Major League Pickleball 2026 Draft Preview

At Major League Pickleball’s 2026 League Keeper deadline earlier this month, 32 players were dropped by MLP teams and another 24 were cut loose either due to being 2025 waiver claims or for no longer being under contract.

That meant that there are just 54 players remaining on the 20 MLP teams, meaning that the teams need to acquire a collective 66 players to fill out their rosters for the upcoming 2026 season. That sounds like a ton of players, but squinting at the rosters of the 20 teams, those 66 players seem to break down as follows:

12 Starting Males
16 Starting Female
20 Bench Males
18 Bench Females

Amazingly, all 20 teams have dumped their male bench players, while just two teams head into the draft carrying a 3rd/bench female (Brooklyn with Blatt and Last Vegas with Trulock, though with all due respect to Ava Ignatowich, she currently sits as Carolina’s starter but should be a bench player as well).

Meanwhile, 10 of the 20 teams in the league are looking to replace a starting Male (California and SoCal have to replace both), while only 5 of the 20 teams head into the draft with both female starters already acquired, meaning the “starter” component of the FA draft is going to be pretty competitive.

So, there’s going to be a lot of competition for the best players available.

Best Players Available

Here’s a quick run through the best players available in the draft, and who we’re likely to be seeing going early in the draft. I’m going to list these players in rough order of perceived value to teams looking to re-draft starters.

Males

Dylan Frazier: he’s embracing the right-side moniker, could be a nice pairing with a dominant left-sided male for a good team.
Tyson McGuffin: at this point in his career he’s probably a supporting star, can and does play the right, and still gets results. There’s the consideration of chemistry though with Tyson (he was the sole original 2024 draftee to demand a trade immediately after the draft).
Tyler Loong: His Utah drop was surprising; he’s a regular in the quarters at pro doubles draws and played with his Utah partner Garnett in PPAs for quite a while.
AJ Koller: super sub all 2025, went 17-11 subbing for an eventual playoff team, should get picked up in the draft for 2026 as a starter somewhere.
Christopher Haworth: he’s trying to change his image as a singles specialist and could be a good starter down-draft.
Jack Sock: he’s been more of a marketing draw so far in his MLP career; where does he get picked on the merits of his playing ability right now?
Anderson Scarpa: lots of PT in Challenger, high energy, could be a 2nd division starter.
Michael Loyd: a surprise drop from a 2nd division team; I feel like he should be starting for one of these rising challenger teams like he was last year.
Brandon French: Crafty veteran who can lead a team and has lots of experience. I could see him getting picked up late in the starter draft to start for a rising Challenger team looking to build their roster on the cheap.
Rafa Hewett: he hung in last year in Challenger and could again this year in the 2nd division.
Martin Emmrich: there’s too many open spots for starters for Emmrich’s consistency not to get picked up.
Donald Young: another veteran lefty who held his own in Challenger and should be looking at one of the open starter spots.
John Lucian Goins: still better known for singles, but did get some MLP time last year. Definitely getting picked up as a bench player if he doesn’t get a shot as a starter.
Camden Chaffin/Tama Shimabukuro/Will MacKinnon/Chris Crouch/other rising juniors: they seem like bench gambits, not starters, but with 12 starting spots to hand out, there’s going to be opportunities.
George Wall/Mitch Hargreaves/Armaan Bhatia/other new Int’l signings: are they actually candidates to play domestically for 3 months this year? They’re good players for sure, but last year’s Australian signees both ran into Visa issues and never played.

Summary: this year’s crop of impact males is pretty thin. Teams who are looking to find game-changing men this year in the draft may want to look at the trade market. Those who are looking to build through the draft are looking at some serious competition at the top of that phase of the draft.

Females

Anna Bright: when arguably the 2nd or 3rd best female player in the land is cut loose, it raises eyebrows. But remember, St. Louis HAD to drop someone, and whoever it ended up being was going to raise eyebrows.
Jorja Johnson: if Bright is the 2nd best player out there, then Jorja may very well be the 3rd. Like the Shock, Dallas was forced at this deadline to drop one of their four starters, and Jorja made way. Will they just win the 1st round of the draft auction to get her right back, as they did with Ge in 2025? Perhaps.
Lea Jansen: one of the big names to get dropped surprisingly. She’s still ranked in the top 5 in singles and has a long career, and she helped Columbus win a title.
Meghan Dizon: she had a stiff keeper price tag for what she brings to the table, but she should get picked up pretty quickly as a solid, steady starter.
Mari Humberg: she’s left-side limited in some extents to try to take advantage of her skills, which limits the teams she makes sense on as a starter.
Judit Castillo: she could be a sneaky good signing after getting stuck on STL’s bench last year and missing out on playing time she would have otherwise had were she on a lesser team.
Callie Smith: it was a bit jarring to see Callie get dropped as a Keeper eligible. We’re not too far removed from her being part of the No. 1 ranked doubles team in the world, and she can still play. But, she’s also an example of the previous generation of players, and speed catches up to veteran players faster than ever.
Genie Bouchard: can she bring anything to the table besides her improving singles game?
Daria Walczak: the new PPA signing is a relative unknown to MLP fans, but was a very accomplished APP/International player last year.
Danni-Elle Townsend/Sahra Dennehy/Hsiang Wen-Huang/Isabella Dunlap/newly signed Int’ls: same question as with the Australian Men: are these new PPA signees coming to the USA to play full time all summer? If so, they may be sneaky good starter signings.
Alexa Schull/Cailyn Campbell/Kiora Kunimoto/other promising youngsters: with 16 starting female spots to fill out of the 40 available, it’s entirely likely a penny-pinching team will roll the dice with a young starlet like Schull. More likely, she gets a bench spot for a Florida-based team for marketing/training purposes.

