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“Contract-Year” Keeper league outline
1. Introduction This is an idea that I got from a fantasy baseball league and am trying to implement it into a fantasy football format. I first started researching something different when after playing in my first keeper league last season. I liked the idea of a keeper, but felt it was too restricted and outlined. Or that it didn’t leave enough flexibility for the manager to make decisions like how many players to keep. To me this idea lends to more managing and is a step closer to making ‘realistic’ management decisions. The basic idea is that each team has a limited number of contract years which they can use to sign their players to contracts however they wish. With 10 contract years, you could sign one player to a ten year contract, five players to 2 year contracts or any other combination that you please. Contract years in sense work similar to a salary cap, though they are a bit more flexible. For every player that you keep, you forfeit a draft pick. So if you keep five players, you don’t get to draft until the 6th round. What if everyone keeps at least one player, what happens in the first round of the draft? Suppose that everyone in the league keeps at least two players, with two managers keeping exactly two players and the rest keeping 3 or more. Then the first two rounds of the draft are ‘set’ with the keeper picks, the third round is ‘set’ for everyone except the two owners who only kept two players – they may select whomever they like of the draft eligible players; and so on. The following is a simulation of how the contract years (C-Y) work. I think that the easiest way to explain and understand contract years is by following the simulation. I tried to simulate different strategies ranging from highly involved managers to those who pretty much ignore the idea of the C-Y system and those managers who try to protect a small core for a longer period of time to those who protect a large number of players for a small period of time. With this set up I believe an owner could be as active as he wants with the C-Y system and still remain competitive in the league. What follows is a fairly detailed and may seem a bit complicated at first. However I think that once it gets going it will become fairly simplistic. I wouldn’t worry too much about the details right now. You can probably figure out the system just by browsing the tables below. These tables are similar to what will be used throughout the season on the league website, and will be sent out via email throughout the season. 2. The End of the First Season I am going to start the simulation with the following presumption: that the 2003 season was the first year that we used C-Ys. So, below I list the final standing of the 2003 season. Next to each team is the number of contract years they have available after the 2003 season (i.e. for the 2004 season). Note that these C-Ys are weighted depending upon where each team finished in the standings. This is part of a systematic bias that should five an advantage to those teams that finished worst. Hopefully this will keep the league balanced, and, more importantly will add some really interesting twists to maintaining a competitive team. *I have yet to
determine the total number of contract years. The chart below is strongly
based off the baseball format. I am
under the belief that less contract years are called for on the football side
of things. This is still under much consideration.
3. Assigning Initial Contracts
The above table shows how each team might assign their contract years and each teams contractual obligations for the next three seasons (2004, 2005 and 2006). This will be done prior to the 2004 draft. I will send out a document like the chart below to each owner in the league every year, and will also post all the information to the league web page. It won’t be very difficult to maintain, it will only need annual updates and occasional updates due to trades or other player movement. Note the different strategies and owner involvement. ·
The Red, · While the Blue and Purple teams have signed two players to long term contracts guaranteeing them a couple of studs for a long time. · Pink and Green have spread their CYs across a number of players keeping 5 and six respectively. · And then Yellow has used all 8 CYs to secure McAllister most of his career. Also keep in mind that this will allow Yellow to have the only pick in the second round and then one of only three picks in the third. 4. After the Second Season Assume for simplicities sake that the standing in 2004 were the same as 2003. So each team has the same number of contract years available to them as they did the previous year.
After the 2004 season I would send out a list with every team’s contract
obligations that are left over from the previous year’s contract
signings. This information would also
be available on the league web page throughout the 2004 season. So, after the 2004 season, I would send out
the following 2005 Contract Obligation document. (Note that there are two
numbers following the ‘total’ for each team.
The first number indicates the number of contract years currently
obligated for in the designated year, the second number, in brackets,
indicates how many contract years are available to assign, bid or defend.
Now looking at where they end up, Pinks strategy of not using all his CYs last season has now put him in place to control the free agent market with 8 CY’s to play with. 5. Restricted Free Agents Going into, during and after the 2004 season, I will send out a list of players who are in the final year of their contractual agreements. These are the restricted free agents, the players that can be offered contracts after the 2004 season is over. (A date will be set by which time all offers must be made). The list using the current example would look like this.
Here is another example where the more CYs that are determined for each team is going to directly effect the free agent market in the league. This list would be posted on our league website, and a similar list would be posted each season beyond that. The basic idea behind restricted free agents is that these are players to whom contacts can be offered (as opposed to players who are only eligible via the draft). We are also working under the assumption that players would want to stay with their current team, but would move to another team for a longer contract. So, opposing team swill get an opportunity to offer these players contracts, and current teams will be given the opportunity to match any contract offer that is made. 6. Bidding of Restricted Free Agents Before I get into deep details, let me just outline a quick version of how this part works; (i) Bids are made on opposing players; (ii) Players are defended or not defended; (iii) Owners decide whether or not to sign opposing players whose contracts were not matched; (iv) Remaining contact years are assigned to eligible players (i.e. Players on the owner’s team). What follows is probably going to sound more complicated than it really is. Offering of contacts to restricted free agents works as follows. First you will send in your list of contract offers to opposing teams’ restricted free agents. Each team will be allowed to bid as many contract years as they have free. Bids will be sent to an email address that will not be checked until the given date, sometime after the bidding deadline. I’ll then make the bids available to everyone. So in our current case each team might make the following bids. (Note: the number in the bracket is the number of contract years each team has available)
From these bids, I will assemble a list for each player showing the best offer received. Priority will be determined by (a) longest contract offered, then (b) reverse final standings. So managers that finished higher in the standing will have to use more of the CYs for them to hold up. Here is an example of the worksheet that I will put together (A copy will be sent out via email as well as posted on the league website.)
