Fantasy Baseball Week 14: Elly De La Cruz is back, plus Witt injury and waiver targets

We're getting one superstar back this week, so of course, we might be losing another one.

Elly De La Cruz looks all set to come back from his hamstring injury Tuesday, after he ended up missing more than three weeks recovering. That isn't that long in the context of hamstring injuries, but given how De La Cruz's second half was ruined by him playing through a quad injury last season, it's good to see the Reds playing it a little safer. Local TV station FOX19 went through a day-by-day breakdown of De La Cruz's rehab process , and it's clear the Reds have been holding him back in the interest of avoiding any setbacks.

That's not a bad thing at this point in the season, and De La Cruz should be back in the lineup for the Reds this week. And he should definitely be in your lineups this week. Unfortunately, I don't know if we can expect the same for Bobby Witt , who was diagnosed with a Grade 1 MCL sprain and missed the Royals ' entire weekend series.

Witt hasn't been ruled out any further than Sunday's game as of yet, but a decision will probably have to come Monday. They open a four-game series against the Rays and will have to make a decision to backdate an IL stint or clear him to play. That's possible, but an IL stint is very much in play as well, and given how important Witt is to their fading playoff hopes, risking a long-term injury doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

At this point, I think it's probably more likely than not that Witt goes on the IL this week. It's not a guarantee; just a guess. But the incentives run in that direction, and we'd much rather see Witt take the next week off and get back to 100% than try to play through the injury and make it worse.

If you need help replacing Witt, well, this is the right spot for you. In the rest of today's FBT Newsletter, we're going to get into some lineup help for Week 14, the top waiver-wire targets, and the biggest news and storylines from this weekend's action around MLB :

Pre-game Lineup Card

Here's what you might have missed from CBSSports.com's MLB coverage in recent days:

Week 14 sleeper hitters

Best hitter matchups for Week 14

1.  Phillies   @WAS4, @NYM3 2.  Cardinals  ARI4, MIA3 3.  Orioles  @LAA3, WAS3 4.  Rays  KC4, ARI3 5.  Royals  @TB4, @CHW3

Worst hitter matchups for Week 14

1.  Pirates  SEA3, CIN3 2.  Yankees  @DET3, @BOS4 3.  Tigers  NYY3, HOU4 4.  Guardians  @CHW3, SEA3 5.  Reds  MIL3, @PIT3

Top sleeper hitters for Week 14

- Paul Goldschmidt , 1B, Yankees (59%) @DET3, @BOS4 - Alec Bohm , 3B, Phillies (54%) @WAS4, @NYM3 - Lars Nootbaar , OF, Cardinals (23%) ARI4, MIA3 - Mauricio Dubon , SS, Braves (58%) @SD3, @SF3 - Blaze Jordan , 1B, Cardinals (23%) ARI4, MIA3

Week 14 sleeper pitchers

You can check out Scott's  two-start pitcher rankings here , too. He ranks every projected two-start pitcher for the upcoming week, tiering them from must-starts to no-thanks.

Top sleeper pitchers for Week 14

- Roki Sasaki , Dodgers (80%) at SD - Gage Jump , Athletics (68%) at SF - Eduardo Rodriguez , Diamondbacks (79%) at STL, at TB - Peter Lambert , Astros (54%) at TOR, at DET - Sean Burke , White Sox (37%) vs. CLE

Hitting the Wire

The top waiver-wire targets from this weekend's action:

Week 14 waiver targets

- C: Francisco Alvarez , Mets (40%) - 1B: Paul Goldschmidt, Yankees (59%) - 2B: Sam Antonacci , White Sox (61%) - 3B: Royce Lewis , Twins (66%) - SS: Nasim Nunez , Nationals (30%) - OF: Cole Carrigg , Rockies (53%), Dylan Crews , Nationals (38%), Lars Nootbaar, Cardinals (23%), Joshua Baez , Cardinals (38%) - SP: Gage Jump, Athletics (68%), Sean Burke, White Sox (37%), Walbert Urena , Angels (65%), Tatsuya Imai , Astros (43%), Joey Cantillo , Guardians (49%) - RP: Yoendrys Gomez , Twins (38%), Elvis Alvarado , Athletics (27%)

For more deep-league targets, plus my thoughts on each of those players and more, head here .

Three Up, Three Down

Three big performances that have players trending up, and three that have the arrow pointing in the opposite direction.

Three Up

Jac Caglianone is happening

Early in the season, it looked like more of the same from Caglianone, who was hitting the ball hard but still swinging and missing too much and hitting the ball on the ground when he wasn't. But after underperforming his .333 xwOBA in April and May, he has managed to actually surpass expectations in June, looking worth the hype for the first time in his career. He had already matched his career high for homers in a month when he entered the weekend with three, and he more than doubled that with his four homers in three games this weekend. Caglianone has done a better job of elevating the ball as the season has gone on, and now he's up to a .363 wOBA and a 27-homer pace for the season. That's more like what we were hoping to see from him, and he deserves to be rostered in all leagues moving forward.

Wyatt Langford is showing signs of life

We're going on three years of Langford being a compelling talent and a huge disappointment as an actual player, and we've seen enough flashes that it's going to take more than another good stretch to buy in all the way. But we can't ignore the good stretches when they happen just because he's tricked us in the past, and he's very much in the midst of a good stretch right now. Since coming off the IL with a forearm strain in early June, Langford has looked every bit worth the hype, hitting .317 with five homers in 15 games after he homered for the third time in four games (and fourth time in seven). The one fly in the ointment here is that the underlying numbers don't quite buy the improvement, with his exit velocity slipping to 86 mph and his xwOBA down to .315. Between that and the lack of consistent production in the past -- not to mention health issues -- I'm open to the idea of this being the perfect time to sell-high on Langford. But it's risky, given how much upside we've seen from him in those flashes.

