Whitestone’s Waiver Watch: NFBC Main Event (7/31)

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.

Let’s Take a Trip Back

Please note: The next two weeks I’ll be away on vacation, so this article will be primarily limited to an update of the regular statistics and will not include individual league standings.

MLB Counter = 65.3% of the season complete

Main Event owners are a confident lot, and they are especially sure of who they want to draft in the first round in March (me included!). So I decided to look back and see how the first-round ADP has performed thus far in 2023. What if we knew then what we know now?

Stats through Thursday July 27

Hitters: Batting Average; Home Runs; Steals
Pitchers: Strikeouts; Wins; WHIP

1. Ronald Acuña Jr. .327/23/48 simply outstanding 
2. Trea Turner .245/10/21 steals OK but a disappointment
3. Aaron Judge .291/19/3 injury has derailed value
4. Julio Rodríguez .250/17/23 pretty good – average could rise
5. José Ramírez .292/16/13 solid production
6. Shohei Ohtani .299/36/12 AND 148/8/1.12 wow, just wow
7. Kyle Tucker .304/18/19 quiet but deadly
8. Bo Bichette .316/17/3 not running but power and average
9. Gerrit Cole 144/9/1.08 excellent overall
10. Bobby Witt Jr. .250/16/28 average weak but power and steals
11. Corbin Burnes 131/9/1.04 coming on lately
12. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. .272/17/4 slightly underwhelming thus far
13. Mookie Betts .277/27/7 power excellent – makes up for limited steals
14. Spencer Strider 199/11/1.09 strikeouts galore
15. Manny Machado .257/20/3 homers are the calling card

Outstanding: Ohtani; Acuna
Excellent: Strider; Betts; Tucker; Ramirez; Cole
Solid: Rodriguez; Witt; Bichette; Burnes
Disappointing: Guerrero; Machado; Turner; Judge

As you can see, there were some major differences in how these players have performed year to date. Those owners who landed Ohtani or Acuna are in much better shape than those who rostered a more disappointing option. However, I’d have to say that even the four disappointing players haven’t tanked the season – it’s possible to rebound given they’ve provided some decent statistics. It just has taken a little more work. Surprising, right?

Updated 80% Targets

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 those 80% levels for the year to date in the NFBC Main Event.

Below are the updated 80% targets. You can check in on your Main Event squads (and probably most of your 15-team leagues) to see if you are ahead or behind these paces. The numbers are all pretty stable from a couple of weeks ago, but there are a few interesting trends. Home runs are aiming at 302 instead of 298, and steals are down ever so slightly to 185 from 187. Batting average continues to drop in the Main Event – the 80% target was .2608 four weeks ago – then .2603 two weeks ago. It’s now .2599. 

Strikeouts have dropped to a projected end-of-year total of 1,440 from 1,454 two weeks ago. And the ERA and WHIP ratios are higher – now sitting at 3.77 and 1.21 from 3.73 and 1.20.

Most Common FAAB Pickups in the Main Event: Raley Roaded

The 10 widest acquisitions are in the chart below and feature a closer speculation candidate at the top, Brooks Raley, who got the first post-David Robertson save for the Mets. A lot is still up in the air in the Mets bullpen, as Raley himself could be on the move by Tuesday. Matt Wallner has been hitting well for Minnesota. He was 4-for-23 but all four of his hits were home runs! Gregory Santos leads the closer options in Chicago right now, and he would have been higher on this list but he was already owned in nine of the 53 Main Event leagues before this weekend. Then the late news of C.J. Cron’s trade caused renewed interest in Michael Toglia, who just might be the regular first baseman in Colorado for the rest of the season. 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 19th FAAB run (see below), there were zero $200+ successful bids for the second time this season and just two winning bids over $100 (Giovanny Gallegos and Ryan Mountcastle). As you can see below, we’ve had 539 total winning bids over $200 and 1,343 total $100+ winning bids in the first 19 weeks of FAAB.Therefore, of the 795 Main Event owners, 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 owner 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 Giovanny Gallegos, who might be the closer for the Cardinals, with the winning bid of $155, easily beating the $19 runner-up amount. Nevertheless, it’s the lowest WOW bid of the season, as owners are down to the last nickels and dimes.

