Whitestone’s Waiver Watch: NFBC Main Event (7/10)

Welcome to my weekly NFBC Main Event recap article. Each week, I’ll dig into the top free agents added in this premier fantasy baseball contest, letting you know who was added in the most leagues, how much money was spent and more. In addition, we’ll revisit the top pickups from three weeks ago and even scan the Main Event overall standings to see who’s at the top. 

For many Main Event owners, it’s a good time for a break. They can reassess their teams, consider their FAAB remaining, and calmly plan for the future (as shown below). This certainly is not the case for the Main Event stars – John Pausma, Clark Olson, Danny Bronski, Michael Mager, Steve Maier, and of course Eric Christenson. They don’t need a break (although Michael Mager told me in confidence that he will be one of the American League reserves in Seattle Tuesday night).

MLB Counter = 55.8% of the season complete

Updated MLB Stats

I am alternating the overall MLB pitching and hitting stats with the 80% Main Event target update in this section moving forward – since there is less movement in the numbers now. This week I’ve updated the runs scored, home runs and batting average for this year (through Sunday, July 9th) from two weeks ago, and they are shown below compared to the 2017-2022 period. Over the past couple of weeks, runs per game have edged up just a little to 4.57 (from 4.55) and home runs have supplied most of this rise as they are now at 1.16 (from 1.14 a couple of weeks back). Batting average is steady at .248 – so even though the new rules have added some points to overall batting average (from .243 last season), I’m still not overly impressed with the MLB batting average as a whole. Stolen bases edged downwards to .72 per game from .73, but I’d consider that more of a success – and the success rate is strong at 79%. This is still a remarkable shift from the .51 stolen bases per game from just a season ago, and you can see in the picture below how easy it is to steal.

In the second chart below, the pitching stats show that strikeouts are higher than last year (now at 8.58 from 8.59 two weeks back), which of course is a big rebound from the 8.40 of last year. However, the unintentional walks per game – now at 3.25 from 3.06 last season – improved from two weeks ago (3.28) but still seems to have bounced back to 2021 levels. Perhaps this is an outgrowth of the pitch clock, but it means that the league-wide K:BB ratio is worse than 2022 despite more strikeouts.

Most Common FAAB Pickups in the Main Event: Some Cowsers Think They are Coltons

The 10 widest acquisitions are in the chart below, and feature another Baltimore call-up as the top acquisition. Colton Cowser, outfielder for Baltimore, was added in all 53 leagues and was one of only two top-10 players to get over $100 as the highest winning bid – the other was Tarik Skubal of DET. After those two, it was a mix of players with high bids of $9-44, with two possible closer candidates – Daniel Bard and Tanner Scott. However, the bidding is a lot more spread out, as fantasy managers try to fit acquisitions into their needs to help the most important categories for their individual fantasy teams.

The Century Club

In the 16th FAAB run (see below), there were just two $200-plus successful bids for the second time this season – one each for Cowser and Skubal – and only 35 winning bids over $100 (33 of these were for Skubal). As you can see below, we’ve had 530 total winning bids over $200 (which may be about the final total) and 1,295 total $100+ winning bids in the first 16 weeks of FAAB. It’s interesting to think that of the 795 Main Event owners, two-thirds on average have had one $200-plus winning bid, and each owner on average has had 1-2 $100-199 winning bids. Some owners have gone more “stars and scrubs” and have more than one $200 player, while others haven’t gone above $200 at all and are content with $100 and below.

The Wow Bid of the Week

So, who attracted the highest single bid of the week? The highest winning bid was for Colton Cowser – with the top winning bid of $225 EASILY beating the $11 runner-up amount. This was the second lowest WOW bid of the year  – only higher than last week’s $177 for Jordan Westburg. The only other bid over $200 this week was a $205 bid for Tarik Skubal.

• 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
• 6/18 Emmet Sheehan $178
• 6/25 Gavin Williams $228 (2)
• 7/2 Jordan Westburg $177
• 7/9 Colton Cowser $225 

FAAB Summary

In the first 15 FAAB weeks, Main Event owners have had 24,595 winning bids (so each Main Event team has won 30.9 bids on average YTD – roughly two per week). But notably, the activity level has dropped the past two weeks, with only 1313 and 1386 winning bids (before it was steadily above 1500). In terms of spending, owners have now parted with – on average – $843 of their $1,000 allocation. Comparing that to the last two years at the 16-week mark, that’s more than the $781 spent in 2022 and the $758 spent two years ago. You can see in the chart below (the average amount spent per team column) that there was a huge drop in weekly spending four weeks ago – from $65 spent per team to $28, and after holding steady at that $28 level, it’s now down to $17-20. But with 27 FAAB periods and $843 spent in 16 weeks, owners who have an average amount left are going to have to economize even further by averaging $14.27 per week for all their winning bids over the final 11 weeks of the campaign. Be careful out there!

