MLP 2025 Waiver Wire Period #2 Breakdown and Reactions

The second and final Premier level waiver period started on Monday, and we saw a slew of moves despite only three teams bidding on the opportunity to make a selection. Bench selections were also made on Tuesday, along with Challenger waivers on Wednesday. Let’s talk about the moves that have been made.

NY Hustlers Steal Felicity Di Laura from St. Louis Shock; NY Hustlers Trade Felicity Di Laura to Texas Ranchers for Helena Jansen and cash.

St. Louis Shock add Cailyn Campbell; St. Louis Shock Trade Cailyn Campbell to NY Hustlers for Judit Castillo. 

NY Hustlers

These moves align with the Hustlers’ 2025 philosophy of recouping as much money as possible. The Hustlers dropped Ling Wei Kong in the corresponding move to steal Di Laura. Kong clearly isn’t suited as a Premier level player in any capacity, and her time as an MLP player could be over.

Getting Helena Jansen and cash is a win for the Hustlers from a 2026 perspective. However, certain things still don’t look quite right at the kitchen for Jansen, which isn’t a great sign for her becoming a higher-end pro player. You also have to think that the Ranchers would not have traded Jansen if they thought she had the potential to be very good by next year. Nevertheless, she remains one of the few non-female starters with some real potential.

The Hustlers also put Helena Spiridis on the restricted list, created for unusual situations like the visa issues Spiridis and Tom Evans are facing. The Hustlers added the unknown Luana Stanciu.

Texas Ranchers

Felicity Di Laura is the wife of Chicago Slice player, Carlos Di Laura. They are Austin-based, and Carlos is very close with Texas Ranchers GM Ryan Dawidjan, as they co-own The Lab pickleball facility. As a player selected in the 2025 draft, Felicity Di Laura is eligible as a keeper for 2026 and becomes a locally-based, long-term development player for the Ranchers, who remain invested in developing talent beyond their starters.

The Ranchers know Felicity Di Laura well and must believe in her talent. A small caveat is that sometimes being too close to a player can override objective evaluation. We haven’t seen enough to form a strong opinion on Di Laura, but the market is relatively high on her talent, and she was drafted by an Anna Bright-led team. 

St. Louis Shock

The Shock picked up Cailyn Campbell to replace Felicity Di Laura and then flipped her to SoCal for Judit Castillo. We were surprised to see her on the move after the Shock made a welcome post on their social media with comments from their team owner and COO.

For a team like the Shock, having a singles specialist as a sub seems logical. If there is an injury, they can hope to find two wins with their non-sub teams and still have a major advantage in a Dreambreaker. We should note that Judit Castillo barely squeaked by Jessie Irvine in the first round of singles action in San Clemente on Tuesday. It is a testament to Irvine’s improvement as a singles player but may also not be a great sign for Castillo’s prowess in singles. However, she did beat Kaitlyn Christian in two games later on this week.*

SoCal Hard Eights

It is a youth movement in Southern California as the Hard Eights picked up John Lucian Goins after Roscoe Bellamy was stolen.

Cailyn Campbell is the 15-year-old sister of Florida Smash’s Cason Campbell. Cailyn was signed by the UPA on June 10th and seems to be a rising player. She had a couple of good singles wins in San Clemente this past week, including against Chao Yi Wang in straight games.

We wonder whether there will be a rule change, or a push for one, allowing teams to keep their mid-season waiver pickups. Parity will be hard to come by in 2026, but one way to assist the have-not teams would be to allow them to keep any potential diamonds found on the waiver wire.

Carolina Hogs steal Roscoe Bellamy from SoCal Hard Eights; Carolina Hogs drop Collin Johns for Martin Emmrich 

SoCal Hard Eights add John Lucian Goins

Carolina Hogs

It was almost certain that the Hogs wanted to make a move with their male situation after Collin Johns was left unprotected. They stole Roscoe Bellamy from the Hard Eights, who had previously stolen him from the Columbus Sliders. Bellamy didn’t play a single rally for SoCal, and it will be interesting to see his role with the Hogs.

Surprisingly, the Hogs dropped Collin Johns for Martin Emmrich, who cannot be kept for 2026. This likely ends Collin’s MLP run, and he may be happy to no longer play in MLP, which could be part of the reason Carolina made the move.

Former pro player Maggie Remynse had a good thought on X last week, suggesting that the Hogs will play Bellamy and have Collin Johns continue in a coaching role – this could still be the case after being dropped.

We’d expect Roscoe Bellamy to be first in line for playing time over Martin Emmrich, and we also think this means the Hogs will switch their mixed pairings, putting Ben Johns with Kaitlyn Christian. If nothing else, it might make Ben less mopey to play with Kaitlyn Christian.

SoCal Hard Eights

It is a bit surprising to see Goins get picked up but we quite like the move – we’d like it more if they changed the rules about waiver pick ups. After the Atlanta PPA, we highlighted Goins as a player MLP teams should keep an eye on, and we are probably higher on his doubles ability than consensus. We’re still not sure about how his hands hold up but he continued to pass the eye test in the early rounds of San Clemente. 

Regardless of whether the Hard Eights will be able to keep Goins, we like the idea of taking a shot on someone less proven and seeing what’s there for a team with no playoff shot.

As a final note, the SoCal Hard Eights had the opportunity to steal someone with the second selection but chose not to do so. They were not required to take anyone, and Tice suspects they had their eye on Di Laura.

Texas Ranchers Add Wyatt Stone and Drop Rafa Hewett 

Texas is clearly prioritizing local players for their bench spots. Wyatt Stone has been sneaky decent in recent months and is a fine plug-and-play option.

It’s a little wild to think about Rafa Hewett being out of MLP completely right now. The results have not been good, though, and that’s what matters at the end of the day.

Orlando Squeeze Add Grayson Goldin and Place Tom Evans on Restricted List 

The singles results have been good, but the doubles have not been good at all for the newly signed Grayson Goldin on the APP Tour. Interestingly, he and Jay Devilliers almost knocked off Staksrud/Patriquin on Thursday, losing 11-9 in the third. He also had match points against Connor Garnett in singles in San Clemente. Goldin is a grinder and appears to be working hard on his game.

He’ll bring good energy to the Squeeze bench and it really makes sense for these better teams to have a singles specialist as their 3rd player at this point in the year.

Florida Smash (Challenger) Add Paula Rives Palau and Drop Sarah Ansboury

The Smash were the only Challenger team to make a move, dropping Sarah Ansboury for the recently UPA-signed Paula Rives Palau. We don’t know much beyond what Erik Tice provided about Palau. It’s safe to say her movement will be better than Sarah Ansboury’s. It’s incredible they won a match in regulation with Ansboury.

*this article was amended to add that Judit Castillo beat Kaitlyn Christian at the PPA Orange County Cup

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