• 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
• 7/30 Giovanny Gallegos $155

FAAB Summary

In the first 19 FAAB weeks, Main Event owners have had 28,224 winning bids (so each Main Event team has won 35.5 bids on average YTD – 1.87 per week). But notably, the activity level has dropped the past five weeks, with only 1,000-1,300 winning bids (before it was steadily above 1,500). In terms of spending, owners have now parted with, on average, $889 of their $1,000 allocation. Comparing that to the last two years at the 17-week mark, that’s more than the $846 spent in 2022 and the $852 spent two years ago. However, the gap has narrowed a bit as the spending in 2023 is constricted. In the prior two years, owners had a little more running room. 

You can see in the chart below (the average amount spent per team column) that there was a huge drop in weekly spending six weeks ago – from $65 spent per team to $28. Since then, it has been at a lower ebb, but except for last week’s blip ($21.97), we now are in the low double-digits (this week $12.24), and it just might be in the single-digits next week. With 27 FAAB periods and $889 spent in 19 weeks, owners who have an average amount left ($111) have just $13.88 per week for ALL their winning bids over the final nine weeks of the campaign. And one more note – the last two years an average of $58 went unspent because of teams that fell out of their league races. If that holds for 2023, there really is only $53 per team remaining for the active Main Event owners. That would leave just $6.63 per week for the average team. Yikes.

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. Colton Cowser of the Orioles leads us off and has provided, well, not very much. An easy thumbs down for the emperor. Tarik Skubal, though, is a more difficult call. He had one fantastic start, one mediocre one (yesterday) and one poor start. The ERA is ugly, but the WHIP is serviceable and the K:BB ratio is very encouraging. He gets a PUSH from the emperor. Daniel Bard just didn’t work out – providing 6.2 forgettable innings with no saves. That is a thumbs down for sure. Finally, Mike Ford supplied three home runs, but the batting average and counting stats since his pickup date have not been helpful. This leaves him on the emperor’s thumbs down list as well.

This now gives us 27 thumbs up for the season thus far (42%), 25 down (39%) and 12 pushes (19%). That’s better than 2022, which registered a 39% thumbs up on these weekly pickups, and well ahead of 2021 (24%) – but not as strong as it was just a week ago.

Overall Leaderboard: Let’s PAUSMA

John Pausma – the great John Pausma – has ordered a temporary halt in the proceedings. He has worked his way back up to the top spot and says everyone should just “Hold your places!” Hey John, it’s one thing to surge up to first place, but you can’t make everyone stop trying. Anyway, for this one week we’ll humor him and pause for a moment (at least until Monday night’s games).

Eric Christenson (Erik the Red, for those following along) had his five-week reign of terror ended by John but sent a cable from Greenland that he is not done with first place just yet. Rey Diaz has his sights on the top spot as well. He pushed up from 7th to 3rd this week. The guy I’m worried about, Clark Olson, is 4th now. He was 5th last week and has a strategy of gaining one position per week. David Miller is another threat. He was 15th last week and is now all the way up in 5th. Brandon King is in solid position in 6th, and Michael Mager lurks in 7th (and 21st). Former leader Steve Maier is in 8th, and the operatic duo of Robert Mirshak and Ian Kahn is now 9th – they weren’t even in the top 30 last week! Bob Catsiroumpas is now 10th and is not out of the race by any means.

Kyle Brinkmann and Jody Ryan are in solid contention in 11th and 12th, Gregg Martin is 13th, Bill Gaffney is now 14th and the people’s choice, Michael Kurland, is now 15th.

There are a lot of other strong contenders in the top 30 list, including some guy in 28th who might just be a little fortunate to be there. Just take a look at the standings below, and with 35% 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, exactly where he was last week, 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 “capable of winning it all” (this quote was forwarded to me by Phil).

Robert Cramutola: Bob edged up to 156th from 160th and says he will move forward with his planned press conference before the trade deadline to discuss options, he’s just waiting for the major announcement from the Phillies on Tuesday on their three player acquisitions.

League of Legends

Shout-Outs

John Pausma is not only leading the Main Event, he 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 and Clark Olson lead two Main Event leagues and are second in yet another, while Scott Waggener is leading one while placing third in two more. Those four fantasy players have six first-place positions; five second-place and three third-place positions. Excellent job gentlemen!

Eighteen other players are in two cashing spots, with Michael Mager, Jason Anthony and Gregg Martin each winning two leagues. In fact, these 22 Main Event fantasy owners below have a combined 21 first-place positions (40%) and 50 cashing spots (31% 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 and Waggener. So let’s pause before Monday night’s games at John’s request and consider how we’re going to spend that last $111 (maybe guitar lessons?)!

Good luck during Week 20!