My apologies for the delay since my last written Omnifantasy update, but I know many of you have kept up with the results as they’ve updated on the site. PGA just finished up for the year with The Open Championship, and it was a good time to circle back and update the goings-on since draft season. We’ll go sport by sport and talk about the outcomes a bit, and what they’ve meant for drafts.
As always, getting big finishes and either the winner’s 80 or runner-up’s 50 from late-round picks is crucial, while taking zeroes or even a 20-point finish from a top pick is a big hit to any Omnifantasy roster’s goal of winning a league. I’ll indicate the average draft position of picks I discuss in parenthesis after their name, organized by what position they were drafted among their sport. For example, I’ll mention Duke in NCAAB in the next paragraph, and the “(NCAAB5)” after their name indicates they were the fifth NCAAB pick taken on average.
ADP is taken from the 12-league Omnifantasy Cup — the overall standings of the Omni Cup can be viewed at this link, which can also be found on the main page at omnifantasy.com. Shout out Evan from League 7 who is off to a massive start as the current overall leader.
NCAAB
We start by traveling all the way back to early April, as the last Omnifantasy Substack update left off at the Final Four. North Carolina was the one Final Four participant that was mostly undrafted, and they took down Duke (NCAAB5) before giving Kansas (NCAAB8) a run for their money in the final.
As the eighth-drafted NCAAB team, Kansas represented a very nice start for drafters who picked them in the middle rounds.
Champions League
When we last left off, soccer’s Champions League had reached the final eight, with each of the three biggest pre-tourney favorites moving on. None would go on to win, as Real Madrid (UCL9) pulled off one of the more improbable runs imaginable.
Back in draft season, Real went ninth largely because they were already behind 1-0 from their first leg matchup with Paris Saint-Germain (UCL4), and PSG would go up 2-0 on aggregate in the second leg before Real roared back on the strength of three second half goals to advance to the round of eight. From there, they moved past Chelsea (UCL5) in extra time of the second leg of their tie, then also beat draft season favorite Manchester City (UCL1) in extra time of the second leg of their semifinals matchup. Champions League then switches to a one-match, neutral-site final, and Real won 1-0 against Liverpool (UCL2) to claim the glory.
Bayern Munich (UCL3) failed to reach the semifinals as a high overall pick, losing to Villareal (UCL11) in the quarterfinals to land on 20 points. Villareal’s 30 was an Omnifantasy boon for late-round UCL drafters, but the current Omni Cup leader Evan took not just Villareal late, but also Real early, hitting for 110 points in UCL.
NBA
The Golden State Warriors (NBA1) were draft season ADP favorites, and took down the 80, but the rest of the NBA results were a bit less predictable. The Brooklyn Nets (NBA3) were going off as the third team in February drafts, but their regular season struggles continued long enough to lead to a very tough first-round matchup with the eventual runners-up, the Boston Celtics (NBA9).
Brooklyn took a zero, while each of the other top-five picks by ADP all lost in the quarterfinals to settle for 20 points. The Phoenix Suns (NBA2) were eliminated by the Dallas Mavericks (NBA12) in seven games, the Philadelphia 76ers (NBA4) lost to the Miami Heat (NBA6) in six, and the Milwaukee Bucks (NBA5) fell to the Celtics in seven.
Boston’s 50 points in the middle rounds made them probably about as valuable a pick as Golden State’s 80 points made them as a first-round option. Dallas’s 30 from even later in drafts made them the latest productive pick, as they were the only NBA team drafted outside the top 10 at the sport to reach the quarterfinals. The Memphis Grizzlies (NBA8) were the final team to score, and while the Warriors were the only pick among the top five NBA options that had a strong result, the group drafted right behind them picked up the slack in what is annually one of the more predictable sports.
NHL
The NHL tends to be a little less predictable from Omnifantasy drafting season — which is of course during the heart of the regular season — than the NBA. But in 2022, the Colorado Avalanche (NHL1) beat the Tampa Bay Lightning (NHL2) in a Stanley Cup Finals of the two draft period favorites. Since I’ve been running Omnifantasy leagues, over the seven previous years since 2015, we’d never seen even two top-five drafted teams meet in the Finals, let alone the very top two.
The other semifinalists, the New York Rangers (NHL12) and Edmonton Oilers (NHL14), were both late-round gems who made nice runs, and kept the unpredictability of the NHL postseason close in mind. The Florida Panthers (NHL3) finished with 20 points, while the Vegas Golden Knights (NHL4) got shut out as the highest-drafted non-scoring team.
USFL
Due to having just eight teams, the USFL wasn’t part of the Omnifantasy Cup, as any league featuring it would have needed to be eight people or smaller so each person could draft a team. But the points are updated for those smaller leagues who used it, with the Birmingham Stallions defeating the Philadelphia Stars in the title game.
PGA
One of the big reasons for this newsletter is to post the end results for PGA and ATP, as they are cumulative scoring. Here’s how things played out this year, with Cameron Smith (PGA14) taking down the 80 on the strength of his win at The Open Championship last week, which he paired with his win at the PLAYERS Championship back in March.
