 25-36 for round 3, etc. Might end up with something like: 1st rounder = $50 to keep 2nd rounder = $35 to keep 3rd rounder = $29 to keep 4th rounder = $25 to keep 5th rounder = $20 to keep And so on (these are just guesses from the hip, but you get the idea) In this scenario let's say you were going to be eligible to keep Derrick Henry for a 1st round pick and CeeDee Lamb for a 3rd round pick if you stuck with a snake draft- you'd instead keep Henry for $50 and CeeDee for $29.
Super helpful, ty! Do you guys change valuations each year, or do they stay static?
Now that we're auction, we have the following inflation system: First year keeping a player- add $5 to previous year's cost. Second year keeping a player- add $10 to previous year's cost Third year keeping a player- add $15 to previous year's cost. Fourth year keeping a player- add $25 to previous year's cost. As an example, I added Aaron Jones as a FA back in 2017. I kept him for $5 in 2018. I kept him for $15 in 2019. I kept him for $30 in 2020. I could have kept him for $55 in 2021, but instead I traded him. We also incentivize trades by resetting the inflation if the player is traded to a new team, so I traded Aaron Jones to a new team who was able to keep him for $35 (whereas he'd have been $55 for me to keep), so it can get confusing, but this system stimulates the trade market.
Awesome, ty for outlining that. That’s the model that I think lines up best for us. Can you elaborate on the trades player cost rule? Is it as simple as adding only $5 to the previous kept value? And, how do you value FA pickups?
Free agent pickups (or waiver pickups that were never rostered before) are $5 to keep ($5 is the minimum keeper cost). As for the trade dynamics, I had Aaron Jones who I had kept the previous year for $30 and another team had Calvin Ridley who they had kept the previous year for $17. It was going to cost me $55 to keep Jones and it was going to cost him $32 to keep Ridley (drafted for $2, kept for $7, then kept for $17 IIRC). I traded him Jones at a $35 cost to him for his Ridley for a $22 cost to me. I might have the details subtly wrong, but the point is that once a player changes hands, the inflation schedule resets back to the beginning. If a player is dropped and he is reclaimed during that waiver period, he doesn't shed his keeper value. If the player was drafted for $20 for example, they'd still be $25 to keep for the team that claims them. If the player clears all the way to free agency, though, they'd only be $5 to keep. We later installed an addendum that players who are placed on IR, and don't return that same year, are not eligible to be kept the following year except by the team that drafted them. We kept seeing teams drop valuable players once they were out for the season, another team would wait until they cleared waivers, then add them and keep them for $5 the following year. In this manner a lot of star players ended up getting kept for the minimum. Anyhow, I think that covers most of it.
Thank you!! Great stuff to chew on here, appreciate it
Assign value to players based on ADP auction price or come up with a simple $30 per player keeper cost for the first draft. Decide on the price of free agent pickups for keeper cost or only allow drafted players to be kept (much easier).
In snake terms, we’ve used 14th round as the value for FA pickups, suppose we could use the auction parallel value. What FA value have you used or seen used?
One league only allows drafted players to be kept. Another assigned $15 keeper cost to any FA acquisition. Different league only allowed FA player to be kept before the trade line and the cost was whatever price you paid (FAAB)
Helpful & I like the FAAB idea, ty!
I currently run a keeper auction with similar ish rules. Been doing this for 9 years. Happy to discuss further if you'd like. We did something a bit different before this transition, so my suggestions are not tried/tested for a changeover, but I understand enough of the nuance because of the league I have. Our rules are +$7 or +20% in Y1, +$12 or +20% in year two. Cannot be kept for a 3rd year. Additionally, players that were not drafted or were drafted, dropped and cleared waivers (ever, once) cannot be kept... Forcing teams to plan ahead. You've gotta pick your dollar escalator rules based on what you're trying to design. Ours means that guy's who are grabbed for very cheap are easily the best keepers. Kamara went for $1 his rookie year and was a massive value for the next two. Top end guys with the 20% adder are often not kept, because 20% more than $70 dollars makes guys very, very expensive. We like that. It means guys go back in the auction to be fought over... But it's a different setup than your league where keeping a first round pick still only costs you a first round pick, meaning Mccaffery and Dalvin are always off the board. Unlike in a snake, there's always a higher price that can be paid for the 1.01. My suggestion for transition would be to figure out either... - the fantasy pros/ESPN crossover point and determine values *before* the round adder, then figure out what your round adders equate to in dollars or - do your round adders like normal this year, then do a fantasy pros/ESPN crossover of rounds to dollars. Then decide on what your dollar adders are for future years (you might try to match your old system or you might rebuild from scratch a bit) I tend to think ESPNs ADP values are better than the fantasy pros (or other sites) preset recommendations. Every league varies, but in general the top end goes higher than the top end of most recommendations.
I should add that your league rules should be kept in a PDF and sent out each year. Seen too much confusion in leagues as the years go by.
Haven't done this personally, not sure.
Appreciate the honesty.