Cam Schlittler was the best he's ever been

It looks like Schlittler might be running out of steam a few weeks ago, but he's put those concerns to bed in recent starts, culminating in maybe the best start of his career Friday against the Reds. He allowed just four hits across six shutout innings and racked up 13 strikeouts -- his first double-digit strikeout effort in the regular season and his first since that 12-strikeout masterpiece against the Red Sox in last year's Wild Card round. He got three whiffs each on the cutter and sinker, but it was the four-seamer the Reds really couldn't do anything with, generating 12 of his 18 whiffs. Schlittler continues to need little more than those three pitches plus the occasional curveball, and that trio of pitches allows him to both miss bats and  limit hard contact. He continues to pitch at a level we've simply never seen before from him, but we're also at the point where there doesn't seem to be much reason to be skeptical. He's simply one of the seven or so best pitchers in the world at this point.

Three Down

Freddy Peralta has completely fallen apart

I was out on Peralta in drafts coming into the season, but not because I thought he would be completely useless. But after an absolute drubbing at the hands of the Phillies this weekend -- 10 runs in 2.2 innings of work -- he's now up to a 4.83 ERA and 1.39 WHIP for the season and has done a whole lot more bad than good to your team to date. Six starts ago, it sure didn't look like that, as he had a fairly typical 3.31 ERA and 1.22 WHIP, but it's been all downhill since then, with four starts of four runs or more. What's gone wrong? Well, for one thing, he's been down about 1 mph in average fastball velocity all season, and while his fastball hasn't gotten hit too hard, we have seen his slider fall apart, leading to a .460 xwOBA against that pitch. He has tried to work other breaking balls in to make up for it, but his sweeper has been a pale imitation of the slider, while the typically reliable changeup and curveball have gotten hit hard, too. Now, having said all that .. I think there's a pretty obvious buy-low opportunity. He's still missing a healthy number of bats overall, and his 3.85 xERA is within spitting distance of previous seasons. As bad as Peralta has  been so far, I think he's still a lot better than what we've seen so far.

Emmet Sheehan might be in trouble

"Right now he's probably searching a little bit, but he'll get a start this next one, and we'll see where it takes us ."

That's not much of a vote of confidence for Sheehan from manager Dave Roberts, is it? The Dodgers have never seemed quite as attached to Sheehan as the Fantasy community has been – when it came time to kick someone out of the rotation late last summer or skip starts, it was usually Sheehan who found himself on the outside looking in. And what was supposed to be his breaking season has been anything but, with the low point arguably coming Sunday, when the Orioles jumped on Sheehan for six runs on eight hits over 3.1 innings of work. That pushes his season-long ERA to 5.32, and while the peripheral stats look better, it's not like we can chalk this up entirely to bad luck, as Sheehan's velocity has been down all season long and he's been weirdly off for most of the season. If he doesn't have a good start this week against a league-worst Padres offense, it might be time for River Ryan to join the Dodgers' rotation. There are certainly worse stashes to use a roster spot on this week.

The regression monster came for everybody

Just check out these lines from some of the hottest  pitchers in baseball:

- Reid Detmers , Angels @ATH: 6 IP, 6 H, 5 ER, 5 BB, 4 K - Dustin May , Cardinals @KC: 2 IP, 6 H, 6 ER, 1 BB, 2 K - Emerson Hancock , Mariners vs. BOS: 5.1 IP, 4 H, 5 ER, 2 BB, 6 K - Bryce Elder , Braves vs. MIL: 6 IP, 12 H, 8 ER, 2 BB, 6 K - Spencer Arrighetti , Astros vs. CLE: 6 IP, 6 H, 6 ER, 0 BB, 8 K - Stephen Kolek , Royals vs. STL: 1.2 IP, 9 H, 9 ER, 1 BB, 0 K

Every single one of these guys was enjoying career-best numbers for the season, and every one of them looked like a sell-high candidate. Though not all were similarly obvious sells -- Detmers has generated quite a bit of excitement from the FBT team in recent weeks , while May's extended run of dominance before this one looked at least somewhat real to my eyes . And you can just look at Davis Martin 's excellent start Sunday as a sign that one bad start (or like three in a five-start stretch, in Martin's case) doesn't necessarily mean these guys are all done. But in pretty much every case, these were pitchers anyone with a baseline knowledge of the past 30 years or so of pitching analysis could see were due for worse days ahead. You probably already missed your sell-high window with Arrighetti and Hancock, but I'd still be trying to move Elder, because this won't be the last bad start from him.

In May's case, I will note that he was coming off the first consecutive 100-pitch games of his career, and his velocity was down pretty much across his entire arsenal by at least 1.0 mph. That could be an explanation for his struggles Sunday; it could also be a harbinger of things to come, given his injury history.

Extra Innings

Is Denzer Guzman a thing?

Guzman wasn't totally without appeal as a prospect -- he entered the season as a top-10 guy in the Angels' system on MLB.com's list, though far from a top-100 prospect overall. He hit .336 with a .974 OPS down at Triple-A, and now he has homered in three consecutive games for the Angels, so we have to take notice. Of course, he was hitting just .250/.289/.306 before this stretch, so I'm not sure we're doing much more than taking note of this stretch at this point. Guzman has more functional power than truly plus power, but he has carried his strong growth in strikeout rate at Triple-A over to his MLB debut, and that, combined with average power and some stolen base potential, makes him worth a look in 15-team leagues if you're loo

_Originally reported by [CBS Sports](https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/news/fantasy-baseball-week-14-elly-de-la-cruz-returns/)._