2020 Fantasy Baseball Platform Central -- Yahoo, ESPN, CBS, Fantrax, etc.

[Bigrosco 0]

Been using CBS for years for our league.  Really disappointed with last season-  some of our team totals were incorrect from week to week, chat feature was not dependable, no response from customer service.  Anyone have a recommendation for a replacement?  Yahoo? Espn?  

[Topgun 594]

50 minutes ago, Bigrosco said:

Been using CBS for years for our league.  Really disappointed with last season-  some of our team totals were incorrect from week to week, chat feature was not dependable, no response from customer service.  Anyone have a recommendation for a replacement?  Yahoo? Espn?  

I've been playing in, and using CBS for 25 years. Customer service has always responded in a timely fashion, in-season, and during the off-season. Not sure what happened in your league, but I don't think that is the norm. I wouldn't use any other platform, but I'm sure others could point you in the direction you seek, good luck.

[The Big Bat Theory 7,596]

Yahoo.  It is under a new management and software team the last two years and has improved.  Has deep prospect pool, sabermetrics research tools added last year and continues to be totally free.  Also, along with ESPN, has the highest number of users which means many many private leagues to select from along with their standard casuals and pro money leagues. With criticism of ESPN rising due to what many of their users here called a bad "update" that didn't work right or deleted good features from the past, then yeah I'd say Yahoo.

[BigPapi44 1,050]

1 hour ago, The Big Bat Theory said:

Yahoo.  It is under a new management and software team the last two years and has improved.  Has deep prospect pool, sabermetrics research tools added last year and continues to be totally free.  Also, along with ESPN, has the highest number of users which means many many private leagues to select from along with their standard casuals and pro money leagues. With criticism of ESPN rising due to what many of their users here called a bad "update" that didn't work right or deleted good features from the past, then yeah I'd say Yahoo.

+1 for Yahoo. Alternatively, if in a very deep league with many prospects, I would recommend Fantrax.

[hockeyfan77 681]

Have used and had no real problems with Yahoo since the beginning....Used CBS for football a few year back and did not like it

[KingJoffrey 926]

I could never understand why anyone would choose to use a platform other than Yahoo.  It’s super easy to use.  Only thing I hate about Yahoo is sometimes roster moves don’t “stick”.  But overall it seems the best.

[Topgun 594]

1 minute ago, KingJoffrey said:

I could never understand why anyone would choose to use a platform other than Yahoo.  It’s super easy to use.  Only thing I hate about Yahoo is sometimes roster moves don’t “stick”.  But overall it seems the best.

OK, your opinion is noted.

[murraygd13 1,267]

We switched to FanTrax for next season and from what I can see so for..it's a major downgrade from CBS.  The Fantrax app isnt as good, the website isn't as good.  

 

Hopefully they improve before the season.

[jspeco9 458]

I'm really really surprised people still use anything other than Fantrax. Hands down best platform out there. They'll even give you a free year of premium if you ask them on Twitter.

[ThreadKiller 767]

11 hours ago, jspeco9 said:

I'm really really surprised people still use anything other than Fantrax. Hands down best platform out there. They'll even give you a free year of premium if you ask them on Twitter.

fantrax is absolutely awful aesthetically and is terrible for user friendliness. CBS is easily the way to go. Easy to use and lots of customization options.

Im surprised anyone uses Yahoo. They’re easily the worst. If anything. Their fail at handling Ohtani (among other things) should be enough to avoid them.

I’ve used them all and CBS is the easy choice.
 

LOL at whoever said yahoo has a deep player pool. If you play in any sort of dynasty league, yahoo is absolutely NOT the way to go.

[brockpapersizer 11,994]

Very few people in this thread are objective, everyone just likes what they are use to. 

Fantax is the best one imo unless you absolutely need an app, in which case CBS. CBS doesn't have a lot deep dynasty players, yahoo has way less. ESPN use to be my favorite free one for non deep dynasty leagues but have regressed considerably over the years. Yahoo is fine to use for a simple league.

