Currently in a 12 team keeper league, we keep 3 each season with no restrictions on keepers. It’s a money league.
Anyone have any experience in expanding such a league from 12 teams to 14? Can’t think of a way to do it fairly to the potential new owners. Perhaps some system that compensates the new owners with more high draft picks? Or a system that allows current owners to protect one player and then the new owners can take their three keepers from the other rosters, but only one player from each existing team?
Maybe give them the first 5 picks of the draft (and eliminating their last 2 picks to even out roster size)? I’d avoid an expansion draft with just 3 keepers/team. If it was a league where teams got to keep like 8-10 players, that would be the way to go.
Also, since we’re only talking about 36 keepers, maybe poll the league to see if expansion is that important, and if it is, then why not start over? It gives you an opportunity to completely audit the league - maybe move to superflex or 2QB, expand to more keepers, switch to an auction, etc.
After the 12 existing owners declare their keepers, every eligible-but-not-kept player goes into a single pool of potential keepers for the two new owners. Those two then alternate picking keepers from that pool until they have 3 or they don’t want any more.
Also give the two new owners the top two draft positions.
To make it fair between the two new teams, one of them picks the first keeper, the other gets the first position in the draft.
This isn’t a particularly great solution, but it’s something, at least.
Thanks for the ideas. We are committed to expansion and raising the buy in to make the league more fun and competitive. I’ve always preferred 14 teams in a league anyway.
We may start over, the only drawback is losing the league history. I’m going to suggest maybe increasing the keepers if we start over. Of course, only keeping 3 means there are some decent players in the draft and you’re not just looking for rookies and breakouts.
I would consider getting a list of players’ values from one of the big sites and then require existing owners to designate some number (3-4?) of players with a total value of X, where X is an arbitrary figure. These players go into an expansion draft. This will allow owners to essentially protect anyone they wish. You can then run your annual draft as normal.