One of the joys of playing in a dynasty league is that it allows for a diversity of thought again.

I say "again" because that's the way redraft leagues used to be before player analysis became so sophisticated that breaking away from the groupthink feels at times like willful ignorance.

In a dynasty league, though, not everyone's immediate goals are the same. Not everyone's long-term goals are the same either. And when you enter prospects into the equation, which a dynasty league is sure to do, everybody's just guessing, to varying degrees.

It turns out that even for the start of a dynasty league, we're willing to do different things, as I discovered in our recent dynasty startup mock, 5x5 Rotisserie edition, with these fine gentlemen:

1) B_Don, Razzball (@RazzBDon) 
2) Donkey Teeth, Razzball (@DonkeyTeeth87) 
3) Daniel Preciado, Six Man Rotation (@DanJPreciado)
4) Matt Williams, Turn Two Podcast (@MattWi77iams) 
5) Scott White, CBS Sports (@CBSScottWhite) 
6) Joe Drake, Pitcher List (@JDrake349) 
7) Chris Mitchell, Fantrax (@CJMitch73) 
8) Connor Henry, Rotoprofessor (@ConnorH_FB)
9) The Itch, Razzball (@theprospectitch) 
10) Andrew McClintock, Fantasy Front Office (@FantasyAid1) 
11) Garrett Atkins, Fake Teams (@13atkins13)
12) Chris Towers, CBS Sports (@CTowersCBS)

Some were willing to pay a premium for their favorite prospects (like Matt Wiliams, for instance). Some were content to wait for the best available whenever they finished assembling a worthy major-league core (that was me, sticking mostly to my top 150 dynasty rankings). Still others opted to forgo prospects almost entirely, going all-in for 2020 (see McClintock, Andrew).

One point of consensus, though, was that age is no bueno. It's how absurd values like Justin Verlander in Round 6, DJ LeMahieu in Round 11 and Nelson Cruz in Round 13 came to be. Maybe in dynasty leagues that allow for only a handful of keepers (which I'd argue isn't really a dynasty league, but OK), there's enough turnover to justify taking a mercenary approach to those old guys, not really worrying about what the next year will bring. But that's not how keepers work in this dynasty league.

Basically, each GM can keep as many players as he wants for as long as he wants. For every one he keeps, he loses a pick at the start of the draft next year. The natural consequence is that anyone worth drafting is probably also worth keeping, which means that whenever a player ages out of usefulness, you'll want to have his replacement already lined up.

Bottom line is that prospects are important. How important? Well, you can see how we weighed them against the more immediate contributors below: