The AFL is a very stable league in terms of being able to retain players from season to season largely due to the gap in remuneration and standard of play between the AFL and the next ranked Australia Rules leagues like the VFL, WAFL and SANFL. Global sports like Basketball and Soccer face a much more difficult task to retain players in their leagues each season due to facing significantly stronger competition for players from leagues in other countries. Due to this having a keeper league in basketball or soccer would be more complicated than having an Australian Rules keeper league. The only keeper league I am is the ORFFA, I am interested to know if any ORRFA coaches are in keeper leagues for sports besides AFL such as Basketball and Soccer. <p style='line-height: 15.75pt;]Earlier this month I published an article on True Sainters comparing the player movement in the AFL with the NBL and A-League, other subjects covered in the article are the compensation awarded by five leagues to clubs that lose free agents and State of Origin: <p style='line-height: 15.75pt;] http://www.truesainters.com/why-the-p... I will warn you that it is a long article so it will take you a while if you decide to read it. Most of the articles I write for True Sainters are feature articles on current St Kilda players covering their career from before they were drafted to the present.
Thanks Dean, a very informative piece. I am involved in Fantasy leagues for a number of sports, but the only keeper league is this one. Even if the challenges you have mapped out were not present I do not believe I would be able manage another keeper team unless it was another AFL based team. Having initially taken the concept very lightly, with predictable consequential outcomes, I am now spending a minimum of 20 hours a week in the off season studying players, watching tapes, reading reviews etc, and I expect this amount of time to go up significantly as our next draft approaches. In order to do well you have to immerse, I now don't believe I could do that in two sports without detriment to one. Thanks again for the thought provoking read.
I play fantasy basketball, and I am involved in a keeper league. Traditionally bball keeper leagues have only 2-3 keepers each season, so it's a different concept to ORFFA.
So, we have two writers of note in our midst. Handy to know. Suppose there's nothing much else to do in Marble Bar.
Interesting Dean, I am part way through your excellent article and was reminded of this article (http://www.stockjournal.com.au/news/m...) that intrigued me recently. I am in no keeper leagues other than ORFFA; just the one consumes enough of my time! While I started out as a 'part-timer', I am now fully immersed. One of my research interests in academe was the balance / tension between luck and skill amongst business people and especially investment fund managers. From time to time I have been contemplating the desirability and influence of the two factors in our keeper league. That may go some way to explaining my reactions to what I consider to be dumb trades. I am not saying all trades I have criticised were dumb - just my view of them in the context of a keeper league was that they were dumb. BTW, I subscribe to the theory that a lot of the world's ills arise as a result of some grabbing short term utility (satisfaction / gains) without thinking about the long term impact. A complete parallel with ORFFA should not be drawn - think more problems like the sub-prime crisis. Perhaps keeper leagues are an analogy for life?
Damn good spotting P'rap. Have sent a message, but not holding breath. /Portals/0/User%20Images/trilobite.jpg
20hours a week? Is there no beer in Marble Bar ????? I'm in an NFL Keeper League, season 2 I think now. Roster is 15, with only 6 keepers allowed at season end. I spend about, um.......60 minutes a week on it, but may hire Lenh to do some research for me in his spare time. An X spotting......fair enough, hope he is well but the ORFFA moved on seamlessly........
Simonoz wrote: 20hours a week? Is there no beer in Marble Bar ????? I'm in an NFL Keeper League, season 2 I think now. Roster is 15, with only 6 keepers allowed at season end. I spend about, um.......60 minutes a week on it, but may hire Lenh to do some research for me in his spare time. An X spotting......fair enough, hope he is well but the ORFFA moved on seamlessly........ I am keen on climbing the ladder, and have found out over the last 18 months just how little I really new about SC in general and the keeper concept in particular.. I'd like to try a EPL keeper league one day, but I'll need to retire first, AFL is a big enough subject for a hobby..
Thanks for your comments about my player movement article and your responses to the question regarding other keeper leagues that you are in. Having only 2-3 keepers in a basketball keeper league or 6 keepers in a NFL keeper league would result in significantly different parameters to the ORFFA. Having so few keepers would probably result in most coaches being focused on winning that seasons championship whereas in the ORFFA coaches can implement a variety of strategies including placing less importance on the current season and building their team to maximise the chances of success in the mid to long term. Simon, it must be a difficult task to decide which 60% of your NFL keeper league roster to cut each season, coaches in the ORFFA seem to find the delisting process hard enough, and the minimum number of players delisted each season is less than 25% of our squad. Like several other ORFFA coaches I am spending considerable more time on my team than I did in the first season of the league, it will be interesting to see if this results in the average scores of ORFFA teams increasing in 2014. Being involved in the ORRFA has increased my knowledge of the players selected in the National draft making it easier to decide which rookies to select in Supercoach and Dreamteam.
Think our boxing father makes a couple of interesting points here. In a keeper league you can overdo player turnover. The distinction between building a side and going all out for a win is an important one. Fortunately, ORFFA allows a bit of both. While I am in concert with Len's views on delisting, we should take note early in the development of ORFFA (i.e., now) that it can be overdone to the detriment of 'keeper'. Some coaches have found that the more heavily involved they become in ORFFA, the less interest they have in SC/DT. In reality, the knowledge gained in ORFFA can be invaluable for SC/DT decision making, ultimately making them more enjoyable. The jury is still out on the commercial AFL keeper leagues and I guess most of us just like to monitor developments in case they become useful in ORFFA.