Fantasy Baseball: Top 10 sleeper hitters for Week 3 lead off with Yandy Diaz, Jay Bruce

Yandy Diaz is elevating the ball as hoped, and Jay Bruce is looking healthy and powerful again. Scott White shares his top sleeper hitters for Week 3.

Get more help setting your lineup with SportsLine's rankings of the best and worst hitting matchups for Week 3 and beyond.   

The five-game week is more common today, a side effect of more off days being built into the schedule, but it of course factors into the choices you make with some of your fringier hitters.

That's especially true when one of those five-game schedules belongs to an AL team playing a series in an NL park, as both the Rangers and Mariners are set to do.

For the Rangers, it probably hurts Shin-Soo Choo the most. Not a huge loss. He hasn't done much of anything since the All-Star break last year. But for the Twins, Nelson Cruz is most at risk of losing at-bats. He saw some time in the outfield this spring just for such an occasion, but you shouldn't count on him starting more than three or four games this week. Maybe with pinch-hit appearances, you won't notice a difference in the production, but it's the sort of situation where you might at least look into a one-week fill-in.

Maybe none of these 10 meets the need for you. Maybe it's someone you already have stashed on your bench. But if forced to turn to the waiver wire for whatever reason, here are the 10 hitters owned in less than 80 percent of CBS Sports leagues who have the best chance of making an impact in Week 3 (April 8-14).

Yandy Diaz already has more home runs in one week with the Rays than he did in over 250 at-bats with the Indians, which is a fine surface-level indication of how his efforts to elevate the ball are going. He hits it hard and hits it often, so in a week against the White Sox and Blue Jays rotations, he could do some serious damage. 

Many presumed coming into the season that Jay Bruce was simply washed up, but he only recently turned 32 and, lest you forget, was battling plantar fasciitis all of last year. He was a perennial 30-homer man before then and is off to a good-start power-wise, so a week against six righties, four of of whom pitch for the Royals, makes him a solid play.

Marcus Semien's point total is a little misleading given that the Athletics have played more games — in some cases, significantly more — than anyone else, but he has been making contact at a high rate and getting on base via walks. He'll again benefit from the volume of a seven-game week, especially since those seven games are at Baltimore and Texas.

Trey Mancini has done a better job elevating the ball in the early going, which is part of what held him back last year. But of course it's hard to buy into tendency changes over such a small sample unless it's a case as well documented as that of Diaz. Marco Estrada, Brett Anderson, Frankie Montas, Aaron Brooks and, yes, Chris Sale are some of the pitchers Mancini is scheduled to face this week, though, which should keep him hot.

Jason Heyward homered three times during the weekend series at the the Brewers and had a two-homer, two-steal game Saturday. While it's unlikely this is the year he suddenly learns to elevate the ball, it's easier to buy into him as a hot-hand play in a week he's facing five righties, including hittable types like Jordan Lyles, Chris Stratton and Trevor Cahill.

Ryon Healy made some changes to his swing and approach this offseason after a miserable first year with the Mariners, and it seems to be paying off for him with a greatly reduced strikeout rate and bunches of extra-base hits. He has cooled off some in recent days, but hopefully four games against the Royals staff to begin Week 3 will get him back on track.

As mentioned for Bruce, those fine matchups against the Royals to open the week are nothing but righties, and then there's two more righties to finish the week. Vogelbach has been starting more often than Edwin Encarnacion recently — four of the past six — and is doing the kind of things we've long hoped he could, including a two-homer, six-RBI game Sunday.

While it's still not clear how much Jeff McNeil figures to play against lefties, he has made plenty of contact, often for extra bases, when in the lineup. It makes it easier to recommend him in a week when the four righties he's scheduled to face are Kyle Gibson, Jake Odorizzi, Kyle Wright and Julio Teheran.

Joey Wendle's hamstring injury has made Brandon Lowe a more regular part of the Rays lineup, and while he hasn't delivered much power yet, it's a big part of his profile. He could make some noise against the five righties the White Sox and Blue Jays are running out there this week.

Though off to a slow start, Ian Kinsler has been batting leadoff basically every day for a Padres lineup that features a number of talented bats. A seven-game week against pitchers like Derek Holland, Dereck Rodriguez, Zack Godley, Luke Weaver and Merrill Kelly could be enough to get him (and those behind him) going.

Best hitter matchups for Week 3

1. Athletics @BAL4, @TEX3
2. Rockies ATL3, @SF4
3. Padres @SF3, @ARI4
4. Rays @CHW3, @TOR3
5. Mets MIN2, @ATL4

Worst hitter matchups for Week 3

1. Tigers CLE3, @MIN3
2. White Sox TB3, @NYY3
3. Yankees @HOU3, CHW3
4. Reds MIA3, STL2
5. Nationals @PHI3, PIT3