Collin Johns Cut In Busy Major League Pickleball Waiver Period

Major League Pickleball took a brief hiatus from its schedule this week to pause for its mid-season Waiver period. This is the second (and last) waiver period for Premier teams to make non-trade based adjustments, and the only time for Challenger teams.

The waiver process has become a bit complicated to follow this season, thanks to the bench player designation, changing league policies, and the decision to finish all the Premier league’s business before the Challenger teams get into the action. As it turned out, it was a busy week for all involved. There were a slew of moves to cover, including one bombshell waivers move towards the end of the period.

Here’s a recap of what’s happened:

Trades pre-Wavier wire period Early June 2025

There was one notable trade executed prior to this week, as two teams “got ahead” of the Waiver period a bit. I’ll include it in here since it involves players subsequently waived later on.

– Texas gets Rafa Hewett & Cash, California gets Michael Loyd

Loyd got a bit of action for Texas in Daytona Beach and has been showing improved results, so Texas decided to hedge a bit against having him plucked for no return by flipping him to California. They get back the lefty veteran Hewett, who has really struggled for California so far this year (going just 1-9 in their opening event). Hewett joins the Texas bench and brings his enthusiasm, while California gets a player they can plug in to start immediately. It’s probably a good move for both: Hewett was facing the chopping block but at least now stays on a team (for now), while Loyd gets to actually play for the rest of the season, even if its Challenger.

Waiver List Designation on 6/11/25

On June 11th, 2025, all 16 premier teams submitted their lists of Waiver-eligible players. This list was advertised to the team GMs and to the media, but likely not to the general public. Most of the teams listed their two bench players to be exposed to waivers as one would expect, but there were a few surprises in the release. Specifically:

– Carolina exposed Collin Johns, the biggest name on the waiver sheet.

– SoCal exposed both Judit Castillo and Roscoe Bellamy. This means they’re valuing Jalina Ingram over Castillo, and Fu over Bellamy? Those seem like odd choices, unless they were planning on dumping Ingram or Fu for a waiver pickup.

– Utah exposed Mehveish Safdar, perhaps admitting that they’re more likely to play Erokhina going forward.

Why would Carolina expose Collin Johns but keep Brandon French, who hasn’t played a minute and who hasn’t even rated being worth paying to travel? It’s likely a strategic gamble, exposing Johns in a gambit that he doesn’t get taken so they can drop French. Could Carolina possible want to part ways with Collin? Perhaps; by being put on the waiver wire, other teams can take him freely for only a nominal fee. Would he even report to a new team? Johns is ranked 8th as of this writing, which mean’s he’s ineligible to be TRADED to a Challenger team, but if he’s on waivers theoretically he can get picked up by a Challenger team. Would it be too professionally embarrblocking to get buried on another team’s bench or to play in Challenger? given his accomplishments alongside his brother in the sport? We’ll answer these questions later on, as things unfolded later in the transaction period.

Waiver Order Determined on 6/13/25

Premier teams put in blind bids on Waiver slots in a similar “Dutch Auction” style to the way their player draft was conducted earlier this year. Perhaps not surprisingly, only three teams even put in waiver bids; the three worst teams in the league in SoCal, Carolina, and New York. This does not force the teams to actually bid/claim a player, just makes them the only ones eligible in this waiver period. Here’s the order:

1. New York bid the most and gets first dibs

2. then SoCal

3. then Carolina

That’s it for teams participating in Waivers on the 16th. I’m slightly surprised not to see Brooklyn participating here, since their starter Riley Newman went down with injury in the last event with an issue that could be serious. Also, the lack of participation of Phoenix, who has let Bouchard play to a 4-22 record so far this year, is slightly surprising.

Premier League Waivers on 6/16/25

On the day of the actual waivers, here’s what happened:

1. New York Dropped Lingwei Kong and replaced her with St Louis’ Felicity Di Laura. Kong went just 3-13 for the Hustlers, so this wasn’t a huge surprise. Di Laura had zero playing time for St. Louis and now goes to a team where she’ll play.

1a. St. Louis picks up Cailyn Campbell to replaced Di Laura on their bench. Campbell was signed just last week and is the younger sibling of fellow teenage phenom Cason Campbell, so this is a great opportunity for her to train with one of the best teams in the business.

2. SoCal no-bid the second waiver spot. Perhaps they were also targeting Di Laura or Campbell, and chose not to make a move and stick with their current roster.

3. Carolina indeed dropped Brandon French and picked up Roscoe Bellamy from SoCal’s bench. Bellamy now joins his third team in six months, originally drafted by Columbus, then claimed by SoCal in Mid May (but never played), and now claimed by Carolina. Will he get playing time for the Hogs? Could be interesting: he’s certainly more powerful than Collin and could bring a new dynamic to the team, but opens up some more questions about Carolina’s direction, some of which we’ll get answers for in the next section.

