Whitestone’s Waiver Watch: NFBC Main Event (9/16)

Two Weeks Remain

MLB Counter = 91.7% of the season complete

There are now two weeks left in the season, so we have just one run remaining, four lineup sets, and then it’ll all be over but the crying (except there’s no crying in baseball). So as 2024 winds down, I’m continuing a trip around the 57 Main Event leagues to try to find out which fantasy owners are likely to win a league title.

To be clear, this is an update on the third group (the previous two weeks we did the first two groups of 14) of 14 Main Event leagues listed on the NFBC site, focusing on fantasy managers who have a chance to win the league As of Friday, September 13. In each league, there are likely unlisted teams that have a chance to finish second or third, but these charts are only focused on first place. Therefore, I’ve generally listed teams either in the top three places or within 10 points of the leader, in an effort to see which fantasy managers have a shot to win the league title.

There are five designations listed below:

• GROUP ONE – IT’S OVER (20 POINT OR MORE LEAD) – 3 leagues
• GROUP TWO – IT’S PROBABLY OVER (LEAD OF 12.0-19.5) – 3 leagues
• GROUP THREE – A GOOD CUSHION (LEAD OF 8.0-11.5) – 3 leagues
• GROUP FOUR – WORK TO DO (LEAD OF 4.0-7.5) – 2 leagues
• GROUP FIVE – DOGFIGHT (LEAD OF 3.5 OR LESS) – 3 leagues

Group One – Designation: It’s Over

DiMondo in the Rough – 25.0-Point Lead

League 1528 is actually a tight race, but it’s not for first place. I’m showing here second through fifth place in this league because I had trouble deciphering the top three, but Richard DiMondo seems not to care about such matters. His 25-point lead as of Friday will undoubtedly stand up. Now as far as the other competitors in the top five, Steven (Don’t pass me over) Paskover has a small edge on Sleeper (or is he the Bust?) expert Paul Sporer and Jonathan (I want to be free) Vriesma, and just a little further back, Josh (Better) Pettersen. Richard had the #1 pick in this draft and took Ronald Acuña, Tarik Skubal, Ozzie Albies and Emmanuel Clase – so he didn’t come out of that completely unscathed by injury, but it hasn’t seemed to matter. In any case, this league is over as far as the win is concerned – congratulations Richard!

The Fresher Eric Drescher – 22.5-Point Lead

Another big lead is found in Main Event League 1598 where the Fresher Eric Drescher has built a 22.5-point cushion. Eric claims he wins by taking frequent breaks, so that he’s always fresh and ready to go. So perhaps that’s why he is always making excellent FAAB and lineup decisions. In this case, he’s even ahead of former Main Event Overall Champ Robert Cramutola. Eric was in 6th place overall as of Friday and seems more worried about his overall place than this league. And who can really blame him? (Eric drafted out of the 11 spot and took Shohei Ohtani, Luis Castillo, Gunnar Henderson and Logan Gilbert.)

Be Wary of Barry – 21.5-Point Lead

Our last big lead for this week is found in League #1586, where Rich Barry has a big 21.5-point margin. Rich claims he’s related to Hall of Fame NBA player Rick Barry and actually learned to shoot free throws underhanded as a result. But surprisingly, that fact had no role in his lead here. Instead, he told Aaron Jones (who now plays for the Minnesota Vikings) and Jordan Epping (who invented the Epi-Pen to help stop allergic reactions) that they should let him get José Ramírez at Pick 9 followed by Luis Castillo, Framber Valdez and Zach Eflin, and it has worked to his advantage. Rich is now 26th overall, so he’s still fighting in that arena, but I don’t think he has to worry too much about the league title.

Group Two – Designation: It’s Probably Over

Liberation Achieved – 16.5-Point Lead

Bradley has seemingly achieved liberation in League 1634, as his advantage was 16.5 points as of Friday. Michael Lins (who says he does nothing but win) is putting together a nice season in second place, and Bob Catsiroumpas is always a threat in third, but I think in this league they won’t be able to catch the man who says he wants nothing more than freedom (and maybe a first-place finish). In support of this goal, he drafted Matt Olson, Zack Wheeler, José Altuve and Framber Valdez out of the 11th draft position, so he seems pretty smart to me.

Cos And Effect – 15.0-Point Lead

League 1585 is another one with a solid advantage for our leader, who is Christopher Cosley with a 15.0-point lead. The Cos says that his 11th draft slot was optimal because he got Shohei Ohtani, Austin Riley, Luis Robert and Aaron Nola to set himself up for success. Erik Pro-and-Konyk is situated nicely in second, just ahead of drummer Griffin Benger, but I don’t see how they can catch The Cos in the two weeks that remain.  

