MLP 2026 Pre-Draft: The 20-Team Mega Breakdown (Part 2)
We gave you part 1 of our 20-team mega breakdown yesterday. This article is part 2, which features the 9 remaining teams that were either non-playoff teams or Challenger teams in 2025.
The league deciding to revert to all teams having to fill out their starting roster spots in the draft before drafting bench slots is a game-changer for these lower spending teams and helps to ensure that good players are not sitting on benches either as a backup doubles player or a singles specialist. It gives the lower spending teams a better opportunity to nab some talented players with upside and maybe, just maybe, have a shot at competing with the big dawgs in the future.
Bay Area Breakers
Current Roster: Pablo Telllez, Mya Bui
Key Offseason Moves: Traded for Pablo Tellez and Mya Bui
Needs: Starting Left Side Male and Right-Side Female
Breakdown: The Breakers are somewhat interesting as a non-promoted Challenger team by attempting to scrounge together a competitive roster. They have jettisoned their entire 2025 group and acquired Pablo Tellez and Mya Bui, which is not the worst they could do. Although Tellez is having a strong start to the year, he has limitations as an MLP player â it should be mentioned that Tellez was part of the very successful Bay Area Challenger squad in the first half of 2023 (with Christian Alshon, Ewa Radzikowska and Rachel Summers). There is still hope for Buiâs upside, but less so when you consider that Miami was okay parting ways with her for straight cash.
There are a lot more signed players in 2026 in the player pool for teams to choose from so weâll see what Bay Area can find, but realistically Bay Area canât be expecting to be anything more than a borderline playoff team.
Las Vegas Night Owls
Current Roster: Blaine Hovenier; Roscoe Bellamy, Chao Yi Wang; Brooke Buckner; Liz Truluck
Key Offseason Moves: Traded away Pablo Tellez and James Delgado; traded for Blaine Hovenier, Roscoe Bellamy and Liz Truluck
Needs: Bench male
Breakdown: We described Las Vegas as a mystery wrapped in an enigma. They made two weird 3-team deals from trade window #1 , including PAYING CASH along with James Delgado and Samantha Parker to acquire Brandon French (now dropped) and Liz Truluck. They also acquired Blaine Hovenier in a separate deal. Beyond telling us donât believe in James Delgadoâs future (or Chris Patrick wanted to throw his boss, Tom Dundon, and the Carolina Hogs a bone), the trades make less and less sense the more we think about it.
The current roster is sort of competitive, but uninspiring. They have a starting 4 that will likely be better than a number of the bottom teams, but the Night Owls will have to remain a TBD until after the draft and we see what their final plans are.
Phoenix Flames
Current Roster: Jessie Irvine
Key Offseason Moves: Dropped Jack Sock, Tyson McGuffin, Genie Bouchard
Needs: 2 starting men and a left side starting female
Breakdown: Speaking of mysteries, it is near impossible to understand what Phoenix is doing. They didnât seem too concerned about winning last year when they drafted a showtime team and put a coach on the sideline whose only role appeared to be blowing a whistle and clipboard chirps. There was also a bunch of drama with Jessie and Genie, and then they end up dropping everyone, except for Jessie Irvine.
Jessie only costs $11,000 to keep based on her 2024 draft price, so this may be signal that they donât want to spend money. It is a little bit surprising they didnât want to run back their roster with Sock (who recently relocated to Arizona), McGuffin, and Irvine then spend a little to get a legitimate starting female. Thatâs not a winning team, but it is competitive, if you can get the team to focus. Instead, building a roster almost entirely from scratch through the draft will be very difficult.
Does Phoenix want to take MLP seriously or will they keep throwing out Coach Brant and his clipboard?
Atlanta Bouncers
Current Roster: Jaume Martinez Vich; Jay Devilliers; Kaitlyn Christian
Key Offseason Moves: Traded for Jay Devilliers and Kaitlyn Christian
Needs: Starting female
Breakdown: The Bouncers are currently in the running to be the least interesting competitive team in MLP. First off, we have some concerns over Jaumeâs level of focus on a team that isnât in the mix, which will be balanced out by the bronze stallion, Jay Devillierâs, never say die compete level. Kaitlyn Christian is an above-average starting MLP female, albeit without a ton of upside in 2026. Unless they spend an insane amount to get a top female, it is hard to envision this team being anything other than a an above average roster that lacks juice.
Atlanta is in that awkward in between of willing to spend some money, but not willing to spend enough money to actually be good. Is Danni-Elle Townsend a more realistic, high-priced target for the Bouncers? Townsend could give them a woman they can build around for future years. If they want to take a risk with a short-term pain, huge maybe long-term gain, we still like how Elsie Hendershot profiles, despite some tough early results in 2026.
California Black Bears
Current Roster: Layne Sleeth*
Key Offseason Moves: Trading away Layne Sleeth
Needs: Everything
Breakdown: It has been objectively a bad run for California over the past two years from a roster construction standpoint. This is a list of non-subs that have been on the California roster since the beginning of 2024 – Rafa Hewett, DJ Young, Amanda Hendry, Emily Cederquist, Susannah Barr, Chris Haworth, Brandon French, Genie Erokhina, and Juan Benitez. They were finally able to put together a quality Challenger roster after paying to acquire Michael Loyd and Martin Emmrich during the 2025 season, who were paired up with Layne Sleeth and Lina Padegimaite.
