Covering The Bases: MLB DFS Picks Today for Saturday 6/21

by Justin Van Zuiden (stlcardinals84) Last Updated 2025-06-21 14:37:30 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, Cards has you covered with an extensive deep dive into his favorite MLB DFS picks.

Happy Saturday, Grinders! We have the usual split-slate Saturday upon us, but this is one of the strangest Saturday schedules we have seen all season, with games starting at all different time slots.

DraftKings is rolling out an 8-game early slate starting around 1 PM Eastern with a 6-game evening slate starting around 7 PM Eastern. FanDuel has split up the early games into 2 separate slates, with the earliest slate starting at noon Eastern. I am going to focus the early slate analysis on the 8-game DK slate, and you can use those thoughts to adapt to the different FD slates if you are playing over there.

We have a massive heat wave taking over the Midwest and Eastern parts of the United States, and this should be the time of the year where scoring starts to increase. Visit our MLB weather page to view all the latest updates.

As for the afternoon slate, we have a slate that looks to be heavily weighted toward the bats. There isn’t a lot of exciting pitching pitching available, but there are quite a few strong spots for offense. Let’s dig in and see if we can uncover the best spots to target.

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Saturday Afternoon Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings

TOP TIER PITCHING

Sonny Gray vs. Reds
Clarke Schmidt vs. Orioles
Grant Holmes vs. Marlins
Jose Berrios vs. White Sox

I don’t want to just spit out my conclusion before we actually go through the motions of breaking these pitchers down, so I must resist for now. As usual, we’ll start with a peek at the 2025 data:

Gray – 3.84 ERA, 3.05 xFIP, 26.1% K, 4.6% BB
Schmidt – 3.16 ERA, 4.08 xFIP, 23.7% K, 9.5% BB
Holmes – 3.97 ERA, 3.46 xFIP, 28.1% K, 10.4% BB
Berrios – 3.81 ERA, 4.19 xFIP, 20.9% K, 9.1% BB

The best overall pitcher of this group is clearly Sonny Gray. While his surface numbers may not stand out as much, his 3.05 xFIP is by far the best you’ll find this afternoon. His strikeout rate sits well above league average, and his walk rate is more than 4% lower than that of any of the other top pitchers. The Cardinals also need some innings out of him after blowing through their bullpen two days ago in a doubleheader, and they are in the midst of a long stretch of games without a day off. I like the way he matches up against the Reds lineup, and he’s the clear SP1 for me.

Clarke Schmidt has been very solid for the Yankees, and he was an extremely popular option in his first start this week. However, that came against the high-strikeout Angels, and he was priced at $8,700 on DK for that start. Now he’s priced at $10,000 one start later in a matchup against an Orioles team that is finally starting to play better baseball. This really isn’t even a conversation if you ask me. Just use Gray for a meager $400 more.

Similar logic applies to Grant Holmes, who is coming off a 15-strikeout outing against the Rockies last weekend (in a game the Braves somehow lost 10-1 by the time it ended). Holmes was very popular in that outing himself, but that was with him priced at $7,800 against the Rockies. Now he’s all the way up to $9,800 one start later. That’s a huge jump, and his season strikeout rate is a bit skewed based on that last start. The walks are still far too high, and he’s simply overpriced for his talent. He does draw a better matchup than Schmidt with the Marlins on tap, so I do like Holmes ahead of Schmidt. Again, however, it’s just not enough of a discount from Sonny Gray to move the needle for me.

The first pitcher that you can get at a meaningful discount from Gray on DK would be Jose Berrios at $8,300. He’s not the high-upside option that we want to see from an ace, but he’s also not priced like one. His recent game logs are a bit underwhelming, with just 11 total strikeouts in his last 3 starts, but he has had some tough matchups with the Phillies (twice) and Cardinals in those 3 outings. This is a much softer landing spot against the White Sox, but the White Sox generally make contact and are a patient offense. I think Berrios is a perfectly fine, safe option that you can absolutely use, but I question the GPP ceiling. I am ranking him as my 2nd overall option simply because of the noteworthy discount and the safety, but he’s a better cash game or small-field option than a risk/reward tournament play.

In short, Sonny Gray is the clear SP1 by a wide margin given the context of this slate and the DK salaries.

For what it’s worth, if you are playing on FD, these 4 pitchers are split between the early slates, with Gray and Schmidt on the first slate (where I still prefer Gray), and with Holmes and Berrios on the second slate. There is very little price difference between Holmes and Berrios on FD, so I would give Holmes the edge over there.

SECONDARY PITCHING OPTIONS

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