The Fantasy Baseball Forecaster has been updated as of Sunday, May 28, at 1:30 p.m. ET.
Welcome to the new and improved version of the Fantasy Baseball Forecaster! This year, we've reorganized the story into four parts; it's the same great intel, but you get right where you need to go as quickly as possible. Good luck this season!
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On tap: Week 9 kicks off on Memorial Day, with a tripleheader on ESPN beginning with New York Yankees at Baltimore Orioles at 1 p.m. ET, continuing with Washington Nationals at San Francisco Giants at 4 p.m. ET and concluding with Detroit Tigers at Kansas City Royals at 7 p.m. ET. The holiday schedule leads to an early start to the week, so get those weekly lineups set by 1 p.m. ET, and be aware in daily formats that all 15 teams will play on Monday, with 10 of the 15 games scheduled on that date being day games. ESPN also has a doubleheader on Tuesday: Los Angeles Dodgers at St. Louis Cardinals at 7 p.m. ET, and Nationals at Giants at 10 p.m. ET.
The Nine
David Price's much-anticipated 2017 debut for the Boston Red Sox is scheduled for May 29, aligning him for two starts during his first full week on the active roster: He'd pitch at Chicago's Guaranteed Rate Field and at Baltimore's Camden Yards (that game on June 3). As an aside, Chris Sale would also make his first start back in Chicago since his winter trade by the Chicago White Sox the next day, May 30. The computer inevitably loves Price because of his track record, which cannot easily account for diminished skill resulting from injury, but his shaky numbers in two rehabilitation starts for Triple-A Pawtucket cannot be ignored: .400 BAA (granted, fueled by .524 BABIP), mid-20s-percent ground-ball rate (varies by source but sub-30-percent which is well beneath his 44 percent career big-league rate), 4.81 pitches per batter faced (3.86 big-league career number). These games coming up are two matchups at homer-friendly environments, against teams with right-handed pop that could present problems. Price's raw, full-health Game Score projections for these games would both be 59. He's rated where he is -- roughly the league's average in the category for each outing -- because I'm that concerned he might need a few turns to get up to full speed. Starting Price this week is entirely about how risk-averse you are.
Speaking of injury comebacks, the Toronto Blue Jays' offense will receive a significant boost with the anticipated May 26 returns of both Josh Donaldson and Troy Tulowitzki. That granted their fantasy owners -- not to mention owners of other Blue Jays hitters -- the advantage of a May 26-28 weekend series against the Texas Rangers, with two of those games coming against non-Yu Darvish starters, in order to evaluate how much rust they've got on their swings. Donaldson was 2-for-5 (.400 AVG) with an RBI in his two-game rehabilitation stint for Class A Dunedin, while Tulowitzki batted .266/.412/.500 in his five games for Dunedin, neither an especially large or indicative sample. That said, the Blue Jays' favorable hitting matchups extend through Week 9, making both -- barring any sort of significant health/performance setback -- outstanding starts in all formats. After all, despite their facing five right-handed starters, the Blue Jays enjoy one of the more favorable ratings for righty hitters this week. Besides the duo, make sure to also have Jose Bautista, Russell Martin, Kendrys Morales, Kevin Pillar, Justin Smoak and Devon Travis active everywhere.
Injury comebacks, Part 3: Though all three will be risky starts for Week 9 in their projected first turns since returning from the disabled list, Nate Karns, James Paxton and Taijuan Walker all face favorable matchups that make them worth the dice roll if your roster can absorb it. Karns would battle the Detroit Tigers, a .229/.316/.396 hitting team with a 23.9 percent strikeout rate against right-handed pitchers in May. Paxton would get a home start against a Colorado Rockies team that has somewhat ordinary .253/.306/.412 rates and a 26.4 percent strikeout rate in road games against lefties. Walker, meanwhile, would visit the Miami Marlins, representing a significant ballpark boost against the team with the second-worst wOBA against righties in May (.300).
