Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks Today for Friday 8/14

by Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood)

Created Aug 14, 2026

Last Updated 2026-08-14 16:28:08 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 muse about the August 14, 2026 MLB DFS slate.

Happy Friday! We close out the week with a 10-game slate that looks tilted to the pitching side. There is not a single team on the slate with an implied team total of 5 runs, and there is only one game with a total over 8.5 runs. The pitching is pretty well spread out between some high-end aces and a bunch of cheap pitchers who look quite playable as well. I’m hoping to find more offense to like than what I spot at first glance, so let’s dive in and see what happens.

Friday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on DraftKings and FanDuel

We have a strong top four pitchers, and so I am going to separate the tiers a little more than usual and will have three tiers of pitchers.

TOP TIER QUARTET

• Chris Sale vs. Diamondbacks – 30.6% K, 5.7% BB, 2.20 ERA, 2.88 SIERA
• Yoshinobu Yamamoto vs. Brewers – 23.8% K, 6% BB, 2.65 ERA, 3.61 SIERA
• Gavin Williams vs. Padres – 32.3% K, 7.2% BB, 3.55 ERA, 2.90 SIERA
• Gerrit Cole at Blue Jays – 26.4% K, 5.2% BB, 3.35 ERA, 3.43 SIERA

Chris Sale and Yoshinobu Yamamoto are both consistent, elite real-life pitchers. Sale is an elite DFS pitcher as well, with that 30.6% K rate and a very steady pitch-count ceiling to go with those strikeouts. He has allowed more than 3 runs in just 1 of his 21 starts all season, and he has 8+ strikeouts in 3 straight starts and in 9 of his last 16 starts. He’s great and has both a high floor and a ceiling in any matchup. However, this is certainly not the matchup where you would expect to see that ceiling, facing an Arizona team with the lowest strikeout in the league against LHP by a wide margin. He’s always playable, but he doesn’t immediately look like a priority at this salary.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto is still more in the realm of a great real-life pitcher with occasional DFS upside. I have no concerns about his floor or his consistency, allowing more than 3 runs in just 2 of his 21 starts, but the strikeouts are much more often in the 5-7 range (than the 8+ that we get from Sale). He has a better strikeout matchup than Sale, but it is not good enough that I can expect anything more than his usual, steady self. I would also say he’s always playable, but he also doesn’t look like a clear priority at his salary.

I said all of that about Sale and Yamamoto really to just say that I will take Gavin Williams over both of them for DFS purposes right now. I don’t think he’s quite as good in real life as Sale, but I’d take him over Yamamoto. Even when comparing him to Sale, we have a higher strikeout rate for the season from Williams, and that already elite 32.3% K rate is up to a goofy 44.6% over his last 6 starts. Almost as impressive as that, he has walked just 3.6% of batters over that stretch. Of course, I don’t believe he’s actually THAT good, but I do think it’s reasonable to suggest that he is a top-3 pitcher in the league (and potentially even #2 behind Jacob Misiorowski). He also doesn’t have a great strikeout matchup, but it is better than Sale’s, and despite the Padres’ improvement, I still consider this is a middle-of-the-road matchup. Depending on what we find with cheaper pitchers, Williams may or may not be a priority, but he’s my clear favorite of these top-tier pitchers.

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