Tips to Win Your Keeper League Draft

Ryan Finley Posted On August 11, 2017

If you’ve read much of my work here at DLF, you’ll know a couple of things. One, I’m cursed as a can’t-quit-you fan of the Chicago Bears. And yes, I actually DID try to quit the Bears in the early 90s, making an attempt to glom on to the Randall Cunningham led Eagles – but it just didn’t take. (To be fair I was ten in 1985, so I at least have SOME memories of a championship.) You’ll also know that I’m a big fan of Keeper Leagues. Don’t get me wrong, I love dynasty, but my true gateway drug to my current Dynasty lifestyle was a keeper league. Redrafts may have whet my appetite, but it was a keeper league that set me up for long-term, serious dynasty league play.

And one of my absolute favorite aspects of a good keeper league is the hybrid draft. I refer to it as a hybrid since I believe it sits somewhere between an old-school redraft and a dynasty-based rookie draft. And while I do also enjoy the rookie draft as part of my dynasty leagues, the keeper league draft is overall much more interesting and exciting. If you want more on why I like the keeper draft so much, you can read a whole article here. That article will also highlight some deeper strategies you can use to help prepare and perform in your keeper league draft.

But I also thought it would be useful to provide a few concise, quick-hitting tips to help you win your keeper league draft. So get out your permanent markers, roll up your sleeve, and write these down on your arm before you head into the draft room (or log in or whatever it is you do.)

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Tip One: Pick Hunting

As dynasty owners in keeper leagues, we tend to focus a lot on those first round picks. And while firsts are great in keeper leagues as well, I find it much more difficult to acquire them. (This isn’t to say it’s easy to get firsts in dynasty, but in my experience keeper owners will only give up firsts from their cold, dead hands. And that’s just weird.) Firsts aside, a good way to give yourself a significant advantage in keeper leagues is to find a way to amass other early picks. Don’t scoff at picking up fourth or fifth round picks, if you have a lot of picks in the top half of the draft you can really help your team out. My best seasons often revolve around managing to stockpile picks in the third through sixth rounds. Owners are much more likely to give them up, and putting together a fist of them can do wonders. Trust me, when you’re busy adding depth while other owners are still trying to fill out their starting lineup, you are in a very advantageous position.

Tip Two: Leave Your Rookie Fever at the Dynasty Door

I know I know. You’re a dynasty owner first, and you spend much of the off-season dissecting, analyzing and straight up salivating over the rookie class. There’s nothing wrong with bringing what you’ve learned about those rookies into your keeper league draft, but be careful. Yes, you do still want those marquee rookies, but as you get into what would be later rookie draft rounds, start thinking vets first. You don’t have the taxi squad or the roster spots to spend on the long-term prospects of dynasty. The one exception to this is if you are in total rebuild, and have no hope to compete. But I’ll be honest here – it’s rare in a keeper league that you can’t compete. You can turn around a keeper team in a hurry, and in my opinion you should be spending most of your draft capital trying to figure out how you can try to win the championship, and win it now. I do understand that there are situations where your keepers are so horrible that you feel you must blow it up, and in those cases feel free to go nuts on rookies. But also realize that even when blowing it up in a keeper league, a great draft can still put you in contention.

Tip Three: Use that Depth of Dynasty Knowledge Late

This isn’t to say that you have no use for your intimate knowledge of who the WR12 is in this rookie class – just that you should use that at a different time. In most keeper leagues, you have a different mix of fantasy knowledge. You’ll have at least a couple guys who also play dynasty and know where to find the value in depth, but you’ll also have a couple guys that only know what they see on television. And then there’s everyone else in between. Use that to your advantage, and plan to use your rookie and depth knowledge to strike late in the draft, very late. One year, for instance, no other owner knew the rookie tight end I drafted in the 20th round. That tight end? Julius Thomas.

Tip Four: Have Philosophical Flexibility

For me, this tip applies to virtually every fantasy draft. I believe that you have to have at least a little flexibility, as you must be able to react to take advantage of different opportunities as they arise. In my experience, nowhere is this philosophy of flexibility more useful than in a keeper league draft. You know how in tip three I talked about the makeup of most keeper leagues? I know several owners in my main league that base their drafts almost entirely on whatever fantasy football mag they picked up on the way to the draft. My point here isn’t that you should feel superior to those folks (and trust me, they can still beat you,) but that they won’t likely draft in ways that you would ordinarily expect. I find keeper owners are more susceptible to runs on positions, for instance. So you have to be ready to deal with that. They also seem to “reach” more often, but I don’t even like to call it reaching. They have different philosophies around team building that will have an effect on your draft. Be ready for it.

So there you have it. A few key pointers to keep in mind as you tackle your keeper league draft. We spend an awful lot of time on our dynasty leagues, and that knowledge we gain can really help. But keeper league drafts are a different animal, and they require different strategies to succeed. Don’t be that owner that treats every draft the same, have at least a slightly different mindset in your keeper leagues and I’m sure you’ll succeed.

So what are some things that have worked well for you in keeper league drafts?

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