Whitestone’s Waiver Watch: NFBC Main Event (8/12)

Almost Three Quarters

MLB Counter = 73.0% of the season complete

There are now seven weeks left in the season (and we’ve played about 75% based on games played), so it’s time to take a look at a few more of the closest races in Main Event leagues at this point of the season. There are 57 Main Event leagues, and of course some of them have one fantasy manager way out in front, while others have perhaps two owners who have separated themselves from the other 13 competitors. But there are a few that have up to half the league still in the hunt, and those are the most fun to break down. We’ll look at four leagues again this week, so let’s see how close they really are.

NFBC Main Event League 1520: Don’t Sully My Reputation

In Main Event League 1520, you can see below that what was once a close race a couple of weeks back (six teams within 12 points of the lead), is looking like it mightend up as a runaway. Andrew Sullivan has broken out and seems to have the best shot at the league championship. However, Steven Weimer, Bryan Fitzgerald and Bill Gaffney are insisting that this race is not over. Those three players have been pretty much treading water the past two weeks though, as Steven has lost 2.5, Bryan has been even, and Bill has only gained 1.5 while Andrew has been surging. Will this be just an exciting race for second and third place? Meanwhile, Peter Christensen and Andrew Lococci are not eliminated from being in the money but might have their work cut out to catch Andrew as they have dropped back 4-6 points into fifth and sixth place. The great Shawn Childs looks to be too far back to make a serious move, but let’s be smart about this and not count him out.

NFBC Main Event League 1460: Everyone’s Pal

In Main Event League 1615, Anthony Palavis and Eric Karlovic are battling it out for the league title — and currently everyone’s pal Anthony has the slight advantage. Both players have gained points in the past two weeks — but really the top five are also picking up points — as all of the top eight have messaged me to say they can win this league with 110 points. In any case, Matthew Anderson is the closest to the top pair after registering a 4.5-point move, and Mike Cameron (hey, didn’t he play for the Mariners?) is in a solid position in fourth just 1 point behind Matthew. Former Jets quarterback Ken O’Brien is in fifth, and he is only 10.5 points out of first place (he says he needs to scramble more), and James Gabal is in sixth just ahead of the two tied seventh-placers, Kyle Brinkmann and Richard Briskin. This should be a fun league, and there’s just no telling what will happen over the final seven weeks.

NFBC Main Event League 1485: Beck’s Wreck

Main Event League 1645 shows that Bradley Beckman is doing his best to wreck the league standings, as he is still the only player over 100 league points. His closest pursuer, though, is fittingly a tough guy to get RYDD of — Dave Rhydderch — and he finds himself only 6.5 points out of the lead. There is a Fox sighting in third place, as Jonathan maintains that he is in the hunt (and getting away from the hounds?) while we have a flat-footed tie between Tony D and Dominic Rello (a very strong guru regarding bullpen usage) for fourth place. And even though Greg Miller and Robert Mirshak are in sixth/seventh places, they are still within 15 points of the league lead. This one looks like it is anyone’s guess who will break the tape as the winner.

NFBC Main Event League 1487: Vig Is Big

Main Event League 1707 has a big leader with a plan, the VIG Zachary Viglianco. who leads by 8 points. However, there are three — count ‘em, three — fantasy managers still within striking distance less than 10 points away — David (Mr. Consistency) Miller, the man who invented the gyroscope Glenn Giro and prospector Daniel Goldman, who believes he is set up to find a few nuggets. Giro and Goldman have each added almost 10 points over the past two weeks, so anything is possible. Having a little more difficulty are Pat Tremaglio in fifth and Jason Portadin in sixth — they’ve both lost points over the past two weeks of play. But look at this — Scott Slack, who was in 13th place two weeks ago with 72 points, is now in seventh with 83 points. Can he keep it up? Can anyone make the big Vig sweat a little? Or will he swing his way to an easy win. Stay tuned and we’ll find out together!

NFBC Main Event FAAB 21

In FAAB 21 Sunday, spending weakened as Main Event owners have mostly emptied their FAAB accounts. The top 10 widest acquisitions this week are in the chart below, and many Main Event managers (see below) attempted to win one of the two new closers — Ryan Walker and Justin Martínez. Despite that plan, the widest acquisition (as he was not rostered prior to this weekend, was Tyler Mahle of Texas, who garnered an average winning bid of $33. Second in terms of leagues added was Ryan Walker of the Giants, who had already been added in five of the 57 Main Event leagues., but he got an average winning bid of $29 in the remaining 52. The No. 3 addition was Justin Martínez — who converted the last couple of saves in Arizona and commanded an average winning bid of $39. Adrian Del Castillo and Seranthony Domínguez are also worth mentioning, with average winning bids over $10. Those were the only players out of the 10 widest pickups to get double digit average winning bids. Outside of the top 10, no additional players (that were added in more than five leagues) attracted relatively high $30-plus average winning bids.

