CBS changes

[no driver]

I tend to be be ok with CBS too but the look of the redesign is just horrid. It'll take some time to get used to where they moved stuff, but I'm ok with that.

I also don't see where to edit the wildcard values on a player by player basis, just where to set up the wildcard fields for the whole league.

Something else that didn't work this morning (and this is why I went to the site) was customizing a stat report to download. I was trying to get a dump of games by position from 2010 so I could look at position eligibility, and when I clicked on the Stats link it would let me select the player pool, year, etc, but it had the stats themselves grayed out and if I clicked the spreadsheet link it would only dump the default stat report, not the one I had requested. They still have the old stats interface on the Custom Reports link, and that worked fine.

[Wonderboy]

CBS has an FAAB system that works fine with the exception of there is no contingency bidding....

Ah, I see. In that case, TopChuckie is crazy!

[revo]

If I could access old threads I could pull up when it's been explained before in detail. It's been a while since I've tested it, but the problem had to do with hierarchy based on player being waved and hierarchy based on bid amount, and how those hierarchies would change based on successful bids.

Besides Hammer's explanation of the hierarchy of bids which you correctly noted cannot be done (which no offense, seems pretty minor), you can do the hierarchy of the player being waived by making multiple FAAB bids waiving the same player, thus eliminating that FAAB bid request if the player was indeed waived.

Honestly, I wouldn't consider lack of FAAB awards as something that is minor. For us, it would be a deal killer. I can't imagine being a Commissioner who has to sort through that mess every week.

The commish doesn't have to sort through it because it's processed automatically by the site. The commish doesn't even get to see the FAAB bids.

[no driver]

I also don't see where to edit the wildcard values on a player by player basis, just where to set up the wildcard fields for the whole league.

A note for anyone else having this trouble: Commish Tools->Draft/Pre-season Rosters tab->Edit Salary and Contract Info

Alternatively, you can navigate straight there by typing the following into your browser: http:// [myleague]/teams/wildcards/1 which will set you up editing the wildcards for team ID 1. From there the interface should be familiar. Don't forget to change [myleague] to whatever the correct web address is for your league.

I never would have looked in the pre-draft section since we change the wildcard values at various times throughout the year. Hopefully that won't break anything this season.

[The Dane]

I was one of the loudest anti-CBS voices for a long while. However, my stance has softened considerably as a product of the demise of superior alternatives, and a significant improvement in their services. CBS still hasn't figured out the FAAB bidding the way TQ had it, which was far superior to everything I've seen on CBS. In addition, if you remember correctly, CBS used to be very unreliable and often had slow or incorrect updates, a problem that has pretty much gone away. For years, their customer service was, at worse unhelpful, at best non-existent, another problem that seems to have been addressed.

I still miss the old TQ, but the new CBS is the best option out there as far as I'm concerned.

[BuckyBuckner]

I still prefer onroto by a large margin. But I'm not about to try to persuade anyone anymore. My league has some unique rules and we would never be able to CBS. Onroto has made several changes to the setting to accommodate our league.

But damn, the new design is awful. I hate not being able to see my entire roster on one screen.

[TopChuckie]

Besides Hammer's explanation of the hierarchy of bids which you correctly noted cannot be done (which no offense, seems pretty minor), you can do the hierarchy of the player being waived by making multiple FAAB bids waiving the same player, thus eliminating that FAAB bid request if the player was indeed waived.

All I can say is you are wrong. I am extremely lazy, and CBS's inability to get their FAAB system right creates a great deal of work for me. If it was a minor issue, I would gladly accept it as such and eliminate all the work I have to do every week.

[Hammer]

All I can say is you are wrong. I am extremely lazy, and CBS's inability to get their FAAB system right creates a great deal of work for me. If it was a minor issue, I would gladly accept it as such and eliminate all the work I have to do every week.

2 things

1- youre extremely lazy

2- can you explain all the extra work you need to do. Perhaps if you explain I can get a better appreciation of the effort you have to put in.

