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in your league, congratulations. While lots of people describe the Fantasy Baseball season as a marathon, from here on it’s really a sprint. All through this final sprint, you will need to maximize your lineups and your pitching to ensure that you acquire as many statistics as possible.

For instance, if your league has an innings cap, you want to make sure you use up all of your innings. In Yahoo’s game, you can actually go over the cap if you plan correctly. As the final day of the season gets close, do your best to run your innings up to just below the cap. Then, on the day of the last games, every single pitching slot should have an active pitcher in there. The Yahoo game will allow all of the innings pitched on that final day to be credited to your team. Of course, this also applies to strikeouts, wins, saves and holds (if your league uses them).

Hopefully, you Kenta Maeda run at your league Championship Photo Credit: Justin Berl/Icon Sportswire

In addition to maximizing your pitching, you should also make sure all of your hitters are active for you every day. Be careful and watch out for veteran players getting time off, especially if their team has clinched a playoff spot. Don’t get enamored with last minute rookie call ups and players that might be on the waiver wire. Most of the time you are much better off with the hitters that got you to this point, as opposed to a rookie getting his first at bats in the Majors. In other words, stick with the players that got you to the dance in the first place.

Finally, I want to say a big THANK YOU to all of you. It’s been my pleasure to put together this little planner every week and I hope it has helped you in some small way to reach the championship in your league. If you have time to send me a brief note, I’d love to hear about your leagues. There is nothing better than hearing about successes in Fantasy Baseball. I am also open to constructive criticism. If you have suggestions, complaints, compliments – anything at all that you want me to hear, then please go ahead and write to me. I promise to read and respond to all of your notes. Good luck the rest of the way! See you next spring!

The table below will be published each week showing the expected pitching rotation matchups, whether the game is at home or on the road, and it will include the pitcher’s handedness (left-handers are designated with an “L”). Finally, you will note that each matchup is assigned a ranking numbered #1-5. This number refers to my recommendation as far as starting that pitcher in Fantasy play and the rankings break down as follows:

1 – Must-Start – These pitchers are aces and are virtually matchup proof.

2 – Favorable Start – These pitchers may or may not be aces but the matchup is favorable.

3 – Streaming Option – These pitchers are in a favorable matchup, so they can be started if needed.

4 – Risky Start – The matchup is prohibitively risky. Owners are advised to avoid this pitcher.

5 – Bench – Do not start this pitcher in this matchup.