Summary: two of the best players in the game got cut loose, along with a title-winning veteran and a few other major names. Will we see the top teams gambit their two-year starters for a different player in 2026?

Team Needs Analysis and Draft Predictions

Here’s a quick run through all 20 teams with some high-level draft predictions. If you’d like to see exactly who the team has rostered at present, see my Keeper deadline post here. Since essentially everyone will be drafting bench players in the second phase of the draft, I’m going to focus below on their Starting Lineup needs primarily.

Atlanta Bouncers

Current roster: Devilliers, Vich, Christian
Needs: Right-sided female

Draft prediction: I sense Atlanta will shoot for one of the second-tier available females to pair with Christian. She’s been playing early this season with Irvine and can cover the left. Callie Smith makes a ton of sense here.

Bay Area Breakers

Current Roster: Tellez, Bui
Needs: Left-sided male, left-sided Female

Draft prediction: This will be the first time Bay Area heads into the FA draft, so we don’t know what kind of money they’re willing to spend. I suspect they’ll be drafting a bit lower in the draft, looking to spend in the $10-20k range, which may have them gambling on some of the younger players available in the draft.

Brooklyn Pickleball Team

Current Roster: Newman, Rohrabacher, Kawamoto, Blatt
Needs: Right-sided male

Draft Prediction: Brooklyn is too good to go cheap; look for them to spend big on someone like Frazier or perhaps even McGuffin to pair with Newman and to “go for it” this year. They might also go for a mid-range male like a Haworth, who vastly improves their singles profile and can slot in next to Newman. Lastly, let’s not count out their 2025 super sub AJ Koller, who helped Brooklyn to a 4th place finish last season and would immediately slot in comfortably with this team for another run.

California Black Bears

Current Roster: Sleeth (who is heading out in trade post draft in a pre-arranged deal)
Needs: everything

Draft Prediction: Look for California to depend heavily on scouting to pick up four $10k players towards the end of the starter draft, and will likely have a combination of youth and international players.

Carolina Hogs

Current Roster: A.Ignatowich, Walker, Delgado, Young
Needs: A starting Female … but they will be shut out of the starter portion.

Draft Prediction: Carolina probably made a mistake keeping Ignatowich, because now they’ll be ineligible to draft another female until all 20 teams have acquired two females. That means at best they’ll be bidding on the 17th best female eligible to pair with Angie Walker.

Chicago Slice

Current Roster: Navratil, Hunter Johnson
Needs: Two starting females.

Draft Prediction: Chicago have chosen to go completely back to the drawing board with all their females in the upcoming draft. Luckily, they have been willing to spend in the past (they dropped $320k in last year’s draft). They might pursue a reunion with Callie and try to pair her with Dizon or Humberg as a mid-range talent.

Columbus Sliders

Current Roster: Daescu, Klinger, Todd
Needs: a Lea Jansen replacement, or perhaps Lea herself

Draft Prediction: Does Columbus try to just run it back, or are they looking for a different look and feel for Parris Todd? Most everyone Todd has played doubles with in the past year are spoken for on existing MLP teams. Columbus spent $110k last draft to get Jansen only to drop her, so something tells me they’ll be going in a different direction. However, they’re going to be hard pressed to out-bid St Louis & Dallas for their two dropped stars.

Dallas Flash

Current Roster: JW Johnson, Ge, Black
Needs: A Jorja Johnson replacement.

Draft Prediction: I can’t imagine Dallas doing anything other than spending what it takes at the top of the draft to get Jorja back. Jorja plays almost exclusively with her brother in PPA, as she has in MLP for the last two seasons, and as comprised they’re immediately a favorite to win with her back. They just need to swallow their egos the next time the league asks who they want to play in the first round of the playoffs.

Florida Smash

Current Roster: Rettenmaier, Frantova, Campbell
Needs: A starting female who lives near St. Petersburg

Draft Prediction: Florida will be picking at the bottom of the FA draft looking for a Florida-based youngster to fill their roster for the minimum $10k bid.

Las Vegas Night Owls

Current Roster: Buckner, Wang, Trulock, Bellamy, Hovenier
Needs: No Starters needed

Draft Prediction: LV won’t participate in the first phase, as it sits right now with 5 of its 6 roster spots filled. They’ll find a bench male in the second phase, and perhaps will look to flip Trulock to a team in need of a better starter.

