NML’s 2026 MLP Draft Grades (Part 2) – Bottom of the Class
We still more than a couple of months before the MLP season starts and the hardest part for some of these teams will be having to watch their drafted players perform on tour over that period of time. While players have an opportunity to breakout in the MLP context, tour results are a very strong indicator of future success or lack of success.
We posted part 1 of our draft grades yesterday and are bringing you part 2 today!
Orlando Squeeze
Roster: Federico Staksrud, Jack Sock (#8 pick, $105K), Lacy Schneemann, Milan Rane, Alex Walker (#40 pick, $11K), Yates Johnson (#52 pick, $7K)
Prior to the draft, we had flagged the Squeeze as a potential Jack Sock landing spot. It is a far more ideal situation than the Phoenix Flames vibes roster and coach of 2025 for Sock. This is a playoff team but the Squeeze women aren’t good enough combined to vault this team beyond winning a round in the playoffs.
While the Squeeze have a solid organizational infrastructure, they have never had a head coach and we have seen this cause issues with motivation from Federico Staksrud. If the men can stay motivated for this team, they will be a tough out with 4 capable players and upside (slash volatility) with Sock and Schneemann. We had wondered if a trade was coming to upgrade one of their female spots, but that hasn’t happened.
We’re surprised the Squeeze went with Alex Walker here when there were better singles players on the board and, when their men are so good at singles, it seems like a waste to go with Yates Johnson, whose best quality is his singles play.
Grade: B-
Chicago Slice
Roster: Jamie Wei (#5 pick, $75K), Mari Humberg (#6 pick, $90K), Hunter Johnson, Zane Navratil, Jalina Ingram (#32 pick, $35K), Tom Protzek (#41, #17K)
We went through this roster in our Winners & Losers column quite extensively. We don’t really understand the roster construction. If talent acquisition is the goal, they did a pretty good job, including with their bench spots. They spent real money on their women’s and bench spots, but having Hunter and Zane as your starting men, doesn’t jive for us.
The two main problems are Zane Navratil’s ever-sliding stock and the fit between Humberg and Wei. Every team in the draft could have had Elsie Hendershot, but why not put together a team with two upside females instead of one? There was also Cailyn Campbell or Kiora Kunimoto out there. They spent more on Jalina Ingram than the Shock did on Elsie Hendershot. What is the long-term goal here?
Grade: C+
Atlanta Bouncers
Roster: Kaitlyn Christian, Jessie Irvine (traded), Jaume Martinez Vich, Jay Devilliers, Donald Young (drafted), Keilly Ulery (drafted)
It’s hard to know exactly what the MO is for all of these teams. The Bouncers are owned by Anheuser-Busch and it may be that they simply want a team that is decently competitive and not embarrassing, and they are using this franchise to activate sponsorship opportunities in the Atlanta area (their bench picks selections would indicate that being important). Nevertheless, we only care about rings and Atlanta is not doing a good job of ring hunting.
They have overhauled their roster, except for Jaume, which led them to trade for Kaitlyn Christian, Jay Devilliers and now Jessie Irvine. Fine, but not exciting. We had pegged the Bouncers in our MLP Mega-Breakdown as a franchise that should be looking at Elsie Hendershot. Going after completely unproven, but inexpensive, youth talent is the best viable option to create a contending team without breaking the bank in MLP right now, in our opinion. Much like tanking in other pro sports, it only provides a better chance of future success and does not provide any guarantees.
However, the only guarantees for the Bouncers going forward is that they won’t be one of the best teams and they won’t be one of the worst.
Grade: C+
Palm Beach Royals
Roster: Sofia Sewing, Tina Pisnik, Dekel Bar, Tyson McGuffin (drafted), Tammy Emmrich (drafted), Grayson Goldin (drafted)
MLP made life much easier for Palm Beach than we expected them to have as an expansion franchise, and we tend to think they fumbled the bag a bit here. Things started out strong with signing Sofia Sewing and trading for Tina Pisnik at relatively cost friendly prices. Getting two strong females to anchor the team immediately made good sense, even if the fit isn’t perfect. Also, with Sofia Sewing signing to the APP, it is not ideal for her development long-term that she won’t be playing with exclusively PPA Tour events starting in 2027. Whether she plays at all outside of MLP will be interesting to monitor.
