We did some good drafting yesterday. Here are some tables encapsulating our results based on projected 2026 fWAR:
Some clarifying notes:
- The above table shows Fangraphs’ projections for all 41 teams in the MLB/EFL community, as of right after the draft last night, and back on Feb 14 when I spent a good part of Valentine’s Day getting a pre-draft snapshot.
- Not all the changes are due specifically to our drafting. Since we didn’t let the MLB teams keep the players they drafted yesterday, all the little MLB team changes you see are results of their roster moves, injuries, and updated Fangraphs projections.
- Our numbers also reflect roster moves and updated Fangraphs projections, but most of the changes are the results of yesterday’s draft, as shown in the following table, which… if I was running a seminar on managing in the EFL, this table would be on the final exam and you’d have to explain it to me.
Here’s the problem we all face: to be competitive in this league, i.e, to be good enough to have a reasonable chance to win, we have to win at least 50 games more than a replacement team — somewhere in the mid-90’s of wins, at least. To be Dodger Dominant, we need 60 wins above replacement. We only have just under $120,000,000 to spend, so we need to get our WARs at about $2,000,000 per win or less — maybe $2.2 million if 50 WAR is good enough.
This chart tells us that no one in our league came close to getting 2026 wins at $2,000,000 per win, barring extremely improbable clustering of 99th-percentile outcomes on one team’s roster.
Cascadia was the most efficient drafter in wins per dollar terms ($3,704,820 per 2026 win), but if they had an entire team like the 6 players they got, they’d only have 41.5 wins at a salary over $150,000,000. Or they could scale back to 24 players for just over $120,000,000…. but then they’d only have 33.2 wins and be a player short of a legal roster.
IT’S HOPELESS...
…EXCEPT we get to keep our Rookies for 4 more years at a fixed rate of $4,500,000, or (on average) $1,125,000 per player per year.
If our players repeat their predicted performance for 5 years, at a total cost of the displayed 2026 salaries plus $4,500,000 per player, can we get to 50 WAR?
Again, the Glaciers are the stars here. If their 6 players perform every year through 2030 at their predicted 2026 levels, they will produce their 8.3 wins each year at only $1,391,570 per win. Other 6-person Glacial cohorts could cost more than $2,000,000 per win giving them a chance to win it all.
This is why Cascadia is so dangerous! They’ve been in the league only 2 years and already they are THE master drafters. They’ve cracked the code! And those of us who’ve been doing this for nearly a quarter of a century — 10 times more than Dustin; more than 1% of the time since Jesus Christ — still have not figured out how to do what Dustin is already doing! [pant! pant!}
[Editor: Now calm down, Ron. You did pretty well, too…]
Stuff it, Editor! Don’t you see that little asterisk next to Brendan Donovan’s name? I drafted Ben Williamson, then traded him for Donovan right after the draft. Donovan maybe should have been left out of this ledger. And it was mostly luck that I spotted the opportunity with only two days left until the draft. I can’t count on those things happening every draft day to bail me out.
[Editor: Ron, Ron — your discussion so far assumes these rookies won’t get better over their 5-year EFL tenures. If they, as a group, play twice as well for most of their rookiedoms, won’t that open opportunities to win? After all, two EFL teams topped every MLB team last year. Which has happened before. Aren’t you the one who tells other people “whatever exists is possible?”]
That was Kenneth Boulding, the famous 20th Century Quaker economist. He called it “Boulding’s First Law.” But now he’s dead, and the 20th century is over.
But…
Okay, your points are good. I’m just worried that the Glaciers may be the only team who has figured out how to beat the MLB teams regularly.
According to Fangraphs, Canberra and Kaline did well, DC and Portland were in the gray zone, but no one was as clever as the Cascadian, and everyone else spent at an unsustainable pace if they want to get to 50 fWAR or a little more.
Luckily for Peshastin, they’re already at 55.8 wins. But how is everyone else supposed to be able to afford buying wins on a Free Agent market that charges more than $2.5 million per win? And who else besides Cascadia showed reliable skill at finding enough of the bargains?
[Editor: Aren’t you understating Kaline’s accomplishments? The Drive improved the most since Valentine’s Day — 9.5 wins!]
Yeah, well, about that… only 6.6 fWAR of that improvement was from the draft. I shouldn’t say “only” – it was a good haul. But the rest of the improvement was mostly due to my flub. In February I mis-aligned Ben Rice’s predicted 2.6 fWAR so it didn’t get added into the team’s total. I corrected that error this month, leaving the Drive with the fourth best draft hall in the league, but the biggest “improvement.”
The Wolverines got the most fWAR out of the draft (asterisk attached) while the Glaciers missed by only 1/10 of a win. The Glaciers and Wolverines soared 14 places in the projected 2026 MLB/EFL standings (the W’s sneaking a mere 0.1 games ahead of the Dragons), while the Kangaroos jumped 11 places to tuck in behind the Dodgers and Pears at the top.
On the other hand, our reigning champs are stuck in 39th place, despite reaping 3.6 fWAR wins from the draft. Our 2025 second-place Seraphim stayed stuck in 11th place despite passing the Braves and Orioles because the Kangaroos and Glaciers passed them. The Alleghenys and Rosebuds stayed stuck together, still tied, while both teams passed six MLB teams in the projected standings.
The average EFL team moved up from 25th place to 19th place — which is in the top half of a 41-team race.
So, my fellow EFL fellows, buckle down and prepare the heck out of the Free Agent draft on March 21. The Editor thinks we can handle those MLBers. But be sure to take this lesson and apply it: don’t spend more than $2,000,000 per fWAR!
