Whitestone’s Waiver Watch: NFBC Main Event (7/8)

The 80% Solution

MLB Counter = 55.7% of the season complete

Well folks, we’re more than halfway home (almost 56% based on games played), so it’s time to make an assessment of our teams. Most NFBC fantasy managers realize that if you can achieve the 80% level across all 10 rotisserie categories, not only will you be in the top 1-3 of your league, but you also will be competitive in the overall rankings of this 855-team contest. As proof of my advanced math skills, 80% in one category in the Main Event is worth 684 points, and if you do that in all 10 categories, you’d have 6840 total overall points (amazing calculating job, right?). That would place you on the overall leaderboard in 13th place (see overall ranking chart below). That’s all you have to do — pretty simple, huh? It’s an 80% solution that is 100% — er, 80% — guaranteed to work…

Below you can see the 80% mark for The NFBC Main Event at the conclusion of the 2019, 2021 (I’ve skipped 2020 because it was the shortened season), 2022 and 2023 seasons plus the pro-rated version for 2024 (as of Saturday morning). Run scoring has improved across baseball lately, but the Main Event 80% target for both runs scored and RBIs is still running 3-4% lower than 2023. Home runs are playing a big part in this, as Main Event managers have accumulated 7.2% fewer long balls compared to 2023. Stolen bases, of course, jumped up 45% last year, and are virtually identical this year. Batting average, however, has taken a 2% step back to 2022 levels (and is even slightly below that year). So in effect the smaller 2% drop in batting average is outweighed by the bigger 7.2% drop in homers and has resulted in a 3-4% drop in the run-scoring environment.

On the pitching side, strikeouts are down ever so slightly from 2023, but fantasy managers are capturing more wins — at least in the first half of the 2024 season. Saves also have taken a slight uptick, and Main Event managers are honing in on 75 for the full season. But the big change is in ERA and WHIP. The lower run-scoring environment has meant that ERA is more than a third of a run (0.342) or 9% lower than last season — almost back at 2022 levels. WHIP in the Main Event is 5% lower than 2023. So hits and runs are down, but not as much as runs scored — which seems to reflect the lost home runs in the first part of the 2024 season.

80% Final Target for 2024 Compared with Previous Years

If you’d like to see where the 80% levels are — this is the array as of Saturday morning. If you have a Main Event team, you can compare your stats to these levels and see where you’re doing well and where you might be coming up short.

NFBC Main Event FAAB 16: Spending Stays Up

In FAAB 16 Sunday, spending stayed relatively strong. The top 10 widest acquisitions this week are in the chart below, and many Main Event managers took a calming break beside a babbling Brook (see below) as Brooks Lee (who was added in 56 of 57 leagues) led the way (he was previously rostered in that last Main Event league). For those managers who preferred the safer four walls of indoor living, Matt Wallner for was the best option, picked up in 39 leagues. Then a blast from the past as Sammy Sosa — er — Lenyn Sosa was added in 38 leagues based on his hot bat (.429 this past week). Those three players were followed by James Outman (who really should be a pitcher with this kind of moniker), as he was recalled by the Dodgers in an effort to stabilize their outfield. Among the widest 10 pickups, Lee’s average winning bid of about $103 far outdistanced the others, as no one else even cracked the $20 average winning bid barrier (James Outman came closest at $17.80). Outside of the 10 widest pickups, only five additional players (who were added in more than five leagues) attracted relatively high $30-plus average winning bids. They were James Wood (average of $341.60 from 20 bids), Dean Kremer (average of $83 from 5 bids), Xander Bogaerts ($74 from 11), Edward Cabrera ($44 from 11), and Yariel Rodríguez (average $34 from 10).

NFBC Main Event — Most Added this Week: A Babbling Brook(s)

Winning Bids over $100 and $200

I’m also keeping tabs on players attracting the highest individual FAAB bids. In the 16th run Sunday (see below), there were 29 winning bids over $200, so after a five-week low ebb in late May and June we have now had two weeks of larger bids again. In addition, there were 26 more winning bids between $100-199. This week, the 29 winning bids over $200 were driven by James Wood, who attracted one bid over $400; 17 $300-399 and 2 between $200-299. No Main Event managers were able to win Wood for less than $200, with the lowest successful bid totaling $228. The other nine $200-plus winning bids were for Blake Snell ($334), Edwin Díaz ($317) and Brooks Lee (7 winning bids above $200 ranging from $203-281).

