Whitestone’s Waiver Watch: NFBC Main Event (8/14)

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. 

Please note: This week (as was the case last week) I’m 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 = 73.1% of the season complete

Main Event managers are a savvy lot, so in the middle of August, they often take a dance break (not really, but try it — it couldn’t hurt, especially if your starting pitcher gives up 5 earned runs in the first inning). In any case, there won’t be any league standings again this week even though I know all 53 Main Event leagues (and all fantasy baseball leagues in general) are very much up for grabs with approximately eight weeks remaining in the season. We’ll resume our regular programming Aug. 21 and see who leads each league then. Until then, let’s just dance away any difficult results!

Most Common FAAB Pickups in the Main Event: Ralph Waldo Emerson Hancock

The No. 1 pickup this week was the famous essayist, Ralph Waldo Emerson Hancock, who had the NFBC Main Event in mind when he wrote: “The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. Hitch your wagon to a star. The earth laughs in flowers. Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.” So the interesting thing is that this fellow is not only a pretty good essayist but also a rookie pitcher for the Seattle Mariners! Crazy, right? Main Event managers didn’t care what his writings were, though, they wanted wins and strikeouts from him and were therefore bidding him up this week.

The 10 widest acquisitions are in the chart below and in addition to Emerson Hancock, they also feature a returning star, Trevor Story of the Boston Red Sox. He actually had higher bids generally than Hancock, but Hancock was picked up in more leagues because Story was rostered in two Main Event leagues prior to this weekend. The rest of the top-10 free agent pickups include 5 more starting pitchers (Matthew Liberatore, Javier Assad, Allan Winans, Dakota Hudson, Alex Faedo), and three hitters with potential (Ildemaro Vargas, Ramón Laureano, Brayan Rocchio). Interestingly, two of the starting pitchers are far from assured of even their next start (Javier Assad and Allan Winans) but they might turn out to be a bargain if indeed they are in the regular rotation. In any case, you can see that the bidding is a lot more spread out, as fantasy managers try to fit acquisitions into their needs to help their most important categories.

The Century Club

In the 21st FAAB run (see below), there again were zero $200-plus successful bids for the third week in a row and 19 winning bids over $100 (17 for Trevor Story and 1 each for Emerson Hancock and Tommy Pham). As you can see below, we’ve had 539 total winning bids over $200 and 1,366 total $100-plus winning bids in the first 21 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 manager on average has had 1-2 (1.72 to be exact) winning bids over $100. So on average, each Main Event manager only takes two or three 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 Trevor Story, with a winning bid of $164, easily beating the $89 runner-up amount. As we should have anticipated, this was the second-lowest WOW bid of the season, with Main Event owners 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
• 8/6 Adrian Houser and Endy Rodríguez $150 each
• 8/13 Trevor Story $164

FAAB Summary

In the first 21 FAAB weeks, Main Event managers have had 31,139 winning bids (so each Main Event team has won 39.2 bids on average YTD – 1.87 per week). But the activity level dropped back a bit after last week’s increase in bidding, with 1,361 winning bids (1.71 per team). Still, this is an impressive level with just seven weeks to go in the season and many teams with a relatively small chance of winning their league title. In terms of spending, managers have now parted with, on average, $917 of their $1,000 allocation. Comparing that to the last two years at the 21-week mark, that’s more than the $896 spent in 2022 and the $890 spent two years ago. However, the gap has narrowed as the spending in 2023 is constricted from all the big early bids. In the prior two years, managers had a little more running room at this point of the season. 

You can see in the chart below (the “average amount spent per team” column) that there was a huge drop in weekly spending in Week 13 – from $65 spent per team to $28. Since then, it has been at a lower ebb, as from Weeks 15-21 it has ranged from $11.75 to $21.97. This week (Week 21) we are again in the low double-digits ($14.08), and it just might be in the single-digits next week. With 27 FAAB periods and $917 spent in 21 weeks, managers who have an average amount left ($83) have just $13.83 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 $25 per team remaining for the active Main Event managers. That would leave just $4.17 per week for the average team. Yikes.

The Colosseum

Each week during the season, I take a look at the four wildest 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 18th FAAB period. Arizona’s Kevin Ginkel leads us off and has provided outstanding value (just one save but two wins and great ratios). Even though managers may have dropped him because he is not the regular closer, this is a thumbs up for the emperor. Cincinnati’s Christian Encarnacion-Strand, though, didn’t do as much in his three-week stint (.250 average and only two homers), and gets a thumbs down despite the great interest in bidding on his services three weeks ago. Chase Silseth of the Angels has been great — his only issue was he was removed from the rotation July 29, and many managers from the July 18 FAAB dropped him. However, his stats are so good the emperor is giving him the thumbs up anyhow. Finally, Sal Frelick has done what was asked — maybe the batting average is a bit low, but the counting stats are great, and he’s provided power and speed – a thumbs up for sure! 

This now gives us 32 thumbs up for the season (44%), 28 down (39%) and 12 pushes (17%). That’s better than 2022, which registered a 39% thumbs up on these weekly pickups, and well ahead of 2021 (24%). Are Main Event managers getting smarter?

Overall Leaderboard: The PAUSMA that refreshes!

The great John Pausma has his own way of relaxing. And now in the third week of his leadership, the Main Event owners are forced to consider what exactly John is drinking during his time off. He is back up to the top spot (he led after Week 2) with his largest lead to date (282.5) and says everyone should just “Relax and have a nice drink” Hey John, is that drink approved by the FDA?

Eric Christenson (Erik the Red) had his five-week reign of terror ended by John three weeks ago but remains in contention in third place – while in second place is one of the guys I’m worried about, Clark Olson (and he also now has the 19th-place team). Rey Diaz and David Miller are in strong position in fourth and fifth – less than 500 points from the top spot. A little further back we see Steve Maier, the great Slack-Sack tag team (Brian Slack and Nickolaus Sackett), and Bob Catsiroumpas. These guys just won’t quit! Brandon King is holed up in ninth, and Jason Anthony lurks in 10th. Steven Weimer is 11th — and I keep telling you that he is a real threat, Michael O’Brien is 12th, Bill Gaffney is 13th, the unassuming Scott Gilbert is in 14th, the strong and consistent Gregg Martin is 15th, and I still love the attitude and moxie of the operatic duo of Robert Mirshak and Ian Kahn (now 16th). And don’t forget about the Pull Hitter himself (Robert DiPietro) — now 17th and edging higher every week — watch out for him over the final few weeks!

There are a lot of other strong contenders in the top 30 list, including John Pausma’s ­second top-30 entry in 18th (unfair) and Kyle Pantalone in 20th. But the frightening presence of Philippe Dussault in 21st place looms over the entire field – could he win again? I just can’t look. He just might do it.

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 21st, up slightly from 22nd last week, after having been as far back as 275th place (out of 795 total). Oh man.

Robert Cramutola: Bob edged upwards to 150th from 165th and says it is not too late for him — really, Bob? That would be impressive…

Good luck to all the participants in the Main Event during Week 22!