Yahoo!: "No set timeframe for the addition of players"

Written by Xach on July 11, 2006

On July 1, I read an article that fantasy sports columnist Matthew Berry (aka Talented Mr. Roto) penned (or more likely, typed) for SportingNews.com's Fantasy Source. A regular reader of TMR's columns, I have found that more often than not the players he mentions are worth putting on my radar screen. Don't get me wrong, he wiffs about as often as any other columnist, but he's often one step ahead of the rest in terms of spotting a soon-to-be-hot pickup.

So when TMR mentioned recent Pittsburgh call-up Tom Gorzelanny, I figured it might be a good idea to at least put Oliver Perez's suppopsedly talented replacement on my watch list. However, when I searched our Yahoo league's Players page, no Tom Gorzelanny did I find. My first instinct was to check the spelling of his last name. And check it again. And again. As it turns out, Yahoo had not yet added Gorzelanny to its player universe. So I continued to check the waiver wire for a couple days, and two days after after he'd made his first major league start he was still unavailable. In fact, he made his second start on June 6 and is still not available in Yahoo leagues as of this writing.

Now I've seen Yahoo take a couple days after a player's call-up before adding them to the game, but in my opinion the fact that this guy has made two starts already and is still unavailable, well, it's pretty fucking retarded. I mean what the fuck?! Delmon Young is available and he's never even played a major league game, but some dude who's already made two starts is non-existent? Yahoo's lag time in adding players has always pissed me off a bit, but at least it's tended to be just a couple of days. In this case, though, I felt like I was watching a guy that other owners might not have been watching and Yahoo was just giving everyone the benefit of two starts to watch and learn. If he did exceptionally well in those two starts, there would no doubt have been copious Sports Center highlights and countless fantasy articles. All of a sudden, someone I hoped to have a jump on would be a common target and I would lose my informational edge. Ugh.

Luckily, Gorzelanny seems to be walking far too many batters for my liking, so I'm not missing out on much at the moment, but the fact remains that I'd like Yahoo to do a better job. So I wrote Yahoo a letter:

Hi, what rules govern the addition of a new player to Yahoo's player universe?

I've noticed, for example, that Delmon Young is available even though he has never played a Major League game. Meanwhile, Tom Gorzelanny pitched for the Pirates on July 1, but is still not available as of 12:00 PM July 3rd.

This can be very frustrating for an owner that has done his research because the longer you wait to add a player, the more time other managers in the league have to read about a guy and the more hype the media can spread about him.

I have been playing Yahoo fantasy baseball for 7 years now, and this has consistently been an area that I feel needs improvement. Does Yahoo have any plans to become more vigilant in adding players to the Yahoo universe as soon as they are called up?

And, they wrote me a response:

Hello Xach,

Thank you for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care.

We are working to expand the Available Players (in-season) and pre-ranking (pre-season) lists. There is no set timeframe for the addition of players to Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Baseball. Players are added to the game as soon as possible during the season.

All player requests are reviewed and players will be added to the pool as soon as possible after their Major League debut (this requires approval from a third-party, so we are unable to comment on the timetable for addition of any specific players).

Please note that all players added to the game are made available via aivers.

** You will be able to find the list of players that are added to the game by clicking on the View all Research & Analysis link from the right-hand column of your league home page. Then, select the Status Changes link to view the latest updates.

Players who show as "Activated" are available as free agents, as they already existed in the available player pool.

Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care.

Regards,

[name removed]

Yahoo! Customer Care

And now we know what we already knew: that for whatever reason the world's most popular provider of fantasy sports games has its head far enough up its ass that it can't figure out how to add new call-ups in a timely manner.

-- Written by Xach on July 11, 2006