3a. To replace Bellamy, SoCal plucked newly signed teenager John Lucian Goins. Goins has certainly impressed in singles but has almost zero doubles accomplishments and is barely old enough to drive. It should be interesting to see if he gets any court time for the last place Hard Eights

Premier League Bench Player Replacement on 6/17/25

The day after the waiver period, teams could put in a request for one bench replacement each. Here we expected a ton of movement, as we’ve been hearing about several players with Visa issues and the UPA has signed some interesting players since the last waiver period occurred.

In the Bench Player shuffle, here’s what happened:

– Orlando Squeeze place Tom Evans on the Restricted List; Add Grayson Goldin

– New York Hustlers place Helena Spiridis on the Restricted List; Add Luana Stanciu

MLP has created a new “Restricted List” to account for situations like Evans and Spiridis, who are temporarily blocked from entering the US thanks to Visa issues. Like the injury lists, players on the Restricted List won’t count against the 6-player team limit. Goldin is a very solid pickup; he’s gone from zero sponsors and zero contracts to being both a PPA signed pro AND on an MLP team inside of just a few weeks.

However, the two big moves:

– Carolina Hogs add Martin Emmrich; Waive Collin Johns

– Texas Ranchers add Wyatt Stone; Waive Rafa Hewett

Carolina has cut ties with Collin Johns and clearly seems set to pair Bellamy with Ben Johns going forward. Will this make them better? On talent alone? No. Collin still is one of the best right-side players out there, though Bellamy certainly brings a level of aggressiveness to the table that could help Carolina’s efforts. However, when you bring in chemistry issues, undoubtedly. Johns wanted no part of this league, and now Carolina gets an up-and-coming high energy player who wants to be there.

As for the adding of Emmrich, Martin is now paired on the same MLP team as his wife (which I’m sure is awesome for travel purposes for the couple), but it remains to be seen how much playing time he’ll get. While we know that Ben Johns advocates for playing doubles with a lefty, it seems like Bellamy on the right side is the play here.

Meanwhile, the cynic in me says, “Well, Collin got his wish and now has no more MLP obligations.” We’ve known for some time how Collin feels about MLP, his team, and the partners he’s forced to play with. Now he’s relieved of being forced to fake it the rest of the season. I suppose he’ll be on broadcast duty going forward to “earn” his pay, unless he gets picked up by a challenger team (which seems incredibly unlikely given the widely held belief that he doesn’t want to play at all).

Meanwhile, Hewett’s stay at Texas is short lived, as the team drops him in favor of a Texas native Stone, to get some local players in a similar fashion to their acquisition of Di Laura earlier this week. Hewett has seen the game pblock him by in the last two MLP seasons, and like a slew of veterans before him, may be done playing in the league.

One last comment: how is AJ Koller not on a team at this point?

Challenger League Waivers on 6/18/25

Once all the Premier league business was done, the Challenger teams could get into the action. The timing of the waiver period for Challenger is tough: they’ve played just one event thus far, and any moves here may end up being rash and premature. Nonetheless, each Challenger team got two waiver opportunities, and the teams “drafted” in exact reverse order of their standings after their one event (in order, Florida, Bay Area, California, DC, Nashville, and Las Vegas).

Here’s the Challenger Waiver results:

– Round 1, Pick 1: Florida picks up Paula Rives Palau, drops Sarah Ansboury. Palou is a 28yr old Florida based player signed at the end of May, continuing the trend of the Smash wanting local players to help with promotion. Ansboury was a curious pick to begin with, being at the tail end of her pro career and doing much more teaching these days, and now is replaced by a younger pro.

That was it. None of the other Challenger teams made any waiver claims, opting to ride it out with their current rosters. This is not unexpected, given that these teams have played just a handful of matches with each other so far.

Trades Executed mid-Waiver Period

While the teams were involved in the flurry of waiver movement, a couple of trades went down that involved waivers-named players.

– Texas gets Di Laura, NY gets Helena Jansen and cash

New York had just picked up Di Laura on waivers. Texas has familiarity with Di Laura since she plays out of Austin. I’m guessing Texas pblocked along enough cash to cover the waiver costs NY incurred to grab her.

– SoCal gets just-claimed Cailyn Campbell, while St. Louis gets Judit Castillo

In a curious move, SoCal grabs the untested Campbell at the expense of the accomplished Castillo. This move can’t make SoCal better, even if Castillo has struggled badly this year. Furthermore, this buries Castillo on St. Louis’ bench, playing behind Bright and Fahey. It seems unlikely she’ll get any playing time as St Louis makes a big push for top the rest of the way. If i was Castillo, i’d almost rather get moved to a Challenger team so I could continue to play. Meanwhile, SoCal now will be starting one of either Campbell or Ingram going forward, both with absolutely zero MLP experience and barely any pro experience.

Phew. That was a ton of movement. I hope this made sense to you following along at home.

Updated rosters are now current on MLP’s website, Premier teams here, and Challenger Teams here. MLP returns to action in San Clemente next weekend after the PPA event finishes up in the same location.