Fantasy Baseball Weekly Planner: August 19-25

UPDATED Match-ups for the weekend are listed down below.

We’re now just a week and a half away from rosters expanding and seeing those September call-ups get their chance in the majors while in the heat of a playoff race in both leagues. All across the match-up breakdown are important games for the various playoff races that are happening in both leagues this week.

Team Schedules

Interleague Schedules

Who’s Hot

Gleyber Torres , 2B NYY – Torres took full advantage of playing his favorite team four times this week to lead the majors in homers with six in 33 plate appearances. He slashed .323/.364/.935 in that span and drove in 11 runs for the streaking Yankees. New York has the AL East pretty well in hand but it’s important for their offense to keep going to help their pitching staff continue to succeed.

Josh Bell , 1B PIT – Bell continues to smoke the baseball despite the Pirates falling out of the playoff race. He slashed .318/.423/.864 in six games and 26 PA with four homers, nine RBI, and six runs. Bell is one of the premier bats at first base this year and even though his team is out of contention for the playoffs, he’s still doing what he can to power the team to victories each night out.

Mike Yastrzemski , OF SF – The grandson of the famous Red Sox first baseman and outfielder has broken out this last week. Yastrzemski slashed .429/.455/1.190 with five homers, eight RBI, and six runs in 22 plate appearance. The uncommon rookie is showing why he got the call as the Giants keep the slim hope of making the playoffs alive behind the pop Yastrzemski is showing this past week.

Nick Ahmed , SS ARI – Ahmed, like a few others in Arizona, is having a surprising season that strong year continued this past week with a .407/.429/1.111 triple-slash line and five home runs, 13 RBI, and six runs scored. The Diamondbacks continue to hover around .500 like they’ve done for more than half the season (seriously they’ve spent two-thirds of the season within a game of .500) and that still has them within 4.5 games of the second NL Wild Card spot. If they get hot down the stretch, it could get interesting in the desert.

Who’s Not

Travis d'Arnaud , 1B/C TB – d’Arnaud showed up in a flash for the Rays and just like that he’s started to struggle again, just like Mets’ fans will remember. In the last six games, he’s slashed .150/.227/.150 with one run and one RBI in the counting stats department. That’s a far cry from what he was doing just a few weeks ago when he was in the other section of the weekly planner. The Rays are solidly in the playoffs at this point but it never hurts to get as many hot bats going into the playoffs as possible.

Rhys Hoskins , 1B PHI – Hoskins has had a pretty quiet season overall with all the of new talent arriving in Philly but even as good as his season has been, he’s hitting a bit of a slow patch. He’s slashed just .059/.261/.059 over the last six games with three runs scored and an RBI and a whopping 34.8-percent K-rate. The Phillies offense has been up-and-down over the last couple of weeks and it’s these kinds of performances that have them yo-yo-ing in the NL Wild Card chase.

Michael Conforto , OF NYM – Conforto was white-hot when the Mets were streaking back into the NL playoff picture but now he’s cooled off significantly. He hit .130/.276/.130 with four RBI and one run scored in the last six games and 29 plate appearances while also striking out 34.5-percent of the time. If the Mets are going to keep their playoff hopes alive in the suddenly competitive NL East and Wild Card chases, they will need Conforto to warm back up and start being the 1-2 punch with Pete Alonso again.

Javier Báez , SS/2B CHC – Oh Mr. Free-swinger otherwise known as Javy Baez is having one of his down weeks this past week. It’s not because of the K-rate though as that was at a respectable 5.3-percent. It’s because of his slash line at .118/.158/.235 with two RBI and a steal added to the line. The Cubs offense as a whole has been bad on the road this year, and that’s where they spent the past week, first in Philly and then in Pittsburgh, and that could have contributed to the struggles.

Match-Up Breakdowns

The team on the left is showing stats for the away games and the team on the right are showing stats for the home games.

Weekend Match-Ups (Thursday/Friday-Sunday)

Early Week Match-Ups (Monday/Tuesday-Wednesday/Thursday)