Schedule Tracker: Best and Worst Matchups Through August

Obviously with baseball, and particularly imperative for fantasy, the strength of schedule for one side of the ball could be completely flipped for the other. Things like park factor, strength of pitching unit, and home and road splits come more into play than with other sports.

So this ticker is switchable to hitters and pitchers, and each cell carries a difficulty score from 0 to 100, with 0 being easier and 100 being harder, built per series as a whole rather than for individual games. Dates for each series set can obviously overlap, so starting from the 24th July, this weekend series and for each team’s next 11 series, which more or less brings us until the end of August.

For hitters, the score comes from two things: how tough the opposing pitching staff is, and how much the park hosting the series helps or hurts offense. For pitchers, it’s the mirror image: how tough the opposing offense is, and the same park factor working the other way. Both are measured against every other matchup a team could have over this stretch, so a high score means that series is tougher than most of what’s on the board, and the cell will be a darker red; a low score means it’s a softer fixture and will be green.

When you hover over the cell, the opponent’s number isn’t their blended season line; it’s specifically their home stats if they’re hosting the series, or their road stats if they’re traveling, since plenty of teams perform very differently in one setting than the other. Note: this does not factor probable starters or any specific pitching matchups rather than the unit as a whole; to cross-check that, please refer to the FanGraphs probable starters page, scroallable horizontally for series 9-11.

So let’s get into it.

Hitting

So you’re telling me there’s a chance…. It’s going to be a very interesting period for the Blue Jays as they look to build their own Red Sox-esque winning streak. Vladdy is still struggling, and overall they have looked very underwhelming, especially in the home-run department, where they have been carried, Okamoto. They have what looks like a tough series in Boston, but that follows with a very nice stretch where you could risk some Toronto hitters during a soft schedule. As they approach the deadline, the first three series are a hugely important set of fixtures for Toronto to see how they react as potential sellers.

Kansas City is again a disappointing outfit this season, but for those with Pasquantino, Caglianone, or Garcia, this looks to be a very targetable stretch, against some below-average teams. Boston will look to keep working their way up closer to the Rays at the top of the East, who also have a favorable next five series themselves.

The Cubbies are without a neutral fixture for the next four series, and their next green fixture isn’t until the 7th of August in Kansas. It could not be a bad idea to sit some of the fringe Cubs hitters during this stretch. The ticker projects more woes for the lowly Mets, and David Stearns could be looking to move the Mets’ assets as they look to 2027 and beyond, sooner rather than later.

Now, while the Astros games against the White Sox and Angels might not seem like red fixtures, it looks softer on paper than it plays. Houston plays both on the road, where each staff’s FIP has actually been a full run better than their overall reputation suggests. It’s a good example of why the home and road splits matter here, but also a caution about perhaps the noise in these samples over a half-season.

Pitching

What is very interesting as we look through similarities between the five teams with the strongest pitching schedules for the next five series is the recurrence of two teams that appear three times each. The Los Angeles Angels and San Diego Padres. The Angels are a 110 wRC+ hitting team on the road, but just 80 at Angel Stadium, and the Padres drop from 94 on the road to 88 at Petco, and Houston, Milwaukee, San Francisco, and Colorado all happen to be facing one or the other during this stretch.

Pittsburgh and Houston are interesting teams to keep an eye on, particularly in standard 12-team formats, given their pitchers may be available on some waivers still, and Milwaukee is well… Milwaukee. San Francisco, while we can see above in the hitters section, has a tough-hitting schedule facing Milwaukee, San Diego, and Texas; actually, they have a nice run on the flip side for the likes of Webb, Roupp, and Ray.

As you might have noticed, Toronto seems to appear frequently. Toronto’s hitters have the softest schedule in baseball over this stretch (30.6), while Toronto’s pitchers have the fourth-toughest (64.8). That’s not a contradiction. Washington and the Cubs both show up as a pretty soft 5.03 and 4.52 FIP for the staffs Toronto’s hitters will face, and then a 110 and 120 wRC+ for the offenses Toronto’s pitchers will face.

Atlanta’s stretch looks tough on paper; for those waiting on an Austin Riley turnaround, I wouldn’t hold my breath. A five-series against above-average-or-better offenses: Baltimore at home (114 wRC+), Washington at home (109), and a road trip to New York (114). Arizona and Toronto are boom-or-bust rather than uniformly hard, both getting hit by the same two offenses, Washington at home (110 wRC+) and a road trip to face the Cubs (120), while their other series are actually manageable, making Arizona’s Dodgers date the single toughest number in the whole group at 122. The Yankees run into that same Cubs road offense for their hardest series, on top of a tough slate against Philadelphia and the White Sox.

Because this is built on current form rather than reputation, it’s worth revisiting midway through August, and it likely gains even more value later in the season, once we have a clearer sense of who’s actually playing for something come September.