Edited December 16, 2019 by brockpapersizer

[The Big Bat Theory 7,596]

4 hours ago, brockpapersizer said:

Very few people in this thread are objective, everyone just likes what they are use to. 

Fantax is the best one imo unless you absolutely need an app, in which case CBS. CBS doesn't have a lot deep dynasty players, yahoo has way less. ESPN use to be my favorite free one for non deep dynasty leagues but have regressed considerably over the years. Yahoo is fine to use for a simple league.

And Yahoo is great to use for a complicated league.

[brockpapersizer 11,994]

1 hour ago, The Big Bat Theory said:

And Yahoo is great to use for a complicated league.

No it's really not. 

[brockpapersizer 11,994]

6 hours ago, ThreadKiller said:

 

LOL at whoever said yahoo has a deep player pool. If you play in any sort of dynasty league, yahoo is absolutely NOT the way to go.

 

Pretty much this

[shakestreet 4,113]

IMO- Through the years ESPN was the best then .... changes were made, now it sucks. I have played fantasy baseball on yahooooo, CBS, Fantrax, MLB & fleaflicker and every one has some issues that I am not happy with. 

[ThreadKiller 767]

9 hours ago, brockpapersizer said:

Very few people in this thread are objective, everyone just likes what they are use to. 

Fantax is the best one imo unless you absolutely need an app, in which case CBS. CBS doesn't have a lot deep dynasty players, yahoo has way less. ESPN use to be my favorite free one for non deep dynasty leagues but have regressed considerably over the years. Yahoo is fine to use for a simple league.

 

Yes, but with CBS you are able to create a player if they are not in the pool. This removes this from being an issue IMO.

[sngehl01 917]

8 hours ago, brockpapersizer said:

Very few people in this thread are objective, everyone just likes what they are use to. 

Except this guy. 

We use used ESPN and have for years. Absolutely loved it. The website change to react has made it unbearably slow. It's awful. We had several owners with issues on rosters ended up not being saved as well. Couple that with some other real drawbacks and it's no longer a feasible option. 

What I do like about ESPN - 

• Pretty user friendly
• Appropriate prospect pool for casual to semi-deep prospect leagues (top 100 prospects generally available in the player pool, anything after that is hit and miss)
• Decent app
• Good flexibility with setup/league settings

What I do not like about ESPN - 

• Lack of a team to team chat function
• Cannot rearrange league homepage or remove elements 
• Trade notice emails are not consistently delivered (and not ending up in my spam or trash - it's like they were never sent). 
• Trade rejection comments are only available in the emails. On the transaction page you can see trades that were declined by you or a team you proposed to, but the comments aren't stored there. This feature would make the trade notice emails irrelevant 
• EXTREMELY slow
• Lacks many prospects that have a real chance of in season call ups. They've been known to do random prospect dumps into the player pool and will not add players as requested (a great feature Fantrax has)
• I'm sure many more things I can't remember off the top of my head

 

I absolutely do not recommend ESPN. 

[sngehl01 917]

23 minutes ago, ThreadKiller said:

Yes, but with CBS you are able to create a player if they are not in the pool. This removes this from being an issue IMO.

Problem with CBS, for me at least, is free leagues have very little customization and are locked to 10 teams. Maybe I'm wrong. 

[sngehl01 917]

A platform I loved the one year I played on it was Ottoneu. They have some really good ideas for setups and scoring, and it was a lot of fun, but the site was pretty cumbersome to navigate. 

[MSkibisky 852]

35 minutes ago, sngehl01 said:

Except this guy. 

We use used ESPN and have for years. Absolutely loved it. The website change to react has made it unbearably slow. It's awful. We had several owners with issues on rosters ended up not being saved as well. Couple that with some other real drawbacks and it's no longer a feasible option. 