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 11th FAAB period.  Emmet Sheehan of the Dodgers leads us off and he’s provided two wins, but a disappointing ERA and WHIP. He gets a PUSH from the emperor because he could do better but hasn’t shown it yet. Luis Matos of the Giants, however, did not perform as well and gave fantasy owners negligible counting stats. He is a thumbs down as a FAAB acquisition. Jordan Hicks of the Cardinals, on the other hand, has been good.  He has five saves in three weeks with a nice K:BB ratio and WHIP and is awarded with a thumbs up. Finally, Samad Taylor was sent down and then recalled – but to date has not provided the batting average or steals needed to be a solid pickup. This is another thumbs down from the emperor.

This now gives us 23 thumbs up for the season thus far (44%), 20 down (38%) and 9 pushes (17%). That’s better than 2022, which registered a 39% thumbs up on these weekly pickups, and well ahead of 2021 (24%). 

Overall Leaderboard: The Third Crusade for Christenson

Remember that the Crusades were a SERIES of religious wars initiated, supported and sometimes directed by the Christian Latin Church in the medieval period? And even though crusading declined rapidly after the 15th century, Eric Christenson believes that each week for the rest of the season will be another “Crusade for Christenson.” Even though Eric doesn’t appear friendly (see below), he says he is ready to embark upon a series of – is this right – baseball podcasts as a sort of crusade. Wow – if only they had thought of this back in the 1100’s!

In the overall top 30 standing below, we find our hero Brandon King (because he was the first to pull ahead of John Pausma in league standings) now in second place overall and Steve Maier – who has led for four separate weeks – now in 3rd. Michael Mager is solidly in 4th (and he also has the 16th-place overall team) and superstar fantasy manager Clark Olson is in 5th. Bob Catsiroumpas – who made a determined charge for the overall Main Event title in 2022 – is in 6th and Michael Kurland – who led four weeks ago – has bounced back to 7th place. Great job, Mike! Scott Waggener is in 8th – you can see he is dominating his leagues later in this article, Rey Diaz is 9th, and the leader from week 7  – Jeff Tudor  – is 10th. It is also worth mentioning that the great John Pausma is now 11th and Nelson Sousa – who is great at ALL fantasy sports apparently – is 12th. Then there is one of my favorite duos – the opera singers Robert Mirshak and Ian Kahn. Those boys are good (and musical!).

Other fantasy managers to watch out for include David Miller in 14th; Dalton Del Don in 15th; and Gregg Martin – who in 17th AND 23rd overall. 

There are a lot of other strong contenders in the top 30 list. Just take a look at the standings below, and with more than half of the season left, anything can happen.

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: Philippe is back and re-sent me a message from his lawyers informing me that I get no credit for his rise toward the top. Phil has steadily climbed from 275th place (out of 795 total) now to 66th. Nice work Phil! But you ALREADY won the Main Event so you aren’t going to do it again. Right? Right?? Phil????

Robert Cramutola: Bob is now in 169th from 135th last week. Bob says he STILL will have a press conference before the trade deadline to discuss options, but says he is going to blame the media for most of his problems in the first half.

League of Legends

Shout-Outs

John Pausma is still cashing in all five Main Event leagues but he doesn’t LEAD all five like he did early in the season – nevertheless, I must admit that he is having a great campaign. Nelson Sousa is in a cashing position in four Main Event leagues and is making quite a name for himself in baseball – and he tells me confidentially that he is great in football. Danny Bronski continues to lead two Main Event leagues and is second in yet another, while Scott Waggener is leading one while placing second in two. Clark Olson and the tag team of Brian Slack and Nickolaus Sackett have a first, a second and a third place in the name of equal opportunity. And Ned Donohue has one first and two thirds. Those seven fantasy players have 8 first-place positions; 9 second-place and 7 third-place. Excellent job gentlemen!

Seventeen other players are in two cashing spots, with Jason Anthony, Michael Mager and Gregg Martin each winning two leagues. In fact, these 24 Main Event fantasy owners below have a combined 23 first-place positions (43%) and 56 cashing spots (35% 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, Sousa, Bronski, Waggener, Olson, Slack/Sackett and Donohue. But remember, it’s the THIRD crusade this week! So with $157 average FAAB remaining, let’s get ready to economize in the second half!

Good luck during Week 17!