The Fantasy Baseball Hitting Planner is the essential guide to setting your lineup for the upcoming week. Usually, every Saturday, we provide you with favorable hitting matchups for teams, as well as which hitters are hot or not. The Pitching Planner, complete with upcoming two-start pitchers, will be posted on Thursday.
Taking BP: Miguel Cabrera missed Monday's home run derby with a jammed shoulder suffered after making a diving catch on Saturday. He is expected to play against the Nationals on Friday, however ... Pat Burrell has three homers in his past five games and he's batting .375 in July, after hitting just .129 in June ... Rookie OF Hunter Pence now has enough at-bats to qualify for the leaders in batting average. Going into the break, he leads the NL with a .342 average -- just one point above Colorado's Matt Holliday ... Speaking of rookies, Brewers 3B Ryan J. Braun leads all hitters in basic Head-to-Head points over the past two weeks. In that span, he's batting .396 with six homers, 13 RBI, 12 runs scored and three stolen bases ... Josh Hamilton will have his sore right wrist re-examined on Thursday, which makes the rookie outfielder a risky Fantasy starter this week ... Mark Teahen has at least one strikeout in 20 consecutive games ... Delmon Young's 96 hits are the 10th most by a rookie at the All-Star break in the past 25 years ... After naming David Ortiz (1B) and Carlos Guillen (CI) -- both regulars at other positions -- to my Fantasy All-Star squad last week, Justin Morneau went off on a seven-game hitting streak. In that span, he is hitting .467 with four homers, 13 RBI and seven runs scored ... Manny Ramirez's All-Star break started early, as he sat out of Sunday's game at Detroit with "intestinal turmoil." He was able to pinch hit in the eighth, so he should be fine for Week 15.
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Last 5 HR Derby Champions |
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| Derby Champ |
Before break |
After break |
|
| 2007 | Vlad Guerrero | 14 | ??? |
| 2006 | Ryan Howard | 28 | 30 |
| 2005 | Bobby Abreu | 18 | 6 |
| 2004 | Miguel Tejada | 15 | 19 |
| 2003 | Garret Anderson | 22 | 7 |
| 2002 | Jason Giambi | 22 | 19 |
Are you worried that Vladimir Guerrero will have a bad second half because he took home the crown of the Home Run Derby champion Monday? You'll be glad to know, that The Curse is over-hyped. Over the past five full seasons, only Bobby Abreu and Garret Anderson had noticeable dropoffs. Ryan Howard and Miguel Tejada actually went on to hit more homers in the second half than the first, despite playing in fewer games.
Projections are for July 9-15 games. All stats are through Sunday's games.
| This week's matchups | |
| American League | National League |
| Chicago White Sox @ Baltimore | Pittsburgh @ Atlanta |
| Toronto @ Boston | Cincinnati @ N.Y. Mets |
| Oakland @ Minnesota | Houston @ Chicago Cubs |
| Detroit @ Seattle | St. Louis @ Philadelphia |
| Kansas City @ Cleveland | Washington @ Florida |
| N.Y. Yankees @ Tampa Bay | Colorado @ Milwaukee |
| Texas @ L.A. Angels | San Diego @ Arizona |
| L.A. Dodgers @ San Francisco | |
| Bold indicates a four-game series. | |
| The following teams play four games this week: Baltimore, Boston, Chicago White Sox, Cincinnati, Detroit, Minnesota, N.Y. Mets, N.Y. Yankees, Oakland, Seattle, Tampa Bay and Toronto. | |
There are no games this week threatened by poor weather or at least a 50 percent chance of precipitation according to the Weather.com.
| B E S T H I T T I N G S C H E D U L E | |||||||
| N.Y. YANKEES | |||||||
| MON | TUE | WED | THU | FRI | SAT | SUN | |
| -- | -- | -- |
@TB Shields |
@TB Sonnanstine |
@TB Kazmir |
@TB Jackson |
|
| ' 06 Stadium stats: Tropicana Field, 9.7 RPG (16th). | |||||||
| TB pitching: 5.82 ERA overall (30th), 5.20 Home ERA (30th), 8.09 July ERA (30th). | |||||||
| The Bombers face the worst staff in the majors for four games. And the Tampa Bay area is like the Yankees' second home anyway, drawing more fans than the Rays' do during this series. | |||||||
Five other favorable hitter schedules
- N.Y. Mets -- vs. Cincinnati (4)
- The Mets are the only NL team with four home games this week, against a Reds pitching staff that has a 4.77 ERA this year -- second-worst in the NL.
- The Sox get four home games against a Blue Jays' staff that has a 4.69 ERA away from home this year.