What I do like about ESPN - 

• Pretty user friendly
• Appropriate prospect pool for casual to semi-deep prospect leagues (top 100 prospects generally available in the player pool, anything after that is hit and miss)
• Decent app
• Good flexibility with setup/league settings

What I do not like about ESPN - 

• Lack of a team to team chat function
• Cannot rearrange league homepage or remove elements 
• Trade notice emails are not consistently delivered (and not ending up in my spam or trash - it's like they were never sent). 
• Trade rejection comments are only available in the emails. On the transaction page you can see trades that were declined by you or a team you proposed to, but the comments aren't stored there. This feature would make the trade notice emails irrelevant 
• EXTREMELY slow
• Lacks many prospects that have a real chance of in season call ups. They've been known to do random prospect dumps into the player pool and will not add players as requested (a great feature Fantrax has)
• I'm sure many more things I can't remember off the top of my head

 

I absolutely do not recommend ESPN. 

+1 on not recommending ESPN. Been using this platform for years and was always my favorite.. but they have regressed significantly over the past 5 or so years. The new user-interface introduced last year is absolutely terrible. 

[brockpapersizer 11,994]

1 hour ago, ThreadKiller said:

 

Yes, but with CBS you are able to create a player if they are not in the pool. This removes this from being an issue IMO.

 

It's annoying, it's still an issue. If you have faab or waivers you have to make special rules and submit names by email to a commissioner or something to make this work. It's certainly not ideal.

[ST. STEVEN 4,407]

CBS Commissioner leagues are the only way to go if:

-you play for a decent amount of cash

-like a points system or to customize scoring

-are playing in a keeper league or dynasty type of format

I will say that their customer service is pretty meh--at least compared to how it used to be, though it is moreso true for FF than FB (they are different entities).

[ThreadKiller 767]

1 hour ago, brockpapersizer said:

 

It's annoying, it's still an issue. If you have faab or waivers you have to make special rules and submit names by email to a commissioner or something to make this work. It's certainly not ideal.

 

Certainly not ideal, but if I'm in a dynasty league and wanting the customization that Yahoo and ESPN don't offer, I would rather deal with that than the horrifying setup and "userability (is that a word lol)" of fantrax.

 

1 hour ago, ST. STEVEN said:

CBS Commissioner leagues are the only way to go if:

-you play for a decent amount of cash

-like a points system or to customize scoring

-are playing in a keeper league or dynasty type of format

I will say that their customer service is pretty meh--at least compared to how it used to be, though it is moreso true for FF than FB (they are different entities).

 

CBS customer service might be meh, but what does Yahoo or ESPN do that gives them good customer service? They cherry pick random prospects to put in the pool. I remember when Kevin Maitan was 16 and in the pool but guys drafted in the FYD that could be called up weren't. This holds true for both Yahoo and ESPN and their explanation is that they only put players in that are on 40 man roster. Obviously that's not true. Point is, Yahoo and ESPN haven't a clue.

[sngehl01 917]

51 minutes ago, ThreadKiller said:

Certainly not ideal, but if I'm in a dynasty league and wanting the customization that Yahoo and ESPN don't offer, I would rather deal with that than the horrifying setup and "userability (is that a word lol)" of fantrax.

CBS customer service might be meh, but what does Yahoo or ESPN do that gives them good customer service? They cherry pick random prospects to put in the pool. I remember when Kevin Maitan was 16 and in the pool but guys drafted in the FYD that could be called up weren't. This holds true for both Yahoo and ESPN and their explanation is that they only put players in that are on 40 man roster. Obviously that's not true. Point is, Yahoo and ESPN haven't a clue.

No customer service would be better than what ESPN has. Scripted responses with zero desire to actually be helpful. 

Trash fantasy platform IMO. 

[FantasyGeek2018 461]

CBS is by far the best. Keeper leagues need sites that are open year round. My league starts trading player and draft picks for next year the day after the regular season ends. 

I use yahoo for my one year football/baseball leagues that are not as important.

Edited December 16, 2019 by FantasyGeek2018