The Tampa Bay Rays manage to avoid the aforementioned Darvish in their week-opening series at Texas' Globe Life Park and Paxton in their week-ending trip to Seattle's Safeco Field, which is great news for their offense, which has better-than-league-average rates in May in terms of runs per game (4.83, major league average is 4.72), wOBA (.337 versus .332) and home-run rate (4.0 versus 3.3 percent). Though hot-hitting Corey Dickerson and Logan Morrison might be stronger plays in a week against more than three right-handed starters, both are well worth keeping active everywhere considering how weak those four individuals' skill sets. This week's big Rays play, though, is Steven Souza Jr., who has been seeing more time in the No. 5 spot in their lineup and is slugging .581 in his past 11 games.
No team faces a tougher schedule on the hitting side this week than the St. Louis Cardinals, whose best chance at a big week is that scheduled opposing starters Jake Arrieta, Rich Hill, John Lackey and Kenta Maeda continue to under-perform their true talent. There isn't a single high-grade matchup on their schedule, with the Friday game against Lackey the closest to it, which makes it a good week to consider alternatives to Aledmys Diaz, Randal Grichuk, Stephen Piscotty and any of the Cardinals' lesser-owned players in ESPN leagues.
The New York Mets entered play in May 26 with the majors' highest runs-per-game average in the month of May (5.90), and against right-handed pitchers they possessed a top-10 wOBA (.350, ninth). In Week 9, they'll face nothing but righty starters with only Gerrit Cole on Friday a particularly scary matchup, and all of those games will be played at home. Scorching-hot leadoff man Michael Conforto is an obvious start, but this would be a good week to speculate on hot streaks from the typically streaky Jay Bruce (.274/.363/.598 rates against righties this season), Lucas Duda (.253/.360/.476 career rates against righties) and perhaps even Curtis Granderson (.234/.333/.500 in 21 games in the month of May).
Though they will face Paxton in one of their seven games, the Colorado Rockies enjoy six other extremely favorable hitting matchups in Week 9 -- and don't discount the possibility that Paxton will display some rust and/or be on a limited pitch count after a near-month-long absence. Though the team will play two of its seven games at Seattle's Safeco Field and three others at San Diego's Petco Park, venues that were once known for being extreme pitchers' parks, be aware that both are more hitting-friendly than they once were, raising the quality of the Rockies' weekly schedule. This is a likely week for Ian Desmond, Carlos Gonzalez and Trevor Story to begin catching fire offensively, and Mark Reynolds also has good odds of reversing his recent funk.
Jake Lamb and David Peralta sure have been fun to own when they're facing right-handed pitching, and the Arizona Diamondbacks will face at least five righty starters while drawing easily the week's most favorable rating for left-handed hitters. Pittsburgh's PNC Park and Miami's Marlins Park are much more pitching-oriented venues than the Diamondbacks' home, Chase Field, but the pitch-to-contact nature of the team's scheduled opponents makes them -- especially their lefties -- solid plays. In NL-only leagues, Gregor Blanco is even worth a look.
If you're looking for a one-week, deeper-league plug-in, you might want to consider Washington Nationals reserve Adam Lind, who should benefit most from the team's gaining the designated hitter in three week-ending games against the Oakland Athletics and their right-handed starters. Lind is a .348/.404/.630 hitter in limited time this season who is available in 99.2 percent of ESPN leagues. Beyond that, there's not a lot to gain from this week's interleague games, despite 11 of the 13 scheduled being played in American League venues. The Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati Reds and Rockies will likely take rotational approaches to the role, and the main risk for the Seattle Mariners during their two-game series at Colorado's Coors Field is that Nelson Cruz might be limited to pinch-hitting duty for one of the games. Cruz did play two of three in right field from May 23-25 at Washington's Nationals Park, however, and the Coors bump is significant enough that he's a must in any fantasy lineup.