Collette Calls: Planning Ahead for the Second Half

You are going to hear a lot about the second half of the season on broadcasts and stories over the next week, and it may drive you as crazy as it drives me. When play resumes Friday, July 18, 59.7 percent of the season will have already been completed, as 1,451 contests will have been played. We will have 979 contests the rest of the season, so that half you hear is worse than the half Jerry Reed gave up in the classic county hit She Got The Gold Mine (I Got the Shaft). The schedule makers may have split it right down the middle, but the other months got the better half. 

Teams are left with anywhere from 64 to 66 remaining games the rest of the way, and the table below shows the data points which I would like to cover in this as we look at benefits within the margins of the schedule the rest of the way. A reminder - you can click on the titles in each column to sort from greatest to least or vice-versa:

Most Remaining Games

Teams have anywhere from 64 to 66 remaining games the rest of the way, but there are nine teams with 66 games left to be played:

• Angels
• Astros
• Guardians
• Mariners
• Marlins
• Orioles
• Padres
• Phillies
• Rockies
• Yankees

Two more games played is anywhere from 8 to 10 more at-bats for an everyday regular player, two save chances for a closer, or a potential extra start for one of your starters. I am not advocating for you to trade Trevor Story for Ryan Ritter because the latter has two more games than the former, but consider players with extra games as you look into trades or pickups the rest of the season. Every at-bat or inning pitched can factor into a league title, and I will provide some examples later in this piece.

Fewest Remaining Games

Two teams have but 64 games remaining

• Athletics
• Red Sox

Everyone else not already listed is at 65 games. The impact of this is somewhat watered down in mixed leagues, but AL-Only managers should take note of this because the Boston lineup already has a lineup-by-committee feel to it most games. The Athletics have several fantasy surprises, but Brent Rooker will be at 98 games played by the end of this week, with Tyler Soderstrom right on his heels. 

Home Games

The most home games after the break belong to the Cleveland Guardians, who have 38 remaining home games. This would have been wonderful news last year for fantasy managers with Cleveland hitters, but Progressive Field is one of the toughest parks this season for offense with a single-year park factor of 96 and three-year rolling park factor of 97 according to BaseballSavant. The Rangers are next with 36 games, and Globe Life Field is dead last in park factor this season at 90. The Rockies do have 35 games left at Coors, so that can be exploited, but would you believe no Rockies player has as many as nine home runs this season at home? Ryan McMahon and Mickey Moniak are tied with eight. 

On the flip side, the situations in Tampa Bay and Sacramento cannot be exploited as much. The Athletics have but 30 remaining home games over their final 64, while the Rays have 28 remaining home games over their final 65. The potential benefit here is the pitching and acquiring those arms for road games.

The Athletics have pitched to a 5.63 ERA at home and a 5.01 ERA on the road, so it hasn't exactly been pretty in either location for them. The staff has surrendered 135 home runs, 75 of which have come in Sacramento. Luis Severino and Jeffrey Springs have been the aces on the road, pitching to ERAs of 3.51 or lower with WHIPs of 1.16 or lower. Even J.P. Sears has been serviceable on the road with a 4.14 ERA and a 1.18 WHIP.

Tampa Bay has surprisingly pitched to a lower ERA at home (3.72) at George Steinbrenner Field than on the road (3.87). That recent 22-8 game in Baltimore may explain away some of that, but the home numbers have gotten better as the team settled into their temporary home. The largest benefactor of more road games should be Shane Baz, as his road ERA (3.10) is nearly 2.5 runs lower than his ERA in his home starts (5.47). Zack Littell would probably allow a home run in Yellowstone National Park, but of the 24 homers he has allowed this season, two-thirds of those have come on the road. 

Road Games

If you were to ask the average fan who has the most road games after the break, the Rays would be the most frequent answer. What may surprise you is the Astros have just as many road games after the break, as each team will be playing 37 games as road warriors. Daikin Park has been just slightly below average overall offensively so the Houston offense could become a little better despite not seeing the Crawford Boxes as frequently. The Red Sox have but 35 games left at Fenway, which has been a terrific run environment for the club. Boston hitters have hit .267/.341/.454 at home this season, but a cool .243/.310/.407 on the road. 35 of their remaining 64 games come away from Fenway, so Boston is paying the double penalty of more road games as well as the fewest remaining overall games to be played. 

Why Does This Matter?

Leagues sometimes come down to a final play. I can remember 2008 vividly, because I was half a point up in a home AL-only league and the team in second was one run behind me in the category. That season, the Twins and White Sox had to play a game 163 to decide who advanced to the playoffs. We each had one player in the game: my A.J. Pierzynski and his Michael Cuddyer. We knew the league was going to come down to run-scoring because if his middle-of-the-lineup guy scored while my lower-in-the-lineup catcher did not, he would tie me in the runs category and my overall 0.5 point lead would become a 0.5 point deficit. This is why I will forever be grateful to Ken Griffey Jr for doing this: 

That, and John Danks spinning an eight-inning one-hitter and Bobby Jenks (RIP) coming in to shut the game down in the ninth.

More recently, I'm currently sitting in first place in my "Beat Jason Collette" Rotowire Online Championship. The overall standings are as such:

1.  Me: 86.5 points
2. MORONS7: 77.5 points
3. JK All THE WAY OC9: 76.5 points
4. Seeger: 74.5 points
5. Goodwill Bunting: 73.5 points

Do I feel comfortable? Absolutely not. Just look at how tightly would a few categories are: 

This is why it matters. Even in a 12-team mixed league, categories can get extremely tight, and I've already seen good leads in this league evaporate overnight as another team gets hot. We have 60 percent of the schedule in the rearview mirror, so anything we can do as fantasy managers to exploit extra playing time needs to be considered. Looking at six- versus seven-game weeks is already a regular part of most fantasy manager's activities, but I encourage you to look at benefits or risks within the schedule more than just individual matchups, because there are some opportunities within the margins of the overall schedule to be exploited that can help you avoid sweating out a final run to preserve your league championship.