Whitestone’s Waiver Watch: NFBC Main Event (7/24)

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. 

And the Truth Shall Set You Free

MLB Counter = 61.6% of the season complete

For many Main Event managers, they need to establish the truth. Competing for the overall Main Event championship is different from focusing on the league title. In the former situation, you need to keep plugging away in all ten categories, while it is possible to win the league (even a 15-team league) with nine or even eight strong categories. This requires some work but is useful for all rotisserie leagues — even those without an overall component. I know what you’re thinking — you don’t like extra work, right?

But if you are willing to do the work — the key question regarding the chase for an overall title in my view is whether you can compete in both pitching aspects — on the one hand the combination of strikeouts and wins (mostly provided by starting pitchers) as opposed to saves (of course supplied by relievers). If you can do so, you need to make a solid assessment of which of these areas can provide more points week to week but generally play seven starters and two relievers (in your nine pitching roster spots) depending on the players on your roster. However, if you are not in contention, that opens up the possibility of focusing on strikeouts/wins and considering 8-9 starters or trying to accumulate many relievers and trying to move up in saves. The former is easier because you are theoretically pumping up two categories instead of one, but the idea is that you can pick up a bunch of points while not losing so many. It won’t win you the overall — but that’s tough to do anyway. This way you just might win or cash in your league.

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, we will check in on the overall MLB stats. If you glance at the first table below, you see that runs per game is up sharply from 2022, from 4.28 to 4.59. But this statistic has also increased over the past couple of weeks — from 4.56 to 4.59 — as the weather heats up. One driver of this is home runs per game — up of course since last season but also up over the past couple of weeks from 1.16 per game to 1.18. Batting average has not changed over this period, but it remains higher than last year, while stolen bases — which have jumped a great deal with the new rule changes — moved a bit higher to 0.72 per game from 0.71 (and the success rate climbed to 80% from 79% over the past two weeks).

On the pitching side, while the MLB WHIP has remained unchanged but sits higher than 2022, strikeouts per game is up to 8.61 from 8.58 over that same period. Unintentional walks are up over 2022 as well but remained steady over the most recent two weeks. So batters are striking out more but hitting for more power — and putting the ball in play significantly less than last season — not exactly what MLB had in mind…

Most Common FAAB Pickups in the Main Event: CES-T LA VIE

The 10 widest acquisitions are in the chart below and feature another Cincinnati call-up Christian Encarnacion-Strand as the top acquisition. I know what you’re thinking — he’s not first on the list! OK, you’re right. Kevin Ginkel was added in all 53 leagues, so technically he gets the top spot. But that’s because CES was already rostered in three leagues — he was the big target in the other 50 (and I’d venture to say, in most weekly FAAB leagues this week). Ginkel, for his part, did generate a lot of interest after saving two games for the Diamondbacks as managers hope he can solve any issues they have in the save category, but there were 40 bids over $100 this week and CES accounted for 32 of them (and Ginkel none). After those two, Sal Frelick of Milwaukee was the next big thing — as he got five bids over $100 and a high bid of $159. The remaining players were a mix with high bids of $15-62, with five starting pitchers included. 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 18th FAAB run (see below), there were eight successful bids of $200-plus — all for CES, as I mentioned — and 40 winning bids over $100 (29 were for CES or Frelick). As you can see below, we’ve had 539 total winning bids over $200 (which may be about the final total) and 1,341 total $100-plus winning bids in the first 18 weeks of FAAB. Therefore, of the 795 Main Event managers, two-thirds (67.8%) on average have had one $200-plus winning bid, and each owner on average has had 1-2 (1.69 to be exact) winning bids over $100. So it seems — on average — each Main Event manager only takes a couple of high-end players during the season.

The Wow Bid of the Week

So, who attracted the highest single bid of the week? The highest winning bid was for Christian Encarnacion-Strand of course – with the winning bid of $283, easily beating the $167 runner-up amount.

• 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
• 7/16 Aroldis Chapman $316
• 7/23 Christian Encarnacion-Strand $283

FAAB Summary

In the first 18 FAAB weeks, Main Event managers have had 26,884 winning bids (so each Main Event team has won 33.8 bids on average YTD – 1.87 per week). But notably, the activity level has dropped the past three weeks, with only 1,000-1,300 winning bids (before, it was steadily above 1,500). In terms of spending, managers have now parted with, on average, $877 of their $1,000 allocation. Comparing that to the last two years at the 17-week mark, that’s more than the $823 spent in 2022 and the $808 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 five weeks ago – from $65 spent per team to $28. Since then, it has been at a lower ebb, but this week CES helped that number surge up to $21.97. Main Event managers don’t have too much room to maneuver after this week though, and with 27 FAAB periods and $877 spent in 18 weeks, managers who have an average amount left have just $13.67 per week for all their winning bids over the final nine weeks of the campaign.

