8 Fantasy Baseball Risers and Fallers - Carter Jensen, Joey Cantillo, Cal Raleigh, More

July 2, 2026

Jeremy analyzes 8 fantasy baseball risers, fallers, breakouts for hitters and pitchers in Week 14 of 2026. He discusses buy/sell candidates for fantasy baseball.

Welcome to another midweek edition of Fantasy Baseball Risers and Fallers for Week 14 of the 2026 season! In this piece, I’ll take a look at Carter Jensen, Joey Cantillo, Cal Raleigh, and more. 

Staying up to date on the most recent hot and cold trends is important to achieve a successful fantasy season. Each week, we'll take a look at four risers and four fallers who are moving up and down the rankings. This article should give you the insights you need, whether you're looking to make an add, drop, or trade.

The Major League Baseball season is long, and it's difficult to keep up with every single player in the league on a daily basis. Reading this article each week should give you a great starting point to know the hottest and coldest players to possibly buy or sell. Without further ado, let's get into it.

Fantasy Baseball Hitter Risers

Carter Jensen, C, Kansas City Royals

Carter Jensen has been one of the hottest hitters in baseball over the past few weeks, as he entered Wednesday on a league-leading 20-game hitting streak. Five of those games have been multi-hit performances, and he's also launched five home runs in that span. That brings his season slash line to .251/.316/.447 with 12 home runs, 46 RBI, and 40 runs in 79 games.

Home Run ✅
20 game hitting streak ✅

Carter Jensen remains on 🔥

(via @Royals) pic.twitter.com/NOW4vf3uD8

— Kansas City Royals on KCSN (@royals_kcsn) June 30, 2026

The 22-year-old got off to a good start in 2026 before quickly falling off fantasy radars in May, when he slashed just .198/.272/.309 with one home run. This is a good reminder not to give up on young talent so quickly, as he redeemed himself in June with even better production than he provided in April.

While his underlying metrics are still dragged down by that atrocious May overall, he's still managed to put up a solid average exit velocity of 91.1 mph, while showing a good feel for the zone with a 25.0% chase rate. The .221 xBA, 8.8% barrel rate, and 26.6% strikeout rate all leave something to be desired, but those metrics have all shown great improvement over the past 30 days.

The backstop is clearly doing something right to have a 20-game hitting streak at such a young age, which says a lot about his upside as he gains more experience. Jensen is working his way back into consideration in one-catcher leagues, while proving to be a standout option in two-catcher leagues.

Luis Garcia Jr., 1B/2B, Washington Nationals

Luis Garcia Jr. had about as dominant a six-game stretch as a hitter could possibly have from June 22nd to June 28th, going 10-for-19 with six home runs and two doubles. In the month of June as a whole, he slashed an eye-popping .306/.352/.776 with 11 home runs, 27 RBI, and 17 runs in 91 plate appearances.

The 26-year-old is now batting .281 with 16 home runs on the season, and the underlying metrics back up his recent hot hitting. The infielder has posted a .288 xBA (91st percentile), a .495 xSLG (87th percentile), and a 92.3 mph average exit velocity (91st percentile) this season, establishing himself as a big bat in the middle of Washington's lineup.

Four hitters have a contact rate and hard-hit rate in the 80th percentile or better this season.

Yordan Alvarez
Yandy Diaz
Josh Jung
Luis Garcia Jr.pic.twitter.com/plfDOBHMST

— Eric Cross (@EricCrossMLB) June 30, 2026

While his 73.5 mph bat speed ranks in just the 66th percentile, it's noticeably one mile per hour faster than it was last season, which could be to thank for the increased power numbers. He's also great at putting the ball in play, with a 19.2% whiff rate and 15.2% strikeout rate that both stand out well above the average.

Of course, the biggest downside for Garcia still looms over him, and that's the fact that he does not play at all against left-handed pitchers. That makes him incredibly tough to roster in weekly lineup leagues, where just a few southpaws on the schedule could result in a disappointing week in terms of total volume.

