Fantasy Baseball Weekly Planner: September 9-15

The Wild Card races are really heating up with just a couple of weeks left to go in the regular season and every at-bat counts more now than it did in say May or June. That’s why it’s even more important to know what the match-ups look like for the week ahead especially since this is also fantasy Baseball playoff and championship time as well. Without further ado we will dive into the team schedules and match-up breakdowns upcoming for the next seven days.

Team Schedules

Interleague Outlook

Who’s Hot

Ketel Marte , 2B ARI – Arizona is still in the Wild Card hunt in the NL, only a couple of games off the second spot as Sunday’s game happened, and it’s mainly due to the offensive breakout of Marte this year. This week he kept the trends going with a .520/.556/1.040 slash line with three homers, 12 RBI, and six runs scored. It’s been a career-year for Marte and he just keeps adding to it with every passing game and week at this point. If the Diamondbacks manage to track down the Cubs for the second spot in the Wild Card it will have been mainly on the shoulders of Marte and a young, scrappy pitching staff in the second half.

Tim Anderson , SS CWS – Anderson is probably still more known this year for his epic bat flip in April than what he’s done on the field since that time, and subsequent suspension. This week however, he stuck out for his .438/.455/.781 triple-slash with a .500 BABIP and .507 wOBA to go with the two homers, nine runs, and five RBI in seven games. The strikeout rate wasn’t bad either coming in at an 18.2-percent clip. The White Sox are a team that is out of it, but Anderson can still fill up a stat line any given week and that’s what his fantasy owners continue to count on.

Dee Gordon , 2B SEA – Gordon got back to doing what he’s good at this past week in stealing bases. He had three to be exact in five games. He also slashed .476/.476/.619 with a .462 wOBA and 199 wRC+ in those 21 plate appearances. Gordon didn’t walk at all but he did strikeout only 9.5-percent of the time which is a big improvement over where he was earlier in the season when he looked lost at the plate. The Mariners are out of things, and have been nearly since the season started but fantasy owners are still coveting the steals that Gordon can contribute with frequency.

Who’s Not

Khris Davis , DH OAK – The wrist injury is still affecting Davis, clearly, as he had another rough week this past week. In 27 plate appearances the Oakland slugger slashed .080/.111/.120 with three RBI and a run on the counting stat side. The BABIP was .095 which is a tad better than his average and he did only strikeout 18.5-percent of the time, but walked less than four percent which doesn’t help either. Oakland is battling for the Wild Card seeding in the AL and if Davis can return to his 40-homer self that would really allow the A’s to go on a key run late in the season.

Aaron Judge , OF/DH NYY – In playing a bit more than half a season to this point, he’s been pretty solid with 20 homers and a .267 average on the year, however this week didn’t reflect that from Judge. He slashed .087/.160/.217 with a homer, three runs, and two RBI in six games. However, he whiffed 40-percent of the time and put up just a .083 BABIP so it’s not like he was robbed. The Yankees have the AL East well in hand, but are still fighting for home-field advantage with Houston and need all of their offensive weapons to be clicking at this point, which is not what Judge was doing this past week.

Eddie Rosario , OF MIN – A guy who’s been in the middle of the lineup for the Twins all season, had a bad week to be sure. He slashed .185/.185/.296 in 27 plate appearances and six games. He did add a homer, three RBI, and two runs to help a bit with the counting stats but it’s a bad time for the Twins middle-of-the-order bat to be slumping when they are trying to lock down the AL Central title. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of bats around him, but he’s a key to the heart of the order they will need as the season wraps up and the playoffs get going.

Kole Calhoun , OF LAA – Unlike everyone else in this section, Calhoun’s team isn’t fighting for a playoff spot or home field advantage, but that doesn’t mean his week didn’t stand out for the wrong reasons. He slashed .056/.190/.056 with just two runs and a completely unhealthy 47.6-percent K-rate. He did have a steal to help out but that’s not saying much trying to overcome his heinous slash lines. The Angels need a consistent bat around Trout in the lineup and Calhoun had been that for a chunk of the year, but not recently and that’s why the Angels continue to miss the playoffs even with the best player in the game in their lineup.

Weekly Match-Up Breakdown

The teams in the left-hand column are showing stats for road games this year and the teams in the right-hand column are showing stats for home games in 2019.

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