Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks Today for Friday 8/1

by Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood) Last Updated 2025-08-01 15:54:19 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. 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 upcoming MLB DFS slate.

Happy Friday and Happy August! I hope you enjoyed the slow MLB Thursday as we have made it through the trade deadline. There were quite a few moves that will affect lineups today, so just be sure to double-check the MLB starting lineups if you’re building lineups early today. Not that you wouldn’t double-check them on any other day too, but hey, it never hurts to be reminded! We also have quite a few unconfirmed pitchers at the time I’m writing this. I’m going with my best guesses for now, and I’ll update later if something significant changes and give any final thoughts on Crunch Time tonight.

We have a busy 11-game slate that looks to have a good bunch of everything on both the pitching and hitting sides. It’s going to be a strange weekend with the Pirates visiting Coors Field. Bad pitching vs. bad hitting all around—someone has to win!

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Friday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings

We have three fairly distinct tiers using DK pricing as a guide. We start with 5 high-upside aces priced at $9,500 and up on DK, with all 5 at $10,000 or higher on FD.

TOP TIER PITCHING

• Hunter Brown at Red Sox – 30.8% K, 7.9% BB, 2.54 ERA, 3.07 SIERA
• Carlos Rodon at Marlins – 27.9% K, 8.9% BB, 3.18 ERA, 3.57 SIERA
• Logan Gilbert vs. Rangers – 36% K, 6.2% BB, 3.36 ERA, 2.43 SIERA
• Joe Ryan at Guardians – 28.9% K, 5.1% BB, 2.82 ERA, 3.08 SIERA
• Nick Pivetta vs. Cardinals – 27.2% K, 6.6% BB, 2.81 ERA, 3.45 SIERA

This is a bunch of good pitchers, and all are capable of posting a slate-winning score at any time. But there is also one clear standout in terms of skill set with Logan Gilbert. What I’ll say about Gilbert is that while he is the best pitcher here, he’s still not a must-have DFS pitcher because he almost never has the type of innings that give him a have-to-have-it score. But even with that, when you look at how incredibly dominant he’s been at home this season, he ends up as the clear SP1. He’s all the way up at a silly 40.5% K rate with just a 5.2% walk rate and a 1.94 in Seattle, after a 2.49 ERA in 2024. Add in the decent matchup, and even if he doesn’t break the slate, it’s hard to imagine not being able to win with him. I assume he’ll be the chalk, but I’m fine with that.

If you either want to fade Gilbert for ownership reasons or just want to chase a higher ceiling game, I am looking at Carlos Rodon or Joe Ryan next. Hunter Brown is great; I just don’t feel the need to go with the one guy pitching in Boston who is also the most expensive pitcher on the slate on DK.

Carlos Rodon gets a nice ballpark boost, and the Marlins are not as threatening of a lineup against lefties. He has a massive pitch count ceiling when things go well, and this ballpark should help him avoid any HR/FB shenanigans. He’s my SP2 after Gilbert.

I really want to love Joe Ryan here, but it’s likely that the Guardians will use 7-8 lefties against him, where his strikeouts fall to just 23%. He’s still a very good pitcher against lefties and has the edge in this matchup, but it drops him well below Gilbert and a spot below Rodon for me as well.

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