i also really agree with this..

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10 team Keeper Roto League
4C-4LW-4RW-6D-2G-5bench-unlimited farm.

C= crosby,m.koivu,malkin,zajak,grabovski,j.jokinen,
LW= ovechkin,nash,s.gagner,dubinsky
RW= downie,hemsky,callahan,voracek,perry,mueller
D= green,doughty,phaneuf,wisniewski,girardi,karlsson
G= rask,lundqvist,ward,price

FARM=kreider,grachev,petrov,enroth,kuznetsov,ennis ,rundblad,bjugstad,radulov,montoya, adam,t.erixon,cowan,s.elliot,j.faulk,cormier,petro v,orlov,stone,eakin,grigorenko,silfverberg,brodin, atkinson

--G,A,P,PPP,SHP,GWG,PIMS,+/-,SOG,hits,FOW,blocks-Wins,GAA,SV%,saves,SO

In my case I am in a league with 10 other friends and we are in different cities. It keeps us in touch. I am one of the more in depth GM's, and I have no problem handicapping the league against more knowledgable GM's. I need the league to be taylored to the guys I want to compete with. Having runaway teams all the time is not a fun league to be a part of from either end. It all comes down to wanting to fix the problem because you like the guys you are in the league with. And thats what I think ddp is trying to do.

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"Add Your Voice" - mindcheck.ca
D.I.F.D. - www.difd.com/

A seriously unbalanced league is not a problem if it's one and done.

Keepers/Dynasty leagues need to maintain some balance in order to keep interest up (like the NHL). Otherwise you lose the bottom half of the league, meaning that manager interest starts to wane, trading essentially dries up, and eventually you are looking for new managers for really crappy teams.

If I'm looking for a keeper league to join and the only teams available require a multiple year rebuild AND/OR there is a team in the league (usually the commish's) that is unstoppable - I'm pretty quick to move on.

.. a quick idea that I've used with positional keepers. One random position is re-drafted per season. Or have everyone number their keepers, and choose a random number to put back in the draft (example, everyone puts their #3 keeper back in the draft).

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12 team H2H Keeper (weekly)
(12-man active roster: 2C/2RW/2LW/4D/2G/6BN)
(G,A,+/-,PIM,SHP,SOG / W,GAA,SV%,SO)

Hard Luck Hosers (1st year expansion)

C: Kopitar, Carter
RW: Backes, Doan
LW: Benn, Couture
D: Subban, Goligoski, Doughty, Ekman-Larsson
G: Niemi, Bobrovsky

BN: Wheeler, Yakupov, van Reimsdyk, Plekanec, Carlson, Ward[IR]

keepers in bold

Some great replies guys....I like some of these ideas. RATAYLOR22, I agree for sure. Its just annoying that I put the effort in to target guys that are super buy lows and guys accept. Next thing you know my team is even better. In this pool, I've owned the following players, imagine they were still with me? Giroux, Karlsson, Green, and Ovechkin. I made a poor trade of Giroux for Lecavallier back in the rookie days...but I won the league.

If this pool was free, it would be a different story. $25 is no big deal to me but I just have a hard time paying the same amount on a bet as someone else but have less odds. (you could argue I'd have less odds with 5 keepers at the top of the league) but you get what I'm trying to say.

We have done the contract thing in another league and it worked well. Fantrax who we use, wants to charge for it now. So we may have to think about what site we want to use now.

What does everyone use? Fantrax is free and offers just about enough...so our small entry fee adds up to a decent pot. I've actually made it so that there are 5 possible winners of money. 2 division champs, league champ, runner up and wild card.

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Contract Fantrax 14 teams, 8 keepers. 4 max lifers +/-
3C, 3LW, 3RW, 1F. 5D,2G....5Reserves.
Goal heavy. G=3.5 A=2 Add 0.5pts for D.
Goalies:W=3,SO=4,start=2,Save=.1
Shootout Save=.2
C:CROSBY,STAMKOS,TAVARES,
LW:Sedin,MARCHAND,TLUSTY,ELIAS,Whitney
RW:MALKIN,YAKUPOV,Jagr,Brunner
D: BYFUGLIEN,YANDLE,VOYNOV,Carlson,Visnovsky
G:Lundqvist,lehtonen,Pavelec
Minors: Granlund
Baseball
Votto,Cano,hanley,longoria
McCutchen,Stanton,Bautista.
Verlander,Cain,Felix

it seems your opponents just don't have the same knowledge of players that you do. your best bet is to find another keeper/dynasty league with stiffer competition and just do one-year leagues with this current group. can't be much fun heading into each new season knowing that you are going to win before the first puck drops... even if you just keep 5, your 5 are so good that you aren't going to lose to anyone in the current group of managers...

