Texas Ranchers
Finished 8 · 48 pts · Quarterfinal
Texas Ranchers finished 8 in the 2026 regular season on 48 standings points and made the 12-team playoff. 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.
How the season ended
Lost in the quarterfinals to St. Louis, 3–0 and 3–0, after beating Atlanta 2–0 in Round 1.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Eric Oncins | Men’s doubles #16 · 1908 Mixed #17 · 1980 | 67.9% from 84 matches gender doubles 22-10 · mixed 25-9 · singles 10-8 |
| Lea Jansen | Women’s doubles #21 · 1923 Mixed #35 · 1815 | 66.3% from 86 matches gender doubles 16-10 · mixed 14-10 · singles 27-9 |
| Kaitlyn Christian | Women’s doubles #33 · 1780 Mixed #58 · 1719 | 65.2% from 92 matches gender doubles 12-11 · mixed 13-10 · singles 35-11 |
| Rafa Hewett | Men’s doubles #62 · 1703 | 48.9% from 45 matches gender doubles 10-8 · mixed 5-7 · singles 7-8 |
| Layne Sleeth | Women’s doubles #62 · 1663 | 33.3% from 3 matches gender doubles 1-1 · mixed 0-1 |
| Marcela Hones | Outside the top 100 | 25.0% from 32 matches gender doubles 2-8 · mixed 3-8 · singles 3-8 |
| Nico Acevedo | — | — |
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 (2): Christian Alshon · Eric Oncins
Drafted (4):
| Pick | Player | Reported bid |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | Lea Jansen | — |
| 22 | Sahra Dennehy | — |
| 33 | Luca Mack | — |
| 51 | Ava Cavataio | — |
Transactions
| Date | In | Out | From / to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 3 | Dylan Frazier | Brooklyn Pickleball Team | |
| Mar 3 | Matthew Barlow | Brooklyn Pickleball Team | |
| Mar 3 | Layne Sleeth | California Black Bears | |
| Mar 3 | Christian Alshon | Brooklyn Pickleball Team | |
| Mar 3 | Luca Mack | Brooklyn Pickleball Team | |
| Mar 3 | Sahra Dennehy | California Black Bears | |
| Jun 2 | Nico Acevedo | Miami Pickleball Club | |
| Jun 2 | Aiko Yoshitomi | Miami Pickleball Club | |
| Jun 2 | Genie Bouchard | Carolina Hogs | |
| Jun 2 | Marcela Hones | waiver claim | |
| Jun 2 | Dylan Frazier | Miami Pickleball Club | |
| Jun 2 | Ava Cavataio | Miami Pickleball Club | |
| Jun 2 | Aiko Yoshitomi | Carolina Hogs | |
| Jun 2 | Genie Bouchard | waived | |
| Jun 23 | Rafa Hewett | waiver claim | |
| Jun 23 | Angie Walker | waiver claim | |
| Jun 23 | Matthew Barlow | waived | |
| Jun 23 | Marcela Aguila Ampon | drop of a player never on this roster | |
| Jun 24 | Kaitlyn Christian | Atlanta Bouncers | |
| Jun 24 | Angie Walker | St. Louis Shock |
Why this roster shows 7: the league records this team dropping Marcela Aguila Ampon on Jun 23 — 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: Lea Jansen · Sahra Dennehy · Ava Cavataio · Christian Alshon · Eric Oncins · Luca Mack
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