The Little Engine That Couldn’t: Main Event Team Review

On the third Saturday of March, as has been customary for many of the past 15 years, I joined friends and colleagues in Las Vegas to draft live in the NFBC. Their Main Event is the largest national high-stakes contest – a 15-team standard 5×5 roto format with an $1,800 entry fee and a $200,000 grand prize for the overall champion.  This season, I reduced my FAAB leagues from 10+ to five to focus on content and time management/family balance. Before having kids, spending most of my Sunday updating FAAB content and working through my own bids was no sweat. Now, with two youngens, ages five and seven, and a robust youth travel hockey schedule, limited weekend time during the MLB season is mostly spent on producing content. For that weekend in Vegas, the Saturday NFBC Main Event was my only live draft in the Year of Brad Lord, 2026.

A few days before the draft, I set pick 14 as my sixth draft preference (KDS) after picks 1-5 and earned the 14th pick. I would have been thrilled to earn pick one or two to start with Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge. Sadly for many, those early first-round picks were anything but a gift this year. At pick 14 and pick 17 in the second round, I knew I would have the option to select two players I’d be happy with — Kyle Tucker, Gunnar Henderson, Fernando Tatis Jr., Junior Caminero, and/or Cristopher Sánchez. Since Sánchez was my only SP target in Round 2, I mapped out two contingency-based draft roadmaps: one with Sánchez, and one that started with two hitters. I also had a few precepts for this draft I wanted to stick by:

Don’t draft a closer early. Instead, begin dipping into the closer pool at the second and third tier, after Round 5.

Based on my draft position, I knew that elite RPs like Cade Smith, Jhoan Duran, Edwin Díaz, and Andrés Muñoz would not fall to me at the end of Round 3. My second round pick (17th) was Mason Miller’s range, but I did not want a closer as a building-block player on my team. Moreover, I felt comfortable with several RP targets later in the draft. Later, you’ll see why this was a bad idea.

Pay up for a top catcher.

Drafting catchers early had never been part of my draft strategy, perhaps blinded by a sense of hubris from pulling Yasmani Grandal and Wilson Ramos from the depths of the draft pool in 2016, and punting the position feverishly last year, with Hunter Goodman, Drake Baldwin and Agustín Ramírez. This season, the allure of backstop value from Ben Rice, Shea Langeliers, Baldwin, Goodman and Ramírez in the 45-90 overall ADP range was enticing. The second part of this plan was to procure one of Francisco Alvarez, Ryan Jeffers, or Logan O’Hoppe as my second catcher in the middle rounds. Hey, we are human after all.

Get Luis Robert Jr., Jung Hoo Lee, and Jordan Walker, no matter what.

As you’ll see below, this plan was executed, though with obvious mixed results.

Follow that Yellow Brick Road (starting pitchers) in Rounds 7-13.

The plan was to bolster my pitching depth with several of the following targets: Drew Rasmussen, Chase Burns, Spencer Strider, Brandon Woodruff, Trevor Rogers, Michael King, Shane Baz, Cade Horton, Mike Burrows, and Gavin Williams. With great irony and to my own demise, Cam Schlittler and Jacob Misiorowski were not on my target list. To make myself feel better, and to avoid you clicking out of this article for the statement above, Luis Castillo, Bubba Chandler, and Jack Flaherty were on my Do Not Draft list.

Here is how my draft unfolded:

Main Event managers are forced to pay a premium for elite starting pitchers. Primarily based on instinct, but also looking for signals in the recent draft history of the manager at pick 15, I deduced that this manager would not take Sánchez at picks 15 or 16, so I was thrilled when my gut paid off. An early-draft victory, if you will.

I previously drafted the offensively-correlated Gunnar Henderson and Pete Alonso 1-2 punch in the first two rounds in NFBC Draft-and-Hold leagues (Draft Champions) and was ecstatic when Alonso fell to 3.14 (pick 44), right near his Main Event max pick of 45. Alonso performed lukewarmly for the first couple of weeks, but quickly warmed up and ended up flourishing in his first full season with the Orioles. He led the AL in RBI and finished the season as the seventh most valuable hitter per our 15-team Fantasy Player Rater at $31.1. Henderson did not come close to delivering first-round value. It was painful to look back and see that the manager drafting 15th took Tatis and Caminero on the wheel.