Talking with the one guy that really thinks we should drop to 6 and he says to me:
"You shouldn't pay anything cause of the work you do as commish to make this fun for us" awwww...nice! So I'm liking this idea: 1st place drops to 5or6 and pays less then everyone else. same for 2nd and 3rd. This may create a revolving door but I think I'd still compete hard...but the next best guy might win in next year, then the next guy and so on. hmmm.
Its principle. I would drop to 5 giving up sedin, yakupov and parise for example if I paid only a small fee to join this year only. But to pay the same as the assclowns who destroy their teams? doesn't seem right.

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Contract Fantrax 14 teams, 8 keepers. 4 max lifers +/-
3C, 3LW, 3RW, 1F. 5D,2G....5Reserves.
Goal heavy. G=3.5 A=2 Add 0.5pts for D.
Goalies:W=3,SO=4,start=2,Save=.1
Shootout Save=.2
C:CROSBY,STAMKOS,TAVARES,
LW:Sedin,MARCHAND,TLUSTY,ELIAS,Whitney
RW:MALKIN,YAKUPOV,Jagr,Brunner
D: BYFUGLIEN,YANDLE,VOYNOV,Carlson,Visnovsky
G:Lundqvist,lehtonen,Pavelec
Minors: Granlund
Baseball
Votto,Cano,hanley,longoria
McCutchen,Stanton,Bautista.
Verlander,Cain,Felix

Here is the thing. We are slowly getting better owners. I'm still having fun. I don't run away with it. there are 6-7 teams that are pretty stacked. Obviously not as rank heavy as mine but injuries can happen. (crosby- head) (Malkin - KNee)

I am coming to the conclusion that something has to be done....that is why I'm here getting ideas.

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Contract Fantrax 14 teams, 8 keepers. 4 max lifers +/-
3C, 3LW, 3RW, 1F. 5D,2G....5Reserves.
Goal heavy. G=3.5 A=2 Add 0.5pts for D.
Goalies:W=3,SO=4,start=2,Save=.1
Shootout Save=.2
C:CROSBY,STAMKOS,TAVARES,
LW:Sedin,MARCHAND,TLUSTY,ELIAS,Whitney
RW:MALKIN,YAKUPOV,Jagr,Brunner
D: BYFUGLIEN,YANDLE,VOYNOV,Carlson,Visnovsky
G:Lundqvist,lehtonen,Pavelec
Minors: Granlund
Baseball
Votto,Cano,hanley,longoria
McCutchen,Stanton,Bautista.
Verlander,Cain,Felix

I'm thinking outside of the box here...

The thing for me is all of these plans are fine and dandy, but the problem is they're more "band-aid solutions" but still not addressing the "core problems" of the league, which is knowledge among league members...

One of the biggest caveats that I have with keeper leagues is that unless you're playing with "experts" who know what they are doing and trust their decision making process, a keeper league can easily run into the scenario that you're having, where an owner is completely mooching off the bad decisions made by others.

I'd be mighty pissed if I was constantly in 2nd place and couldn't pull off the deals to push me into first because the other owners kept making boneheaded decisions to keep benefiting the top team. The problem with keeper leagues is that bad decisions don't just last 1 year, they can linger for 10-15 years if your league lasts that long. A lot of keeper league decisions are made with a very short term view without fully analyzing the long term consequences of the decisions made. I know I was in a league in which I couldn't pull off deals to benefit my team even though I was offering a "better" deal IMO than the team above me. Then to see that player go for less to the "top" team and I'm left sitting here thinking wtf is going on? Also it doesn't help if there are multiple teams that are "rebuilding" and can careless if they're competitive for the next 3-4 years. They're happy to toil in mediocrity for 3-4 years while attempting to stockpile any and all prospects they can. So they're happy to move perfectly viable fantasy pieces for peanuts just to bank draft picks/prospects...

Lowering/altering the number of keepers doesn't really solve the problem. At the end of the day the 5 that you keep is still going to keep you on top anyway. I mean you own Crosby, Stamkos, Malkin, Lundy, Tavares... that should NEVER EVER happen in a respectable keeper league. You could drop it down to 4, heck 3 and you'd still be ahead of the game compared to everyone else...

