Fantasy Baseball Teams to Target With Streaming Pitchers: Final Edition

Every month or so, I like to look at the baseball teams that are performing worst by offensive box stats to decide who to target with streaming pitchers in fantasy baseball. Now about a month removed from the trade deadline and a month from the end of the season, it's a perfect time to do one last analysis of the teams on the target list.

The trade deadline matters more in real baseball than in fantasy baseball; middle relievers shuffling teams doesn't move the needle in the fantasy world. Finding the lineups and pitching staffs who have been worst in that time, though, informs us on which teams are best to go against with fantasy streamers.

Let's look at the teams I will be targeting with fantasy pitchers over the final month of the season. I'll give you the process I used, the teams I will target every day, and a few fringe teams that are worth considering if you're short on pitchers otherwise.

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Process

I used 10 offensive box stats: runs, hits, doubles, home runs, walks, strikeouts, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and OPS. I went through each stat over both the full season and the past 30 days and tallied each time every team was in the bottom 10 (or very close to it).

It's not perfect, as it doesn't involve a lot of advanced stats, but this far into the season, teams who are regularly in the bottom 10 in those stats aren't hiding underlying metrics that show them as an above-average squad waiting to break through. This exercise matches raw totals with some rate stats, giving us a rounded look at the offensive performances of the worst teams.

All stats are from MLB.com and accurate at the end of Monday's games (September 1).

Teams to Target

Top Targets

• Cleveland Guardians
• Colorado Rockies
• Los Angeles Angels
• Pittsburgh Pirates
• Washington Nationals

This is the group that stands out among the worst both over the full season and in the past month. That timeframe has some importance because it is around the trade deadline, showing how teams have performed since they bought, sold, or held steady. These teams all proved it didn't matter, as their poor performance continued the same.

The Rockies, Pirates, and Nationals are the worst teams in the National League and have been down pretty much all season (Washington did have a little run of success earlier). They have been targets all year, and we won't stop going after them.

The Angels were competitive for a while, but that has faded away, and an offense that hits for a ton of power but fails elsewhere is a strong target, especially as they have struck out more than any other team.

Cleveland is still in the playoff race, but the offense continuing to perform like a bottom-10 unit threatens to undermine their chances. The Guardians did have a stretch when they looked better, but that lasted about a month at most, and they are back down among the dregs on offense and not a threat in the playoffs.

Near-Daily Targets

• Baltimore Orioles
• Chicago White Sox
• St. Louis Cardinals
• Texas Rangers

I'm happy to go after this group pretty much every day. If the top five all provide great matchups, then we can skip this tier, but more realistically, we'll be looking at the White Sox every day. Chicago has been a target all season, but they have very respectable numbers over the past month. I still believe in the season-long numbers more, but it's worth watching.

The Cardinals are the best matchup based on the time since the trade deadline: they rank in the bottom 10 in all 10 of the stats used for this exercise over the past 30 days. Their numbers are bad but not gruesome over the full season, but their recent performance puts them squarely on the target list.

The Orioles and Rangers both have been targets most of the season. Baltimore was better in the middle of the season but is back to struggling hard over the past 30 days, but Texas is on a much better run recently, not showing up in a bottom 10 in any stat in that timeframe. Their season-long struggles make them worth targeting if you're short on options otherwise.

Fringe Targets

• Kansas City Royals
• Minnesota Twins
• San Francisco Giants
• Tampa Bay Rays

These final teams have all been on our streaming list to different degrees during the season, but they aren't prime targets right now because either their season-long numbers or recent numbers are above that level. I will go after these teams if we don't have enough streaming options from the other groups on a given day, believing they can give us at least a decent matchup.

The Royals and Giants have been middling or worse all season, not down with the worst groups but often among the bottom 10 in many statistics. Tampa Bay had a good stretch at the beginning of the season, but they have fallen off over the past few months and are in the bottom 10 in seven of the 10 categories over the past month.

Minnesota is a different story because they traded half of their big-league team at the deadline. They have been below-average offensively all season but haven't fallen to that bottom group of teams, sitting on the fringe of the bottom 10. The Twins are a worthy target, but not as good as the other teams listed above.