Whitestone’s Waiver Watch: NFBC Main Event (8/19)

Playing All the Hits

MLB Counter = 76.7% of the season complete

There are now six weeks left in the season (and we’ve played about 77% based on games played), so as we pass the three-quarter mark I wanted to check back in on the hitting stats for MLB one more time.

If you recall, back on June 8 we were (OK, I was) lamenting about the lack of offense early — as runs scored were down to 4.33 per game from last year’s 4.62. Well, since then there has been a resurgence, but not enough to get back to 2023 levels (it’s 4.43, as you can see below). Home runs are still holding back the scoring, as the 1.13 mark per game is still below last year’s 1.21 (but at least it’s better than the 1.07 in 2022). Batting average is a little better than a couple of months back at .244 but has not held all the gains made in 2023 when the shift was (somewhat) banned. Stolen bases are about the same though, as the rule changes have allowed major league players to swipe 0.73 per contest — about the same as earlier this season and in 2023.

NFBC Main Event FAAB 22: Matthew and Matthews

In FAAB 22 Sunday, spending continues to weaken as Main Event managers have mostly emptied their FAAB accounts. The 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 Matthews on the market — Zebby Matthews and Matthew Boyd. Zebby was the widest acquisition, garnering an average winning bid of almost $44. Second was Matthew (No. 2) Boyd — now of the Guardians, who also was unrostered in all 57 Main Event leagues (Boyd got an average winning bid of $32). The No. 3 addition was rookie Jace Jung of the Tigers — but his average winning bid was only $6. The rest of the top 10 also fell well below a $10 average winning bid, as the FAAB cupboards are pretty bare. Outside of the top 10, however, there were three notable players (that were added in more than 10 leagues) attracting relatively high $20-plus average winning bids: Bowden Francis (TOR) with a $23.80 average winning bid in 10 leagues; Seranthony Domínguez (BAL) with an average winning bid of $31.00 in 13 leagues; and Michael Kopech (LAD) with a lofty average winning bid of $54.46 in 13 leagues.

NFBC Main Event — Zebby the Zebra

Winning Bids over $100 and $200

I’m also keeping tabs on players attracting the highest individual FAAB bids. In the 22nd run Sunday (see below), there was one winning bid over $200 — for — you guessed it — Zebby Matthews. In addition, there were only 6 winning bids between $100-199, 2 of which were for Zebby the Zebra — (who by the way had a low winning bid of a meager $2). The only other players to attract winning bids over $100 were Michael Kopech, Triston Casas, Ryne Nelson and Lourdes Gurriel Jr.

The Wow Bid of the Week: Zebby Drove My Chevy to the Levee

The highest overall bid in FAAB Week 22 was for Zebby Matthews of the Twins, who was added in all 57 Main Event leagues. The winners of Zebby’s services are planning to use him to drive a Chevy to the ballgame (after he goes to the levee I suppose). The top Matthews $217 bid was just the 19th-highest Wow bid out of the 22 registered so far, but nevertheless easily beat out the unsuccessful runner-up bid of $103.

The Wow Bids of 2024

• 3/24: Nolan Schanuel $200 (20)
• 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 II $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 (21)
• 7/28 Robbie Ray $400 (9)
• 8/4 Devin Williams $320 (14)
• 8/11 Ryan Walker $185 (22)
• 8/18 Zebby Matthews $217 (19)

FAAB Summary: Accounts Running Dry

In the 22nd FAAB week, Main Event managers successfully made 1,567 winning bids (about 5% fewer than last week), and the spending that did occur was driven by five players — Zebby Matthews, Matthew Boyd, Michael Kopech and Seranthony Domínguez , with a little bit of Bowden Francis thrown in. After this week, Main Event managers have now spent approximately $880 of their $1,000 allocation, and although this remains lower than each of the last three years at the 22-week mark, it is now almost back to the level spent in the three previous years. This year’s Week 22 had spending of about $18 per team, above 2023 ($10), 2022 ($11) and 2021 ($12) levels. Still, considering there are just 5 FAAB runs left, owners still have more money to spend compared to the past (the average Main Event manager can still spend about $24 per week over the final five weeks).

Total Spent: Main Event Through 22 FAAB Periods

• 2024: $880
• 2023: $927
• 2022: $907
• 2021: $903

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 19th FAAB run, and we had three — count ‘em, three — good pickups out of four. Surprisingly, the one thumbs down was the player who attracted the most spending — Robbie Ray. He has given his fantasy managers 22 strikeouts and 1 win, but the 7.31 ERA and 1.63 WHIP negated much of that value. The emperor didn’t like the ratio damage, so Robbie was turned down. However, we have three thumbs up — first, Clayton Kershaw has provided 2 wins and fine ratios — then River Ryan (who sadly needs Tommy John surgery) still provided good stats for the three-week period — and finally Tyler “Babe Ruth” Fitzgerald has hit 10 (!) homers and stolen 7 (!!) bases while batting over .300. Zowie! He should get three thumbs up all on his own!

The bounceback week improves the Main Event pickup record for 2024. While it is still below 2023, it has moved back to even with 2022 — 30 thumbs up (39%), 36 thumbs down and 10 pushes.

Colosseum Thumbs Up Record

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

2024 Colosseum Thumbs Up Players

How many of the 30 players below did you add this season? 

Overall Leaderboard: Clark Bars Are Very Good! 

Most people do not know that Overall Main Event First Place Holder Clark (the Shark) Olson not only has his own university named after him (see last week’s article), but also a candy bar! Yes, Clark invented the Clark Bar (The Clark Bar is a candy bar consisting of a crispy peanut butter/spun taffy core — originally with a caramel center — and coated in milk chocolate). It was supposedly introduced in 1917 by David L. Clark but I’m here to tell you that Clark Olson invented it at his own university lab. In any case, Clark the Shark is relaxing and munching on a Clark Bar, because while it’s true that his 277.0-point margin is not the biggest of the season (that was last week at 287.5 points) it’s still a hefty cushion over second place. Clark is threatening to run away and hide from the competition, just eating candy until he’s declared the winner in October!

