Tristan H. Cockcroft is senior writer for fantasy baseball and football at ESPN. Tristan is a member of the FSWA Hall of Fame. He is also a two-time LABR and three-time Tout Wars champion.
Believe it or not, but the All-Star break is nearly here.
Fantasy baseball's Week 15 represents the final week of baseball's traditional "first half," even if the mathematical midway point has already passed. Teams take a three-day break following the week ahead, while the game's best players participate in the annual Midsummer Classic festivities.
In ESPN leagues, this scoring period spans two weeks, beginning with the games of Monday, July 6, and ending on Sunday, July 19. That means four additional days of games from July 16-19, for your lineup planning purposes.
Note: We'll have more Forecaster updates covering those games as they get closer, but as teams rarely announce their rotation plans for the post-break weekend in advance, we don't have enough information for now to guide you through that weekend.
There is a doubleheader scheduled on Tuesday, as the Milwaukee Brewers and St. Louis Cardinals will make up their May 5 postponement as part of a double-dip at Busch Stadium. That gives both teams a rare eight-game week, though both teams have their work cut out for them as, beyond facing each other, the Brewers face the Pittsburgh Pirates at PNC Park and the Cardinals host the Atlanta Braves during the weekend. Paul Skenes, whose Pirates have lost each of his past nine starts, faces a particularly challenging pair of matchups as the team's projected two-start pitcher.
Note that the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays also have a doubleheader within the upcoming ESPN scoring period, theirs on July 17 at Fenway Park and making up for their May 9 postponement. The Rays will play 11 games during the extended scoring period, matching the Brewers and Cardinals for the league's most. (Again: that's counting the entirety of the two-week scoring period ahead.)
For the upcoming week, the Rays and New York Yankees, the top two teams in terms of record in the entire American League, play a four-game, week-opening series at Tropicana Field. "The Trop" has been a house of horrors for the Yankees in recent years, as they were swept there by the Rays April 10-12, and have a 26-37 record there over the past 10 seasons.