LA Mad Drops

Current Roster: Johns, Freeman, Parenteau, Kawamoto
Needs: No Starters needed

Draft Prediction: LA can sit pat during the first phase of the draft and fill their bench later on.

Miami Pickleball Club

Current Roster: Truong, Funemizu
Needs: A left-sided male, a left-sided female

Draft Prediction: Miami netted plenty of cash in their trades, but have been purposely bottoming out since mid last season. Look for Miami to start bidding towards the end of the FA draft, looking for $20k-$30k value players who may have slipped. Can they compete again in 2026? It may be tough unless they find some sleepers who can step up.

New Jersey 5’s

Current Roster: Waters, Howells, Khlif
Needs: a female who ALW can win with

Draft Prediction: What is the nightmare scenario for MLP fans who cherish the parity of the league when comparing it to the monotony of the PPA podiums as of late? Easy: New Jersey wins the bidding for the No. 1 pick and pairs Waters with her regular PPA partner Anna Bright. It is not out of the realm of possible, and it would make New Jersey virtually unbeatable in the MLP format. ALW/Bright would probably go 23-1 or close to it as a team, ALW went 21-4 in Mixed last season, and Bright went 22-3 in Mixed herself. We’d go from a few top teams to one super-team overnight.

Assuming NJ gets outbid for Bright, they could look to pair the two top teenagers in Waters and Jorja, or perhaps NJ runs it back with either Dizon or Humberg. Waters played a season with Lea Jansen on the 5’s so there’s some familiarity there. The first few minutes of the draft will be very telling.

Orlando Squeeze

Current Roster: Staksrud, Rane, Schneemann
Needs: Right-sided replacement for Frazier

Draft Prediction: For whatever reason, the Staksrud/Frazier pairing has never really been that successful. They went a respectable 18-7 as a pair in 2025, but that’s 7 losses mostly against other top competition that helped keep Orlando as an also-ran in the playoff race. Can Staksrud do better with a better partner? The challenge for Orlando is this: there’s only a few marquee Men in the draft, and they may not be able to do better than Frazier. Fed is used to partnering with the best in the game on the PPA, but they’re all spoken for. Look for Orlando to end up with one of the second tier Men and to take a step back in 2026.

Palm Beach Royals

Current Roster: Sewing, Pisnik, Bar
Needs: everything

Draft Prediction: They’ll go shopping for a partner for Bar in FA and seem like they’ve already got the makings of a solid team. They don’t seem to be afraid to spend money and it’s slightly surprising they didn’t take more opportunity to “buy” a few more assets pre draft (they could have completely filled out their roster with $10k purchases who will go for many times that in the draft). Look for Palm Beach to get one of the mid-ranged veteran males from the BPA list and make a run at the playoffs with this already veteran crew.

Phoenix Flames

Current Roster: Irvine
Needs: everything

Draft Prediction: Last year’s team went just 6-19 and cost a ton of money, so it will be interesting to see the Phoenix approach this year. Do they try to re-acquire their tennis/social media stars, or do they go bottom-dollar and just fill the roster for a year until all the major MLP stars get cut loose into next year’s draft? They can spend $50k in the draft and probably get a team that goes 6-19 again.

SoCal Hard Eights

Current Roster: nobody
Needs: everything

Draft Prediction: Look for SoCal to fill its roster at the tail end of the draft with four $10k-$20k players, similarly to what they did last year. I don’t sense they’re in the market to compete, just field a team.

St. Louis Shock

Current Roster: Patriquin, Tardio, Fahey
Needs: everything

Draft Prediction: St. Louis spent what it took last year to retain Fahey’s services, winning the first pick in the draft for $130k and running back their championship caliber team. Now they face the same challenge. Something tells me Ross Chaifetz going to do what it takes to get his star back.

Texas Ranchers

Current Roster: Alshon, Oncins
Needs: everything

Draft Prediction: Texas may be in trouble. They’ve cleaned house of all their females, and now have to compete with 4-5 other competitors for a very short list of top females in the draft. Alshon clashed with the Texas GM last season; how’s he going to feel if he’s playing with two females who rarely make it out of the round of 32 in PPA events? Texas doesn’t have anything to trade either, having already flipped all their assets for cash. We know they’ll be getting Layne Sleeth from California post-draft in a pre-arranged deal and will look to pair her with a winning player.

Utah Black Diamonds

Current Roster: Garnett, Jones, Tuiotenoa
Needs: A right-sided male

Draft Prediction: After playing with Loong in both PPA and MLP for more than a year, the two have broken up in PPA, and it’s likely Garnett will have a new partner in MLP as well. It’s possible they could find another Utah-based player deeper down in the draft, perhaps Loong himself, or perhaps Koller if he’s not snapped up earlier.

We’ll publish a running diary recap of the 2/27/26 draft as soon as its complete.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/toddboss/2026/02/26/major-league-pickleball-2026-draft-previewteam-needs-and-draft-predictions/