Fantasy Baseball Forecaster Week 1: March 25-29

Tristan H. CockcroftMar 25, 2026, 07:19 AM ET

CloseTristan H. Cockcroft is senior writer for fantasy baseball and football at ESPN. Tristan is a member of the FSWA Hall of Fame. He is also a two-time LABR and three-time Tout Wars champion.

Multiple Authors

Happy Opening Day!

The 2026 MLB season begins with a Wednesday night game between the New York Yankees and San Francisco Giants at Oracle Park. From there, 22 additional teams are scheduled to play on Thursday’s traditional Opening Day, with the final six kicking off their seasons on Friday.

In ESPN leagues, this kicks off what’ll be a 12-day fantasy Week 1, spanning from Wednesday, March 25, through Sunday, April 5, although this week’s Forecaster previews only the next five days ahead before a new edition covering the games from March 30-April 5 comes out on Friday.

For fantasy baseball managers in leagues with daily transactions, which is ESPN’s standard, lineups lock at the scheduled start of each player’s game on a given day. For managers in leagues with weekly transactions, players lock at the scheduled start of each player’s first game of the week.

If you have not yet drafted, bear in mind that players will lock into the roster spots in which you select them, with statistics from games that have already occurred being applied retroactively.

Lineup lock times Week 1

Date

Total games

First game time

Day games

Wednesday, March 25

8:05 PM

Thursday, March 26

1:15 PM

Friday, March 27

4:35 PM

Saturday, March 28