Drake Baldwin did not disappoint. Again. He finished third at his position and was the 12th overall hitter per the Player Rater, earning $28, producing a valuable .284-85-25-79-3 roto line. Baldwin earned the fourth-most plate appearances among catchers (615) despite missing nearly a month of the season. He started 65% of his games behind the plate and 35% at DH. In this Main Event, Ben Rice (the C1) was drafted four picks earlier and Goodman (the C2) 12 picks later.

Geraldo Perdomo wasn’t a target, but he felt like a good fit and a strong value, available well over a round past his ADP. Perdomo’s decline following that magical 2025 season was inevitable, but not horrible — he scored 75 runs, stole 21 bases and didn’t crush our batting average category despite a dip from .290 to  .262. That 2025 barrel rate (6.2%) predictably declined to his career mark (3%) as his homers also dipped, from 20 in 2025 to just nine in 2026.

Kazuma Okamoto was a smash pick in the 15th round, despite batting just .232 with a 28.8% strikeout rate. He was the Blue Jays’ offensive MVP, leading them in plate appearances (636), homers (33), runs (81), and runs batted in (92). Ten of those homers were hit off lefties, in just 148 plate appearances. Okamoto boasted a 140 wRC+ and a .270 ISO against them.

My starting pitcher core after Sánchez began crumbling when the season was still young.

• Spencer Strider (SP2) – a calculated stash – finally made his first start on May 3, posted a 5.31 ERA and a 1.36 WHIP over eight starts, then was lost for the season.
• Michael King (SP3) held his draft value for the first 15 starts, but it wasn’t exciting (4-6, 3.60, 1.19, 21% K). He was better in his final 17 starts (8-4, 2.88 ERA, 1.17 WHIP) despite the same 21% strikeout rate.
• Shane Baz (SP4) had a bumpy road as an inconsistent starter with a reasonable ERA (4.11), but this was not what I paid for. His WHIP (1.35) hurt and his win luck (6-15) was anything but. Moreover, his K% decreased (from 24.8% in 2025 to 20%), though he remained healthy and made 31 starts for a second straight season.
• Cade Horton (SP5) delivered a promising first start then left us for the season after one inning in Cleveland in his second start on April 3.

The closer situation was a tricky one. When a drafter decides they’re going to wait for saves, they’d better nail it. Losing my RP1 (Jeff Hoffman) was the first nail in the coffin, and falling short on the winning bid for his replacement (Louis Varland) was the second. As closer targets continued to get sniped in this draft, I settled for Plan C in the later rounds — Kirby Yates, Paul Sewald and to remain vigilant in April FAAB. Sewald provided nearly 50% of my saves on this team, 24 of 49, the seventh-most in this 15-team league. Here is how I weakly scrapped those saves together:

The worst part of it was being so desperate that I targeted and acquired Clayton Beeter — my biggest and most notable preseason closer to avoid:

Every draft, there will be someone who drafts Beeter. Don’t be that person.

Game within a game.

— Vlad Sedler (@RotoGut) February 13, 2026

Remember that the roto gods always have the last laugh.

Below is my drafted team by round/pick, with 15-team roto dollars earned and their survival rate on my roster. Of the 30 picks, 13 stuck with me the entire season. The “$ Earned” here is their final Player Rater value, not their contributions to my team.

The hitters I did not bench all season: Henderson (Rd 1), Alonso (2), Baldwin (5), Perdomo (8), Okamoto (15).

I started Wyatt Langford (4) in 52 of the 53 half-week periods and benched Jordan Walker in two periods.

Cristopher Sánchez was the only pitcher I never took out of my starting lineup.

I benched Michael King for three of his 32 starts. He earned a 3.17 ERA for my squad (3.21 on the season) and I punched in all 12 of his wins.

Jordan Walker was the late-round hitter I hung my hat on, drafting him on both of my Main Event entries, the second an online draft that we won’t talk about. Walker was an extremely polarized player in the NFBC and analyst communities. The primary arguments against him were that he was so broken, that even Driveline couldn’t fix him; that his groundball rate was high and that we could not project him for 20+ home runs. The “He went to Driveline” tag became a joke on social media, to the point that the program was not taken seriously by online pundits, turning into “noise to ignore.” It was intriguing storyline last December, and the more I read about Driveline and Walker’s work there, the more steadfast I was in the belief that his impressive partial rookie season was no mirage and that he would have a breakthrough and become a valuable fantasy asset.