Still, this is the best version of him that we've seen yet, and this is someone who was being drafted as a top-10 second baseman heading into last season. The platoon situation will always be a problem, and he's bound to cool off at some point, but Garcia has at least re-established himself as a solid top-20 option at second base, which has turned into a pretty deep position this year.

Fantasy Baseball Pitcher Risers

Joey Cantillo, Cleveland Guardians

Joey Cantillo was solid on Wednesday, allowing two runs on three hits and five walks with four strikeouts over five innings against the Rangers. While it’s not the most impressive start on paper, and the walks certainly got out of hand, this start came on the heels of two of his best outings of the year. 

He allowed one run and struck out nine over six innings against the Mariners on June 26th, and he also struck out nine against the Astros in eight innings of one-run ball on June 20th. Even going back one more start, he held the Tigers to one run on June 13th. 

The most encouraging thing about these results is that they came with a noticeable tweak to his repertoire, as he began throwing his curveball two miles per hour faster right when this stretch of dominance started. Not only is he throwing the pitch harder, but he’s used it way more often, as it became his most-used offering in each of his past four starts, even throwing it more than 50% of the time on multiple occasions. 

The new look is certainly working, as the harder curveball has garnered a whiff rate higher than 45% in each of Cantillo’s last three appearances. Even though this latest start on Wednesday wasn’t as dominant as the others, it wasn’t the curveball's fault, as he still threw it hard and often for a lot of swings and misses. 

"I still threw a lot today, and it's still, you know, played effectively when I threw it"

(Via #Guardians Zoom) Joey Cantillo on continuing to have success wiht his curveball even if other teams have had to start planning for it lately #GuardsBall @WEWS pic.twitter.com/VQ8ifohOn9

— Mason Horodyski (@MasonHorodyski) July 1, 2026

Time will tell if hitters can find a way to adjust, but in the meantime, Cantillo is worth adding in all leagues. That’s especially true in weekly points leagues, where his relief pitcher eligibility makes him even more valuable. 

Sean Burke, Chicago White Sox

Sean Burke has also seen an uptick in velocity recently, as he began topping 96 mph with his fastball on average, rather than sitting closer to 94 mph. The improvement is obvious, as over his past three starts, he’s allowed only four runs on 15 hits and five walks with 22 strikeouts over 19 innings. 

Even before this change, he flashed moments of upside this season, such as 7 ⅓ shutout innings against the Nationals on April 26th and seven strong innings with eight strikeouts against the Twins on May 26th. It’ll be interesting to see if this new velocity continues to stick, as it may be the key to unlocking that upside to show itself more consistently. 

On the season, Burke holds a 3.69 ERA and 1.22 WHIP with 95 strikeouts in 92 ⅔ innings, which is already a great improvement compared to last season. It seems like those numbers will continue to trend in a better direction for the 26-year-old, who should be rostered at this point in all but the shallowest of leagues.

Fantasy Baseball Hitter Fallers

Cal Raleigh, C, Seattle Mariners

Cal Raleigh returned from the injured list on June 16th, and since then has slashed .174/.345/.261 with one home run and one double as his only extra-base hits in 14 games. While it would be easy to give someone the benefit of the doubt as they shake off the rust from an oblique injury, the problem is that he was performing just as poorly before the injury.

He entered Wednesday batting only .164 on the season with eight home runs in 55 games, which is unrecognizable compared to the 60-homer season he delivered in 2025. It's not bad luck, either, as his .180 xBA and .366 xSLG are just as bad. The slugger who was known for his hard-hitting last season has posted just a 31.3% hard-hit rate and 87.7 mph average exit velocity this season, with essentially no redeeming qualities when it comes to his quality of contact.

It certainly doesn't look promising for the backstop, as a nagging oblique could even further dampen overall power. Hopefully, the 29-year-old can reset during the upcoming All-Star break and start the second half looking like himself again, but even if he does, the catching landscape for fantasy is beginning to leave him in the dust.

