Mike Ballschmiede Wins 2023 NFBC Cutline & $75,000

[Greg Ambrosius]

Mike Ballschmiede of Chicago, Illinois won the 2023 NFBC Best Ball Cutline Championship and the $75,000 grand prize as he bested a field of 1,500 teams for the title. Mike thus becomes our 7th different overall champion in this unique Best Ball/Survivor championship in our eight year history of the contest.

Mike finished first at "the final table" of 20 teams over the last three weeks and he won the title in convincing fashion. He entered the Championship Round of 20 finalists in 11th place, quickly moved up into fifth place after the first week of competition and then jumped into second place with one week to go. A big final week led Mike to the title and the $75,000 grand prize. He finished 95 points ahead of Joshua Dawalt, our 2022 NFBC Cutline Best Ball champion.

Mike won the $75,000 grand prize by finishing with 2,761.2 points. Josh Dawalt won $15,000 as he finished with 2,666.2 points and Vlad Sedler won $12,500 by finishing with 2,660.2 points. Mike Burton finished fourth to win $10,000 and Shawn Childs finished fifth to win $7,500 as all 20 teams at the "final table" won prize money.

Michael Regan of Wausau, Wisconsin won the Wild Card Tier with 2,789.2 points to win $2,000. We paid the Top 5 teams in the Wild Card Tier.

Mike Ballschmiede first joined the NFBC in 2016 and he has played a lot of the Best Ball Cutline and Best Ball formats since 2020. He had 13 Cutline teams this year and three of them won league titles. After the regular season, he had teams that were 7th and 12th overall in the Championship Round and he had seven other teams that made the Wild Card Tier. All three of his teams made it through Round 1 of the Championship Round, finishing 12th, 18th and 79th.

He had one team make it through Round 2 of the Championship Round as that team was 11th in points. His second team just missed the cut, finishing 24th overall, while his third team also missed the cut at 59th overall. His optiBall6 team moved into 5th place through the first week of Round 3, before moving into second place after Week 2, trailing Scott Wieland by 11.6 points. His team then scored 680 points in the final week of the Championship Round to win the title going away. It was an impressive Championship Round showing by Mike's team and worthy of being our seventh different overall champion.

Mike is still battling for other league titles over these last two weeks. He has four teams that currently lead their leagues in the Best Ball Championship with two teams in the Top 25 overall, and he has a Main Event team that is currently second in his league and a Rotowire Online Championship team that is currently first in its league. Good luck Mike and everyone else in all your leagues down the stretch.

We'd like to thank everyone who competed in this "survivor" format this year and we hope that the Cutline grows beyond the 1,500 teams we had this year. We added the NFBC Best Ball Championship for the first time this year because we understand that Best Ball is catching on in popularity with baseball enthusiasts, but there's no game around like the NFBC Best Ball Cutline Championship. Let's keep growing this format as well.

Anyway, congrats to all of our prize winners. Here's the final standings from the 2023 Best Ball Cutline Championship's Final Championship Round:

2023 NFBC Cutline Championship, Championship Round Final Standings:
1 Mike Ballschmiede optiBall6 2,761.20
2 Joshua Dawalt DeWALT CUT 2,666.20
3 Vlad Sedler Cut Gut V 2,660.20
4 Mike Burton Juiced Ball ERAs BBCL5 2,651.40
5 Shawn Childs CCs Desperados 2,643.30
6 Anthony Palavis Chico Linds Hermanos CL3 2,627.90
7 Scott Wieland Wieland 2,613.80
8 John Pausma JP CUT4 2,559.70
9 Eric Albright EA Sports C9 2,532.90
10 COLBY OLSON OLSON 2,519.20
11 Eric Albright EA Sports C13 2,469.20
12 Henry Williams Williamsbbcut1 2,462.10
13 Eric Albright EA Sports C15 2,458.60
14 Mike Burton Juiced Ball ERAs BBCL7 2,452.30
15 David Hinkel Red Tide 2,433.50
16 Brooks Gab Max 4 Olive 3 2,408.90
17 Fred Spinder Maddie Rules BB 2,371.60
18 Aaron Jones Jones Cut1 2,336.40
19 MICHAEL REGAN Heartless_3 2,309.70
20 P McD Big Mac Attack CL 2,181.80

2023 NFBC Cutline Championship, Wild Card Tier Final Standings:
1 MICHAEL REGAN Heartless 2,789.20
2 elliott pell Dem Brooklyn Bums 2,780.80
3 Greg Diehl Bane 2,708.10
4 Bob Catsiroumpas alpha__bY 2,706.80
5 Brock Boner Boner Jams 03 2,687.60