Searching High and Karlo – 13.5-Point Lead

League 1615 is not quite as comfortable as the ones we’ve discussed before, but a 13.5-point lead is still pretty formidable. Eric drafted out of the 3 slot and took Mookie Betts, Tarik Skubal, Freddy Peralta and Emmanuel Clase, and it seems to have worked. Anthony (who is everyone’s pal) Palavis and Richard Briskin (who favors refreshing morning walks at a brisk pace) have fought bravely, but it seems they are running out of season. 

Group Three – Designation: A Good Cushion

Ballschmiede is in the Lead – 10.5-Point Lead

Mike Ballschmiede is 17th overall as of Friday, and one would think that he could totally relax about the league standings. But we rate it as not quite finished, and he will have to stay vigilant about his categories and stats across the final two weeks. Peter Marrero and Nelson Sousa have been tough, and Peter in particular assures anyone who will listen that he just needs one strong push to be within striking distance and mar an otherwise fine campaign by Mr. Ballschmiede. Mike drafted out of the 11 hole (does this sound familiar?) and took Wheeler, Riley, Gausman and Clase with his first four selections. Nice job, Mike!

Chris Doesn’t Miss – 10.0-Point Lead

Football expert Christopher Vaccaro leads League 1587, with the intention of proving that you don’t need to draft an early tight end to win in this league. He held a 10.0-point lead as of Friday, and while Eric (it’s all right) Albright is not finished by any means, he’s still got a hill to climb. Chris drafted from the #12 position and took Aaron Judge, followed by Zack Wheeler, Oneil Cruz and Jazz Chisholm, which seemed to put him in an excellent position for this season.

Bradley Redux – 8.5-Point Lead

Wait, didn’t we do this league already? No, it’s another Bradley Libros special, folks! This time his lead is a bit smaller, but he still is favored to win the league title. Bob Catsiroumpas, who was third in the first Bradley Libros league above, is second in this league and says that if he doesn’t catch him here he is going to make sure that he doesn’t end up in a league with Bradley next season. That seems like a reasonable stance to me. Dominic Rello also deserves a shoutout because he is a solid player (and has been subsisting on frequent portions of jello), but I don’t think he can win this league over the final two weeks. In this league Bradley had the #1 pick and took Ronald Acuña, Gunnar Henderson, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Emmanuel Clase, so he did sustain some key injuries – but he’s apparently taken it all in stride…

Group Four – Designation: Work to Do 

Maybe Matt Leahy? – 5.5-Point Lead

Okay, now this is getting more exciting. Matt Leahy has a lead, that’s true. But it was only 5.5 points as of Friday, and Big Diehl Greg Diehl has a real shot here. Brian Ambos is not quite out of it either, but he’s going to have to hustle to get involved. For his part, Matt’s team is 16th overall, so can he afford to focus on the overall standings when matters are this tight in League 1566? I’m not sure that’s advisable. In any case, Matt Leahy got here via the #3 draft position where he selected Bobby Witt, Tarik Skubal, Francisco Lindor and Grayson Rodriguez. That just might be solid enough to carry him all the way to the finish.

Hegg Won’t Beg – 4.0-Point Lead

League 1647 is even tighter. It’s only a four-point lead for Jon Hegglund (and his partner Mike Gianella), so there’s no time for fooling around. Jon and Mike have Donnie on his tail (who says he has the Braud outline of a plan to catch them) and Matthew McDonough is right behind in third (Matthew wants everyone to know that he is close friends with Matthew McConaughey by the way). In any case, the tag team of Hegglund and Gianella have made good use of the 7th draft position, where they took Corbin Carroll first (who struggled early but has been coming on after the All-Star break) along with Pablo López, Francisco Lindor and Manny Machado. This one’s gonna be close!

Group Five – Designation: Dogfight

Can They Get Rydd of Him – 3.0-Point Lead

Now to our final three leagues – the closest of all, League 1645. Wow, take a look at 1645! There are seven, count ‘em, seven teams within 10 points of the lead. Dave Rhydderch has a three-point margin, but any one of the six chasers could get hot over the final two weeks. Opera singer Robert Mirshak is in second, but don’t look away, that could change in the blink of an eye. Dominic Rello (remember he likes jello), Jonathan (crazy like a) Fox, Stephen Ciepiela (I have nothing here), Tony Award Winner Tony DiVincenzo and even Greg (who likes eggs for breakfast so we call him the egg) Miller has a chance. This is gonna be a doozy!