The strongest argument was a case of simple math. Walker was cheap and there was little downside on taking a chance late in drafts; if it doesn’t work out, we just drop him. The Driveline hoopla cooled by February and his 330-355 overall ADP was more than reasonable, especially since his spring training results (.205-3-1-3-0 in 47 PA) did not bolster a bull case. Alas, it did not make a difference given where I finished in this league, but Walker worked out splendidly for managers who won their leagues with him on their roster. As we are well aware of, there’s no such thing as a “league-winner” in fantasy baseball. We need several players to heftily out-earn their ADPs (or be profitable in-season acquisitions) to win league titles.

On the flip side, I was head-over-heels for Luis Robert Jr., even anointing him my This Year’s Yelich as my hitter in the middle rounds I annually project to earn borderline first-round value. For those who have never read this paywalled piece at FTN, the article was originally inspired by a prognostication about Yelich before the 2018 season. My 2025 Yelich was Seiya Suzuki (61st on the Player Rater that year) and in 2024 it was Jazz Chisholm Jr. (30th). One of the most polarized hitters in fantasy over the last half decade, the questions about Robert have never been about talent or potential production. It was always a question of staying healthy, which is something Robert has rarely been able to do. The 2026 season was no different and my fantasy squads suffered for it.

Free Agent Acquisitions

My most important strategy for FAAB this season was to maintain discipline and not chase expensive, triple-digit bid targets who may not be worth it. For the first time in several years, I went an entire FAAB season without acquiring a $100+ guy. That means I fell short and missed out on Liam Hicks ($112 in Week 3), Sam Antonacci ($129 in Week 5), and Cole Carrigg in Week 13, though he was acquired in our league for a respectable $89. But, it also means I missed out on all the carnage:

• Week 2 – Cole Sands, $147
• Week 4 – Jakob Junis, $113
• Week 5 – Noah Schultz, $347 (backup of $157)
• Week 5 – Brad Keller, $147
• Week 8 – Ryan Waldschmidt, $118 (backup of $115!)
• Week 9 – A.J. Ewing, $213
• Week 17 – Andrew Kittredge, $121
• Week 23 – Kade Anderson, $264

Joshua Báez went for $500 to a late-season-rising manager who had done a good job of saving.

The four players I spent over $50 on did not pan out:

• Shane Bieber – $81 in Week 15
• River Ryan – $73 in Week 11
• Mark Vientos – $68 in Week 3
• Lars Nootbaar – $67 in Week 12

I mismanaged Bieber, racking up a 5.35 ERA in 33.2 innings from him and benched him for two gems where he allowed one total run. Ryan was dealing for Triple-A Oklahoma City in late May and was on the precipice of a promotion to the Dodgers rotation (or at least I thought), but it never materialized. A month later, Ryan went on a the 7-day minor league IL stint for a hamstring strain that sidelined him for nearly two months before the eventual deal for Tarik Skubal. Vientos was a heart-over-head acquisition and Nootbaar was as mediocre as could be, managing just three dingers, 15 runs batted in and a .242 average over 225 plate appearances in my starting lineup.

Here were my FAAB pickups that actually clicked:

Jake Bauers was an uncomfortable one-week streamer who slowly earned a place on my team, just as Randy Dupree did in the hearts and home of Carl and Molly. There must be one person out there who predicted his career-saving season and $20+ roto earning.

Adding Justin Wrobleski was a simple case of “guy in the Dodgers rotation”. I was cognizant of the fact that his peripherals pointed to the other shoe dropping at some point, and I got out of the Wrobo business just in time.

Sean Burke was incredibly helpful at a time of the season when I really needed the pitching help. He earned himself a top 100 ADP for next season. For Noah Cameron and the others, their contributions were helpful and gave my roster a spark over the final few weeks of the season, alas, it was too little, too late.

