8 Fantasy Baseball Risers and Fallers - Jac Caglianone, Kyle Bradish, Freddy Peralta, More

June 25, 2026

Jeremy analyzes 8 fantasy baseball risers, fallers, breakouts for hitters and pitchers in Week 13 of 2026. He discusses buy/sell candidates for fantasy baseball.

Welcome to another midweek edition of Fantasy Baseball Risers and Fallers for Week 13 of the 2026 season! In this piece, I’ll take a look at Jac Caglianone, Kyle Bradish, Freddy Peralta, and more. 

It's important to keep up with recent hitter and pitcher trends, whether it's a hot streak worth buying or a cold spell worth sending a player to the bench or to the waiver wire. Each week, we'll take a look at four risers and four fallers who are trending up and down the rankings.

Staying up to date on the recent trends will give you an edge over your league mates and hopefully propel you to a fantasy championship. With so many players covered here each week, you're bound to gain some knowledge on potential waiver wire moves or trades. Without further ado, let's get into it.

Fantasy Baseball Hitter Risers

Jac Caglianone, 1B/OF, Kansas City Royals

Jac Caglianone has been hitting the ball hard all season long, but it wasn’t showing up too much in his power numbers through the first two months of the season. That all changed in June, and especially so over the past week. 

Entering Wednesday, the 23-year-old was batting .346 with six home runs in the past seven days, including two multi-homer performances. Even in the past 30 days, he’s batting .333 with nine homers, and his slash line now sits at .272/.344/.490 with 14 long balls on the year. 

Jac Caglianone just hit one WAY out!

FIVE homers in his last 5 games 🔥 pic.twitter.com/zhgmcgQ51D

— MLB (@MLB) June 23, 2026

His quality of contact metrics are off the charts, as he’s posted a 58.5% hard-hit rate, 17.0% barrel rate, and 116.1 mph max exit velocity that all rank in the top five percent of the league or better. It’s clear that he was getting unlucky to begin the year, as even after this hot streak, his .546 xSLG is still much better than his actual slugging percentage. 

Everyone knew the slugger’s upside from the moment he was called up last season, and he finally appears to be hitting that peak. He’s simply hitting the ball too hard to not be a major factor in fantasy, and he should be considered a must-start option moving forward.

Wyatt Langford, OF, Texas Rangers

Wyatt Langford homered once again on Wednesday, his fifth in the past 10 games. He’s also enjoyed five multi-hit performances in that span, and he is quickly putting his early-season struggles behind him. 

Wyatt Langford launches one 437 feet 😳 pic.twitter.com/A4ewa7FgVS

— MLB (@MLB) June 24, 2026

The 24-year-old slashed a measly .238/.274/.363 in 20 games before suffering a flexor strain toward the end of April that sent him to the injured list for over a month. Since returning on June 5th, he’s managed to raise his season-long slash line to .270/.319/.480, which shows just how dominant he has been as of late.

Langford was being drafted as a top-12 outfielder in most leagues this offseason, and that confidence was really starting to wane, as it’s hard to predict how many years it will take for a top prospect to truly take the leap into elite status. If the past few weeks are any indication, this could be the year that happens for Langford, and he should be rocketing up the rankings as a result.

Fantasy Baseball Pitcher Risers

Kyle Bradish, Baltimore Orioles

Just when all hope looked to be lost, Kyle Bradish delivered his best two starts of the season. It started with a one-run performance over 7 ⅔ innings with 12 strikeouts against the Mariners on June 17th, and he most recently struck out nine over eight shutout innings against the Angels. This was a huge bounce-back after giving up 10 runs over his two starts prior, as he truly looked like a budding ace again.

Kyle Bradish, last two starts...

15.2 IP
11 H
1 ER
3 BB
21 K

Bradish now has a 2.63 ERA over his last eight starts.#Birdlandpic.twitter.com/TrMz6RXz6R

— Eric Cross (@EricCrossMLB) June 23, 2026

The big noticeable difference with the righty over these past two starts has been an increase in the velocity of his breaking pitches, as he threw 89 mph sliders, and his curveball touched 86 mph. This allowed him to induce 13 whiffs in his most recent start with an excellent 36% CSW on 101 pitches.

Although Bradish missed significant time in 2024 and 2025 due to Tommy John surgery, he always produced elite results when he was on the mound, striking out 100 batters in 71 ⅓ innings with a 2.65 ERA in 14 combined starts between the two seasons. The strikeouts disappeared for most of 2026, which in turn led to more damaging balls in play, but the 29-year-old may have just found the key to unlock those swings and misses with the increased velocity. 

It'll be worth monitoring Bradish in his upcoming starts to see if this change sticks, because if it does, he would quickly move back into the top-30 starting pitchers for the rest of the season, with the potential to be even better.

Parker Messick, Cleveland Guardians

Parker Messick was slowly trending down as the season went on, as his strikeouts and efficiency were both seeming to diminish. From April 21st to June 10th, the youngster lasted at least six full frames only once in 10 starts and found himself in a three-start stretch of striking out only four batters per outing. That all changed in his two most recent starts, which were two of his best performances of the season.