[TopChuckie]

2 things

1- youre extremely lazy

2- can you explain all the extra work you need to do. Perhaps if you explain I can get a better appreciation of the effort you have to put in.

Because we can't use CBS's FAAB, each of my owners submits a password protected Excel file with their FAAB bids and corresponding waivers every Friday night by midnight. Then each Saturday before midnight they send me the passwords. This is to insure the integrity of the process so when I do beat another owner's bid by $1 for the 3rd or 4th time this season there is no suspicion in that owner's mind that I knew his bid before submitting mine. I wouldn't look, and most of my owner's trust that to be the case, I do it more for my peace of mind than theirs.

Anyway, once I get all these emails with Excel files and passwords I can open each file and begin processing the bids. Unfortunately not all my owners are equally skilled with Excel so I seldom get everyone's bids in exactly the same format, despite the fact I created a template for them to use. For ease and for full disclosure purposes, I combine everyone's bids into one file so I can compare each owner's bids for each player and create a results report which I then email back to all the owners. Then I have to manually input the results at CBS, and eventually update all their salaries and contracts.

The time required each week varies, but it can take maybe two hours or so on a big week, around the trade deadlines and whatnot, and I only have Sunday to do it so owners can set their lineups based on the results on Monday.

[Hammer]

Because we can't use CBS's FAAB, each of my owners submits a password protected Excel file with their FAAB bids and corresponding waivers every Friday night by midnight. Then each Saturday before midnight they send me the passwords. This is to insure the integrity of the process so when I do beat another owner's bid by $1 for the 3rd or 4th time this season there is no suspicion in that owner's mind that I knew his bid before submitting mine. I wouldn't look, and most of my owner's trust that to be the case, I do it more for my peace of mind than theirs.

Anyway, once I get all these emails with Excel files and passwords I can open each file and begin processing the bids. Unfortunately not all my owners are equally skilled with Excel so I seldom get everyone's bids in exactly the same format, despite the fact I created a template for them to use. For ease and for full disclosure purposes, I combine everyone's bids into one file so I can compare each owner's bids for each player and create a results report which I then email back to all the owners. Then I have to manually input the results at CBS, and eventually update all their salaries and contracts.

The time required each week varies, but it can take maybe two hours or so on a big week, around the trade deadlines and whatnot, and I only have Sunday to do it so owners can set their lineups based on the results on Monday.

thats definitely painful and I think I can guess your response but I will ask anyway.

The 2 issues are the one I stated above and also that everyone cannot see all the bids on CBS once the auto-execution of the bids happen, yes? Are these deal-breakers to conform to the way CBS is set up? I dont see it as a big concession but I can see where others might.

[TopChuckie]

thats definitely painful and I think I can guess your response but I will ask anyway.

The 2 issues are the one I stated above and also that everyone cannot see all the bids on CBS once the auto-execution of the bids happen, yes? Are these deal-breakers to conform to the way CBS is set up? I dont see it as a big concession but I can see where others might.

If nobody saw anyone else's bids, we could all live with that, IF, huge IF, we had faith in the system to never make a mistake. But as soon as one owner says, "Why did Owner B get Player A for $X, when I bid greater than $X?" Then we would want to be able to see the bids to see the why, even if it was just to explain to Owner A that his bid for Player A was negated when he already waived the player he designated to waive for Player A in an earlier transaction, for example. I'd prefer we didn't all get to know everyone's bids and associated waivers, but in the interest of fairness and avoiding controversy, we go with full transparency.

In addition to the problem with bid amount hierarchy that you referenced, sometimes in a given week an owner may be willing to waive a certain player only if he's successful with an earlier bid, but if that earlier bid fails, then he wants to waive a different player. Say I bid on Pitcher A with my highest priority bid and I waive a pitcher if I get him. If I get Pitcher A, then I am also willing to waive another pitcher to acquire a SS. But, if I don't get Pitcher A, then I'm only willing to waive a backup OF to make room for that SS. Follow?

