Well, I know some people think I am spamming, but its not my intention. I do encourage you to check out our Excel program. I think it will give you what you are looking for without all the Flashy stuff and will give you the performance you are looking for. Like I said, many other Cafe members have put in a lot of effort with it and it has a big following.
zebulon wrote:Well, I know some people think I am spamming, but its not my intention. I do encourage you to check out our Excel program. I think it will give you what you are looking for without all the Flashy stuff and will give you the performance you are looking for. Like I said, many other Cafe members have put in a lot of effort with it and it has a big following.
If its a free service I would hardly call that spamming. I appreciate anyone putting out the hard work and effort to share the wealth with other fantasy managers.
zebulon wrote:Well, I know some people think I am spamming, but its not my intention. I do encourage you to check out our Excel program. I think it will give you what you are looking for without all the Flashy stuff and will give you the performance you are looking for. Like I said, many other Cafe members have put in a lot of effort with it and it has a big following.
If its a free service I would hardly call that spamming. I appreciate anyone putting out the hard work and effort to share the wealth with other fantasy managers.
Thanks. It is free and did require a lot of effort.
I would say it's useful for draft preparation but it hasn't been useful as a tool to assess your league. I have imported our 6x6 H2H Yahoo league into Bloomberg but you can't look at individual team rosters (big fail) and there is no updated ranking system for players. Ideally, Bloomberg would provide a system that allows you to review each team's roster in your fantasy league and assess up-to-date individual player rankings so that you can make moves based on that information. I can get that from other sites for the same price so, in my opinion, Bloomberg has some work to do.
[quote="oscarsf"}Bloomberg has some work to do.[/quote]
yea - I'd say so too. I paid for it and - in general - it tells me a bunch of information that I already know (ie best available FA's) and gives questionable line-up tweaks, based on their projections.
The tool I am (somewhat) excited about is called "Trade Analyzer" -- supposed to analyze proposed trades, adn even suggest trades based on your team's and others' needs. When I click on that link, it says the same thing it said back in March: "coming mid-April". It's April 22. Will report back when/if the "Trade Analyzer" gets up and running.
All this said, the future is likely VERY BRIGHT for this product. Someone mentioned earlier that 'Bloomberg is a very good news aggregator" -- well they go WAAAY beyond that, as some of you know. The Bloomberg Professional Service for finance etc has analytics and data you just cannot get anywhere else - it's the standard in trading and portfolio management, period - and will put you back $1500-2000 a month. They are just starting now to try and apply these finance analytics and interfaces with sports data etc, with the idea of selling a 'Professional' product to teams, agencies etc (see previous link to FanGraphs article) -- this "Front Office" product that is avaliable to us for ~$20-30 is a super-lite version, and likely only out there to get the word out and for feedback etc. I have little doubt they will become a player in this field, and that the 'Front Office 'lite' version will become a good tool as well. eventually.
I purchased in the preseason. The service looked very good and I have always been impressed by their business and financial services. I have been very disappointed. I have several CBS and Yahoo teams. I registered with Bloomberg through the CBS League link. It actually generates a CBS unique e-mail which must be linked only from the CBS site. Bloomberg assured me that my Yahoo leagues would be covered also. Unfortunately, now the link has disappeared from the CBS site and the main Bloomberg site does not recognize the CBS generated e-mail. After several e-mails with Bloomberg support, who are very responsive, they concluded that the only solution was to re-register at the main Bloomberg site. In order to do so, you must purchase a new subscription. I have given up for this year.
Is there other software similar to Bloomberg out there? I am NOT looking to be flooded with stats. I am looking for software that makes explicit recommendations (lineup changes, etc) for my league given who I am playing against. I don't have hours to put into analysis. I don't expect software to give me a winning team, it really can't. But I signed up for Bloomberg Front Office just for some assistance in things to think about. Here are the pros and cons:
Pros 1) It actually does provide recommendations like I am looking for, but see the cons. 2) Syncs with my ESPN league daily, shows B-Rank, etc. 3) Their support is super responsive - that really helps actually. 4) All in all - good enough I am sticking with it this season, and hopefully will get more value out it over time. 5) Looks great
Cons 1) Recommendations are few and far between. Rarely recommends a line up change. 2) Front Office will recommend who to draft, but not the best person to REPLACE. 3) Will recommend a player to draft who is listed by Front Office on the 15 day DL. If Bloomberg knows that, not sure why it's a recommendation as it won't help the next 2 weeks of matchups. 4) ESPN leagues support positions that are not recognized by Bloomberg. It lists players on the bench that are actually playing on the field. Their support says its a bug and they are working on it. 5) The software is late this year. The "Mid-April" Trade Analyzer has yet to appear. The Line-Up Manager didn't appear until the first matchup was complete. This was surprising since the features were advertised, but not really available.
Is there other software similar to Bloomberg out there I should consider?
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by zebulon » Wed Feb 24, 2010 12:21 pm 