The Wow Bid of the Week: They Got Good Wood On It

The highest overall bid in FAAB Week 16 – you might have already guessed – was for James Wood of the Nationals, who was the major target for the week. Wood was unrostered in 20 Main Event leagues, and is now (of course) 100% rostered. The eye-popping $462 bid was the fifth-highest Wow bid out of the 16 registered so far in 2024, which easily beat out the unsuccessful runner-up bid of $253.

The Wow Bids of 2024

• 3/24: Nolan Schanuel $200 (16^th-highest)
• 3/31: Jason Foley $479 (4^th)
• 4/7: James McArthur $225 (15^th)
• 4/14 Brandon Nimmo $578 (2^nd)
• 4/21 Wilyer Abreu $350 (11^th)
• 4/28 Pete Crow-Armstrong $355 (10^th)
• 5/5 Christian Scott $677 (Highest)
• 5/12 Taj Bradley $444 (6^th)
• 519 Reed Garrett $420 (7^th)
• 5/26 Wyatt Langford $248 (14^th)
• 6/2 Ben Brown $366 (7^th)
• 6/9 Blake Snell $360 (9^th)
• 6/16 Ryne Stanek $261 (13^th)
• 6/23 Michael Harris $281 (12^th)
• 6/30 Noelvi Marte $509 (3^rd)
• 7/7 James Wood $462 (5^th)

FAAB Summary: Timber!

In the 16th FAAB week, Main Event managers successfully made 1,654 winning bids (about 6% less than last week) but the strong James Wood bids supported the overall spending levels. After this week, Main Event managers have now spent approximately $710 of their $1,000 allocation, which is still lower than each of the last three years at the 16-week mark (the three previous years, as you can see below, were at least $50 higher). This year’s Week 16 had spending of about $36 per team, more than the previous three years but close to the spending in 2022’s Week 16 (the three previous years were within $20-34 at this point of the season). So there are still plenty of FAAB dollars available in the Main Event – more than in the previous three years. Since Main Event managers are still able to aggressively bid (still about $26 left to spend per week), there will still be higher spending in the weeks to come.

Total Spent: Main Event Through 16 FAAB Periods

• 2024: $710
• 2023: $843
• 2022: $781
• 2021: $758

FAAB Spending Summary 2024

Average Weekly Spending Per Team (21-24)

The Colosseum

Each week during the season, I’ll take a look at the four widest Main Event pickups from three weeks ago and evaluate whether it was a good addition based on the early stats (thumbs up), a bad idea (thumbs down) or simply a push. We’re focusing on the first three weeks after the pickup, when players can earn their new owners some good stats (as they are generally in the active lineup) or underperform badly, leading to an angry drop soon after they are added to the roster.

Three weeks ago, we had our 13th FAAB run, and (as usual) we had two fairly good pickups. Yariel Rodríguez and Carson Spiers produced some nice ratio stats, have relatively good K:BB ratios plus one win for Rodríguez and two for Spiers. In a 15-teamer, those are good additions. Unfortunately, (again, as usual) there were two wide pickups that did not deliver. DJ Herz had an excellent K/BB ratio but has given up too many hits, so his ERA and WHIP are too ugly for our purposes. And Tyler Soderstrom had a couple of homers, but not enough of everything else, so he didn’t make the cut either. That’s two thumbs up and two thumbs down again this week.

The two thumbs up week keeps the Main Event pickup record for 2024 at a good level, with 22 thumbs up (42%), 23 thumbs down and seven pushes, and the thumbs up percentage is about equal to 2023 (44%). This is about the same neighborhood as the 2022 good pickups mark of 39% but better than 2021, which was 24%.

