This is going to be a quick post.  I recently went back and checked which players were rostered after the regular season ended.  Because of our keeper rules that were in place, players acquired after the final regular season game were uneligible to kept the following year.  Even though this may not affect your keeper plans, the following players can not be kept by the owners that picked them up as they happened after the the final game of the regular season:

Dan -
Chargers D/ST

What you get when you type "keeper" into Google Images.

                                     

Basically, my system uses an either/or clause and two equations to determine how much a player's price will go up each year.  One is simply a flat percentage of what an owner paid in the prior year.  The second, takes    in to account the difference in value between the current year and what you paid before designating a contract. Using this two-equation system it does less to strongly favor one end of the price spectrum.  For bad/unproven players you pay less, for good/proven players you pay more.

Additionally a contract system has been worked in.  An owner can decide whether to do a 1 through 5 year contract.  As the contract length increases, the price of keeping the player decreases, but the penalty for breaking the contract increases.  Furthermore with a longer contract, obviously there is greater risk of the player not living up to the increasing price.

I believe that this will allow owners in our league much more strategic room.  If you want to risk a big penalty to lock in a low rate for that value stud, go for a 5-year contract.  If you want to minimize risk, go with a 1-year. You can also lock in a speculative play at a low rate.  You may end up throwing draft money down a pit, but you could hit big once in a blue moon.  Of course you always have the option do split it right down the middle too.

The calculator in the link (below) explains the system pretty well, so go ahead and check it out, play with some numbers and see how it feels.  Let me know if you have any questions, constructive thoughts, concerns, etc.


2 Questions:
Are you in favor of enacting the Richter Scale for determining keeper costs?

If we do adopt the system, for players currently in the 2nd year of their 3-year contract, do we:
             a). Convert said contracts into contracts using the new system.
                                  (calculate for a three-year contract, but only use first two numbers)
             b). Void all current contracts
             c). Other.