Pretty disappointing finish

descender  9/29/2013 11:39 AM

I really don't know how or where to say this, so if it comes out too harsh... I apologize.  

I love the functionality of this website... but things have really gone stale around here in the last few weeks of the season (read: crunch time!).  Updates to players and projections have become considerably less frequent, and the projections for the final month or two have just been laughably bad (especially for pitching) and verys low to react to current season production.  I do love the work you guys do here, but for a pay site the projections basically seem to become useless after the ASB.

It seems like we never hit a point during the season where this years actual performance takes priority over the projected performance.  Unless one of us posts and complains about a particular player, they never seem to get updated.  I find myself constantly having to toggle between different analysis sources of the last few weeks/months, and only really peeking at the "remaining projection" to chuckle and say to myself "no, i'm obviously not doing that".  There really needs to be more of a combination of the two, automated so you don't have to go in an massage the projections by hand (which is, i imagine, why they seem to go stale).

The first half of the year always seems to be really strong, but somewhere around late July/early August every year the usefulness of the site drops dramatically.  This may not be such a big deal for those in H2H leagues as there is little skill involved in closing out those seasons, but for a rotissiere league, projecting late August and September poorly is basically a death sentence.  Hopefully it's just a blip on the radar, or I'm doing something wrong... Maybe this is just theraputic and I need to get this off my chest... but I can't say at this moment how confident I am that I'll be paying to sign up again next season.

Also a heart felt "fuck you" goes out to CC, Konerko, and my 15 busted closers this season.

mbuser   9/29/2013 1:35 PM

There is no need to apologize, you pay us money for a service and in doing so retain the right to praise/criticize based on your experience. And Ken and I always encourage feedback both here and on the basketball side.

I certainly hope that new features such as the Draft Tracker, real-time daily lineups, projected weekly starting rotations, park factors, and opposing hitter/pitcher factors did add to your experience this season. We have been discussing the challenges of the season and planning ways to improve things, including the season-long projection process. For now, I can only thank you for your loyalty to this point and ask you to trust us when we say that further improvements are forthcoming. Please check back with us for more details on specifics as we move along.

kenjlev18baseball  9/30/2013 1:10 PM

I just won my league's regular season and the playoff championship. There have been many times over season that I've asked Matt to look at a projection, and he always does it promptly. Sometimes he agreed with me, and sometimes he didn't, but I look at this as a TEAM effort, Together Everyone Achieves More. If every member opened their mouth any time they found something they felt was wrong, it would be a team effort between the users and Matt & Ken to make this the best possible service, so we all can benefit. Last year I finished 6th without Baseball Monster, and this year I won with it. For the small amount of money we pay, it's a fabulous service.

Matt even taught me how to spell Fister right at no extra change!  

liam4  11/6/2013 2:14 PM

It definitely did get a little quieter here for the last month.  But man, what an awesome season with Baseball Monster.

I crushed my two leagues, and made money in the process, using the tools here.  I killed it in the draft using the projections, per game and positional values, and draft tracker.  I killed it in trades using projections and trade analysis.  And the immediate response from Matt and Ken to questions and comments is something I haven't found anywhere else.

I've been meaning to leave a thank you post, so here it is.  Really appreciate everything, Matt and Ken.  

Players I drafted before ADP in my two leagues because of baseballmonster's projections and z-score approach, who made my season:  Clayton Kershaw, David Ortiz, Adrian Beltre, Doug Fister, Jayson Werth, Jordan Zimmerman, Max Scherzer, Dustin Pedroia.  And I traded all my overrated dregs for Mike Trout because the projections showed just how far ahead the top 3 are.

And okay, so some of my other targets didn't pan out -- Alex Gordon ended up hitting .265.  Martin Prado stole 3 bases.  Konerko hit .244 with 12 home runs.  And I always seemed to like Yasiel Puig more than everyone else.  No matter.  This was worth every dime and was fun along the way.