As a wise man named Tom Petty once said, “even the losers get lucky sometimes.” Well, today is the losers’ lucky day, because they are about to be featured in a FantasyPros article!

Last time out, we looked at the biggest winners of Major League Baseball’s unorthodox 60-game regional schedule for the 2020 season. Today, we’ll tackle the losers. But first, a quick refresher on why this year’s schedule is so unusual:

• This year, divisional games will make up two-thirds of the schedule (40 games out of 60), whereas less than half of the schedule (76 games out of 162) was played within the division in past seasons.
• There will once again be 20 interleague games per team, but those games will now account for 33 percent of the schedule (20 games out of 60) instead of about 12 percent (20 games out of 162). All of this year’s interleague matchups will be geographically aligned (AL East vs. NL East, etc.).
• Teams will play six games against their designated “natural interleague rival,” whereas they will only play three or four games against each of the other teams in that division. These rivalry games will account for 10 percent of the schedule (six games out of 60) compared to just 2.5 percent (four out of 162) in past seasons.

As I mentioned in the “winners” column, the clearest fantasy impact of the regional schedule will be on starting pitchers, so we’ll again start there.

Get expert advice during your draft with our fantasy baseball draft software

The pitching staff that jumps out as suffering the most from the division-heavy regional schedule is Seattle. 

The Mariners will have to play 10 games each against the Astros, A’s, Rangers, and Angels, all teams that finished in the top half of the league in runs scored last season. Sure, Houston’s offense could take a step back now that they can no longer cheat, but they’re still going to be well above average, and the Angels could be much improved with the addition of the top free-agent hitter on the market, Anthony Rendon. The Mariners are a team that tends to provide sneaky pitching value thanks to their spacious home ballpark, but this may not be the year to use a late-round pick on Marco Gonzales, Yusei Kikuchi, Justus Sheffield, or Taijuan Walker.

It should come as no surprise that the heavy emphasis on divisional games also seems like bad news for pitchers on the Orioles, Blue Jays, and Rays, who will make about a third of their starts against either the Yankees (first in runs in 2019) or the Red Sox (fourth in runs in 2019). That said, it remains to be seen how potent Boston’s lineup is without Mookie Betts, and whether the Yankees’ Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton are healthy enough to produce. Ultimately, the Rays’ Big Three of Blake Snell, Charlie Morton, and Tyler Glasnow are simply too good to downgrade based on schedule alone, while the Orioles and Blue Jays don’t have many starters that deserve fantasy consideration in the first place. I suppose that along with the ballpark shift, this could be taken as another good reason not to pay full price for the stats that Hyun-Jin Ryu put up in Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, the high number of interleague contests spells trouble for pitchers in the NL West, particularly the Diamondbacks, Padres, and Giants.

These teams will not only have to face the potent offenses of the AL West but also tangle with the dangerous Dodgers and Rockies lineups more often than usual. San Diego, San Francisco, and Arizona have typically been good places to hunt for streaming options in fantasy leagues because they play in pitcher-friendly ballparks in the National League. The tough regional schedule and the addition of a DH in the NL sap a lot of that appeal.

The Diamondbacks and Giants are further hurt by the increased numbers of “rivalry” games.

While the Padres at least catch a bit of a break by being matched up with the Mariners, Arizona, and San Francisco are paired up with the Astros and A’s, respectively. There aren’t a lot of interesting Giants pitchers, to begin with, but this could be a good reason to bet against a sudden resurgence for Johnny Cueto or Jeff Samardzija. The bigger ramifications are with the Diamondbacks, who currently have four starters going among the top 190 picks in fantasy drafts. I still firmly believe that Zac Gallen can break out this season, but this could be a sign that Madison Bumgarner, Robbie Ray, and/or Luke Weaver will be over-drafted in a lot of leagues.

Now a quick word on hitters. As a said in the “winners” piece, the impact of the schedule on hitters is less clear, but a good starting point is looking at ballpark factors.

As anyone who has played fantasy baseball for a while probably knows by now, the NL West is populated with pitchers’ parks (with Coors Field being the notable exception). Oracle Park and Petco Park were two of the three most pitcher-friendly parks in the league last year, with Dodger Stadium also a bottom-seven park for offense and former bandbox Chase Field suddenly playing neutral following the addition of a humidor.

Even though the division-heavy schedule means more trips to Denver, it is still a net negative for NL West hitters.

In fact, it could be Rockies hitters that suffer most of all, since they don’t even get the added benefit of more games at Coors Field. Colorado and San Francisco hitters will also need to disproportionately face off against the formidable pitching staffs of the Dodgers, Diamondbacks, and Padres.

Nail your draft with our award-winning fantasy baseball tools

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | SoundCloud | iHeartRadio

Whether you’re new to fantasy baseball or a seasoned pro, our Fantasy Baseball 101: Strategy Tips & Advice page is for you. You can get started with our Sabermetrics Glossary or head to more advanced strategy – like How to Make Custom Fantasy Baseball Rankings with Microsoft Excel – to learn more.

Andrew Seifter is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Andrew, check out his archive and follow him @andrew_seifter.