Main Event Leaders in 2024

Still right behind our candyman in second and fourth place is the Amazin’ Jason Santeiu. But — sad to say — Jason’s third-best team has dropped from 35th overall to 44th. I’m not sure we can call Jason a competent fantasy manager with a record like that. In related news, the judge has dismissed all charges into unfair competitive practices against Mr. Santeiu since he is — and I’m quoting the legal order — “a fine example of how to win at fantasy baseball.” Come on — something fishy had to be going on, right? Anyone? Sigh. My favorite Martin — Gregg Martin, jumped up from fifth to third — despite the fact that he has moved to Houston to help NASA organize their next mission (apparently his projection system for baseball can predict the next alien landing). David — um — Robert Beckman — fell back to fifth from third place after he was sold to the LA Galaxy for $3 million, and the move apparently caused him to foul up his FAAB bids.

Drummer Griffin Benger is pounding away to his own beat — he surged from 17th all the way to seventh last week and edged up further to sixth place this week. Similarly, the impressive Knute Rockne aficionado Nicholi Knutson is up to seventh from eighth (two weeks ago he was 11th) and has discarded his idea for an option offense for Notre Dame saying that “the shotgun formation is the way of the future.” Neither one of these moves, though, compares with Anthony Donisch (who likes a good danish) as he was in 27th last week and is now eighth — wow! Great work Anthony! The furious charge of Tyler (Welcome to the Jungle) Jung has been the stuff of legends — 31st, 18th, 15th, 12th, seventh and then sixth place — but he has fallen back just a bit to 9th overall. We’re still expecting a further climb as he machetes his way through the foliage. 2015 overall champ and former 2024 leader Glenn Schroter has bounced back from 19th to 10th this week in an effort to reclaim the top spot (don’t forget Glenn led for eight of 10 weeks earlier in the season).

The fantasy manager who loves Easter — Todd Hoppe — is in 11th and the fresher Eric Drescher is in 12th, as both of them fell back one place since last week. However, the man at the cliff’s edge — Kyle Brinkmann — has zoomed up from 20th to 13th — as he tries to tiptoe just far enough away from a 1,000-foot drop. Department Store owner Bill Macey dropped back to 14th (from ninth), which caused him to abruptly end all sales at his flagship store. In a more upbeat mood is Tony DiVincenzo, who is now 15th (from 17th), which gave him a platform to announce that he has just won a Tony Award for best dramatic starting pitchers. 

Chris (UR A Monster) was 13th AND 24th last week but now he has to satisfy himself with only a 16th place overall team (I feel really bad for him), just ahead of the surging Rich Barry (hey, didn’t his father Rick play professional basketball?) who is up to 17th from 26th. Brody (the Coyote) John — is 18th; The Scout Dustin McComas is 19th (from 23rd); and Real Neil Petersen rounds out the top 20. 

Other notables include the man having some modest difficulty — The Kid Ben Tidd — who had been zooming up the leaderboard. Last week The Kid dropped to 12th from ninth, and this week he is down to 21st. In response, he was heard to exclaim wisely “When a team gets two runners on with no one out the announcer is required to say they are in business.” Hmm…I think he’s actually right about that! Sousaphone inventor Nelson Sousa is in 22nd place; the richer Alan Mitchell is 26th; the Finnish Flash Jordan Rosenblum resides in 27th; The Liberator, Bradley Libros is 28th; followed by Tristan (Heading for the) Hills in 29th; former champ Robert Cramutola in 30th (up from 50th — nice move Robert!) and movie producer Adam Warner in 31st. 

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 Monday morning.

Top Three: 2024 Main Event League Leaders

Shout-Outs

There are some notable fantasy managers who have multiple teams placing in the Main Event at this late stage of the season — they certainly deserve a shout-out! Leading the way is (of course) Robert Cramutola with three firsts and a third. Zowie. Jason Santeiu has three first places, which is also outstanding, even though I don’t like it. Kyle Brinkmann and (there’s that man again) Clark the Shark Olson have one first and two seconds. Scott Waggener and Tyler Jung have the across-the-board positions of one first, one second, and one third. Dalton Del Don has one first and two thirds. And Bill Gaffney and Dave Rhydderch have two seconds and a third. Those nine fantasy managers alone have 11 first places, 10 seconds and seven thirds. Yikes.

But see below as there are other fantasy managers with outstanding results. In fact — these 28 stars account for 24 first places (42% of the total) and 66 cashing positions (39%) — leaving not much for the rest of the field!

Notables include:

• Three firsts; one third — Robert Cramutola
• Three firsts — Jason Santeiu
• One first; two seconds — Kyle Brinkmann; Clark Olson
• One first; one second; one third — Scott Waggener; Tyler Jung
• One first; two thirds — Dalton Del Don
• Two seconds; one third — Bill Gaffney; Dave Rhydderch
• Two firsts — Chris Uram; Bradley Libros
• One first; one second — Abdulaziz Madani; Matthew Shepherd; Michael O’Brien; Anthony Palavis
• One first; one third — Andrew Kopicz; Mike Ballschmiede; Alan Mitchell; John Pausma; Glenn Schroter
• One second; one third — David Miller; Nelson Sousa; Christopher Vaccaro; Bob Catsiroumpas; Leonard Ringle
• Two thirds — Danny Bronski; Steven Weimer; Joe Green

Good luck to all the competitors in Week 22.