Colosseum Thumbs Up Record

• 2024 thus far: 42%
• 2023: 44%
• 2022: 39%
• 2021: 24%

2024 Colosseum Thumbs Up Players

Overall Leaderboard: Bend it Like Beckman

For seven of the previous nine weeks, the 2015 Main Event Overall Champion Glenn Schroter has held a stranglehold on the top spot in the standings. But this week, a champion soccer player has pushed into the lead. David— um — Robert Beckman (checks notes) — is now in first place after he was apparently loaned to the NFBC from Manchester United. Robert moved up from third place last week, and although his margin is a scant 29.0 points, he seems to have all the momentum in the world (or all the momentum on the pitch, as they say!).

Main Event Leaders in 2024

So the fact that the margin is very small is providing hope to Robert’s closest competitors. The chase pack is led by Clark (the Shark) Olson, who moved up from fourth to second this week. I reached out for a comment by Clark, and all he would say is that he’s “circling” the top leaders. Hmmm. In third overall is the fresher Eric Drescher, who famously took a short respite from the competition and now is well within striking distance of the top of the leaderboard (although I don’t believe he is circling). Our previous leader, Glenn Schroter, stepped back to fourth from first overall this week, as perhaps just needed an Eric Drescher-type break from the challenge of leading week after week? Next we find The Liberator, Bradley Libros, who remains solidly in fifth and claims he will still liberate the masses of downtrodden Main Event owners (a noble cause indeed). Then there’s the Amazin’ Jason Santeiu, who not only is in sixth place this week, but he also has the 14th and 17th ranked overall teams. Not fair Jason, not fair!

Real Neil Petersen sits in seventh, the impressive Knute Rockne aficionado Nicholi Knutson resides in eighth, the one true King (Brandon King) zooms up to ninth from 24th (wow) while the man at the cliff’s edge (Kyle Brinkmann) pulled off a similar feat — surging to 10th from 26th.

The very tough guy to get rid of, Dave Rhydderch, is in 11th place, Chris (UR A Monster) Uram is 12th, Alan Mitchell moves from 21st up to 13th, while Jackson The Price is Right is 15th. My Favorite Martin, Gregg Martin, is holed up in 16th overall, everyone’s favorite winery king, Chris Boudreaux, is 18th, Adam (of Warner Brothers fame) zoomed up from 43rd overall to 19th (it’s like a movie!) and Marvelous Peter Marrero is now 20th.

A few other notables in the top 31 (the top 31 are paid an overall prize at the end of the season – see below table) – Darren Wasny is 21st, FTN Fantasy stalwart Jason Anthony is 24th. 2022 Main Event Overall Champ Robert Cramutola is 26th, Drummer Griffin Benger is 28th, and Tyler (Welcome to the Jungle) is 31st.

But all 31 of these fantasy managers are in the hunt for sure, and in a big 855-team contest like the Main Event, that’s all you can ask after a couple of months. We’re past the halfway mark of the season (55.7%), but there’s still plenty of games to be played before October.

Top 31: Main Event 2024

League of Legends

Here are the 57 Main Event leagues with the current top three in the standings as of Monday morning.

Top Three: 2024 Main Event League Leaders

Shout-Outs

The 23 players listed below account for 16 of the 57 first-place positions (28%) and 51 of the 171 total cashing positions (30%). So far, the most outstanding performance across the Main Events belongs to Robert Cramutola with two first-place positions plus one second and one third! The next three are not too shabby either: Jason Santeiu has three firsts, Scott Waggener has the across-the-board positions of one first, one second and one third and Dominic Rello has two seconds and a third. Congratulations! But see below, as there are several other fantasy managers doing terrific work!

Notables include:

• Two first, one second, one third — Robert Cramutola
• Three first — Jason Santeiu
• One first, one second, one third — Scott Waggener
• Two seconds, one third — Dominic Rello
• Two firsts — Bradley Libros
• One first; one second – Gregg Martin, Chris Uram, Michael O’Brien, Anthony Palavis
• One first; One third – Kyle Brinkmann, Clark Olson, Brandon King, Alan Mitchell
• Two seconds — Bill Gaffney, Nelson Sousa, Tyler Jung, Michael Mager, Robert DiPietro
• One second, one third — Danny Bronski, Mike Ballschmiede, Joe Green, Dalton Del Don, Leonard Ringle

Good luck to all the competitors in Week 17.