Waters finished off another stellar MLP season by winning the season MVP title.
MLP
MLP gives out three awards officially: the Most Valuable Player and the Most Improved Player for the regular season, and a Finals MVP newly added for 2026. Anna Leigh Waters was awarded the 2026 MVP award in the final event of the season in Orlando, then Danni-Elle Townsend was given the Most Improved Award during the first week of the playoffs. Federico Staksrud was given the Finals MVP at the end of his team’s win this past weekend.
For the last couple of years I’ve struggled with, in particular, the “Most Improved Player,” wanting to differentiate between “the player who improved the most from last season to this season” versus a classical “Rookie of the Year” for the best players who made their debuts in the current season. I’m certainly not alone in this sentiment, as many in the pickle-sphere questioned DET’s selection and the “intent” of the award.
In fact, if it was me, I’d have both Male and Female versions of both of these awards. And a whole lot more. In fact, there’s a slew of awards I’d name each season.
So, that’s this post. Here’s my year-end MLP Awards post. I’m going to give nominees and winners in each category, and add in a bunch of awards.
Note: after I began writing this, the boys at KOTC released a podcast with some of these same award distinctions. They also had a couple of ideas for additional awards that I had not thought of, which I’ve added below with due credit. Anna Bright also posted on Reddit a variation on this same post soon after, with a couple additional ideas that I’ve borrowed here and noted along the way.
(Note: records given are regular season records and stats before any playoff matches, and are courtesy of Picklekey.com)
Regular Season MVP – Male & Female
- Male Nominees: Ben Johns, Gabe Tardio, Hayden Patriquin
- Female Nominees: Anna Bright, Anna Leigh Waters, Jorja Johnson
The Winners: we have to go with Hayden Patriquin for the Male MVP. Despite having a slightly worse record than his teammate Tardio (52-11 versus 49-8), Hayden played Mixed-1 all season and had DreamBreaker duties.
Anna Leigh Waters is the obvious pick for Female MVP; she went an astounding 60-4 in doubles and was 29-8 in DreamBreaker points.
All-MLP Teams
Thanks to the KOTC podcast for this one. Here’s my 1st, 2nd, and 3rd team All-MLP for the 2026 season, along with some honorable mentions.
- 1st Team all MLP 2026: Anna Leigh Waters, Anna Bright, Ben Johns, Gabriel Tardio
- 2nd Team all MLP 2026: Jorja Johnson, Kate Fahey, Hayden Patriquin, Christian Alshon
- 3rd Team all MLP 2026: Parris Todd, Rachel Rohrabacher, JW Johnson, Andrei Daescu
- Honorable Mentions: Jade Kawamoto, Riley Newman, Sofia Sewing, Eric Oncins.
I guess this isn’t too much of a surprise; all the top players from the top teams.
Playoffs MVP – Male & Female
This award just isolates post-season performance.
- Male Nominees: Federico Staksrud, Will Howells, Hayden Patriquin
- Female Nominees: Anna Leigh Waters, Anna Bright, Jorja Johnson.
Winners: Federico Staksrud is the obvious male winner, and was deservedly named the Finals MVP. I think it is safe to say that the 5’s don’t win this title without making the late-season trade for Fed. On the Women’s side, it has to go to Anna Leigh Waters, who took a couple of Mixed losses, but whose DreamBreaker performance was vital to NJ’s win.
Rookie of the Year – Male & Female
To qualify for this award, the player has to be brand new to MLP, with zero experience prior to the 2026 season.
- Male Nominees: Nico Acevedo, Armaan Bhatia, Casey Diamond
- Female Nominees: Sofia Sewing, Danni-Elle Townsend, Sahra Dennehy
My Male Rookie of the Year is Nico Acevedo, the sensation who nobody knew on draft day except Miami’s GM Johnny Goldberg, but who is now a starter for a top 8 team in the playoffs. He went 36-23 this season in doubles and held his own in singles with a 43-41 figure.
My female Rookie of the Year has to be Danni-Elle Townsend, who was a complete untested unknown coming from Australia, who immediately made an impact for Columbus subbing in their first event, then was a large part of Dallas’ resurgence this season. She went 47-26 for the season in doubles, and had a stellar 34-22 record in DreamBreaker points.
Naming Townsend takes nothing away from what Sofia Sewing accomplished; she dominated for Palm Beach despite almost no prior experience against the UPA-signed players. Her record for the season was 42-18 in doubles, nearly as good as Townsend’s. Also, there are other females who qualified for this award who didn’t make the top 3 cut: Zoey Weil, Isabella Dunlap, Jamie Wei, Alexa Schull to name a few. All deserve recognition.
