Whitestone’s Waiver Watch: NFBC Main Event

The MLB season is flying into the heart of June.  Below you’ll find insight into the minds of NFBC managers as the season pushes onward.

SAVE YOUR RATIOS LIKE HORATIO

MLB COUNTER = 40.5% of the season complete

We are now just about 40% through the MLB season, and it’s time to talk about pitching ratios. This discussion reminded me of the first ratio fighter – Horatio –  Horatius Cocles – the Roman hero of the late 6th century – who first with two companions and finally alone defended the Sublician bridge in Rome against Lars Porsena (similar to Lars Nootbaar?) and the entire Etruscan army, thereby giving the Romans time to cut down the bridge. You remember the Etruscans, don’t you? I believe they were the predecessors to the Kansas City Athletics back in the day…good offense, no pitching.

In any case, according to the legend, Horatio had worries about his pitching ratios, and took it out on the Etruscans in heroic fashion. Sometimes we can all feel a little like that when our starter goes one-third of an inning and gives up seven earned runs. Am I right, friends? 

In examining the trend of pitching ratios in recent years (but after the 6th century), you can see that pitching ratios were improving – both from 2019 to 2021 AND from 2021 to 2022 as pitchers continued to get more and more of an upper hand.

DO YOU HAVE RATIOS OF 3.71 AND 1.21? (THEN YOU ARE AT THE MAIN EVENT 80% OVERALL TARGET LEVELS)

But how do these ratio levels compare to 2023? Over the years I have examined the 80% level (achieving a total that provides 80% of the contest points for that category), since achieving the 80% threshold in your fantasy baseball contest not only will give you a strong level of rotisserie points in your fantasy baseball league, but in the case of the NFBC will place you in contention for the overall prizes as well (assuming you can achieve this for all ten roto categories).

Below are the 80% ratio targets for the past few seasons: it took a 3.85 ERA and 1.20 WHIP to be at 80% in the rabbit ball year of 2019. Those levels improved to 3.65 and 1.16 by the next full year of 2021, and then jumped again to 3.38 and 1.14 last year. But what is the correct level in 2023? This year, fantasy owners – thus far – need an ERA and WHIP of 3.71 and 1.21 to hit the 80% mark. If so, ERA would be 9.6% worse than 2022, 1.6% worse than 2021 and just 3.6% better than the heavy offense year of 2019. And WHIP would be 5.5% worse than 2022, 3.5% worse than 2021 and virtually even with 2019. If you’re in a 15-team league, I’d suggest comparing your ratios to these new levels to see if you are running ahead or behind in these categories. 

Here are the up-to-date targets for the categories we’ve gone over to date – on the left is the current amount to be at 80% and on the right is the projected straight-line value if the current pace continues for the remainder of 2023.

I’ve also updated the runs scored, home runs and batting average for this year (through Sunday, June 11th), and they are shown below compared to the 2017-2022 period. There’s been no real movement over the past week, but you can see that offensive stats are up and stolen bases are up to .72 per game from the much lower .51 per game last year. In the second chart below, the only change over the past week was that that strikeouts edged down to 8.56 per game from 8.59 (but strikeouts and walks are still up sharply from last season).

Most Common FAAB Pickups in the Main Event: Cruzin’ With Elly

The 10 widest acquisitions are in the chart below, and Elly De La Cruz was the big story – even though he was held in 7 Main Event leagues before Sunday. Nevertheless, he was added in the remaining leagues at some mind-boggling amounts – particularly considering that owners were already looking at reduced FAAB levels before the weekend.  Elly cruised to a high of $650 and the lowest successful winning bid was a still-substantial $258. De La Cruz attracted 11 bids over $500; 20 between $400-499; and 14 more between $300-399. But he wasn’t the only one attracting attention. His teammate Andrew Abbott, was added in all 53 leagues for a high of $375, and AJ Smith-Shawver – newly appointed to the Atlanta rotation – was added in all 53 leagues for a high of $229.

THE CENTURY CLUB

In the 12th FAAB run (see below), there were 58 $200-plus successful bids (up from 29) – with 46 of these 58 for Elly De La Cruz (9 were for Abbott and 2 were for Smith-Shawver). As you can see below, we’ve now had 524 total winning bids over $200 (and 1180 total $100+ winning bids) in the first twelve weeks of FAAB.

 The Wow Bid of the Week 

So, who attracted the highest single bid of the week? Of course it is no surprise that the highest winning bid was for Elly De La Cruz. And against all odds the winning bid for Elly was the highest bid of the year – a tidy $650. This easily beat the $352 second place bid in that league. Wow. Just wow.

• 3/26: Darick Hall $221
• 4/2: Dany Jiménez $363
• 4/9 Oscar Colás $372
• 4/16 Taj Bradley $557
• 4/23 José Alvarado $399
• 4/30 Tanner Bibee $504
• 5/7 Bryce Miller $468
• 5/14 Eury Pérez $415
• 5/21 Bobby Miller $329
• 5/28 Bobby Miller $412
• 6/4 Royce Lewis $429
• 6/11 Elly De La Cruz $650

Rookie Starting Pitcher Update

I’m just fascinated by the regularity and amounts spent on rookie starting pitchers this year – so I updated the chart of high-profile free agent adds in this category (please note the stats are not the full season stats but the ones generated since they passed their NFBC pickup date). The best of the bunch thus far appears to be Bobby Miller and Eury Pérez – but there are several solid adds – Taj Bradley; Louie Varland; Tanner Bibee; Logan Allen; and Bryce Miller. This is contrasted, however, with Brandon Pfaadt; Mason Miller; and Matthew Liberatore – who left something to be desired…

