Keeper leagues are a bittersweet concept. It is extremely fun to have great players for consecutive seasons, and it is great that there’s extra strategy added to the mix. The league flows better from year to year, as everyone still has reason to stay in touch with the league.

The dark side however is that if your favorite player is Albert Pujols, you likely have little shot at getting him on your team. Even in a fresh league the odds of drafting him are slim to none, but he’s not the type of player to get tossed back into the draft.

In my own league our keepers get more expensive each season. If a player is drafted in the 20th round they’re the free “prospect” keeper. Players taken in the first 5 rounds cost $3 to keep the next season, the next 5 rounds cost $2, and all remaining rounds, including free agents, cost $1.  Each team gets to keep $5 worth of players.  Kept players get a $1 raise if kept another season.

In our league the owner of Albert Pujols got the 1st overall pick. Hence, he then was given a break by not having to spend $4 to keep Pujols again, keeping Carl Crawford and Jacoby Ellsbury instead. Now Pujols is in the pool, and his keeper “clock” is again reset.

I’m not sure how other leagues do keepers, I know there is many different styles of keeper leagues. Do your leagues allow this type of “manipulation”? A couple of my fantasy owners are disgruntled with this situation. As the commissioner, I do not have rules against it, so it is hard for me to be upset with the situation. Also I don’t know if Pujols is going to continue to be the best player in the league forever anyway, (rumors have it that he has back injuries!) so it may not matter in the long run.

So would an experience like this ruin fantasy baseball for you? How do you value your favorite players in a competitive league? Myself personally I would love to have Felix and Ichiro every season, however I don’t plan on getting either one as it generally means I need to over pay for them.