[Greg Ambrosius]

Joshua Dawalt becomes our seventh different champion since the NFBC Best Ball Cutline Championship was created in 2016. Only Bob Catsiroumpas has won this title twice. Here's a look at our overall champions:

NFBC Cutline Championship
National Champions
2016 - Jon Stadtmueller
2017 - Rian Lange
2018 - John Magnozzi
2019 - Bob Catsiroumpas
2020 - Mike Dirkman
2021 - Bob Catsiroumpas
2022 - Joshua Dawalt
2023 - Mike Balschmiede

[Greg Ambrosius]

Here was the prize pool for the 2023 NFFC Cutline Championship:

Overall Prizes
Championship Round:
Overall Prizes:
1 $75,000
2 $15,000
3 $12,500
4 $10,000
5 $7,500
6 $5,000
7 $3,500
8 $3,000
9 $2,500
10 $2,000
11 $1,500
12 $1,400
13 $1,300
14 $1,250
15 $1,200
16 $1,100
17 $1,000
18 $950
19 $900
20 $850

Wild Card Tier:
1 $2,000
2 $1,500
3 $1,000
4 $800
5 $750

[Greg Ambrosius]

Mike Ballschmiede had 13 NFBC Best Ball Cutline Championship teams in 2023 and three of them made the Championship Round after the regular season concluded and seven other teams made it to the Wild Card Tier. He won three league titles to earn $900 through the regular season. All three teams advanced to the Second Round of the Championship Round and one of them made it to "the final table" of 20 teams in the Final Round.

His optiBall6 team drafted on February 5th in a slow draft format and Mike drafted from the 7th spot. Here's a look at his draft results from that title team:

optiBall6:
Alvarez, Yordan 1 7 OF optiBall6
Freeman, Freddie 2 14 1B optiBall6
Smith, Will 3 27 C optiBall6
Lindor, Francisco 4 34 SS optiBall6
Arozarena, Randy 5 47 OF optiBall6
Bregman, Alex 6 54 3B optiBall6
Castillo, Luis 7 67 P optiBall6
Bogaerts, Xander 8 74 MI optiBall6
Buxton, Byron 9 87 OF optiBall6
Bryant, Kris 10 94 OF optiBall6
Suzuki, Seiya 11 107 OF optiBall6
Hoskins, Rhys 12 114 CI optiBall6
Polanco, Jorge 13 127 2B optiBall6
Raleigh, Cal 14 134 C optiBall6
Happ, Ian 15 147 UT optiBall6
Ryan, Joe 16 154 P optiBall6
Bassitt, Chris 17 167 P optiBall6
Meneses, Joey 18 174 1B optiBall6
Bautista, Felix 19 187 P optiBall6
Arraez, Luis 20 194 1B optiBall6
Luzardo, Jesus 21 207 P optiBall6
Brown, Seth 22 214 1B optiBall6
Myers, Wil 23 227 1B optiBall6
Segura, Jean 24 234 2B optiBall6
Kelly, Merrill 25 247 P optiBall6
Tovar, Ezequiel 26 254 SS optiBall6
Soler, Jorge 27 267 OF optiBall6
Bednar, David 28 274 P optiBall6
Manaea, Sean 29 287 P optiBall6
Walker, Taijuan 30 294 P optiBall6
Diaz, Elias 31 307 C optiBall6
Eflin, Zach 32 314 P optiBall6
Wendle, Joey 33 327 2B optiBall6
Quintana, Jose 34 334 P optiBall6
Fairbanks, Pete 35 347 P optiBall6
Irvin, Cole 36 354 P optiBall6
Gibson, Kyle 37 367 P optiBall6
Kluber, Corey 38 374 P optiBall6
Candelario, Jeimer 39 387 3B optiBall6
Turnbull, Spencer 40 394 P optiBall6
Steer, Spencer 41 407 3B optiBall6
Estevez, Carlos 42 414 P optiBall6

[Greg Ambrosius]

Here were Mike's Free Agent pickups from April 11th:

TJ Friedl 94
Michael Fulmer 94
Kyle Finnegan 54
Adam Frazier 40
Ji Hwan Bae 40

Here were Mike's Free Agent pickups from June 6th:
Bobby Miller 206
Royce Lewis 204
Matt McLain 106
Christopher Morel 104
James Paxton 54
Carlos Carrasco 1
Seth Brown 1
Casey Schmitt 1
Nick Maton 1