Whitestone’s Waiver Watch: NFBC Main Event (7/22)

The Answer Was Ohtani

MLB Counter = 61.4% of the season complete

Well folks, we’ve passed the All-Star break (and are getting close to two-thirds of the way through the season based on games played), so with Rece Hinds(ight) as inspiration, I decided to go back and figure out what would have been the best way to draft the first two rounds in this 855-team contest. To do that, I’ve taken the Earned Auction Values up through the All-Star break and tried to highlight the pitfalls (see below) and prizes that lay in wait for us last March (this is an actual video of my drafts below, by the way):

So the chart below shows the Earned Auction Values (source: RotoWire) for the players taken — on average — in the first two rounds of the Main Event before the break (none of the weekend games are included). Before doing this study, it seemed to me that many of the early picks have been mediocre or busted, and lo, it was in fact the case. In Round 1 we had both Ronald Acuña Jr. and Spencer Strider as complete busts due to injuries, while Julio Rodríguez, Mookie Betts, Kyle Tucker and Fernando Tatís Jr. have had their challenges as well. That’s six of the first eight picks in the Main Event by ADP doing worse than anticipated, and the second round has also had its underwhelming options. In the second round of 15 players taken in the Main Event, Matt Olson, Austin Riley, Pablo López and Michael Harris II have been generally stuck in first gear while Luis Castillo, George Kirby and Ozzie Albies did only slightly better (and now Albies is out for an extended period). That’s seven players in the second round who could be classified as negative surprises. Those 13 highly touted players out of the top 30 have created a lot of, shall we say, disappointment in the fantasy community (see below for a reenactment).

Just for fun, I decided to see the combined value of the hypothetical slot pairings — both good and bad — according to ADP. Now no self-respecting Main Event manager drafts solely by ADP, so these combinations are not indicative of how most Main Event managers approached the first two rounds. But some managers might have landed on these combinations, and this analysis can provide an idea of where the value turned out to be in 2024 drafts. Before the drafts commenced in late March, all Main Event managers were hoping for an early draft slot (OK, at least I was hoping for one), so I find it somewhat ironic that it turned out that the top six draft slot pairings according to Main Event ADP (considering only the first two rounds of course) were from draft position 10 through draft position 15 (I did not expect that!). Slot 11 produced the most hypothetical value, combining Juan Soto and Elly De La Cruz ($80), but it is also distinctly possible that some manager started out with Shohei Ohtani and Elly De La Cruz — which would have been the best first two-round start in terms of auction dollars at a combined $97 (zowie). I wish I had come up with that plan! But as you can see a little further down in this section, the top two managers at the All-Star break actually came up with two first-round selections for a combined $98! 

Of course, slots 1 and 2 were well down the list after sustaining devastating injuries from Ronald Acuña Jr. and Spencer Strider, but slot 7 even underperformed even those two pairs with a poorly constructed (at least to date) Corbin Carroll/Pablo López combination, worth a paltry $16 combined auction earnings.

• Slot 11 (11/20): Soto/De La Cruz $80
• Slot 15 (15/16): Ramírez/Burnes $67
• Slot 10 (10/21): Ohtani/Riley $65
• Slot 13 (13/18): Judge/Olson $58
• Slot 14 (14/17): Álvarez/Wheeler $53
• Slot 12 (12/19): Turner/Harper $52
• Slot 5 (5/26): Betts/Devers $50
• Slot 3 (3/28): Witt/Harris $46
• Slot 4 (4/27): Rodríguez/Albies $42
• Tied with Slot 6 (6/25): Tucker/Glasnow $42
• Slot 8 (8/23): Tatís/Kirby $39
• Tied with Slot 9 (9/22): Freeman/Castillo $39
• Slot 2 (2/29): Strider/Lindor $30
• Slot 1 (1/30): Acuña/Alonso $24
• Slot 7 (7/24): Carroll/López $16

Now, there is lots of time for this ranking to change of course in 2024 (probably not enough time to satisfy the slot one and two managers), but the Main Event crowd is a nimble bunch. A lot of the managers with the lower-ranked slots above are in contention, and some with the best slots are struggling. As quick proof of this — see the draft slots that the All-Star break overall top 31 in the Main Event started from. Note that there’s a pretty wide distribution that differs from the analysis above … slot 10, for example, is ranked well in theory but has no teams in the top 31 (probably because many slot 10 managers did not get Ohtani or maybe even Judge), and slot 3, ranked poorly in theory, is well-represented (probably because these managers drafted Witt but not Harris).

