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0 Subject: Rotowire, worth the money?

Posted by: Flying Polack
- Donor [378582811] Wed, Feb 23, 2005, 10:39

Does anyone pay for a subscription to Rotowire? In past years I've used Rotoworld for daily information, but I'm sick of the popups and I'm looking for something with more reliable updates.

I've also investigated Rototimes, which appears to have a free product and no popup ads.

Is the information available on Rotowire worth paying for above and beyond the free sites? How much commentary does the site have and how much of it is factual information based on reading local newspapers?

Thanks for any help.

1KrazyKoalaBears
      Leader
      ID: 517553018
      Wed, Feb 23, 2005, 10:44
I used it last year and found it WELL worth the money. I was actually just in the process of getting a subscription again for baseball.
2Perm Dude
      Dude
      ID: 030792616
      Wed, Feb 23, 2005, 10:45
Love RotoWire. Good cheatsheets, dowloadable projected stats, good updates. And it's got the funniest comments.
3darkside
      Dude
      ID: 3590317
      Wed, Feb 23, 2005, 10:53
Well worth it. I got my 'baseball' package a month ago and have been using it for hoops as well. But, it's a great resource...I highly recommend.

If you sign up for the first time, use Guru's email as a referral so he can get some cashola.
4ChicagoTRS
      ID: 4181415
      Wed, Feb 23, 2005, 11:09
I have paid for the baseball package the past three years. Is it the best site on the planet and give me everything I absolutely need? ...probably not but...

I think their projected starter spreadsheet is the best. The daily news on players is good and have pretty good comments. Once in awhile a good article. The fantasy tools are good. I like the myrotowire section where you can input your teams/watchlists and get customized news.

I would recommend the site.
5Flying Polack
      Donor
      ID: 378582811
      Wed, Feb 23, 2005, 11:19
4 for 4 on recommendations! I think I'll sign up. Thank you!
6Mattinglyinthehall
      Leader
      ID: 01629107
      Wed, Feb 23, 2005, 11:23
I bought it this year for baseball. I also purchased in it 2004. Its definitely better than Rototimes, which offers a similar product for free. I believe I've noticed that less of Rotoworld's, TSN's and posibly ESPN's content appears to be accessable for free this year. I'm not sure what services and resources a paid subscription to their services offers or how they compare to Rotowire.

I think Rotowire's greatest strength is in how closely the keep tabs on all players. I do a lot of cross referencing and find that player updates at Rotowire definitely seem to come more frequently and detailed there than I've found at Rototimes. If you want, name any slightly-obscure to very-obscure player and I'll post all the updates for him from both sources back to last season so that you can see the difference. Name several for a good comparison, if you like.

As far as accuracy is concerned, I think both sites tend to cite their quotes and whatnot, but I don't know that either is less likely to report what they know to be factual information.

As far as who offers the better speculation, last year I read some notable criticisms of Rotowire's projected stats, that they turn out less accurate as those of some other services, including Roto Times, if I remember correctly. I think the article was a year old at the time. I don't remember where I read it and I don't know if any more recent comparisons of projections have been published.

Regardless, Roto Times doesn't seem to take position eligibility very much (if at all) into consideration in their customizable projected dollar value rankings. For this reason, IMO, Rotowire is the superior source for generating customizable cheatsheets based on projected dollar value rankings, even if Rotowire's projection methods might not be quite as good.
7Guru
      ID: 330592710
      Wed, Feb 23, 2005, 11:56
This article (Baseball Prospectus - January 2004) is probably the one that cast RotoWire's 2003 projections in a comparatively unfavorable light. Notably, it also casts BP's own projections favorably.

This commentary critiques the relevance (or lack thereof) of the comparison in that baseball prospectus article.
8biliruben
      ID: 500432513
      Wed, Feb 23, 2005, 12:20
I just signed up for 2 years yesterday. One of the few sites I visit nearly every day, even in the off season.

That said, I generally do a fair bit of tweaking of their projected stats. They tend to go overboard with players they judge will break out, and tout them far too long after they fail to reach their projections. In other words, they don't admit they are wrong soon enough, and even when they are right, they often over-estimate a player's projected sucess. In other words, they take too many risks - they want to hit that big score, predicting correctly a break out season, and sometimes they do. But they are wrong more than they are right.