We were fine with them buying low on Dekel Bar, but we were surprised to see that they didn’t go ahead and sign any of the top non-rostered men on our big board for $80K (Truong, Shimabukuro, Bhatia) as they did with Sewing. We thought maybe they felt they could get good value for that $80K.
Instead, they drafted Tyson McGuffin. Not an abhorrent move, in a vacuum. Tyson is a fine MLP Player as a #2 starter in a 20-team landscape. The problem is with so much more upside available to the Royals, they might have really squandered their shot at putting together a real contender. Tyson is clearly on the wrong side of the bell curve of his career, Dekel’s projection is unclear at the moment, and Tina is a limited upside player (obviously she is playing really well right now). We also still believe Dekel is best optimized in MLP as a #2 right-side male, who can play a big #2 mixed.
Finally, the bench selections from Palm Beach were confusing. Tammy Emmrich is fine enough with no upside and Grayson Goldin is recovering from two strokes (he is local to the Palm Beach area). If Palm Beach’s goal was simply to put together an immediately competitive roster with marketable pickleball names and no shot for title contention, then they accomplished their goal. Unfortunately for Palm Beach, these grades do not factor marketing in.
Grade: C+
Miami Pickleball Club
Roster: Alix Truong, Estee Widdershoven (#27 pick, $10K), Yuta Funemizu, Nico Acevedo (#25 pick, $11K), Aiko Yoshitomi (#54 pick, $4K), Clayton Powell (#44 pick, $11K)
As always, Miami put together an interesting draft, as they always do. We had Widdershoven at #17 on our big board as we had liked the limited footage and results we saw from her. The Nico Acevedo pick was out of nowhere, especially since we didn’t even know he was signed and hasn’t been playing PPA events. Acevedo was on the radar for Miami’s Challenger draft back in 2024, but it Miami chose to go in a different direction. It’s hard to question Johnny Goldberg’s talent identification, but there’s nothing over the past 2 years to suggest Acevedo is worth a roster spot in MLP, much less a starting spot.
We had forgot to add Clayton Powell to our big board as another late APP transplant. He had a good showing in Newport with Christa Gecheva and is a young guy who has been playing pickleball since his teenage years. We also haven’t been overly impressed with anything about Aiko Yoshitomi in what we have seen.
Miami didn’t spend any money in the draft and offloaded Mya Bui in favor of Alix Truong. It’s hard to see them having as good a year as they did in 2025.
Grade: C
Florida Smash
Roster: Martina Frantova, Paula Rives (traded), Travis Rettenmaier, Cason Campbell, Zoey Weil (#47 pick, $10K), Chris Crouch (#53 pick, $5K)
*sigh* So it turns out that Florida drafting Genie Bouchard was just a play for additional cash and they pick up Paula Rives, who will likely go to the bench in favor of Zoey Weil. Weil and Crouch are fine choices as late in the draft as they got them, especially Weil.
This might be the worst team in MLP.
Grade: C
Texas Ranchers
Roster: Lea Jansen (#4 pick, $105K), Layne Sleeth (traded), Eric Oncins, Dylan Frazier (traded), Ava Cavataio (#51 pick, $10K), Matthew Barlow (traded)
We’re shocked that this appears to be locked in roster to start the 2026 season for the Ranchers. They went from Eric Oncins, Christian Alshon, Tina Pisnik and Kaitlyn Christian (Etta Tuionetoa was traded midseason) to this roster, whatever it is. Why get rid of Pisnik when her singles deficiencies are no longer an issue?
They are still spending money on players like Lea Jansen and Layne Sleeth, but they recouped some money for Dylan Frazier. They also have a top 5 or 6 left-side male in pickleball, Eric Oncins. Layne Sleeth is not healthy yet and is a borderline starter for MLP to begin with, and she is surrounded by one very good and a couple of solid, but limited, veterans.
It doesn’t seem possible for this team to be more in-between contending and rebuilding, and it is very hard to see what the big picture plan is for this organization. What the hell are they doing?
