Fantasy sports input needed

[True CryM]

A friend and I are going to be starting a fantasy sports website in the coming months. We're trying to gather as much information from as many people as possible. If you are a fantasy player and are open to share your opinions, I'd greatly appreciate your input on the following questions.

What website are you currently using for your fantasy league?

How much time do you devote to fantasy sports?

In regards to the site specifically, what sort of things do you really enjoy about your current league setup? These could be things that have evolved over time or are staples of the site.

What sort of things do you dislike about your current league?

What improvements would you like to see made?

What sort of things do you consider unnnecessary?

What other sources (other than the host site) do you use for fantasy information?

Have you tried multiple sites for fantasy sports, and if so, why did you switch?

If another site were able to meet your needs as a fantasy participant, would you consider moving your league?


Any and all information is valuable to us. Thanks.

[brewerfan82]

What website are you currently using for your fantasy league?

• Yahoo
  

How much time do you devote to fantasy sports?

• I only play in one league of fantasy baseball, but I pretty consistently devote some time to it everyday.
  

In regards to the site specifically, what sort of things do you really enjoy about your current league setup? These could be things that have evolved over time or are staples of the site.

• It's free
• It has many league formats (head-to-head, points, etc.) with a large variety of statistical categories to choose from
• It has tons and tons of customizable league settings (waiver lengths, trade deadlines, etc.)
  
• It has a nice online draft component
• It keeps a record of your past leagues
• It now has some support for keeper leagues, allowing you to designate each team's keepers before the draft
• It has an easy-to-use team management system (changing starters, etc.)
• It has links to your players' games for that day so you can quickly check their games' progress via Yahoo's GameChannel, a Flash-based game tracker (and it even highlights your team's players)
• It notifies you when your pitchers will be starting (and even your hitters once they have the games' lineups)
  

What sort of things do you dislike about your current league?

• It doesn't have a mobile site that is easy to navigate from a phone. It would be nice to be able to easily make team management moves on the fly from my cell phone.
• Their live player tracker (which also gives you a live look at your fantasy scorecard for the week), StatTracker, costs extra money.
• They could have more support for keeper leagues. Like transferring the rosters from the end of the previous year into the new year so each team can designate their own keepers, rather than handling that off-line and having the league commissioner manually input each team's keepers before the draft.
• It could keep more information from previous years' leagues, such as a transaction log (this would have been helpful for determining some of my keeper league's nuances such as not being able to keep any players that ended the year in one of your fantasy team's DL spots)
  

What improvements would you like to see made?

• See previous question
  

What sort of things do you consider unnnecessary?

• While the extra pay services are nice, I don't want to pay for anything. So I guess those are unnecessary http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif
  

What other sources (other than the host site) do you use for fantasy information?

• The major sports websites (ESPN, CBSSportsline, etc.)
• Anything I can google
  

Have you tried multiple sites for fantasy sports, and if so, why did you switch?

• I haven't used a different site in years because Yahoo is so comprehensive, customizable, and FREE
  

If another site were able to meet your needs as a fantasy participant, would you consider moving your league?

• Yep! But I'm pretty happy with Yahoo's service either way.
  

[Patrick425]

I've been involved in a fantasy baseball league since 1984 (started it in our senior year in HS). We have gone from manual stats entry, to a software program, to our current provider - CBS Sportsline. We have been using CBS for the last 10 years (? guessing). I think most of the owners really like it and it would be hard to get us to change services. It costs $140 (a little more than $10 per owner) and they seem to make improvements each year. Their live scoring feature is great. Also, they keep a archived history of our league. So, sorry, it would be a pretty hard sell to ge us to move.

 

In regards to other sites in which we get information. I think Rotoworld is one of the favorites among the owners in the league. Although I think the Rotoworld site can be slow at times. I do like that you can search for player news by League or even filter out just to get news on minor leaguers.

 

In regards to sites like Rotoworld, Rotowire, etc. These are the types of things I would like to see that I don't currently see now:

 

- During spring training, I would like daily updates of teams rosters (not just depth charts or 40 man rosters). Along with this, daily updates of which players are likely to be starters and were they will bat in the order or pitch in the rotation. We have an 11 owner NL only league. So, we get down to platoon and part time players on our rosters. This information would be good to have going into the draft. An example of what I see now - About 5 days before the season started this year, I was scouring fantasy sites for roster information. Most sights still had Escobar listed on the Brewers roster or active depth chart. I knew there was no way that Escobar was breaking camp with the Brewers and this made me doubt the validity of every other teams roster/depth charts.