The Result

The middle of the standings were tight from the All-Star break through the end of the season — check out that 11.5-point spread between the third and ninth place team! Ironically, the manager of Team C, who earned third place, was my podcast co-host and good friend, Jason Anthony (@booms62). We weren’t happy about landing in the same league and having to compete against each other, but friends battling it out in NFBC leagues is something that occurs quite regularly. Alas, Booms got it done when it mattered.

Here is how my team finished in each of the 10 categories.

My squad’s power remained strong throughout the season, anchored by Alonso, two second-half picks (Okamoto, Walker), my catcher (Baldwin) and my Week 2 acquisition (Bauers). I typically acquire at least a dozen helpful players in FAAB, but only a handful helped this team.

Over the past few seasons, pitching has been a strength of mine in Main Event leagues. This season, it was my downfall, and it was initiated by a hopeful stash that went awry as my SP2 (Strider), selecting the wrong middle-round arms. Of course, we don’t know what’s right or wrong until all Game 162’s have concluded. I spent the season chasing my tail with starters and closers in FAAB, and for that, I paid the price.

Lessons and Takeaways

Usually, they are the same things I tell myself I’ll work on every draft season:

Draft for balance across all 10 categories.

• Building balanced squads keeps us from having to chase and overspend on in-season acquisitions who provide specific categories, like saves and stolen bases.
• A manager who is strong in HR/RBI categories in recent seasons, but struggles drafting closers, may overcompensate and pass on power to chase top-tier closers.
• And if that manager drafted Edwin Díaz and Jeff Hoffman this year, but also struggled drafting power, they may go with an extreme approach the other way in 2027. Lean into your weaker draft tendencies, but not so far in that you fall over.
• The term “draft so you don’t have to FAAB” has no validity, in my opinion. This assumes we’ve drafted all studs who will out-earn their market prices. No one ever pulls this off. We should manage with a mindset of trying to improve our team every week.
• There are successful managers who lean into extreme strategies that ignore balance, because they know how to find the categories they need in FAAB and waivers.
• Balanced drafting works for me, but as has been the case since the very first fantasy league ever, you still have to pick the right players, and we don’t know who those are at the draft table.

Staying away from discounted players with a lengthy IL history.

• They are discounted for a reason!
• It’s not as simple as “injuries beget more injuries”, but there are certainly players who we can confidently declare as injury risks or injury prone. I’m looking at you, Tyler O’Neill!
• It’s ok to take a shot at a player who was hurt last season and is healthy in spring training. Or even someone hurt and on the mend (a stash), but don’t compound injury risk by drafting multiple such players. It rarely, if ever, works out.
• I tried to be more mindful about compounding injury risk this season, but still ended up drafting Langford, Robert and Stanton as starting hitters, and pushed the envelope a bit by drafting Strider as my SP2.

Invest in offenses we think can break out and are underpriced per ADP.

• We knew offenses of the Dodgers, Yankees, Cubs and Brewers would be good, but also most of those hitters would be expensive in drafts.
• If we knew the impact that Nationals hitting coach Matt Borgshculte would have on that offense, surely we’d have targeted and invested in those hitters.
• Or had some of us taken more seriously the offensive acquisitions of the White Sox and Pirates. All three offenses ranked in the top 10 in runs scored after being projected for the bottom three in runs scored before the season.
• Many hitters on these three offenses were either massive draft values (CJ Abrams, Daylen Lile, Miguel Vargas, Brandon Lowe) or excellent short-term and streaming FAAB acquisitions.
• Even the typically boring, high-floor, low-upside Bryan Reynolds finally scored 100+ runs in a season because the offense around him was much improved.
• The 2015 Arizona Diamondbacks were one such value offense I targeted that draft season, including post-300 ADP hitters, AJ Pollock, David Peralta, and in-season pick-up for SBs, Ender Inciarte. They scored the sixth fewest runs in 2014 and the eighth-most in 2015. Similarly, I targeted Blue Jays hitters in 2021, their season playing in Dunedin and Buffalo, and Athletics hitters in Sacramento last season.
• This is a micro strategy I want explore more next draft season.

The key for next season will be to further embrace the self-discipline. Part of making this work will be to not become overly enamored by specific players, separate actionable news from noise, and to stay away from players I love personally who have a tendency to regularly land on the injured list. Maybe next year’s little engine can get to to finish line first.