Fantasy Baseball Forecaster Week 17: July 27-Aug. 2

A busy week lies head for fantasy baseball managers. Half of the 30 teams are scheduled for seven games during Week 17, although one team, the Colorado Rockies, draws the short end of the stick with only five.

The New York Yankees take a seven-game trip to the city of Chicago, where they'll face a pair of current playoff teams. The Yankees first face the Chicago White Sox, the AL Central leaders, for four games at Rate Field before playing the Chicago Cubs, the NL's top Wild Card team, for three games at Wrigley Field. Max Fried, the Yankees' Opening Day starter, is aligned for two starts, his second and third since returning from a more than two-month stay on the IL for an elbow injury. Incidentally, Fried is a perfect 4-for-4 winning his career starts at Wrigley with a 1.38 ERA in those outings.

Yankees-Cubs isn't the only interleague matchup among the weekend's highlights. The red-hot Boston Red Sox, back in the AL Wild Card race (if not the AL East race as well) pay a three-game visit to Dodger Stadium to play the Los Angeles Dodgers, baseball's winningest team. The Dodgers have Justin Wrobleski, an NL All-Star who improved his once-modest strikeout rate to 33.8% across his most-recent three starts, aligned as their two-start pitcher.

MLB's annual trade deadline won't arrive until the near-beginning of fantasy's Week 18 (at 6 p.m. ET on Monday, Aug. 3), but deals are likely to begin trickling in during the week ahead. Prepare for significant roster changes, with such notable names as Tarik Skubal, Mason Miller, Luis Arraez, Hunter Goodman and Freddy Peralta on the list of those most rumored to be traded.

• Projected starting pitchers for the next 10 days

• Hitter matchup ratings for the next 10 days

Lineup lock times

Scheduling quirks

Starting pitcher ranks

Hitter ratings