The thing is getting better owners and thinking longer term say 5-7 years down the track might help the situation, but at the end of the day when you keep 5 and you have Crosby, Malkin, Stamkos, Lundy and Tavares how are other teams (no matter how knowledgeable/good of a fantasy player they are) going to ever be able to catch back up.

I guess for me is how important is this league to you, is it among close friends, just other poolies that you've met along the way, against randoms? If you're after competitiveness/challenge then a solution might be to "reset the league", maybe let everyone have their 1 keeper, and redraft the entire league again, giving you first pick after all the keepers. You might lose two of Stamkos, Crosby, Malkin and Lundy, but it's not the end of the world as you still own 2 of the top fantasy players out there.

If you're after winning each and every year, how long is that going to last? With Crosby, Stamkos, Tavares, Malkin, Lundy and Yakupov, you could essentially win year after year for the next 10 years. I don't know very many poolies who would remain in the league and still maintain interest after 10 years of losing and watching someone own the top 4-5 fantasy options year after year.

My 2 cents.

P.S. I still fail to understand how the hell you can land Crosby, Stamkos, Malkin, Tavares, Lundy and Ovechkin (which you freely gave away) in a keeper league, seriously are you playing in a league with monkeys?

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Dobber Expert Pool Champion 2011-12

Just for curiosity's sake what were the deals that you made to land those players?

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Dobber Expert Pool Champion 2011-12

I 100% agree with everything gotlaid said. You’re stacked, you’re beyond stacked, it’s laughable how good your keepers are (you have 7-1st rounders and the top rookie draft pick). Without major alterations I don’t see how you won’t win at least 4 out of the next 5 Championships.

The question becomes what do you want? If you want to win title after title for the next 10 years (Yakupov is still 18) then leave the rule at keep 8. You’ll dominant for a long while and should rack up the wins, but I’d expect league wide interest to fade a lot. If you want to create a league where you still have a challenge I’d recommend one of the following options:

1. Blow the whole thing up. No keepers (or 1-2 tops), brand new draft with 6 or 8 keepers going forward. This gives everyone a clean slate, tell the dumb owners to get smarter, this is there do-over and they better not waste it. This is pretty dramatic and will also hurt the other top teams in the league some of whom have likely been building for years so it might not be the answer.
2. Handicap just your team's keepers for this year only. Somehow come up with a one-time rule that handicaps your keepers to a point where you’re in the top 3 (you shouldn’t have to start from scratch) but not dominant. Options I can think of:
a. Keep 3 this year only (Crosby, Malkin, Lundy).
b. You keep 6: Malkin, Tavares, Yakupov, Lundy and 2 other players who are currently on the wire.
c. Or some other combination that is reasonable.

To create some parity and challenge your team needs a major reduction in talent! However you choose to do it I think you need to have a mini-reset that leaves you with a top 3 keeper pool (ideally the top) but not the complete juggernaut you currently own. If there are any other teams that also have dominant keepers (who is even left?) perhaps they need a trim in talent as well but the focus needs to be on dispersing your teams strength.

Now that the league is in a balanced state you may have to consider ways to keep it there. You said the owners were getting better so maybe no alterations are needed once you achieve balance. However if parity isn’t quite there the “fewer keepers for top teams” rule might not be a bad idea it could help rebuilds faster and create perpetual parity going forward.

As far as payment goes I think everyone should still pay the same (since it’s only $25 I’ll assume it’s more of a principled thing). I think you can create some pretty dicey situations when some owners have to pay less than others and that could lead to a lot of unnecessary arguments. Also, if you create a situation where you have the top keeper class that, combined with your above average knowledge, will give you the best odds to win anyways.

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12 team H-2-H 1 year league, daily roster 3 goalie start minimum
2xC, 2xRW, 2xLW, 4xD, 3xUtil, 2xG, 5 Bench
G, A, P, +/-, PIM, PPP, SHP, GWG, Hits, W, SV%, GAA
C: Stamkos,Thornton, Riberio, Stepan, Desharnais, Clune
LW: Moulson, Dupuis, Prust,
RW: Kessel, P. Kane, Wheeler, Stempniak
D: Hamonic, Zidlicky, Franson, Muzzin
G: Bryzgalov, Hiller, Fasth