MLB DFS Expert Survey: Thursday, May 15th

by Justin Bailey (Jbails26) Last Updated 2025-05-15 14:49:36 Premium Content Part of the product MLB DFS

Our panel of experts is here to give you their MLB DFS advice for today’s main slate contests by answering a handful of questions to help you make crucial lineup-building decisions. Want to know CheeseIsGood’s favorite sneaky stack? Or headChopper’s top overall pitcher? Find out below!

MLB DFS Picks: DraftKings & FanDuel Expert Survey for Thursday, May 15

Who is your favorite hitter to spend up for in cash games?

headChopper: Elly De La Cruz
Dean78904: Byron Buxton (FD) / Elly De La Cruz (DK)
ebeimfohr: Elly De La Cruz

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What is your preferred tournament format (e.g. large-field, single-entry) to play on this slate? How do you plan to beat that field of opponents? What tactic or strategy will set you apart?

headChopper: With only 4 games and some monster implied team totals, I’m more focused on player props today, but for DFS, I’ll be playing just one FanDuel lineup in small-field GPPs. I won’t get different at pitcher—we’ve got three strong arms on the slate, and the rest are pretty suspect. I’ll roll with two of the three solid options (Kevin Gausman, Nick Martinez, AJ Smith-Shawver). I’ll look to get different with my hitters by avoiding full 4+ man stacks and instead going with a 3-3-2 build. For the Atlanta portion of that stack, I’ll be targeting the bottom of the lineup to gain some leverage.

Dean78904: I mostly focus on single-entry and smaller-field contests. I don’t collectively love them, but I do not expect to stray from AJ Smith-Shawver, Nick Martinez, and Kevin Gausman as my SP pool. With the bats, I’m more likely to homer-hunt with a 3-3-1-1 type of lineup than the traditional 4-4 / 5-3 stacks. When slates are this small, I am willing to loosen up my general rules. It is generally a no-no, but I’m very much considering rostering one of my hitters versus my pitcher to get a different lineup iteration. I’ll talk about one of my favorite examples below.

ebeimfohr: On just a 4-game slate with extremely limited and overall weak pitching, I am looking to play the ownership game in small-field tournaments. There isn’t a single way to play this at either pitcher spot or with our bats that truly stands out significantly above the rest, so we can get well off the beaten path in these smaller fields without giving up as much opportunity cost as we would on a normal slate, but we are significantly upping our win equity.

Who is your favorite pitcher (when considering price, matchup, projected ownership, etc.) on the board and why?

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