Darren Was in NY – 1.0-Point Lead

Okay, you thought that was close? How about League 1648? There are only three teams in the fray, but they are all packed within a point-and-a-half. Darren Wasny was in front Friday after visiting New York, with next of kin Richard Temkin right behind. And the man who likes to travel on unpaved roads, Dusty Wagner, is in third (for the moment). This might not just go down to the final day but rather the final hour of the season.

Are You Mad or Are You Jung? – TIED

And finally, we have League 1646. There are only two fantasy managers with a realistic shot at the win here, but it was a dead-even, flat-footed tie as of Friday. The combatants are Abdulaziz (Mad About You) Madani – a former Overall Main Event Champ, and Tyler (Welcome to the Jungle) Jung, well, he’s Tyler Jung, enough said. It’s a fight to the finish between two worthy competitors!

NFBC Main Event FAAB #26: Positioning for the Finish

In FAAB #26 on September 15, spending slowed further as Main Event owners are down to nickels and dimes. The top-10 widest acquisitions this week are in the chart below, and Main Event owners (see below) were focused on attempting to pick up the remaining available shares of Jacob deGrom, who had a commanding average winning bid of over $35 as a result. Second was Ranger Kumar Rocker, who got an average winning bid of $18. The No. 3 and No. 4 widest additions were catcher/outfielder Hunter Goodman and ace pitcher Joey Cantillo (who flirted with a perfect game last week). But the winning average winning bids for Goodman and Cantillo were fairly paltry at $4-6. The only other reasonably high average winning bid inside the top 10 was Tylor (not Trevor) Megill, who garnered an average bid of $16. Outside of the top 10, there were just three winning average bids of $10 or more (with at least five leagues added): Jake Irvin with an average winning bid of $14 in five leagues; Justin Steele $11 in 12 leagues and Ramon Laureano $11 in six leagues.

NFBC Main Event – Rock A Bye Baby

Winning Bids over $100 and $200

I’m also keeping tabs on players attracting the highest individual FAAB bids. In the 26th run on September 15, there were no winning bids over $200, but four winning bids between $100-199. The winning bids over $100 were for Kumar Rocker, Jacob deGrom (2) and Alec Bohm. That revises the total of large bids this season to 311 winning bids over $200 and now 803 winning bids between $100 and $199.

The Wow Bid of the Week: Rock On

The highest overall bid in FAAB Week 26 was for (see above) Kumar Rocker of the Texas Rangers, who was added in 55 of 57 Main Event leagues. This top bid of $121 was the 25th-highest Wow bid out of the 26 registered so far (just barely ahead of last week’s Rhys Hoskins bid) and easily beat out the unsuccessful runner-up bid of $27.

The Wow Bids of 2024

• 3/24: Nolan Schanuel $200 (21)
• 3/31: Jason Foley $479 (5)
• 4/7: James McArthur $225 (19)
• 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 (18)
• 6/2 Ben Brown $366 (10)
• 6/9 Blake Snell $360 (11)
• 6/16 Ryne Stanek $261 (17)
• 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 (23)
• 7/28 Robbie Ray $400 (9)
• 8/4 Devin Williams $320 (14)
• 8/11 Ryan Walker $185 (24)
• 8/18 Zebby Matthews $217 (20)
• 8/25 Matt Waldron $199 (22)
• 9/1 Dylan Crews $271 (16)
• 9/8 Rhys Hoskins $120 (26)
• 9/15 Kumar Rocker $121 (25)

FAAB Summary: Winding Down

In the 26th FAAB week, Main Event owners successfully made 1,169 winning bids (about 8% less than last week), and the spending was certainly propped up by the bids on Jacob deGrom. After this week, Main Event owners have now spent approximately $927 of their $1,000 allocation, and this total amount spent remains lower than each of the last three years at the 26-week mark (see below). This year’s Week 26 had spending of about $9 per team, compared to 2023 ($4), 2022 ($4) and 2021 ($6) levels. Considering there is just one FAAB run left, owners have more money to spend compared to the past. If you consider the total amount remaining, the average Main Event owner can still theoretically spend about $73 per week next Sunday, but I’m telling you that it won’t happen. In previous years about $40-50 per team has gone unspent due to owners throwing in the towel at the end of the year, but this year it looks like unspent FAAB dollars could be as high as $60-65, assuming we get an estimated spending level of about $9-10 per team in the last FAAB period.