He allowed two runs on four hits and three walks with nine strikeouts over six innings against the Brewers, and followed that up this past Tuesday against the White Sox, striking out 10 and allowing two runs over 7 ⅔ innings. The 25-year-old induced 17 whiffs on the night with a 35% CSW, and his fastball velocity was noticeably up a tick in both of these past great starts. 

The increased velocity clearly played, as he garnered a 60% whiff rate on the pitch against the Brewers and a 52.9% whiff rate against the White Sox. This is the version of Messick we have been waiting to see since his first handful of starts this season, where he was beginning to look like one of the biggest breakout pitchers of the year.

The lefty is creeping his way back to being regarded as a top-30 starting pitcher for the rest of the season, and a repeat of this in his next time out would cement that status.

Fantasy Baseball Hitter Fallers

Chandler Simpson, OF, Tampa Bay Rays

Chandler Simpson started the year by looking like a fantasy standout, batting .314 with 11 stolen bases by the end of April. However, he followed that up with a .255 batting average in May with only three steals, and a .181 average with five steals so far in June. 

All five of those June steals actually came in the past five games, so there was a very lengthy period where the speedster wasn’t even providing that for his fantasy squads. It’s nice to see the stolen bases start to come back a bit, but the overall hitting will need to improve if Simpson is going to pay off his draft cost. 

The underlying metrics actually suggest that the 25-year-old is getting lucky, as his .242 xBA is worse than his actual mark of .270, and it’s a far cry from the .295 xBA he put up in 2025. Fantasy managers drafted the youngster expecting an elite batting average and steals, and so far, they’ve gotten neither. 

Don’t get me wrong, 19 steals is very good, but his nearly superhuman speed brought the expectation of a Billy Hamilton-esque stolen base output. There’s still time for Simpson to turn things back around, but it’s also worth noting that he was actually demoted to Triple-A at one point last season when he was playing better than this. 

Christian Walker, 1B, Houston Astros

Christian Walker has been stuck in a deep slump as of late, and especially so over the past week, where he’s gone just 2-for-23. Even dating back to the last 30 days, the veteran is batting just .173, so these issues have been going on for a while. 

Despite a blazing hot start to the year, Walker’s season-long slash line now sits at .233/.306/.467 with 18 home runs. The total power output for the season still looks good, but that’s thanks to the nine homers he hit in May with an unsustainable 23.7% HR/FB ratio. Regression came in June, as the ratio tanked to just 8.3%, resulting in only two home runs. 

This could just be a cold spell that the slugger breaks out of eventually, but this was a good reminder that we should be wary of a 35-year-old who already showed signs of decline last season.  There’s no guarantee that Walker returns to being a reliable option at the position.

Fantasy Baseball Pitcher Fallers

Freddy Peralta, New York Mets

Freddy Peralta suffered a career-worst outing on Saturday against the Phillies, allowing 10 runs on 10 hits and one walk with two strikeouts over 2 ⅔ innings. While it would be nice to just chalk it up to being one bad day, that hasn’t been the case.

Heading into the start, Peralta had allowed four runs or more in three of his past five starts. It’s just continued to get worse for the veteran, who posted a 3.52 ERA in April, a 4.23 ERA in May, and now an 8.24 ERA in June. He’s also suffered a significant hit to his strikeout rate since last season, as it’s fallen from 28.2% to 22.1%. 

Peralta has always been a volatile pitcher, and many already pegged him as a bust candidate before this season started. No one expected him to be this bad, though, and it wouldn’t be crazy to bench him moving forward until he takes a step in the right direction. 

It’s worth noting that his .312 xSLG on his changeup and .340 xSLG on his curveball are significantly lower than his actual slugging percentages on those pitches of .427 and .571. That suggests there is at least some bad luck at play, and he’ll get back to being a solid fantasy contributor at some point, but I wouldn’t expect it to be at a near-ace level.

Bryce Elder, Atlanta Braves

Bryce Elder was a surprise early on this season, as he made it all the way until May 27th without giving up more than three earned runs in a start. It’s gone downhill since, and that’s especially true over his past two starts. 

On June 14th, he allowed six runs on 10 hits and two walks with two strikeouts over four innings against the Mets. The struggles continued this past Sunday against the Brewers, when he gave up eight runs on 12 hits and two walks with six strikeouts over six innings. On the season, he now holds a 3.71 ERA and 1.21 WHIP with 79 strikeouts and 29 walks in 94 ⅔ innings. 

While it was clear regression was going to come eventually for the 27-year-old, it’s still jarring to see it hit this hard and this fast. With a below average 19.8% strikeout rate and 39.6% hard-hit, it was only a matter of time before all of those balls in play started to do more damage. 

Elder will still be a fine streaming candidate in the right matchups the rest of the way, but his performance over the past month shows that he’s far from a must-start or even a must-roster fantasy pitcher, despite how he looked early on.

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