NFBC Main Event — Let’s Rally for Mahle

Winning Bids over $100 and $200

I’m also keeping tabs on players attracting the highest individual FAAB bids. In the 21st run Sunday (see below), there were no winning bids over $200 — I guess everyone is down a little too far in FAAB for a $200 effort. In addition, there were only 12 winning bids between $100-199, 8 of which were for Ryan Walker — who had a high of $185 and a low of a meager $12, The only other players to attract a winning bid over $100 were Alexis Díaz, Noelvi Marte, Garrett Crochet and Bo Bichette.

The Wow Bid of the Week: Walker, San Francisco Giant

The highest overall bid in FAAB Week 21 was for Ryan Walker of the Giants, who was added in 52 Main Event leagues. Walker is now 100% rostered in the Main Event, and his new managers are polite but firm in their belief that they have a new closer (see above). The top Walker $185 bid was the 21st-highest Wow bid out of the 21 registered so far, (in other words it was the lowest of the highest!) but nevertheless easily beat out the unsuccessful runner-up bid of $64.

The Wow Bids of 2024:

• 3/24: Nolan Schanuel $200 (19)
• 3/31: Jason Foley $479 (5)
• 4/7: James McArthur $225 (18)
• 4/14 Brandon Nimmo $578 (3)
• 4/21 Wilyer Abreu $350 (13)
• 4/28 Pete Crow-Armstrong $355 (12)
• 5/5 Christian Scott $677 (Highest)
• 5/12 Taj Bradley $444 (7)
• 519 Reed Garrett $420 (8)
• 5/26 Wyatt Langford $248 (17)
• 6/2 Ben Brown $366 (10)
• 6/9 Blake Snell $360 (11)
• 6/16 Ryne Stanek $261 (16)
• 6/23 Michael Harris $281 (15)
• 6/30 Noelvi Marte $509 (4)
• 7/7 James Wood $462 (6)
• 7/14 Rece Hinds $609 (2)
• 7/21 Jordan Montgomery $189 (20)
• 7/28 Robbie Ray $400 (9)
• 8/4 Devin Williams $320 (14)
• 8/11 Ryan Walker $185 (21)

FAAB Summary: Spending Sinking

In the 21st FAAB week, Main Event managers successfully made 1,643 winning bids (about 13% fewer than last week), and the spending that did occur was driven by three players — Tyler Mahle, Ryan Walker and Justin Martínez. After this week, Main Event managers have now spent approximately $861 of their $1,000 allocation, and although this remains lower than each of the last three years at the 21-week mark, it is now closing in on the level spent in the three previous years. This year’s Week 21 had spending of about $24 per team, above 2023 ($14), 2022 ($23), and 2021 ($17) levels. Still, considering there are just six FAAB runs left, managers still have more money to spend compared to the past (the average Main Event manager can still spend about $23 per week over the final six weeks).

Total Spent: Main Event Through 20 FAAB Periods

• 2024: $861
• 2023: $917
• 2022: $896
• 2021: $890

FAAB Spending Summary 2024

Average Weekly Spending Per Team (21-24)

The Colosseum

Each week during the season, I’ll 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. We’re focusing on the first three weeks after the pickup, when players can earn their new owners some good stats (as they are generally in the active lineup) or underperform badly, leading to an angry drop soon after they are added to the roster.

Three weeks ago, we had our 18th FAAB run, and we had two good pickups out of four. Both of the Victors (Robles and Vodnik) gave solid three-week performances to their fantasy managers — Robles with his 5 steals and Vodnik with his 5 saves. The other stats weren’t as overwhelming, but those strong categories convinced the emperor that they should get a thumbs up. Daniel Hudson was a little more modest in his output — he provided just two saves even though owners were hoping he’d be the fill-in closer for the Dodgers — and while he didn’t sink any teams, he didn’t do enough for the full thumbs up — we’ll award him a push. There was a true thumbs down performer this week — Eddie Rosario, as he could only produce an average of .095 and got released by the Braves.