 

- Most fantasy sights/publications/radio and tv shows, etc are focused on non keeper straight draft type formats. We have a keeper league. You can keep as many as 15 players (out of an active roster of 23) each year and you can LT players up to 6 years. This is based on Rotiserrie rules that were set up more than 20 years ago. This causes the value of some players to vary widley from what the publications report. I also laugh when I see these publications/web sites show sleepers like Dexter Fowler or Michael Bourne. In are league, these guys are long gone and far from being "sleepers". Sleepers in our league are guys like Chad Gaudin or Nate Sheirholz. So, I would like to see a sight that goes a little deeper in evaluating bench players and their potential.

 

- Kind of related to the above. Would like to see more news on minor leaguers including guys that are possibly having breakout years and possibly establishing themselves as real prospects. Also ETAs on all minor leaguers is alway a helpful tool.

 

Sorry to be so long winded. Hope some of this helped.

[Houlie24x]

What website are you currently using for your fantasy league?

- Yahoo

 

How much time do you devote to fantasy sports?

- Way too much. I really couldn't put a number on it.

 

In regards to the site specifically, what sort of things do you really enjoy about your current league setup? These could be things that have evolved over time or are staples of the site.

- You can customize a lot of settings, live draft is nice, it's quick and easy to set rosters, league history, stattracker is nice even for $9.99

 

What sort of things do you dislike about your current league?

- Message board is too simple (Not a big deal though). A lot of the settings make it difficult to run a keeper league. They have improved this over the last two years, but it still has a long way to go. It would be nice if they would allow you to edit the draft order for traded draft picks ect. This is probably the #1 change I would like to see.

 

What improvements would you like to see made?

- See above.

 

What sort of things do you consider unnnecessary?

- I think they sometimes over-do the player coverage. Usually when a prospect is about to be called up they put a huge picture up on the main page which bothers me when a lazy manager that wouldn't have known otherwise gets him because of that. I think Yahoos draft kit and tools are all overpriced.

 

What other sources (other than the host site) do you use for fantasy information?

- rotowire, rotoworld, and a few others once in a while.

 

Have you tried multiple sites for fantasy sports, and if so, why did you switch?

- I have tried ESPN years ago but I thought it was horrible. I heard it is better now, but I refuse to try it again. It was difficult to set the lineups and the commish made an error in the settings that made it impossible to pick up a player for a certain position. The only reason I tried it was because I was invited to the league.

 

If another site were able to meet your needs as a fantasy participant, would you consider moving your league?

- It would probably have to be a lot better than Yahoo for me to switch. It would make it easier if there was a way I could import league history stuff as well.

[True CryM]

Great stuff. Thanks for the responses.

[Patrick425]

What sort of things do you dislike about your current league?

- Message board is too simple (Not a big deal though).

I will also state that the CBS sportsline message board is too simple as well. It does not even allow you to edit your posts and it's easy to make a mistake and accidently send a trade offer to the whole league when you only mean to send it to one other owner.

[Rightomac13]

What website are you currently using for your fantasy league?

-Yahoo.

 

How much time do you devote to fantasy sports?

I'm checking it probably 10+ times a day now, I know, saddening.

 

In regards to the site specifically, what sort of things do you really enjoy about your current league setup? These could be things that have evolved over time or are staples of the site.

-Yahoo has blown me away every year and I am really amazed it is still free. They have made keeper leagues available now, adopted a much better live draft set-up, and stattracker is an awesome addition for $10.

 

What sort of things do you dislike about your current league?

-Besides inactive managers, not much. I'm all for active message boards and it bothers me when people go weeks without saying anything.

 

What improvements would you like to see made?

-I'd like to see the players in the minors added to the player pool. I have always enjoyed following what's going on down on the farm to see who will be the hot pick-up come July/August, but with waiver priorities controlling who gets who now-a-days, it pisses me off that I can't make my claim earlier.

 

What sort of things do you consider unnnecessary?

-I agree with Houlie. The pimping of prospects on the verge of the call-up is a pet-peeve of mine that Yahoo always does-see Brandon Wood. But they do a good job exposing the casual fantasy player to players they would have never heard of.

 

What other sources (other than the host site) do you use for fantasy information?

-CBS Sportsline.

 

Have you tried multiple sites for fantasy sports, and if so, why did you switch?

-Was in an ESPN fantasy football league when I was in 8th grade and it was the biggest piece of garbage I've ever seen. Things may have changed, but I still have a sour taste in my mouth.

 

If another site were able to meet your needs as a fantasy participant, would you consider moving your league?

-It depends. Yahoo is so easy it's almost sickening. We've been running a keeper league through Yahoo for 8 years now, so everyone has everything down perfectly.