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 15th FAAB period. Jordan Westburg of the Orioles leads us off and has provided a decent average but limited counting stats. He gets a PUSH from the emperor. Kolby Allard just didn’t work out — providing 7.2 forgettable innings before going on the 60-day IL. That is a thumbs down for sure. Graham Ashcraft is interesting — his K:BB ratio is rather uninspiring, but he does have two wins and a nice shiny ERA and WHIP since his main pickup date. Although I have questions about whether he can keep this up, in the context of a 15-team league he is a thumbs up. Finally, Keaton Winn is an easy thumbs down — he had one outing of four innings before being sent down so he was not an ideal pickup.

This now gives us 27 thumbs ups for the season thus far (45%), 22 down (37%) and 11 pushes (18%). That’s better than 2022, which registered a 39% thumbs up on these weekly pickups, and well ahead of 2021 (24%). 

Overall Leaderboard: Erik the Red

Erik Thorvaldsson, known as Erik the Red, was a Norse explorer, described in medieval and Icelandic saga sources as having founded the first European settlement in Greenland. And we are now entering the 5th consecutive week that Eric Christenson has emulating his hero Erik the Red. Can he hold on for the rest of the season? According to Eric, “This is a hell of a lot easier than taking over Greenland — which isn’t so green I must tell you….”

Eric’s lead is now 120 points, but remember — there are a lot of good players behind him. But as Eric points out, “How many of them had Leif Erikson as a mentor?”

In the overall top 30 standing below, we find — gulp — John Pausma now in second place overall (he was way back in 15th last week!) just ahead of Brandon King. Steve Maier — who led for four weeks — is currently holed up in fourth, and Clark Olson and Michael Mager lurk in fifth and sixth, respectively. Rey Diaz moves from eighth to seventh this week, and Bob Catsiroumpas is in eighth. The story of the last week just might be Andrew Sullivan though, as he jumped from 30th place all the way to ninth — wow — excellent work! Michael Kurland, who led six weeks ago, is 10th and remains the people’s choice based on a variety of statistics I am not authorized to cite.

It’s also worth mentioning that Michael Mager also has the 24th place overall team (wow), and Kyle Brinkmann and Scott Gilbert are in solid contention in 11th and 12th. One of my favorite duos, Brian Slack and Nickolaus Sackett is in 13th (known as Slack and Sack), but other fantasy managers to watch out for include Nelson Sousa in 14th; David Miller in 15th; and Gregg Martin, who is 16th and 30th overall.

There are a lot of other strong contenders in the top 30 list. Just take a look at the standings below, and with 38% of the season left, anything can most certainly 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 75th (and 81st) overall and is really in good shape, after having been as far back as 275th place (out of 795 total). He’s still got work to do to get in serious contention for the overall title, but he’s making me a little nervous I must say…

Robert Cramutola: Bob edged up to 160th from 182nd and says he WILL move forward with his planned press conference before the trade deadline to discuss options, he’s just waiting for the all-clear from Greg Ambrosius to do so.

League of Legends

Shoutouts

John Pausma is still cashing in the most Main Event leagues of any player, and he is now back in a top-three position in all five. This is impressive, John. Danny Bronski continues to lead two Main Event leagues and is second in yet another, while Clark Olson has two firsts, and one third place. Scott Waggener is leading one while second in two more and SLACK/SACK has one first, one second and one third in the name of equal opportunity. Dalton Del Don — who usually rosters 25-30 pitchers on his roster, has one first and two thirds, while Jason Santeiu has one second and two third places. Those seven fantasy players have seven first-place positions, eight second-place and seven third-place positions. Excellent job gentlemen!

Eighteen other players are in two cashing spots, with Michael Mager and Gregg Martin each winning two leagues. In fact, these 25 Main Event fantasy owners below have a combined 20 first-place positions (38%) and 59 cashing spots (37% 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, Bronski, Olson, Waggener, Slack/Sackett, Del Don and Santeiu. But remember who discovered Greenland, fellows! But don’t be afraid — we all still have $123 to spend!

Good luck during Week 19.