Scottie Scheffler (PGA13) won a tiebreak with Rory McIlroy (PGA4) for the runner-up prize of 50 Omnifantasy points, with the tiebreaker (which is listed on the site) being best finish in an individual tournament. McIlroy reached 12 total “golf points” through top-eight finishes at all four majors, but Scheffler had a win at the Masters under his belt which gave him the second spot. Will Zalatoris (PGA15) rounded out the top four, and you may have noticed Scheffler (PGA13), Smith (PGA14), and Zalatoris (PGA15) were back-to-back-to-back in ADP in what became a hot spot for drafters that waited to hit the sport in the later rounds.
Top-drafted golfer Jon Rahm (PGA1) failed to contend at any of the five tournaments, while Collin Morikawa (PGA2) had a couple top-eight finishes but missed the cutoff to finish top eight and earn Omnifantasy points by a slim margin. Other than McIlroy, only Justin Thomas (PGA3) finished in the points among the top-10 drafted golfers, which Thomas accomplished by winning the PGA Championship, though his underwhelming performances at the other four tournaments kept him in the 20-point range.
Matthew Fitzpatrick (PGA23) was only drafted in 4 of the 10 Omnifantasy Cup leagues, while Cameron Young and Anirban Lahiri both went undrafted in all 10. All three managed to finish top eight and earn 20 Omnifantasy points, though most of those points went unclaimed by any Omnifantasy Cup competitors.
Formula 1
The Formula 1 season is halfway done, and there have been some surprises. Top pick Lewis Hamilton (F1-1) currently sits in sixth place, as his Mercedes team has stumbled, but he’s finished third in three straight races, so he may be setting up a second-half rise into the top five. Each team has two drivers, and his teammate George Russell (F1-3) was also a top pick, but sits in fifth overall.
Max Verstappen (F1-2) leads the way, while his Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez (F1-7) recently fell from second to third place. Charles LeClerc (F1-4) sits second as the top driver for the Ferrari team, and his teammate Carlos Sainz (F1-5) sits fourth. Lando Norris (F1-6), the top driver for the McLaren team, sits seventh, making a current top seven that — while shuffled — matches the same top seven the markets predicted as favorites in draft season.
This was one of my concerns with using F1, the predictability of it. Even in a season that has clearly been unexpected, the results are all mostly what you’d expect save for one key thing — the Mercedes team struggling. The Mercedes team has won the Constructors Championship as the top team each year since 2014, so their fall from the top spot has certainly been a big storyline (at least as far as I understand it). And yet, the two teams that have capitalized and combine to hold the top four spots for each of their two drivers are the two the market would have overwhelmingly predicted if that one data point — Mercedes struggling — was known.
Red Bull finished second in both 2019 and 2020, and have been in the top three every year since 2009, save for one fourth-place finish in 2015. Other than a sixth-place finish in the shortened 2020 campaign, Ferrari have been top-three every year since 2015, and haven’t finished lower than fourth since 1981. And even with Mercedes falling from the top spot, both of the Mercedes drivers are comfortably in the top eight, sitting at fifth and sixth and looking like they are in position to move up more than fall out of the point-scoring slots altogether. Without any type of playoff system, F1 appears to be a sport where the top options aren’t in any jeopardy of finishing with zero Omnifantasy points, and the later-round picks have just a slim chance to sneak into the top eight and earn 20 points, with essentially no shot at finishing top five.
I haven’t yet translated the current F1 standings into Omnifantasy points, but will probably do so soon.
Omnifantasy Cup Update
I’ve mentioned Evan’s team a few times, and here it is in full, with the Warriors, Real Madrid, Kansas, and Cameron Smith all securing 80 already, and Max Verstappen looking like a strong bet for 80 more in F1. Of note, the Warriors were a first-round pick in 7 of 12 Omnifantasy Cup drafts, and this 3.04 price was the only time they made it past 3.01.
He’s definitely in a comfortable spot, but if we want to poke holes, he’s already taken zeroes with Gonzaga and the Vegas Golden Knights as high picks, while Denny Hamlin is off to a tough start in his NASCAR season and the New England Revolution are currently on the outside looking in to the MLS playoff picture.
A bit further down his board, though, we find a loaded late-round NFL duo of the Los Angeles Chargers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who were drafted late due to Tom Brady’s short-lived retirement but of course are now back among the favorites. Evan’s final round pick Minnesota United are also in fourth in the MLS Western Conference, and could be in for some postseason soccer.
Can anyone run Evan down? That’s the big question the rest of the way, as we pass the rough halfway point. MLB could be key, where Evan’s Detroit Tigers haven’t been competitive. I’d guess he still has at least a few more 20s and 30s in him, along with Max Verstappen’s likely 80, but it wouldn’t be too surprising if he didn’t add a ton more points beyond that. There are plenty of teams lying in wait who had solid starts that could see the right combination of winners from the fall and winter sports to surge ahead.
I’ll try to get another update in sometime this fall, but I always get quite a bit busier as football season starts to ramp up. If you don’t hear from me with one of these writeups, you can always follow along on the leaderboard, and if I’m slow updating the results, feel free to DM me on Twitter @YardsPerGretch or shoot a reply to one of these emails. Until next time.
Think there's a bug. Standings only show PGA. 0s for all other sports