NFBC Main Event at the Break: Draft Slots for the Overall Top 31

• 4 teams each: Slots 3, 9, 11 
• 3 teams each: Slots 8 and 15 
• 2 teams each: Slots 1, 4, 12, 13, 14
• 1 team each: Slot 2, 5, 7 
• No teams in overall top 31: Slot 6, 10 

Here are the top five fantasy teams overall at the All-Star break. Yes, the first two picks matter less in fantasy baseball than some other sports, but these guys didn’t miss the value available to them. They put everyone else at a disadvantage after just two rounds. The one player in common on all five? Well…

Overall Main Event Top 5: Draft Slots & First Two Picks

• Clark Olson: Slot 15 — Ramírez/Ohtani ($98)
• Robert Beckman: Slot 15 — Ohtani/Ramírez ($98)
• Jason Santeiu: Slot 13 — Ohtani/Judge ($104)
• Eric Drescher: Slot 11 — Ohtani/Castillo ($67)
• Jason Santeiu: Slot 15 — Ohtani/De La Cruz ($97)

NFBC Main Event FAAB No. 18: Muted Bids at the Break

In FAAB 18 Sunday, spending stayed low. The top 10 widest acquisitions this week are in the chart below, and many Main Event managers (see below) decided that they should follow the lead of George Washington, who in the Revolutionary War crossed the Hudson River — um — I’ll have to double check that … but anyway, they added Daniel Hudson in 45 leagues as he might supplant struggling Dodger closer Evan Phillips. Mr. Hudson attracted an average bid of $24.31. The Nos. 2 and 3 additions were both Victors (I mean, if everyone was so hot on getting a Victor maybe they should have tried Marlins prospect Victor Victor Mesa, currently toiling in AAA?). In any case, Victor Robles is hitting now — in Seattle of all places — and stealing bases as well, and Victor Vodnik sure seems like the closer in Colorado. Those two had average bids of $19.05 and $13.14, respectively. They were followed by Eddie the Eagle Rosario, now back in Atlanta, added in 28 leagues for a bargain $9.75 average. Among the widest 10 pickups, Hudson’s average winning bid of about $24 outpaced the others, as only Robles and Hayden Birdsong exceeded the $15 mark (both at about $19). Outside of the 10 widest pickups, only one additional player (that was added in more than five leagues) attracted relatively high $30-plus average winning bids. That honor fell to Xavier Edwards of the Marlins (average of $31.83 from 6 bids).

NFBC Main Event — Across the Hudson with Double Victor

Winning Bids Over $100 and $200

I’m also keeping tabs on players attracting the highest individual FAAB bids. In the 18th run Sunday (see below), for the first time all year there were zero winning bids over $200. In addition, there were just two winning bids between $100 and $199. The 2 winning bids over $100 were for Jordan Montgomery and Max Meyer, both of whom were added in two leagues.

The Wow Bid of the Week: Monty Was in Python

The highest overall bid in FAAB Week 18 was for Jordan Montgomery of the Diamondbacks, who was unrostered in only two Main Event leagues, and is now 100% rostered. It’s little known, but Jordan starred in the Monty Python and the Holy Grail movie (hence the name of the film), and even played the French knight you see pictured below (and you thought you wouldn’t learn anything from reading this article)! 

Even though the top Montgomery $189 bid was the lowest Wow bid out of the 18 registered so far, it’s not a bad achievement in a way for a pitcher with a 6.44 ERA. In any case, the $189 bid easily beat out the unsuccessful runner-up bid of — wait for it — $5.

The Wow Bids of 2024

• 3/24: Nolan Schanuel $200 (17)
• 3/31: Jason Foley $479 (5)
• 4/7: James McArthur $225 (16)
• 4/14 Brandon Nimmo $578 (3)
• 4/21 Wilyer Abreu $350 (12)
• 4/28 Pete Crow-Armstrong $355 (11)
• 5/5 Christian Scott $677 (Highest)
• 5/12 Taj Bradley $444 (7)
• 519 Reed Garrett $420 (8)
• 5/26 Wyatt Langford $248 (15)
• 6/2 Ben Brown $366 (9)
• 6/9 Blake Snell $360 (10)
• 6/16 Ryne Stanek $261 (14)
• 6/23 Michael Harris $281 (13)
• 6/30 Noelvi Marte $509 (4)
• 7/7 James Wood $462 (6)
• 7/14 Rece Hinds $609 (2)
• 7/21 Jordan Montgomery $189 (18)

FAAB Summary: Break Time

In the 18th FAAB week, Main Event managers successfully made just 1,254 winning bids (about 14% less than last week) at generally low figures, which brought down the overall spending levels. After this week, Main Event managers have now spent approximately $752 of their $1,000 allocation, which remains lower than each of the last three years at the 18-week mark (the three previous years, as you can see below, were all over $800). This year’s Week 18 had spending of about $15 per team, well below the previous three years (in the three previous years the 18th week had spending of about $21-28). So considering there are just nine FAAB runs left, owners still have a lot of money to spend compared to the past (the average Main Event manager can still spend about $28 per week over the final nine weeks).

Total Spent: Main Event Through 18 FAAB Periods

• 2024: $752
• 2023: $877
• 2022: $823
• 2021: $808

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 15th FAAB run, and we had zero good pickups. David Festa and Davis Daniel both had terrible outings and hurt the owners who started them. They were easy thumbs downs. The two hitters did a little better — Jhonkensey Noel batted .261 but didn’t do much else and is not really playing, and Noelvi Marte has two homers but really has underwhelmed (see above). That’s four thumbs down for this week.

The bad week drops the Main Event pickup record for 2024 to below 2023 and 2022 — at least for the time being, with 23 thumbs up (38%), 29 thumbs down and 8 pushes. At least this is still better than the 2021 good pickups mark of 24%, right?