Most Improved Player – Male & Female
To be eligible here, these players have to have prior MLP experience, enough to show the kind of marked improvement year over year.
- Male Nominees: Eric Oncins, Jack Sock, Max Freeman
- Female Nominees: Kate Fahey, Alix Truong, Brooke Buckner
My Male Most Improved Male Player is Eric Oncins this season. After posting a middling 16-12 2025 Men’s doubles record with Alshon, he took over on the left and dominated in 2026 with Acevedo 19-7 and has clearly put his name into the upper echelon of players in this league.
My Female most improved player is Alix Truong. After putting up .500 numbers in Challenger last season, she was 18-14 in Women’s doubles with 3 different partners this season in Premier. I was tempted to go with Fahey for the second year in a row; She’s now improved her doubles record from 29-30 in 2024, to 55-19 in 2025, to 49-8 this season.
Best DreamBreaker Player – Male & Female
- Male Nominees: John Lucian Goins, Eric Oncins, Jaume Martinez Vich
- Female Nominees: Anna Bright, Anna Leigh Waters, Zoey Weil
My male DreamBreaker player of the year is John Lucian Goins, who went 46-24 in DreamBreaker points this season, partly as a singles specialist for St. Louis, then partly as a starter for Chicago. He completely took over his DreamBreaker duties later in the season, often dominating the other team’s No. 1 singles player along the way.
My Female DreamBreaker POTY is Zoey Weil. Her DreamBreaker W/L record wasn’t quite as good as either Bright or Waters, but her 32-14 singles record was dominant as she played mostly with edge-playoff teams all year, going against the top players from their opponents as California made a mad dash at the playoffs.
Best Singles Specialist – Male & Female
This year saw the rise of the “Singles Specialist,” the assassin who was drafted specifically to play in the DreamBreaker, if the team got there. Many of our originally signed singles specialists ended up being drawn into more doubles duty along the way, making them less suitable for this award (thinking players like Haworth and Goins), so this is a competition of those who were drafted almost entirely for their singles acumen and who played that role primarily this season.
- Male Nominees: Gabriel Joseph, Alexander Crum, Donald Young
- Female Nominees: Keilly Ulery, Victoria DiMuzio, Rika Fujiwara
The Male winner is Alex Crum who went 16-8 as a singles assassin for Columbus. The Female winner is Rika Fujiwara, who went 13-11 in her limited time here in the states as a singles specialist.
Best Young Player – Male & Female
My qualification here was any player who is 18 or under this season.
- Male Nominees: Tama Shimabukoro, Camden Chaffin, John Lucian Goins
- Female Nominees: Cailyn Campbell, Elsie Hendershot, Kiora Kunimoto
The male winner is Tama Shimabukoro,who put up a 24-34 combined doubles record as a two-way starter this entire season for Utah. If Goins had a full season playing they way he did in the last couple of weeks, this award probably would have been his, and the league should be very worried about him in the upcoming season. My female winner is Cailyn Campbell, who was a starter all year for SoCal and went 24-36.
Best Veteran Player – Male & Female
This is the best player is 35 or older for the season.
- Male Nominees: Andrei Daescu, Donald Young, Tyson McGuffin
- Female Nominees: Tina Pisnik, Allyce Jones, Jessie Irvine
The two ageless winners here are no surprise. Andrei Daescu, who turns 38 at the end of August, continues to be one of the top male players in the game despite being nearly 40. Meanwhile, the continued dominance of 45-yr old Tina Pisnik is amazing; she’s holding her own in a league where the star players are half her age.
General Manager of the year
- Johnny Goldberg (Miami)
- Eric Tice (California)
- David Grossman (Palm Beach)
- Mark Molthan (Dallas)
There’s compelling arguments for all four of these GMs. Tice complied a pretty strong team by season’s end and has California setup for success in 2027 with a solid and affordable roster. Grossman parlayed his player acquisition advantages preseason and then drafted incredibly well to create a 7th place roster out of scratch. Molthan made a slew of trades to remake his entire female slate and salvaged Dallas’ season, making the playoffs despite finishing last in an event mid-season, even after many thought he bungled the off-season.
However, the winner is Johnny Goldberg.He found amazing talent in the draft once again, he netted an estimated $500k for his owners with a slew of opportunistic trades throughout the season, and had his team somehow still in the playoff hunt going into the final weekend, where they went 3-2 in the group but fell just short of the playoffs. That’s quite a feat for an executive told to spend zero dollars and to try to maximize his cash holdings.