[dutch boy]

Does anyone know if you can adjust the daily start/bench time to be within 5 minutes of the game time? Yahoo allows this, but my commish keeps telling me cbs does not allow it, so all daily roster decisions need to be completed before game 1 of any given day. This can make it impossible to adjust lineups when teams post there nightly starters and a 1 pm game has already frozen your lineup.

[dmahlan]

Are these deal-breakers to conform to the way CBS is set up?

The phrase "conform to the way CBS is set up" illustrates why my league (and I presume others) are so down on CBS despite all their bells and whistles. For a product that's supposed to be a "service" they are horribly and stubbornly deaf to user requests for features that should be standard for any company in the business. Instead, leagues are forced to change their style of game play, and in some cases their Constitution, in order to conform to CBS.

TopChuckie, we had to jump through similar hoops in order to run FAAB the way we wanted to with CBS as our provider. We had someone outside the league set up an free e-mail address (for example, cfcl-faab@gmail...) and set a password only they knew. We all e-mailed our bids and corresponding waivers to that address and after the FAAB deadline passed, the outsider would provide the password so I could log in and process everything. The next day, after the results had been announced, the outsider logged into the gmail account and changed the password for the following week. What a pain.

I'm no longer participating in the league, but they're in the process of moving to OnRoto because aside from the usual headaches we actually noticed some statistical discrepancies last year and also had problems with roster moves taking effect for only one day and then reversing themselves. The league was no longer confident in the results that were being reported.

[Hammer]

If nobody saw anyone else's bids, we could all live with that, IF, huge IF, we had faith in the system to never make a mistake. But as soon as one owner says, "Why did Owner B get Player A for $X, when I bid greater than $X?" Then we would want to be able to see the bids to see the why, even if it was just to explain to Owner A that his bid for Player A was negated when he already waived the player he designated to waive for Player A in an earlier transaction, for example. I'd prefer we didn't all get to know everyone's bids and associated waivers, but in the interest of fairness and avoiding controversy, we go with full transparency.

In addition to the problem with bid amount hierarchy that you referenced, sometimes in a given week an owner may be willing to waive a certain player only if he's successful with an earlier bid, but if that earlier bid fails, then he wants to waive a different player. Say I bid on Pitcher A with my highest priority bid and I waive a pitcher if I get him. If I get Pitcher A, then I am also willing to waive another pitcher to acquire a SS. But, if I don't get Pitcher A, then I'm only willing to waive a backup OF to make room for that SS. Follow?

you are able to see everyone's bids but each owner would need to copy and paste their add/drop page to show what they bid. Ive only experienced an issue once and it turned out it was my fault.
As for the second part, if an owner gets back to me the next morning saying he meant to drop a different player, I just swap them out. Doesnt take long and again it doesnt happen often.

[TopChuckie]

you are able to see everyone's bids but each owner would need to copy and paste their add/drop page to show what they bid. Ive only experienced an issue once and it turned out it was my fault.
As for the second part, if an owner gets back to me the next morning saying he meant to drop a different player, I just swap them out. Doesnt take long and again it doesnt happen often.

I'm sure 99%, if not more, of the times an owner thought he got screwed by the website it would turn out to be his mistake, user error, but getting him to admit that and not blame the website and bitch and moan about how he gets screwed every week is probably not going to happen. Then he'd start whining about the complexity of the system and how he's never able to get the players he wants, and blah, blah, blah. All my owners are intelligent men over the age of 40, but this is still how it would go down.

I suppose I could tell them all to do a print screen and save it before they submit each week, and that might actually happen for a week or two until no one had any issues, and then they'd get tired of it or forget to do it, and that's when they'd question something.

It's fine to put the onus on them to get their sh*t right and backup their case, or tough luck, but I know from experience it's very hard to get grown men to admit they are wrong or made a mistake without hard, indisputable proof.

Maybe I'll give it a try this year, see how it goes, just because I would love to get out of all the work, but I'm not optimistic. Is it possible to run the process manually, i.e. at a certain time I, the commish, could get access to everyone's submittals, look them over for anything complicated or questionable, and then hit a button to process them all?