Colosseum Thumbs Up Record

• 2024 thus far: 38%
• 2023: 44%
• 2022: 39%
• 2021: 24%

2024 Colosseum Thumbs Up Players

Overall Leaderboard: Planned Replication 

Clark (the Shark) Olson led after 11 weeks on June 10 and now has come back to lead the overall Main Event for two consecutive weeks. He texted me to tell me that replication is easy for sharks, but as you can see above he may have just overdid it just a tad. In any case, he says there’s now enough sharks in the water to lead the Main Event the rest of the way (Clark, there’s only 10 more weeks in the season, do we really need that many sharks?). Clark also asked me not to be surprised if we only have one name on the leaderboard next week as this pack of sharks (school of sharks?) destroy everything in their path. It doesn’t seem like too much fun to compete against Clark … not at all …

Main Event Leaders in 2024

In second place is — no — come on — but yes — the Amazin’ Jason Santeiu, who not only is in second place this week (up from fourth), but he also has the fourth and 12th ranked overall teams (up from seventh and 21st). However, we can all breathe a sigh of relief, because that trio of teams is now under continuing investigation by the NFBC because an unnamed individual who writes about the Main Event for FTN Fantasy has claimed that there are antitrust unfair competitive practices by Mr. Santeiu. A preliminary hearing was held last week on this legal matter, at which time the judge asked “What’s fantasy baseball?,” so I feel this is going well for the plaintiffs. David — um — Robert Beckman — is now in third place after he was loaned to the NFBC from Manchester United, and he slipped off for a pint of Guinness, causing him to drop down one spot. The rest of the chase pack shows Jason Santeiu again in fourth (not fair) and the fresher Eric Drescher, who famously took a short respite from the competition and fell back from third to fifth place in his newly constructed refrigerated unit. 

The one true King (Brandon King) sits regally in sixth place overall (up from 10th, great work your highness!) and my favorite Martin — Gregg Martin, who zoomed up from 16th to fifth last week is now in seventh overall. The very tough guy to get rid of, Dave Rhydderch, is also moving up — to eighth place from last week’s 13th, Real Neil Petersen sits in ninth place (down from sixth), and the impressive Knute Rockne aficionado Nicholi Knutson resides in 10^th.

The Liberator, Bradley Libros, is in 11th (still claiming he will liberate the masses of downtrodden Main Event managers but he has slipped back from ninth so maybe he’s losing focus on the competition as he prepares his revolution?) and — sigh — Jason Santeiu is 12th. Chris (UR A Monster) is 13th, Alan Mitchell is 14th and Tyler (Welcome to the Jungle) continues his charge — last week he was up to 18th from 31st, and this week he has now surged to 15th.

The man at the cliff’s edge (Kyle Brinkmann) says it’s safe (just don’t look down!) and is in 16th, Jackson The Price is Right is 17th, David DiDonato is 18th, and look at this — the man from upstate New York — Ben Tidd — makes his 2024 debut on the leaderboard at 19th (great job Ben!) followed by “it’s all right” Eric Albright in 20th (up from 27th).

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) – drummer Griffin Benger is in 21st; the magnanimous Brian Magnani is 22nd; 2015 overall champ and former 2024 leader Glenn Schroter is 23rd; Department Store owner Bill Macey is 25th; everyone’s favorite winery king, Chris Boudreaux, is 26th, and FTN star podcaster Jason Anthony is 30th. 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 very impressive, right? I mean, even if you don’t have three teams in the top 12 it’s still pretty good. And remember, three of these teams are under investigation, so there could be further changes.

Top 31: Main Event 2024

League of Legends

Here are the 57 Main Event leagues with the current top three in the standings on the morning of July 22.

Top Three: 2024 Main Event League Leaders

Shout-Outs

The 26 players listed below account for 21 of the 57 first-place positions (37%) and 59 of the 171 total cashing positions (35%). So far, the most outstanding performance across the Main Events belongs to Robert Cramutola with two first-place positions plus two seconds! The next five are not too shabby either: Jason Santeiu has three firsts, Scott Waggener has two firsts and one second; Dominic Rello and Tyler Jung both have two seconds and one third; and Bill Gaffney is doing well with one second and two thirds. Congratulations! But see below, as there are several other fantasy managers doing terrific work!

Notables include:

• Two first, two seconds — Robert Cramutola
• Three first — Jason Santeiu
• Two first, one second — Scott Waggener
• Two seconds, one third — Dominic Rello, Tyler Jung
• One second, two thirds — Bill Gaffney
• Two firsts — Bradley Libros, Michael O’Brien, Anthony Palavis, Chris Uram
• One first; one second – Kyle Brinkmann, Andrew Kopicz, Clark Olson, Dalton Del Don
• One first; one third – Alan Mitchell, Nelson Sousa
• One second, one third — Mike Ballschmiede, Leonard Ringle, Michael Mager, Abdulaziz Madani, Dave Rhydderch
• Two thirds — Jordan Rosenblum, Rusty Clark, James Tomony, David Miller, Matthew Dugan

Good luck to all the competitors in Week 19.