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The 2019 Major League Baseball season begins on Thursday, March 28, with all 30 teams scheduled to play, and a tripleheader of games on ESPN: Baltimore Orioles at New York Yankees at 1 p.m. ET; Arizona Diamondbacks at Los Angeles Dodgers at 4 p.m. ET; and Boston Red Sox at Seattle Mariners at 7 p.m. ET. It is the earliest domestic start to a season in major league history, and it follows the same arrangement as in 2018, with all 30 teams playing on traditional Opening Day. The Thursday start creates a lengthier “Week 1” of the fantasy baseball season: 11 days, beginning with those March 28 games and extending through the games on Sunday, April 7. Leagues with weekly lineup deadlines will lock lineups for the entirety of Week 1 at the start of each scheduled game and will not allow changes to take effect again until Monday, April 8. Oakland Athletics and Seattle Mariners players will remain locked in these leagues after they appeared in March 20-21 games in Japan. ESPN leagues with daily lineup deadlines, however, will still lock players at the start times of each of their respective games each day. If you play in a head-to-head league, your first matchup of the season will be 13 days in length, covering the 11-day span from March 28 to April 7 as well as the two Japan games already in the books.
The extended scoring period creates a wider divide in games played among teams, as three play on all 11 days: The Boston Red Sox, Oakland Athletics (who already have two games in the books this scoring period) and Toronto Blue Jays, with the Athletics and Blue Jays scheduled for eight and seven of those at home. That grants these squads a significant, volume-driven advantage over the five teams scheduled to play only eight times: The Chicago White Sox, Kansas City Royals, Minnesota Twins, Philadelphia Phillies and Washington Nationals. Nine other teams, meanwhile, play only nine times during the opening scoring period. The Blue Jays especially benefit, thanks to seven of their 11 games being played at home at Rogers Center against a pair of weak pitching staffs in the Detroit Tigers and Baltimore Orioles — though the team does finish with four on the road against the rotation-rich Cleveland Indians. This would be a good week to use Danny Jansen, a borderline top-10 catcher who definitely belongs in that class as far as Week 1 starters due to the volume advantage, and in deep-mixed (think 14-plus-team)/AL-only leagues Teoscar Hernandez, who should get the majority of the starts in left field at the season’s onset.
Among those teams with eight-game weeks, the Washington Nationals are the one that face the toughest set of opening-scoring-period hitting matchups. This team will tangle with Jacob deGrom once and Noah Syndergaard and Zack Wheeler twice apiece. That’s not to say that your star-caliber Nationals — Anthony Rendon, Victor Robles, Juan Soto and Trea Turner especially — warrant a seat on your bench, but it’s worth seeking stronger alternatives to players like Brian Dozier, Yan Gomes and Ryan Zimmerman, especially since the team will face seven right-handed starters. Dozier, Gomes and Zimmerman all had isolated power greater than .180 but also wOBA beneath .320 against right-handers last season, making them all-or-nothing plays in the opening scoring period.
The 11-day week grants the rare circumstance of a team giving a starting pitcher as many as three starts during the scoring period, by starting him on Thursday, March 28, then on four days’ rest on Tuesday, April 2, and again on four days’ rest on Sunday, April 7. For the few pitchers who get this benefit, they enjoy a huge, volume-driven advantage in fantasy baseball leagues with weekly lineup locks. Twenty-four teams are scheduled to play on all three of those dates and therefore have the opportunity to do that with their Opening Day starters, though only four such pitchers are currently projected to do so: Andrew Cashner, Mike Fiers, Brad Keller and Marcus Stroman. Depending upon teams’ decisions skipping fifth starters, the Colorado Rockies’ Kyle Freeland, San Diego Padres’ Eric Lauer and Tampa Bay Rays’ Blake Snell could also pick up third starts. Boston Red Sox ace Chris Sale also has a chance to make three starts due to the team’s 11-game week, though manager Alex Cora has indicated that the team will use a sixth starter/opener at some point during the opening scoring period. Stroman — again picking from the Blue Jays — is the most interesting of the three-start candidates from a matchups perspective, as the opposing Detroit Tigers and Baltimore Orioles have bottom-third-in-baseball offenses, and the Cleveland Indians aren’t guaranteed to have both Francisco Lindor and Jose Ramirez in the lineup.
