Keeper Trading 2025...Wait, is that actually Kevin, Michael, and Dean?

 

An oldie but a goodie. Michael, Kevin, and Dean stormed the court back in...2008?...when Georgia Tech was actually competitive at basketball, beating Duke here. I found a few more good facebook photos looking for this one. May have to pull them out later this summer.

Let's back things up. Remind us all where left off. Michael is celebrating his 5th fantasy league title, Keith is strolling down Bourbon Street, and Cory is trying to avoid the Baby Curse of Floored....I'm being told that only one of these are actually true.

OK fine. Max holds the trophy. Keith has a limp. But at least Cory is still baby-less last I heard.

Last summer we had a blitz of a trade deadline where three teams sold off significant draft capital to fund playoff runs that culminated with Max taking the title. I had done some quick math to see how much draft capital was actually traded away. So leading into next months draft, here is a quick idea of where we'll all be starting from. Note that no trades left  you with a $260 'budget.'

The variance you see around the pre-trade deadline values above and below $260 is a factor of how a projected number one overall pick would have set Robert up with a bigger advantage than Max's 10th overall draft slot...if you pick the right first overall player by the end of the year (hint hint for draft slot picking).

Anyway, what you see here is that Dean, Paul, and Keith have a pretty big edge on the field in terms of draft picks held; Dean having 6 top-three round draft picks, for example. Meanwhile Max will be walking into the draft like he's handcuffed while his baby, Elena, just swallowed the key; he has 3 picks in the first 8 rounds.

OK Stage Set

Keepers:

This year's keeper landscape is even more interesting than most recent years. There is a significant disparity between the haves and have nots. Whereas typically the best team enters keeper trading season with about 25 rounds of value and ends up with their 3 keepers maybe with 18 or 20 rounds of value and there is often a cluster among almost all of the teams...Cory has 31 rounds of value from his top 4 players. Whereas normally the league is packed in tight with 8 or 9 teams all having at least 18 to 20 rounds of value from their top four players, only four teams are above 17 rounds of value this year. Cory, Robert, Dave, and Paul are going to have a keeper edge on the field to start the year...or at least to start keeper trading. Sidebar, anyone else think Paul is the early season favorite (draft capital plus upper end keepers)?

Reminder for how this goes. A player can be kept two rounds earlier than where he was drafted the year before at a maximum of the 11th round kept. If the player was drafted after the 13th round or was undrafted, they are kept in the 11th round. If a team has more than one player with the same round value, the additional player(s) are kept in the FOLLOWING round(s). Each team can have up to three keepers. Each team can only control up to four players from their end of season roster. You don't have to keep all three, you don't have to trade anyone. 

Early easy trade partners can be seen with Cory, Dave Kevin, Michael, Paul and Robert all having at least three players with two rounds of value. Arthur, Dean, Keith, and Max all have less than three players with two rounds of value. Two rounds is a generic dividing line of an interesting keeper, its nothing set in stone, you can keep anyone you want from your end of season roster as long as they were drafted after the 2nd round.

Ok, about all those traded away draft picks. This might get messy when it comes time to pick keepers. We'll be cool about it (as in, flexible if super late trades or keeper swaps need to happen). if you want to keep a player in a round where you don't have a pick, you'll either need to trade someone to get a pick in that round, or you'll have to keep that player a pick EARLIER than that round. This has been the precedent of the league. Reminder that players don't have to be included in trades. you can do round for round swaps. Your picks available by round can be seen here.

Keeper selections are due by emailing me the three names you want to keep by 72 hours before the draft. This means the deadline for keepers is Thursday, March 13th at 3 PM ET. 

Boom goes the dynamite