We have an unprecedented week of baseball ahead, with the league beginning to enforce foreign substance abuse starting this Monday. Any pitcher who is caught using such a substance will be immediately ejected and given a ten game suspension. We will see how many suspensions are handed out this week. Obviously, such a thing could drastically impact your fantasy week. We have already seen pitchers around the league adjust their pitching routines, resulting in a few injuries, most notably Tyler Glasnow, who has blamed this mid-season change directly. We expect not only suspensions and injuries over the coming weeks, but also changes to the consistency of pitching statistics. Regardless, this will be a crucial week to watch and see how this unfolds.
The week also starts a bit early, with the Braves and Mets scheduled to play a double-header on Monday starting at 5pm EST. This would give each of those teams eight scheduled games for the week, which will be a huge advantage during a week where only seven other teams are scheduled to play on all seven days. The Braves also play four games at Cincinnati’s Great American Ballpark, a very hitter friendly park, leaving them as one of our top hitting options to target this week. Players we are targeting include Austin Riley, about 85% owned, and Abraham Almonte, 1% owned and currently hitting in the heart of the Braves lineup.
Another team that our model projects to do well this week is the St. Louis Cardinals, who only play six games this week but will benefit from gaining a DH in two of them. We think Matt Carpenter, 1% owned, will man that position, but we will also target Dylan Carlson, 70% owned, and Tyler O’Neill, 75% owned. We have been high on O’Neill in this post for more than a few weeks now.
There are a number of other low owned hitters and pitchers who we are targeting this week. This list will continue to grow throughout the week, but for now we are keeping a close eye on the following players/situations:
- Chas McCormick, 3% owned, is in line for a productive week hitting at the top half of the Astros lineup. The Astros hitters all have favorable matchups ahead with games vs both the Baltimore Orioles and the Detroit Tigers.
- Dominic Smith, owned in under 60% of leagues, had a great week last week, as we projected. Dommy is having a productive season and will benefit from his Mets playing eight games this week.
- Tony Santillan, who was undrafted and unowned a week ago, was mentioned here last week. He had a tough matchup vs SD in his second start, but he will be given another shot this week. Santillan is definitely worth an add, especially in a week with so much pitching uncertainty as is.
- Jonathan Schoop, now owned in 67% of leagues, has gained over 10% ownership since last week. Schoop is a streaky hitter that should be owned while he is hot.
- Framber Vazquez, now owned in 80% of leagues, was mentioned here the last three weeks now after his return from the IL. He has been nothing short of great and should not be left on the waiver wire in any league he is still available.
- Brandon Crawford, owned in 75% of leagues, has also been mentioned in this section before and has seen his ownership increase by over 30% since then. He has now cracked the top 50 fantasy players on the season.