Read Part 1 of our review of Fantasy Baseball sites: Get Your Rankings On!
For those of you who like to create a league to play in with your friends (or total strangers on the internet), here’s a breakdown of what each site has to offer in terms of options available for creating a league. Now please note that I’m basing my opinions of being able to set up a customized league where you play for free. All of these sites let you start a league and invite people. But being able to customize things like scoring settings, positions, doing a draft or auction, etc, are all important to me. The more you play fantasy sports, the more you tend to want to try other options and experiment with league settings. And I think being able to do that without having to pay is a huge plus. So based on that, here’s a breakdown of what the sites have to offer
There are three options on CBS: fantasy baseball free, fantasy baseball premium, and fantasy baseball commissioner (apparently it’s the official game of mlb.com as well). First of all let me say that their options are very disappointing. If you’re looking to set up a customized league for free, then CBS isn’t for you. Their free fantasy baseball offering is staggeringly limited. If you’re looking to create a league, you only have the following options: standard roto (4×4 without runs or strikeouts), 5×5 roto, roto plus (and even weirder 4×4 format that uses OPS and OBP in place of AVG and homers), or head-to-head (this is head-to-head points, where whoever accumulates the most points based on the stock values gets a win). There’s no standard points-only, no H2H with multiple wins and losses, and nothing is customizable. You can’t customize the roster, the number of innings pitched, scoring categories, etc. And you’re limited to a live draft or an autodraft, no auctions. Fantasy baseball commissioner lets you do all of this, but it’ll run you $180 (“only $15 per player in a 12-team league”). They offer fantasy baseball premium, which is also a pay service, which offers four levels depending on how baller you are and how much you want to spend on playing fantasy baseball.
One nice option they have, even in their free offering, is selecting a “winner’s league” option. This means you can accept only managers who won a league last season. Not that winning a public league is that tough, but you could (in theory) get a group of guys who all won their public league together for a little more competition. I don’t know if anyone’s actually using it, but it’s at least something different.
While the option to fully customize your league as you see fit is available, you may have to pay for it. And considering that other sites like ESPN and Yahoo offer these options for free, I can’t see the value here. If you’re looking for pay leagues with big prizes and money management, then it’s probably up your alley. But honestly, I think ESPN and Yahoo are better options for most people.
I give it two Mariano Rivera cut-fastballs Out of 5
– When it comes to free fantasy baseball, Yahoo is the king. The number of options you have is second to none. You can determine what kind of scoring you want with regular head-to-head leagues, roto, points-only, H2H points (where the most points during the week ears a win) or H2H one win (where whoever wins the most categories earns a single win). You can customize what scoring options you want available, your rosters positions, innings pitched requirements, league divisions, when the playoffs run, trade deadlines, player eligibility, etc. It offers just about anything that you could want. You could make just a simple home run derby league where you roster 10 players and just see who hits the most homers all year, all the way up to a fully-customized H2H points league.
It should be noted that there are limitations on roster size and total number of categories you can choose for scoring. So if you want to have things like grounded into double play, sacrifice hits, caught stealing, or intentional walks, you may need to get creative and forgo scoring for singles, doubles, triples and homers, and go with just a point for each total base. Or eliminate saves and blown saves and only score net saves. But even with these limitations, I found a way to set up a good scoring system for just about any league.
Yahoo also allows you to set up keepers and pre-set draft orders based on your previous season and even allows you set up a draft based on picks being traded.
Another plus is being able to edit your league settings up to the draft, or in some cases during the season. This is a nice plus if you’ve created a league but forgot to add something, or need to edit a setting. This also means that if you want to create a private league, but then end up needing managers, you can open it to the public to get the last few spots filled. On the other sites it’s either private only, or public only. Not a mix.
Yahoo gives you everything you need to create a league. While there’s no “premium” option to allow for you to play for money, or a good way to collect league dues through the site (if you decide that you want to do a money league), it has pretty much anything you can think of. And it’s all free and available in any type of league you choose.
I give it 5 amazing Troy Tulowitzki throws Out of 5
ESPN is pretty close to Yahoo, but there are a few flaws that keep it from being the best.
They have three offerings: league manager, ESPN custom, and standard free or prize eligible leagues. Their league manager option is the premier setup. It allows you to customize rules, scoring, roster positions, etc. It gives you essentially the same options that Yahoo does including league history and keepers (not sure about creating a custom draft order that included traded draft picks as I haven’t played in a keeper league on ESPN before. Sorry). The only problem is that it’s a private league only. So say you have 5 or 6 buddies who want to play in a league, but you need a few more players to fill out the rest of the spots, you can’t just open the league up to the public for the last few openings. The ESPN custom option does allow for almost full customization of all league settings, just like the league manager, but it’s main drawback is that once you’ve created a league, there’s no way to make any sort of changes (only league manager allows you to make changes to settings, scoring, etc). It’s totally locked once the league is created. Lastly there’s the standard and prize eligible leagues that use either ESPN’s standard roto or head-to-head (each category) scoring. No customization is available other than prizes available (which determines the price of the league).
