Covering The Bases: MLB DFS Picks Today for Saturday 7/25

by Justin Van Zuiden (stlcardinals84) Last Updated 2026-07-25 17:03:38 Premium Content Part of the product MLB DFS

Long-time grinder Justin Van Zuiden (aka stlcardinals84) is here to cover the bases for the upcoming MLB DFS slate on DraftKings and FanDuel. Whether you are looking for the top pitchers or the best stacks, Justin has you covered with an extensive deep dive into his favorite MLB DFS picks today on July 25, 2026.

Welcome to the weekend, Grinders! We have a backloaded Saturday slate in the cards for today, with a 10-game docket that starts a little earlier than usual at 6:05 PM Eastern. Today’s weather looks largely fantastic across the board, so it should be all systems go for lineup building.

This slate looks to be relatively balanced between hitting and pitching, with a decent number of options on both sides of the ledger. There are enough options to where I expect ownership to largely be spread out, and this should be a fun day of baseball.

If you are playing the 4-game afternoon slate, we’ll have Expert tags and analysis available in our MLB DFS optimizer, LineupHQ, to help get you rolling.

Let’s dig in and see what today has to offer!

Saturday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on DraftKings and FanDuel

• Yoshinobu Yamamoto at Mets
• Paul Skenes vs. Cubs
• Nathan Eovaldi vs. Mariners
• Bryan Woo at Rangers
• Hunter Brown at White Sox
• Hunter Greene at Cardinals

This is a very deep group of top arms, and you can make something resembling a logical case for all of them. The good news is that this depth affords us the opportunity to be picky with whom we want to target. As usual, let’s begin with a look at the 2026 data:

Yamamoto – 2.78 ERA, 3.33 xFIP, 24.8% K, 5.5% BB
Skenes – 3.43 ERA, 3.14 xFIP, 29.7% K, 5.6% BB
Eovaldi – 4.21 ERA, 3.31 xFIP, 25.3% K, 5.8% BB
Woo – 4.16 ERA, 3.70 xFIP, 24.2% K, 4.9% BB
Brown – 4.05 ERA, 4.59 xFIP, 24.3% K, 15.8% BB
Greene – 6.06 ERA, 2.53 xFIP, 38.2% K, 7.4% BB (16 innings)

Conventional wisdom might say to pass on Yoshinobu Yamamoto here. After all, his strikeout rate doesn’t come close to that of Paul Skenes, and the rest of their metrics are relatively similar. However, Yamamoto makes up for that by consistently pitching deep into games. He leads all of baseball at an average of 6.65 innings per start in 2026. That helps him generate an extra strikeout or so per outing, which makes up for the lower overall K rate. In addition, he gets to face a mess of a Mets team that will likely be without Juan Soto after he injured his calf again last night. The Mets lineup is a giant mess without Soto in it, and I expect an effortless performance from Yamamoto. He’s the safest SP1 choice.

This isn’t to say that you are going wrong if you choose Paul Skenes. He’s certainly fine in his own right, but I don’t like his matchup quite as much against the Cubs. In fact, my favorite pivot away from Yamamoto is actually going to be Hunter Greene. Don’t be fooled by the 6.06 ERA in his brief 3-start sample, as Greene has been victimized by a high BABIP and HR/FB rate in those starts. The swing-and-miss stuff has been there, and his 2.53 xFIP suggests significant improvement on the horizon. He also benefits from a matchup against a struggling Cardinals team that ranks 28th in the league in both team wOBA and ISO over the last 30 days. They are spiraling right now, and this is a great spot for Greene to get back on track.

I really like Greene on DK, where his price is massively discounted compared to some of the other top arms. He’s less of a priority on FD, where his salary is close to the top, but I would still use him in some tournament builds over there. I would imagine he will be much more popular on DK.

Both Nathan Eovaldi and Bryan Woo are fine options as well as safe pitchers with above-average strikeout rates and below-average walk rates. I’ll give the edge to Eovaldi, as I think he has just a tick more strikeout upside, while the opposing Mariners also have a higher strikeout rate against RHP than the Rangers do in this head-to-head matchup. However, it’s a very close call, and I would likely keep both pitchers in my multi-entry tournament pool.

I am out on Hunter Brown. It’s just not clicking for him right now. The walks remain a massive problem, and the White Sox are no longer a pushover. He gets the “X” button from me on this big slate, and I actually think you could consider the White Sox as a sneaky, low-owned stack.

SECONDARY ARMS

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