The New York Yankees also benefit from facing the Baltimore Orioles and Detroit Tigers to open their season. While the Yankees play only seven times, six of them will be played at hitter-friendly Yankee Stadium, and they’ll get to face the Orioles six times, including three at their hitting-friendly home ballpark in Camden Yards. Matt Moore, a pitcher who has had a 5.20 ERA the past three seasons combined, will likely be the only left-handed starter whom the Yankees will face, so Brett Gardner and Greg Bird, two left-handed-hitting players who entered spring training projected as bench players but who could now see significant time plugging injury holes early on, stand out as Week 1 pickups. This team also has a lot of right-handed thump — Yankees righties enjoyed the majors’ second-highest team wOBA against fellow righties in 2018 (.344) — and despite the righty starter-heavy schedule, players like Miguel Andujar, Gleyber Torres and Luke Voit are worth being in your lineup.
The heavy right-handedness of the National League Central’s rotations — 12 of the 15 projected starters in Opening Day rotations within that division throw righty — will probably result in a lot of advantages for divisional left-handed hitters, which is the case during Week 1, when the Cincinnati Reds, Milwaukee Brewers and Pittsburgh Pirates all face at least nine right-handed starters. The Reds, in fact, will probably face 10, depending upon the Pirates’ fifth-starter choice. All three teams grade well for left-handed hitters as a result, with the Reds and Brewers the most attractive choices thanks to their playing in hitter-friendly home ballparks. Reds outfielders Scott Schebler and Jesse Winker stand out most, as they had .235/.339/.431 and .321/.418/.455 rates against right-handers in 2018.
The five members of the Boston Red Sox’s Opening Day rotation are hardly available in a wide percentage of ESPN leagues, but if you’ve rostered any of them, be sure to get them into your Week 1 lineups. They enjoy the strongest team pitching matchup ratings despite the strains of a West Coast swing to begin their season, as they’ll make trips to a pair of pitching-friendly ballparks in Seattle’s T-Mobile Park and the Oakland Coliseum, as well as to Arizona’s Chase Field which became somewhat more pitching-friendly last season with the introduction of a humidor. With 11 games, the Red Sox will guarantee each of Sale, Nathan Eovaldi, Rick Porcello, David Price and Eduardo Rodriguez at least a pair of starts while also possibly giving a spot start to Brian Johnson (or another reliever), and all five of those individuals enjoyed a promising enough spring to be a definite fantasy option.
Don’t sleep on the Miami Marlins’ rotation — and perhaps their potential co-closers, Adam Conley and Sergio Romo, as well — as the group pitched exceptionally during spring training and will benefit from playing all of their first seven games at their extremely pitching-friendly home ballpark. In particular, Trevor Richards, Pablo Lopez and Caleb Smith each whiffed at least 16 spring batters while walking no more than four with a combined ERA of 2.04, and each will make two starts during the opening week, with the first coming at Marlins Park. Richards, in fact, will make both his starts at Marlins Park, facing the Colorado Rockies and New York Mets, which is how he earned a top-50 ranking among starting pitchers for Week 1. Heads up: All five Marlins starters are available in more than 93 percent of ESPN leagues.
The Chicago Cubs have one of the better Week 1 schedules, including a pair of three-game series at hitting-friendly ballparks Texas’ Globe Life Park (March 28-31) and Milwaukee’s Miller Park (April 5-7), as well as the benefit of facing Atlanta Braves and Milwaukee Brewers pitching staffs that have been hit hard by injuries in recent weeks. While the Cubs do like to mix and match righty/lefty matchups, causing a volume concern since the team is scheduled to face six right- and three left-handed pitchers in Week 1, the team does still have “regulars” at most spots and there should be enough good matchups for all to even make the platoon-mates useful fantasy options. There’s word that Albert Almora Jr., a .373/.385/.588 spring hitter, might draw some starts against right-handers this season, so he’s well worth using in deep-mixed (again, 14-plus-team) and NL-only leagues in the opening scoring period.