Grade: C-
Las Vegas Night Owls
Roster: Brooke Buckner, Chao Yi Wang, Blaine Hovenier, Roscoe Bellamy, Liz Truluck, Braden Jacobsen (#31 pick, $30K)
There isn’t a single player on this team that anyone is probably very excited about and 5 of the 6 players on this team seem to be what they appear as doubles players. Maybe at one time all these players showed more upside than what they have.
They should be competitive-ish, but this is another team that we are having trouble understanding what the goal is.
Grade: C-
Carolina Hogs
Roster: Angie Walker, Ava Ignatowich, James Delgado, DJ Young, Isabella Dunlap (#66 pick, 1K), Brandon French (#65 pick, $1K)
Even if we were to give the Hogs a pass because their owner doesn’t spend money, they have not done a good job putting together this roster. Isabella Dunlap fell much farther than we think she should have, even if a team simply wanted a singles specialist. We expect Ava Ignatowich will go to the bench in favor of Dunlap and her selection is the reason the Hogs avoid a failing grade.
Brandon French continues to get the Rafa Hewett-BLQK treatment and gets selected as buddy to team owner, Tom Dundon. The rest of the team does not make sense from a roster construction standpoint, but there may be some interesting volatility against weaker teams with a James Delgado, DJ Young and Isabella Dunlap starting core.
As expected, the Hogs spend the bare minimum in the draft. Saddest team in MLP.
Grade: D-
Dallas Flash
Roster: Tyra Black, Callie Smith (#19 pick, $50K), JW Johnson, Augie Ge, Samantha Parker (#57 pick, $5K), Ivan Jakvljevic (#56 pick, $4K)
If the Flash are going to run out this roster for 2026, this has to be one of the biggest fails imaginable. The social media team might also need to be fired because it is incomprehensible to put out the content they did before the draft and respond to some of the Jorja questions on X the way they did, when Dallas evidently did not have a master plan. Unless…this was their master plan?
Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth, and it looks like the Dallas Flash did not have a plan after they got punched in the mouth. Truly, a disastrous 2026 draft for the Flash organization.
Grade: F
Notable Undrafted
AJ Koller – His absence in a 12-team split between Premier and Challenger with no bench players in 2024 was understandable. The 2025 MLP omission of AJ Koller was the least understandable. This year, a guy like Koller only makes sense from the perspective of a relatively small number of teams because he is a below average singles player. Nepotism aside, he makes way more sense than Brandon French on Carolina’s roster.
Zane Ford – The talent and skillset are there for him to slot in as a bench player. The mental headache is not something that team’s wanted to deal with and is very understandable when there are more than enough guys who can provide what Zane Ford has to offer on the court.
Adam Harvey – We were a little surprised to see Harvey go undrafted after he has shown some strong singles results in recent months. Considering Grayson Goldin’s health and that he hasn’t shown much in the way of doubles upside, a guy like Harvey would have been a safer selection to us with potentially more upside.
Marshall Brown / Anderson Scarpa – Two veterans who can play at this level. We understand why they didn’t get taken and we would likely opt for any number of teenagers or Challenger alum players that were available over the more known commodities.
Jace Morris / Andre Mercado – We are not super high on either of these guys, but we flag them as being notable for teams not taking more chances on the teenagers. There is a waiver period so teams would have the opportunity to swap out youth, if they didn’t feel like it was working out.
Kelly Goodnow – We had the 13-year-old as #24 on our women’s big board and she was the highest undrafted woman left on our board. It is interesting that teams were generally more averse to the completely unproven, youth talent in the draft.
Nicole Conard – If you don’t want to take a kid, a player like Conard fits into a similar mold as players like Rafa Lenhard and Anouar Braham in our view. Challenger alum players that don’t jump off the page but have been showing the capacity to keep improving. We would have opted for an unknown like Conard on our bench of players like Lina Padegimaite or Tammy Emmrich.
Ling Wei Kong – We have liked her development over the past year as a player who has gradually improved. On the other hand, you likely aren’t gaining much by drafting a player like Kong, but we would prefer her over some of the players who were drafted.
Jade Rau / Giovanna Morelli – This isn’t a bang the drum situation for either player, who were #27 and #32 on our big board respectively. But it is notable that teams didn’t take shots on the more unknown, young talent like Morelli.