- The Astros have the worst road ERA (5.56) among any team in the National League so far.
- The Halos get three games at home against the second-worst pitching staff in the majors.
- The Cards actually score more runs on the road, and they'll face the worst pitching staff in the NL this week.
| H O T H I T T E R S | ||||||
| We aren't suggesting you start these players no matter what, but you might consider starting them over struggling stars. The following eight hitters have extremely favorable matchups and/or are in the midst of hot streaks: | ||||||
| Miguel Olivo, C, Florida: The Marlins' backstop hits .286 at home -- almost 70 points higher than on the road. Same goes for Carlos Ruiz this week (.330/.212). | ||||||
| Adam LaRoche, 1B, Pittsburgh: Over the past two weeks, LaRoche is batting .400 with five homers and 12 RBI. | ||||||
| Esteban German, 2B, Kansas City: He's batting .432 with five RBI and eight runs scored over the past two weeks of play. | ||||||
| Jason Bartlett, SS, Minnesota: He has 16 runs scored over the past half month, with a .267 batting average. | ||||||
| Mike Lowell, 3B, Boston: Lowell is batting .381 at home this year and he has a .407 BA with five homers in seven games against the Blue Jays already this year. | ||||||
| Juan Pierre, OF, L.A. Dodgers: He has stolen 11 bases and scored 10 runs over his past 61 at-bats -- along with a .312 batting average. | ||||||
| Chone Figgins, 3B/OF, L.A. Angels: The speedster is hitting .385 at home this season, compared to .250 on the road. | ||||||
| Shannon Stewart, OF, Oakland: Only six other outfielders have more Head-to-Head points in the past two weeks than Stewart. He is hitting .441 with three homers, five RBI and 13 runs scored in that span. | ||||||
| W O R S T H I T T I N G S C H E D U L E | ||||||
| WASHINGTON NATIONALS | ||||||
| MON | TUE | WED | THU | FRI | SAT | SUN |
| -- | -- | -- | -- |
@FLA Willis |
@FLA Mitre |
@FLA Olsen |
| ' 06 Stadium stats: Dolphin Stadium, 8.9 RPG (27th). | ||||||
| FLA pitching: 4.55 ERA overall (21st), 4.94 Home ERA (25th), 3.68 July ERA (8th). | ||||||
| The Nats are the worst road offense in the majors -- and Florida has a 3.68 staff ERA in July. | ||||||
Five other below-average hitter schedules
- Texas Rangers -- at L.A. Angels (3)
- Only the Padres (2.82) have a better home ERA than the Angels (3.43) in the majors this year.
- The D-Backs face the toughest pitching staff in the majors for just three games this week.
- The Royals have scored only 165 runs on the road this season -- worst in the American League.
- The Dodgers only have three games this week -- all on the road -- against the second-best pitching staff at home in the NL.
- Four games are nice, but the A's have the best staff in the entire American League, with a 3.66 ERA in the first half.
| C O L D H I T T E R S | ||||||
| We aren't suggesting you sit anyone, but take a look at your roster to see if you have a better alternative. The following eight hitters have poor matchups and/or are in the midst of cold streaks: | ||||||
| Joe Mauer, C, Minnesota: He's hitting only .250 at home this season, while batting .359 in 30 games on the road. | ||||||
| Derrek Lee, 1B, Chicago Cubs: Lee has just three RBI and a .171 batting average over the past two weeks. | ||||||
| Rickie Weeks, 2B, Milwaukee: Over his past 32 at-bats, he is hitting just .063 with one RBI and two runs scored. | ||||||
| Jhonny Peralta, SS, Cleveland: While he hits well at home, he has just a .163 batting average in six games against Royals pitchers this year. | ||||||
| Ty Wigginton, 1B/2B/3B, Tampa Bay: Wiggy has only one RBI with .231 batting average in eight July games so far. | ||||||
| Carl Crawford, OF, Tampa Bay: The Devil Rays are having trouble all over the place -- including from their superstar. He's batting just .196 with three steals, three RBI and seven runs scored over his past 46 at-bats. | ||||||
| Michael Cuddyer, OF, Minnesota: He's batting just .214 over the past half month. | ||||||
| Chris B. Young, OF, Arizona: The young speedster is hitting only .163 with three solo homers over his past 49 at-bats. He's hitting just .233 on the year now. | ||||||
You can e-mail your Fantasy Baseball questions to DMFantasyBaseball@cbs.com. Be sure to include "Attn: Hitting Planner" in the subject heading. Please include your full name, hometown and state. Be aware, due to the large volume of submissions received, we cannot guarantee personal responses or answers to all questions.
