2nd Half Schedule Strength and Player Trends

Which teams face the toughest schedule over the rest of the season? How about:

• Yankees (could have guessed that one with all the games left against the Red Sox and Rays)
• Orioles (ditto)
• Blue Jays (double ditto)
• Mariners
• Royals

And who has the weakest remaining schedule? It's the Minnesota Twins.

It's a bit of an oversimplification, but if you wanted to use strength of schedule as a trade planning tool you'd probably want to target deals with the following players involved:

Buy Targets

• Justin Morneau
• Joe Mauer
• Carlos Gomez
• Delmon Young
• Scott Baker
• Nick Blackburn
• Kevin Slowey

Sell Targets

• Nick Markakis
• Aubrey Huff
• Alex Rios
• Derek Jeter
• Adam Jones
• Mike Mussina
• Andy Pettitte
• Jeremy Guthrie

And, do you know which players drop off / pick up most after the All-Star break?

Here are a few nuggets:

Largest batting average increase: Adam LaRoche
Largest batting average decrease: Eric Byrnes (but that doesn't really help now does it?) - next is Johnny Estrada (nope, no help there either) - next is Hank Blalock (there, that might be useful!)

Largest ERA decrease: Salomon Torres
Largest ERA increase: Chris Young (next is Nate Robertson)

Get the full analysis from the 'Elias Says...' blog available on ESPN.com.

Elias Says... [ESPN]