A Sneak Peak Into The Future! Playoffs?

Playoffs?!?! You’re talking about Playoffs? Playoffs? I’m just hoping we can win a game.

If you’re still scouring the internet for fantasy baseball details, you’re probably still in the hunt, and you’re probably thinkin’ about playoffs.  I figured I’d go old school for a bit, and remind everyone of the power of the schedule.  The schedule is a powerful beast:  Hell, up here in Toronto, people genuinely thought the Blue Jays had a shot of making a playoff run back in May.

The schedule doesn’t effect the top-tier players the same way that it effects the “guess hitters” or the “mistake hitters.”  When a mistake hitter starts facing pitchers that make mistakes, good things tend to happen.

First off, to establish the worst pitching in the big-leagues I used a simple, sloppy method:  I sorted by ERA.  It’s not pretty, nor precise, but it’s definitely close enough.

I arbitrarly drew the line at Philadelphia, but it seems fair enough considering the park factor and home-run rate.  It’s about the bottom third of the league, give or take.

So who faces these masterful pitching disasters, and how often?

National League:

St. Louis Cardinals, Cincinnati Reds  & Pittsburgh Pirates

Each of these squads have at least 8 or 9 series in the closing months against the dirty bakers dozen of pitching staffs.

Schumaker, DeRosa and Ludwick are liable to go on monster streaks the rest of the way home.  The Rasmus/Ankiel platoon will also prove to be fairly useful.  The Reds will always be interesting and Johnny Gomes definitely stands out as a player that’ll benefit from a cushy schedule.  Chris Dickerson, who’s potential made everyone squirm a bit, should also provide a jump-start in deeper leagues, given ABs.  Finally, the Pirates — Oh, the Pirates:  If they’re  allowed to run, Milledge and McCutchen could be very interesting.  Steven Pearce is probably also going to put together at least a couple weeks of solid ball — we’re talking deep leagues now, though.

Milwaukee Brewers, Florida Marlins, Chicago Cubs and Atlanta Braves

Cameron and Lopez are two Brewers that’ll probably benefit the most from the August/September home stretch.  The Marlins are the Marlins, and they’ll swing at just about everything — they all get a bump.  I can’t really deal with the Braves, but Chipper should probably end the season on a tear if he stays healthy.

Finally, I’d like to solely focus on Alfonso Soriano, but Milton Bradley’s going to be pesky good.  Soriano is exactly the kind of player that’ll go on a huge tear when he faces a streak of bad pitching.  I’d love to whole-heartedly recommend Soriano, but the questions surrounding his age and steroid use are numerous.

Arizona Diamondbacks and Houston Astros

A little bump across the board to everyone on these two trains.  I don’t think that I’ll be acquiring them, but I’d think about Stephen Drew.

American League:

Texas Rangers, Minnesota Twins, Kansas City Royals, Detroit Tigers, Chicago White Sox, and the Cleveland Indians.

The Bad Teams in the American League all start facing each other very shortly.  There should be a fair amount of high-scoring games, if over-under’s your thing.

Billy Butler, Carlos Quentin, Orlando Cabrera, all spring to mind as players who’ll benefit.  Furthermore, I’d love to recommend Magglio Ordonez for a nice little bounce back, but he’s so damn fat and old.  If you have bigger reproductive organs than I, please go ahead and make a deal.  Grady Sizemore could well be a top-20 player the rest of the way home, even if the Runs and RBI aren’t there.

Oakland, Anaheim, Baltimore and Seattle also have some interesting match-ups.

This is by no means a fantasy prediction, but rather just a recommendation.  Go ahead and take a quick look at the schedules, and I can promise you that Orlando Cabrera facing 5.00 ERA pitching is going to be better than even the best short-stop facing sub-2.50 ERA pitching down the stretch.