Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks Today for Friday 7/11

by Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood) Last Updated 2025-07-11 15:59:50 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 massive slate to end the week, with 15 games on DK and 14 games on FD. It’s always kind of overwhelming to have this many games, however, it has ended up being a little easier than I expected to get to a narrowed-down pool for primary lineups. You can absolutely spread out as far and wide as you want on these slates, but I’m going to keep things as succinct as possible.

As of late morning, we only have one game (NYM/KC) that looks concerning on our MLB weather page, but we’ll need to keep an eye on it. Today is also a good reminder to follow Roth on Twitter, as he saved a lot of lineups with an after-lock change to the weather in Chicago. Roth goes above and beyond the call of duty all season. He is not required to spend every waking moment of his life giving us every last possible edge with something as unpredictable and constantly changing as the weather. But he does, and he’s a hero.

Editor’s Note: Looking for more places to play? Check out our Sleeper promo code and PrizePicks promo code, two of the best DFS apps available today.

Friday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings

The aces are out in full force tonight, and if you have salary to spend, it’s no trick to find where to spend it. There is also a standout option in the mid-tier and no shortage of decent pitchers at fair salaries if you want to spread out.

TOP TIER ACES

• Tarik Skubal vs. Mariners – 33.9% K, 3.2% BB, 2.02 ERA, 2.31 SIERA
• Paul Skenes at Twins – 27.8% K, 6.7% BB, 1.94 ERA, 3.19 SIERA
• Joe Ryan vs. Pirates – 28.6% K, 5.2% BB, 2.76 ERA, 3.08 SIERA
• Logan Webb vs. Dodgers – 27.2% K, 5.5% BB, 2.62 ERA, 2.91 SIERA
• Carlos Rodon vs. Cubs – 28.3% K, 8.9% BB, 3.30 ERA, 3.49 SIERA
• Ranger Suarez at Padres – 24% K, 6.3% BB, 1.99 ERA, 3.50 SIERA

We haven’t had a ton of Skubal or Skenes on main slates this season, as it seems as if a lot of their starts have fallen in mid-afternoon or just being the random game that starts 20 minutes before the rest of the world. But I don’t think anyone needs to be told how elite they both are.

Paul Skenes has now made 42 career starts, and the dude has a 1.95 ERA. That is ridiculous. He has not been quite as otherworldly for DFS with his strikeouts this season, but he is still at a great 27.8% K rate to go along with everything else about his elite skill set and consistency. His pitch count has been yanked around a little recently, but to show that he doesn’t care, he struck out 10 Mariners on 78 pitches in his last start.

As ridiculously amazing as Skenes is, he’s no Tarik Skubal. Skubal has taken a skill set that was already in the running for best in the league and gone to a new level this season, with a 33.9% K rate and just 3.2% walks. I don’t even know what to say about that. I asked my friend from robot land to help me describe this:

• This knocks me sideways
• Unreal in the best possible way
• So good it should be illegal
• Pure fire on the mound…rewriting the game one strikeout at a time

But here’s my favorite, so this is what we’re going with:

The way Skubal’s been working this year is like watching poetry in motion…if poetry could throw 97 mph.

This slate is so good with pitching that you don’t have to spend $12,000 on DK or $11,500 on FD for Skubal, but he’s absolutely worth it. I’m going to wait until I get through the rest of the pitchers – as well as seeing what kind of salary we need for bats – before deciding how much Skubal to play. But if you can afford it, he’s as ‘Don’t Overthink It’ as they come.

Joe Ryan is more power-prone than Skenes with all of his fly balls, but from a strikeout and control perspective, they are basically the same guy.

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