Again, like Yahoo there isn’t a great way to manage league dues if you’re in a money league. And there’s no baller money league option like CBS. ESPN does give you everything you need to create a league the way you want. However their fully customizable league manager doesn’t allow for public leagues, and their default custom leagues don’t give you the league manager options. If they could combine those two leagues together, then they’d have essentially the same product that Yahoo does. So they’re very close to being at the top, and my main gripes are relatively specific ones that probably don’t matter to most people. But hey, this is MY review!
I give it 4 sweet Chase Utley swings Out of 5
There isn’t much for me to comment on here because MLB.com doesn’t offer very much. As the new kid on the block, that’s probably to be expected. As I mentioned earlier MLB.com and CBSsports have teamed up to offer fantasy baseball commissioner (the $180 a league fantasy league). But other than that, they only have two offerings: public leagues or private leagues.
Both leagues have the same settings and scoring. Teams are split into two divisions and the leagues are head-to-head points (the winner is chosen by which team accumulates the most points) where you set your roster for the entire week; no daily scoring available. The rosters are C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, 3 OFs, DH, and “Pitching Staff” (you don’t draft individual pitchers but rather an entire team’s staff. Think of it like a team defense in fantasy football), and 6 bench spots. Scoring for hitters is a little weird with: 1B(1), 2B(2), 3B(3), HR(4), Runs(1), RBI(1), walk(1), SB(2) caught stealing(-1). Why the negative for caught stealing but not strikeouts (or some other negative)….. And then you’re scored on your “pitching staff.” Wins are worth 5 points, which is fine. But then strikeouts, earned runs, and walks + hits allowed are all scored on a scale. For example, 0-4 strikeouts is worth 0 points, 8-10 is worth 2 points, 20+ is worth 10 points. They have a similar scale for earned runs and for walks + hits. And nothing for saves (WTF, are closers worthless in this game?). Hitter stats accumulate during the week, and pitching stats are scored each day, then added up during the week.
Public leagues are all random 12-team leagues with two division winners making the playoffs, and two wild card teams with the best records making it as well. You can either choose a live draft based on the time you can make a draft. You can choose an auto-draft league where you pre-rank your players and then then all teams auto-draft based on those rankings. Or a simple draft where all teams are placed in the league with an automatically generated list of players. I have no idea what formula is used to determine who is placed on what team, and it seems like an easy way to get screwed by the computer, but who knows. Though honestly this could a really interesting idea since you’re not even allowed to pre-rank, you have to work with the random team assigned to you and wheel and deal to improve it. It seems like it could be a fun change of pace since everyone would be on level ground with a random team.
The private leagues don’t offer much more. You can choose and 8, 10 or 12-team league, the date your playoffs start, which 2 wild card teams make the playoffs (either the best records, or the team with the most points). And much like ESPN and CBS, private means you have to invite your entire league, you can’t do a combination or public and private.
One thing that MLB.com offers which is kind of interesting is the option of “top 10 scoring,” which essentially means you don’t manage your roster, but instead each week your team is scored based on the optimal lineup you should have had. Essentially it’s saying “don’t worry about managing your lineup, we’ll give you the points based on the best guys you had on your team, whether they were starting or not.” I don’t really see the point in having this option and still having a bench, but I suppose it’s nice for newbies or people who don’t want to worry about who they should start each week (or a nice bonus if one of your players gets hurt on a Tuesday and misses the rest of the week). I suppose if you want the “thrill” of drafting a team and managing the roster without the “hassle” of determining who to actually play, then maybe this option is for you. Or then again if you’re new to fantasy baseball there is the option to start and stay competitive even if you don’t know what you’re doing. So if you want to invite your wife to play, or do a league for family members who don’t play fantasy sports, or get an office league going, you could do it and allow for everyone to be able to stay in the hunt all season.
I think the best thing that MLB.com has to offer is that each league champion is eligible to compete for $10,000, so there’s always something to shoot for. While their leagues are very simple, I do like the fact that it’s designed for people at any skill level to be able to compete. And I do think the entirely random draft for all teams is a novel idea. But overall there just isn’t much here, even by the simplest of standards.
I give it 1 fantastic Ichiro catch Out of 5
Read Part 3 of our Fantasy Baseball Sites Review: The Draft – Where Seasons Are Won Or Lost on One Click
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