Fantasy Baseball - Keeper Leagues

Keeper Leagues

Any fantasy baseball pool that "rolls over" into other years is called a "Keeper" or "Dynasty" league. The leagues can be run each year in any of the above formats with a winner declared at the end of each season. At the end of the year team managers decide which players they wish to protect (the number varies – from protecting and keeping all players, to keeping just one player). Before the MLB season opener, a fantasy draft is held to fill out the rest of the roster.

Many keeper leagues, as well as some single season leagues, have adopted salary cap rules similar to the NHL. In a "Salary Cap League", a salary is assigned to each player before the manager selects his team. Salaries are usually determined by the MLB player's real salary. Otherwise a number value is assigned – usually by an online baseball pool program – or it is determined through an auction process. Each manager must ensure that they do not go over the predefined salary cap when selecting players.

One emerging option for a keeper league is the Draft Round Values system. This is a Sabermetric approach for determining the values of players selected in a particular round. The round a player was selected in the previous season is conceded in the upcoming seasons draft when they are elected to be carried over. Tables are provided with these values and a conversion chart that calculates the rounds to be conceded when multiple players from the same round selected as keepers. These tables also work for balancing multiple player trades.

Keeper leagues are especially easy in auction formats, where last year's dollar values can be used to calculate keeper values. At least one league uses this system in combination with a minimum rookie keeper wage scale with great success.

Also some leagues have introduced a rookie draft into their fantasy league. By using the rankings from the last season to determine the draft order last place gets 1st pick and so on. Also in some leagues trading picks is also allowed.