Fantasy baseball playoff stashes: Steven Kwan leads picks

With the latest lineup lock Monday, we’re down to only six more in 2026. And that’s presuming your league counts every week. Many, particularly of the Head-to-Head variety, don’t.

It’s crunch time, in other words, which means you can no longer devote roster space to some flight of fancy. Your decisions need to be more practical, more focused on the task at hand. The week that matters most is the one directly ahead of you.

Or is it? What if you’ve already clinched a playoff spot? What if you’ve secured a first-round bye? What if you have the luxury of looking ahead to the weeks that will ultimately determine the championship? Or what if your lineup is already settled and you just want to make sure the most streamable hitters and pitchers don’t fall into the wrong hands?

What I’ve done here is review every team’s remaining schedule, tallying up the number of series against bad pitching staffs and bad starting lineups so as to identify some of the players who could benefit. It’s no substitute for my sleeper pitcher and hitter articles, which will be released every Friday as usual, but it could give you the jump on your competition.

The starting point for this exercise is the next scoring period, the one that begins on Monday, Aug. 17. From that point forward — six scoring periods in all — each team will play 12 series. The ones with the most series against “bad” pitching staffs (benefiting their hitters) and the ones with the most series against “bad” lineups (benefiting their pitchers) are listed below, along with some players who you may want to stash in light of this information.

Obviously, I’ve ignored players who are universally rostered in CBS Sports leagues. You’re not on the fence about stashing them. The focus is more on those who you may not be totally sold on, even if you’ve picked them up already. The matchups say you should hold.

Remaining series against ‘bad’ pitching staffs:

Remaining series against ‘bad’ lineups: