Attrition is supposed to be a bigger issue at pitcher, but the hitter spots in our lineups have been hit pretty hard by injuries this season, and the hits just kept coming this weekend. The worst injury came with A's catcher Shea Langeliers, who might be out for the rest of the season after suffering a torn meniscus in his knee that will likely require surgery. However, the biggest names to get hit by injuries were both in the outfield: Juan Soto and Cody Bellinger.
Bellinger suffered a hamstring injury that landed him on the IL Saturday, an injury that will require an MRI Monday to determine the severity – but it probably won't be less than a multi-week absence, at least. We got confirmation Sunday that Soto did suffer a pretty serious injury, a Grade 2 strain of his left calf that will cost him at least more time than his previous stint on the IL with a calf injury, when he missed two and a half weeks. Soto tried to play through the injury for the past few weeks and seemingly made it worse Friday before going on the IL. The Mets haven't given any specifics on their expectations, but my assumption is he'll need to miss at least a month, possibly longer; we could be looking at a September return for Soto, and with the Mets out of playoff contention, it wouldn't take much for him to miss the rest of the season entirely.
Our Waiver Wire column for Week 19 went out Sunday night, and if you need some replacements, that should be your first look. Francisco Alvarez is my top choice for a Langeliers replacement, though I would also look to Endy Rodriguez – he should hopefully be back from a glute injury this week and was showing an impressive combination of plate discipline and power before the injury. Alvarez could do a convincing Langeliers impersonation, but Rodriguez has plenty of upside of his own, especially in a points league thanks to his walk rate.
In the outfield, the best options are probably Cole Carrigg and A.J. Ewing, both of whom are rostered in about 65% of CBS Fantasy leagues. There are some minor playing time limitations for both, though I suspect those will be cleared up by the trade deadline, and I do expect both to play pretty much every day from that point on. Ewing has been the more productive player so far, tapping into more power than expected in the majors while running plenty; Carrigg has been productive, but with just five homers and three steals in 39 games, he hasn't quite made a huge impact yet. But the upside is there for both to be must-start options in any scoring format.
For more replacement options, both in the short and long term, keep scrolling for the Week 19 Waiver Wire column plus Scott White's Sleeper Hitters for Week 19 and everything else you need to get your lineup set -- and be forewarned, you'll need to lock in your lineups earlier than normal this week with the Mariners and Rangers set for first pitch at 2:35 pm ET.
Pre-game Lineup Card
Here's what you might have missed from CBSSports.com's MLB coverage in recent days:
Week 19 sleeper hitters
Best hitter matchups for Week 19
1. Yankees @CHW4, @CHC3
2. Royals @MIN3, @COL3
3. Giants MIL3, @SD4
4. Blue Jays @WAS3, STL3
5. Guardians @CIN3, ARI3
Worst hitter matchups for Week 19
1. Orioles @DET3, PHI3
2. Dodgers SEA3, BOS3
3. White Sox NYY4, @TB3
4. Marlins PHI3, @NYM4
5. Twins KC3, @SEA3
Top sleeper hitters for Week 19
- Bryce Eldridge, Giants (71%) MIL3, @SD4
- J.J. Bleday, Reds (66%) CLE3, PIT4
- Ty France, Padres (29%) COL2, SF4
- Brayan Rocchio, Guardians (75%) @CIN3, ARI3
- Steven Kwan, Guardians (65%) @CIN3, ARI3
Week 19 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 19
- Griffin Jax, Rays (78%) vs. TEX, vs. CHW
- Roki Sasaki, Dodgers (60%) vs. SEA
- Ian Seymour, Rays (65%) vs. TEX
- Peter Lambert, Astros (80%) at LAA
- Jared Jones, Pirates (79%) vs. ARI
Hitting the Wire
The top waiver-wire targets from this weekend's action:
Week 19 waiver targets
- C: Francisco Alvarez, Mets (50%)
- 1B: Ty France, Padres (29%)
- 2B: Gleyber Torres, Tigers (41%)
- 3B: Royce Lewis, Twins (56%)
- SS: Nasim Nunez, Nationals (46%)
- OF: Dylan Crews, Nationals (46%), Steven Kwan, Guardians (65%), Cole Carrigg, Rockies (64%), Heriberto Hernandez, Marlins (23%), Tommy Edman, Dodgers (55%)
- SP: Ian Seymour, Rays (65%), Kade Anderson, Mariners (60%), Noah Cameron, Royals (67%), Zach Thornton, Mets (48%)
- RP: Grant Taylor, White Sox (51%), Luke Weaver, Mets (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
Are we sure Tarik Skubal isn't the best pitcher in Fantasy again?
There were some bumps in the road when Skubal made his return from elbow surgery, which was to be expected – he missed just six weeks and had just one rehab start before returning, so some rust was no surprise. He struggled to keep the ball in the yard early on, allowing six homers and nine runs in his first 16.1 innings over three starts. He didn't have a quality start until his fourth start off the IL, but he really hasn't slowed down since. Skubal struck out a season-high 12 against the Royals Friday and now has a 2.70 ERA and 35.5% strikeout rate since coming off the IL. That's about as good as it gets, and with some of the other elite tier pitchers going through some struggles, I'm back to having Skubal at the top of the heap moving forward.
