Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks Today for Friday 8/15

by Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood) Last Updated 2025-08-15 16:11:54 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! We have a big 12-game slate that looks to have a ton of options everywhere in all different price ranges. My initial view of this slate tells me that we are going to see a big difference between the sites, with cheap pitching + Arizona stacks being the go-to on DK. I also see a huge tangled mid-tier of pitchers and a huge tangled second tier of offenses, which should lead to very spread out ownership once we get past the top couple plays on either side.

Thankfully, the MLB weather looks clear, leaving us with one less puzzle to solve on this slate.

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Friday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings

This is an interesting pitching slate, where we have a couple high-end aces who are fine but certainly not jumping out as must-plays on DK. Then we have a massive tangle of decent pitchers in the mid-tier and then some very cheap options with intriguing upside. I’ll split into those three tiers using DK salaries as guide.

TOP TIER DUO

• Framber Valdez vs. Orioles – 24.4% K, 8.2% BB, 2.97 ERA, 3.40 SIERA
• Jacob deGrom at Blue Jays – 27.2% K, 5.7% BB, 2.86 ERA, 3.31 SIERA

There are a lot of good options when we get to the cheaper pitchers, so I don’t think it’s completely necessary to spend up tonight. But if you’re going to, the choice is quite simple for me between these two aces. Both of these guys have had more recent struggles than you’d like to see for their salaries, but both are also trustable long-term aces. However, deGrom is facing the lowest-strikeout team in the league against RHP, while Valdez is facing a team whose active roster ranks dead last in the league in ISO against LHP. It’s really a simple decision when framed that way.

Framber Valdez has been very matchup dependent, struggling in 3 recent starts against the Yankees, Red Sox, and Diamondbacks, while racking up 10 Ks against the Rangers and 12 Ks against the Nationals. This matchup is more on the good side, and he’s my clear SP1 if salary is no issue.

Jacob deGrom is a great pitcher, but he’s been struggling massively with power, and it’s unlikely that this is the spot he’d pop off for a big strikeout game.

In the big picture, I am going to end up with Valdez as my overall SP1 on FD where he’s just $9,900, but on DK, it’s more of a wait-and-see, so let’s move on.

MID-TIER PITCHING

• Noah Cameron vs. White Sox – 20.4% K, 7% BB, 2.52 ERA, 4.20 SIERA
• Yusei Kikuchi at A’s – 24.3% K, 9.7% BB, 3.37 ERA, 4.10 SIERA
• Luis Castillo at Mets – 20.9% K, 6.5% BB, 3.19 ERA, 4.09 SIERA
• Lucas Giolito vs. Marlins – 19.7% K, 7.9% BB, 3.77 ERA, 4.47 SIERA
• Chris Bassitt vs. Rangers – 22.1% K, 6.1% BB, 4.17 ERA, 3.79 SIERA
• Charlie Morton at Twins – 23% K, 9.8% BB, 5.48 ERA, 4.15 SIERA
• Joey Cantillo vs. Braves – 28% K, 11.9% BB, 4.11 ERA, 3.77 SIERA
• Sean Manaea vs. Mariners – 26.3% K, 5.3% BB, 4.33 ERA, 3.32 SIERA

It’s pretty remarkable how similar all of these skill sets are. They are also pretty bunched up in salary. On DK, Noah Cameron is priced up a bit to $9,300, but everyone else here is between $7,900-$8,800. On FD, the gap is slightly bigger, going from $8,000-$9,600.

When I look at these skill sets, the two that look different from the rest are Joey Cantillo and Sean Manaea. However, Manaea is still just 27 innings into his season, and when you look at his last 3 starts, he ends up looking the same as everyone else here.

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