Snake vs Straight Draft for Returning Keeper League?

[Mattinglyinthehall]

Thanks in advance for any help. I've posed the same question at a couple of other forums but I've had limited responses so hopefully if you've seen this elsewhere you won't regard it as spam.

I commish a returning 12 team keeper league. We had a snake draft when the league launched last year and planned for an annual straight draft (reverse order of final standings) moving forward. Each team keeps 6 out of 23. There is no auction and keepers are not associated with draft picks. Over the years I've been in 3 long running keeper leagues comparable to this one and they've all gone to straight drafts after the first season.

A manager proposed we stick with the snake format. Without getting into his more detailed reasons, I believe he feels a linear draft overcompensates as a handicap and/or that finishing in last place shouldn't necessary qualify a team for that handicap.

Most of the league members who chimed in prefer we keep the straight draft so the matter of what we'll do is settled for now. But this manager notes that a poll at another forum resulted 90% in favor of snake.

So here's my question - I've mostly taken it for granted that a returning keeper league with a medium-sized or bigger keeper stable should have a linear draft - and that this is basically the standard. Am I mistaken?

[Fred]

I've mostly taken it for granted that a returning keeper league with a medium-sized or bigger keeper stable should have a linear draft - and that this is basically the standard. Am I mistaken?

Completely agree. With fewer keepers, a snake draft would make sense. With the size of rosters/keepers you're talking about, I'd be in favor of a straight draft.

We had this issue with a football league I'm in. What we found is that our league was in the middle (2 keepers). Straight draft overcompensated for lower finishing teams and snake draft created too much power for the good teams. We're in the process of fixing it by adding or dropping keeper slots.