Most keeper and dynasty league owners, in my experience, decide who to protect based on very simple criteria. Look at some projections, figure out how much a player might earn in the coming season, and figure out how much profit they'll return based on those projections and their salary. If their contract is up the criteria get a little more complex based on the rules for signing players long-term, but it's still the same basic equation: Projected earnings minus salary equals profit.

In a competitive, long-term league, however, it pays to look a little closer. Let me use the Rotowire Staff League (18 teams, mixed, 5x5), which just had its keeper deadline pass in advance of Thursday's auction, as an example.

For the most part I had some fairly easy decisions. I've got Hanley Ramirez, Evan Longoria and Justin Verlander on long-term deals, and elected to sign Nelson Cruz to a two-year deal as well. Julio Borbon and JA Happ just got promoted out of my farm system, and Octavio Dotel and Ryan Franklin (both reserve draft pickups last season) should provide some cheap saves. I elected to keep Jayson Werth and Dan Haren as two high-priced players ($27 and $36, respectively) who should still return value about equal to their salaries and who would have gone for at least as much if I'd tossed them back, probably more in Werth's case, into the auction. And Garrett Jones and Scott Feldman, two free agent pickups last season, are cheap enough to keep on spec that they might not have been flash-in-the-pans (more on Feldman, who I think is getting short shrift in most circles, in a later blog post).

The one interesting decision I had was at middle infield. I had Ryan Theriot at $5 heading into his option year (in fact he was originally a reserve round pick, like Franklin and Dotel, many years ago), but I also had Maicer Izturis at $4 as a FAAB pickup. Now the basic, pure-profit decision would have been to keep Theriot, who has a starting job while Izturis is seen as more of a 350-400 at-bat bench player, and who thus is projected to return more value. But with Ramirez, Borbon, Werth and Cruz already in the fold steals (Theriot's one real asset) aren't a big priority for me, which caused me to take another look just in case the surface analysis was missing something.

It was. Here's the list of middle infielders guaranteed to be available in the auction because their previous contract had expired:

2B - Brian Roberts; Jose Lopez; Placido Polanco
SS - none

And now here's the list of middle infielders guaranteed not to be available, because they are locked up in long-term contracts:

2B - Howie Kendrick; Ian Kinsler; Freddy Sanchez; Dustin Pedroia; Chase Utley; Robinson Cano; Dan Uggla; Brandon Phillips; Rickie Weeks
SS - Jimmy Rollins; Troy Tulowitzki; Hanley Ramirez

That doesn't even factor in guys who are just on initial contracts but are so cheap they'll obviously be kept. Basically put, nine of the top 18 second baseman are already gone before the auction even begins, with only three (#4, #13 and #14 by Rotowire's rankings) guaranteed to be available. That's a huge hit to the depth at the position this year at the auction table. Shortstop, on the other hand, appears to be a little more open. While a few of the very top guys are protected (and thankfully I have one of them) there's a much better chance a lot of the mid-range players will be available.

To put it another way, if I don't go into the auction with a second base-eligible player, there is a very good chance I'll get stuck with someone subpar, or at 'best' have to pay way too much just to get someone remotely serviceable.

Given that risk/reward scenario, keeping Izturis over Theriot seemed by far the better decision. If I can get a 'real' second baseman at a reasonable price, then Izturis is a solid option at middle infield given his positional flexibility, skill set and potential for a starting job if/when Kendrick gets hurt or Brandon Wood flops.

If not though, Izturis covers me at 2B and I can dip into that deeper shortstop pool for a middle infielder. Worse case scenario there is I pay a few more dollars for Theriot, or a player like him, than I needed to.

That's far more palatable than getting stuck with someone like Adam Kennedy as a lineup regular.