Jacob Misiorowski was as dominant as ever
Speaking of elite pitchers going through some struggles … well, the thing about Misiorowski is we actually haven't seen him struggle very much. His issues have felt more existential in nature, as he had a start skipped at the end of the first half due to fatigue, and then threw just 64 pitches in four innings in his first start from the break. It wasn't exactly worrying, but it raised questions about just how valuable Misiorowski would be moving forward. Sunday answered most of those questions, as he was about as dominant as we've ever seen him be – Misiorowski threw 66 fastballs Sunday against the Rockies and not a single one of them was below 100 mph. And that fastball was basically all he needed, generating 23 of his 26 swinging strikes despite throwing it 80% of the time. Okay, sure, a matchup against the Rockies on the road helped, but hey, it's not like anyone else is striking out 12 in five innings against the Rockies. He was pulled after 83 pitches, so there are still some concerns to be had about the workload for Misiorowski. But if they're going to let him push to 90-plus pitches, that shouldn't do much to limit his value. It's enough to keep him out of the top spot in my SP rankings, but I can't drop him much further than SP3 right now.
Hunter Brown finally looked like himself
Brown's stuff has mostly seemed to be there since his shoulder injury. His velocity has largely been within 0.5 mph of his pre-injury form, and the Stuff+ model on FanGraphs.com still had him at a 102 mark overall – down from his 105 in 2025, but still above average. Brown has been terrible nonetheless, because his command had completely abandoned him – it doesn't matter how good your stuff is if you're walking 22 batters in 29.1 innings like Brown had in his six starts since coming off the IL. So, of course he went out this weekend and didn't issue a single walk while striking out seven over seven shutout innings against the White Sox. I'm inclined to think once it locks in for a player like Brown, it tends to stay locked in. That has let me down with Framber Valdez this season, but I'm willing to give Brown the benefit of the doubt that he's back to being basically a must-start pitcher after just one great start.
Three Down
Paul Skenes is still slumping
I can't quite figure out why Skenes has been so bad lately. The likeliest explanation would seem to be the dip in his fastball velocity, which was down yet again Saturday to 96.3 mph – the second-lowest in any start in his career. But here's the problem with that theory: He had 11 swinging strikes with the four-seamer! He had 22 overall, in fact, and allowed just two walks while striking out 11. But surely the Cubs just did a lot of damage when they did manage to make contact, right? Nope – they had an 85.1 mph average exit velocity on balls in play, an elite mark of contact quality suppression. I don't want to say there's nothing wrong with Skenes, but with his strikeout rate up from last season and his walk rate static, I'm just having a hard time getting too worked up about it. Yes, I would be buying low on him right now, and I'm still ranking him as a top-five starting pitcher. He just doesn't look that off, results be damned.
Hunter Greene hasn't looked quite right
Greene's fastball velocity continues to tick down … all the way to 97.2 mph in this one, or not far from where he was in 2024, when he put up a 2.75 ERA. I'm not saying there's nothing here – especially not when Greene's velocity was down 1.7 mph from his season-best mark, and especially when that previous season-high was also his only truly great start so far. But I'm also not panicking just yet. He's had two bad starts out of four, but it's also just four starts from a guy who had established himself as an elite starter in two full seasons before this. Maybe the surgery he had to clean up loose bodies in his elbow this spring has cost Greene something he can't regain this season, but I'm willing to believe he'll get it back. He's earned that benefit of the doubt despite how ugly his 7.06 ERA is right now.
Time to worry about Bryce Miller?
When Miller came out of the gates, he was sitting comfortably in the high-90s, averaging at least 96.0 mph in his first eight starts of the season. He dipped below 96 in his first start of July and hasn't gotten back since, a stretch that has seen him post just one quality start with a 4.30 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, and just 17 strikeouts in 23 innings. And the low point probably came Friday against the Rangers, who tagged him for five runs in 5.1 innings without recording a single strikeout. In fact, he had just one whiff on his four-seamer, a pitch that has gone from a 27% whiff rate in June down to 20.5% in July. Does Miller need to average 96 mph on his fastball to be effective? Well, he was a top-10 starter back in 2024 while averaging 95.2 mph, so it isn't quite that simple. But it is simply impossible to miss that his performance has dipped along with his fastball velocity as this season has gone on, so we'd like to see both trends turn around moving forward. I'm not giving up on Miller, but he hasn't earned the same benefit of the doubt as Skenes or Greene, so my concern level is not zero.
Extra Innings
Where are the strikeouts for Foster Griffin?
Variance is natural for every pitcher, and you can drive yourself crazy reacting to every single ebb and flow across the course of a pitcher's season. But Griffin is taking things to a, frankly, ridiculous level lately. He struck out just two against the Diamondbacks Saturday, his second start in a row with just two strikeouts and his third in the past four. The other start? He struck out nine in that one, and if you zoom out, he has nine strikeouts in three of his past six starts. Griffin's emergence as a must-start pitcher this season hasn't quite made sense to me, so if you just take the four starts in July, maybe we're seeing some regression to the mean – though the fact that he still has a 2.10 ERA despite only striking out 15 in 25.2 innings complicates that theory a bit. Scott White made a comp that I hadn't considered on Sunday's FBT podcast that could explain it: Maybe Griffin is just the new Seth Lugo? Like Lugo, Griffin doesn't have stereotypically dominant stuff, but he does have unusually good command of an unusually large arsenal, featuring seven pitches he can throw in any count. That kind of approach has worked for Lugo, though he has notably struggled to maintain his best stretches for more than a few months at a time. I'd guess we're seeing some natural regression for Griffin, who has been playing over his head for a while. But I think the things he does well are enough to keep the bottom from truly dropping out. I lean toward viewing him as a sell-high candidate, but everyone else can see the evaporating strikeout rate, which might make it tough to pull off a trade actually worth doing.