FAAB Summary

In the first 12 FAAB weeks, Main Event owners have had 18,819 winning bids (so each Main Event team has won 23.7 bids on average YTD – roughly two per week) and spent – get this – about $750 of their $1,000 allocation. Comparing that to the last two years at the 8-week mark, that’s more than the $646 spent in 2022 AND the $648 spent two years ago. You can see in the chart below (the average amount spent per team column) that there was $65.35 spent per team this week – much higher than the past three weeks (thanks Elly). I CONTINUE TO BELIEVE that this will drop precipitously in the but who knows anymore? But with 27 FAAB periods and $750 spent in 12 weeks, owners who have an average amount left are going to have to average $16.67 per week for ALL their winning bids over the final 15 weeks of the campaign. Anyone have some FAAB coupons?

The Colosseum

Each week during the season, I 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. In the chart below, you can see the results from the 9th FAAB period.  Matthew Liberatore leads us off and has faltered a bit; stumbling to a 8.00 ERA – he gets a thumbs down from the emperor of course. Then we have one of the best pickups of the season – Matt McLain. He’s hitting a lusty .372 with 2 homers, 2 steals and plenty of counting stats. He gets a thumbs up for sure. Brandon Williamson though has not worked out – as his ERA and WHIP are almost at Liberatore territory – so he is sent to the thumbs down pile. Then we have the curious case of Edouard Julien. The average is OK but he hasn’t really gotten the at bats because he was sent down. We could argue that many owners that added him dropped him but maybe a few held on? Anyway, the jury is still out on Edouard as he’s back up for the Twins now. Maybe he will catch fire this time around. He is awarded a Push for this confusing situation.

This now gives us 14 thumbs up for the season thus far (39%), 16 down (44%), and 6 pushes (17%). That’s about even with 2022, which registered a 39% thumbs up on these weekly pickups, and well ahead of 2021 (24%). 

Overall Leaderboard: One if By Kurland; Two if By Sea

Well lookee here! In first place overall we find that great Revolutionary War buff Michael Kurland  – who reported to me that the history books have the Paul Revere saying incorrectly recorded (the correct saying is above).  We may have to double check this statement, but in any case Mike jumped from 4th place into the overall lead and even though his cushion is a relatively small 68.0 points I for one am highly impressed with Mike’s performance and commitment (rumor has it that he is riding though Boston this weekend yelling “John Pausma is coming! John Pausma is coming!”).

In the overall top thirty standing below, we find Steve Maier looming in second place (and not happy about losing his grip on first), and a meteoric rise for Gregg Martin (17th last week – now 3rd overall!). Eric Christenson has been VERY consistent – and moves slowly but surely up the leaderboard (now he’s 4th from 5th last week). Jeff Tudor (who led after week 7) is in 5th; Clark Olson is 6th (and 26th!); Michael Mager is 7th AND 8th place (great job Michael). My hero Brandon King moved from 10th to 9th; and Ari Benjamin jumped into the top 30 at 10th overall!

Among the other top-30 contenders, I have my eye on experienced professionals Mark Srebro (11th) and Andrew Geller (12th); Mr. Pitching Dalton Del Don in 13th; Stephen Fiore in 14th; and David Hubbard in 15th. John Pausma – the great John Pausma – holds down 16th AND 17th AND 21st – just waiting for the opportune moment to swoop up even higher. Ned Donohue is also biding his time in 18th and 28th – we know he is a real threat for the title! However, all of these thirty are doing fantastic work and should be commended for their performance thus far!

Champions Update

I like to keep tabs on our recent Overall Champions, because they have proven their mettle over long, difficult campaigns and therefore MUST be threats to do so again.

Philippe Dussault: After weeks of insults, Philippe is now serious. First he shot up to 201st from 275th place (out of 795 total) two weeks ago, then last week to 187th! This week? It’s 160th overall. He is repeating his mantra that he is dedicating this season to “defending the integrity of his spreadsheet,” and says anyone that mocks it is due for a rude awakening. Yikes.

Robert Cramutola: Bob had a rough week – dropping from 56th to 206th. Wow. Bob reports that he is STILL SURE that he will win the overall championship again this season. But when I asked why he is dropping down the standings instead of moving up, he changed the subject and said that fantasy football is really a great game…

League of Legends

 Shout-Outs

BRANDON KING IS STILL OUR HERO! Brandon is the ONLY fantasy player able to lead John Pausma in the Main Event – so Mr. Pausma is therefore ONLY leading four Main Event leagues out of five (and he is second in the fifth – pretty embarrassing, right John?). Michael Mager and Ned Donohue both have two first place Main Event positions and one second place. And Danny Bronski is also leading two leagues and third in another. In addition, the quartet of Clark Olson, Kyle Brinkmann, Nelson Sousa and Scott Waggener each have three teams in cashing positions. Those eight fantasy players have 12 first place positions; 10 second place; and 4 third place – wow. Excellent job gentlemen!

Eighteen other players are in two cashing spots, with Gregg Martin and flash-in-the-pan Todd Whitestone (who?) holding two first place positions. In fact, these 26 Main Event stars below have a combined 22 first place positions (42%) and 62 cashing spots (39% of the 159 total available). There’s a long way to go of course, but right now the story of the season in the Main Event is Pausma, Mager, Donohue, Bronski and Olson – even if the North Church is showing one light (right Michael?). So let’s all sit back and watch Paul Revere ride through town as we ponder how to make $250 last for 15 more weeks of FAAB!

 Good luck during Week 13!