Looking back Pinks strategy of keeping a few extra CYs has paid off landing them all 3 Free Agents they went after. Now once this is established, each team that has a free agent will have a chance to defend that player in the market. 7. Defending Restricted Free Agents on Your
Team Each team will be given the opportunity to match any offer made to one of their players. There will be a deadline for this as well. I will send each team a list of those restricted free agents who have been offered contracts. And ask whether they wish to match (or beat) the offer. This information will also be posted on this website. After the deadline passes for deciding whether to match an offer or not, I will notify managers whether their offers opposing players have been matched or not, if an offer you made ot an opposing player has not been matched, you then have the option of signing that player to the contract offered to declining the to sign that player.* (See Other Important Aspects) You might find, for example, that after matching contracts made to your own players, you don’t have enough contract years left to make good on that offer; or you might decide that you’d rather use your remaining contract years to sign your own players. There will be a deadline for notifying the commissioner whether or not you are going to go ahead and accept the contract offer made or not. If a manager declines to match a contract made to one of his players, only to have that contract offer retracted, then the original team manager can sign that player to any length contract they like (or of course not sign the player at all, thus sending the player back into the draft pool.) I know this seems complicated, but I think it will all be pretty intuitive once it gets going. It’s just like I said at the beginning of this section. Basically the bidding works in four stages. (i) Bids are made on opposing players (ii) Players are defended or not defended (iii) Managers decide whether or not to sign opposing players whose contracts have not been matched. (iv) Remaining contract years are assigned to eligible players. 8. Assigning Contracts After the restricted free-agent bidding has worked itself out, the remaining contract years may be assigned to eligible players however a manager wishes. There will be a deadline for assigning contract years as well. After the deadline has passed, any player not under contract will automatically become part of the draft pool. Prior to the contract year assigning deadline, all players on manager’s roster may be traded. Thi is important, because it may offer a way to get some compensation for a player who has been offered a contract you know you can not match. Here’s how this might work: Suppose that Priest Holmes has been offered a contract by another team and I know I will not be able to match this. Recall that the offers are all public (once calculated and put to the original manager) another manager who did not win the bidding on Priest sees that I will not be able to match the contract and offers me a trade for Priest and the right to match any offers on Priest. 9. Other Important or Possible Aspects Players
Eligible for contracts You may assign available contract years amongst the members of your team as of the final day of the season. The distribution of contract years is up to each owner’s discretion. Special circumstances include restricted free agents, members of your team currently under contract, and players acquired in post-season trades. You may not sign free agents to contracts. Extending
Contracts You are not allowed to use available contract years to extend the length of contracts for players already under contract. Post
Season Trades and Transactions All players on a team’s roster at the end of the season may be traded in the post-season up to the deadline for assigning contracts. No free agent or waiver drops/pickups are allowed in the off-season, aside from the draft and the restricted free agent bidding. After the deadline for assigning contracts has passed, all players not signed to contract will automatically become part of the draft pool. Terminating
Contracts Early (the Ricky Williams rule) If a player retires from the game or somehow permanently leaves the game, then you are released from future contract obligations for the player. Players who are injured but still considered to be part of the league will still be held to their contracts. Even if an injury is a de facto retirement, the contract must be honored until a player officially retires from the game. If a player comes out of retirement early, then he will be considered to be a restricted free agent of the team for which he was under contract when he retired. Dropping
Players under Contract Suppose that you signed a player like Marshall Faulk to a 4 year contract, and the he starts sucking horribly. You are allowed to drop the player, but you still have to honor his contract. So you might drop Faulk because he is killing you team, but unless someone picks him up via free agency or the draft next year, you are still responsible for future contract year obligations. Acquiring
Players Under Contract To encourage trading, players who are acquired and are under contract will not count against the current years contract year allotment. To acquire a player under contract, you only need to be able to accommodate future obligations. Trading
Contract Years Contract years can be traded or used a barter to move players. So, for example, if I were trying to trade Marshall Faulk and his four year contract, I might agree to have two of his contract years count against my allotment. Trading contract years might also come in handy in a run for the championship. Suppose you were in second or third place in 2004, and needed a running back due to an injury. You might work out a trade with a team in last place for one of their running backs for your prospect and two of your 2005 contract years. This would allow the team in last place to be a real player in the free agent market off-season and possibly give you a chance at the championship in 2004. Other
options One option that I am leaning toward is a way to encourage owners to make good on their offers to restricted free agents or in order to discourage bluff free agent bidding. This could be done by penalizing owners 1 CY for every unmatched bid they make that they in turn retract. |
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