Greetings, friends, and welcome to Week 12 of the Fantasy Baseball Quick Grades series. We have another busy week ahead of us. 17 teams are scheduled to play a full slate of seven games in Week 13, and the Tampa Bay Rays are the only team scheduled to play just five.

I went over how the grades for this series are calculated in Week 1, and I’ll link to that breakdown every week rather than filling this space with a lengthy explanation every time. If you’re interested in knowing my process or just want to talk baseball, feel free to reach out on Twitter @mikeMaher. I reply to Tweets, and my DMs are open. Here’s a link to the Week 1 piece with the full Quick Grades breakdown:

Week 1 Quick Grades (2021 Fantasy Baseball)

Two Rockies players, Raimel Tapia and Trevor Story, top the Quick Grades list this week due to their recent performances, excellent matchups, seven-game schedule, and recent success on the basepaths. In total, five players topped the coveted 90.0 mark this week: Tapia, Story, Matt Olson, Abraham Toro, and Ronald Acuna Jr. Bo Bichette, Whit Merrifield, Yordan Alvarez, and a resurgent Akil Baddoo fell just shy of 90.0.

Now, let’s get to the rest of the Week 13 grades and notes.

Check out today’s MLB Solo Shot contest at DraftKings

Note: This table is three pages (see the button on the top right) and is sortable and searchable, so feel free to look around!

Week 13 Hitter Grades

Team Streams

• Not only do the Rockies get seven games at home in Coors Field this week, but they don't have a single unfavorable matchup. Their toughest matchup is Adam Wainwright. And while Wainwright has been pitching very well over the last few weeks, that gives you a good idea of their other matchups. C.J. Cron and Yonathan Daza. This is the week to stream them if you need some help.
• The Astros also play seven games and have an even better matchups grade. They don't have a bad matchup in the group. They don't even have an average matchup next week. Their matchups grade of 23.21 is as close to perfect as I have seen since I started this Quick Grades series. Stream Astros hitters. The one catch here is that we don't know just how much Chas McCormick is going to play now that Kyle Tucker is back, so it might be best to stay away from him in standard leagues.

I just took a look at the #Astros matchups for next week and almost fell over. My word. Stream every Houston player you can find. It's going to be a bloodbath.

Their matchups:

Tom Eshelman
Alexander Wells
Matt Harvey
Logan Allen
Sam Hentges
Eli Morgan
J.C. Mejia#ForTheH

— mike Maher. (@mikeMaher) June 27, 2021

Fades of the Week

• The Cubs play six games this week but have some pretty tough matchups. On tap for them right now: Freddy Peralta, Brandon Woodruff, Corbin Burnes, Luis Castillo, Tyler Mahle, and Wade Miley. Their matchups grade of 11.66 drags down the grades of all of their hitters. Fantasy managers should still start guys like Kris Bryant and Javier Baez because of the upside there, but this isn't the week to stream guys like Ian Happ, Sergio Alcantara, or Patrick Wisdom.
• The Rays are the only team this week only scheduled to play five games.
• After the Cubs, the Phillies (13.21), Twins (14.28), and Giants (14.58) have the lowest matchups grades.

Notes

• You may notice that Keston Hiura does not appear in these Quick Grades. That is intentional. Not only did he not qualify due to a lack of recent plate appearances, but I chose not to manually add him. And the reason why is fairly simple: Hiura has been such a wild card this season, it didn't feel right to grade him without recent plate appearances. He keeps succeeding in Triple-A and failing with the Brewers, and they only called him back up because of the injury to Daniel Vogelbach. Who knows what we'll get from Hiura.
• With Alex Bregman out of the lineup for at least a few weeks, Abraham Toro becomes an intriguing add, especially considering the Houston matchups mentioned above.
• When I create these Quick Grades, one of the first things I do is run a report on FanGraphs to pull up stats from the last two weeks. I immediately export, sort by wOBA, and then compare that list against FantasyPros projections. Kyle Schwarber's .594 wOBA over the last two weeks might be the highest number I have seen. Four other players received a perfect 25 grade for wOBA this week: Fernando Tatis Jr., Michael Brantley, Carlos Correa, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

??? Yermin Mercedes's is .108 ???

— mike Maher. (@mikeMaher) June 26, 2021

• The worst wOBA grades for this week? Yermin Mercedes, Harold Castro, Gleyber Torres, and William Contreras.

Week 13 Pitcher Grades

Below, you'll see a grid of probable starters, their matchups, and their grades. The grade is on a scale of 0-100, and here's what those numbers mean.

These grades assume you are in 10 leagues of varying size and format, with a good mix of shallow, deeper, scoring, and roster/lineup sizes. The score for all of these players corresponds to how many leagues I would start a pitcher in if I had him in every league. So, a pitcher with a score of 100 means I would start him in all 10 leagues. A pitcher with a score of 50 means I would start him in five leagues. Zero, zero leagues. Got it? Great.

Note: The starters below are grouped alphabetically by team and schedule, and the table is two pages to keep the length manageable (you can click to see the second page on the top right).

Notes

• Garrett Richards is a mess right now. He can no longer use sticky substances to grip the ball, and he has been vocal about how much he is struggling with that. In a recent start, he completely abandoned his curveball and didn't even attempt to throw it. If it were a one-start week, his grade would be even lower than the 30 he received here.
• We have covered Eduardo Rodriguez a bunch recently. He's a mystery, and he isn't pitching well. I'm sitting him down in most formats but still rolling him out there in deep leagues because, well, I kind of have to.
• We talked about the Astros' schedule above. This makeshift Orioles staff has six games on the road against the Astros and the Angels. I have absolutely no interest in starting any of them, even in deeper leagues.
• I don't love rolling German Marquez out there for two starts in Coors Field this week, but I'm doing it anyway.
• Danny Duffy has good numbers this season, but he has thrown three innings over two appearances since returning from the injured list and just pitched on Friday. Even if he starts against Boston, it may only be as an opener. He isn't worth the risk for me until we see him return to a traditional starter role.
• Am I crazy for starting Dylan Bundy against the Yankees in Yankee Stadium and the Orioles at home this week? Yes, yes I am. But I'm not doing it in standard formats. Only deeper leagues where I have him or he's available on waivers this weekend.
• When I went through these pitchers a first time, I gave Spencer Howard and Vince Velasquez grades of 20 and 30 because of their two-start weeks. But as I looked at my leagues and really thought about this, I dialed them both back to zero. Velasquez hasn't completed five innings in four of his last five starts, and Howard hasn't gone more than 40 innings in any appearance this year while dealing with vanishing velocity and control.
• Blake Snell with two starts on the road. As we all know, the road splits are not good for Snell. But I still gave him a 40 because I'm starting him in leagues where I have him. I'm selling Snell everywhere, but I'm not finding many interested buyers.
• Alex Wood has been fading, but he hasn't been fading as quickly as the Diamondbacks. Despite his recent struggles, I'll roll the dice on this matchup.

That's it for this week. Again, if you have any questions, feedback, or requests, hit me up on Twitter!

Import your team to My Playbook for custom advice all season

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

If you want to dive deeper into fantasy baseball, be sure to check out our award-winning slate of Fantasy Baseball Tools as you navigate your season. From our Lineup Assistant - which provides your optimal lineup based on accurate consensus projections - to our Waiver Wire Assistant - that allows you to quickly see which available players will improve your team and by how much - we've got you covered this fantasy baseball season.

Mike Maher is an editor and featured writer at FantasyPros and BettingPros. For more from Mike, check out his archive, follow him on Twitter @MikeMaher, and visit his Philadelphia Eagles blog, The Birds Blitz.