Total Spent: Main Event Through 25 FAAB Periods

• 2024: $927
• 2023: $953
• 2022: $940
• 2021: $939

FAAB Spending Summary 2024

Overall Leaderboard: Santeiu is Coming! 

Santeiu and Olson, Olson and Santeiu – they’re locked in combat for the Main Event title. They have traded the lead since mid-July, with Clark the Shark mainly on top. But last week Jason took his game to a new level, with not one but two teams in front. But Clark has fought back and now is ahead of one of Jason’s teams by a dorsal fin, and is just 46.5 points away from first place. As you can see above, Jason is looking to have a great Christmas season, but this race is certainly not over yet. These two competitors are doing some special stuff this season: Clark has four Main Event entries currently ranked 2nd, 16th, 44th and 211th, but The Great Santini also has four Main Event entries and they are 1st, 3rd, 31st and, wait for it, 486th. What team is not like the others, Jason? Okay, let’s not get on him too much, he’s got a record three teams in the top 31. Sheesh.

Main Event Leaders in 2024

But surprisingly, these are not the only two fantasy managers in this overall race. My Favorite Martin – Gregg Martin – is in fourth place overall, just 128 points out of first (he was 274.5 points out of first a week ago). And rounding out the top five is our Tony Award Winner Tony DiVincenzo, who is 308 points back and is not giving up.

The fresher Eric Drescher holds in 6th, as he recommits to the task after his second break from the NFBC. Anthony Donisch (who likes a good danish) moved up to 7th from 10th, and Tyler (Welcome to the Jungle) Jung is still in 8th as he plans his next safari. Drummer Griffin Benger is still on a roll and finds himself in 9th place overall, and Matthew Dugan (who says his friends call him Doogie) is now 10th.

Todd Hoppe is just a hop, skip and jump out of the top 10 in 11th place overall; Brody (the Coyote) John is now in 12th (up from 16th); former Overall Main Event Champ Robert Cramutola is holding in 13th; another Overall Main Event former Champ Glenn Schroter is 14th (up from 17th) and Robert Beckman is not finished yet – he jumps from 23rd to 15th this week. 

Clark The Shark Olson (yawn) has his second best team in 16th (last week it was 25th) and Sporting Goods Store owner Mike Ballschmiede is 17th and 19th (actually the second team is tied for 18th with Matt Leahy who moved up from 20th place). Finally, Rotowire prospect guru James Anderson moves up from 21st to 20th this week, as he plans to move from AAA over the final two weeks. 

Others receiving votes include the Finnish Flash Jordan Rosenblum in 21st;  man at the cliff’s edge Kyle Brinkmann is 23rd; Andrew Deninno in 27th after working on FAAB solely from his den instead of the living room; Department Store owner Bill Macey in 28th place; Scout Dustin McComas in 30th and Jason Santeiu’s third-best team in 31st (sigh).

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!

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

Shoutouts

There are some notable fantasy managers who have multiple teams placing in the Main Event at this late stage of the season, and they certainly deserve a shoutout! Leading the way is (of course) Robert Cramutola with two firsts and two seconds. Wow. Not to be outdone, Kyle Brinkmann has one first, two seconds and one third. Jason Santeiu has three first places, which is also outstanding; Clark the Shark Olson has one first and two seconds; and three fantasy managers – Scott Waggener, Mike Ballschmiede and Dave Rhydderch – have the across-the-board positions of one first, one second and one third. Bill Gaffney also has two seconds and one third. Those eight fantasy managers alone have 10 first places, 11 seconds and five thirds. Yikes.

But see below, as there are other fantasy managers with outstanding results. In fact, these 26 stars account for 22 first-places (39% of the total) and 62 cashing positions (36%), leaving not much for the rest of the field!

Two firsts; two seconds – Robert Cramutola
One first; two seconds; one third – Kyle Brinkmann
Three firsts – Jason Santeiu
One first; two seconds – Clark Olson
One first; one second, one third – Scott Waggener, Dave Rhydderch, Mike Ballschmiede
Two seconds; one third – Bill Gaffney
Two firsts – Bradley Libros
One first; one second – Chris Uram; Alan Mitchell; Andrew Sullivan; Abdulaziz Madani; Tyler Jung
One first; one third – John Pausma; Gregg Martin; Glenn Schroter; Michael O’Brien; Dalton Del Don
Two Seconds – David Miller; Anthony Palavis; Joe Green
One second; one third – Bob Catsiroumpas
Two thirds – Nelson Sousa; Philippe Dussault; Matthew Shepherd

Good luck to all the competitors in Week 26!