For more established players, whose projections are more straightforward, they are generally fine.
9Guru
      ID: 330592710
      Wed, Feb 23, 2005, 12:44
Biliruben's assessment sounds about right. If you rely on RotoWire as a sole source of projections, you'll end up favoring some long shots. I think the same is true of any projection source.

For that reason, I look at relative rankings from several sources - at least 3, and maybe even 4 or 5. This allows you to recognize the ones that are consensus, and those that are outliers. You then can make an informed judgement about the validity of the rosiest projections.
10Guru
      ID: 330592710
      Wed, Feb 23, 2005, 12:58
Just for kicks, I went back to my spreadsheet for last year's RIBC draft. I scanned for some of the players that RotoWire seemed to value much higher than RotoWorld or RotoTimes.

Here's a short list:

Hitters
Carlos Beltran
Juan Pierre
Hideki Matsui
Randy Winn
Brad Fullmer
Jose Reyes

Pitchers
Roy Halladay
Tim Hudson
Carlos Zambrano
Lawrence, Brian
Alvarez, Wilson
Thomson, John
Batista, Miguel
Redding, Tim


I haven't compared the RotoWire projected stats with those players' actual stats (maybe later - not enough time right now), but off the top of my head, some of those picks worked out quite well, and some were utter failures.
11blue hen
      ID: 331038201
      Wed, Feb 23, 2005, 13:34
We used to list our projected finishes and award winners at .com and I always hated it. I always did exactly what BP did, picking one or two teams to finish higher than other people so that someone might talk about it and get me some press. But I could only do that for a few teams, because then it would lose me credibility. In 2003, I managed to get 7 of the 8 playoff teams (substituting the Phillies for the Marlins) but there was never a follow-up article.

That said, my projections weren't always so great and I'd say that it's real hard to project this sort of stuff anyway.

My friend always wanted to have a contest - you'd get points for correctly predicting stuff from the farthest time out. I said in 2003 that Jeremy Bonderman would be a Hall of Famer, and when he gets elected in 2028, I'll smile a bit, but none of you will remember that I said it.

I guess fantasy baseball fills that void on a year-to-year basis, but we should have a Gurupie game where we just predict stuff and see who is the best predictor.
12ukula
      ID: 191492312
      Wed, Feb 23, 2005, 14:01
I predict that blue hen will mention ESPN is his next post.
13KrazyKoalaBears
      Leader
      ID: 517553018
      Wed, Feb 23, 2005, 14:10
I predict ukula will post something about blue hen posting about ESPN after blue hen's next post.

Geez ukula, you're starting to act like a stalker. Everyone around here knows blue hen's act, but you seem to have an unhealthy obsession with it.

14j o s h
      ID: 161212311
      Wed, Feb 23, 2005, 14:15
13- agreed. You'd think bh was a yankee fan or something.
15Ref
      Donor
      ID: 539581218
      Wed, Feb 23, 2005, 14:36
I used to pay a lot of attn. to projections. Now I really use a list just so I don't overlook anyone that might have a stat cat. or position that would help me. I don't nec. agree with all of them, but I think that almost any list gives you an idea of the relative value of some players. In short, I've never used rotowire's rankings and yet I'm consistantly fighting for players in drafts with those who do.
16angryCHAIR
      ID: 98192416
      Wed, Feb 23, 2005, 14:53
Sorry Guru, Where's the link so you get a kickback if I
register with rotowire?
17angryCHAIR
      ID: 98192416
      Wed, Feb 23, 2005, 14:57
I assume I can link thru the tab provided and you would
get credit?
18ukula
      ID: 191492312
      Wed, Feb 23, 2005, 15:11
I predict that someone will post something about my reply to someone posting something about me posting something about blue hen posting something about ESPN.

I couldn't care less about blue hen.
19ukula
      ID: 191492312
      Wed, Feb 23, 2005, 15:13
blue hen secretly wishes he was ukula.
20darkside
      Dude
      ID: 3590317
      Wed, Feb 23, 2005, 15:13
I think you just have to use his email address, but could be wrong...I'm sure he'll pop back in here...
21darkside
      Dude
      ID: 3590317
      Wed, Feb 23, 2005, 15:17
Email will work. It's discussed here in post 7.
22MadDOG
      ID: 56012617
      Wed, Feb 23, 2005, 15:21
ESPN.com sucks.


