Official "What's Better Than Yahoo?" Thread

[higherpie]

Yeah, I don't mind a good scroll.

Cool. That's awesome.

I didn't mind VHS. And they came up with these DVD things and I was like, "Holy crap this is like, better, and stuff." Also, shoes with wheels in them. And the DH.

[T-Bird 93]

For those of us that play in the larger category leagues(9x9), I will give an example of what the "newer" StatTracker is like:

Lets put this in movie terms. Everyone likes movies. You have your normal movie experience on one hand. Then on the other, you have the "newer" StatTracker, which is like watching 15 minutes of a 2 hour movie while only seeing half of the screen. Then watching the same 15 minutes of said movie while watching the half of the screen that you just missed. And then proceeding like this through the whole movie back and forth taking twice as much time as needed. The point is of course that you would have taken in all of the same content either way. But, the thing is, with the "newer" StatTracker, you are wasting a lot of time trying to piece the information together and probably still missing out on the big picture...

[Trojan Pony]

ESPN's interface is really nice. It has a web 2.0 feel about it. Big, bright, and rounded buttons, gradients, and the navigation is intuitive. You'll feel at home using it without ever having used it before. With that said, it still has no live stats or scoring that I see in the free version. I'm not sure about the paid version though.

Actually, the free version does have live stats. For some reason, unlike last year, the stats aren't updated in real time on your team page (like CBS) - instead you have to go to "Live Scoring" or "Box Score", which is updated in real time. It's a bit annoying, and I hope enough people complain that they change it back, but the live scoring is definitely available in the free league.

The only major argument I hear against ESPN is how glitchy it was last year. It was indeed in the beginning of the season but those were fixed within the first couple weeks and then everything ran fine, aside from a few minor glitches here and there. But now it seems to be running much more smoothly. Like you said, the layout is very intuitive. As a commish, I love how customizable the leagues are on ESPN - they're just as, if not more, customizable than Yahoo! PLUS, which is not free. I've used Yahoo for a long time and still do a league on there but at this point I definitely prefer ESPN.

[Jimmy]

So the games are over. I had time to mess with the roster and add new players to my teams.

I was wrong. Yes there are live stats on ESPN. I just noticed that "Box Score" option tonight when I had time to play around with the interface. It looks very nice. I also like the daily leaders section there. I'm starting to like this ESPN fantasy better than Yahoo. The live draft consoles were easy to use although I'm going to give the edge to Yahoo because they have one click tabs for each position and a better queue system. Oh the mock auctions are very fun too but I couldn't find an option for an auction league if I wanted to join one. Too bad. One more thing to note about CBS and ESPN fantasy leagues is, you can have more than 4 teams each as opposed to the 4 team limit Yahoo enforces.

I'm going to point out some more major difference between the providers in free roto leagues.

ESPN:
10 teams default competition
13 batter slots (C,1,2,SS,3,2/SS,1/3,OF*5,Util)
9 pitcher slots (they're all generic)
3 bench slots
1 dl slot
Batters have unlimited game limits
Pitchers have a 200 games started limit
Daily set roster
Unlimited teams
Free mock drafts + auctions (very nice too)

CBS:
10 teams default competition
13 batter slots (C*2,1,2,SS,3,OF*5,Util*2)
9 pitcher slots (they're all generic)
2 bench slots (they're not drafted, but if you pick up a player it will allow you up to 2 players)
no dl slot?
Batters have minimum played cap at least 3950 at bats by the end of the year
Pitchers have minimum played cap at least 900 innings at the end of the year
Weekly set roster
Unlimited teams
Free mock drafts
Unique auto-draft settings... You set the order of position to draft. It can skew easily.
Example of one team (Teixeira, Utley, Hanley Ramirez, Crawford, Suzuki, plus a slew of other good core players)

Yahoo:
12 teams default competition
9 batter slots (C,1,2,SS,3,OF*3,Util)
7 pitcher slots (SP*2,RP*2,P*3)
5 bench slots
1 dl slot
Batters have maximum played cap 162 per position slot
Pitchers have maximum played cap 1250 innings at the end of the year
Daily set roster
4 team limit per ID

[Morneau33]

I have used Yahoo for the past few years now and paid for the stat tracker. I tried CBS and ESPN this year also for the first time.

I don't like CBS at all. They do have great news though. I am really falling in love with ESPN.

I think there is only two things that ESPN needs to do to win all the cats. If they add a "players added" page, and they add a "Distance from Competition" page.

You can really tell that ESPN got smart and started pumping money into their fantasy these past couple of years.

I'm sorry Yahoo, but it might be time for the "irreconcilable differences".

[bigh0rt]

The amount that this is being blown out of proportion is hysterical.

[dbstrat]

The amount that this is being blown out of proportion is hysterical.

It's over the top to expect a product that you've paid for to provide the advertised functionality?

Think about how useful it is to be looking at the dynamically updating rankings for my league's stats, having to make a mental note that my team is on the 3rd or 10th row when I scroll to see my pitching rankings so I can compare my day/year to a team I'm trying to catch...and then when I scroll over, having the order of the teams shift because somebody hit a HR somewhere, but you can't tell because you can't see the team names cause they are off the screen..you just see all the numbers jump around so now you have to scroll back to the left to find where your team may have went, make a new mental note that it is on the 4th row now and scroll back over.

Think about how useful it is to try see my guy's average for day and I have to remember that if I want to know how Alex Rios is doing, I need to count 7 rows down from the top because I can't see my player's names and their SB, AVG or OPS at the same time.

Blown out of proportion? The tool sucks. The team responsible for it should be embarrassed.

[OneLoveBoomer]

The amount that this is being blown out of proportion is hysterical.

Yeah I find it pretty entertaining. I've used the new version of stattracker since it's been out, and have paid for it happily every year. I play in multiple stat leagues, etc etc, and have zero complaints.

[jake_harv88]

The amount that this is being blown out of proportion is hysterical.

Yeah I find it pretty entertaining. I've used the new version of stattracker since it's been out, and have paid for it happily every year. I play in multiple stat leagues, etc etc, and have zero complaints.

This guy agrees with those guys ...

[Yoda]

One of my money leagues migrated over to ESPN without anyone's input. Needless to say it is horrible with a capital H.