Fantasy Baseball 2025: The $5K MTM Ultimate Draft

Saturday, I had the pleasure of participating in the MTM Ultimate draft in Robbinsville, N.J. For many years, the Ultimate draft was held in New York City as the premier event in the NFBC’s East Coast live offerings. Last year, the league’s draft was moved to Robbinsville as a standalone event while the remainder of the NFBC’s live drafts took place in Las Vegas.

For 2025, the NFBC held the “Godfather Games” in Robbinsville, with two Auction Championship drafts, two Main Event drafts and culminating with the Ultimate draft. As the first high-stakes standalone draft, the Ultimate may be of interest to subscribers competing in Las Vegas this week or participating in online or home league drafts.

Setting the Stage

First, let’s cover the basics. The MTM Ultimate is a 15-team league with a 30-round draft and weekly FAAB. The league has a $5,000 entry fee and prizes of $40,000 for first place, $20,000 for second and $7,500 for third. Unlike the Auction Championship and Main Event contests, the Ultimate is a standalone league, meaning there is no overall component. Thus, all fantasy managers care about is their standing within the league, and thus, there is less pressure to draft a well-balanced team. During this league’s history, managers have often elected to punt a category (or two) in an effort to maximize points in other categories.

The MTM Ultimate is, without question, my favorite league. Other than the very high stakes, what makes it special? Well, a number of things, and all of them are thanks to the tremendous efforts of Mike “The Mouth” (hence, the “MTM”) Massotto (@GodfatherNFBC on X), for whom this league is a true labor of love. Massotto somehow has managed to marry, successfully, an ultra-competitive, high-stakes league with the feel of a local home league. Managers assemble well before the draft to get ready and catch up with one another. Mike ensures that there are plenty of drinks, food and snacks (including Cracker Jacks and Big League Chew!) for all participants. Mike gifts all new league participants with a custom MTM Ultimate baseball jersey. The proceedings then move to awarding the huge league trophy, engraved with the names of all prior winners up through the reigning champion, who “owns” that trophy for a year. I captured the league trophy in 2017 and was fortunate enough to win the league last year, ending an incredible – and unprecedented – three-year reign by Scott Fleming, one of the NFBC’s very best managers.