There ya go, somebody mentioned ESPN.
23ChicagoTRS
      ID: 4181415
      Wed, Feb 23, 2005, 15:22
I am not sure if they have a referral program this year. I looked when I subscribed and could not find anything...I did end up emailing them that I was referred by rotoguru but did not get any reply or confirmation that they accepted the referral.
24darkside
      Dude
      ID: 3590317
      Wed, Feb 23, 2005, 15:26
Hmmm...didn't think about that. I've not really looked since it's only for new, not renewing, subscribers.
25Guru
      ID: 330592710
      Wed, Feb 23, 2005, 19:15
I don't know if the referral program is still active or not. If it is, there will be an opportunity during registration to provide the email address of the person who referred you. Just provide davehall@rotoguru2.com

It is only for new subscriptions, though, not renewals.
26rockafellerskank
      ID: 180352016
      Wed, Feb 23, 2005, 21:14
I use rotowire religiously for baseball. For those that aren't subscribers, you may want to check this out if you have XM radio:

we will be hosting a daily hour-long fantasy baseball show, every Mon-Fri from 2:00-3:00 EST, titled Fantasy Focus. I'll be hosting Mon-Thur, and Chris Liss will be hosting on Friday

27Flying Polack
      Donor
      ID: 378582811
      Thu, Feb 24, 2005, 09:16
I signed up for Rotowire yesterday. Guru, I put in your e-mail address so you should see a $10 credit.

I'm very happy with the site so far, I e-mailed customer support and asked when I'd receive my copy of the Rotowire Magazine. They responded by putting my copy into a special mailing so I receive it before I go on vacation next week! I'm very pleased.
28darkside
      Dude
      ID: 3590317
      Thu, Feb 24, 2005, 13:12
Yes, their customer service is excellent. I always get prompt responses when I contact them.
29angryCHAIR
      ID: 98192416
      Thu, Feb 24, 2005, 17:56
GURU: I just signed up too...$10 should be on the way!
30Guru
      ID: 330592710
      Fri, Feb 25, 2005, 09:30
I received two referral payments yesterday. One was on behalf of Flying Polack, and the other was from someone who I do not have in my GuruPatron files, which is probably on behalf of angryCHAIR.

angryCHAIR - please send me an email and I'll set up a GuruPatron account for you.

Thanks to both of you.
31Francois
      ID: 121412522
      Fri, Feb 25, 2005, 23:50
I've used Rotowire for both baseball and hockey for the past few years. Just love it. Really reliable. And when I've had a problem, I picked up the phone and called them and the staff was just great.
32Seattle Zen
      ID: 178161719
      Sun, Feb 27, 2005, 15:07
Signed up today, this thread sold me. I'm a cheap bastard, so the "Dave gets ten bucks out of it" was the deciding factor.
33Boldwin
      ID: 241292815
      Sun, Mar 06, 2005, 08:12
I can't believe no one has pointed out that BaseballHQ has them both beat when it comes to baseball.
34angryCHAIR
      Donor
      ID: 98192416
      Sun, Apr 03, 2005, 10:51
Update:

I am really impressed with Rotowire:

The daily e-mails for each league is an excellent tool.

Used the "Ask an Expert" feature and they responded with a thourough e-mail regarding my question.

Had a problem with the address on file, called them and got great care in receiving my magazine on Fantasy Sports.

Nice depth Charts.

Incredible info on each player.

Flying Polack...Thanks for this thread...it led to what I fill was a great investment.

aC
35angryCHAIR
      Donor
      ID: 98192416
      Sun, Apr 03, 2005, 10:59
One more thing...The kickback to Guru is generous!
36biliruben
      Leader
      ID: 589301110
      Fri, Aug 05, 2005, 20:11
They just added Sickels to do their minor league analysis.

Raves about Felix, for those with a subscription.
37ChicagoTRS
      ID: 21431823
      Sat, Aug 06, 2005, 00:24
Excellent stuff adding Sickels to their team. Having good writers is one of the keys to having a successful pay site.
38Flying Polack
      ID: 25633176
      Sat, Aug 06, 2005, 07:55
It's definitely been worth the money. In my auction keeper league I picked up Zach Duke and Jonny Gomes because of their advice. I wouldn't have known about them otherwise.

Two thumps up!!
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