California Black Bears
Finished 13 · 31 pts · Missed playoffs
California Black Bears finished 13 on 31 standings points and missed the playoffs. Here is the roster as the season ended, the draft class that built it, and every trade and waiver move in between — reconciled from the league’s own transaction logs.
Roster at season’s end
Applying MLP’s published transactions literally leaves this team one over. The cause is named below. We have not guessed which player to cut.
| Player | Tour ranking | 2026 season |
|---|---|---|
| Dylan Frazier | Men’s doubles #8 · 2009 Mixed #54 · 1733 | 64.4% from 87 matches gender doubles 22-10 · mixed 17-10 · singles 17-11 |
| Sahra Dennehy | Women’s doubles #58 · 1672 Mixed #72 · 1697 | 62.5% from 16 matches gender doubles 3-2 · mixed 3-2 · singles 4-2 |
| Pablo Tellez | Men’s doubles #19 · 1885 Mixed #66 · 1701 | 53.2% from 47 matches gender doubles 16-11 · mixed 8-9 · singles 1-2 |
| Martin Emmrich | Men’s doubles #63 · 1701 Mixed #89 · 1667 | 50.0% from 28 matches gender doubles 8-7 · mixed 6-7 |
| Zoey Weil | Women’s doubles #50 · 1709 Mixed #71 · 1700 | 47.4% from 38 matches gender doubles 6-7 · mixed 5-7 · singles 7-6 |
| Luca Mack | Outside the top 100 | 45.5% from 11 matches gender doubles 2-2 · mixed 2-2 · singles 1-2 |
| Jalina Ingram | Outside the top 100 | 43.9% from 41 matches gender doubles 4-8 · mixed 7-8 · singles 7-7 |
How a matchup is played
Every MLP match is four games in a fixed order — women’s doubles, men’s doubles, then two mixed doubles — each to 11, win by two, and all four are played even when the match is already decided, because point differential decides seeding. New for 2026: there are no starters and subs. A team may use all six players in one match, and may field a different man for men’s doubles than for mixed. Doubles lineups are submitted the night before. At 2–2 it goes to a DreamBreaker — singles, any four from the roster, two men and two women, chosen only after the fourth game, with the home team declaring first.
Pairing-by-pairing records are not published by the league for every team. We would rather leave this blank than guess — the 2026 full-roster rule makes lineups genuinely fluid, and an invented pairing would be obvious to anyone who watched the season.
Where these numbers come from. Rankings and ELO are PickleWave’s per-discipline model, captured 4 September 2026 — an independent rating built from professional match results, not an official tour ranking, and its leaderboards run 100 deep per discipline. Mixed doubles is a single combined pool of men and women, so a rank there is not a rank among men or among women. Season records cover all professional play in 2026 — PPA, APP and MLP combined — not MLP alone. The roster reconciliation is our own work from the league’s draft results and transaction logs. Pickleball Insiders is not affiliated with Major League Pickleball.
How the roster was built
MLP’s 2026 draft was a live auction — teams bid for each selection slot, so there was no preset pick order. Teams could protect up to five players at the keeper deadline on 15 February; 54 players were kept across the league, and the remaining 66 slots were filled at the draft on 27 February.
Kept (1): Layne Sleeth
Drafted (5):
| Pick | Player | Reported bid |
|---|---|---|
| 15 | Kiora Kunimoto | — |
| 24 | Chris Haworth | — |
| 28 | Mohamed Anouar Braham | — |
| 35 | Michael Loyd | — |
| 37 | Emma Nelson | — |
Transactions
| Date | In | Out | From / to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 3 | Sahra Dennehy | Texas Ranchers | |
| Mar 3 | Layne Sleeth | Texas Ranchers | |
| Mar 4 | Luca Mack | Brooklyn Pickleball Team | |
| Mar 4 | Chris Haworth | Brooklyn Pickleball Team | |
| Jun 2 | Connor Mogle | Carolina Hogs | |
| Jun 2 | James Delgado | waiver claim | |
| Jun 2 | Michael Loyd | Carolina Hogs | |
| Jun 2 | Connor Mogle | waived | |
| Jul 7 | Mya Bui | Bay Area Breakers | |
| Jul 7 | Pablo Tellez | Bay Area Breakers | |
| Jul 7 | Kiora Kunimoto | Bay Area Breakers | |
| Jul 7 | James Delgado | Bay Area Breakers | |
| Jul 13 | Jalina Ingram | Chicago Slice | |
| Jul 13 | Zoey Weil | Florida Smash | |
| Jul 13 | Emma Nelson | Chicago Slice | |
| Jul 13 | Mya Bui | Florida Smash | |
| Jul 14 | Dylan Frazier | Miami Pickleball Club | |
| Jul 14 | Mohamed Anouar Braham | Miami Pickleball Club | |
| Jul 21 | Craig Johnson | waiver claim | |
| Jul 21 | Martin Emmrich | waiver claim | |
| Jul 21 | Joey Wild | drop of a player never on this roster | |
| Jul 21 | Craig Johnson | waived |
Why this roster shows 7: the league records this team dropping Joey Wild on Jul 21 — a name that appears on no roster and in no transaction anywhere in the 2026 record. The drop removes nobody, so the roster stays one over.
February post-draft roster: Layne Sleeth · Kiora Kunimoto · Emma Nelson · Chris Haworth · Mohamed Anouar Braham · Michael Loyd
More: all 20 team rosters · the 2026 draft · season and calendar · pro coverage
About this page. Pickleball Insiders is an independent publication, not affiliated with, endorsed by or authorised by Major League Pickleball or any team or player named here. The roster is reconstructed from the league’s published draft, trade and waiver records applied in date order; where those records do not balance we say so rather than smoothing it over. A best reading of the public record, not an official roster document. Corrections welcome and made in place. Contact · How we work