Draft Pick of the Year
This is not just “the best player drafted in 2026” or “Most spent in the draft.” This is the best combination of value and the talent received for that draft value.
- Nominees: Sahra Dennehy, Nico Acevedo, Zoey Weil
The pick of the year is easy: Miami got Nico Acevedo for $10k with the 25th overall pick in the 1st round of the 2026 draft. Dennehy for $35k was great value, and Weil for $10k looks like a steal. There’s other potential nominees here as well; Goins was drafted as a bench player for $25k and has blown up. Bhatia for $40k was masterful. Schull for $11k already looks great.
Trade of the Year
This is a gauge of the impact and importance of the trade.
- New Jersey/Orlando (Staksrud & Rane)
- LA/Utah (Garnett/Loong/Joseph)
- Dallas/Columbus (Black for Townsend)
- Texas/Brooklyn (Alshon for Frazier)
I think the trade of the year was Black for Townsend, which made both teams better and helped turn Dallas’ season completely around. This is with all due respect to New Jersey’s acquisition of Staksrud, which I’d probably argue put New Jersey just over the top to enable them to win the title. However, Dallas was dead before DET showed up, and they made a run to the semis in the same season they lost Jorja.
Waiver Claim of the Year
- Nominees: James Delgado, Casey Diamond, Joey Wild
The easy answer here is Casey Diamond, who Palm Beach finagled as an onsite sub about five minutes after he signed a UPA contract, then grabbed on the waiver wire when it was clear that Greyson Goldin needed to take a pause on his MLP career and Bar was hurt mid season. Diamond ends up going 14-13 in doubles, a respectable 30-26 in singles, and gave Palm Beach great roster flexibility all season. By playoff time, Diamond had supplanted the legendary Tyson McGuffin as PB’s starter and his team made the quarters in their inaugural season.
Viral Moment of the Year
I borrowed this one from Anna Bright’s Reddit post. What was the “Moment of the Year” in MLP this season? Here’s my nominees along with video links where appropriate:
- Tina Pisnik’s amazing ATP in the MLP Quarterfinal playoffs (which made ESPN’s top plays)
- The scoreboard falling on Rachel Rohrabacher in New York during Week 6’s regular season play.
- 13-yr old Elsie Hendershot sealing Chicago’s playoff berth by finishing off the Slice’s DreamBreaker win over California in Week 9.
- Zane Navratil’s over-the-top reaction in the Chicago-Palm Beach quarter finals.
- Ben Johns going full beast mode in Week 1 to turn an 0-2 deficit against St. Louis into a 3-2 DreamBreaker win for LA
Winner: the answer has to be the feel-good story of Elsie Hendershot.As I watched that DreamBreaker and as the parent of a 13-yr old myself, I could not imagine the emotions going through her head. When she got swept earlier in the DreamBreaker 0-4 and broke down on the sidelines, I thought that was completely relatable. Still, to this day, I cannot believe the turnaround and poise she exhibited in that situation, to rebound and turn tears of misery into tears of joy with her teammates. What a performance, and what a memory.
Venue of the Season
- Pickler Universe, Dallas, TX (Week 1 and Playoffs Round 1)
- St. Pete Athletic, St. Petersburg FL (Week 5)
- Belknap Park, Grand Rapids, MI (Mid-Season Tourney)
- ESPN Sports Complex, Orlando Florida (Week 9)
- Wollman Rink, Central Park, NYC, NY (Playoff Finals)
Winner: ESPN Sports Complex in Orlando. With all due respect to, especially, the amazing St. Pete Athletic club, which probably would win any “Best Pickleball Facility” competition it enters right now, the best venue of the season has to be what we saw in the final week of the regular season in Orlando. Sold out crowds with a ton at stake, a national TV audience, and a great facility to showcase the sport. Orlando has to go into the playoff host rotation next year.
Last year’s winner of this “award” would undoubtedly have been Pickler Universe in Carrolton, which showcased what an energetic crowd can mean for the sport and thus earned the opening-day and playoff host duties in 2026. Belknap Park is a great site with a great community of players, and there’s a reason the tour goes there every year for its unique mid-season event. Lastly, the Central Park finals was held at an iconic spot and was sold out to the point that tickets went for $1,300 on the secondary market.
That’s it for all my imaginary MLP 2026 awards. Agree? Disagree? Wish MLP would adopt some of these awards? Feel free to pipe up.
Source: www.forbes.com