The hiring of Erik Tice as their new GM before the draft appears to be a concession that their roster building needs to improve, but it also indicates they must want to compete in some capacity. Martin Emmrich was a mid-season waiver pickup but is there a rules reason we are missing behind why California did not keep Michael Loyd? Loyd was an expensive pick from a bench player selection standpoint.
*As noted in part 1, California has a trade in place with Texas for trade window #2 to deal Layne Sleeth away for cash. For some odd reason, the Ranchers paid money to get Layne Sleeth from California, meaning the Black Bears have zero players going into draft day.
Is the biggest question really whether the Black Bears will run it back with Rafa Hewett one more time? Round âem up!
Chicago Slice
Current Roster: Hunter Johnson, Zane Navratil
Key Offseason Moves: Traded Max Freeman for Hunter Johnson; Dropped Callie Smith; Lost James Ignatowich and Vivian Glozman;
Needs: 2 starting women
Breakdown: It is shaping up to be another tough year for Chicago. Hunter Johnsonâs recent results do not suggest any further significant leap in his doubles game is coming. Zane Navratil has been more than open about his diminishing place in the game and is simply holding out hope he can be a starter on a team for one or two more years.
With Callie Smith gone, it would make more sense for Chicago to sell Hunter and let Zane mentor a group of younger up and comers, with the goal being to hit a home run somewhere. Like we have seen with team building in other pro sports leagues, it is not ideal to have a roster full of inexperienced players without veteran mentors in place. Zane alluded to Chicago having some interesting plans prior to the keeper deadline on his podcast and going a full junior rebuild route would be a fascinating experiment to witness.
If the plan is to keep Hunter Johnson and Zane Navratil as their starting men, who knows what their plan is with their starting women.
Carolina Hogs
Current Roster: James Delgado, DJ Young, Angie Walker, Ava Ignatowich
Key Offseason Move: Traded for James Delgado
Needs: Better bench players who can be starters
Breakdown: The Hogs are only interesting from the standpoint that the lead investor in the UPA, Tom Dundon, has an uncanny ability to keep one-upping himself each year to show the pickleball world how little he cares about MLP. If you didnât think Dundon could prove he cared less about MLP, think again!
For those who have forgotten, Dundon kidnapped Ben Johns and paid almost the bare minimum to fill out the rest of his roster in 2024. He continued to hold Ben captive for part of 2025 while paying a little more than the bare minimum to keep Kaitlyn Christian around. Kaitlyn was traded for Etta Tuionetoa last year, who was eventually shipped out along with Ben right before the trade deadline.
There was an opportunity for the Hogs to pick-up some intriguing players with upside in the draft, but the Hogs will not be able to draft anyone until all 20 teams have their starters filled out. And we have to expect that they wonât spend in the second part of the draft either. The only player on this roster that should have been kept was James Delgado. A roster that looks like the Hogsâ current roster would be embarrassing for most people. Thankfully for Dundon, he doesnât care so we donât have to worry about him being embarrassed.
We just feel bad for all of the Hogs players, who we assume will have to keep covering their own expenses travel and accommodations to attend contractually required MLP events.
SoCal Hard Eights
Current Roster: None
Key Offseason Moves: Lost Ryan Fu to contract termination; Traded away Blaine Hovenier
Needs: Everything
Breakdown: It is sad to see how the Hard Eights have gone from being one of the most invested ownership groups in MLP to a complete afterthought. The requirement to spend has put this once savvy organization in a place where they have chosen not to compete for a title. After an oddly lacklustre 2025 draft, the Hard Eights turned themselves into a frisky spoiler by picking up Cailyn Campbell and Jalina Ingram, who they were not allowed to keep for 2026 as waiver pick-ups.
With Ryan Fu getting his contract terminated, it left only Blaine Hovenier on the roster for the Hard Eights. Now that they traded Hovenier for cash, it is a another full rebuild for an ownership group that does not want to spend anything more than is necessary to put a team out on the court.
With the first part of the draft only going 12 men and 16 women deep respectively, it wonât be impossible to find cheap, upside talent at the back end of the starter bids, if they get some luck. We presume the Hard Eights will look to take swings on unproven youth or other upside talent with the hope they can find a diamond in the rough, except this time they can keep them for next year. The more obvious upside talent will be gone, but will they be able to take a crack at players like Ella Yeh or Jade Rau? On the menâs side, are you able to bring in someone like John Lucian Goins, Rafa Lenhard or Andre Mercado? They will be a lot of names in the mix for them to take a chance on.
Maybe MLP will change the rules to allow teams to keep their mid-season waiver pickups?
Florida Smash
Current Roster: Travis Rettemaier, Cason Campbell, Martina Frantova
Key Offseason Move: None
Needs: Starting female
Breakdown: There is not a single franchise that has been worse at drafting players in the history of MLP than the Florida Smash. Luckily for the Smash, it seems that they are not spending money and mainly focused on trotting out an all-Florida based roster.
We are probably at the point where Travis Rettenmaier can be lumped in with the rest of the JAGs out there. Heâs not going to be off the team, but the Smash would be better served exploring alternative options, if they ever have aspirations to compete. And after a year of watching Cason Campbell, weâre selling his stock and do not see him as a long-term upside piece.
Chris Crouch and Adam Harvey are both local players that are more intriguing. Is there any chance that either of them slip under the radar enough for Florida to scoop them up as a bench player? Weâll also see if Florida tries to bring back mid-season pickup, Paula Rives, another local player who has shown some mildly intriguing results to start off 2026.
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