It’s still a relatively good week overall, keeping the Main Event pickup record for 2024 below 2023 and 2022 — at least for the time being, with 27 thumbs up (38%), 35 thumbs down and 10 pushes. At least this is still better than the 2021 good pickups mark of 24%, but most of the good pickups were earlier in the season.

Colosseum Thumbs Up Record:

• 2024 thus far: 38%
• 2023: 44%
• 2022: 39%
• 2021: 24%

2024 Colosseum Thumbs Up Players:

Overall Leaderboard: Clark University 

Most people do not know that Clark (the Shark) Olson has his own university named after him. Yes, folks Clark started Clark University (a private university in Worcester, Mass.) as a young man and comes back on special occasions to serve as mascot to fire up the students (he’s a cougar of course — see above!). It seems this is where Clark learned to be a Loan Shark and he is forever grateful for the support he received in his formative years. Because Clark is very persuasive in getting money, the university has used him to — um — contact potential donors. Somehow this has worked and the endowment is up several million dollars after just a few calls … amazing. In any case, Clark the Cougar now has his biggest lead of the season — 287.5 points — which in fact is the biggest margin of the season for any leader. Is the rest of the season just a formality for our collegian?

Main Event Leaders in 2024

Still right behind our college owner in second and fourth place is the Amazin’ Jason Santeiu. And Jason’s third-best team is in 35th overall. Apparently, Jason did not appreciate me giving him a hard time that this team was no longer placing in the overall competition, so he messaged me to say that I was the worst writer of an article on the NFBC Main Event. Geez, that really hurts, Jason. In any case, this caused me to add legal resources to the investigation into unfair competitive practices against Mr. Santeiu in the form of a top paralegal, and the judge announced that a decision could be forthcoming next week. I’m sure Jason will get his come down then. David — um, Robert — Beckman is still in third place after he attended the Paris soccer tournament to refresh himself on the rules (it didn’t go so well as he received a yellow card for his efforts). The top five is rounded out by my favorite Martin — Gregg Martin, is holding in fifth — and is making regular calls to NASA in Houston to help them organize their next mission.

Tyler (Welcome to the Jungle) Jung’s rise has been as follows — 31st, 18th, 15th, 12th, seventh and now sixth place. Welcome indeed! Not to be outdone is drummer Griffin Benger, who surged from 17th all the way to seventh this week. The impressive Knute Rockne aficionado Nicholi Knutson is up to eighth (from 11th) but is designing an option offense for Notre Dame’s home opener. Department Store owner Bill Macey is up to ninth (from 16th) and promptly declared a summer sale of women’s foundations. The fantasy manager who loves Easter — Todd Hoppe — is in 10th (up from 21st). 

The fresher Eric Drescher has fallen back to 11th (from eighth), claiming that his refrigeration unit is out of kilter. Having more difficulty is The Kid Ben Tidd — who had been zooming up the leaderboard. He dropped to 12th from ninth and was heard to exclaim wisely “This whole overall contest is just a can of corn.” Hmm … there must be some deeper meaning there, right? Chris (UR A Monster) is in 13th and 24th as he apparently decided that Jason Santeiu’s idea of multiple overall teams was a good solid plan. The Richer Alan Mitchell — who is apparently smoking $100 bills in anticipation of cashing on this team in the overall — fell all the way back from sixth to 14th after the fire department was called to his home, and this seemingly affected Real Neil Petersen — who is now in 15th from 13th last week (he lives next to Alan and the fire engine drove over his petunias). 

Brody (the Coyote) John — is 16th; Tony DiVincenzo came from outside the top 31 to 17th overall (nice work Tony!); Sousaphone inventor Nelson Sousa is in 18th place; and the top 20 is rounded out by 2015 overall champ and former 2024 leader Glenn Schroter and the man at the cliff’s edge (Kyle Brinkmann) (moving up from 31st to 20th).

Other notables include Bill (The Skill) Gaffney in 21st; The Liberator, Bradley Libros (dropping from 10th overall to 22nd overall); Dustin McComas in 23rd; followed by Anthony Donisch (who likes a good danish in 27th; Tristan (Heading for the) Hills in 28th; and movie producer Adam Warner is in 30th. 

But all 31 of these fantasy managers are in the hunt for sure, and in a big 855-team contest like the Main Event, that’s very impressive, right? Nice job, fellows!

Top 31: Main Event 2024

League of Legends

Here are the 57 Main Event leagues with the current top three in the standings as of Monday morning.

Top Three: 2024 Main Event League Leaders

Shout-Outs

We’ll be back with the shout-outs next week — but good luck to all the competitors in Week 21.