PRICE: FIVE CENTSEight clubs · Fourteen weeks · Four make the playoffsTwo make the Toilet Bowl
The Gaucho FF Examiner
VOL. XVIII · NO. 0WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2026PRESEASON EDITION
TOO CLOSE TO CALL
Eighteenth season opens with all eight managers inside a single coin flip. Twenty thousand simulated seasons decline to name a favorite.
By the Examiner's Fantasy Desk
SANTA BARBARA, CALIF. —
Twenty thousand seasons were played out overnight, and the machine that played them came back with a shrug. Not one of the eight managers in this league finished better than a 62 percent shot at the playoffs. Not one finished worse than 35 percent. In a sport that sells certainty by the column inch, the Examiner is obliged to report that there isn't any.
This is the eighteenth season of a league that began in 2009, and it opens with the narrowest projected field in memory. Tommy grades out on top at 61.5 percent, which sounds like a lot until you notice that Mau, dead last, still makes the postseason better than one season in three. Between them sit six managers separated by less than a single projected win.
The reason is arithmetic, not modesty. The auction on September 4 distributed talent almost perfectly evenly: the highest-projected starting lineup in the league scores 141.4 points a week, the lowest 132.5. That gap of nine points sits inside a weekly scoring swing of roughly twenty-nine. The draft, in other words, was a good one, and good drafts make bad predictions.
THE PROJECTION
Where they finish
#
Manager
Proj. W–L
Finish
Playoff odds
Toilet
1
TommyDoubleGs4Me
7.5–6.5
3.87
62%
17%
2
ChinChin Dynasty
7.4–6.6
4.00
60%
18%
3
AI HefeAI Hefe
7.2–6.8
4.25
55%
21%
4
SpencerJed’s Big Orange Suit and Lil Blue Balls
7.2–6.8
4.27
54%
21%
5
JakeSubstation Superhumans
6.8–7.2
4.73
46%
28%
6
DraitserCan I Burrow A Sandwich
6.8–7.2
4.76
45%
28%
7
JohnnyGibbs me that Nut
6.8–7.2
4.80
44%
29%
8
MauTacolicios
6.4–7.6
5.32
35%
38%
Probability of each final seed, in percent. Twenty thousand simulations.
Darker is likelier. The rule after the fourth column is the playoff line.
Manager
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Tommy
19
16
14
13
11
10
9
7
Chin
17
15
14
13
12
11
10
8
AI Hefe
14
14
14
13
13
12
11
10
Spencer
14
14
14
13
12
12
12
10
Jake
10
11
12
12
13
13
14
14
Draitser
10
11
12
12
12
14
14
14
Johnny
10
11
12
12
13
13
14
15
Mau
6
8
10
11
13
14
16
21
THE AUCTION
Two backs at sixty-nine, and a team named for one of them
The September 4 auction produced a tie at the top: Johnny and AI Hefe each spent $69 of a $200 budget on a running back, Jahmyr Gibbs and Bijan Robinson respectively. Johnny, it should be noted, entered the auction with a team already named Gibbs me that Nut. There is no rule against telegraphing, and there was no discount for it.
Jake was the only manager to buy two players above $59, taking Jaxon Smith-Njigba at $62 and Ja'Marr Chase at $59 — $121 of a $200 budget on two receivers. It is the boldest allocation in the room and the one most likely to be discussed in December, in one direction or the other.