Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks Today for Friday 4/17

by Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood) Last Updated 2026-04-17 16:37:09 Premium Content Part of the product MLB DFS

Whether you are looking for the top pitchers or the best stacks, Dave Potts (aka CheeseIsGood) has you covered with an extensive deep dive into his MLB DFS picks today. Cheese, one of the preeminent baseball minds in all of fantasy sports and a winner of a $1,000,000 1st-place prize on both DraftKings and FanDuel, is here to give you his musings on the April 17, 2026 MLB DFS slate.

Happy Friday! We have a loaded slate, with a slew of top-tier aces and the Dodgers making their first trip of the season to Coors Field. This makes for some very clear top plays on both sides, but that pesky ol’ salary cap will force us to make some choices. I think I know which way I’m leaning, but let’s dig in and see what happens.

Friday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on DraftKings and FanDuel

We have several of the league’s best pitchers on this slate, headlined by a Logan Gilbert vs. Jacob deGrom matchup in Seattle. I have a little bit of a cutoff after the top six pitchers, but with the way salaries are bunched up, I’ve added two more pitchers to this top tier, using $7,900 on DK as the dividing line between tiers.

TOP TIER PITCHING

• Logan Gilbert vs. Rangers – 31.6% K, 5.6% BB, 3.55 ERA, 2.88 SIERA
• Jacob deGrom at Mariners – 28.4% K, 5.6% BB, 2.96 ERA, 3.25 SIERA
• Cam Schlittler vs. Royals – 29.6% K, 8.3% BB, 2.85 ERA, 3.34 SIERA
• Jose Soriano vs. Padres – 22.3% K, 10.6% BB, 3.72 ERA, 3.81 SIERA
• Tyler Glasnow at Rockies – 29.3% K, 10.8% BB, 3.32 ERA, 3.69 SIERA
• Joe Ryan vs. Reds – 27.9% K, 5.8% BB, 3.46 ERA, 3.35 SIERA
• Ranger Suarez vs. Tigers – 22.8% K, 6% BB, 3.36 ERA, 3.77 SIERA
• Michael Soroka vs. Blue Jays – 26.5% K, 7.8% BB, 4.27 ERA, 3.62 SIERA

Logan Gilbert is back at home, which bumps him immediately to the top of the board. He did have one bad start at home this season against the Yankees, but we’re still looking at a 29.4% K rate with 5.9% walks in Seattle this season, after his otherworldly 38.8% K rate last season. The matchup with Texas is not great, and I wouldn’t consider it likely that he pops off for a huge strikeout game. The one “issue” with Gilbert compared to other elite aces is that he is a little more consistently good, rather than being a guy who has a bunch of 12-strikeout kind of starts mixed in. However, that is very priced in tonight with everyone bunched together in salary. At $9,500 on DK and only $9,100 on FD, he’s my SP1 on both sites. I don’t at all consider him to be heads and shoulders above the rest of this strong top tier, but I do have him 1st on my list.

On the other side, Jacob deGrom is beginning to look closer to full strength after Texas let him work up to 93 pitches last weekend against the Dodgers. If deGrom is getting 90+ pitches, he’s an ace anywhere, and he’d probably look Gilbert-esque at the least if he had half his games in Seattle. With a 36.4% K% and 16.4% SwStr% through 3 starts, I’m very much in on deGrom. Just like with Gilbert, deGrom’s matchup is not great, but both of these pitchers are matchup-proof, even before adding in the ballpark factor. deGrom is my SP2.

If you want to argue that Tyler Glasnow is a better pitcher than Gilbert and/or deGrom, it’s a reasonable conversation to have. They are all fantastic. Personally, even with the gap in matchup, there is no world in which I’m playing a pitcher in Colorado over two similarly-skilled pitchers in Seattle. It’s just that simple for me. I’ll also point out that while it’s a far better matchup for Glasnow, the Rockies have similar power to the Rangers and Mariners. By all means, play some Glasnow if you want – certainly in MME and even in single entry – that’s just not what I’m going to be doing here. He could easily have a 10-strikeout game with little to no damage against him, but so could 3-4 other pitchers on this slate who are not in Coors Field.

Cam Schlittler has looked so incredible this season that I’m willing to play him in a low-strikeout matchup against the Royals. The dude has a 30:1 K:BB ratio in 21 innings. 30 strikeouts and 1 walk. That’s crazy awesome. Now, when factoring in both the ballpark and the low-strikeout Royals, he is still going to land below Gilbert and deGrom for me. But I’m playing Schlittler ahead of Glasnow as the first pivot off of those two.

Joe Ryan is another ace with similar high-strikeout and low-walk numbers just like all of these other elite pitchers. But he also has much bigger splits and the highest fly-ball rate of all of these aces. With that, matchup matters a little more for him than with these other aces. I’ll also point out that while it’s on the cold side in Minnesota, there is also a healthy wind blowing out to right field, which could add to his one big issue (lefty power). But back to the matchup, this is where Ryan gets a boost:

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