Players such as Ben Rice, Drake Baldwin, and Shea Langeliers are bona fide elite hitters, and even catchers such as Dillon Dingler and Liam Hicks seem like a pretty good bet to be better than Raleigh the rest of the way. Going from having one of the best offensive seasons of all time by a catcher in 2025 to barely being able to crack the top 10 at the position in 2026 is one of the biggest falloffs we've witnessed in a long time.

Jackson Merrill, OF, San Diego Padres

Jackson Merrill has never gotten going this season, and it's only getting worse as time goes on. Entering Wednesday, he was 5-for-26 in the past seven days and slashed just .220/.248/.358 in June. His season totals sit at eight home runs and 18 steals, and it's clear at this point that the breakout season many were hoping for is not going to come.

It's nice to see the stolen bases return after swiping only one bag in 115 games last season, but the power is still underwhelming, and most importantly, the batting average has reached a new low. It all goes back to his rookie season in 2024, when he hit .292 with 24 home runs and 16 steals in 156 games, and many expected him to be an elite fantasy option for years to come.

However, it's always risky taking a one-year sample size at face value, especially for someone who hit just .277 in the minors in 2023 between High-A and Double-A. While he was elite for 156 games in 2024, we now have a sample of 196 games after that point where he just hasn't been that good.

There was always going to be a thin margin of error for someone who doesn't hit the ball all that hard, and we're seeing what happens this season when his strikeout rate also spikes up to a poor 24.8%. The 23-year-old is still a fine option if you need speed in Roto leagues, but it's best to give up on the dream of him as a difference-making fantasy player, at least for the rest of this season.

Fantasy Baseball Pitcher Fallers

Gerrit Cole, New York Yankees

While it looked like Cole was going to seamlessly transition back to his old self after looking great in his first two starts back, it has continued to go downhill since. In his two most recent starts, spanning 9 ⅔ innings, he's allowed nine runs on 16 hits and two walks while striking out 10. 

Despite his velocity returning to where it was prior to Tommy John surgery, the veteran's strikeout rate has dropped to 21.3%, while his whiff rate of 17.7% ranks in the 4th percentile. That's a far cry from his 2024 season, where he struck out 25.4% of batters faced with a whiff rate of 24.8%, and even that is a long way away from the numbers he was putting up in his prime.

For as good as Cole was, it's important to remember that he's now 35 years old and coming off of a major elbow surgery. The biggest concern for a pitcher like him is typically diminished velocity, so when he came back throwing 96 mph, many assumed that he was going to step right back into his role as an elite fantasy option.

It just goes to show how difficult pitching is, and that even with a hard fastball, betting on an aging veteran can take a quick turn south before you know it. That's not to say that you should give up all hope with Cole for the rest of this season, but it's clear that he should be ranked among the other pitchers with serious question marks, rather than as a top-30 option.

Jose Soriano, Los Angeles Angels

Jose Soriano was shaping up to be one of the biggest breakout pitchers of 2026 by the end of April, but has fallen off a lot since then. After posting an elite 0.84 ERA in April, he held a 5.34 ERA in May, which set up June to be a big month to determine who Soriano actually is.

Crazily enough, he actually posted an identical ERA in June as he did in May, once again coming in at a horrible mark of 5.34. Not only that, but his WHIP was 1.74 in June after being 1.47 in May. This is clearly a bad trajectory, and the righty has now allowed 12 runs on 18 hits and seven walks over his past three starts, spanning 13 innings.

The whiffs and strikeouts remain above average, but it comes with way too many walks and hits. Even if Soriano does begin to rebound, he's a lock to hurt your WHIP in the long run, and his volatility will become a headache when determining when to start or sit him. The 27-year-old will have his handful of elite singular outings the rest of the way, but that's something he's always shown throughout his career. However, by season's end, he always ends up doing more harm than good.

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